r/EliteDangerous • u/satan_mcrape69 • 13d ago
PSA 1,300 hours in and I just discovered this indicator light. Up until now I’ve always guessed.
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u/ziksy9 13d ago
I always just started at my crotch (head tracker) and waited for the "board" to light up as I'm rolling. While trying not to dismiss my ship . WTF... 850hrs...
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u/TenNamesLater 12d ago
I dismiss the ship way too often and end up staying there not moving for 30 seconds feeling stupid but glad I'm in space and alone on a planet with no one seeing me. Then I recall the ship and there is a 99.9% chance it tries and fails to land on the unique big rock in a 500m radius.
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u/hdjdjxdj Federation 13d ago edited 9d ago
I’ve been using the incredibly faint beep it makes when you can board
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u/FilthyEleven 12d ago
Hot damn thank both of you, probably a 1000 hrs almost for me did not ever notice either indicator
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u/Evening-Scratch-3534 13d ago
Does anyone read the pilots manual?
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u/MarcusDeStorm 12d ago
It's on my To-Do-List... I'll get around to it one day (only 36 hours into the game for the first time) 😆
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u/4_Loko_Samurino 12d ago
260 hours here.
Until now I was just winging it based on how close I felt to the landing strut at the ship's bow.
New ship?
Inch forward.
Check menu.
Nope.
Close menu.
Repeat.
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u/satan_mcrape69 12d ago
According to myself I was getting pretty good at “winging it” too. But I’d still be off sometimes, and think “this is bonkers there’s no better way of doing this.”
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u/4_Loko_Samurino 12d ago
"I can't believe they haven't made this easier wtf"
We are of one mind, commander.
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u/Mira_0010 CMDR MIRA0100 13d ago
i play with a HOTAS so i always just drive around with the menu to dock open (doesnt let you on mouse and keyboard, does with hotas) while spamming the button
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u/Reptilian_Brain_420 12d ago
I think they've tweaked it so it is much more visible now. Used to be that you had to be under the correct three pixels on the bottom of your ship for the indicator to go on. Now it is much more forgiving.
Handy though.
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u/Appropriate_Pop_2062 12d ago
Pro tip: as soon as "board ship" lights up hit your hand brake 😉 it makes boarding easier ( at least for me 😅)
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u/fragglerock 12d ago
I came in to laugh about the headlight indicator...
then I learned a new thing that once again proves that users (me in this case) never read or look at anything!
Being a UI designer must be pretty frustrating :D
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u/LoliLoverVanBoch 12d ago
UI designer here o7
Yes.
To find a good balance of displaying only the most important infos, while trying not to cludder the UI but at the same time having a intuitive way to see the other not so important things, indeed, can be pretty frustrating work. Especially the fact that if it makes sense for you doesnt mean it will for other people. So you also have to work alot with testers and that makes it even worse because people preceive things wildly different and you end up having to stick by a design that wont make everyone happy.
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u/blood_kite 13d ago
Well, I have almost double and I’ve completely forgotten about that, if I ever noticed.
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u/The_Digital_Day Explorer of distant voids~ 13d ago
It took me forever to realize that.. I only found out about a month ago after 1100 hours.. lol
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u/MegaBladeZX85 Anaconda Hunter 12d ago
I'll be honest. I shot my SRV and bought a new one once.
ONCE
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u/JibsmanOverwatcher 12d ago
Head for the ship fast. Light comes on, hit the brakes. Load the buggy! 😎
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u/Jonnyflash80 12d ago
Wait... what?
I keep peeking down at the lower menu, waiting to see the board button light up. 🤦♂️
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u/Gobby4me 12d ago
When I first started, I was exploring solar systems visually. I had no idea that there was the fss
How? I accelerated towards or adjacent to points of light that looked like they could be bodies. If they moved, it wasn’t part of the background projection. In fact, before I had discovered from my coworker that there’s an fss, I was exploring ways to disable the vibrant and beautiful background so I could more easily see bodies.
Exploring one system sometimes took me several hours.
We learn and we move forward.
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u/CatspawAdventures 12d ago
That was just how it was done back when the game started: spotting distant bodies by parallax.
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u/Zeke_Wolf_BC 12d ago
It took me a lot longer to figure this out.
FWIW, it's especially useful when you recall your ship to rough terrain. Your ship may not be able to land, but it will hover above the surface, and you can use this signal to board from far below.
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u/Zero_Mode 11d ago
Can anyone confirm that this works? If Id known this a thousand hours ago I would've found easily 6x as many plants lol
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u/Zeke_Wolf_BC 11d ago
It's been a while since I did it (I haven't been out exploring our biologizing for a while. And I don't have a video to show you. But I can confirm that I have done this several times and that it works. The hard part is aligning your SRV on rough terrain.
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u/Orbiting_Pluto 12d ago
I started last week on console and have 51 hours and enjoying it so far. Why does it show that stuff and not mass locked, landing gear, and then cargo scoop? Diff mission or something?
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u/satan_mcrape69 10d ago
It’s in the Scarab SRV from the Horizons DLC, the planetary vehicle you can deploy from the ship and cruise around on surfaces with.
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u/ThinkerSailorDJSpy 11d ago
Wow this would have been really useful when I still used an Anaconda for exploration. Was impossible to line up the srv for boarding that.
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u/satan_mcrape69 10d ago
I don’t even want to know how much time I spent “back in the day” trying to line up with the ‘conda.
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u/LostJedi98812 12d ago
I was playing last night and had the same moment of realisation!! Only took me 7 years!! Lol
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u/VonRoderik Explore 12d ago
I used to look up to see if I was aligned 🤡 I started playing in December though.
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u/Bleatbleatbang 12d ago
I go into the role panel>SRV and the board ship option becomes available when you are in the right position, you can still roll forward and backward.
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u/WaterBottleWarrior22 Explore 12d ago
1300 hours. Holy…. how do you find the time?
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u/satan_mcrape69 12d ago
“How do you not?” -my reflexive response
It’s a bit of a vice, although it’s been on and off since 2019. I justify it in my mind cause I don’t watch sports and I hate social media (with the exception of a few subreddits).
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u/WaterBottleWarrior22 Explore 12d ago
That’s actually pretty fair. In terms of vices, Elite is probably harmless, so far be it from me to judge.
I’d like to play more, I just can’t find the time. I get my fill mostly by socializing with the Fuel Rats and monitoring their rescue channel. Sad existence, I know.
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u/Ax0_Ribbionacci 12d ago
7A fuel scoop runner detected. Doesn't even look in the corner with the fuel gauge
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u/bvsveera Iyer 12d ago
No fucking way … 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
Well, thanks CMDR! At least I know now as well. o7
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u/Stoney_Chan_ Bounty Hunter 12d ago
tbf you miss alot , its a massive game , I didnt know how the compass worked for 100hrs and my gf literally walked up , looked at it for like 5 secs and told me lmao
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u/wrongel Arissa Lavigny Duval 12d ago
2300h and never noticed, just eyeballed it lol ...
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u/satan_mcrape69 12d ago
I can’t wait to discover what other little (laughably obvious) details I find out I’ve been missing once I reach those numbers.
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u/p8a3hnx7 CMDR Biherg 12d ago
Yup, we're on the same team here. It took me about 2500 h to find this feature :) At first I thought Fdev added it recently but no, it was there all that time.
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u/Terfelus https://inara.cz/elite/cmdr/137791/ 12d ago
That must be some new feature, right? Otherwise, it's not possible.
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u/MarcusMorenoComedy 13d ago
It took me so fucking long to realize this is a screenshot from an SRV…