I've been playing this game for almost 10 years now, and I just am not grasping the concept of a GRAVITY WELL in this game, because it certainly is not modeled after the physical properties of our universe. So I flew in to Sinclair Platform, which orbits a decent sized gas-giant. As I approach the planet, I always listen to the engines for the Gravity Well influence and adjust speeds accordingly. I've noticed since the Ascendancy release that that laws of gravitational physics don't work in this game, and the warning system is useless, so why even put it in the game if I can hear it in the engines. It is also worth mentioning that no matter what you do (fly further away from the gravitational influence of the body, slow my engines to dead stop...), the loop of shame is happening way more than it used to. It's a joke! Imagine in MS Flight Sim, if they just decided to randomize lift, or make air disappear. That's similar to how ED works with gravity. It makes no sense, and instead of allowing me to learn how to use it, Frontier decides to make the gravitational effects in this game as unpredictable, and impossible to understand, and whatever algorithm they keep messing about with, is making me a worse pilot the longer I play. I mean this game defies all things reality and calls itself a simulator???? Please, make this make sense! Or give us better tools to fly better, not progressively worse. Like maybe a grav field analyzer, or make the grav well alert go off reasonably well before I simply become a massenger. It's as if the gravity in this game is getting more chaotic, and not improving the mechanics of how to escape or prevent it from being an unrealistic and not even challenging because it is completely unpredictable (gravity is a universal constant, bros!). Why do you put in a gravity well warning, if it doesn't give us time to escape the pull? I can't visualize it, the audio from engines is too late, and the gravity well warning is late as well. So what is the point?
what's going on with gravity wells?
- Thread starter mintaka5
- Start date
Stick to the 6 seconds rule and you should be fine. If gravity wells are involved, you have to watch that number carefully, because it might switch to 5 seconds if you are too close to the point-of-no-return speed. Then you have to react quickly to kill throttle in order for it to settle on 6 upwards again. Always worked for me, except for SCO. There I have yet to figure out a good algorithm.
Hmmm... you're going to have to ask CMD Furrycat whether anything had changed since they made this video:
But a more recent account by another professional gravity br(e)aker suggests no:
edrushfleet.co.uk
But, from your sentence
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ED SC acts more (a lot, actually) like other SF concepts of superluminal drives, which require you to be in "flat" space - the more curved space becomes, i.e. the steeper the gravitational gradient is, the harder it is to keep running in Supercruise. The "Gravity Well" (or formerly "Slow Down") warning simply tells you that your engines lost/are losing their traction with whatever it is they are pushing against and you're effectively freewheeling
But a more recent account by another professional gravity br(e)aker suggests no:
Zen and the Art of Gravity Braking
This post contains simplified ideas inspired by those proposed in the book “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” (ZATAOMM). A tome I read a long, long time ago, and about which I …
edrushfleet.co.uk
But, from your sentence
it seems that you're still stuck in the headspace of Einsteinian space. Which supercruise isn't. In SC, you're flying inside of a decidedly non-Einsteinian continuum, evidenced by the observations that a) you can easily exceed the speed of light and b) you survive the experience (c.f. The Expanse
ED SC acts more (a lot, actually) like other SF concepts of superluminal drives, which require you to be in "flat" space - the more curved space becomes, i.e. the steeper the gravitational gradient is, the harder it is to keep running in Supercruise. The "Gravity Well" (or formerly "Slow Down") warning simply tells you that your engines lost/are losing their traction with whatever it is they are pushing against and you're effectively freewheeling
Yep, haven't noticed any change. 6s still works as well as it ever did.
There haven't been any mechanical changes to the supercruise gameplay.
As for why it doesn't bear any resemblance to real world physics, that's because SC is a fantasy form of FTL (based very loosely on a slightly less fantastical theory) where stronger gravity equals lower effective velocities, purely for gameplay purposes.
