Community Event / Creation Buckyball Racing Club Presents: Prison Brake (07.08.3303 - 13.08.3303)
- Thread starter AkenBosch
- Start date
Open & Eagle runs submitted. only managed three successful runs, so pretty pleased with the results.
caught glimpses of quite a few CMDRs out there, could be some changes afoot! I am fairly confident both of my efforts are mid-table, entirely reflective of my skill level. there was definitely a minute to be taken off each one; too fast for OC (boost you freagle, boost!) and faffing around trying to catch MH.
bl00dy good fun, if extremely frustrating.
many thanks to AkenB for hosting and all for competing. i look forward to the final board tomorrow.
<-lightspeed->
caught glimpses of quite a few CMDRs out there, could be some changes afoot! I am fairly confident both of my efforts are mid-table, entirely reflective of my skill level. there was definitely a minute to be taken off each one; too fast for OC (boost you freagle, boost!) and faffing around trying to catch MH.
bl00dy good fun, if extremely frustrating.
many thanks to AkenB for hosting and all for competing. i look forward to the final board tomorrow.
<-lightspeed->
Note to self for next race: establish eclipse timing at the beginning of the race. This should be doable with a day or two of observations. If only there were an app for that. 
It might require a good amount of math, but would be really interesting.
Here were some notes I made last night. I think if one did this every hour for awhile you could build up a decent pattern. Astrolabe optional?
It might require a good amount of math, but would be really interesting.
Here were some notes I made last night. I think if one did this every hour for awhile you could build up a decent pattern. Astrolabe optional?
| Route | Clearance Required | Rotational Period |
| Ehki > Slink | 26km | 45.1d |
| Ehki > Atagat | 2km | 45.1d |
| Atagat > Ekhi | 300km | -2.0d |
| Atagat > Epsilon | 0km | -2.0d |
| Elsipon > Atagat | ALOT | 0.1d |
| Epsilon > Slink | 200km | 0.1d |
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I had a couple of last minute attempts tonight before the deadline, but didn't improve my time.
During one run, I bounced off the pad on my first landing attempt at Bailey Penal Colony, turned around for a second attempt and nearly crashed into a fast moving cmdr cookiehole.
This race was great fun, even if I'm too slow.
I never managed to successfully enter orbital cruise at MH, I thought I was going to during my final attempt, as that damned moon was about to start running away when it dragged me into it's gravity field, so I thought "Yes! Perfect!.... NOOO!!!!" - 'Too fast for orbital cruise.'
A great and crazy race Aken B. o7
During one run, I bounced off the pad on my first landing attempt at Bailey Penal Colony, turned around for a second attempt and nearly crashed into a fast moving cmdr cookiehole.
This race was great fun, even if I'm too slow.
I never managed to successfully enter orbital cruise at MH, I thought I was going to during my final attempt, as that damned moon was about to start running away when it dragged me into it's gravity field, so I thought "Yes! Perfect!.... NOOO!!!!" - 'Too fast for orbital cruise.'
A great and crazy race Aken B. o7
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Phew. 5 attempts with the Eagle and 3 with the Courier are done. 2 + 1 aborts due to faceplanting planets / stars, surprisingly no insurance claims and a lot of fun.
I struggled a bit with staying focused but against all expectations it became better towards the end. There's still potential for shaving off at least a minute in the Eagle and probably something like 30s in Unlimited, but I guess I shouldn't be complaining when doing last minute runs
Submissions Incoming.
After using the extra jumps on the Eagle runs to think about it, a few ugly sketches and playing around with Stellarium a bit I think I now have a rough idea on how to at least graphically solve the problem.
Since both the coordinates of locations on planets aswell as the "heading" and "climbing angle" are in a spherical coordinate system and with the planetary characteristics like rotational period and axial tilt being accessible from the System Map, a single measurement of azimuth, altitude (angle) and time should be enough to be able to model the path of the star in the sky and with that the times of it being obscured. I'm not sure about the actual math though (seems a bit tricky), but there are a few possible simplifications and probably some similar stuff already on the internet. I'll try to figure out more about that tomorrow / later today, I think it should not be too difficult to put together a spreadsheet or program
I struggled a bit with staying focused but against all expectations it became better towards the end. There's still potential for shaving off at least a minute in the Eagle and probably something like 30s in Unlimited, but I guess I shouldn't be complaining when doing last minute runs
Submissions Incoming.
