Topics Covered:
1. Supercruise
- Mass lock
- Units of speed
- Monitoring your throttle
- Gravity wells
- Safe disengage
- FSD cooldown
- Escape vector
- Planetary approach
2. Hyperspace
- Approaching suns
- Being stranded next to a sun
- Fuel scooping
- Monitoring fuel
3. Interdiction
- Breaking interdiction
- Submitting to interdiction
- High waking
- Low waking
- Mass lock factor
The Nerdy Stuff:
The modern frame shift drive is technology modified from the ancient Alcubierre drive theory, which was proposed by Mexican theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre. The FSD compresses space in front of a starship and expands space behind it. Space is shifted around the ship rather than the ship accelerating in space, allowing it to "travel" at speeds exceeding the limitations of faster-than-light travel imposed by Einstein's theory of relativity.
Early development of the FSD in the Federation had some unfortunate casualties. They say that molecules of early FSD test pilots are still smeared across the Sol system to this day. The original FSD test pilot, Commander Jop Aleeses, along with his modified test craft, the Alcubis 5, simply vanished when the FSD was activated. No trace of the spacecraft was ever found.
A garbled vocal transmission, still circulating galnet to this day, claims to be the last words spoken by Commander Aleeses: "It's like a flower." Conspiracy theorists have recently revived this transmission in order to link it to the recent, undeniable appearance of Thargoid ships in the galaxy.
The Federation categorically denies that the recording is the voice of Aleeses, stating that no voice communication came from the Alcubis 5 after the FSD was activated.
Retract Everything:
Before you can activate your FSD, you must not have anything deployed outside of your ship that might break the pocket of shifting space created by the FSD. This includes:
- Hardpoints (weapons)
- Landing gear
- Cargo scoop
If you don't retract all of this equipment, the FSD will not activate.
Supercruise:
Supercruise is how you travel quickly WITHIN A SINGLE STAR SYSTEM. If you leave Sol and want to fly to Saturn, supercruise is how you get there. When you activate supercruise the FSD generally takes around ten seconds to charge up and engage.
Be aware of mass lock:
If you are too close to a larger object, such as a planet or a station, there is a distance from that object within which the FSD cannot be activated. The lower right hand HUD will show when you are mass locked:
Once that indicator light turns off, you can charge up the FSD.
Units of Speed:
C
Ship speed in supercruise is shown in increments of the speed of light, or 1C.
Mm/s
At speeds under 1C, speed is commonly displayed in Mm/s, or Megameters per second. (1 million meters)
1C = 300Mm/s, or 300 million meters per second.
Km/s
Speeds under 1 Mm are displayed in kilometers per second.
Monitor your throttle:
When you select a destination in a star system and activate supercruise, your ship will slowly accelerate, possibly to many times 1C. Nearby gravity wells will slow down your rate of travel. The flight computer will automatically accelerate your ship and then decelerate as you approach the target station or planet. But you still have to keep an eye on your speed during final approach. The navigation computer does not account for gravity wells in its calculations. As you approach a distant planet, your ship will lose its ability to control thrust once its gravity starts to affect you, and you will overshoot your target. By the time you see the "slow down" message in the HUD, it is generally too late.
The SLOW DOWN message actually means "Your ship is being slowed down by a gravity well". It is NOT telling you to slow down. When this happens your FSD revs high, and you have no control over your thrust setting, causing you to overshoot the target.
If you instead monitor the ship's throttle and keep the speed marker in the middle to lower part of the "blue zone" as you get closer to your destination, you will not overshoot the target.
A good rule of thumb: Watch the timer under your targeted destination. Typically, if you throttle back to the 'safe' zone (75% throttle) by the time the countdown hits SEVEN SECONDS, then you will not overshoot the target.
Please note: In the print screen on the left, my HUD colors are non-standard. The "safe" speed zone is white in this photo. In the standard orange HUD the safe zone is blue.
