Community Event / Creation Planning an alternative to the Buckyball Runs

[drakhyr]

Note: This thread is now superseded by one in the Player Groups section of the forum. So please head there to continue the discussion!

Following the sad news that ElectricZ has had to place the Buckyball Run series of races on indefinite hold, there is obviously room for an alternative series of Buckyball-style races to fill the hole. The idea of this thread is to hold the planning as to what we do about it...

Note: The Buckyball Run A* has now become The A* Challenge.

My starting thoughts are that we need:
1. A name.
2. A plan for one or more races.
3. Advertising.

1. A name

We should get more involvement with a fixed name for the series, to build up a reputation (like the Buckyball Run itself). Anybody got any better ideas?

Ideas so far:

• The Buckyball Racing Club (or Buckyball Pilot's Club, or Buckyballers Club) presents...
• Starchaser Series
• Oddball 3000 or Gumball 3300
• Whiffleball / Fireball Run
• Bucky Racing Challenge Series
• Galaxy Cup
• NasStar

The first could quite happily be combined with one of the others (with the Club name being for the organising group, another name for the race series itself).

OK, it's been decided: Buckyball Racing Club it is.


2. A plan for one or more races

In practice, I think we already have ideas for several. I know Raiko, Esvandiary and I have all got ideas already. It might be good to collaborate on these, as some of the best options may come from combining ideas. I think also it might work best with a group of us taking turns to organise the races, under the same banner.

Thoughts so far:

• Simple run out to one of the outlying systems (e.g. Unity in New Yembo) and back
• Split scramble race: two clusters of stations like BBR7 where you have to visit, say, 3 out of 6 stations in each cluster, but the two clusters are 150-200LY apart (trying to strike a balance between the long-distance jump ships and the multi-station scramble ships)
• Split scramble race centred around the two systems which are publicly confirmed as being where Unknown Artefacts have been found.
• Shipping goods in or out of PowerPlay expansion target systems (would have to be a Thursday to Wednesday race!)
• Visiting some of the systems / stations with the silliest names
• Races to (or through?) some of the nearer nebulae (the "Nebula Rallies")
• Rares collection race (Raiko's plan)
• Race between home systems of player factions such as Mikunn (for the Mercs of Mikunn) and Lave (for the Code - though I think they might have moved to Archon DeLaine's territory now)
• Getting back and forth between a pair of (far-apart) stations as many times as you can in a week
• The Galactic Rally (Raiko's long-distance plan)
• Festive special (Drakhyr's "Twelve Days of Christmas" plan)
• The Kessel Run (Stern Winter's plan)
  

3. Advertising

Logo, banner (for email footers), radio advert (Radio Sidewinder etc), video advert (put on YouTube, link to from Reddit, etc). Can't really be done until we have a name and ideally a date for a first race.

Update: Logo/banner underway and nearing completion (many thanks to robinjb), the rest to follow...

I also ought to write down what I mean when I say "Buckyball-style":

• In systems accessible to all (no permit-locked systems)
• Open to any ship (no outpost docking that would rule out large ships) - this one might be relaxed for certain races
• Can be run at any time (time trial / checkpoint-style races, that can be run at any time within the race period, and thus open to those in all time zones)
• OK to run repeatedly (part of the excitement is trying to improve on your time!)

Thoughts and ideas welcome (and greatly appreciated!)

 

[Macros Black]

I like "StarChaser Series x", was going to to suggest "MFTD Series" (Main Fuel Tank Drained), but like StarChaser better.
Sag A* as destination is difficult to beat, but the idea is to keep it right?, just under another banner?
I suggest introducing a medium distance, somewhere around ~10kylies for beginners, perhaps to a nebulae, of course keep Sag A*, and introduce the "Double Dutch Sag A*", a Sol-Sag A*-Sol race for the totally insane racers.

 

[drakhyr]

Sag A* as destination is difficult to beat, but the idea is to keep it right?, just under another banner?
I suggest introducing a medium distance, somewhere around ~10kylies for beginners, perhaps to a nebulae, of course keep Sag A*, and introduce the "Double Dutch Sag A*", a Sol-Sag A*-Sol race for the totally insane racers.

