One of the most annying part of Elite is the station approach in supercruise.
You wait ages for the approach timer to count down and then in the end you still overshoot and miss the target.
There are multiple ways to correctly get close to a station in supercruise and then disengage.
1. You can simply go in a straight line to the station and before the approach counter (on the lower right part of the target indicator) shows 7 seconds you reduce your speed to 75%. Then you simply wait until you reach a distance of 1Mm, the correct speed and disengage.
2. You can also do the same as in 1. but after decreasing speed to 75% you gradually speed up again a bit at the right moment. This saves you some time.
3. Flying in circles... keep full speed until you are told to slow down... then you pulls your ship into the direction of the station and reduce the speed a bit.
Note: you will clearly overshoot with this method but also slow down very fast
Just pull around and fly back to the station (now with alot lower speed).
4. The most effective way is called the "Helix of Death".
I found references and a video about it but without any exact explanation how to do it. So I tried a little bit and found the solution.
This helix maneuver is by far the fastest way to reach a station. Compared to other approaches it is 20-30 seconds faster.
So how to do it?
Below is a screenshot where I marked a few things.
When you get close to a station with 100% speed you should at around 15-10 secs approach time (the red marked area) turn your ship in a way that the station moves into the upper left corner of your screen. On the picture Ive marked the movement from the middle position (purple) to the green area where you have to move the station to.
Now comes the important part.
At 4 seconds (0:04) you slightly reduce your speed and then you try to keep that station always in the green area.
Roll the ship a bit to the left and pull a bit up and the station will remain at this position.
This is actually everything you need to do... keep the station in the green area and keep the approach time at 0:04.
You are doing now a helix shaped maneuver which brings you close to the station in no time without overshooting.
At around 4-5Mm distance you should have slowed down enough to turn your ship directly to the station (check the blue area for distance and speed).
This maneuver has another big advantage... you can use the gravity of planets to slow down and you usually will be able to control from which side you approach the station.
When you approach stations from the planets side and disengange then you should spawn directly infront of the station entrance (very useful on Coriolis stations).
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Try it, practise it... it makes a huge difference.
Btw. this small vid shows a method how to avoid pirate interdiction (which I personally never try to avoid -> i want the bounty) and a speed comparision between the different docking methods.
