Nice "Glitch" Benefit of the Supercruise Assist

[Thogmar]

I find the Supercruise assist to be more of a pain to locate and activate in the navigation menu every time I want to use it (why isn't it a TOGGLE btw like many other options?) so I was never using it.

But it has a kind of "glitch" in that is doesn't do the "loop of shame" if you activate it in the last few seconds of an approach to a station - it always drops out of supercruise even at extremely short distances, much shorter than the game allows you to do manually. This is important because if you do the manual 7 seconds/75% power slowdown or activate the Supercruise assist at or before that 7 second point, you can often be interdicted due to the long time you're dragging out your approach.

So if you turn on the Supercruise assist, and activate it in the last 4 seconds (maybe even less, I haven't tried it) then your ship STILL does the automatic drop out of supercruise even though it visually shoots PAST the landing station.

I haven't been killed or even damaged by interdiction for a long, long time anyway (I just boost or maneuver away, I don't build combat capable transports), but this little "glitch" just avoids having to do those evasive maneuvers all the time which gets annoying. This is just kind of a payback for the devs populating interdictors everywhere including extremely remote and vacant locations.

[Husker_85]

You have to be going slower than the speed of light when you reach the station or you will still shoot past it. I turn my SC assist on by slowing to 75% when I'm 7sec from target, then as soon as I drop below the speed of light I full throttle it again until it warns to 'slow down', at which point I toggle it back on. This allows it to use it's little 'exploit' by which you can drop out of SC while going faster than it would let you otherwise.

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

It doesn't always drop you gracefully. If your speed is too high, then it wouldn't. It will only drop you if you slow down enough for your speed to be appropriate at a minimal distance.

And if your speed was appropriate, then you can drop manually, too, if you have a good reaction of pressing a button the right moment.

[Thogmar]

Originally posted by Dolphin Bottlenose:

It doesn't always drop you gracefully. If your speed is too high, then it wouldn't. It will only drop you if you slow down enough for your speed to be appropriate at a minimal distance.

And if your speed was appropriate, then you can drop manually, too, if you have a good reaction of pressing a button the right moment.

I just tested it more, ALIGNMENT is more critical than speed, I turned on the mouse activity cursor to make sure alignment was perfectly centered in the station circle, and it slows down perfectly at any speed (at four seconds - any later and it's a coin toss).
That's entirely the point of why you can escape interdiction, it works at high speeds. Maybe there are ship speeds I'm not obtaining where it won't work, but I haven't experienced any yet.

As far as manual approaches, it's far too iffy for me to calculate the button press timing for any specific speed - the Supercruise assist avoids all of that, the speed doesn't matter, just press at four seconds. If you can calculate when to press the "drop out" button AT FULL SPEED AND FULL POWER (I.E. the blue bar predictors lines aren't optimal) then you're a better pilot than I am and I salute you.

In fact I think that might be impossible, that's the reason for the "seven second/75% power" technique, it optimizes the approach for a manual drop out - I don't think you can come in full power full speed as you can with a last few seconds Supercruise Assist drop out unless you're absolutely amazing at time/speed/distance prediction.

EDIT: Update thought and thumbs up to the new comment. Yeah duh, I wasn't addressing the "glitch' directly - it allows you to drop in at a point in speed and distance that the game absolutely doesn't allow you to do manually. Supercruise assist will drop at higher speeds that will always result in a "loop of shame" (and no drop from Supercruise) with a manual attempt.

That being said, the last few seconds technique doesn't work EVERY time, but it works most of the time, so save it for non-critical experiments.

[Husker_85]

Originally posted by Dolphin Bottlenose:

It doesn't always drop you gracefully. If your speed is too high, then it wouldn't. It will only drop you if you slow down enough for your speed to be appropriate at a minimal distance.

And if your speed was appropriate, then you can drop manually, too, if you have a good reaction of pressing a button the right moment.

This is incorrect. SCA can drop you into realspace going faster than the game will allow manually. The speed cursor doesn't have to be anywhere near the dropout range as long as it's slower than lightspeed.

https://1drv.ms/v/s!ArgbD5f_01lomlpJVwlJywZ8vyiJ

[Thogmar]

Originally posted by FallenCat:

Originally posted by Dolphin Bottlenose:

It doesn't always drop you gracefully. If your speed is too high, then it wouldn't. It will only drop you if you slow down enough for your speed to be appropriate at a minimal distance.

And if your speed was appropriate, then you can drop manually, too, if you have a good reaction of pressing a button the right moment.

This is incorrect. SCA can drop you into realspace going faster than the game will allow manually. The speed cursor doesn't have to be anywhere near the dropout range as long as it's slower than lightspeed.

https://1drv.ms/v/s!ArgbD5f_01lomlpJVwlJywZ8vyiJ

+1

Yeah I haven't found a particularly brilliant use for this, but I thought I'd document it, since I hadn't seen it specifically written out anywhere.

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

Originally posted by FallenCat:

https://1drv.ms/v/s!ArgbD5f_01lomlpJVwlJywZ8vyiJ

I stand corrected. This is a glitch that FDevs should fix.

[Phoenix]

Originally posted by Dolphin Bottlenose:

Originally posted by FallenCat:

https://1drv.ms/v/s!ArgbD5f_01lomlpJVwlJywZ8vyiJ

I stand corrected. This is a glitch that FDevs should fix.

Along with giving us a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ button to turn SCA&auto dock on and off, like a sane control scheme would allow us to.

[Magnus Chro]

You will notice the speed indicator drops very quickly also when you do this.

Perhaps your supercruise assist comouter is more accurate than human control?

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

Originally posted by The Professional:

You will notice the speed indicator drops very quickly also when you do this.

It does. But it still stays far away from the safe disengage blue zone, when the drop happens. It can be seen on the video above.

[Magnus Chro]

Originally posted by Dolphin Bottlenose:

Originally posted by The Professional:

You will notice the speed indicator drops very quickly also when you do this.

It does. But it still stays far away from the safe disengage blue zone, when the drop happens. It can be seen on the video above.

I am betting simply that the speed gauge cannot keep up with the quick halt in velocity is why it appears as though it is broken.

[Laurreth]

The assist seems to replicate both the bug from FE2 where you could park anything—even ships that didn't fit into space stations—at maximum time acceleration and the issue in E:D where you would drop out inside a station if you exited SC "too close" to a station (note how the safe distance doesn't extend all the way to zero any more).

TBH all they'd need to do would be reinstating collision with the stations when that happens.

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

Originally posted by The Professional:

I am betting simply that the speed gauge cannot keep up with the quick halt in velocity is why it appears as though it is broken.

Check the video - you can see the speed gauge on the left isn't decreasing so fast that it couldn't keep up.

And also you can see at what moment it is dropping, as it freezes the indicators for 2 seconds at that moment (between 10th and 12th second of the video). It's still far in the orange zone, barely 1/6th bar towards the safe disengage.

[Magnus Chro]

Just tested this and it doesn’t work every time. You still have to manage speed and trajectory somewhat.

Admitting it does work though but probably working as intended.

[Husker_85]

it works every time if you make sure that you're going slower than the speed of light.

[-GK- Librarian Markus Ramikin]

When you say "activate" Supercruise Assist at 4 seconds, what exactly are you referring to? Activating it in the left panel? Or just decreasing speed from 100% to 75% so that it catches on? Can't see the number of seconds left if I'm in the panel...

Either way, this doesn't work for me. A much less extreme version does, but I wish I could get the ones that really shave over 30 seconds off to work...