What are the pale blue circles around planets as you approach?

[DNA-Decay]

Orbit Lines On.
Approach a planet.
Pale Blue concentric rings.
Outer one fades as you get closer.

Two years playing.
No idea what information I should be able to read here.
Gravity well?
SC slowdown zone?
Wallpaper?

Enlighten me oh great hive mind.

 

[yolomcbobbinz]

The blue ring around planets? It's the distance from the planet you engage orbital flight

 

[DNA-Decay]

The blue ring around planets? It's the distance from the planet you engage orbital flight

That's the single dark blue ring.
I'm talking about the two concentric pale blue rings you see on approach.

 

[Gunnet]

As far as I know it's indicating the strength of the gravity well. It would have been an important feature if gravity braking was still as strong as I hear it was originally going to be.

 

[CMDRvenerian]

I can confirm it's the gravity well

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Huh? It spheres of gravity influence. Should play out soundwise too.

 

[Vasious]

There are the [greenish] ones that are multiples of the Radius of the planet, which are the concentric ones which disappear as you approach

yolomcbobbinz is spot on the Blue line demarks the boundary between Super Cruse and Orbital cruse, as you will not only landables have the blue ring, and it lines up with the altitude marker on the right of the HUD

 

[Jukelo]

This is sadly all the manual has to say about those:

Stellar bodies also display blue approach rings around them to help you gauge distance.

 

[Knightshark]

Good to know i am not the only one who doesn't know what this means after all these years.

 

[Whiterose]

As far as I know it's indicating the strength of the gravity well. It would have been an important feature if gravity braking was still as strong as I hear it was originally going to be.

This.

 

[Bertrand Du Guesclin]

I always thought those pale-blue disappearing concentric circles were just to give you an appreciation that you are indeed moving relative to the planet.
In that sense, it plays the same role as the gradually accelerating sets of lines left and right of the cockpit in SC.

My understanding is that given the large distances that we have to travel in SC, sometimes it can seem that we're not moving at all because every other object is too far for us to appreciate, so these UI elements are here to confirm we are indeed moving.

But I could be completely wrong, it could be the gravity well.

The dark blue single circle is indeed showing the orbital cruise limit.

 

[Ouberos]

I use them as an indicator as to when I should decelerate. They appear at the point it seems correct to start throttling back the speed. If I don't decelerate by the time the second ring has appeared I always seem to overshoot.

Not sure if that is what they are actually for.

 

[askavir]

Nevermind.

 

[Codger]

I've always thought they were put there to obscure your view, making it harder to tell what the heck you are pointed at. That's my theory

 

[furrycat]

Let's ask Mike Evans.

Those blue rings are just scaled up indicators of the planets radius. So the first one you see might be 1000 x bigger than the radius of the planet so when you approach it you can get a sense of getting closer as it grows in size (it's not actually moving or growing, it's just you getting closer). Once you get close enough it fades away and you see a ring that like 500 x bigger than the planet and so on. They're just there to show how you are approaching the planet when it's too small to see.

 

[PanTast]

I´ve read somewhere long time ago that the first ring you see is 100 times the size of the planet / moon. Then they get smaller - don't know by what factor. And they give you an idea how big the stellar body is (just in case its too small to see from far away).
Obviously they also indicate the strength of the gravitation of the body.


o7

EDIT: Ninja'd and my number were false by factor 10

 

[mp4x]

It's also in the games manual... Nothing to do with gravity

 

[Sandmann]

That's the single dark blue ring.
I'm talking about the two concentric pale blue rings you see on approach.

Michael Brookes confirmed a while back that they don't mean anything, they're just there to give you a sense of movement.