Things in the game you've always wondered about

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Why we can't just drop out of hyperspace at the location in the system we want, not just the star

Simple, if a ship could jump via witchspace to anywhere, you would never see another player, whether real or NPC, nobody would move in SC. And it could be a lot worse, instead of having the system's Nav Beacon act only as a receiver for high wake jumps, image how bad it would be if we could only jump out of a system when within the small radius of a Nav Beacon!
 
Things I wonder about:

1. Why is it faster to jump 50LY and back (100LY total) than to travel 500Ls if you are leaving a planet surface? What can the FSD do for you in witch space that it cannot do for you in supercruise? All the pomp and circumstance, the light show.. the tunnel.. then there you are, crawling.

Because the FSD doesn't work when there is too much mass nearby.

2. Why is it that I need to be scanned to know if I am wanted, unless I am REALLY wanted at which time I am shot on sight?
Doesn't happen on my end.

3. Why hold a wedding near a conflict zone?
Fireworks.

4. Why have 3 or 4 required materials for grade 5 but only one of them is actually hard to find? Are the others just to take up slots and force us to not cache so much stuff, to grind for each engineer instead?
Probably.

5. Why can't a configurable component be configured into anything other than a configurable component? Why can't it be made into a chemical manipulator?
Don't try to reason with the Engineers.

6. Why are these materials called "rare" in the description but "common" on the Elite Wiki?
Ask the creators of the wiki or edit it yourself.

7. How long will skimmers chase you in your SRV once you plink it in the dome?
Until you are dead.

8. How can a skimmer be "wanted"?
Simple: Someone wants to see them destroyed.

9. Why did Ralph Fairweather reappear as an innocent miner after I killed him a million Ls from the star just a few days ago after he interdicted me? You're not fooling anyone Ralph.

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I've always wondered why...

...you SLOW DOWN when near bodies, when the gravitional pull should speed you up
...something as insignificant as a space station can cause SLOW DOWN
...there's a 4..3..2..1 countdown to Hyperspace and the announcement is out by 1 second
...we need a Friendship drive
...pirates interdict you in a fully weaponised Anaconda and then ask "how is this happening" when their shields go down
...pirates don't give you enough time to eject what they're asking for
...space cops insist on a rubdown when scanning you (ie ram you)
...so many brides don't know their vows, or feel the need to broadcast this embarrassing information
...cargo/materials degrade in space
...ships have a max speed limit
...rocks aren't destroyed by mining
...GalNet articles never reveal the location of the thing they're telling you about
...pledging allegiance to a power makes you a target for constant interdiction
...cargo is measured in weight
...you can't wing in multi crew
...the side panels are inaccessible in hyperspace
...you can't view what's fitted to your ship without going into outfitting
...bookmark default to "Delete bookmark" instead of plotting a route
...you can't turn around on a landing pad
...the docking computer needs potential cargo slots
...your ship glides, when there's no atmosphere
...Nav Beacons are so close to stars
...some stations let you drop in from as far away as 5km and yet most require you to be within 1km
...some rocks in rings are stationary until you get near them, then they start spinning wildly
...why limpets insist on flying through rocks, instead of around

1. You slow down in Supercruise rather than speed up because your ship is not flying through normal Newtonian space. High-gravity objects bend spacetime. The Frameshift Drive also operates by bending spacetime. Operating a frameshift drive too close to an object with mass (like a planet, space station or even another large spaceship) creates extra work for the drive, because it has to first unbend space before it can re-bend space again to send you off in the direction where you want to go.

2. A space station is actually rather massive. Especially the ones made of nearly-pure palladium; we had a CG to build one over a year ago, requiring various metals to be delivered, but since palladium was the most valuable metal the CG offered, everybody in the CG brought palladium. About 27 million tonnes of it. To me, the bigger question is: how can a tiny handful of spaceship debris in a USS have enough gravity to cause a slowdown?

8. I'm pretty sure it's the grooms forgetting their vows, not the brides.

9. This is purely a gameplay decision. Otherwise, staying for several hours in a CZ, RES or Nav Beacon would fill up your radar screens with piles of debris.

10. Again, gameplay. "WWII dogfighting" is only possible if ships are moving at more or less identical speed. "Realistic" space combat in Newtonian space, with ships that are capable of 30G acceleration, would involve jousting at each other from thousands of KM away, passing each other in the blink of an eye while travelling at a modest fraction of lightspeed, and relying on automated weapons fire because human reflexes would be nowhere near good enough to make a hit. There are space games out there that simulate that kind of realism. Most of them are not renowned for their exciting combat sequences.

14. Weight (or more technically correct, mass) is the most important factor in considering spaceship behaviour. Commodities are therefore all shipped in standard-sized containers that always weigh exactly 1 metric tonne when full. It allows the automated cargo loading/unloading machinery to always know exactly where to put a piece of cargo in order to balance the load, without having to figure out how much each container weighs or how big each container is. Yes, shipping 1 tonne of gold in a shipping container which is mostly empty space is not the most efficient use of space. Efficiency is less important than predictability in the ED universe.