My plan is to keep the Buckyball Run A* going as is, yes. The new series would be similar to Buckyball Runs 1 to 7 (so staying within the inhabited bubble - flight time more like 15mins to 1hr, rather than multiple hours!).

 

[robinjb]

with EZ's blessing im all for this, well played.
I was looking forward to the buckyball B race.. maybe to barnards loop.. something a bit less time consuming than running to sadge.
Im also totally willing to help out on any graphics you may need.

 

[Alec Turner]

Had to just post really quickly to say bravo sir! I really want to contribute to this and definitely have some thoughts and opinions on your ideas. I don't just want to give a knee jerk response so let me sleep on it and I'll come back to this tomorrow.

 

[Raiko]

Excellent idea Drakhyr, thanks for starting this thread.

I'm definitely keen to help out, I'll post some of my thoughts later tonight or tomorrow - I've not had any playtime since getting to Sadge on Sunday morning and I need to get started on the way back if there's going to be racing happening!

@robinjb, I'm sure that this will get EZ's blessing, he was extremely encouraging about my original Buckyball style rares-race proposal on reddit. Hopefully he might even have the time to take part in some of the races, without the time-sink and pressure of organising and running every race.

 

[Esvandiary]

Right... I've had a few ideas and jotted them down!

As for a name, I think Starchaser is much better than anything I'd come up with ("Gumball 3300" was my best!)

My plan for a race route was going to be visiting some of the systems/stations with the silliest names.
(Fortunately, there are lots of options for this!)

I also thought of a couple of taglines for the races - Raiko's rare trading race could be "A Rare Opportunity", mine could be "What's In A Name?"

One thing I thought of regarding race classes - whilst I'd definitely be in favour of the Sidewinder Challenge making a reappearance, there are some formats for which it doesn't really make sense (BBR7 springs to mind, where it was basically the exact same route just a bit slower!). In cases where the venerable Sidey doesn't make sense, I'd propose that a particular ship be chosen (perhaps something quite unwieldy for the format, or possibly just in a very Silly loadout ) as the Challenge ship. Naturally, I'd suggest that the ship should always be quite cheap (maybe a T6 at the top end?) to try and avoid pricing people out of being able to participate.

 

[mw_aurora]

I like this too Drakhyr, nicely done

I am up for joining in and doing what I can. I am more on the organisation and admin side of the fence rather than ideas and creativity though. And I am happy shouting from the rooftops about stuff

 

[drakhyr]

One thing I thought of regarding race classes - whilst I'd definitely be in favour of the Sidewinder Challenge making a reappearance, there are some formats for which it doesn't really make sense (BBR7 springs to mind, where it was basically the exact same route just a bit slower!). In cases where the venerable Sidey doesn't make sense, I'd propose that a particular ship be chosen (perhaps something quite unwieldy for the format, or possibly just in a very Silly loadout ) as the Challenge ship. Naturally, I'd suggest that the ship should always be quite cheap (maybe a T6 at the top end?) to try and avoid pricing people out of being able to participate.

I agree with that. I have had some similar thoughts, though mainly because I've been avoiding the Sidewinder (I've only ever flown a Sidewinder once outside the training missions - you know when, you were there ). I'd been thinking maybe 100k credits might be the limit (i.e. up to the Adder), but the important thing is that the ship is available at the starting station!

I like this too Drakhyr, nicely done

I am up for joining in and doing what I can. I am more on the organisation and admin side of the fence rather than ideas and creativity though. And I am happy shouting from the rooftops about stuff

Well, we will also always need (a) racers, and (b) people to comment and give a sense check that anything proposed sounds like fun

 

[Hanekura Shizuka]

Right... I've had a few ideas and jotted them down! As for a name, I think Starchaser is much better than anything I'd come up with ("Gumball 3300" was my best!) My plan for a race route was going to be visiting some of the systems/stations with the silliest names. (Fortunately, there are lots of options for this!) I also thought of a couple of taglines for the races - Raiko's rare trading race could be "A Rare Opportunity", mine could be "What's In A Name?" One thing I thought of regarding race classes - whilst I'd definitely be in favour of the Sidewinder Challenge making a reappearance, there are some formats for which it doesn't really make sense (BBR7 springs to mind, where it was basically the exact same route just a bit slower!). In cases where the venerable Sidey doesn't make sense, I'd propose that a particular ship be chosen (perhaps something quite unwieldy for the format, or possibly just in a very Silly loadout ) as the Challenge ship. Naturally, I'd suggest that the ship should always be quite cheap (maybe a T6 at the top end?) to try and avoid pricing people out of being able to participate.

