Aligning

Definition

To align a ship is to redirect it towards a distant object, usually in preparation for the use of warp drives. As a ship must be directly in-line with the target and obtain a velocity of no less than ¾ of maximum before the warp drive will initiate, aligning the ship in advance streamlines the process and allows for a more rapid entry into the warp bubble. If a ship initiates warp drives without being aligned to the intended destination, the ship will attempt to align itself automatically but as this is affected by the ship's overall mass and agility it can sometimes be a very slow process. Often times the automatic alignment is further hindered due to the presence of nearby obstacles (such as other ships or asteroids) which must be negotiated before actual warp can occur.

How to

Prior to the Empyrean Age patch it was necessary to manually double-click in space near the intended destination in order to realign your ship. There is now the option "Align to" which will allow a ship to accurately align to most celestial objects which can be accesses either through the "selected item" interface or via right-click context menu. Note that there are many instances in which the "Align to" option is either undesired or unavailable for the target in question. In such cases it is a simple matter to double-click in the direction which you wish the ship to align to after having adjusted your camera facing. Regardless of the method used, the ship must be maintaining a velocity of at least 75% of maximum before warp drives can be initiated.

Note that when a ship comes to a complete stop (zero velocity) it will tend

to level itself to a horizontal plane and so it is generally good practice to maintain velocity when aligning towards most objects. It is for this reason that a ship isn't considered to be properly aligned unless it is also moving at at least 75% of its full thrust.

Aligning within fleets

While in a fleet, proper alignment ensures that all ships will initiate warp simultaneously when prompted by the leader's "warp fleet to..." command. This will not only help to maintain the formation of the fleet upon re-entry from the warp bubble (within the limitations of an individual ship's warp speed) but will also prevent less agile vessels from falling behind, making them more vulnerable to hostile attack.

It should be noted that ships using an active cloaking device will not automatically fall into a "fleet warp" formation and will be required to manually follow the main force. This does not apply to ships under the complimentary cloaking provided upon gate exit, however. Ships under such cloaking will immediately respond to the fleet warp command.

The "slingshot" technique

Many large ships, such as freighters, industrials and battleships are less agile than their smaller escorts and require a considerably longer amount of time to realign to new bearings. This process can be facilitated using the mechanics inherent in a stasis webifier.

As the initiation of warp drives requires the ship to be travelling in a straight line at a velocity of no less than 75% of their current maximum, this process is hastened by simply reducing the maximum velocity of the ship in question. The stasis webifier affects its target by reducing its maximum velocity by a large percentage (generally from -50% to -60%) without affecting its acceleration. This effectively allows the target ship to achieve its required velocity in a proportionately shorter time. This "slingshot" technique is very effective and has been known to be used in evasive maneuvers as well as purely navigational ones.

Note that in Empire space, the use of a stasis webifier constitutes an aggressive act and will result in criminal flagging towards the pilot in question unless both participants are within the same corporation. In areas of low security this is usually immediately followed by a barrage of fire from the nearest gate sentries, but in high security sectors additional CONCORD intervention is to be expected.