My ship blew up while trying to activate hyperdrive

[Sandro Sammarco]

Hello Commanders!

So there are two types of mass-lock:

Full mass-lock occurs when you are two close to a large structure such as a starport. You need to clear a minimum safe distance before you can activate you Frame Shift Drive. There is a cockpit element currently above the sensor disc that informs you when you are mass-locked in this way.

You can also be partially mass-locked by ships that are the same size or larger than your own. When inhibited in such a way, the Frame Shift Drive will spool up, but takes longer to reach full charge (the bigger the vessel locking you, the longer the charge time). This is the most common cause of ship destruction, as the Frame Shift Drive generates significant heat whilst charging.

Again, you can move to a clear distance and re-initialise the Frame Shift Drive to avoid this time penalty.

At some point Soon(tm) we will get better mechanics (the penalty will be dynamic, meaning that it will reduce as you fly away from the locking entity) and better feedback in for when you are mass-inhibited (and likely overheating as well).

 

[EidLeWeise]

Hello Commanders!

So there are two types of mass-lock:

Full mass-lock occurs when you are two close to a large structure such as a starport. You need to clear a minimum safe distance before you can activate you Frame Shift Drive. There is a cockpit element currently above the sensor disc that informs you when you are mass-locked in this way.

Just out of interest, why do some stations have an escape vector when trying to enter supercruise from them and others don't? Is there any way that we can see the escape vector, short of toggling the FSD on, rotate round some, rinse and repeat?

Cheers, Eid

 

[Sandro Sammarco]

Hello Commander EidLeWeise!

I'm not sure why *any* starport would use an escape vector! Possibly because the port's location is too close to the body it orbits (or because the body is so huge its escape vector zone is so huge).

We are looking at ways to improve the escape vector HUD, specifically so that you can see it before you engage the FSD.

 

[Praevarus]

You can also be partially mass-locked by ships that are the same size or larger than your own. When inhibited in such a way, the Frame Shift Drive will spool up, but takes longer to reach full charge (the bigger the vessel locking you, the longer the charge time).

How high does the mass-lock factor go while still being able to jump? Earlier, I was next to an asteroid field and it was up to 12 when I tried to jump away. That'd been enough to blow up my Sidewinder with no forward thrust unless maybe I shut down all non-essential systems. I'll have to go back out there and see.

 

[Iain M Norman]

Eid, just lock onto the large body nearby and put it in the rear using the compass. Usually that's pretty much where you'll find the escape vector.

I

 

[Metamartian]

also don't forget that some sneaky beggers follow you out of the station towards your jump target while running silent as you spool up your drive. So you might not see them on your radar. You overheat, you explode, they powerup and nick your dropped cargo.


Always, always pay attention to you FSD/hyperspace spool up.

 

[Majere]

I think as well you might find that a ship is just out of scanner range on the normal lowest setting but causing your jump to slow down.

On my list of things to try out is to increase sensor range when lining up for a jump.

As others have said, if the progress is slow, abort the jump and be very wary - you might be under attack very soon.

Although in a Hauler you have possibly had it already.

 

[Metamartian]

been doing a bit more testing on this. There is defo something happening at a certain distance away from the stations.

Like others have noted, that at a certain distance, your throttle speed drop even if you are still at full throttle. then normally it kicks back in with a quick throttle wiggle.

However, sometimes even if you throttle back the throttle speed does not adjust to your throttle marker.

so combining all this, I was at full throttle heading away from station. lined up with destination. activated hyperdrive and it spooled up at normal speed, however my throttle speed dropped. did a quick throttle wiggle but it never re-synced. At this point in time my hud goes dark but my temp gauge jumped from 80% to 120% in an instant. I aborted the jump, throttled all the way to 0, throttled up and it goes back to full speed. the temp dropped back to 60% reengaged jumpdrive, it spools at normal speed (ish) 105% mark (in a hauler btw).

mananged to replicate this 3 times now in different systems.

 

[Soda Popinski]

Car and plane makers go to great lengths to stop their products from destroying itself and killing everyone on board. I find it hard to believe that a spaceship would be built that would simply melt itself when there are numerous simple ways of preventing that from happening.

It's your own fault seems like a logical thing to tell gamers who aren't quite hardcore enough. But I'm not convinced that the families of dead passengers would accept that explanation when a simple failsafe would have prevented the tragedy.

I hear flying through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops.

 

[Dr Wookie]

Car and plane makers go to great lengths to stop their products from destroying itself and killing everyone on board. I find it hard to believe that a spaceship would be built that would simply melt itself when there are numerous simple ways of preventing that from happening.

It's your own fault seems like a logical thing to tell gamers who aren't quite hardcore enough. But I'm not convinced that the families of dead passengers would accept that explanation when a simple failsafe would have prevented the tragedy.

In space, there are actually very few ways of getting rid of the heat. The near-vacuum conditions means that convection and conduction don't work, so radiation is the way to go, unless you can pour your energy into something hot and get rid of it (like the heat sinks).

Preparing for supercruise/hyperspace makes you close all of your heat vanes etc. so you should really only engage when you've already lined up . Otherwise boom.

The only failsafe would be to open your vents again (cancelling hyperspace/supercruise) or dumping a heatsink. If you're frantically trying to escape a bad situation, you don't want the ship to dump you out of supercruise automatically. But since you can easily avoid injury or death by aligning your ship with your destination (for hyperspace) or escape vector (sometimes for supercruise) before engaging, it really honestly is all down to user error.

 

[Darkfyre99]

also don't forget that some sneaky beggers follow you out of the station towards your jump target while running silent as you spool up your drive. So you might not see them on your radar. You overheat, you explode, they powerup and nick your dropped cargo.


Always, always pay attention to you FSD/hyperspace spool up.

And some of them will open fire if they figure out you're on to them, too.

I'm almost to the point where I don't bother jumping to hyperspace until after I've made the jump to supercruise. The supercruise drive generates a lot less heat than the hyperdrive does, and if there is someone nearby, I can still escape with minimal damage, despite the longer spool up time.

 

[SeraphymC]

Car and plane makers go to great lengths to stop their products from destroying itself and killing everyone on board. I find it hard to believe that a spaceship would be built that would simply melt itself when there are numerous simple ways of preventing that from happening.

It's your own fault seems like a logical thing to tell gamers who aren't quite hardcore enough. But I'm not convinced that the families of dead passengers would accept that explanation when a simple failsafe would have prevented the tragedy.

I think it's important to realize that you are flying a deadly military craft, not a civilian ship. The areas being travelled through are frequently infested with pirates and other dangers. Most military craft have significantly less fail safes, especially if those failsafes impact performance.

Would you accept a hyperdrive that charges at half the speed, but won't heat you over 100%? Because I sure as hell wouldn't. I need the cutting edge while I'm flying out on the frontier. And I'm willing to accept some risk in order to get it.

 

[Cubed]

I was in my Lakon and was being chased by an Anaconda, it took several minutes for my drive to spool up but every time my temp hit 100 I just jettisoned a heatsink.

Heatsink launcher, don't leave dock without it. It's not just for stealth. I consider it an essential purchase.