I had thought a bit about this aswell because obscured jump targets are such a major headache in so many races, but have been too lazy to actually think about it for real.Note to self for next race: establish eclipse timing at the beginning of the race. This should be doable with a day or two of observations. If only there were an app for that.
It might require a good amount of math, but would be really interesting.
Here were some notes I made last night. I think if one did this every hour for awhile you could build up a decent pattern. Astrolabe optional?
After using the extra jumps on the Eagle runs to think about it, a few ugly sketches and playing around with Stellarium a bit I think I now have a rough idea on how to at least graphically solve the problem.
Since both the coordinates of locations on planets aswell as the "heading" and "climbing angle" are in a spherical coordinate system and with the planetary characteristics like rotational period and axial tilt being accessible from the System Map, a single measurement of azimuth, altitude (angle) and time should be enough to be able to model the path of the star in the sky and with that the times of it being obscured. I'm not sure about the actual math though (seems a bit tricky), but there are a few possible simplifications and probably some similar stuff already on the internet. I'll try to figure out more about that tomorrow / later today, I think it should not be too difficult to put together a spreadsheet or program
(...)I had thought a bit about this aswell because obscured jump targets are such a major headache in so many races, but have been too lazy to actually think about it for real.
After using the extra jumps on the Eagle runs to think about it, a few ugly sketches and playing around with Stellarium a bit I think I now have a rough idea on how to at least graphically solve the problem.
Since both the coordinates of locations on planets aswell as the "heading" and "climbing angle" are in a spherical coordinate system and with the planetary characteristics like rotational period and axial tilt being accessible from the System Map, a single measurement of azimuth, altitude (angle) and time should be enough to be able to model the path of the star in the sky and with that the times of it being obscured. I'm not sure about the actual math though (seems a bit tricky), but there are a few possible simplifications and probably some similar stuff already on the internet. I'll try to figure out more about that tomorrow / later today, I think it should not be too difficult to put together a spreadsheet or program
So you are telling me you can use the few seconds of lull of the added jumps to visualize a mathematical method to calculate orbital movements to predict stuff? Life of an intelligent person must be hell
At best, what happens in my brains between a jump and the next can be roghly summarized as:
- white noise
- random hummings
- "a circle in a cirle in a square plus a circle, used pants-what if trees could scream?"
- "ring around the rosie, a pocket full of-sausages. Raining sausages, now I'd really like a popsicle. Popsicles on a train."
- random folk song heard only once at a fair in 1997 starts playing in background
- images of flocks of flying cows, smiling with human teeth. Folk song with techno bass.
- more white noise
Back to apparent sanity, the race is officially over and I've received no new submissions so far after furrycat's last one. I'll still give a couple of hours before wrapping up results and posting the final leaderboards.
Don't tell me, cookiehole's going to breeze into the top 3 with one of his 3 iCourier attempts right? Dude's a natural.
Not really. I generally get pretty bored during jumps and SC cruise phase which often leads to Alt-tabbing and thus overshooting targets, so I feel having something to think about helps me with that.
And once I started thinking about the target obscured problem I couldn't really stop it from wandering around in my head anyways. I took a few breaks between runs to analyze it a bit more with sketches (weirdly that helped me focus better during the runs). And no orbital movements and stuff, just "simple" geometry with spherical coordinate systems as it turns out
But as pleasant realizing that felt, I still haven't figured out the math (and without that it's practically useless unless we want to use a giant hollow sphere drawing board to draw circles and stuff for each planet and star).
Onto trying to figure out the math and a way of putting it into code/Excel/whatever now...
Not really. I generally get pretty bored during jumps and SC cruise phase which often leads to Alt-tabbing and thus overshooting targets, so I feel having something to think about helps me with that.
