HUD: what do the faint thin vertical lines on either side of the canopy depict ?.
- Thread starter dunno
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They are an indicator of speed and maybe they show the frames that get shifted. The faster you fly in supercruise, the faster they move. Seems like they have different "gears", they get smaller than and start again from slow to fast 
They are just speed indicators.
Although, I kinda wish I could turn them off, I rarely notice them anyway. Lol
Although, I kinda wish I could turn them off, I rarely notice them anyway. Lol
ok but which speed do they indicate ?.
If they are just merely a speed indicator why bother seems kind of pointless to indicate "very fast" with slow scrolling lines, and why does the length of the line change ?.
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There's actually two sets of lines at all times.
Think of it as a visual number system.
The faster lines at the lower numbers like 1,2,3,4,5,6etc, while the slower lines are the larger, like 10,20,30,40,etc. When the fastest lines vanish, they get replaced with slower lines, that would then be 100,200,300,400, etc. And so on
I'm not sure how else to describe it. Lol
Anyone?
CMDR Cosmic Spacehead
The faster you get, the shorter the lines.
so the line scroll speed AND length of line depicts going faster, two different indicators for the same thing ?.
Here's what I see.
The line spacing varies with SC speed.
The quantity of lines varies with speed, AND proximity to a planet
The length of the line varies with speed AND proximity to a planet.
The lines are to me circular discs lying on their sides, hence there are Faint lines and Bright lines, the right disc revolves in a anti-clockwise direction, the left disc in a clockwise direction which creates a tunnel/funnel effect, why have such a complex effect/display for one speed ?.
It is all related to speed, but all those different indications can't just be related to longitudinal vroom vroom....there's more to this than meets the eye, is there a FSD over speed link to this ?. *sigh*.
Hello dev's anyone home ?.
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I seem to remember cries of anguish accompanied by much rending of clothes and general sackcloth and ashes times when they proposed removing them (or were missing in a beta) ...
Lol isn't that the case with anything changing in ED?
If they vanished, I'd be like "Something's changed...but I don't know what..." Lol
CMDR Cosmic Spacehead
The lines are distance markers, similar to stripes on a road, and serve a similar purpose. (Though, they don't divide lanes.)
I was watching them closely at one point on a planetary approach and noticed how they rolled in relation to your SC speed value. At the slowest point, in close to a planet where my top speed was restricted significantly, the line cycles seemed to be pretty close to 10 or 100 km intervals. I'm working off memory, so if anyone wants to poke at it, give it a shot. The slowest lines are pretty stationary at minimum SC of 30 km/sec. So the base value might be 1000 km/line.
The easiest way to verify this, would be to find a way to make the lines tick by at one line a second, and check your speed. Once you have that, it should be easy enough to extrapolate the scales on the lines as they shift up to higher and higher speeds.
I think it started at 1000 km between 'lines', then faded to 10000 km, then 100,000 and so on. Cycling up to light seconds and other such scale values.
As for the transitions of the lines in consideration to the fading, length, and slight positioning, I don't think that means anything. There's no meaningful way to isolate those metrics to indicate to the player anything useful. Rather, those features probably just exist to keep the lines from visually occupying the exact same spot when the scales are shifting up and down. Something to keep them from looking un-smooth and clunky. One of the big things I've noticed about the ED interface in terms of piloting. It tries very hard to keep motion fluid and organic. There is very little 'discrete' outside what is absolutely required. So it makes sense that the interface tries very hard not to give you any 'hard right angles' in terms of how things are presented.
I was watching them closely at one point on a planetary approach and noticed how they rolled in relation to your SC speed value. At the slowest point, in close to a planet where my top speed was restricted significantly, the line cycles seemed to be pretty close to 10 or 100 km intervals. I'm working off memory, so if anyone wants to poke at it, give it a shot. The slowest lines are pretty stationary at minimum SC of 30 km/sec. So the base value might be 1000 km/line.
The easiest way to verify this, would be to find a way to make the lines tick by at one line a second, and check your speed. Once you have that, it should be easy enough to extrapolate the scales on the lines as they shift up to higher and higher speeds.
I think it started at 1000 km between 'lines', then faded to 10000 km, then 100,000 and so on. Cycling up to light seconds and other such scale values.
