Supercruise navigation

[Yank31]

Supercruise navigation / targeting / USS

Cmdrs,

I'm having a bit of an issue/annoyance recently. Engineers require me to hunt USS again, endeavour which I have religiously avoided since "that 45 minutes, unsuccessful, search for an ancient artefact", back in early 2015.

Anyway, my current issue manifests itself as follow : I supercruise in a system, let's say I'm headed toward a station. I see a USS. I slow down and target it, to identify its type. Most of the time I'm not interested in said type, thus I just want to resume my course, say to the station. But selecting the USS made my navigation computer forget about that previous target, so I need to go through contacts or system map, to refresh its memory...

Which... you know, is fine 1 or 2 times. But when you need to do that menu busy work after every single USS, well it gets old pretty fast. And when your set target was far-away planetary port, then it just becomes... discouraging to even try to identify the USS. Because you then need to use the system map only, rotate the body, select the port, target it, exit the system map... after each USS. Which is bad.

To be frank, I really don't think USS hunting needed another bad side to it. I could really do without having to dive deep in the menus after each single USS. Like, you know, having a similar function to "target next system in route" but for intra system navigation, which I could bind to a key.
Or I am missing something?


edit : please allow us to "plot a route" to a station/port, while already being within the system. Then we could just use the "target next system in route" function after identifying a USS, that would work too.

 

[CMDR Jago Kain]

You can set a key to select your next destination, but only if you plotted the route in the galmap. I agree that selecting a target station that's in close proximity to a planet, other ships and maybe multiple RES or combat zones could be greatly improved.

 

[Arry]

The targeting system in this game generally; is about 10 years after the days of the Roman Empire.

When I started playing this game, I had really bad issues with hitting the enter key ( I use a laptop to play, keyboard only) and because of this; I had to become very aware, of where I was and where other things were, if I changed direction, for things like USSs. This meant I could bypass the need of the side menus, to acquire targets, such as stations etc.. This has now become habit. Using between the radar and memory, I turn back towards the original direction and hit the target button, I may not get the station, but I will get the planet and as I get closer, I can use the HUD to re-target the station. Getting into the habit, means I don't have to go to the menu more than once.

I still use a laptop, but have a better one these days.

 

[Yank31]

You can set a key to select your next destination, but only if you plotted the route in the galmap.

True. Well then, I think all I'm asking is for that to be extended to also work while being within the system. Aka plot route, but within a system.

 

[zarrazee]

OP. I feel your pain. This particular UI challenge is the main reason I don't bother with USS, unless I'm looking for ENG mats.

Talking about UI challenges, I still frequently post comments to LOCAL chat 'cos I've forgotten to /r to a CMDR. I think WoW had such a good comms systems - Guild chat, party chat, raid chat, private messages - it was so intuitive.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Most of the time I then just don't give a damn about precision, target the planet my destination is orbiting, get up to speed, and then maybe bother with the navigation panel if I don't just manually target stuff all the way there. Just a minor nuisance, but having the next route hop thing work all the way would be grand of course.

Guild chat, party chat, raid chat,

Barrens chat

 

[Droid8Apple]

Why can't you look at the left "target panel" and select the station? I believe it's tied the the number 1 key (key row not key pad) or UI Focus + <- ..... in that panel you can "set filters"...... so while you're USS hunting only have on "stations" and "signal sources". That way, after targeting and deciding against the USS you can look left and hit enter+enter to lock the destination again.

If the station you're trying to target isn't showing (in example it's planetary) then you haven't scanned the planet yet. Select the 'unexplored' planet that has the settlement and go scan it (yes even without the detailed surface scan it will work without telling detailed results).

OP. I feel your pain. This particular UI challenge is the main reason I don't bother with USS, unless I'm looking for ENG mats.