And once I started thinking about the target obscured problem I couldn't really stop it from wandering around in my head anyways. I took a few breaks between runs to analyze it a bit more with sketches (weirdly that helped me focus better during the runs). And no orbital movements and stuff, just "simple" geometry with spherical coordinate systems as it turns out
But as pleasant realizing that felt, I still haven't figured out the math (and without that it's practically useless unless we want to use a giant hollow sphere drawing board to draw circles and stuff for each planet and star).
Onto trying to figure out the math and a way of putting it into code/Excel/whatever now...
I have to say that having a tool that could predict, with reasonable accuracy, when any given planetary surface location would be in light/shade (there's nothing like planning an SRV in the light only to find that it's dark through the week of the event) or when a jump from one point to another would obscured would be absolutely invaluable for planning races. I don't know if you can feel it but I'm willing you on from the sidelines.
And no orbital movements and stuff, just "simple" geometry with spherical coordinate systems as it turns out
Our respective definitions of "simple" appear to be wildly different
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This is a problem that I have considered, not only for racing but also for role-playing. Ascertaining the lighting conditions can be crucial to the significance of a scene, not to mention how people live planetside in the Elite: Dangerous Universe: do people set their clocks on a planet based on that planet's rotational period, or does everyone run off a standard time and just accept that they are up at night and sleeping during the day? Can ships leaving a planet for a particular trade destination all just high-wake or must they low-wake and make their way around the planet first?Not really. I generally get pretty bored during jumps and SC cruise phase which often leads to Alt-tabbing and thus overshooting targets, so I feel having something to think about helps me with that.
And once I started thinking about the target obscured problem I couldn't really stop it from wandering around in my head anyways. I took a few breaks between runs to analyze it a bit more with sketches (weirdly that helped me focus better during the runs). And no orbital movements and stuff, just "simple" geometry with spherical coordinate systems as it turns out
But as pleasant realizing that felt, I still haven't figured out the math (and without that it's practically useless unless we want to use a giant hollow sphere drawing board to draw circles and stuff for each planet and star).
Onto trying to figure out the math and a way of putting it into code/Excel/whatever now...
.
I have come up with a small set of basic rules to help, in cases where I don't actually have the means to fly to a specific location, note the time and the rotational period and any other useful details, like position in their orbit.
1) planets that are not in a binary (or other multiple configuration) that are close to their host star are normally tidally locked, therefore the lighting conditions can be assumed to be constant (always day/night).
2) planets and moons that are very distant from their host star will have very little difference between day and night, at least to the human eye. They can be treated as night-time.
3) target obscurations fall into two categories: always obscured and 'seasonally' obscured. This depends upon how far out of the orbital plane of the planet the target system is located and on the planet's axial tilt. e.g. a system well out of the orbital plane of a planet with low axial tilt will always be visible from one hemisphere and always obscured from the other, whilst in between it will be obscured for certain hours of the day at certain times of year. For target systems that are close to the orbital plane of a planet, or for planets with high axial tilt, these times are extended until at the extremes they match the planet's day/night cycle.
4) In case of role-playing amongst complex systems of moons and arrangements of multiple planets, treat the orbital period of the moon or planetary binary as the rotational period. Most planets in binary configurations are tidally locked so this approximation works OK but moons in a distant orbit would, strictly speaking, then need their own rotational period checked. That is one layer too many for the kind of book-keeping a GM needs to do in a RPG but by treating a moon's orbital period as being equivalent to the rotational period of a planet at that location can tell you whether obscuration is likely to be a problem for racing purposes.
5) In rpgs, always allow the GM some artistic license. It's the story that counts.
.
Sorry I could not make it to this race, well done to AkenBosch for organising it and o7 to everyone who took part! Fly fast!
All right ladies and gents, the race has officially ended hours ago, the Prison Authorities are finalizing their evaluations of security alert reports and damage assessment from Bailey, Hume and Barcelo while Buckyball pilots are relieving the stress of race at Kelleam Ring, focusing either on field repairing of their battered ships or depleting what remains of The Tipsy Damsel's once huge stock of beverages. What a better time than this to take a look at the final leaderboards and cheer the winners!
