Sense of Speed

[Darkfyre99]

• is faster than SuperCruise but requires some active Flight Control Inputs to work
• is theoretically faster than SuperCruise but permanently requires manual flying to attain optimal performance (good flying = top speed, poor flying = low speed)

The irony of this is that you’re describing the original release of Supercruise. It was faster than today’s Supercruise if you flew ideal routes, flying those routes was a much more visceral experience IMO, and it created terrain which could’ve been used to make PvP piracy more viable.

The downside was that the “forum recommended method” was much slower, the Veruca Salts of the community complained, Frontier caved (again), and we have the watered down version we have today.

(Edited to fix typo)

 

[Eliza]

Just try Elite in VR. It's amazing. A whole new game. The sense of scale is nearly perfect. The sense of speed when you are zipping through a canyon...or a Stellar flyby is breathtaking. Also a planetary flyby. Dropping out of Witchspace and facing the devilish glow of a neutron star is shocking an Dropping out THROUGH a star is...well, where was my heart the last time?

 

[LordFerret]

the ship magically slows down when heading towards a target making your 7 second approach turn into a 45 second approach, if im approaching the gravity object what exactly is restricting my speed?

The ship's 'Planetary Approach Suite' controls your speed on approach, orbital cruise, and descent.

There is a reason it works the way it does. If it didn't, you'd likely grossly overshoot every object you aimed for (or slam into it), until you learned to really grab a handle on velocity control and time and distance involved. I don't know if ED will allow you to fly without it (the Planetary Approach Suite), but for a good example of having full manual control in FTL travel, download (free) and install Celestia and try flying with manual velocity control to any given star... I promise you a lesson in frustration.