The timer is worse than pointless...

[FX2K]

The timer is fine once you understand what it's actually telling you.


Argh - no, no no no no!

This is so very very useful for explorers in the current implementation, we can drift our aim a little to see one (or multiple) target(s) beyond our current one, and see the distance to start planning our next planet to visit without unlocking (and losing the built-up scan) our current target.

If this changes, then it will break exploration even more than it is already is.
Just because you don't use it, it doesn't mean that it's not an exceptionally important feature to other people!

-- Pete.

I was thinking more of an option either combined with or alongside the 'no orbit lines'
But even so, how on earth would it break exploration? Whilst locked / scanning, you can check the left nav panel to plan your next target if you so desire.

If that was the case, then perhaps bounty hunters should see xx,xxxCR next to each target or pirates should see a list of the commodities on board, right in the centre of their screen, lol. Except for these tasks, you have to use the left panel, which makes sense.


The information is all there to view on demand already, without it having to look like this mess constantly, just in case you want to see info on one of those:

But this is kinda off-topic, sorry about that OP.

 

[Innigo]

I love how people have launched in to explain what the timer was doing, despite the OP fairly obviously understanding the time was based on your current speed. There's no getting round it, it's a dumb bit of design and if your Satnav worked like this in RL it would be considered useless. I appreciate that putting in a more accurate ETA might be difficult in ED in which case I'd say; switch it off and move the "slow down" warning to a point in the journey where it's actually useful.

 

[teaurn]

Wow, this thing's taken on a life of it's own hasn't it!?

I'm pretty sure everything worth saying on the subject was said in the first few pages myself.

/next!

 

[Dizzy B High]

But even so, how on earth would it break exploration? Whilst locked / scanning, you can check the left nav panel to plan your next target if you so desire.

The nav panel only shows you the distance, it does not show you the direction, so you can use the nav panel to select your next body to scan, though it could be behind you.

by being able to jig your direction a little you can see the closest body to the one you are heading too.

The graphic that is the subject of this thread, its not a timer and its not a countdown its a Gizmo. Use it how you will, but don't complain that its not doing something it was not designed to do.

I wish people would stop crying about every little thing in the game that they don't like or understand, in the hope that the devs will succumb to their wails.

 

[Dissentient]

The timer shows you the relation between your current speed and distance to destination, which is useful (for hitting 75% throttle keybind mostly).

 

[TriumphANT]

Firstly, thanks for all the positive comments and rep yesterday. I'm quite fanatical about things being "right", and my background in science and programming usually means I'm overly pedantic about this stuff.

Without resorting to Excel etc., I sat and played around in SC this morning, and noticed that during SC deceleration, the relationship between distance and speed is very simple, which is obvious if you consider that the time is constant. If v=d/t, and t is kept constant, then v is proportional to d at all times. Stepping back a bit, and thinking only in terms of Mm distances, if the timer says "0:10" and you're 20Mm from your destination, at that instant you'll be travelling at 2Mm/s. 10 seconds later, you'll be 10Mm from your destination and travelling at 1Mm/s. At the dropout point, you'll be 1Mm away travelling at 100km/s. If you continue beyond the dropout point, you will decelerate until you are 300km away at 30km/s. As that's the slowest SC speed, you'll now reach the actual destination in 10 seconds travelling at 30km/s.

For any given "time" in decelerating SC, simply modify the above figures. e.g. at the golden "0:06", you'll be 12Mm away at 2Mm/s. 6 seconds later you'll be 6Mm away at 1Mm/s.

Walking up to work this morning, the maths just clicked into place. Because the drop-out point is 1Mm away from the object, i.e. is the actual distance we care about, to work out how long it will take to get there we can take:
log(base2)(distance) * distance/speed
to work out the time until we reach the drop-out point at any instant. Remember that distance/speed is constant in SC deceleration, and equal to the reported destination time. To demonstrate why this is the case, if the drop-out point was 0.5Mm away instead, we would take one more time period to get there (our distance and speed half every N seconds). To increase the log(base2) by 1 time period we double it:
log(base2)(distance*2) * distance/speed
or [log(base2)(distance)+1] * distance/speed

If the drop-out point was 2Mm out, we would take the base 2 log of half the distance, or subtract one from the base 2 log.

Pretty interesting I think. Get out your sliderule, and you'll have your ETA timer!

 

[robbyp]

its very useful. Keep at full power until it reads 0:06, go to mid blue zone, keep it there, your at optimum approach speed and you won't have to loop.

But I often aim for 4/5 and accept the loop - this can work out quicker in the long run.

 

[Maxulic]

Except it obviously isn't. If a timer reads 0:06 for one minute - that's accurate? Nothing to do with many forces at work, but shoddy programming at FD that doesn't take into account the variable speed that they have put into SC.

It is accurate but it only calculates distance / speed at an instant T. This is why it seems inaccurate to you because your speed decreases as your distance does too so it is still the same ratio.

If at instant T, the distance is 20 Ls and your speed is 3c the timer will read 0:06
if at instant T+1, the distance is now 20 Mm and your speed 3Mm/s the timer will still read 0:06

It is accurate, you have to accept that it doesn't take into account the fact that your speed is not constant. But it is far from misleading, since we actually base our circling approach on this timer. If it was taking your deceleration into account you wouldn't be able to.

