Your ship will slow down as you approach objects of sufficient mass, stars, moons, planets, and what not. The slow down warning is thrown when your ship believes that you are attempting to approach whatever it is you are close to. You can see the same thing when you are trying to drop at a station or a nav beacon and are going too fast. The best explanation I have heard that it is a combination of any applicable gravity wells and your ship auto decelerating. Well, not actually decelerating due to how FSDs work but you get the idea. If you watch your throttle indicator, you will see that both the throttle setting indicator (the line that moves when you use the throttle) and the blue zone will shift positions up and down based on your proximity to large objects and your destination. However, despite those moving, your actual throttle setting doesn't change. If you are at 100% throttle, then even if the throttle setting line is at the bottom end of the range, you can't throttle up. It is also possible for your speed indicator to be higher than where the throttle indicator is, indicating that your ship is "slowing down," for lack of a better way to put it. Given how FSDs work, in that they move space around your ship, this is probably a safety feature so that the FSD doesn't try to move a whole planet around your ship. Can you imagine the consequences? A basic rule of physics at all levels is that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time.
Horizons Hovering
- Thread starter wargwargwarg
- Start date
Your ship will slow down as you approach objects of sufficient mass, stars, moons, planets, and what not. The slow down warning is thrown when your ship believes that you are attempting to approach whatever it is you are close to. You can see the same thing when you are trying to drop at a station or a nav beacon and are going too fast. The best explanation I have heard that it is a combination of any applicable gravity wells and your ship auto decelerating. Well, not actually decelerating due to how FSDs work but you get the idea. If you watch your throttle indicator, you will see that both the throttle setting indicator (the line that moves when you use the throttle) and the blue zone will shift positions up and down based on your proximity to large objects and your destination. However, despite those moving, your actual throttle setting doesn't change. If you are at 100% throttle, then even if the throttle setting line is at the bottom end of the range, you can't throttle up. It is also possible for your speed indicator to be higher than where the throttle indicator is, indicating that your ship is "slowing down," for lack of a better way to put it. Given how FSDs work, in that they move space around your ship, this is probably a safety feature so that the FSD doesn't try to move a whole planet around your ship. Can you imagine the consequences? A basic rule of physics at all levels is that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time.
I do, too, but I'm coming in ballistic at speed 2500 and suddenly drop out if glide at, what, 200 ? Where's the inertia, if not gravity? There are my thrusters, struggling not to become one with the landscape?
It's the same miraculous downjump near a star, a game feature I dislike, frankly, not the downjump but the immediate exit from a dangerous situation
And, yes, there are some thrusters on the ship hull (thanks for the photos, all) but are they enough in a gravity well? Are they forceful enough to decelerate me before making a crater? Imho, there should be consequences for reckless piloting.
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Fsd is the equivalent of an alcubierre drive. TLDR, you are in a timespace bubble where your ship's speed is irrelevant. The bubble is what's moving, or more accurately, time/space is compressed in front of the ship and expanded behind it. Once the "bubble" is no longer there, the ship finds itself in normal space and goes at whatever speed it was going when it entered into the bubble.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive
Aka fsd handwavium with a modicum of future science aspirations.
Yes, even though I have exited Glide less than 4Km from installation on numerous occasions it STILL causes me concern that my speed of approach is going to smack me into the station at 2500m/s !
I don't feel the need to explain FSD mechanics again, but do note how your directional thrusters will can provide 2/3 of your main engine thrust. Those thrusters are quite powerful.
As far as FSDs go, your ship never actually accelerates or decelerates. In fact, if you use the external camera while in SC, your main thrusters will be cold, no light, no flame. They aren't needed.
FSD doesn't work near gravity wells ( as seen when approaching one, your max speed diminishes drastically, also you need to be some distance off the ground to engage FSD, also Glide seems to imply no FSD). So, you drop out from speed 2500 at some 4km distance from the ground and SOMETHING slows you immediately to 200? By your explanation is the FSD. My logic says it can't be. What else does the ship have? The thrusters. That they are the same size as when ED hadn't landings just space walks, it is a missing feature. And that the 2 or 3 puny thrusters you have on your hull in any given direction can deliver two thirds of what your honking drives can deliver, or that they decelerate/hover you that fast, all this is just candy.
It takes some 15 seconds from 400 to 0 on full reverse, in normal space.
That FSD is that alcubierre bubble still means that mass is moving, and that implies inertia, especially when not in FSD.
But, this miraculous deceleration may be a feature too deeply ingrained in the game mechanics for FD to even dare think to change. It's called instancing, I believe, and has the server simulate realtime only that tiny region and who happens to come in it...
I don't mind how they do it as long as it's fun and not breaking immersion, but this is a supposed to be la creme de le creme in space games so I'm expecting a finer grain on things.
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I understand what you're getting at but still, whether or not I have any objective targeted, I get "Slow Down" when passing planets, moons and assorted stuffs (asteroid fields). I played a lot with this at first, because I couldn't understand the "Slow Down" thing.
If I had a station selected, when "Slow Down" flashed, I would cut back throttle. It didn't really seem to be working/helping. If I untarget an objective and am using FAOFF, I can go as fast as I like to my destination (say, a station) and use the grav well of the body to slow me down and pull me into a good path. I'll still get "Slow Down" as I enter the grav fields, but without touching the throttle, I will first slow down, then speed will climb again after I get free of the grav well even if the station I want is dead ahead.
I do agree that it is rather muddled and unclear. Maybe I'm crazy; try your own experiments.
But I have dropped out of low wake. I had no bodies in view. Only did this once. Another item I will bring up at the risk of not being in the right thread: I slow down for a station approach, the engines rev up, the middle indicator goes way up ( as if I am accelerating) the speed readings are going down .... what is really happening with speed and speed indicators.
Oh, and when I get the sign to slow down my speedo does go down for a while, then goes back up. Seems as if a body is there for gravity. But made of black glass.
Maybe I should check and check again as the stations say.
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But I have dropped out of low wake. I had no bodies in view. Only did this once. Another item I will bring up at the risk of not being in the right thread: I slow down for a station approach, the engines rev up, the middle indicator goes way up ( as if I am accelerating) the speed readings are going down .... what is really happening with speed and speed indicators.
Oh, and when I get the sign to slow down my speedo does go down for a while, then goes back up. Seems as if a body is there for gravity. But made of black glass.
Maybe I should check and check again as the stations say.
Typically, stations do orbit something. What you are seeing actually is the ship "decelerating," again, quotes because FSD mechanics. Gravity wells do have a considerable range. Look at what happens when you are in a system with a secondary star that is over 100,000 ls away. As you travel toward that star, your ship will "speed up." About half way between them, your ship will start to "slow down." That right there is the gravity well.