In spite of your precautions, gravity can and will take you by surprise at times. When you see your speed spike, immediately turn away from your target. As soon as you see the speed meter begin to fall, you can then return to your original course.
Wait for the "safe to disengage" message:
If you want to drop out of supercruise, set your throttle to zero and watch your speed. If you try to disengage supercruise while your ship is traveling 1Mm/s or greater, the navigation computer will warn you that the speed is too great to disengage safely:
If you ignore this warning and hit disengage a second time, the FSD will stop and throw you into regular space. You will take some ship damage, and the FSD will be unavailable while it recovers from the heat damage. The lower right HUD shows the cooldown status:
Find your alignment marker:
If you power up supercruise (or hyperspace) and see the following alignment message:
It means you are not lined up with your target. Look at your targeting HUD and align your ship to point at the target. This includes alignment issues when leaving a planet. In order to engage supercruise when close to a planet, the alignment vector is straight up from the ground.
Once you point your ship in the indicated direction, the FSD should activate.
Planetary approach speed - be cautious!
If your destination is on a planet, be extra cautious on your approach speed. The maximum safe speed to enter orbital cruise is 200 km/s. It is not uncommon for the navigational computer to have the ship going too fast when you enter orbital cruise, which results in an immediate FSD drop and overheat situation. The lower left HUD will show your current speed and indicate the safe speed threshold:
When the planetary descent overlay appears on your HUD, make sure you are under 200 km/s.
Your ship will then drop toward the planet in orbital cruise mode. Once you reach 25 kilometers the ship will transition to orbital glide to get you down the rest of the way. You can control the ship during orbital glide.
What if I start orbital drop and my station is on the other side of the planet?
It is a common mistake to select the target PLANET and not the actual STATION that is on the surface of the planet. So you approach the planet thinking you are lined up on target, start orbital drop, and then realize that your station is not there.
Fixing it: Once you realize your mistake:
a. After you drop to the surface and exit orbital glide, find the station in your navigation pane and select it as your destination.
b. If it is so far away that it will take a long time to get there, power up the FSD and enter supercruise. You've already read earlier in this article that you must point your ship straight up to engage supercruise on a planet.
c. Allow supercruise to get going and let your ship exit the orbital sphere, then SLOW DOWN and fly in an orbit around the planet until the target station is in front of and below you. You want to dip down to the station at an angle of about -45 degrees. Technically, the acceptable descent angles are -5 to -60, but if you go in too shallow you will drop out farther away from your station, and if you go too steep your FSD will do an emergency stop from overheating.
Avoiding it: Get in the habit of making sure your target station is highlighted in your targeting reticle rather than the planet name. IF THE TARGETING RETICLE IS A DASHED LINE, this means that the station is on the far side of the planet from you. Slow down before you enter orbital cruise and circle around the horizon until the station is in front of and below you.
Hyperspace (System Jumping):
Hyperspace is how you travel quickly BETWEEN STAR SYSTEMS. When you activate a hyperspace jump the FSD takes longer to charge up and engage compared to supercruise. A hyperspace tunnel opens and your ship travels LIGHT YEARS in a matter of seconds.
Watch for approaching suns!
A hyperspace jump ends with you pointing directly at the sun of the destination system, so PAY ATTENTION. Hyperspace jumps are not the time to take a coffee break and visit the head. After a jump finishes you only have seconds to turn your ship away before the heat from the sun shuts down your FSD. When you exit hyperspace your ship is in supercruise.
I'm stranded next to a sun - what do I do?
If you do get too close and are thrown into regular space right next to the blazing ball of gas, do NOT activate a hyperspace jump! The time that it takes to power the FSD for hyperspace can overheat your ship and blow it up around you. Instead, take a breath and watch the heat indicator on your HUD. Once it stabilizes, point your ship directly away from the sun and activate supercruise. The power up time is much faster and generally engages before the heat on your ship goes dangerously high. If you have a heat sink, launch it to help reduce the heat build up. You can also power down non-essential modules to reduce heat build up before activating supercruise.