The final hours of the race have seen little action in the Eagle Regular class, but most of it where it really counts. Another regular of the Buckyball Club in the person of cmdr <-lightspeed-> showed up in his Eagle James Earl Ray and made room for himself in the middle of the pack with a final time of 21:15. In the meantime cmdr Bruski devised a cunning plan to get a hold of the first position, mostly consisting in renaming his ship from Sparkling Cinder to Flaming Pancake, a known trick for adding several joules of thrust to fusion engines thanks to the use of the word "flame"; and his plan worked at first, propelling cmdr Bruski 22 seconds ahead of Stern Winter's already impressive run with a final time of 18:21.
All of this though wasn't nearly enough to repel the incoming assault of the Buckyball Racing Club current undisputed champion, cmdr Cookiehole, who showed up at the very last moments of the race in his Momentum Conservation and blitzkrieged the leaderboard by completing the course more than a minute faster than the valiant cmdr Bruski, with a truly stunning final time of 17:12 that grants him the victory in the Eagle Regular class. Congratulations cmdr!
(after his incredible run, cmdr Cookiehole has reportedly speculated about being able to shave at least another 1-2 minutes given the right conditions, but it's hard to believe that...he could always try by renaming his ship Flaming Momentum Conservation though)
Another whole batch of new entries for the final hours of the race in the Open Unlimited class. Starting from the bottom we greet seasoned cmdr Markzx59 and his Courier Boomerang, who completed his personal stress-test of the penal colonies' security protocols in 19 minutes and 57 seconds, placing himself at the 16th place and 17 seconds behind a vastly improved run from cmdr Cheetah, who shaved well over three minutes from his previous board entry and settled for a final 15th position with the time of 19:40.
Moving five position above we find the only entry from Buckyball VIP cmdr furrycat, who despite the very little time available to devote to the race still managed a very solid time of 17:57 in his Eagle Slipscream, well done cmdr! Continuing to move up the leaderboard we meet another last minute entry at the 6th position, cmdr <-lightspeed-> again, this time in the Imperial Eagle TomDickHarry, surviving to all three prison landings and bringing his ship back to Kelleam in 17 minutes and 40 seconds.
We finally get to the podium area, where things look a bit like deja vu: again, cmdr Bruski manages to consistently improve his previous run (and without even adding "flaming" to his ship name!), shaving off 43 seconds from an already stunning performance and thus getting ahead of previous leader cmdr Drakhyr with the time of 14:48, only to see his efforts thwarted again by the one and only cmdr Cookiehole! Hitting the track in one of his most famous and awarded racing steeds, the Imperial Courier Crater Creator, the inhumanly talented pilot made a near perfect run lasting only 14 minutes and 03 seconds, and is therefore declared the winner of the Open Unlimited class, and the overall winner of the Prison Brake race! Impressive as always cmdr, impressive as always. The Buckyball Racing Club salutes you once again. o7
(Hope cmdr Alec Turner has not run out of red ink! You know what you have to do)
That's all for now cmdrs, I really hope everyone of you who participated had fun doing so, I acknowledge it was a rather tricky, technical and dangerous race, especially for newcomers or pilots simply not accustomed to this way of flying around. If you liked what you saw (and did!) and want to try more, stay tuned for upcoming events from the BRC, next one planned for the start of September is "The Lion's Back" hosted by cmdr Samwell Drakhyr (additional infos coming soon).
Fly recklessly o7
The final hours of the race have seen little action in the Eagle Regular class, but most of it where it really counts. Another regular of the Buckyball Club in the person of cmdr <-lightspeed-> showed up in his Eagle James Earl Ray and made room for himself in the middle of the pack with a final time of 21:15. In the meantime cmdr Bruski devised a cunning plan to get a hold of the first position, mostly consisting in renaming his ship from Sparkling Cinder to Flaming Pancake, a known trick for adding several joules of thrust to fusion engines thanks to the use of the word "flame"; and his plan worked at first, propelling cmdr Bruski 22 seconds ahead of Stern Winter's already impressive run with a final time of 18:21.
All of this though wasn't nearly enough to repel the incoming assault of the Buckyball Racing Club current undisputed champion, cmdr Cookiehole, who showed up at the very last moments of the race in his Momentum Conservation and blitzkrieged the leaderboard by completing the course more than a minute faster than the valiant cmdr Bruski, with a truly stunning final time of 17:12 that grants him the victory in the Eagle Regular class. Congratulations cmdr!
