Why do I keep overshooting my target?

Piratescribe

Piratescribe
Gawd I feel like an idiot, but I keep overshooting my target in supercruise and I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. I watch my Distance/Speed guide, and I keep my throttle in the recommended blue zone.... but the Distance will close in and I'll get the "slow down" error... I lean on my throttle down (S key) and even stop (X) and yet, not only do I not slow but often times I'll see me speed INCREASE until I'm right past the target, and finally I'll slow and stop and be able to spin around and crawl to my target.
Any idea what in the world I'm doing wrong? Thanks for any feedback!
 

Piratescribe

Piratescribe
ethelred said:
Point at target.

Max speed until (to be safe) 15 seconds out (as per the timer), then throttle to middle of blue zone.

Don't touch the throttle and you should never overshoot.

Did you do that?
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Like I said, I KEEP my throttle in the recommended blue zone the entire time right up to when I get the "Slow Down" message.
Then I S or X, but it'll actually speed up (or at least NOT slow down) until I'm past it.
(And yeah, I've made sure my keybindings are still default, S=reverse X=stop)
 

Sunyavadin

Sunyavadin
SC-assist can be handy for this if you want an easier solution. It also has side-perks if you can get the hang of the throttling trick.
I'd recommend slowing to the very bottom of the blue zone about 15s out, perhaps even under the blue, until you get the hang of approaches.
 

ethelred

ethelred
Forgive the question, but are you sure you're bindings are right?

You shouldn't even get a slow down if you're in the blue all the way (iirc).

Are you going close to a planet or something?
 

Sunyavadin

Sunyavadin
ethelred said:
Are you going close to a planet or something?
Click to expand...
Yeah, gravitational slingshots were a surprise to me (a pleasant one, as I was all "oh cool") at first, once I noticed going near a planet's gravity well en route to somewhere else shot my acceleration off the charts.
 
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Faded Glory

Faded Glory
Once you get the slow down message it's too late, it's highly unlikely any throttle change will help at that point.

The techniques the others have suggested are the correct, but when you start to decelerate you need to be in the lower part of the blue zone, not just in the blue zone, and at that point keep an eye on the time to destination indicator, it must not go below 6 seconds, so as you start to get to that throttle down a bit more. Take it slow to start with then get more efficient as you get more practiced.

Certainly most stations are near planets, and depending how you come in you will see your time to destination slow down a lot as you pass through the planet's gravity well, but if you then increase your throttle, when you start to leave the body's gravity well you risk accelerating too fast and overshooting. :)
 

Sunyavadin

Sunyavadin
Faded Glory said:
Certainly most stations are near planets, and depending how you come in you will see your time to destination slow down a lot as you pass through the planet's gravity well, but if you then increase your throttle, when you start to leave the body's gravity well you risk accelerating too fast and overshooting. :)
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yeah, bear your approach vector in mind and see if you can spot where on the orbital path the tiny dot of the station is. Is it on the near or far side of the planet relative to you? If it's on the far side and appears close to the planet from your perspective, it means you will have to pass close to the planet before getting to it.
 

[PS4] Lorenzo Waringos

[PS4] Lorenzo Waringos
The blue bit on your spedo is good but you need to keep an eye out down the bottom left.

Here, I have a little way to go, and my speed is ok for now.

E147819C-B40C-45C7-87E8-047ADB250D3A.jpeg


Here, my distance and speed are perfect. It will tell me I can disengage.

9213FE75-AE4F-4E53-A0C9-440A49229BBD.jpeg
 

Piratescribe

Piratescribe
Faded Glory said:
Once you get the slow down message it's too late, it's highly unlikely any throttle change will help at that point.

The techniques the others have suggested are the correct, but when you start to decelerate you need to be in the lower part of the blue zone, not just in the blue zone, and at that point keep an eye on the time to destination indicator, it must not go below 6 seconds, so as you start to get to that throttle down a bit more. Take it slow to start with then get more efficient as you get more practiced.

Certainly most stations are near planets, and depending how you come in you will see your time to destination slow down a lot as you pass through the planet's gravity well, but if you then increase your throttle, when you start to leave the body's gravity well you risk accelerating too fast and overshooting. :)
Click to expand...
OK, I made sure I stayed in the lower end of the blue on my latest trip... and I noticed this time the Speed indicator on the left-hand screen actually decreased on its own toward the goal! I didn't get the "Slow Down" and was able to hit J to exit jump in time! i.e. I didn't overshoot!
Thanks for the tip!
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
Something to remember about supercruise is that as your speed can vary between 2.5km/s and 2001c, depending on how close you are to large gravity sources, the speed gauge works a bit differently to in normal space to fit it all in.

The "top speed" indicator goes up on a logarithmic scale between 2.5km/s at the bottom and 2001c at the top. 1c (i.e. lightspeed) is about in the middle of it. This shows the top speed you could accelerate from zero to given the current gravitational conditions.

Your current speed is shown on a linear scale as a multiple of the top speed mark.

So, if you're approaching a gravity well "too fast" to slow down, your top speed will decrease, but your actual speed will decrease slower, and therefore the size of the current speed bar will increase - you aren't actually going faster as such, but you're going faster relative to the local gravitational conditions, and can end up going (much!) faster than the local "top speed" - it's at this point that the "Slow Down" warning appears, showing that the local gravity is strong enough to be actively forcing braking.

(Similarly, the "time to arrival" is based on your current speed, so again it's more a measure of speed relative to gravity than anything else)

Once you get used to it, this way of displaying speed makes a lot of sense ... but it can be a bit weird at first.



For a "slow" approach, your speed needs to be <=75% of the local maximum once you get to 0:06 "time to arrival". Speeds a little above 75% are still in the "blue zone" for supercruise, so you may just need to throttle down slightly more.

For a "fast" approach, you can come in at about 95%, and use the overshoot to your advantage by spiralling around the target and using close passes to heavy objects to rapidly shed speed. It takes a bit more practice but can save a minute or more per trip, as well as making it harder for pirates to catch you - look up some Buckyball race videos for an idea of how that works. There's a lot you can do to optimise beyond the straight-line approach if you want more fun and excitement once you've got the hang of the slow approach.
 

rrobes

R
As above, graduate the throttle to the 7 sec to arrival mark, leave it there. Sometimes you can come in at 6, even at 5, but you run the risk of over shooting when below the 7s.

I make it part of the game and try to come in as fast as I can, even using the gravity well as a "hook" (not easy to do).
 

Awesumnus Maximus

A
As a fellow keyboarder, mad dash at the station 100% throtle. When timer hits 6s, hit your 50% key. You will not overshoot. I cut to 50 then add another 25% and it stays at 6s all the way in.
 
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