Comment on Outer wilds: at what point should I give up?
bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 2 months agoFlying in Outer Wilds is like kerbal space program without manouver nodes or orbit prediction. It’s doable if you understand orbital mechanics.
Not really. It’s been a while since I played but IIRC the ship follows straight lines. It doesn’t actually orbit. The planets have predefined orbits but their gravity isn’t fully being modelled on the player’s ship. Flying in OW basically comes down to drawing a bead on a planet and accelerating toward where you expect it will be. That’s what the autopilot does as well. It just accelerates you toward the spot in the target’s orbit that the target will be in roughly when you traverse the distance.
Contramuffin@lemmy.world 2 months ago
That’s slightly untrue. The physics is in fact accurate. It’s just that the ship engine is so powerful that you can effectively ignore the gravity. If you’ve ever tried to land on the ___ _______, you’ll know that by far the easiest and safest way is to utilize orbital mechanics
bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Oh yeah I did try that but I figured (correctly) that you weren’t expected to simply land on it with your ship. In fact I figured it wasn’t actually possible. I guess some people must try to do that as an extra achievement
But yeah, I know from the way you follow a ballistic path that there must be some small amount of gravity, but it’s so miniscule that something like a transfer maneuver is totally irrelevant.
Carnelian@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Hey, just wanted to add that it’s not just an optional player-made challenge, but actually an in-game achievement/trophy!