Names: Unless EZ says no, why not the Bucky Racing Challenge Series? That way, we can call ourselves "BRCS"! (Sorry; couldn't resist.) As for classes... I see no problem with a 'low cost' challenge, as long as the top racer in each ship class is identified. This is one thing that made the Sadge race so successful - that you DIDN'T need an Anaconda to compete at some level. It was possible to compete at any level of income or experience or specialization by focusing on getting the best time for your ship class. It'll be a very long time before I can afford an Anaconda, but I did race in an Adder and a DBX, and it was in those areas that I wanted to do best in. Also, there was the "Let's see if I can finish this challenge in a (insert horribly inappropriate ship here)" aspect to it. People finished the Sadge race in every possible ship type, including some that just boggled the mind. Keeping that will always attract the unconventional to the races.

 

[johnUK]

rep+1 for this and continuing the BuckyA* board.
I'm willing to contribute in anyway I can, including financially for bumper stickers.
Bucky B sounds good, somewhere closer, 5-10 k ly would be my suggestion.
Possibly a system 3-5 k ly away, there and back, additional proof would be a screenshot when you sell the exploration data or just being able to see the system in system map, deposit a ton of cargo of the CMDR's choosing, a witty line saying what why required for board entry. .
Maybe a distance sidewider challenge?
Race to fill a hauler with rares from named systems? "Rabid Rauler Rare Race"
-either at the same time, a scramble to get to a,b, c, d, e, f first against each other or is it best to go d, e, f, a, b, c? Screenies when buy commodities and when cargo hold full. Possibly better in group than open though, but I'd be up for either, would love to see CMDR ships speeding past each other through the letterbox. Would be some luck involved of course.
-and/or single best attempt over a week/fortnight.
Some Smuggling somehow and cold running

 

[goemon]

ever had a look to the rules of that very old tradition of americas cup "https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/America%27s_Cup" ?

what i like is that type of ship and region change and are choosen from two sides...


anyway, great you go on with something like buckyball!

 

[Raiko]

rep+1 for this and continuing the BuckyA* board.
I'm willing to contribute in anyway I can, including financially for bumper stickers.
Bucky B sounds good, somewhere closer, 5-10 k ly would be my suggestion.
Possibly a system 3-5 k ly away, there and back, additional proof would be a screenshot when you sell the exploration data or just being able to see the system in system map, deposit a ton of cargo of the CMDR's choosing, a witty line saying what why required for board entry. .
Maybe a distance sidewider challenge?
Race to fill a hauler with rares from named systems? "Rabid Rauler Rare Race"
-either at the same time, a scramble to get to a,b, c, d, e, f first against each other or is it best to go d, e, f, a, b, c? Screenies when buy commodities and when cargo hold full. Possibly better in group than open though, but I'd be up for either, would love to see CMDR ships speeding past each other through the letterbox. Would be some luck involved of course.
-and/or single best attempt over a week/fortnight.
Some Smuggling somehow and cold running

I've more or less got a plan together for my rares-race, I'm just waiting until I get back to the bubble to check out the systems first-hand.

Please bear in mind that I'd been planning this before EZ made his announcement, so any conflicts with the 'Buckyball spirit' could be scrapped if necessary.

I was planning to begin/end in a single station (like Buckyball-7) with rares gathered from at least 8 out of 16 specific stations. The cheap-ship challenge version of the race would use an off-the-shelf hauler with a 2A FSD, while the open version would have a minimum cargo capacity for each ship type based on their 2nd module slot from a minimum of 8t (required to gather 1t from each station) up to 128t for a type-9. Only the sidie and eagle would be at a disadvantage as their 2nd slot is less than 8t, so they need to sacrifice their 1st slot to count as a "freighter".

