Shouldn't gravity wells, you know, like actually work?

[GhostBuster]

I wasn't around to witness it, but I've heard that in the early days of ED gravity wells had a more powerful braking effect and efficient supercruise navigation required giving them a wider berth. Personally I like the idea of having to actually navigate in SC rather than just pointing at the destination and doing a little throttle management near the end, but maybe they thought it was too steep of a learning curve for such an essential mechanic.

REALLY?

That's just... wow.

So having some skill to navigate during supercruise and no stupid space dust and actual speed tapes.

And they scrapped both of these?

Who's making all these decisions at Frontier? Forest Gump?

Why take out good, useful, rational stuff? There are enough newbies whining about the difficulty in trading - but that's never been nerfed... so why care about the above?

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One of the complaints was that some people didn't like the way your view got jerked around, much like there were complaints about SRV motion sensitivity. Another problem, while it would make gravity braking more useful, it would also get you trapped if you got stuck too close at slow speeds.

Easy fix. increase slowest speed so you can always escape. Duh.

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One of the complaints was that some people didn't like the way your view got jerked around

How did the view get jerked around? Is there a video?

And they didn't remove SRV's bouncing around did they = so why remove a much better flight model in supercruise?

 

[Rhaedas]

How did the view get jerked around? Is there a video?

And they didn't remove SRV's bouncing around did they = so why remove a much better flight model in supercruise?

They did add stuff like maintaining the horizon for those who can't tolerate "realistic" tumbling, like VR users.

I tried to look for old video of original supercruise, but there's just too much out there now. Some of Isinona's old videos show some of it.

 

[duckofdeath]

It's technically not a gravity well you're experiencing. Like someone above said, you're travelling in a higher dimension when in super cruise. If you hadn't, you wouldn't be able to see anything behind you and everything in front of you would be all distorted/amplified.
I see it more as a built in safety in the drive, to prevent you from moving at a too high speed near objects. Your speed in super cruise is basically limited by what you have in front of you within your turn rate. So, if you're able to turn into it at your current speed, you will slow down. This safety seems to be amplified if you lock on to a target. So, if you lock onto a USS, your max speed near it will be reduced the same way it is near a planet or a star. If you approach a planet with or without a lock on it, your speed (and this part I think might be an unintended bug) acceleration/deceleration is affect by that lock.

 

[KulKulcan]

If you want to execute aerobraking and slingshot maneuvers with real world physics, play Kerbal Space program

KSP does not have real world physics, they have contrived zones. Lagrange points do not exist in KSP.

The personal computer of today does not have near enough processing power for these elements to exist in a game unless the bodies were very limited. Even in a single solar system game like KSP our processors don't come close to the computer power that would be required to keep track of all the gravitational force numbers that would be required for each point of space and and each change of acceleration.

Maybe when we have quantum processors that dream of a game would be possible.

 

[nosleepdemon]

Gravity wells do affect the FSD, but not if you go bombing passed a planet at <3s ETA. If they had an effect at that speed, you'd never escape once caught. I use planets and stars to slow down all the time, and they're great for blocking interdictions.

 

[Gunnet]

KSP does not have real world physics, they have contrived zones. Lagrange points do not exist in KSP.

The personal computer of today does not have near enough processing power for these elements to exist in a game unless the bodies were very limited. Even in a single solar system game like KSP our processors don't come close to the computer power that would be required to keep track of all the gravitational force numbers that would be required for each point of space and and each change of acceleration.

Maybe when we have quantum processors that dream of a game would be possible.

The Principia mod was making good progress towards bringing n-body physics into KSP the last time I was playing it. Not sure how it's going now though.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

AFAIK nothing has changed. Gravity breaking still works just fine. I frequently do it, especially when i'm going to dock and got a pirate on my tail.

Head towards the planet at full speed, cut throttle when at about 0:05/0:04 and aim for as close to the planet boundary as possible.

FSD overloads, reduces your speed, you overshoot, but not far due to the slowing effect.

Do a 180 and station is usually no more than a couple of LS ahead of you while the pirate is still a long way off and not in line to interdict you.

 

[Jools]

..or the previous two versions of Elite, FE2 and FFE.. from way back when FD gave a damn (about anything other than £££'s).

Trying to make any sense of the abomination that is ED is an exercise in futility. It's submarines, in space, with (cough) 'voluntary' pan-galactic 'space speed limits' slower than 1950's aircraft; ie. intrinsically incapable of anything approaching basic, fun spaceflight. Just keep it in the 'blue zone', misuse terms like 'meta' and 'optimal mass', and voila, you're officially having 'fun', ED style.

couldn`t have said it better

Fe2>=FFE>Elite1984>ED the abomination

Who's making all these decisions at Frontier? Forest Gump?

well... actually, despite his relatively low IQ, forest gump, at least the movie one, has always made the right decisions, unlike FD... Stupid is that stupid does as they say

Intelligent =/= wise
parts of this forum and this company show that quite clearly

 

[Alex Brentnall]

It's technically not a gravity well you're experiencing. Like someone above said, you're travelling in a higher dimension when in super cruise. If you hadn't, you wouldn't be able to see anything behind you and everything in front of you would be all distorted/amplified.
I see it more as a built in safety in the drive, to prevent you from moving at a too high speed near objects. Your speed in super cruise is basically limited by what you have in front of you within your turn rate. So, if you're able to turn into it at your current speed, you will slow down. This safety seems to be amplified if you lock on to a target. So, if you lock onto a USS, your max speed near it will be reduced the same way it is near a planet or a star. If you approach a planet with or without a lock on it, your speed (and this part I think might be an unintended bug) acceleration/deceleration is affect by that lock.

