Newcomer / Intro New Pilot, Couple Questions

[Allcoast]

Hello all, I just joined yesterday. I am thoroughly enjoining the game, however, i do have a couple questions.

First, why does travel between stations take so long in supercruise mode. It feels like that when I get closer to the destination, my ship automatically slows down. Sometime, It will take me 15 mins to travel from station to station less than 4ly away.

Lastly, what are the recommendation about a joystick. Presently, I use a M/kb for controls, as this is what I have used for gaming forever. Is there a benefit to buy a joystick?

 

[Johnny Cyclops]

Welcome home Commander.

Slowing down. Your ship's speed is affected by the mass/gravity of bodies, so will be slower nearer a star/planet/moon. Thus, what you probably consider acceleration as you jet away from a station/star is actually a reduction in gravity. Conversely, flying near a large body will cause speed to slow. Sometimes when I approach a station that's on the far side of a planet I'll take a looping route to keep clearer of the gravity effect of the planet. There's a lot of science in Elite (notice also as you move away from a star that more background stars start to appear in the blackness - a beautiful little detail).

Flight times. Are you sure that's 4Ly (light year) and not 4Ls (light seconds)? Distance inside systems are usually measured in Ls, some outer stars/planets/stations could be 300,000Ls or more away, and those do take 15/20 mins to super cruise to. I can't recall in system seeing a 4Ly journey. On the Galaxy Map some of the really short hops might be 2 or 3Ly. Only SC to local objects in the same system. From the navigation menu, once you scroll down to other systems you'll need Hyperspace Drive to reach them.

In supercruise you can still set throttle speed, so do make sure you're at max throttle when between stations. The engine 'pips' make no difference. The max speed will be affected by ship type, engines, powerplant, frame shift drive, etc.

Back to automatically slowing down approaching stations. If you're at full throttle, while a body might cause you to slow, usually I just go hammering past the target/planet/station unless I manually slow to 50% throttle when I'm around 6-8 seconds from the destination. So I suspect you're in SC but not at full throttle.

I can't comment on joysticks, sorry. I fly keyboard only, and get around just fine, but I believe joysticks give a different flight experience, esp. for fighting.

 

[DaveB]

Hello all, I just joined yesterday. I am thoroughly enjoining the game, however, i do have a couple questions.

First, why does travel between stations take so long in supercruise mode. It feels like that when I get closer to the destination, my ship automatically slows down. Sometime, It will take me 15 mins to travel from station to station less than 4ly away.

Lastly, what are the recommendation about a joystick. Presently, I use a M/kb for controls, as this is what I have used for gaming forever. Is there a benefit to buy a joystick?

The top speed and maximum acceleration rate possible in SC are reduced by increased local gravitational field.

I personally fly with an X52, but there are plenty of folks on here who are fine with M/Kb. It's all about picking the control setup that suits you.

 

[CMDR Ahlos]

Well, for the stick i recomend the Thrustmaster Hotas X. Darn good and for a good price aswell.

 

[cmdr lowest]

I don't think he's talking about gravity from nearby stars or planets slowing him down. I'm going to explain in general terms.

The ship will auto compensate for your speed as you approach your destination (as long as you don't have the throttle at max position or you'll just keep on going). It simulates space travel. A ship that is going x times the speed of light takes a long time to slow back down again, that's why it takes a little bit of time to reach your destination.

The rule of thumb is to crank the throttle until your ETA is around 0.07 then pull it back to 75% and the ship should do the rest and slow you down enough so you can exit supercruise safely at your desination. There's no way to speed up this process, space travel is complicated.

As others have said, if you find your spaceport is close to a planetary body you will find the gravitational pull of the body will play havok on your speed too and will generally slow you down as you try to pull out of the gravitational force.

As for the stick - I'm just using an Xbox controller at the moment as it has 2 joysticks and lots of buttons. It works pretty well but I'm considering getting the Hotas X or X52 at some point.

 

[Johnny Cyclops]

I don't think he's talking about gravity from nearby stars or planets slowing him down. I'm going to explain in general terms.

The ship will auto compensate for your speed as you approach your destination (as long as you don't have the throttle at max position or you'll just keep on going). It simulates space travel. A ship that is going x times the speed of light takes a long time to slow back down again, that's why it takes a little bit of time to reach your destination.

I'm still fairly sure that's the effect of the planet that's usually nearby the station. This could be tested by flying out into deep space at full throttle SC and then slowing to 75%. After the initial deceleration does any further slowing occur, and if the answer is yes, then what's causing it. I'm not sure it's "the ship should do the rest" - the Commander's in command of speed/direction.