As for why it doesn't bear any resemblance to real world physics, that's because SC is a fantasy form of FTL (based very loosely on a slightly less fantastical theory) where stronger gravity equals lower effective velocities, purely for gameplay purposes.
Nothing wrong with how gravity braking works, as near as I can tell. There's a Buckyball Race going on right now...
Community Event / Creation - Buckyball Racing Club presents: X^2 Marks the Dash (Triple Eight Championship, Race 8)
X^2 Marks the Dash A Triple 8 Season Race hosted by Commander Bruski presented by the Buckyball Racing Club The Straightest Distance Between 11 points is a straight up ! Back in 3300, the first "Buckyball" Braben Star-to-Shining-Star Memorial Trophy Dash, widely known simply as The Buckyball...
... and while I've only made one run so far, it was consistent with my performance in past races.
I've not seen or heard any changes at all to the supercruise flight model - other than, of course, SCO letting us go a lot faster than normal in the first place. All the usual visual and audio cues seem to work just as before and my approaches taking advantage of the properties of supercruise still work effectively.
There is no single response to that - it depends why you're travelling that fast, which direction you're travelling in, what you want to do, etc. - and the notice showing up at even slightly slower relative speeds would mean it was basically permanently on.
If you're using the 6 second rule because you want NPC interdictions for the bounties, mission bonus payouts, etc. then the answer is very simple: unbind the SCO key so you aren't tempted to press it, or fit a regular FSD instead.
If you're using SCO because you want to get somewhere quickly then on long journeys cutting it out at about 0:04 lets you settle into a spiral/gravity-brake approach easily enough - though you do need to be more aware of whether you're approaching a secondary star, a gas giant with a bunch of moons, or a lone rocky planet as you'll get very different deceleration profiles for each. There's no simple algorithm as such because it really depends on what you're approaching much more strongly than a non-SCO approach, so it's just a matter of building up practice and instincts for each type of target.
Similarly if you're using SCO to go past a planet rather than around it, exactly when you cut it depends on how far past you want to end up.
For short journeys, tapping the SCO on and then cutting it once you've gone about 10-20% of the original distance seems about right, though again, you need to be aware of the likely gravitational profile at the other end to get it perfect.
Really it's something you're supposed to actively fly rather than solve with a spreadsheet, so there's not really an algorithm any more than "what's the algorithm to shoot down a pirate FAS" is a thing.
The "Gravity Well" notice appears in a very specific circumstance - when your current supercruise speed exceeds that which you could accelerate up to from zero without SCO boosts in the current gravitational field strength. That is, in circumstances where the current gravity well is actively slowing you down rather than allowing you to accelerate freely.
There is no single response to that - it depends why you're travelling that fast, which direction you're travelling in, what you want to do, etc. - and the notice showing up at even slightly slower relative speeds would mean it was basically permanently on.
This depends, I think.
If you're using the 6 second rule because you want NPC interdictions for the bounties, mission bonus payouts, etc. then the answer is very simple: unbind the SCO key so you aren't tempted to press it, or fit a regular FSD instead.
If you're using SCO because you want to get somewhere quickly then on long journeys cutting it out at about 0:04 lets you settle into a spiral/gravity-brake approach easily enough - though you do need to be more aware of whether you're approaching a secondary star, a gas giant with a bunch of moons, or a lone rocky planet as you'll get very different deceleration profiles for each. There's no simple algorithm as such because it really depends on what you're approaching much more strongly than a non-SCO approach, so it's just a matter of building up practice and instincts for each type of target.
Similarly if you're using SCO to go past a planet rather than around it, exactly when you cut it depends on how far past you want to end up.
For short journeys, tapping the SCO on and then cutting it once you've gone about 10-20% of the original distance seems about right, though again, you need to be aware of the likely gravitational profile at the other end to get it perfect.
Really it's something you're supposed to actively fly rather than solve with a spreadsheet, so there's not really an algorithm any more than "what's the algorithm to shoot down a pirate FAS" is a thing.