This guy is correct. The lore states we are in a bubble of whatever it is around the ship that allows us to break FTL speeds. This bubble warps space time and is only affected by large nearby masses such as moons, planets & stars which put additional stress on the FSD drive so it can't get the speed it could in deep space.

As for gravity and "slingshotting" - It won't work as physics are not applied whilst in FTL. However, if you are not using the frame shift drive then gravity does work except the bit how Elite picks which body to move you relative to. As Scott proves below you can actually get your ship to orbit.

[video=youtube;wWJEnogSNFY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWJEnogSNFY[/video]

 

[bitstorm]

Bit confused, everyone calling it "gravity braking (or sometimes breaking)".

It's not is it?

It's more of an artifical effect of mass on supercruise that Frontier just added.

In that it's not realistic at all and is absolutely nothing to do with slingshots and gravity wells as people know them from conventional space flight, ie as you might hear from NASA.

Although I do not know if it is specifically mass, as in a high mass body will have more of a slowing effect than a low mass one.

 

[Zeeman]

I've seen a lot of videos where people fuel scoop wrong. The rate of scoop depends on how far into the star's atmosphere you are. Once you've hit a high rate of scoop you can zero the throttle and keep scooping at that rate. I see people diving in and out at high speed, there's no need.

Depends on what you are trying to achieve....

Z...

 

[babelfisch]

Bit confused, everyone calling it "gravity braking (or sometimes breaking)".

It's not is it?

It's more of an artifical effect of mass on supercruise that Frontier just added.

In that it's not realistic at all and is absolutely nothing to do with slingshots and gravity wells as people know them from conventional space flight, ie as you might hear from NASA.

Although I do not know if it is specifically mass, as in a high mass body will have more of a slowing effect than a low mass one.

I think the Alcubierre Drive needs to expand and contradict spacetime which gets difficult with bodies of large mass nearby, in terms of in game lore the effect is absolutely logical and realistic, apart from being science-fiction of course.

 

[Jukelo]

From the manual

Variable Maximum Speed: The maximum speed attainable while in super cruise varies depending on the proximity and mass of nearby stellar bodies.

As a ship travels close to a stellar body, the mass of the body impedes the frame shift drive’s capabilities, reducing available top speed. As a ship moves further away, the impeding effects of stellar bodies reduces and the ship’s potential top speed increases.

It is important to note that this impeding effect is not all-powerful. It is possible for a ship to attain a speed greater than the impeding effect of a stellar body allows, by first travelling away until the effect is removed, gaining speed and then flying back towards the stellar body.

The impeding effect will kick in, slowing the ship over time rather than instantly dropping its speed to the impeded maximum. Take this into account during long journeys where your speed has increased dramatically.

By setting your throttle in the blue “sweet spot” range, you will ensure that your ship generally slows down to suitable speeds when approaching a stellar body without further throttle manipulation.

This hasn't changed since the start of the game, and slowing down using the effects of a planet's gravity on your FSD still works.

 

[FrogsFriend]

As I understand it, the 'gravity braking' effect achieved by flying close to the planet and then back out to the station, is just a combination of keeping you in a high gravity area (close to the planet) to ensure you keep decelerating at the maximum rate, and increasing the distance travelled to give you a longer deceleration time.

 

[Alric]

couldn`t have said it better

Fe2>=FFE>Elite1984>ED the abomination


well... actually, despite his relatively low IQ, forest gump, at least the movie one, has always made the right decisions, unlike FD... Stupid is that stupid does as they say

Intelligent =/= wise
parts of this forum and this company show that quite clearly

Just to be clear, are you guys saying that doing accurately modelled high speed gravity assisted manoeuvres around planets is a key part of Elite gameplay (in which case why would Elite 1984 be ahead of ED)?

Or that the general flight model of Frontier Elite 2 was more fun than all other games in the series?

 

[VR Lucian Arkright]

Just to be clear, are you guys saying that doing accurately modelled high speed gravity assisted manoeuvres around planets is a key part of Elite gameplay (in which case why would Elite 1984 be ahead of ED)?

Or that the general flight model of Frontier Elite 2 was more fun than all other games in the series?

If you read any post that extols the virtues of Frontier and First Encounters, while slating ED, chances are it'll be a post from Bounder. Jools seems to be new flag flyer.

They have a massive preference for the (pseudo)Newtonian flight model of Frontier and First Encounters, and Bounder in particular is very vocal about this, and takes any opportunity to remind people of this preference.

