What's up with our reverse thrusters?

[Armia]

All ships in Elite has three kinds of thrusters, main engines, reverse thrusters and RCS thrusters.

While RCS thrusters are quite reasonably small in their sizes, the reverse(forward facing) thrusters are almost comically ginormous! Ship builders such as Lakon and DeLacy have tendancy to design reverse thrusters in their ships even bigger. So look at the Anaconda when she decelerates. Notice those engine exhausts coming off, big enough to burn down an entire planet?

Funny thing is, I think for gameplay reasons of course, they are not as strong as in terms of thrust they generate, compared to the RCS thrusters even when they are almost 6-7x times big.

I didn't notice this inconsistency before Horizons, but when you take a Conda to any planet above 0.4G or something, if you face towards the planet and set throttle to neutral, your Conda will slowly begin to fall down.

That means the reverse thrusters has an acceleration rate of less than around 5m/s^2. I tested this by setting throttle to reverse full in open space, and checking the rate of acceleration with my two 1F / gimballed eyeballs mk. 1. The result seemed to be more or less consistent.

So what I propose is, either buff the ships' backwards thrust to at least reasonably match the size of the reverse thrusters, or make them smaller at least. This is quite mind-boggling once you start to think about it.

 

[VukiBeer]

Now that you mention it, yeah I kind of agree with you mate. A little wierd, or at least a bit inkonsistent

 

[the100thmonkey]

All reverse thrusters are 60% of the forward thrust of the ship.

They used to be 100% in FA-off and it was glorious, but that was, apparently, a bug, and it got squished with 1.4.

*edit*

Translational thrust is individually weak, but the vectors combine cumulatively, so thrusting up+left is twice as powerful as just thrusting left.

 

[Bambi]

Actually the situation is that any ship will hover on any planet regardless of its thrust. But the retro thrusters don't have the same fudge.

 

[Lucius-Darcia]

Actually the situation is that any ship will hover on any planet regardless of its thrust. But the retro thrusters don't have the same fudge.

This!!!
I was able to hover over this 9.77G planet with 5D thrusters in my Anaconda but wasn't able to pick the nose morethan 20° without falling backwards down......
The lateral thrusters are UNBELIEVABLE powerful compared to their size....

But on a 2G planet i can't look to the ground without falling down forwards with 7A G5 DD thrusters because the backwards thrusters can't hold my position???

 

[IceFire122]

When above planets, the downward thrusters get power routed from the other thrusters for gravity compensation. Hence, you can hover over any planet, but lose ability to accelerate or brake.
If you tilt you downwards thrusters away from the planet, you might start falling, as the other thrusters are weakened.

Interesting enough, the rerouting might generate downward thrust stronger than you main thrusters in space. This is for players convenience to always have 0.5g more lift than the planets gravity. This overdriving comes at the cost of higher heat generation.

 

[Shadowdancer]

I was able to hover over this 9.77G planet with 5D thrusters in my Anaconda but wasn't able to pick the nose morethan 20° without falling backwards down......
The lateral thrusters are UNBELIEVABLE powerful compared to their size....

The Planetary Approach Suite has, as part of its package, a ridiculous tuning of the "RCS" thrusters to keep your ship off the ground. That's also the reason why your ship will run much hotter when the suite is doing its job.

 

[Helfar]

The ASP Explorer front engines always make me laugh

 

[Jack Schitt]

When above planets, the downward thrusters get power routed from the other thrusters for gravity compensation. Hence, you can hover over any planet, but lose ability to accelerate or brake.

Or pitch and roll, to some degree.

I used to fly all approaches to planetary landing pads in a "fixed wing" style i.e. banking turns to align with the pad. But on high-g worlds I would occasionally overcook a turn, slip off the cushion provided by the overpowered downward thrusters, and crash sideways into the ground. I took a few hits before I realised what was going on. Now I fly "rotary wing" approaches on high-g planets, yawing rather than banking so the vertical thrusters remain... well, vertical.

It's a strange mechanic. I understand why it's there, but it's not intuitive. It can take a few crashes or near crashes before it becomes clear.

 

[IceFire122]

It's a strange mechanic. I understand why it's there, but it's not intuitive. It can take a few crashes or near crashes before it becomes clear.

We should be glad, it is not the old Frontier/FFE mechanic, where slowing down killed your lift and made you sink. No hovering over one spot, always in motion. Take off basically was a jump/leap into the air, to give you enough time to gain some speed.

 

[2plex]

Or pitch and roll, to some degree.

I used to fly all approaches to planetary landing pads in a "fixed wing" style i.e. banking turns to align with the pad. But on high-g worlds I would occasionally overcook a turn, slip off the cushion provided by the overpowered downward thrusters, and crash sideways into the ground. I took a few hits before I realised what was going on. Now I fly "rotary wing" approaches on high-g planets, yawing rather than banking so the vertical thrusters remain... well, vertical.

It's a strange mechanic. I understand why it's there, but it's not intuitive. It can take a few crashes or near crashes before it becomes clear.

It's a crappy mechanic for any explorer trying to spot something on a high-G planet, esp. with at awkward dashboard placing in Lakon vessels effectively blocking most of your down view.
But if you roll on your back to peek, you'll heat up quickly.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

All reverse thrusters are 60% of the forward thrust of the ship.

Hehe, I keep trying to locate the missing 90% Thrust on my Cutter Reverse Thrusters then. So far, they seem to only have about 10% Thrust in reverse...
(I got used to the 4km stopping Distance. Just need that Decal on the back - We brake for nobody! )

 

[CTCParadox]

I kind of wish there were no magic thrusters for planetary landings.
It would give more variety to the ships if you had to use lighter ships (or maybe the Keelback with it's rotating thrusters) for the heavier planets (6g+).

I hope to god they don't let us walk around on those monsters, not without some kind of serious augmentation.

CMDR CTCParadox

 

[aRJay]

We should be glad, it is not the old Frontier/FFE mechanic, where slowing down killed your lift and made you sink. No hovering over one spot, always in motion. Take off basically was a jump/leap into the air, to give you enough time to gain some speed.

The main thing I remember about those take offs was how long it seemed to take to get back out into space.

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It's a crappy mechanic for any explorer trying to spot something on a high-G planet, esp. with at awkward dashboard placing in Lakon vessels effectively blocking most of your down view.
But if you roll on your back to peek, you'll heat up quickly.

Well there is a feature for multi crew, in your Asp Exp. you (or somebody) will be able to sit in the lower cockpit which looks from outside to have a spectacular downward view.