Talking about UI challenges, I still frequently post comments to LOCAL chat 'cos I've forgotten to /r to a CMDR. I think WoW had such a good comms systems - Guild chat, party chat, raid chat, private messages - it was so intuitive.

pressing the tab key cycles through available CMDR's near you and if you haven't targeted them it will just show which ship iti s

 

[Yank31]

Why can't you look at the left "target panel" and select the station? I believe it's tied the the number 1 key (key row not key pad) or UI Focus + <- ..... in that panel you can "set filters"...... so while you're USS hunting only have on "stations" and "signal sources". That way, after targeting and deciding against the USS you can look left and hit enter+enter to lock the destination again.

If the station you're trying to target isn't showing (in example it's planetary) then you haven't scanned the planet yet. Select the 'unexplored' planet that has the settlement and go scan it (yes even without the detailed surface scan it will work without telling detailed results).

Ok, I agree that my OP is a bit confusing regarding my intentions.

I'm not USS hunting. When I'm USS hunting, I generally just do that, and don't try to reach a specific station. So there's no navigation issue there, just the good old RNGsus stuff going on (which is bad enough in itself).

But, and because it's killing me to do strict USS hunts, I figured I would NOT do it. That is to say, not spending 2 hours doing SC circles in a boom system, for instance. No thanks. Instead, I figured I'd just pay more attention to USS that I may cross, while doing other things. And here comes the navigation issue. Targeting a random USS while doing something else will mess up my navigation so much that it's... you know, I end up not wanting to do that either.

Which could lead me back to USS hunting, but that was not the point. The point was : I'm pretty sure the system targeting can be improved. I feel it should be. Making the "plot route" function work in system would be a good way, imo.


Still, thanks for the tips, I did not know about the scan thing, regarding planetary port

***

Edit : even though I don't think it applies here :

Let's say I just want to reach a planetary port on a undiscovered system. I can't target it from the galactic map, it's undiscovered for me. So I wait untill I am within the system. I honk, I open the system map, locate the body, select it, it's 3k ls from me. I rotate the body, I select and target the planetary port.

I head there. One USS pops. I slow down and target it. It's a wedding barge. Not interested, but now I've lost my target on the planetary port. So, I open the system map, locate the body again, rotate it again, see that I have a yellow cursor over the planetary port that I want to reach, see that the yellow cursor seemingly doesn't do any actual targeting, yet prevents me from putting a functional target on the port, so instead I select something else to get rid of that yellow cursor, then I select the planetary port again, and I can finally go.

But wait, a second USS pops. I slow down. Target it. It's a convoy dispersal. Not interested, but now I've lost my target on the planetary port. So, I open the system map, locate the body again, rotate it again, see that I have a yellow cursor over the planetary port that I want to reach, see that the yellow cursor seemingly doesn't do any actual targeting, yet prevents me from putting a functional target on the port, so instead I select something else to get rid of that yellow cursor, then I select the planetary port again, and I can finally go.

And... yeah, I will spare you the 3rd, 4th or sometimes 5th USS I may cross on the way there, hopefully you get the point.


And I couldn't scan the body, because all of this happened while I was still heading there.

 

[Tarman]

Ok, I agree that my OP is a bit confusing regarding my intentions.

I'm not USS hunting. When I'm USS hunting, I generally just do that, and don't try to reach a specific station. So there's no navigation issue there, just the good old RNGsus stuff going on (which is bad enough in itself).

But, and because it's killing me to do strict USS hunts, I figured I would NOT do it. That is to say, not spending 2 hours doing SC circles in a boom system, for instance. No thanks. Instead, I figured I'd just pay more attention to USS that I may cross, while doing other things. And here comes the navigation issue. Targeting a random USS while doing something else will mess up my navigation so much that it's... you know, I end up not wanting to do that either.

Which could lead me back to USS hunting, but that was not the point. The point was : I'm pretty sure the system targeting can be improved. I feel it should be. Making the "plot route" function work in system would be a good way, imo.


Still, thanks for the tips, I did not know about the scan thing, regarding planetary port

It'd be a nice QoL feature to have a Destination Target override that functions in all drive modes. Set it and forget it till you get there or wipe the current override.

I'd actually take an entire suite of programmable slots for permanent target overrides as well but I could start with one that works till you arrive for now. >___>