Revision as of 05:02, 5 July 2015 by Fandom>DNYI(→Trivia: clarified bullet point on not being able to change systems using supercruise as from comments it was not clear enough that this was the case)
Supercruise is a method of "fast travel" within planetary systems. A ship that is in Supercruise is using its Frame Shift Drive to accelerate to speeds from 30 kilometers-per-second to superluminal (faster-than-light), allowing a ship to cross entire solar-systems in a relatively short amount of time.
In Supercruise, speeds are typically measured in multiples of the speed of light, represented as C or in Megameters, represented as Mm (1C = 300Mm/s). A ship that is traveling at 1c is therefore traveling at the speed of light. Speeds in Supercruise are highly dependent on distance from bodies of mass, and achieving higher speeds is only possible by distancing oneself from large bodies of mass.
It should be noted that in Elite: Dangerous, FTL travel is not subject to relativity; a ship's frame of time is always the same as to the surrounding universe.
Select target that is in-system through the Navigation Panel
Use the Supercruise button (default is J) - Supercruise will be engaged
Once the FSD is charged, throttle up to engage Supercruise
Use flight controls to navigate as usual
Keep an eye on where your Target Information is displayed - Try to get the vertical orange lines within the blue sections at the same time
Press the Supercruise button again to disengage Supercruise mode
Exiting Supercruise
There are a number of circumstances under which Supercruise may be exited, but they all fall under two general categories: Safe Disengage and Emergency Drop.
Safe Disengage
The following circumstances end Supercruise in a Safe Disengage. In all cases, the Frame Shift Drive has a safety cooldown of 10 seconds before it may be charged again and the act of ending Supercruise does not damage any part of the ship.
Pressing the Supercruise button while traveling slower than 1 Mm/s. Without a Destination Lock (see below), the ship simply drops to normal flight wherever the Supercruise button was pressed.
Destination Lock: if the ship has a targeted destination, that destination is within a cone ahead of the ship, the destination is less than 1 Mm away, and the ship is moving slower than 1 Ms/s, then pressing the Supercruise button will drop the ship to normal flight somewhere within several kilometers of the destination.
Submitting to Interdiction: Going to zero throttle during Supercruise while simultaneously being the target of an FSD Interdiction. Note that this is also a Safe Disengage for whoever is committing the interdiction.
Crossing an "IMPACT" surface while traveling slower than 1 Mm/s. All planetary, stellar, and singular objects are surrounded by a spherical impact surface. Planetary rings are also surrounded by impact surfaces, but these surfaces are not spherical.
Emergency Drop
The following circumstances end Supercruise in an Emergency Drop. In all cases, the ship's hull and all modules take 1% to 2% damage (without exception) and the Frame Shift Drive has a safety cooldown of 40 seconds (unless otherwise noted).
Pressing the Supercruise button twice in rapid succession while traveling faster than 1 Mm/s. Pressing once only gives a warning that a Safe Disengage is not possible.
Successful Interdiction: If the target of an FSD Interdiction fails to evade or submit, then both the interdictor and the target suffer an Emergency Drop.
Failed Interdiction: If the target of an FSD Interdiction successfully evades interdiction, then the interdictor (but not the target) suffers an Emergency Drop.
Crossing an "IMPACT" surface while traveling faster than 1 Mm/s. This case invokes a 10-second cooldown instead of a 40-second cooldown.
Maximum Supercruise speed is determined by the proximity to stellar bodies and the direction the ship is heading relative to the stellar body.
Heading towards a stellar body will decrease maximum speed while heading away will increase maximum speed.
Supercruise cannot be engaged if the ship is Mass Locked (i.e. too close to a large body of mass such as stations or planets) or if it has anything deployed (such as Landing Gear, Cargo Scoop, or Hardpoints).
The blue lines in Supercruise are indicators of a planet - As the circles spread outwards from the center your ship is getting closer.
The orange lines in Supercruise are indicators of stellar body orbits.
You can not use Supercruise to travel between systems. Attempting to do so just takes your ship to a dummy marker (floating in empty space) for that solar system. You can neither see, nor interact with, any of the objects in that other solar system until you commit a proper hyperspace jump.
Trivia
Maximum Supercruise speed (when not affected by stellar bodies) is 2,001c and takes 57 min to reach.File:From HR 7729 to HIP 99940.jpgSupercruised to another system.
It would take 4h 22m 51s to travel 1 light year at maximum Supercruise speed.
Using Supercruise to attempt to travel between systems will just result in you traveling a very long distance, as you Will Not actually switch which system you are in, as you currently Can Not change systems using Supercruise.
