Newcomer / Intro Speed Control?

[cassog]

This is something that happens to me frequently and I don't know why, how to prevent it - or even if it can be prevented.
Hopefully - as usual - someone can help.
Flying along in SC headed straight for space station and watching the ETA counter roll down to optimum.
When it reaches 0.08 or 0.07 I hit the button that is bound to 75% speed.
Most of the time this works fine, but there are times when, a short time later, for no apparent reason, the speed bar just shoots up to maximum of its accord, and no amount of hitting the bound buttons for 50% or 75% has any effect. I will then invariably overshoot the station.
Can anyone tell me why the speed shoots up like this, and - more importantly - how do I prevent it?
I realise that it is probably something I am doing wrong - be nice to know what though.
Thanks in advance.

 

[Lasse B.]

I've seen it happen both ways, up to maximum from 75% throttle as well as down to zero. As for a solution, unfortunately I haven't yet found anything that works reliably.

 

[Derpster Frey]

When you set the throttle to 75%, are you sure you're not in a gravity well or close to a large body so your ship is already slowing down?
If you set your throttle to 75% in those situations, it will speed back up when it gets free of that large body.

You can usually hear it on the engine sounds.

 

[Engadine]

Hi,

Personally I think you're leaving it too late to reduce your speed, I start bringing it back down around 0.10. 0.07 I think is far too late, but others might disagree.

Are you close to a planet when the speeding up starts and possibly the gravity pull is causing a sling shot effect once the pull from the planet is reduced?

Also, bringing your speed down and under control earlier gives you more of a chance to do something about combating gaining speed should it happen. As well as bring down the throttle, try a "wiggle" - pull up and then pull down once done line up again with the station, I've found this can help reduce speed at times.

Regards

 

[YoBuck]

Speed to 75% at 6 seconds is perfect.

On a side note, if you are approaching too fast and are going to overshoot. Nose down into a dive, watch the overspeeed drop into the blue zone then nose up to target again. Viola no overshoot

Buck

 

[dat789bb]

Agree with @Yobuck.
I'd normally approach a station this way:
Distance: >300 ls, speed: >20c
200 - 300, 10 - 19c
100 - 199, 3 - 9c. This is when I'd normally nose dive (target destination will be above my ship).
10 - 99ls, 500mms - 2c. I'd normally hover between 0.6 and 1.2c, and slowing down or speeding up as required.

When it's 0.11ls - 10ls, you should be going less than 1c. Gradually pull up to align your target destination to be in front of you.

 

[Himmel Tropf]

Not sure why it's doing that. I take it you don't have a yoke? Maybe try binding buttons to decrease / increase throttle instead of just set increments.
I usually career into stations and decease at 0.06 and then use my yoke to keep it pegged at that. If it drops below that or I get over speed warning I kill throttle and deviate from direct heading and take a parabolic entry until I either see it go above 0.05 or I get a safe exit notice.

This may be a bug if you're just using kbd and mouse. Check your bindings to see if there is any other forward throttle commands you may be using and also check that maybe a button isn't stuck (eg use notepad and see if a keystroke is appearing when it shouldn't) if all good then open up a ticket I say.

 

[cmdr lowest]

Hi,

Personally I think you're leaving it too late to reduce your speed, I start bringing it back down around 0.10. 0.07 I think is far too late, but others might disagree.

Are you close to a planet when the speeding up starts and possibly the gravity pull is causing a sling shot effect once the pull from the planet is reduced?

Also, bringing your speed down and under control earlier gives you more of a chance to do something about combating gaining speed should it happen. As well as bring down the throttle, try a "wiggle" - pull up and then pull down once done line up again with the station, I've found this can help reduce speed at times.

Regards

Yes I'd disagree. What you specifically have to do is have your throttle in the blue 'sweet-spot' for the ship to auto-slow to the destination. You'll find it engages the auto slow down at 0.06 seconds from your destination so you can theoretically hit 75% throttle (which puts your throttle exactly in the middle of your sweet-spot) at 0.06 seconds for the absolute fastest approach to a station but that is cutting it fine. Most people hit 75% at 0.07 as that's a happy medium between speed and not overshooting by accident. The ship will still noticeably decelerate when it gets to 0.06 - you can see this happening as long as your throttle is in the blue sweet-spot.

To the OP. I've never seen my throttle jump back up to 100% of it's own accord. To me that would suggest you have a control mapping issue or you are using voice attack and it's registering a 'full speed ahead' command or something. Does it do this when your hands are completely off the stick? Are you using something like voice attack?

 

[Himmel Tropf]

Also, is the throttle bar going up, or is it just the units that are changing? Ie: you may be going too fast anyway for approach, and it's just that you've gone from 0.1c - 300Mm/s or something. I don't think the actual throttle bar increases at the unit change, but the figures do increase at an instant while the units are expressing slower speeds.
If this is the issue, then that just means you're not slowing enough at the correct time. If not then issue is still unresolved

 

[Sapient6]

This is something that happens to me frequently and I don't know why, how to prevent it - or even if it can be prevented.
Hopefully - as usual - someone can help.
Flying along in SC headed straight for space station and watching the ETA counter roll down to optimum.
When it reaches 0.08 or 0.07 I hit the button that is bound to 75% speed.
Most of the time this works fine, but there are times when, a short time later, for no apparent reason, the speed bar just shoots up to maximum of its accord, and no amount of hitting the bound buttons for 50% or 75% has any effect. I will then invariably overshoot the station.
Can anyone tell me why the speed shoots up like this, and - more importantly - how do I prevent it?
I realise that it is probably something I am doing wrong - be nice to know what though.
Thanks in advance.

When I was playing kb/m I did exactly this and the only time I ever overshot was when the ETA was dropping more rapidly than usual, in which cases I attributed the overshot to poor timing on my part. As others have said, the 75% throttle technique even works when perfectly timed with the drop to .06 ETA, but that has to be perfectly timed. A late press there results in an overshoot every time.

Is it possible that when you overshoot your ETA is dropping faster than usual (entering SC rather close to your target, for instance after an interdiction, can have this effect) and you're hitting it later than you think?

 

[Himmel Tropf]

the ETA is not the actual ETA it is 'current' ETA. The ship is continually fighting your inputs while in SC, particularly when coming in to exit SC. As you approach a body, your distance is decreasing, so ETA should drop. Your speed however automatically decreases also, so the ETA should rise. This is why you can have it pegged at 0.07s for multiple seconds. At every instant the computer is giving you the ETA at that speed /velocity. If you overspeed, you are coming in faster than the ship can reduce your speed, so the ETA will decrease faster and faster as the gap closes between you and the object. I don't believe you're experiencing a positive acceleration, just more that the computer is rapidly scratching off the over-estimation it's added to the real ETA, to compensate for its self while it was trying to regulate your approach.

This is somewhat analogous to downloading a program, or installing. The wizard will give you an ETA that may rise/fall depending on how intensive the resources are to be copied. Towards the end it generally gives you a few seconds that speed up, or freeze at 1 until it's done.

 

[cassog]

Many thanks to all of you who were kind enough to reply - even though most of the answers have given me a headache! Sorry about the late response - been away from ED universe for a couple of days - sacrilege I know. Will watch carefully for it happening again and try to keep a proper record of exact circumstances.