[Question/Help] Can't find anything about this anywhere.

NecDW4

N
So far i'm enjoying the game, mostly. So far, just starting out i can't seem to DO anything. I don't meet qualifications for missions, I cant find a place to buy a mining laser/refinery so i could start making money on that. I DEFINITELY can't start in on piracy, and the only random floating freight i've encountered was biowaste, which only sold for 9Cr each... and was illegal to sell anyway. But other than that, it's at least entertaining to explore around.
I DO keep having one little problem, and i'm not sure if it's a bug, or something that's working as intended. I tried searching for it in the forums, but got nothing so now i have to make a post.

When i'm in super cruise, approaching my destination, occasionally i will get a "slow down" warning if i'm approaching too fast. Okay, all i have to do is slow down, right? However when i TRY, instead my ship seems to start speeding up, even killing the throttle completely with X does nothing. I cant even try thrusting backwards, i just get locked in to speeding up until i've blown past whatever i was headed towards, and after im far enough away, i can THEN turn around, and try approaching slower. It doesnt even let me drop out of SC when im within range.

Is this actually a bug or is it supposed to happen? If it IS supposed to happen, why? And is there a way to stop it once it DOES start? I'd really rather not have to drop out of super cruise at the furthest possible range if i can help it.
 

nosleepdemon

nosleepdemon
Gravity wells affect your jump drive. While you cannot reverse thrust, once your ETA drops to 4 seconds and you are more than 20mm away, you need to pitch away from your target. This will allow you to slingshot around it and lose some velocity while your engines cope with your dodgy driving. You can prevent overshooting by keeping your ETA to target greater than 5 seconds.

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If you are being chased, approaching at speed and pitching away to spiral in toward your target makes you much harder to interdict, since chasers have to be behind you to initiate the tether. Larger ships handle more poorly, and their handling is not affected by any extra mass you add. This is contrary to normal sub-light flight, where your mass vs thruster class can adversely affect your agility.
 
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nosleepdemon

nosleepdemon
As for things to do, try equipping a kill warrant scanner and scanning wanted npcs at the nav beacon - you will find one close to the largest star in an occupied system. Once you have scanned an npc, you can kill them to claim their galaxy wide bounty. Usually you can get paid for the bounty at a local station in the same system you killed them in, but sometimes a criminal will have multiple bounties that you must travel to different systems to get paid. You can kill a wanted criminal without scanning them, but this will only award you with their system wide bounty. Be careful of criminals listed as being in a wing. Don't take any cargo, you will be scanned by pirates and attacked, usually at the worst possible moment.
 

Senik

S
Just point the ship at your target, then accelerate at 100% throttle until the ETA counts down to exactly 6 seconds. Then put the throttle in the middle of blue zone (75%) and leave it there. The automatic acceleration/deceleration will take care of the rest. Then drop out of SC when the two horizontal bars on the left are both in the blue, and you see the "safe to disengage" text pop up.

Once you have the hang of that, you can experiment with more efficient flight paths for approaching your target.
 

tawittle

tawittle
I have never encountered the bug OP mentions.

When the ship computer tells you "slow down" it is in fact IMPOSSIBLE to speed up, so if you think you are speeding up when the ship computer is displaying "slow down" then something seriously wonky is happening.

Are you absolutely sure you are speeding up? Could it be that the rapid changing of units of measurements (C goes to MM, MM goes to KM) is making you think you are speeding up when you are actually slowing down?

As others have indicated, the fastest way to get to destinations in SC is to get your ETA to 6 seconds, and then keep the speed in the blue region.
 
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NecDW4

N
I had been streaming earlier so I figured i'd see if i could go make a quick highlight but apparently with whatever stormy weather is going on int eh area it came out like garbage, everything is a slideshow and even if i was lucky enough to have caught it on video, it would probably be a terrible example. Ill see if i cant just record video directly tomorrow after work to demonstrate what i'm seeing.

I'm not 100% absolutely sure i'm speeding up, but the orange portion of the throttle starts climbing till it hits max, and attempting to throttle down does nothing. I DID notice early on when distance changes from LS to KM or whatever in the distance indicator, so i'm not mistaking THAT at least. Hopefully I can catch a good example of what i'm talking about, because beign forced to speed up is about the only description i can come up with from my limited time with the game so far.
 

nosleepdemon

nosleepdemon
If you approach a gravity well too fast your ship will be unable to slow you down, and you will fall passed it performing a slingshot maneuver. You will hear your engines begin to labour and see the slow down message pop up, by which time it is usually too late, and as you pointed out, impossible to lose enough speed to not overshoot your target.
 
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NecDW4

N
nosleepdemon said:
If you approach a gravity well too fast your ship will be unable to slow you down, and you will fall passed it performing a slingshot maneuver. You will hear your engines begin to labour and see the slow down message pop up, by which time it is usually too late, and as you pointed out, impossible to lose enough speed to not overshoot your target.
Click to expand...

