What if... or 0.47 LY in supercruise to another star

[EternalDragon]

Greetings, fellow explorers.

To traverse 0.47 LY in supercruise may sound as not a big deal especially for those of you who have been to Hutton Orbital. But Hutton Orbital and Alpha Centauri arrival point are in the same star system so it is just a matter of time and patience to get there. I always wanted to know what would happen if I would fly to another star system using just supercruise.

Stars are usually separated by several light years around the Bubble and it would take too long to get from one to another in supercruise. But on my way to the Barnard's Loop I have found this pair of systems:

Spoiler

I decided that 0.47 LY is a reasonable distance and I should try to do my little experiment. I started from HIP 29630 and it took me around 3 hours to cross 0.47 LY of void.

Here is what I have found during and at the end of this journey:

1. Maximum supercruise speed is 2001c;
2. The point on which my FSD computer locked was actually 0.47 LY away, but...
3. There was no star system at the arrival...
4. It was just a point in a really deep space:

Spoiler

5. Technically I was still in HIP 29630:

Spoiler

6. Even though I was only 143 Ls away from the destination I could and I needed to initiate hyperjump in order to get there:

Spoiler

That was my little report about what would happen if you decide to fly to another star system in supercruise. May be some of you already know this, but I think this information still will be interesting.

 

[Arnoldo]

this is known as slowboating and has been tested many times. You can travel the physical distance but the systems are logically separated so you have no alternative but to jump.

Now, if they ever change this, think how long exploration journeys could take

 

[dognosh]

EternalDragon, yes thanks for that. When we tell you it has been done before, no disrespect is meant, so here goes :
It has been done many times before since original beta when all we had was a restricted bubble.

We had a bubble a few 100 LYs in size in beta, so comnanders decided to slowboat it to systems FD did not allow us to go to, though they looked tantalisingly close.

 

[Anuranium]

Guys, guys.
May I remind you that even though this has been done before, by quite a few people (yes I tried it once too... I even naively thought I'd detect visual movement from stars in the distance when going insanely fast in supercruise - and yet I know now how stupid I was to assume that), this fellow CMDR has also done this - perhaps not knowing that others have done this before them.

He/she might have been curious, wanted to set themself out to test, to find out, yes EXPLORE many of the amazing aspects of this game and galaxy. To me THAT is exactly what exploring is all about - to seek the unknown, to find out for yourself. Even better still - they shared it with the rest of us.

Let us welcome EternalDragon on this forum with open arms, and even if we have heard it before, they might find something new us "veterans" haven't really thought about or found out yet

 

[disorganise]

it's also plausible that the mechanic can change, so always worth testing out again in each update.

 

[shreddog]

this is known as slowboating and has been tested many times. You can travel the physical distance but the systems are logically separated so you have no alternative but to jump.

Now, if they ever change this, think how long exploration journeys could take

This is how exploration travel should have been to uncharted systems. Only with a placed nav beacon should you be able to jump to a system. Of course the maximum cruise speed would have to upped a fair bit.

 

[iain666]

This is how exploration travel should have been to uncharted systems. Only with a placed nav beacon should you be able to jump to a system. Of course the maximum cruise speed would have to upped a fair bit.

That would be awesome. We'd probably only be half way to Sgr A* by now but the achievement would be immense.

 

[Gabberkooij]

I can only dream of dropping a navigation beacon just besides a black hole or between a very close binary and watch people to arive...

I would not mind if they would implement this and reset the game, or start a 2nd server park with this

 

[mls]

This is how exploration travel should have been to uncharted systems. Only with a placed nav beacon should you be able to jump to a system. Of course the maximum cruise speed would have to upped a fair bit.

actually, i believe to have read that fsd mainly works by going in the general direction of your target and then locate the largest gravitational dent around this target. At least that's how it was explained that you always drop out at the heaviest astronomical object in the system.
so you wouldn't need a beacon or a specific location or accurate coordinates. You'd just point in the general direction and let fsd look for the specific gravitational dent in a given distance. The distance can be observed in several ways and shouldn't be a problem for a starship in space.

o7

 

[Karla]

I've often wondered what the point of nav beacons are.

 

[newman1702]

I've often wondered what the point of nav beacons are.

There wasn't much of one until now (other than to hunt NPC's in systems without RES sites..), since 2.1 you can scan a nav beacon to obtain information about the system it's in without using a discovery scanner.

I don't think supercruising to another star would have been a great mechanic, while it might sound good to people on paper the long long periods of flying straight would soon become grating and make exploration liked by a much smaller percentage of players. Instead, some mechanic like EDD's trilateration could have been used to access previously uncharted systems; kind of like they calculated each jump carefully in Battlestar Galactica; and if a system had a nav beacon this would become unnecessary. This could have created additional gameplay where larger player controlled ships had the ability to deploy nav beacons, leading to a whole "road builders" subset of the exploration community. Players who build large exploration ships with nav beacons in their holds, carefully calculate jumps into the unknown, and deploy said beacons. But, it is what it is and I kind of doubt it'll change.

 

[Bobo]

Personaly I think its really sad that on reaching what should be a jumpable distance (lets say you fly towards a star 43 ly away and your range is 40ly) the game does not recalculate the fuel needed, so no matter how near you get, you will never be able to jump.

People post reasons, but none make any sense or really stand up when questioned.