(after his incredible run, cmdr Cookiehole has reportedly speculated about being able to shave at least another 1-2 minutes given the right conditions, but it's hard to believe that...he could always try by renaming his ship Flaming Momentum Conservation though)
Another whole batch of new entries for the final hours of the race in the Open Unlimited class. Starting from the bottom we greet seasoned cmdr Markzx59 and his Courier Boomerang, who completed his personal stress-test of the penal colonies' security protocols in 19 minutes and 57 seconds, placing himself at the 16th place and 17 seconds behind a vastly improved run from cmdr Cheetah, who shaved well over three minutes from his previous board entry and settled for a final 15th position with the time of 19:40.
Moving five position above we find the only entry from Buckyball VIP cmdr furrycat, who despite the very little time available to devote to the race still managed a very solid time of 17:57 in his Eagle Slipscream, well done cmdr! Continuing to move up the leaderboard we meet another last minute entry at the 6th position, cmdr <-lightspeed-> again, this time in the Imperial Eagle TomDickHarry, surviving to all three prison landings and bringing his ship back to Kelleam in 17 minutes and 40 seconds.
We finally get to the podium area, where things look a bit like deja vu: again, cmdr Bruski manages to consistently improve his previous run (and without even adding "flaming" to his ship name!), shaving off 43 seconds from an already stunning performance and thus getting ahead of previous leader cmdr Drakhyr with the time of 14:48, only to see his efforts thwarted again by the one and only cmdr Cookiehole! Hitting the track in one of his most famous and awarded racing steeds, the Imperial Courier Crater Creator, the inhumanly talented pilot made a near perfect run lasting only 14 minutes and 03 seconds, and is therefore declared the winner of the Open Unlimited class, and the overall winner of the Prison Brake race! Impressive as always cmdr, impressive as always. The Buckyball Racing Club salutes you once again. o7
(Hope cmdr Alec Turner has not run out of red ink! You know what you have to do
)That's all for now cmdrs, I really hope everyone of you who participated had fun doing so, I acknowledge it was a rather tricky, technical and dangerous race, especially for newcomers or pilots simply not accustomed to this way of flying around. If you liked what you saw (and did!) and want to try more, stay tuned for upcoming events from the BRC, next one planned for the start of September is "The Lion's Back" hosted by cmdr Samwell Drakhyr (additional infos coming soon).
Fly recklessly o7
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Hmm. After a couple of hours of (admittedly not very efficient) pondering I still haven't figured it out. But I've found a site with (I think) all the necessary formulas, so now I'll "only" need to implement it.
As for the race:
Thanks a lot for organizing and hosting, Aken! It was a lot of fun (although the first attemtps felt like hard work) and I love the course.
Congrats to Bruski (and sorry for the double 1st-position theft
), Stern Winter and Drakhyr and to everyone else who took part! Happy to see quite a few new racers, hopefully you all had fun! Videos:
[video=youtube_share;5XzdxNgPnmo]https://youtu.be/5XzdxNgPnmo[/video]
[video=youtube_share;7rbNJby8Muw]https://youtu.be/7rbNJby8Muw[/video]
[video=youtube_share;7rbNJby8Muw]https://youtu.be/7rbNJby8Muw[/video]
Quick Analysis:
I think the most important part of this race was Supercruise and Orbital cruise (the landing was mostly a case of a more or less sane amount of lithobraking).
All three SC approaches were different and fun in their own way.
Ekhi has a nice opportunity for double planetary braking, so I used a direct approach with an initial throttle-down at a "late" 0:05 ETA followed by a close flyby of the main planet and further braking just outside of the blue zone before entering OC of the moon. Guessing the right approach angle and speed in OC is difficult and I still haven't got a good rule of thumb for it. But an ETA of 0:04 when in OC seems to be a good balance between arriving quickly and being able to avoid a "too fast for glide" without too many problems. It's still difficult to drop out exactly in the right place though.
Atagat has a fairly standard gas giant approach, although the orbital position of the moon wasn't optimal at least yesterday evening. Initial ETA of about 0:04-0:03, flyby ETA of 0:02 and then again braking while flying around the moon above the OC zone. I tried to line up the target pretty much exactly at the opposite side of the moon at initial approach, that allowed for enough braking from a 0:03 ETA and still not overshooting the settlement in OC.