Fuel scooping:
After exiting hyperspace is the ideal time to skim the sun's surface and refuel your ship, assuming you have a fuel scoop installed. Fuel scooping is a delicate dance where you must stay close enough to scoop, but not so close that your ship overheats. Watch the fuel scoop rate on your HUD. If you see it hit the max fuel scoop rate then your hull temperature is probably rising rapidly. Try to ease away from the sun slightly to keep the temp from rising too quickly. Another good indicator that you are flying too close would be smoke and sparks coming from your cockpit!
If you are continuing to another jump, watch the FSD cooldown indicator. Once it finishes you can engage the hyperspace drive again and repeat the jump process. You must align your ship with the target system and throttle up before the FSD will engage. Do not activate your FSD while you are still orbiting the sun (fuel scooping). The hull temperature is still abnormally high, and the FSD power might overheat your ship. Fly a short distance away and wait for the ship temperature to drop into the 50% range before activating the FSD.
You can enter hyperspace from either supercruise or regular flight modes.
Keep an eye on your fuel:If you do not have a fuel scoop and are doing multiple jumps, your fuel can run out quickly if you are not jumping in economical mode. (a setting on the galaxy map when you are plotting your course) Your fuel meter is right above the mass lock indicator light. Don't let that line get too low without finding a station to refuel.
Interdiction:
A pirate who tracks your ship in supercruise can interdict your ship into regular space and attack you. You will know when it is happening because your supercruise view will go crazy outside the ship, and an escape vector indicator will display.
At this point you have two choices:
Break the interdiction:
If you can keep your ship aligned to the escape vector, the blue meter on the left will fill. If you fill it all the way you break the interdiction and remain in supercruise. If the red meter on the right side fills instead, you have lost and get dumped into regular space, spinning out of control before you can face your attacker.
If your ship has less mass than the ship pulling you out of supercruise, then chances are you will lose this "mini-game". If your ship is larger, then your chances of escape are greater.
Submit to the interdiction:
If you instead want to "submit" to the interdiction, AS SOON AS YOU SEE IT, power your throttle to zero and turn away from the escape vector. This will dump you to regular space quickly, without the spin, and your FSD will have a shorter cooldown time compared to losing the interdiction battle above.
You can then fight your attacker, give them what they want, or try to high / low wake out of there. Waking involves boosting your engines to max and fleeing your attacker while powering up your FSD. If you want to flee, put three or four pips to your systems (for shields) and two or three to your engines and hit the boost button as often as possible while the attacker peppers your shields from behind. At the same time you should be powering up your FSD for either supercruise or hyperspace.
What are High Waking and Low Waking?
High Waking = jumping to hyperspace
Low Waking = entering supercruise
You must understand mass lock. If the mass lock factor of your attacker(s) is greater than your own ship (their ship is bigger than yours), then it will take longer for your FSD to charge up for supercruise mode. This can really cause you problems and get you killed.
However, there is no mass lock effect for charging the FSD for hyperspace. So it might make more sense to try high waking from an attack rather than low waking.
If you do manage to low wake out, there is a possibility that the pirate will pursue and continue to chain interdict you out of supercruise. In this case you might want to high wake to another system and then jump back to the system, assuming you still have business there.
A typical high wake event might go like this:
1. Interdiction starts: Set throttle to zero and turn away from escape vector
2. Ship reverts to normal space: Immediately turn away from your attacker, hit engine boost, set max pips (power) to systems for shields, two pips to engines, full throttle, and hit boost as often as possible.
3. Keep boosting and look at your left hand navigation pane. If you scroll up to the top of the list and keep scrolling it will put you at the bottom, which would be other systems you can jump to rather than destinations in the current system. Select one that is in range as your destination. Spend some time when you are NOT being attacked practicing selecting another system as quickly as possible. Every second counts when trying to escape.
4. As soon as the FSD finishes cooling down, activate a hyperspace jump and pray it starts before your ship is destroyed!
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