I think the game would really benefit from an option to see (while flying normally, so like Night Vision, not a new UI) a 3d grid while in supercruise, where the density of the grid reflects the density of spacetime in that region - a visual representation of gravity wells. I don't think it should be too detailed, you don't want to diminish supercruise racing in any way, but I think a balance could be achieved. I think it's a shame how often "point and accelerate until 7 seconds distant, then hold at 7" seems to be seen as "how supercruise works", and even a simple toggle like that could go a long way.
Toggleable visual overlay for Supercruise
- Thread starter CMDR Corlas
- Start date
That seems to be what the bars on the side of the hud are as you travel. They show your speed and against the gravity well. Line the sets up to achieve your approach.
Here you can see me zooming past a gas giant the solid lines are me. The faded lines are the gas giant's gravity well I'm now passing. They're obscure and useless, 7 seconds is far easier for most people to grasp.
Here you can see me zooming past a gas giant the solid lines are me. The faded lines are the gas giant's gravity well I'm now passing. They're obscure and useless, 7 seconds is far easier for most people to grasp.
You understand the difference between that and what I said, right?
No, they're just part of this extra speed indicator - you can see the same effect in deep space with no gravity wells nearby if you gradually accelerate or decelerate. As you speed up, each set of lines goes past faster, then fades out and a new vertically shorter set of slower-moving lines fades in to replace it. I expect the idea is to give you a parallax-style indicator of movement against what might be a fairly unchanging background that can cope with the orders of magnitude changes in speed involved in supercruise.
The gravity well depth indicator for your current position is essentially where the 100% throttle position marker is on your normal speed gauge.
Where gravity wells are isn't really the unclear bit with that, though - the planets get the blue circle effect as you approach and are fairly visible anyway - it's the somewhat counter-intuitive outcome that as a result the quickest journey between two points isn't a straight line once you pass a certain point on the approach.
It might be a potentially useful bit of extra visualisation for people who already know how to make fast approaches - though engine sound and the existing pseudo-timer gives plenty of feedback on that already - but I don't see it encouraging people to start making them given that the main barrier is not the technical difficulty of the technique (even a poorly-executed beginner's spiral approach is still noticeably quicker than a 75% straight line approach) but realising that it's possible at all.
Except it's not. You only get the second set of lines when your speed starts getting out of sync with what the gravity well tolerates. Accelerate and decelerate to your heart's content and you only have 1 set of lines when you're slow. Break out of sync with whatever gravity well the game assigns you and then you get the second set. The gravity well influence is stupidly huge as you can see by how far you have to go to get far enough out to actually achieve top speed.
That second set is your gravity well indicator it's just pretty much worthless as you'll still slam into exclusion zones over speed when they're matched up.
These screenshots are all taken at about 40,000Ls from the nearest star or other body, a few seconds apart, with a maximum non-SCO speed possible of around 500c and no in-system objects targeted.
There's two sets of lines visible in three of them, and only one in the fourth (at an intermediate speed). In all four the ship is travelling well below the current gravity well limit.
(Yes, you won't see two sets if you get clear enough of all stars to go at 2001c, but that's just because of where the cutoffs between the sets are; you stop seeing any but the shortest lines at a lot less than 2001c)
And conversely, here's one where I'm definitely being affected by a gravity well after just coming out of SCO not far from the star ... but there's only one set of lines, because my speed is again between the thresholds at which either the "faster" or "slower" set of lines would be appearing.
If you take two screenshots where you're travelling at identical speeds, but one of them is near a gravity well and one of them isn't, you'll see exactly the same parallax lines on both.
(Yes, if you're being affected by a gravity well, you'll see changes in the lines, because the gravity well will be changing your speed. Doesn't tell you at all whether your speed is 10% or 1000% of the maximum normal speed allowed by the current gravity well, though)
(Yes, you won't see two sets if you get clear enough of all stars to go at 2001c, but that's just because of where the cutoffs between the sets are; you stop seeing any but the shortest lines at a lot less than 2001c)
And conversely, here's one where I'm definitely being affected by a gravity well after just coming out of SCO not far from the star ... but there's only one set of lines, because my speed is again between the thresholds at which either the "faster" or "slower" set of lines would be appearing.
If you take two screenshots where you're travelling at identical speeds, but one of them is near a gravity well and one of them isn't, you'll see exactly the same parallax lines on both.
(Yes, if you're being affected by a gravity well, you'll see changes in the lines, because the gravity well will be changing your speed. Doesn't tell you at all whether your speed is 10% or 1000% of the maximum normal speed allowed by the current gravity well, though)
That's really my thought process, though. I think a grid overlay that you fly through - maybe with a color gradient that went from yellow to green as a grid density, and so gravity wells, open up - would be a good way to make it far more visually obvious what's possible.