Ohh, okay, that might actually be it then. I figured only planets would be large enough for the gravity to have that much of an effect on it, not stations and and the smaller stuff it usually happens to me on. Thanks.
 

edgar

edgar
The Slow Down alert isn't telling you to "slow down", it's telling you that you are so near to a massive object like a planet or star, that it is causing a "slow down" on your drives.
 

GilliganTX

GilliganTX
NecDW4 said:
So far i'm enjoying the game, mostly. So far, just starting out i can't seem to DO anything. I don't meet qualifications for missions, I cant find a place to buy a mining laser/refinery so i could start making money on that. I DEFINITELY can't start in on piracy, and the only random floating freight i've encountered was biowaste, which only sold for 9Cr each... and was illegal to sell anyway. But other than that, it's at least entertaining to explore around.
I DO keep having one little problem, and i'm not sure if it's a bug, or something that's working as intended. I tried searching for it in the forums, but got nothing so now i have to make a post.
Click to expand...

I got started by taking single-hop hauling missions, both legal and otherwise, as well as courier missions. There SHOULD be available missions to pilots of even the most basic ranks. Are you certain there are NO missions you can take? If that problem persists, file a bug report with FD, and message me. We can wing up and I'll help you get some credits and on your feet.

When i'm in super cruise, approaching my destination, occasionally i will get a "slow down" warning if i'm approaching too fast. Okay, all i have to do is slow down, right? However when i TRY, instead my ship seems to start speeding up, even killing the throttle completely with X does nothing. I cant even try thrusting backwards, i just get locked in to speeding up until i've blown past whatever i was headed towards, and after im far enough away, i can THEN turn around, and try approaching slower. It doesnt even let me drop out of SC when im within range.

Is this actually a bug or is it supposed to happen? If it IS supposed to happen, why? And is there a way to stop it once it DOES start? I'd really rather not have to drop out of super cruise at the furthest possible range if i can help it.
Click to expand...

That is working as intended. You are stuck in the "gravity well" of the object you are attempting to approach. IE - you have gone beyond your ships ability to slow you down in time to approach the target safely, and you are being pulled toward it by gravity.

It happened to me a lot starting out and was very frustrating, but now I've gotten the mechanic to work to my advantage. You can use planets and other sources of mass for a "braking" effect.

When you're starting to get the feel for it though, approach at top speed until you are 10 seconds out on the HUD, then pull back on the throttle and steadily approach 7 seconds, and hold it there until you can disengage safely.
 

d8veh

d8veh
You're going the wrong way about trying to make money. Use Google to search for, "How to make money in Elite Dangerous" or something similar. There's loads of really good videos that show you how to do it. One shows you how to get 100,000,000 in 24 hrs.
 

Garagiste

Garagiste
Easiest way to avoid overshooting your target is to map 75% throttle to a key. Stab it anywhere around 10s - there's no point in trying to be the last of the late brakers.
 

NecDW4

N
"I got started by taking single-hop hauling missions, both legal and otherwise, as well as courier missions. There SHOULD be available missions to pilots of even the most basic ranks. Are you certain there are NO missions you can take? If that problem persists, file a bug report with FD, and message me. We can wing up and I'll help you get some credits and on your feet. "

Thanks for the offer, but i'll work it up on my own! :)

I actually just found a couple nice pieces of stray cargo, an occupied life pod and some tobacco and managed to unload them for a decent amount. And i FINALLY found a port that had a mission i qualified for, a bit of a smuggling thing that paid okay. I think im up to just slightly under what a hauler costs.
 

sqzbox1

S
Also try exploring. If you have a basic scanner (and you should have) then try and find things using the parallax method - that is, watch for movement of a planet against the backdrop and then chase it down. Sometimes you'll end up in a complex little system with lots to scan. It won't make you a fortune but every little bit helps. There are a few basic guidelines on how to do this if you search around but remember this - most of the bodies orbit a star in the same plane so once you have found the first one then you have a good idea of where to eyeball to find any others. And as you chase it down you can get an idea of whether or not to persevere by looking at your speed - if it starts decreasing then you have reached approximate halfway. I must admit I quite enjoyed this process. A bit of a timewaster but then there's no hurry, right? Get a better FSD and then range out a bit further as well.
 

kalnedrilith

K
as regards the "orange bar starts climbing" - what it looks like to me, is the orange bar is not an absolute indicator of speed, but your speed as compared to the maximum safe speed in your current gravity well situation.

as such, halfway up the orange bar right near a star might not even be 1.0c, but out in the middle of nowhere, might be 100c...

allowable speed between planets, might be 50c
allowable speed within the moon system around a single planet, about 2c (still excessive at 2c btw)


if you're moving at 30c when you reach the planet, you went from 3/5's 'safe' speed, to 15x the safe speed... and while your engines are doing everything they can to slow you down, you DRASTICALLY lose maneuvering capability...

same as normal flight, you can turn faster if you leave the throttle in the blue zone... but don't expect to slow down as much.
 
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