Jump drive acceleration discrepancy: why instant full speed?

[SandJ]

When stationary, pressing J activates the Torus jump drive and one is instantly travelling at jump drive speed.

To get back to stationery one has to hold down S to decelerate.

Shouldn't pressing J require a period of acceleration?

Or am I missing something?

[JensAyton]

Shouldn't pressing J require a period of acceleration?

It does.

[SandJ]

I've edited my shipdata.plist to give myself "thrust = 10". It then becomes obvious that using S & W to change the ship's speed works much more slowly than pressing I to turn on the injectors, and pressing J does mean the time to get to full speed is noticeable, but it is very fast acceleration.

One can go from stationery to very fast using J, but one cannot get from very fast to stationery anything like as quickly.

[JensAyton]

It takes exactly as long to reach full hyperspeed as it does to slow down to normal speed.

[RyanHoots]

Maybe the acceleration isn't as noticeable because there's no gauge that shows speed beyond full non-injector, non-hypersdrive speed...

But, from a code perspective, I just might have the answer:
From a dead still start, pressing J accelerates the player to hyperspace speed as quickly as if the player was at full speed. To go back to a dead stop, the hyperdrive must disengage, which takes time, and then leaves you at full speed. Then, you have slow down, which takes more time. So, it takes longer to decelerate to a dead stop from torus drive speed then it does to accelerate to torus drive speed from a dead stop (in theory, anyway).

[cim]

Maybe the acceleration isn't as noticeable because there's no gauge that shows speed beyond full non-injector, non-hypersdrive speed...

That's probably it - and the effect of the scanner acting as a gauge also has a part - slowing down when you hit a masslock takes several kilometres. Accelerating to torus speed also takes several kilometres, but it's usually several kilometres of completely empty space so how do you tell?

[CommonSenseOTB]

It takes exactly as long to reach full hyperspeed as it does to slow down to normal speed.

Why don't any of those interested take a numericHUD out for a spin and see what the reality is? It's the perfect tool for showing your speed as you transistion to and from torus drive.