Finishing competitors would be required to have holds full of rares at the finishing line. Some of listed goods would be illegal, and a couple of the stations would be more than 100k from the entry point, I was also considering using one or two outposts in the list. Lave and Leesti are definitely on the list of systems, but there's enough places on the list to avoid the Lave cluster entirely.

Basically I thought that with an open choice of ships, 4+ illegal goods, 2 outposts, 2 distant docks (1 station/1 outpost), and 2 risky systems, there would be interesting choices to make about the best route.

There would be two league tables one for best time and one for profit-per-second.

I'd planned to give the race a bit of a Smokey and the Bandit theme, in tribute to the Buckyball Run. When I'd originally discussed it on Reddit I just suggested a straight race from 39-Tauri to the Lave cluster and back, but as I got zero helpful feedback from pvp pirates it changed into my current plan for a scavenger hunt / scramble race.

The start/finish will most likely be Jaques Station and my current list of rare goods are all legal-drugs (mostly booze) or food, to fit the Smokey and the Bandit theme. To make it easier for the big freighters I was also considering allowing any food/legal-drugs rares to be used, so long as at least 1t each of 8 of the listed goods were included. This would again mean that the Old Worlds of the Lave Cluster make a good, but risky choice of systems.

My main worry was how long the race would take, so I'd potentially have to reduce the number of systems to be visited. This Sag A* race has warped my view of what constitutes "a long way!" I used to think that a 200LY rares-run was massive, and Buckyball-6 seemed a staggering distance, but now the bubble seems tiny!

 

[Raiko]

I'd originally planned to name the race the "Bootlegger-Challenge" or "Iron-man Trucker", but again that was before EZ put the Buckyball Runs on hold.

The plan was for open-mode only, to make Lave/Leesti a tough choice. If the race was popular then Jaques Station might end up being pirate central, but that's part of the risk and most pvp-bullies probably wouldn't know how to find it.

EDIT:
Sorry about the double post I expected this post to be merged onto my last one!

 

[goemon]

that rare goods run - sounds amazing. i visited around 80 rare good stations, some of the systems are always good for being interdicted by npc ... also your idea does include jumping and supercruising, which i like. i just hope you have in mind that you'll need distances, asp's or dbx can't go without fuelscopping (around 200 sc), everything else would nail down the ships taken for this down to asp ;-)

and in the end - all rares collected by a big fat t9 and the two winners gets it all delivered where they want it?

i see pirates as a smaller problem, for sure some commanders would step up for patrolling the named systems.

your idea has a great plot!

 

[Hanekura Shizuka]

that rare goods run - sounds amazing. i visited around 80 rare good stations, some of the systems are always good for being interdicted by npc ... also your idea does include jumping and supercruising, which i like. i just hope you have in mind that you'll need distances, asp's or dbx can't go without fuelscopping (around 200 sc), everything else would nail down the ships taken for this down to asp ;-) and in the end - all rares collected by a big fat t9 and the two winners gets it all delivered where they want it? i see pirates as a smaller problem, for sure some commanders would step up for patrolling the named systems. your idea has a great plot!

Interdicted by NPC... not the only problem. If a player has sworn allegiance, the PCs can be just as much of a problem. I self-destructed in Diso once rather than let someone have my cargo; probably should have just jumped to another system after the first interdiction, but I was too stubborn for my own good. Was actually quite fun; he was trying to guess what language or languages I speak, and I really didn't feel like talking. After all, it was either give him what he wanted... or deny it to both of us. That said... that's the game.

 

[Chance-]

I have been a bit busy with work lately and am still trying to catch up with what has been going on in my absence but I would definitely love to help out in any way possible while electric is unable to host the buckyballs.

 

[mw_aurora]

I've more or less got a plan together for my rares-race

I like running rares, so I approve

 

[Alec Turner]

OK, my thoughts and ideas ...

1. A name

We should get more involvement with a fixed name for the series, to build up a reputation (like the Buckyball Run itself). My starting suggestion is Starchaser ("The Buckyball Racing Club is pleased to announce Starchaser X...", or possibly "Starchaser Series Round X"...). Anybody got any better ideas?

