EVE General Discussion

I have no idea what you are talking about, regarding a "starting orbit position" ...

We can't orbit planets or moons because they are ... huge.

It's perfectly easy to orbit them manually in a fast ship, though.

I think you answered your own question, you can't orbit over warp range because of warp range...

Maybe you just need to be able to head towards a specific point calculated from the object's position?

I don't doubt they've used something to avoid computing perfect circles.

I haven't tried lately, but you used to be able to righ-click the orbit button on the overview and set up to 1000km orbit

/c

Orbiting a planet would be unrealistic, obviously.

Why do you want to be able to do it?

"just because I want to" won't work - every gameplay mechanic requires programming work. You have to consider CCP not thinking it's worth the ramifications of changing auto-abilities. it could have unforseen effects that they do not want to deal with if they don't have to.


Occam's razor!

I am afraid that answer doesn't cut it.
I have lost count how many times CCP has openly admitted a mechanic they put into the game was used for something totally different then what it was intended for.

The mechanic is somewhat baffling. If you are 90KM from an object you can start orbiting it at 200KM but if you are 200KM from it you cannot start orbiting it.

I'l try to keep future posts less ranty and clearer .



Everyone should try to smart-post! Thank you for ignoring literally every other point I made, though.
(also, inb4 tl;dr)
However, I see how you could misintepret that as me thinking parallax is some sort of physical process or something (and using 'affect' accidentally probably didn't help). I merely meant that the primary reason people orbit  - to dictate range and exploit gun tracking, amongst others - becomes less important at extreme ranges. Your apparent motion becomes so small from the other ship's perspective that orbiting doesn't give you a notable advantage if you want to make it harder for them to track you. That is why railgun snipers at extreme ranges don't see their dps drop in a notable amount if they move while firing - their guns have no trouble tracking something that seems like it's barely moving.
I wouldn't have brought up parallax if we were talking about orbiting a pos tower for ***** and giggles, but I suppose I can use motion and tracking if you prefer that or think I mean it in an astronomical sense.

A ship orbiting you at 1km/sec  and at 1000km distance: An orbit that size has perimeter of 3141.59km, so it would take your enemy almost an hour to orbit you once. From your viewpoint, it takes them almost ten seconds to move 1/360th of a full orbit. 
Aka - they appear to be barely moving. That's all I was highlighting. Orbiting becomes tactically far less useful provided it's for tactical reasons.. So parallax was kind of relevant, but I hope that clears it up.



I gave you my main theory before which offered several ideas. I did qualify my post with "my guess is"; just offering my input. Plus, orbiting is kind of a physics thing that already exists...not something CCP invented. Including it in a space game makes sense, within reason, no?
The specific point at which you can't orbit may have had an original reason that became obsoleted, too - or they picked an arbitrary point.
 Utimately, CCP is the only thing that can answer your question with finality. I am sorry the previous one isn't good enough for you, but you haven't answered my question, either, and it's not a difficult one to answer, I'd like to think! :)

EdwardNardella brings up an interesting point, though. That is odd, certainly.

OP isn't talking about orbiting distance, but the distance you are from the object at the time you wish to issue the orbit command (160 km is presumably a typo):