Nice comments, I agree with those (and I agree with nice writing also Luke!)
One note though Alec, unless there was a time warp and BBR5 is happening in a few months, I think you meant 3300 not 3303 for the year
Doh! Now fixed.
Nice comments, I agree with those (and I agree with nice writing also Luke!)
One note though Alec, unless there was a time warp and BBR5 is happening in a few months, I think you meant 3300 not 3303 for the year
Wow Amazing time! Well done CMDR AlotWell this has certainly been an exciting couple of days... Lavecon, 2.3.10, Thargoid bases and star maps, sub-6:30 Haulers (damn fine job Allitnil!), the PS4 launch and Premonition being released.
With all that going on, it'd be completely mental to try and do an A* run, wouldn't it...
Good job that adjective is regularly applied to me, I suppose.
Class: Unlimited
Ship: Rhonda, Anaconda
Time: 02:12:13
Pilot status: Bloody exhausted
http://i.imgur.com/Q9AiQec.jpg
Blistering pace to Sagittarius A*
The new record time for the Buckyball Racing Club's A* Challenge is 2 hours, 45 minutes, 39 seconds, achieved by CMDR Allitnil in the Anaconda "Paradox Drive". This blistering pace was achieved using highly tuned engineer upgrades combined with FSD supercharging from neutron stars and tactical use of FSD injection. The combined effect is so powerful that it was not necessary for the ship to be fully stripped down - it was even carrying an SRV!
"I wanted to test if FSD supercharging can more than compensate the extra distance travelled," explained CMDR Allitnil. Only 140 jumps were needed, including 107 with neutron-star boosting and only two normal jumps, the rest used premium jumponium to quickly get to the start of the "Neutron Superhighway" and finally to Sagittarius A*.
Anyone considering a similar run should remember that "neutron stars are extremely safe, right until they’re not, then they’re deadly," warned Allitnil, adding "despite appearances, the thin and wispy jets are dangerous, whereas the 'yikes that's big' ones are safe and easy to use." Other top tips include choosing M and K class stars for refuelling and to carry premium AFMU refills.
CMDR Mad Billy, Buckyball Racing Club
Whoops!This has been published in Sol, Fullerene C60 and Kocab.
First off, Congrats to Allitnil on his run. Congratulations are in order.
Secondly. I have stuff to show you guys. I've been typing furiously since about 1200/1300ish and while I hesitate to show a 'work in progress' usually, I think about a month of waiting from you guys deserves to at least show I've got something done. Right now, I've simply typed up to the creation of this challenge. It might be too much and unecessary but I figured put it there and it can be removed later, rather than have to put it in after the fact.
That said, there are some dates missing which I can't find. So if anyone has those to hand, excellent.
In the meantime I hope you enjoy
Disclaimer: I don't know how to disable edits in a Google Doc. I'm trusting you guys here
Thanks guys.
And no Alec, I hadn't read the interview thing. Thanks for that, I'll see if I can't pull a few quotes from it and whatever information it provides.
I'll be sure to remove my double wording, one of those things I have a bad habit of doing lol
With regards to EZs retirement, that is information I hadn't come across. Not to worry, I will definitely be adding it in for sure.
The good news is, I ran a hell of a run. It wasn't perfect (I detailed the mistakes below), but it was pretty close.
The bad news is, the servers didn't behave.
I lost somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty minutes overall because of technical issues, including:
- infinite hyperspace tunnels requiring me to end task on Elite (the first time, I waited 7 minutes before I did this).
- being deposited 41,000 ls from the star with less than a ton of fuel aboard when logging back in after one of the infinite hyperspace tunnels
- being disconnected with a transaction server error and staring at a spinning Imperial Eagle for a couple of minutes before it finally let me back in.
Before the first infinite hyperspace tunnel, I was running ~25 seconds ahead of a 9:45 pace (which I considered to be pretty much the best possible time I could run). If it hadn't been for the technical issues, I might very well have made it (it's hard to say, I knew I would be somewhat slower in the core and I'm not sure if the lead would have been enough - it would have been very close!).
I made three significant mistakes on the run. The first two were related to the extremely aggressive scooping technique I was using to try to get 46-47 second jumps and still get enough fuel.
1). I hit a star
2). I burned the FSD to the point of malfunction and had to repair it.
I estimate each of those cost me a little over a minute.
The third mistake, which might have been more costly was backing off on the aggression a bit when the drive got to 81%. I should have just kept the hammer down; at that point it was inevitable that I would need to repair it anyway. Truthfully, I'm not sure burning the drive was even a mistake; I suspect I may have saved more time by being aggressive than I lost repairing the drive.
Oh, there was one other mistake, but it only cost me 12 seconds...
Since I wasn't recording the run like I usually do, I wrote out a pre-flight checklist. One of the things on it was to take an early screenshot at about 15 seconds before start, because I was somehow certain that I would forget the launch screenshot. I took the early screenshot at 15:59:48 server time; this turned out to be a very good thing because I did forget the launch screenshot! So, my time is 12 seconds longer than it should have been, but that is far better than the alternative.