I'm not personally enamoured with the name "Starchaser" ... I'm not sure we even need a separate name. I actually really like the idea of just having a name for each race (e.g. Esvandiary's "A Rare Opportunity") and then advertising it as ..

The Buckyball Racing Club presents: A Rare Opportunity

2. A plan for one or more races

In practice, I think we already have ideas for several. I know Raiko, Esvandiary and I have all got ideas already. It might be good to collaborate on these, as some of the best options may come from combining ideas. I think also it might work best with a group of us taking turns to organise the races, under the same banner.

I really love the idea of people taking it in turns to organise a race. I organised a thing called "Gig Club" for several years where the members would take it in turns to organise a gig for all the other members to attend. It worked brilliantly because everyone (who wanted to) got a chance to have their say about what sort of gig we'd go to and each gig had such a different flavour in terms of venue and style of music.

My thoughts so far:

• Simple run out to one of the outlying systems (e.g. Unity in New Yembo) and back
• Split scramble race: two clusters of stations like BBR7 where you have to visit, say, 3 out of 6 stations in each cluster, but the two clusters are 150-200LY apart (trying to strike a balance between the long-distance jump ships and the multi-station scramble ships)
• Split scramble race centred around the two systems which are publicly confirmed as being where Unknown Artefacts have been found.
• Shipping goods in or out of PowerPlay expansion target systems (would have to be a Thursday to Wednesday race!)

All great ideas, I'd also quite like to do another fairly long distance run (although nothing like the commitment required for BBRA). My suggestion for this would be from a core system starting point (I'll research a suitable one when my "turn" comes around) out to the Mintaka black hole. In game this is the central star in the row of three that forms Orion's belt. It's less than a 1000lys out from SOL I think, so we're talking about 30-40mins. Really nice little jaunt for a first time explorer (and they get to see a black hole at the end). We could call it "Belt and BBRaces"

I also ought to write down what I mean when I say "Buckyball-style":

• In systems accessible to all (no permit-locked systems)
• Open to any ship (no outpost docking that would rule out large ships)
• Can be run at any time (time trial / checkpoint-style races, that can be run at any time within the race period, and thus open to those in all time zones)
• OK to run repeatedly (part of the excitement is trying to improve on your time!)

I think "inclusive" is the watchword.

Absolutely agree with "run at any time" (I have odd play hours myself) and "run repeatedly", and also that the race event should be open for a week or two to allow plenty of (but not indefinite) time for people to get their run(s) in. The only thing I would add re: the above list (and I took this one up with EZ at one point) is that I'd really really LOVE to do an outpost race because speed landing at outposts is just such fun. I know that excludes big ships but ... anyone with a big ship can probably afford to buy a small ship just to run the race. I also know you can't always getting docking permission but that's kind of hilarious too and you can always run again.

Finally, re: how people actually register their times ... I know EZ was working on something new for BB8 (taking photos using a camera with a clock in front of the screen?) but personally I'd say let's keep it simple (i.e. submitting screenshots as before) otherwise people will be put off.

Actually I'll say that once more ... keep it simple, otherwise people will be put off.

Errr, that's it for now but my thinking cap is still well and truly on.

Edit: oh, I see a lot of people are volunteering RL money for bumper stickers. Generally I'm not sure that we should get into RL money stuff, I think it just get's difficult in terms of postage and stuff going missing and people getting upset because stuff has gone missing. Plus, god forbid, it could actually get REALLY popular and then we'd be talking about hundreds of players rather than tens. That could get expensive! What I might do for my own race is offer a prize of some sort (perhaps a T-shirt or somesuch) because that's always nice but that should be up to the individual race organiser.

 

[adipose]

1. A name

I feel like Buckyball was electricZ's brand, and It wouldn't feel right using it without ElectricZ. I am ok with starchaser.

2. A plan for one or more races

A race from Milkuun to Lave, the home of the two most well-known player factions (the code and the Dukes of Milkuun (I apologize for misspelling))

3. Advertising

I am decent at video and audio editing, and could create something that fits the "Underground racing" theme. How should we follow up on this?

+rep for organizing this, BTW.