As you can see M31 is centered and my ship is pointed right at it so I should be going in that direction right?  Logic would dictate that but time to destination is still increasing.  But the real kicker is when I click Boost exponent and I get field unstable- turn to target again!  

But I dont want to do that because then M31 wont be centered anymore!  Why can't this work logically and my centering M31 in the display actually be enough for me to warp in that direction?

So now I'm back to this,  all I did was select Hyperjump and it aligned itself but no matter what I do the field will never be aligned to the target.  The only other thing I did was change Retrograde to Prograde.  That just changes the red arrowhead from the left part of the screen to the right part of the screen.

So after some testing I figured out that Prograde and Radial are the only modes that get the distance to the target to decrease and Radial is the closest to M31 itself but can't use warp with that (field unstable) so Prograde it is.

Although M31 is nowhere in the field of view here, at least all three targets are lined up.  I wish there was a way to do a manual jump where I could manually set the targets right on M31 like you can do in Planetarium mode simply by centering the target- because that would be logical.

This one is radial mode just to show how much closer M31 is to being centered, but can't do warp with this so oh well.

As you can see from my screenshots, my velocity vector and target are one and the same aren't they?  Otherwise I don't know how to rotate towards the velocity vector, there is no option to do that.

The red marker points to your target. It appears to be off screen on the port side.

Blue marker is your velocity vector, purple marker is your warp vector. You need to align the velocity vector with the target marker.

Try what I suggested in the fourth paragraph above. (You may want to use the time warp in this case, SE may try and slow you down from nearly 6,000 km/sec to 10km/sec. Maybe. But that might take awhile with 12.2g engines.)

Edit: Actually, looking back on your previous screens, it looks like you never did align the velocity vector with the target. So you blew right past it! :o

Yeah I tried to align them but nothing works.  There is no "align velocity vector with target" button which is what I really need since none of the Auto stuff does it and it wont let me center the target manually because I get that "field unstable" error- oh and rotate to target doesn't help either lol.  Why cant this just work like Planetarium mode?  Center the target, bingo, the ship warps in the direction of whats in the center of the screen.  Wouldn't that be the much more logical and elegant way to do it?  Thats how it was done in Star Trek.

So none of the above worked and I decided to use a last resort tactic.  Realizing there is no way to get all the markers to align together once the ship has already started on its journey.  I left that ship behind and went into spaceship mode (Planetarium style) and centered M31 using the lower left console and started accelerating towards it.  Now that I was out of the spaceship I was free to build another ship.  Since M31 was already centered before my new ship was built, all the markers now lined up.  I increased Main engines to 100 with M31 centered.   I had to retarget M31 but once I did I clicked Hyperjump and it automatically set my boost exponent to the highest possible number (11.7) and Main engines went back to 0 (which is what you said happens in 0.980).  I then manually set my engines back to 100 again and away we go!  Hopefully it works this time.

I noticed the purple marker is gone but the others are still there.  I'm going to have to remember this procedure for next time to do it at the start of my journey (although I'm further away from M31 than I was at the start of my trip so this is in effect starting from the beginning again.)

The button on the bottom right that says "Hyperjump". That's the "Warp to Target" button. Turn that thing on and let it do its thing.
You'll see how SE turns the ship in a particular direction and accelerate in order to put the velocity vector on the target. When SE gets that real space velocity up to about 10km/sec towards your target, it will rotate in the direction of your velocity vector — the direction your ship is actually heading in space — fires up the warp engines, and you're on your way.

It's unfortunate the SE message says "Turn towards target" as the warp efficiency of the ship seems to be dependent on alignment with the direction you are moving rather than the position of your target. I suppose SE just assumes your velocity vector and target line up as that would be the direction you want to go.

It's too late to do this once the ship is already made.  I realized this after I tried everything including completely turning off autopilot and setting everything to zero.  I had to bail on the previous ship and start anew.  Target must be centered before the ship is even made.  Hyperjump doesn't align the velocity vector with the target.....I haven't found anything that does that.  It just moves the ship around and puts it back where it was, misaligned with the target again lol.  You just have to have the target centered on your screen before you even make the ship (I use the lower left console for that.)

My argument with the way this was implemented is why do we need velocity vectors at all? Why not automatically have the ship lined up with the target when you select a target and make it move in that direction automatically.  Or at the very least let us use the numpad or arrow keys to manually line up the velocity vector with the target ourselves.  Wouldn't that be more logical than messing around with hyperjumps and all that?

You're absolutely right about SE assuming things.  So when you select the target why doesn't SE automatically set the velocity vector on the target at the same time?  You could save a lot of time and much less confusion that way by doing two things at once.  Selecting target should both select the target and move the ship towards the target by setting the velocity vector on it.

By the way in the above picture do you think I have it right?  There is no purple marker but I guess that isn't necessary?  And what starship is that in your screenshot it looks pretty good!

Yes, it does work. How is it I'm flying back and forth all over the galaxy if it doesn't work? The way to change the heading of the ship is with the main engines. But it takes time to do that. That's all moving the velocity vector is, a change of direction of the ship travel. (Same ship in that pic that was in my last few pics I've shown in the Image dump thread.) (Also, getting a good vector setup for warp can be difficult too near a large body. Gravity...)

There is a velocity vector in your last picture — it is on the target, where it is supposed to be. 

Yes, it does work. How is it I'm flying back and forth all over the galaxy if it doesn't work? The way to change the heading of the ship is with the main engines. But it takes time to do that. That's all moving the velocity vector is, a change of direction of the ship travel. (Same ship in that pic that was in my last few pics I've shown in the Image dump thread.) (Also, getting a good vector setup for warp can be difficult too near a large body. Gravity...)

There is a velocity vector in your last picture — it is on the target, where it is supposed to be. 

Yes I made sure I did it before I started the mission this time, I ditched the last mission.  It's more logical to do it with the Planetarium console panel by centering the target before you ever build the ship.  I wanted the system to be more intuitional and allow me to move the markers with the arrow keys and numpad.  I figured you should be able to change the direction of the ship by using the arrow keys and it works with conventional travel but as soon as you get into warp you get errors lol.  I wish both would change in tandem using the arrow keys.  But from now on I'll center my target using the Planetarium control panel beforehand so I can avoid this extra mess.  I just got to my destination and didn't need to slow down- the autopilot did it automatically!  I got to the center of M31 in less than 8 hours!  So center of M33 in under 12 hours should definitely be doable!
What should I do now lol? I'll post some screenshots:

where I am at now- only on conventional engines.  Should I restart warp but at a much slower speed or just leave it as is?

reset boost to approach more quickly but not at full warp (a little more than half)

Okay I got close enough and now I slowed it down again, not sure I want to get any closer than this.

The view is simply breathtaking from this distance, should I stop here?

The view is simply breathtaking from this distance, should I stop here?

scr05480.jpg

Might be even more so a little closer...

(I have noticed that pressing "4" does not always revert to controlling the ship in 990. You have to bring up the ship menu and select the ship you want again (if it's not already selected), and click on "take control". Another 990 annoyance that worked fine in 980.)