Community Event / Creation Buckyball Run A*: What do you do when a mountain is there? Move it.

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Hello All!
Congratulations to Uberfish for breaking my Diamondback Explorer record before the list is even updated!
I didn't expect it to last for long.
Anyway, I'm going to have a go in my eagle "Ptak", setting off soonTM.
Bon voyage to all in the black.
John
 
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good luck to all those running, and well done to all those finished. nice to see bbra* still going strong.
remember if your having trouble plotting in the core , your doing it wrong ;) find your magic jump number and adjust accordingly.

maybe we need to bribe Ez with something to get the big board updates back.
oh and im not sure if you ever sent one, but ive not received a bumper sticker Ez.
 
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Stopping the clock! I'll send my "final" PM with times/details after I do some chores, but I made it! Couldn't finish the run last night, but I'm happy with my first run time of 1d 4h 29m 41s. http://imgur.com/a/zHfQp#21

Thanks to everyone for being so friendly and giving me tips on finding the magic jump range!
 
I finally made it back last night, in plenty of time to sell my data at the Lembava CG.

I arrived back in the bubble via the Eta Carina Nebula and I noticed that if you use the Coalsack as a final waypoint the Buckyball-7 stations are an excellent quiet place to reenter settled space. I docked at Biggle City, where I know that there'd be plenty of upgrades for sale, and Chaga was literally the very first inhabited system that I jumped to. :)

Also, it turns out that Biggle City is much safer to dock at when your ship can't boost! :D

After swapping all those undersized/class D modules for max rating class A items, it was just a short 170LY hop down to Lembava.
 
I finally made it back last night, in plenty of time to sell my data at the Lembava CG.

I arrived back in the bubble via the Eta Carina Nebula and I noticed that if you use the Coalsack as a final waypoint the Buckyball-7 stations are an excellent quiet place to reenter settled space. I docked at Biggle City, where I know that there'd be plenty of upgrades for sale, and Chaga was literally the very first inhabited system that I jumped to. :)

Also, it turns out that Biggle City is much safer to dock at when your ship can't boost! :D

After swapping all those undersized/class D modules for max rating class A items, it was just a short 170LY hop down to Lembava.

Welcome back. I'm guessing you made top 5% at Lembava. Has it broken tier 7 yet? When I came back in from the core I picked the most remote outpost (i.e. furthest out from the bubble) I could find for my first dock. I got interdicted on my way in. Most terrifiyng minute of Elite gameplay I think I've had so far.
 
I guess it's about time I had a go at this...

Cheetah
Ship Name: The Sleeper Awakes
Ship Type: ASP

Don't expect too much, I've been trying to get a straight 9 hours to do this for ages with no joy!
 
Hello All!
Congratulations to Uberfish for breaking my Diamondback Explorer record before the list is even updated!
I didn't expect it to last for long.
Anyway, I'm going to have a go in my eagle "Ptak", setting off soonTM.
Bon voyage to all in the black.
John

Well just made it, a little worse for wear, but here.
2015-06-28_04-20-54_copy for upload.jpgsagA - Copy.png
I'd love there to be an anaconda, clipper, L9 or bigger with a bar and a hanger for our wee craft. I'm not sure if Ptak will make it back in one piece, I'd be tempted to leave it in dock, call it a museum piece and catch a ride back to the bubble on a transport.
Time about 20.5 hrs, I'll work it out in a minute. I think if I come out here again it'll be in more comfort... Saying that I'm going to get back into combat in the eagle.

20hours 22minutes 16seconds
 
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vJ84Ouf.png

All right all right all right! It's been another week (errr give or take) and it's time to check out some flight times! Let's see what we have in the ol' mailbag...

First up, congrats and pips to our first time finishers! CMDR Uberfish, in addition to completing his first Buckyball has set a new record for the Diamondback Explorer in his D-Back Metallic Aardvark. CMDR Orjac completed his road trip in the Asp Smokey in just over a solar day, and CMDR Milo Minderbender brought his Diamondback Forgotten Country into Sadge just a few seconds before the two-day timer. And lastly, and I mean literally, lastly, Lord Itchybum completed a nice leisurely jaunt out to Sadge in less than a month. ;) But it doesn't matter how you get there, as long as you get there. Congratulations to all our finishers!

As for our pilots returning from multiple runs, we have CMDR Rusticolus who traded up from a hauler to My Bare Asp (his bare asp, not mine) to shave off about 18 minutes from his time. Impressive as it was, CMDR Samwell Drakhyr is the pilot of the moment, as his Asp White Lightning made just about everybody with an Anaconda sit up and take note as he knocks everybody but CMDR Alot down a peg on the board with a stunning finish of 9 hours, 22 minutes and 8 seconds. Fantastic time, Sam, and curse you for making those of us in the upper-20's (and falling) look even worse. But congrats for setting the new speed record for the Asp. This one might stick for a while!

