Newcomer / Intro Re: Supercruise

Re: Supercruise

My issue isn’t with supercruise itself, more with stopping. I get to my destination and I get the message to slow down, but no matter how much I slow down it always says “too fast for safe exit” or something along those lines and I end up over shooting my mark.

Is there something blatantly obvious I’m doing wrong? :S
 
Try to always keep your speed meter into the blue zone and you should be fine. The blue zone is the safe speed suggestion
 
All you really need to do is get withing 1000 km of your target and be fairly slow. Too fast, and you won't be able to trigger the shutdown in time, but you can be cruising pretty fast with the SLOW DOWN warning and still hit it.

I sometimes do a loop to bleed off speed if I'm coming in too hot.
 
I had the same problem, there is a youtube travel guide. I haven't tried it yet but it explains what I was doing wrong.

The left of the screen has suggested distance and speed blue zones to safely reach targeted destination.
If you are outside these you get the slow down warning (aka fail message).
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
My issue isn’t with supercruise itself, more with stopping. I get to my destination and I get the message to slow down, but no matter how much I slow down it always says “too fast for safe exit” or something along those lines and I end up over shooting my mark.

Is there something blatantly obvious I’m doing wrong? :S

If you do not let your time-to-target drop below 0:07 (until you're within about 10Mm of the target) then you should have no problem stopping. Keep a watch on the T2T display as you approach your destination and modulate the throttle accordingly.
 
Also gravity wells affect your speed, normally you notice it most when your dock is on the other side of a planet and you get caught out trying to creep round. I'm sure most of you have experienced it at one time or another.

There's a few systems I travel in where I get this slowdown where Im in SC moving between stations in system. I'm working under the assumption there is something (asteroid belt, stellar anomaly) causing it. I either don't know its there or haven't bought the system data from cartographics.

Curious to hear others experience on this

EDIT: maybe more on topic for the question but I normally max throttle in SC, start reducing speed at 250Ls for 25c then drop throttle to midway thru the blue.
For hops less than 250Ls I go the lasy route of half blue throttle.
This approach keeps me from overshooting and ok to drop out of SC.

Also curious how other pilots gauge their approaches.
 
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I have a technique now that works 99% of the time.

Full throttle whilst heading for the target. I watch the eta countdown until it reaches 10s (0.10) I then immediately throttle back to the middle/low blue zone and the eta sticks around 6s-7s.

If you look on the lower left, you will see two sliders, one for distance, one for speed and a light for alignment. If you are pointing at the target, you do not need to worry about alignment. When the two markers enter the blue zone, cut the Frame Drive and there you are.

Also, a quick tip on that. Don't approach the larger stations from behind (i.e. with the planet directly behind the target) You have a high chance of running out of supercruise and straight in to the superstructure. Instead, come out of the plane of the orbit and approach from the top or bottom.
 
What I do is a full throttle down when the time to target reaches 0:07 and then throttle up again paying close attention to the speed and distance indicator on the bottom left of the screen.

The thing to do is keep both bars decreasing at about the same rate until you get the safe to exit message, and it will drop you right next to your destination.
 
I have my own technique for Supercruise which I've never seen anyone mention.
Keep an eye on your distance, as soon as it hits 100ls away reduce you reduce your speed to less just less than 10c the speed of the ship then automatically comes down to the point that i don't need to touch the throttle again.
If the station is already less than 100ls away when you set off the match the distance to your speed. So if its 60ls away don't accelerate to more than 6c.
Works everytime... Except when I'm not paying attention.
 
The most foolproof method I have found is to keep your speed in the lower half of the blue zone as being in the upper half can sometimes overshoot. It does get you there a little slower though.
 
Some hints:


  • Main rule of thumb: Your speed needs to be 1/10th of the distance to your destination.
  • Use the small timer under the destination distance as a gauge to how fast you're decelerating. I normally keep it on 0:06.
  • Leaving your 'needle' in the middle of the blue zone is usually the most effective way of auto-managing speed, until you get the hang of it.
 
The best way I have found is to bind 50% and 75% speed to keys...when I get within 18 seconds of arriving I hit 75% and then when I get 8 seconds away I hit 50% button...makes for a nice smooth arrival...GL!!
 
That seems like too much effort to align yourself with the station every time, I just like to jump at the station like a bat out of hell (usually at 500-900km/s) and then boost towards the dock as fast as possible! :D
 
That seems like too much effort to align yourself with the station every time, I just like to jump at the station like a bat out of hell (usually at 500-900km/s) and then boost towards the dock as fast as possible! :D

It's not too bad, it's either that or try and do it in normal space. After a while it gets to become just something you (I) do, so I don't have to think about it anymore.

Helps you approach the planet without slowing down too much too soon by approaching from the opposite to the station too and getting stuck in the planet's gravity well. (-:
 
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