 

[LaveLubber]

Firstly, thanks for all the positive comments and rep yesterday. I'm quite fanatical about things being "right", and my background in science and programming usually means I'm overly pedantic about this stuff.

Pretty interesting I think. Get out your sliderule, and you'll have your ETA timer!

Kudos to you TriumphANT. Thank you for providing a possible path to a solution for this. One day FD will apply similar careful thought and the 0:06 will suddenly vanish and be replaced with something more accurate and not representing instantaneous velocity.

The people who think the current timer is oh-so-perfect can then raise their own complaint thread to revert the timer to it's original form.

 

[Tarman]

Kudos to you TriumphANT. Thank you for providing a possible path to a solution for this. One day FD will apply similar careful thought and the 0:06 will suddenly vanish and be replaced with something more accurate and not representing instantaneous velocity.

The people who think the current timer is oh-so-perfect can then raise their own complaint thread to revert the timer to it's original form.

I like your future victory speech, it's inspirational. >_____>

 

[LaveLubber]

I like your future victory speech, it's inspirational. >_____>

Two can play at that game. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Magic Man]

It works like every other eta measurement out there, whether in your car, on your phone gps etc. based on your current speed.

It can't possibly give you an ATA unless it had total control over acceleration/deceleration since it can't know what you will do with the throttle in 0.1 seconds time let alone in those predicted 6 seconds...

It works fine, as expected and is accurate within the bounds of it being an estimate (hence the E)

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

There's no getting round it, it's a dumb bit of design and if your Satnav worked like this in RL it would be considered useless.

Your satnav works exactly like that in RL... unless you have one that can predict the future or is in charge of your vehicle...?

 

[Gorf]

..it's a dumb bit of design and if your Satnav worked like this in RL it would be considered useless.

.​

It's exactly how my SatNav works. If I slow down or speed up, my ETA changes.

 

[Innigo]

It works like every other eta measurement out there, whether in your car, on your phone gps etc. based on your current speed.

Nope. See below.

It can't possibly give you an ATA unless it had total control over acceleration/deceleration since it can't know what you will do with the throttle in 0.1 seconds time let alone in those predicted 6 seconds...

Strawman argument. No one is suggesting it give an ATA.

It works fine, as expected and is accurate within the bounds of it being an estimate (hence the E)

This will be for a definition of "fine" that is widely unknown. If your ETA counter tells you six seconds for a journey that actually lasts 2 minutes despite you not touching the throttle it's fair to consider this a *bad* estimate.

Your satnav works exactly like that in RL... unless you have one that can predict the future or is in charge of your vehicle...?

Not even close. ALL Satnavs make assumptions about the future, the principal one being that you'll adhere to the speed limit, the second one being that you'll stick to the route it's mapped out for you. It's impossible to estimate something without making assumptions about the future; something the timer in ED does not do. It makes NO assumptions, it just divides the distance by your your current speed and displays the result, there is no estimating in the ETA (and it's actually misleading to refer to it as an ETA since it's no such thing) which is why its so woefully inaccurate.

 

[Gorf]

...If your ETA counter tells you six seconds for a journey that actually lasts 2 minutes despite you not touching the throttle it's fair to consider this a *bad* estimate...

This is why people have a problem with the countdown. They think it should actually mean something, instead of being a tool to guide you.

.​

If it was six queedles instead of six seconds, it would be exactly as useful, and this thread would never have been created because nobody knows what a queedle is. You expect something to happen six seconds later, because you know what a second is.

.​

You know "only a fool breaks the two second rule" when you're in a car. Two seconds of unobstructed travel is the minimum distance to (help) avoid a crash. As an actual time - it means nothing. It's a combination of speed and distance, portrayed as a time.

 

[Dizzy B High]

It's not an eta timer, so stop assuming it is, not that difficult, if you hate it so much stick a post it note on your monitor, and see how well you do at getting to your destination without it.
If you use a head tracker attach some strings to the post it note with some pulleys so it remains over the gizmo when you turn your head.
The above may sound stupid but it's probably more effective solution than whining that it does not do what you want it to do in this thread.

 

[QziQza]

read again

this is a gravitationnal pull, but the "amount" of pull is not constant.

i did a few a<->b trade run this morning between 2 system (one jump)

one station is a problematic one, and i didn't had twice a consistent slow down, the amount of gravitationnal pull is random, not the effect itself despite my vector being the same every time.

a gravitationnal slowdown should be the result of your velocity/mass vs distance/mass from the planet, the issue here is that while my ship remains at roughly the same speed, with the same mass, being at the same distance from the planet, who's mass doesn't change, i do have very different slowdown effect.

this shouldn't be

you do understand that the forces at work here arnt just from the body you are passing as you approach a station? that body may also be in an orbit of its own around another body, with other nearby bodies having intersecting orbits, and they will all be influenced by the systems star/s. there is a very complex mathmatical model that has to take all this into account in real time, each time you visit a particular station it can easily be in a very different part of its orbit. In basic terms, the only real constant is the distance of the station from its planet and that planets distance from its star.

 

[tasev1]

Wow, you're complaining about a timer? There are far more important things to whine about, or have you already done that? Who cares? I find the timer fascinating.

According to your logic, then we should also remove the speed as that is also pointless to display and misleading.

 

[Marikc0]

Of all the things to complain or care about. You people are a whiney bunch.