So it looks like Commanders are still trickling in... It's this kind of dedication to the cause (or maybe just extreme boredom on y'alls part, who knows) that might inspire me to raid Senator Hairpiece's impound lot and rescue our wayward bumper stickers! (Meaning: I'll break open the piggy bank and pay the 50 credit fine. It's not the cost, mind you, it's the principle. :p)

Congrats again to the latest finishers! And if you haven't done so, bebop on over to the Sag A* Guest Book thread and get your name up in a different set of lights.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=159651#
 
All right, guys. We've made it as far as we can this weekend, so I figured I'd give an update and a bit of a tale before I hit the sack. This all started ages ago when I saw that Galnet article about the BBA* run and added that to my bucket list. Back then I was just in a Viper (and it was v1.1). I managed to get an old friend playing when wings hit, and when I saw the Lembava CG for charts, I knew it was now or never. I hadn't ever gone because I couldn't justify the time investment without sweetening the pot a bit. I managed to talk my old friend Sarrdis into going for company, so we joined up in a wing, put on the Leviathan Wakes audiobook, and set out into the black. That was 7 AM local on Sat. We hit a field of L and Y-type dwarfs (dwarves?) a few hours in, and had to divert from our 1kly plots, like, every 15 minutes for gas from a scoopable. After 6 hours of that, we climbed 60ly vertically into hopefully greener pastures. Two server crashes, some pizza, and one cat-induced reboot later, and we were approaching the core. It took us about two or three hours of crashing while plotting before we figured out our "magic multiple," as we like to call it, was between 987.0 and 987.5 ly. Shortly after 1AM, we arrived at Sag A*. 18 hours, 16 minutes and 45 seconds later. It was a slog, but worth it. We spent all day today making decent time back. 12 hours running today, and were only 5,000 ly from Sol. Sarrdis will probably chime in after work tomorrow, once we make it back to civilization.

Some of the shots I took: http://imgur.com/a/FtVXA#0
 
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Postcard from London

Thought I'd better re-post this as it's been pointed out that some people may have missed a subtle detail in my original post and, since I'm planning a series of these, wouldn't want people to think I'd gone totally OT :D

elite_postcard_1.jpg
 
The whole way, in a single sitting. Probably helps explain the time, given our loadouts.

And in a wing :eek:

Awesome effort CMDRs!

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Well just made it, a little worse for wear, but here.
View attachment 47609View attachment 47610
I'd love there to be an anaconda, clipper, L9 or bigger with a bar and a hanger for our wee craft. I'm not sure if Ptak will make it back in one piece, I'd be tempted to leave it in dock, call it a museum piece and catch a ride back to the bubble on a transport.
Time about 20.5 hrs, I'll work it out in a minute. I think if I come out here again it'll be in more comfort... Saying that I'm going to get back into combat in the eagle.

20hours 22minutes 16seconds

Congrats CMDR! Great job doing it in one go with the Eagle - looks like you knocked about 3 days off the previous best time :)
 
we have CMDR Rusticolus who traded up from a hauler to My Bare Asp (his bare asp, not mine) to shave off about 18 minutes from his time

Hmmm, put like that I am not sure if trading my Asp off for a week to get the 28M scoop was actually worth it...39M CR for 18 minutes... :)
 
Ummm yeah... Hate to throw a wet blanket on the whole wing thing, but Freedom's not the first to try it, and worse...

Bucky said:
Note that even using the Wingman Nav Lock function, even though it is built in to the game, should be avoided.

Flying in a wing is a no-no. It lets a pilot get away with not doing his/her own flying/course plotting/etc. ("All right, I've plotted for this last hour, it's your turn now.") Given the Galmap Insanity prone at the core, this could make a huge difference in a pilot's time if another pilot were doing all the plotting.

Gonna have to ponder this.
 
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I managed to talk my old friend Sarrdis into going for company, so we joined up in a wing, put on the Leviathan Wakes audiobook, and set out into the black.
Well done both of you! :D

Welcome home CMDR, congrats on the safe round trip. How long before you do the run again? ;)
It is quite addictive isn't it? And you and Drakhyr are responsible for fueling my addiction before I got back! ;)

I think that I'll probably possibly wait until after Buckyball-8 before having a shot at reclaiming the Asp record, it takes me so long getting back that I'd probably miss the race it I went this weekend. Also I was planning to make my next Sadge run the first leg of a 65K expedition.

I'm really, really tempted to have a go on Saturday though, I've got a feeling that there'll be a few runners over the US holiday weekend, so I might well join them...

...especially if you're having another go this weekend as you mentioned in our chat. :D

I'm certain that I can beat my existing time - which I guess means that I think I can beat yours as well since our times are so close at the moment - but I'm really not sure if I can get near Drakhyr's excellent time. My speed run times over 3-4K look promising, but keeping up the same pace over the full run I'm not so sure about. Hopefully I can at least get my own time down under 10hrs even if I don't manage to challenge Kligg or Drakhyr. :)
 
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