How does gravity work?

[GAMING_Alligator]

It seems if your thrusters stop within a certain distance en route from a planet, your space platform will be pulled back to the planet.

I can't find anything online about what the rules are around this. Does anybody know?

[Magnificent Imp]

I think you will get pulled to the *nearest* planet. No idea about any other details :)

[Neferneith]

It's wonky game logic. Both space friction (stop thrusting and loose speed) and long rang gravity pull (stop thrusting and you fall toward nearest planet).

I think that if you *fall* to nearest planet (if you made half the journey) but it could be that you fall to starting point.

Add to that planet lanes : you can only go from one planet to the other, you can't leave Fugora to go to Nauvis and change your mind midway to Gleba. You must first get to Nauvis and then take the lane to Gleba.

[Simon]

I'm pretty sure it works such that if you stop thrust you'll be pulled back to the last planet. This is obviously done to prevent people from getting stuck in space. I don't know exactly how it works, but I assume it's just as simple as it looks. If you fail to reach a destination then you get pulled back. This isn't gravity so much as it's a mechanical fail safe.

[Jhea]

if you don't have any more fuel or decide to not put any into the engines, you go back to the planet you started from.

there are no gravity wells nor orbital mechanics.
it's just a distance...

your spaceships in this game are just glorified trains

[Kyrus86]

When you stop the thrusters or run out of fuel you fall to the nearest planet of your route to prevent getting stuck in the space between.
Also you can use this to save fuel by stopping the thrusters after the half way mark. It just takes quite some time to arrive though.

[Avloren]

It's simple: gravity pulls you at 10km/s towards the nearest planet. So for the first half of your journey, it's subtracting 10km/s from your speed, pulling you back towards the planet you just left. For the second half, it's adding 10km/s, pulling you towards your destination. This adds onto whatever your thrusters are doing, if anything.

So if your thrusters can theoretically give you 100km/s of movement, you'll see your ship doing 90km/s for the first half of the trip as gravity acts against you, and 110km/s for the second half as gravity 'helps' you (actually a bit dangerous, if you weren't prepared for asteroids to suddenly start coming on 20km/s faster halfway through the trip).

If at any time the thrusters stop, after gradually coasting to a 'stop', you'll be left with just the speed from gravity: 10km/s either forwards or backwards depending on if you're past the halfway point.

[argrond]

From what I've experienced, "gravity" is pulling your non-thrusting platform to the closest planet/location. 10 m/s iirc.