Gravity Atlas · Player guide
How gravity assists work in Gravity Atlas
A gravity assist uses a moving body’s gravity to change the probe’s motion. In Gravity Atlas, Lilt is the moving moon you use on the way to Haven.
By Small Hours · Updated
Why the moon has to move
A stationary gravity well accelerates an approaching probe and slows it again as it leaves. In an ideal isolated flyby, that alone does not provide a lasting increase in speed far from the body.
A moving moon changes the picture. Its gravity turns the probe’s velocity relative to the moon. Transforming that outgoing motion back to the flight chart’s frame can leave the probe with more or less speed. The moon’s motion matters as well as the closeness of the pass.
Shape the encounter
In missions that require an assist, use the launch angle to set which side of Lilt you pass. Use launch power to change when you arrive. A path that looks right at departure may reach the encounter too early or too late.
Try a safe pass behind the moving moon, then watch the outgoing curve. Passing very close is not automatically better: an impact ends the flight, and a large deflection can send the probe away from Haven.
What the game actually checks
The game measures the encounter as the probe enters and exits the moon’s influence region. Assist credit requires a safe pass, a real change in direction, an increase in chart-frame speed, and positive energy transfer attributable to the moving moon. Simply approaching Lilt does not earn the assist.
Look for the assist confirmation during flight. A successful flyby is one part of the mission: the probe still needs a safe arrival at Haven and a completed orbit assessment above the mission’s cutoff.
Use power as a timing control
Keep the angle fixed and compare two nearby power settings. The faster probe reaches Lilt at a different point in the moon’s motion, so its outgoing path can change substantially. Then hold power steady and make a small angle adjustment.
Read the arrival as well as the flyby. An assist that produces a large speed gain can leave too much energy for Haven’s finite insertion reserve to remove. The useful assist is the one that shapes a manageable arrival.
A deliberately simplified model
The probe follows scaled, two-dimensional Newtonian gravity from the bodies on the chart. Lilt follows a prescribed circular path; the worlds are not mutually integrated. The finite insertion burn is an automatic gameplay aid. This is a puzzle for experimenting with orbital ideas, rather than a tool for planning a real space mission.
Start with the Gravity Atlas controls and scoring guide if you are still learning to acquire an orbit. Then return to an unlocked assist mission and compare one launch variable at a time.