I remember being massively impressed by the flight model of Frontier, and have logged many hundreds of hours play time during my college years, but for most of us, combat did consist of 'jousting' runs. Personally, 70-80% of my combat was more or less jousting, in my Krait, I managed distance a lot better (I had too!), and in my Panther, most combat had the enemy vessel splashing off my shields.) I do also remember the autopilot fruitlessly chasing a station or planet when it got it's intercepts wrong. While you /could/ do the things they talk about, most of us that played the game /didn't/. Either because we didn't know we could, or weren't good enough to do so, or simply didn't care.

While I would prefer to see a more 'realistic' flight model (in terms of maximum acceleration rather than maximum velocity), for gameplay reasons I am more than happy to stick with Elite Dangerous' flight model. But complaining about Super Cruise compared to Star Dreamer (time acceleration) is ridiculous. Gravity Wells affect the 'warp field' (if you want to think of it like that) of the FSD, causing it to 'slow down', it's already in breach of Newtonian Physics, so sling shot maneuvers etc. can't work. It's more like the (Torus) Jump Drive from Elite.

The way I see it, in game play terms, Elite Dangerous is more of a sequel to Elite, rather than Frontier, but more or less continues the Lore of Frontier and First Encounters.

 

[T'Kitr]

..or the previous two versions of Elite, FE2 and FFE.. from way back when FD gave a damn (about anything other than £££'s).

Trying to make any sense of the abomination that is ED is an exercise in futility. It's submarines, in space, with (cough) 'voluntary' pan-galactic 'space speed limits' slower than 1950's aircraft; ie. intrinsically incapable of anything approaching basic, fun spaceflight. Just keep it in the 'blue zone', misuse terms like 'meta' and 'optimal mass', and voila, you're officially having 'fun', ED style.

I would have to agree, although I'm not sure I'd call ED an abomination. It's mostly just 'meh'. While I do have fun with ED, it's unfortunately stepped back from a lot of the progress that FE2 and FFE made over the original. The original being a great achievement in its day, don't misunderstand me - but the subsequent games added so much more in terms of (and I know this is a controversial word here on the forums) realism. Realistic flight dynamics that in the intervening years could have been improved still further to offer a much more engaging experience.

ED has its merits, otherwise I wouldn't have spent so long playing it. But it's basically nothing more than a reskin of the original, and after so many years I'd hoped for - at the very least - a reskin of First Encounters. Apparently Newtonian dogfighting was too hard, though, so we had to have Aeroplanes In Space again.

(But still, how awesome would it have been to have had proper navigation plotting and orbital physics, a decent programmable autopilot, interactive ATC with vectoring and clearances, proper trade mechanics - with graphs and order placement and the like - and planetary landings built in from the start..?)

 

[Darkfyre99]

There used to be gravity breaking in the game. There were quite a few vids showing you how to do it.

Example

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxUfwJl0yjU

Since 2.1 came out, none of the techniques work any more.

Buckyball Racers beg to differ. Gravity braking still works, it's just a lot harder to get right.

 

[T'Kitr]

If you read any post that extols the virtues of Frontier and First Encounters, while slating ED, chances are it'll be a post from Bounder. Jools seems to be new flag flyer.

Or me. I've been flying that flag since 1995.

I do also remember the autopilot fruitlessly chasing a station or planet when it got it's intercepts wrong. While you /could/ do the things they talk about, most of us that played the game /didn't/. Either because we didn't know we could, or weren't good enough to do so, or simply didn't care.

It's true the autopilot had some dreadful moments. But that was in 1995.

The way I see it, in game play terms, Elite Dangerous is more of a sequel to Elite, rather than Frontier, but more or less continues the Lore of Frontier and First Encounters.

Exactly. And that is a disappointment for those of us who'd hoped for Elite IV. Personally, I'd be happy enough if Frontier Developments would put a little time and resource aside to reskin First Encounters with graphics and sound assets from Elite Dangerous. I for one would spend good money on that. It won't happen because there'd be outrage from the forums at the diversion of resources, but I can't imagine I'd be the only one willing to shell out for it - especially if some modification capacity was built in.

As a sequel to Elite, ED is a fantastic game, and a huge improvement on the original. As a sequel to Elite's sequels, though, it's a severe disappointment.

(Sorry. I was hoping that was soon enough to auto-merge, but I missed.)

 

[Darkfyre99]

I wasn't around to witness it, but I've heard that in the early days of ED gravity wells had a more powerful braking effect and efficient supercruise navigation required giving them a wider berth. Personally I like the idea of having to actually navigate in SC rather than just pointing at the destination and doing a little throttle management near the end, but maybe they thought it was too steep of a learning curve for such an essential mechanic.

It wasn't the learning curve. It was people refusing to learn, teaching others poor technique, and then complaining that it "took too long."

There is absolutely no reason why it should take you longer than three minutes from leaving one station, to arriving at another station within 10 kls of your arrival, if you avoid gravity wells, and make an adequate gravity braking maneuver. If you're very good, you might be able to make it in two. Check out the Buckyball Racing Club threads in the community events forum for videos.

But not the current race, Heavy Metal. The metric of that race is profits per second, and everyone's keeping their trade routes a secret for now, like any good trader should.