*** The Official Elite: Dangerous Thread ***

Associate
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Did you wander outside of the starter systems by any chance? Once you dock outside of those you can't go back and game won't warn you before you do, which is nice.

But assuming that's what happened, don't worry, just keep going.

O7 CMDR.

Did this over the weekend, and I was like thanks for the warning! Thankfully had some funds, although my sidewinder jump distance hindered me somewhat, until I managed to find a station to upgrade it.

just upgraded my sidewinder

Power plant is now 2A

Frame shift drive is now 2D

what a difference !!

oh and im just doing a date courier mission, 1st time ive had to go 200,000 LS, my super cruise nearly hit 600c !!!!
i barely hit 30 before !

Abandoned the dolphin idea for now, and bought a gunless cobra mk3 (although might swap B modules for D, apart from FSD, to save weight) as I seem to have settled into trading/exploring.
Trading around Nepi, I seem to find 200000cr runs above my level, which I complete but occasionally cause AI people to chase and shoot at me and I boost and jump away - wonder if mines are any use...?
 
Underboss
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ive just done another small upgrade to my sidewinder
changed the FSD from 2D to 2A

it cools down pretty quick now and i can immediately jump to the next system!

still cant see any 3+ class, i guess its because my reputation is too low for them to appear?
 
Associate
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The pad number faces you whichever side of the pad you're on.
It's easy with planetary outpost, if you approach from wrong side, numbers read wrong way.
https://imgur.com/E8J0fxx


Orbital outpost is different, as numbers are flipping and always read good way, however pad number is always on a far side, when you enter that light cuboid it is still supposed to be in front of you.
In this picture below I approached wrong way and the numbers are on the closer side, however I circled element on the pad itself, it would appear it is always on the back of the pad, I am looking always at the numbers though.
https://imgur.com/SGdUdqI


This is exactly what I mean numbers on the far side of the cuboid and in front of the ship.
If you position yourself wrong way, numbers will be behind.
https://imgur.com/d6lwITs


Hope that helps ;)
 
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Soldato
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Ah, I hadn't thought about planetary ones. That tip with them always being on the back edge is a good one though! I hadn't noticed that, and will look out for it now.
 
Soldato
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Just checking with you new guys just starting, do you know about the 7 seconds rule for supercruise? It is one of the most fundamental laws in the game and I'm not sure if there's anything in the tutorials to tell you this. I certainly had to stumble upon this info from 3rd party sites. And yeah, the first 100 hours in ED are probably some of the best in any game, as long as you don't overtly go for get rich quick schemes.
 
Soldato
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err nope, not heard that one before, please enlighten me

You may have noticed when super cruising to a station or planet, or anything really that you target in the nav map and fly to, that if you are flying too fast when you get close you overshoot and have to do a loop of shame, or if you go the other way and over compensate reducing throttle too soon you will probably end up taking longer than optimum to reach to the drop out zone? Well, the 7 second rule solves this

Simply put, to fly from point A to point B in as optimum a time as possible in super cruise, target point B using the nav map, galaxy map, target button or whatever, set throttle to maximum 100% and keep an eye on the time to reach the target which is in the centre of the HUD, it will be counting down. As soon as it reaches 7 seconds to go, throttle down to exactly 75% and the ship will start to slow down at just the correct rate such that you get to the target in the optimum time without ever overshooting. Don't ask me why 75% is the figure, or why it has to be 7 seconds, or even why it does this, it just does. I am sure there is some physics explanation why but I never bothered to find out. You can push it to 6 seconds usually and still not overshoot, but 7 seconds is the safe number.

The other thing you may see when flying around is the text "SLOW DOWN" in red text in the HUD. This does not mean you are flying too fast and are being told to slow down, it actually means some nearby planet's gravity well is slowing you down, and you can safely ignore the message if you are just traveling along and can keep 100% throttle going without any issue. Its just another one of those things you would never be able to find out in game what it meant and have to hear it by word of mouth. There are some tricks with the slow down thing you can use to break the 7 second rule, but these are more advanced and I personally never bothered to find out.

Edit: It occurs to me you may actually be using the super cruise assist module on your ship. If you do then you won't have noticed the overshoot problem as the throttle management to 75% is what the assist is doing. But once you get other ships and want something else in the module slot instead of super cruise assist, then you need the 7 second rule for sure.
 
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Associate
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Even with supercruise assist it is possible to use this trick, just set it to manual throttle.
SC Assist always maintains 75%, manual throttle will reduce travelling time.

At one point you may want to get rid of auto-dock and supercruise assist modules.
These compartments could be used for different things.
Therefore manual landing and supercruise would come handy.
 
Underboss
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You may have noticed when super cruising to a station or planet, or anything really that you target in the nav map and fly to, that if you are flying too fast when you get close you overshoot and have to do a loop of shame, or if you go the other way and over compensate reducing throttle too soon you will probably end up taking longer than optimum to reach to the drop out zone? Well, the 7 second rule solves this

Simply put, to fly from point A to point B in as optimum a time as possible in super cruise, target point B using the nav map, galaxy map, target button or whatever, set throttle to maximum 100% and keep an eye on the time to reach the target which is in the centre of the HUD, it will be counting down. As soon as it reaches 7 seconds to go, throttle down to exactly 75% and the ship will start to slow down at just the correct rate such that you get to the target in the optimum time without ever overshooting. Don't ask me why 75% is the figure, or why it has to be 7 seconds, or even why it does this, it just does. I am sure there is some physics explanation why but I never bothered to find out. You can push it to 6 seconds usually and still not overshoot, but 7 seconds is the safe number.

The other thing you may see when flying around is the text "SLOW DOWN" in red text in the HUD. This does not mean you are flying too fast and are being told to slow down, it actually means some nearby planet's gravity well is slowing you down, and you can safely ignore the message if you are just traveling along and can keep 100% throttle going without any issue. Its just another one of those things you would never be able to find out in game what it meant and have to hear it by word of mouth. There are some tricks with the slow down thing you can use to break the 7 second rule, but these are more advanced and I personally never bothered to find out.

Edit: It occurs to me you may actually be using the super cruise assist module on your ship. If you do then you won't have noticed the overshoot problem as the throttle management to 75% is what the assist is doing. But once you get other ships and want something else in the module slot instead of super cruise assist, then you need the 7 second rule for sure.


yep ive done that a few times

im in VR, so i have to turn my head to get the nav up, select where im going to click on "assist" but sometimes im too late and i shoot past it at a rate of knots !!!

Thanks for the tip ! i will try this out tonight im sure


i thought the SLOW DOWN meant im going to crash into the star / planet
 
Associate
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Ah I envy people starting this game from scratch :)

Looked at this 5 years ago, but it didn't look ready.
Decent learning curve, and enjoying picking/figuring/finding things out - put a DSS on cobra last night. Took a little while to scan planet, as either dropped out of orbit or shot off into space. Less speed, more haste!
Found a booming economy too, so made an easy 500,000cr trip

@Bubo - cheers for the 7 second tip, have been regularly doing a loop of shame :cry:

It's a bit like ETS2/ATS but for space :D
I can see me sticking with this
 
Soldato
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Because I do a fair bit of exploring, I have retained the supercruise assist purely for the purpose of putting me in orbit for planet scanning. Is there an easy way to attain a stable orbit manually?
 
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