Jumping a carrier to the same body it's already orbiting should pick the most distant available slot

[Screemonster]

Especially for colonisation, it is extremely annoying if your carrier ends up on the opposite side of the planet and every time you try to jump it again it just picks the slot directly adjacent to the one where it's already in, forcing you to keep jumping over and over to try and luck into a good one.

Jumping to the same body should put the carrier on the opposite side of the planet to wherever it currently is.

 

[Weps]

I don't own a carrier so I'll admit I might be saying something completely stupid, but wouldn't that make it so you only get to jump between two slots (thus making all other slots unreachable)?

 

[Screemonster]

I will take literally anything over the current situation of "jumping between two slots that are right next to each other, thus not actually budging your position a meaningful amount ever".

 

[Don Samen]

Or you could be able to plot the jump point based on targeted location on both surface and in orbit. Then choose the closest available spot based on that.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

question: Do the carriers not orbit? Are they geostationary?

 

[Screemonster]

question: Do the carriers not orbit? Are they geostationary?

not quickly enough to make a difference during a session.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

not quickly enough to make a difference during a session.

I am asking because in relation to stations (which can orbit rather quickly) it does make a difference even within a very short time. I was wondering if it mattered in relation to a surface station.

 

[varonica]

I am asking because in relation to stations (which can orbit rather quickly) it does make a difference even within a very short time. I was wondering if it mattered in relation to a surface station.

They do move in relation to surface installations, but if you are only playing for an hour then the difference in location if they are around the other side of planets is small enough that it makes no difference. It looks like the current system is set up to jump you to the nearest available slot, which makes sense, it will of course end up with you jumping between the two same slots if you do it multiple times because, well, obviously they are nearest to each other. It seems a sensible way to do it without some serious coding work.

 

[ArrakisX]

I find a level of interesting skill based gameplay involved in activating SCO when hitting supercruise from the carrier and curving around the planet and deactivate SCO just at the right time to slow for orbital cruise and smoothly drop in. Likewise when taking off from the planet back around to get to the carrier... The first few times you'll overshoot or hit the exclusion zone, but once you hit the sweet spot (barely a second of SCO while pitching around the planet - in a Cutter in my case), it's very satisfying. Try it! It's more fun than boringly cruising in which you'll do many times at your loading station. I like to keep a close eye on my speed as an indicator of when to deactivate SCO.

If done right, it'll barely add a second or 3 vs a direct above orbit.

I suggest these alternatives because anything other than RNG wrt carrier jumps would very likely never be a thing. In fact I kind of already consider being able to plot to a particular body quite a bonus already, knowing how FDev like to do things.