Mitterand Hollow is special due to the extremely high orbital velocity of the moon. Despite the 2xx ls distance from the main star being more in favour of a direct approach I opted for a relatively fast loop (initial throttle-down at 0:05-0:04) which allowed me to come in perpendicular to the orbital plane of the moon and thus see the orbital direction. I then did a close flyby of New Africa to bleed of speed aiming towards the anticipated position of Mitterand Hollow. On the final approach towards the moon I aimed for outside of the estimated OC zone to avoid a faceplant.
I had luck with obscured targets; during the last few hours of the race all of them were free when running Ekhi -> Atagat -> Epsilon Indi
I just ... but ... hang on, what, no ... err, no ... err ... the thing is, errr ... how the .... what? Say WHAT!?!? no.
OK, let me put this another way ...
[video=youtube_share;t5kX-W-BG38]https://youtu.be/t5kX-W-BG38[/video]
And that's all I have to say about that.
And that's all I have to say about that.
P.S. I left my rubber stamp at work so I'll have to do that thing tomorrow.
As predicted, I didn't have the time to race during the weekend - not that it would have helped me anyway
For the first time I was lucky enough to hold first place on the leaderboard for any length of time.
So imagine my suspense all day today. I must have worn the F5-key completely out at work. Will Polly come screaming in her "Blood Eagle"? Perhaps Bruski will concentrate on Open and leave the Regulation Eagle class alone.
None of that happened. And then Cookiehole just dropped by; "Oh, there's a race going on. I don't really have time, but I'll try a couple of runs" - and blitzes both leaderboards in the dying hours of the race.
Congratulations to Cookiehole, Bruski and Drakhyr for places well deserved. And to all other participants in this great, fun and challenging race.
Thanks to AkenBosch for hosting [up]
PS. In case I come across bitter; I'm not. Just feeling a little deflated after a long day waiting for the final score
For the first time I was lucky enough to hold first place on the leaderboard for any length of time.
So imagine my suspense all day today. I must have worn the F5-key completely out at work. Will Polly come screaming in her "Blood Eagle"? Perhaps Bruski will concentrate on Open and leave the Regulation Eagle class alone.
None of that happened. And then Cookiehole just dropped by; "Oh, there's a race going on. I don't really have time, but I'll try a couple of runs" - and blitzes both leaderboards in the dying hours of the race.
Congratulations to Cookiehole, Bruski and Drakhyr for places well deserved. And to all other participants in this great, fun and challenging race.
Thanks to AkenBosch for hosting [up]
PS. In case I come across bitter; I'm not. Just feeling a little deflated after a long day waiting for the final score
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PS. In case I come across bitter; I'm not. Just feeling a little deflated after a long day waiting for the final score
I know the feeling
Congratulations to Cookiehole, and special congratulations to Bruski for being the only pilot to get within a minute of Cookiehole's time
Thanks for the race, AkenBosch. Smashing ships on the pad is always a ton of fun. If nothing else, this race pushed me to get some engineering done that I'd previously been lax about, and it's going to (already has) transferred over to improved times in the Okinura Challenge. But I'd like to think that I learned a new trick or too about planetary approaches as well.
Well done, cookiehole...I was going to put together a side-by-side video to show all the little gains and advantages, but realized I simply don't have time before I leave on my total eclipse trip at the end of this week.
Grats to everyone else, new racers especially. Welcome to the club!
But I'd like to think that I learned a new trick or too about planetary approaches as well.Well done, cookiehole...I was going to put together a side-by-side video to show all the little gains and advantages, but realized I simply don't have time before I leave on my total eclipse trip at the end of this week.
Grats to everyone else, new racers especially. Welcome to the club!
Thanks for the race. It was fun and challenging, especially for a first-timer. I'm just glad I managed to end up anywhere on the leader board rather than spread all over one of the moons! I also found out just how hard you can bounce without any issues, which is a *lot* different to my usual softly-softly docking manoeuvres.
...I may have to do this again
...I may have to do this again