I've been playing since Beta and I've thought the same thing since then...
When I first played Elite *way* back in '84 in my Acorn Electron, I found it easy to gauge how far away other ships where. You looked at the distance where the stick ended was from your ship and obviously took into account how much above and below you the ship was.
But in ED it seems to have no correlation between distance away and position on the HUD. I am finding the HUD only useful for up/down and left/right location seeking.
For example - here is a screen shot
I've targeted and Imperial Clipper - he is 1.02Km away (so pretty close) - yet he is at the far edge of the screen. By contrast the ship at 12Oclock and above me is 5Km away - he is on the same ring the ship I've targeted.
I'm obviously doing something wrong - so how do you gauge how far away something is from the HUD? The mechanics of it seem different from Elite 1.0 on the Electron
When I first played Elite *way* back in '84 in my Acorn Electron, I found it easy to gauge how far away other ships where. You looked at the distance where the stick ended was from your ship and obviously took into account how much above and below you the ship was.
But in ED it seems to have no correlation between distance away and position on the HUD. I am finding the HUD only useful for up/down and left/right location seeking.
For example - here is a screen shot

I've targeted and Imperial Clipper - he is 1.02Km away (so pretty close) - yet he is at the far edge of the screen. By contrast the ship at 12Oclock and above me is 5Km away - he is on the same ring the ship I've targeted.
I'm obviously doing something wrong - so how do you gauge how far away something is from the HUD? The mechanics of it seem different from Elite 1.0 on the Electron