Some of my comments during the run that Shizuka wrote down:
"There are waaay to many F-class stars in my first leg..."
"The fuel-scooping solution to an A-class star is 'Nope!'" (as I was sort of half-scooping an A-class, not wanting to get close to it - The Imperial Eagle does tend to run hot, and even the low-emissions power plant I was running could only help so much!)
"At this point, 'F' doesn't have to be short for a cuss word. 'F' is a cuss word. 'F' is the second official cussword of Buckyball, after 'Aucoks'!"
"Remind me next time never to set waypoints on F's." (Destination target obscured coming out of the galmap, on a large F-class star that took several extra seconds to clear.)
"My strategy kind of runs on the principle that three 45-second jumps and a 48-second jump averages out to about 46." (said while taking a larger-than-normal amount of fuel off a big star)
"F! F! F! F! F!" (needs no explanation)
"'A' is just another word for 'Nope!'" (after getting too close to one even very briefly and promptly overheating)
"I need wheel chocks for my chair" (my chair has casters, and I use rudder pedals, so I tend to slowly drift backwards over time until I eventually get fed up and slide back forward)
"Argh, that's three F's in a row! This is a cluster F!"
"If the answer to 'A' is 'Nope!', there's not enough 'Nope!' for 'AA-A'"
Other observations:
This was definitely the most difficult run I have made. Every jump in the Imperial Eagle is a balancing act - you have a slow scoop and you run hot, so you have to evaluate with every jump when to press the button and when to pull away from the star. On M's I would push the button two seconds after the cooldown ended and then scoop two more seconds before starting to pull away. On K's I would wait three seconds after the cooldown, push the button, wait one more, and then pull away.
As for F's... well, F! It's count to three, start pulling away, THEN push the button... or try to get a little more fuel and burn for your trouble.
And then A-class stars are right out. I didn't even try to get up to max scoop rate on those, I'd just kinda make a half-hearted pass at them and make up the fuel I didn't take on the next M I hit.
That said, running this ship was fun. She's even more maneuverable and at the same time more demanding than the Hauler, and very engaging to fly throughout. I had a very difficult time even finding a few seconds to stand up and stretch my legs during this run, though, because of that - Cortana needed every moment of my attention.
So, what was the final time?
10:06:19.
Not what I was hoping for, but it would have been if the servers had been less temperamental today. Ah, well, what might have been. Still pretty fast for an Imperial Eagle, though!
I think I shall wait until they work out the transaction and matchmaking server problems that have cropped up since 2.3.10 before I make any more runs, though. That was really frustrating to deal with.
Thanks to Raiko and Jak for the encouragement - and thanks in both cases for being thoughtful enough to suggest that I did not need to reply to them so that I could focus on racing. I appreciate it.
Thanks to Hanekura Shizuka for timekeeping and taking notes on stuff so I could remember it for this account. Thanks to CMDR Jaereth for the moral support and for bringing snacks I could eat while flying. I appreciate you two a lot, and for a lot more reasons than just today.
Thanks to everyone who has had kind words while I've been going through some difficult times. I'm feeling a lot better now, but I know I have to stay vigilant lest I fall back into the same old traps that had me in such a bad place to begin with.
Screenshots (warning: 5760x1080, may break your browser window)
Launch
http://i.imgur.com/Gs913zW.jpg
Arrival
http://i.imgur.com/z6wwILt.jpg
Cortana (complete with her new blue thrusters and classic nameplates, which I love) and Sadge:
http://i.imgur.com/18hEV5a.jpg
imgur album with galmap and outfitting shots:
http://imgur.com/a/mrk2H
Note: I included three galaxy map screenshots, because I realized as I was assembling this that the first galaxy map screenshot does not show the system I am in (Sagittarius A*), but rather a system 4.88 ly away (Stuemeae km-w c1-6022), because I had non-sequence stars filtered out in the map.
Thus, I have included two additional screenshots of the map which I took while typing up this post.
1). showing the non-sequence stars filtered out (and showing the same pop-up for 4.88 ly to Stuemeae km-w c1-6022) as in the original galmap screenshot
2). showing the galaxy map a few seconds later after I re-added the non-sequence stars and zoomed in a bit so you can see Sagittarius A*.
Furthermore, my arrival screenshot into the system shows "Sagittarius A* System" and you can see Sadge in the screenshot. Hopefully this is good enough.
OK this is gonna be somewhat off-topic, but I dunno where else to post it... this seems as good a place as any ...