23. You will notice that the stations that allow you to drop in within 5000km rather than the usual 1000km are all quite remote from massive objects, like planets or moons. They may be in deep orbit of a planet, or they may be orbiting the star all by themselves (or orbiting an as-yet-invisible comet). Which relates back to the answer for question 1: space is less "bent" way out where these stations are, so there is less interference - the space station itself is the only significant gravitational object in the area, so the FSD can more easily lock onto it.

25. Strict galaxy-wide anti-AI laws mean that fully autonomous miniature space vehicles, like limpets, cannot be programmed with meaningful levels of sentience. For example, they are not allowed to be smart enough to pass a Turing test. They certainly aren't allowed to be smart enough to be programmed with a sense of self-preservation, since that implies a high level of recognition of a sense of "Self". In that sense, those limpets are relying on you to be their sense of self-preservation, by not firing them towards danger in the first place.
 
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That's not the impression I get, when approaching a space station for example, it comes up as a warning at the 4 second mark if you've not dropped to 75% engines before the 5 second mark, I always figured it was telling you that you are going to overshoot, so stop the engines to reduce the overshoot.

Yes, it's ALSO used as a 'slow the heck down you're going to overshoot' warning.

Try flying past a planet in fast Supercrusie sometime and you will note that when it says 'Slow down' your ship actually slows down due to the gravity, then accelerates as it clears it. You can use gravity assisted braking to reduce time spent in SC.

NPC names, I obviously know they are there because I'm playing a game but I wonder, Lore-Wise is that their name, their nickname? And why do we have CMDR in front of our name not them?

Because [and this is such a bad lore choice that it hurts] they are not members of the Pilots Federation. Only PCs are, which is why we have hollow triangles and CMDR. We are special snowflakes and NPCs are scrums.

I pretend that lore does not exist.
 
Why do our flight suits allow for a separate toe? Are we going to develop opposable big toes in the future? What can we actually operate with this marvellous new evolutionary feature? (Could it be the jettison all cargo button, or worse, the self destruct switch under our toes?) :eek:
 
Didn’t read all the replies, but why piracy exists? At all?

Quadrillion tonnes of unclaimed, free precious metals and rocks floating everywhere in space, just begging to be picked up easily and quickly.

But no. Mr Pirate needs 2T of food cartridges right now. Ok mate, enjoy cold hard vacuum.
 
Why do the traffic controllers never sleep? Always the same controller at the same port. You'd think they'd rotate in 8 hour shifts or similar.

Unless of course they are meant to be just voice recordings in the game.
 
Oh I have a few :D


- In SC, seeing the warning SLOW DOWN pop up every time you get near a planet etc. Hey FD, if we had that astronomical body selected, we would slow down, if we were on a collision course with it, we would slow down or deviate around it. But why in heaven's name do you have to tell us to SLOW DOWN every damn time we go within scope range of something in space!

I think I've worked that one out. SLOW DOWN is not telling you to slow down. It is saying that you are in a volume of space where you are slowing down due to the nearby mass. If you look at your speed it will be reducing when the message shows and starts to increase when it goes away.
 
The one that baffles me is that I can scoop fuel from the corona of a star with or without shields yet someone's lasers can damage the hull.
 
I mean those rings that appear several times that get smaller and smaller as you get closer.

I don't know their intended purpose, but I use them for sling shot, if a body is almost in line with my destination, I go at max speed keeping just outside the rings, this quickly takes off a few light seconds travel.
 
Railguns. This an essentially useless weapons system unless either a) the target stands still, or b) it is backed by some seriously sophisticated target acquisition, tracking and prediction software/hardware. And that's today. So why, in 330x, are they fixed-mount only?
 
Railguns. This an essentially useless weapons system unless either a) the target stands still, or b) it is backed by some seriously sophisticated target acquisition, tracking and prediction software/hardware. And that's today. So why, in 330x, are they fixed-mount only?

Erm, what? It's hyperelocity, so easier to target with than - say - cannon, or even plasma.
 
When approaching a station, why do I get labelled for speeding when I go over 100 m/s but the docking computer can go well over 100 and not be warned.
Why don't I have a pop up window for a rear view camera and downward facing camera (in the HUD) like my wife's 2015 SUV. (not talking about the vanity camera)
Does everyone but me speed when leaving a station? I exit the slot and stay below 100 m/s, but all the other ships I exit with zoom off leaving me in a cloud of space dust and exhaust fumes.
Follow on: are there consequences to speeding ?
What is our cockpit glass made from ? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_oxynitride) ?? (sorry, a bit off topic)
When I hire crew, where do they stay or sit ?. I have nice chairs for them on the bridge but my seats are empty.
 
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Why do I telepresence to my SLF but not to the SRV? If I'm actually in the SRV, why is getting destroyed in it no different than getting destroyed in the SLF?
 
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