As for the transitions of the lines in consideration to the fading, length, and slight positioning, I don't think that means anything. There's no meaningful way to isolate those metrics to indicate to the player anything useful. Rather, those features probably just exist to keep the lines from visually occupying the exact same spot when the scales are shifting up and down. Something to keep them from looking un-smooth and clunky. One of the big things I've noticed about the ED interface in terms of piloting. It tries very hard to keep motion fluid and organic. There is very little 'discrete' outside what is absolutely required. So it makes sense that the interface tries very hard not to give you any 'hard right angles' in terms of how things are presented.
it's amusing, folks howled about the removal of a indicator which they assumed indicated longitudinal speed, .....bizarre... to recap, below are all the visual indicators for longitudinal speed,
There's the digital speedometer = longitudinal speed
Rate of odometer change = longitudinal speed
Digital speedometer in mini target panel = longitudinal speed
Rate of stars streaking past = longitudinal speed
Throttle position and max power available bar graph = hypothetical longitudinal speed
Blue bar graph at throttle indicator = optimal longitudinal speed
But wait the dev's weren't done yet, dev to dev at the water cooler "lets place two spinning discs in the HUD to indicate longitudinal speed, someone might miss all the other speed indicators, we'll make the lines shrink to indicate speed and if they miss that we'll make the lines speed up to indicate speed and if they miss that we'll increase the quantity of lines to indicate speed, that ought to do it"
What's annoying is that FD don't step up and provide information about the HUD symbology, yes there's some stuff in the manual but there isn't a single Section dedicated to HUD symbology/iconography which is the nerve center of the game.
Please please Frontier help your user base, give us actual precise information, please stop the guessing. If you want me to figure it out at least provide me with the mathematical equation for those spinning discs so that I can derive the exact purpose of that indicator.
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With all these things visual, having a simple option to have them on or off seems the easiest solution, that way people who prefer not to see them won't and people who like them still have them. I have had orbit lines turned off since about five minutes after my very first play, some people can't manage without them, it seems a simple enough solution.
What frustrates me is not knowing what that those two "assumed to be speed indicators" indicate, they provide important information about speed relative to environment/gravity during SC, knowing what this indicator does could make speed control near large objects easier, a much more precise and enjoyable experience, yet nobody knows.......astounding, but wait FD knows but they aren't telling.
I used orbit lines in the beginning for the "minimum collision angle orbit line" around a star to assist with scooping as this provided me with a precise visual reference for distance to the star, now that I'm familiar with scooping I've ditched orbit lines completely.
I used orbit lines in the beginning for the "minimum collision angle orbit line" around a star to assist with scooping as this provided me with a precise visual reference for distance to the star, now that I'm familiar with scooping I've ditched orbit lines completely.
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What's funny is that No Man's Sky has these lines also, only they're not quite as noticeable. When I first saw them I said, "Guys, come on." There's no speed control in their version of in-system transit, you just push the button and go till you feel like stopping. So I've always taking these lines as an over-the-top way of indicating, "Whee!! You're going fast!"
In NMSky do those lines change at all, in frequency and length like in ED ?.
No, they don't. They're just sort of there as an affectation. See, NMS's version of supercruise, which they call pulse jump, has only two speeds: stop and go. You push the button, you go, push the button again to stop. It's a lot like highwaking in Elite Dangerous in that aspect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWgfVc6jNjg
(Play on your highest available resolution, then pause in the middle of the cruise, you'll see the lines then. They're difficult to see in motion)
See, I've watched videos of Elite PC gameplay for ages, so I knew about the supercruise lines long before I started playing it on PS4. I started playing NMS before Elite came to PS4, and when I saw their own take on "supercruise lines", that's why I said, "Guys, really?" They serve no purpose except as window dressing, at least as far as NMS is concerned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWgfVc6jNjg
(Play on your highest available resolution, then pause in the middle of the cruise, you'll see the lines then. They're difficult to see in motion)
See, I've watched videos of Elite PC gameplay for ages, so I knew about the supercruise lines long before I started playing it on PS4. I started playing NMS before Elite came to PS4, and when I saw their own take on "supercruise lines", that's why I said, "Guys, really?" They serve no purpose except as window dressing, at least as far as NMS is concerned.
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