Is there, or will there be, a "Buckyball Race Badge", for posting in our signatures? I know, people like Alec, Bruski, Raiko et al have been posting "current race banners" as sigs, but I was thinking it would be nice if there's a jpg we can insert too, to say we're (more or less) part of a crazy bunch of peeps who find it fun to wreck our ships.... I mean, look at Rankaze's recent write up (bravo, btw...out of rep, can't rep you)... tell me who in his right mind would do that to his ship which he may have spent a few million CRs on? Deliberately frying his ship during scooping to save a few seconds? Madness!
Here, have a link to the Buckyball Racing Club's Resources page.OK this is gonna be somewhat off-topic, but I dunno where else to post it... this seems as good a place as any ...
Is there, or will there be, a "Buckyball Race Badge", for posting in our signatures? I know, people like Alec, Bruski, Raiko et al have been posting "current race banners" as sigs, but I was thinking it would be nice if there's a jpg we can insert too, to say we're (more or less) part of a crazy bunch of peeps who find it fun to wreck our ships.... I mean, look at Rankaze's recent write up (bravo, btw...out of rep, can't rep you)... tell me who in his right mind would do that to his ship which he may have spent a few million CRs on? Deliberately frying his ship during scooping to save a few seconds? Madness!
Out of rep but bravo! That's a heck of a run and a heck of a write-up too. Bummer about the server issues but I guess you'd have to be really lucky in a 10hr session not to have some issues. I must says things have generally felt really stable to me since 2.3.10.
Not sure if you were recording the whole run, but if so I'd be interested to know if you ran into a variant of the same bug as me.I have had the opposite experience from you, with regard to 2.3.10... from 2.3 to 2.3.10 I had no issues, but since 2.3.10 I have had occasional minutes-long supercruise (and occasonally even hyperspace) transitions, and random disconnects. The ones during my run were much worse than I had seen previously, though.
Whew boy, it's all go recently isn't it!
Absolutely fantastic time Rankaze, and sad to hear about the technical issues - suffice to say I know how you feel.
An Imperial Eagle nudging 10 hours... exciting times!
Not sure if you were recording the whole run, but if so I'd be interested to know if you ran into a variant of the same bug as me.
When you selected the system to jump to, just before an infinite hyperspace transition, what did the target info show in the bottom left of the screen while you were charging? Normally it'd be Unknown / Unknown, or None / None if you'd been to the system before - but before the infinite-jump-of-death on my run I noticed it was just completely blank.
Unfortunately, in my experience that problem is persistent - it's the other half of the "can't get a hover-box in the galaxy map" problem.If that does serve as a reliable indicator, it might mean the infinite hyperspace tunnel can be avoided somehow. Maybe replotting the jump, or going ahead and logging out/back in before making the jump (which would still cost time, but less than the infinite hyperspace and THEN logging out/in does).
I haven't used AFMUs enough to know what the repair requirements are like more generally, but I got about 25% through two 5B AFMUs on my run. So that'd be 50% of one, or assuming a run needing twice as many repairs, the whole of one.Also... I think I am going to pass on trying to make a neutron star run in Cortana. Now that I realize just how much resources it costs even for a grade 1 AFMU ammo synth, and considering I'd have only one 2A AFMU to work with in a 4-jump neutron star build, that would be really expensive in terms of materials. If someone else thinks it's worth doing that, more power to them. I might do it someday if I happen to find myself with a large supply of the right materials to burn, but for now I think I will save neutron star runs for ships that can equip at least a Class 3 AFMU.
Sounds positively exhausting. Have funRight now I've got Excalibur (unlimited - which I now have to replot because I rolled a better FSD, and because I realized some mistakes I made in plotting the run, and I may do that as a neutron star run since I have to replot anyway), Haulin' A* (Classic - 9:30 or bust!), Joyeuse (Unlimited, probably via neutron star, and probably also Classic eventually), so my plate is pretty full.
Unfortunately, in my experience that problem is persistent - it's the other half of the "can't get a hover-box in the galaxy map" problem.
My suspicion is that the game does a call to the server to find out what your commander knows about the system - in the galmap case the relevant info is "do I have a system map or not", in the HUD case it's "should I know what the system status is".
I think that query is failing, but for some reason that "failed" result is getting cached - meaning that no matter how many times you open/close the galaxy map or select/deselect the system, it'll never fix itself while the game thinks the cached data is good.
In other words, if you really need to go to that system, exiting/reopening the client will be the quickest way. If you don't really need to go to that system ... go to a different system.
I haven't used AFMUs enough to know what the repair requirements are like more generally, but I got about 25% through two 5B AFMUs on my run. So that'd be 50% of one, or assuming a run needing twice as many repairs, the whole of one.
I don't know how repair requirements scale with FSD size or how capacity scales with AFMU size, so I don't know if you'd need to refill it once (or maybe even twice), but I'd say surely not more than that.
As for the materials... 3 out of 4 of the basic ones shouldn't be too troublesome as they're relatively common... Chromium a little less so.
Up to you though, of course - I think I enjoy driving around planets shooting rocks more than a lot of people.
Sounds positively exhausting. Have fun