Buckyball Racing Club and New Pilots Initiative present: New Pilots Hustle (8-16 January 3308)

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
Bruski said:
Now this one I am much more certain of, because SCIENCE!!!

canonn.science

Optimal Supercruise Flight Paths | Canonn Research Group

We are privileged to have been asked to host Cmdr Heisenberg6626's study of the Optimal Supercruise Flight Paths, which examines this key element of space travel in detail
canonn.science canonn.science
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So what's the TLDR ... always completely turn your back to the star and get away first?
 
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Ozric

Volunteer Moderator
Ozric
Alec Turner said:
I've been studying this run on the train - bravo, an absolute masterclass. For those still learning their Buckyball supercruise approaches I recommend watching this and keeping a close eye on that ETA number. The real sign of excellent technique is when that ETA, having dropped below 0:06, never goes back above it again (while obviously never overshooting badly either). I found it fascinating to analyse the differences between this and my own runs of which there are apparently two main ones. First you turn far more aggresively away from the star. Despite this being recommended in Bruski's excellent tutorial it was something I somewhat dismissed. Yes, I've always arced away from the star to get away from it first, but I generally don't literally point away from it, preferring something of a compromise between that and still heading in the vague direction of my destination. Perhaps I need to rethink that. The other big difference is that I did take heed of something else mentioned in Bruski's tutorial, that off turning off flight assist, both when exiting the station and when doing my runs along the length of the stations because of the claim that speed decays less rapidly with FA turned off. I'm beginning to think this one is a falacy, and that the fact that FA off means your vector isn't always in as straight a line to the back of the station as it could be means any vague benefits are lost in taking a slightly longer route. No regrets and I loved that FA off vectors meant I could better drift past the rotating obstacles but I'm not sure I'd bother next time. Actually, another observed difference is that I think I tended to spam boost too much rather than picking my moments, meaning sometimes I overly drained my ENG capacitor and had to wait too long before I could boost again. I'm curious Ozric, in those runs down the stations what are you paying attention to most re: speed and boost, is it the engine sound? You seemed to have a far more consistent whine whereas my engine sounds tended to be all over the place.

Either way, an absolutely fantastic race Bruski and what a magnificent start to what looks set to be a fantastic year of Buckyball Racing (fans should stay tuned here after the flurry of post New Pilots Hustle banter for news of the first race in the Magic 8 Ball championship which starts in February).

Oh, and also ... what about the elephant in the room? An elephant named Darplata94?
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Why thank you kindly 😊

With regards to the pointing away from the star. As much as I do tend to get facing directly away from the star as much as possible, the one thing I do make sure of is that I always keep my target so the dot in the compass is solid. That way I am at least making progress towards it. Depending on how far away the target is depends on how soon I start turning towards it, but generally I aim for 1-2c speed before I start turning, that way I know I'm far enough away from the star.
It can be made slightly trickier by any planets you may have between you and your destination too, as you want to make sure you stay far enough away from them that their gravity well doesn't slow down your speed.

I'm still unsure about FAOn or Off for the turns I do really think it's dependant on your approach speed, how recently you boosted, and how long till your boost refills. But for the boost of the Eagle and the distance I often found myself getting to the turn point without a boost ready, so I would stay FAOn so I could maintain forward momentum easier. I love the Eagle. I've flown regulation ones many, many times so I think it's a case of everything coming together for me to be able to feel how and when to do things. Like you say if you hit boost as soon as it's possible to boost then it does completely drain the capacitor, so I try to wait a bit after it's possible to boost. The Eagle is interesting as it seems to be able to boost sooner than other ships in that Regulation builds and it can boost when the distributor is on 6 bars. Unengineered A rated Thrusters and Power Distributors also have a nice cadence to them so I find that it's quite easy to get into a rhythm, and it becomes a mix of the audio from the engines, the occasional glance at the PD, and feeling. Listening to music with a beat helps too ;)
But then if you look at it, I probably could have made those 15 seconds up along the run if I had of boosted consistently as soon as it hit 8 bars. But I was enjoying the scenery too much to worry about it :)

And yes, what about that Elephant...
61otxc.jpg
 

Fish172

Fish172
Just though, did everyone realise that once you have the correct pips for the PD that turning it off also saves some power. Useful when cutting the power supply very fine. It changes nothing except being able to adjust the output but saves a percent or two being used from the reactor.
 

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
Fish172 said:
Just though, did everyone realise that once you have the correct pips for the PD that turning it off also saves some power. Useful when cutting the power supply very fine. It changes nothing except being able to adjust the output but saves a percent or two being used from the reactor.
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The same is true in the SRV. Set 4 pips to ENG and then turn the PD off. The boost capacitor still recharges but you save fuel. All that turning the PD off seems to do is stop its standing power usage and stop you from changing pips. Personally I think it's a kinda of bug and that turning it off should also stop the capacitors from recharging again but I'm not about to file an issue report for that one! 😜
 

Bruski

Bruski
Alec Turner said:
e795d3bfaa35b8843bf27b83e65a111d.gif


So what's the TLDR ... always completely turn your back to the star and get away first?
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Basically.


The details of optimal flight paths can be found in
the article. In the text, we formulated some guidelines
for describing the geodesics. They are specific to the
regions, and can be summarised as the following “rules
for optimal flying”:
• Rule 1: If you are close to the star, get away, and
leave the region where v = 0.33c as directly as possible!
• Rule 2: It is almost never recommendable to fly
directly towards one’s target in a straight line.
Rather, give the nearest star a wide berth
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I guess we could watch the fastest Shaye/Darplata/Cooiehole runs to figure it out, but for me personally I aim straight away from the star until at least 1c, and then graaaaaaaadually turn towards the target, depending on how far away the target is.
 

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
Shaye Blackwood said:
Summary time I guess.
I went for the Aganippe->Ovid->LHS 6309->LHS 3006->Rakapila->Meliae route (My Viper would need an extra jump on the last leg of the shortest route). Sidewinder was my first choice of ship because of it's supercruise handling and in my experience that is where Buckyball races are won or lost. Not so this time however, so I moved on to the iEagle wich was a massive disappointment (I rarely sell ships but this one might go in the bin). The Eagle positively surprised me with how much time it made up in corners and on braking/landing, it was also much easier to fly than the more untamed Viper which rounded up my entries. Nothing beats the raw power and the gentle purr of the Viper engines devouring any track in front of it and it's not as bad in supercruise as I remembered either. You can of course go a lot faster than what I did using the scoop boosting technique but that skill is beyond me :)

Edit: Eagle build is very standard but the Viper config might be of interest? https://s.orbis.zone/hyag

Viper run:
Source: https://youtu.be/C9W6Ea6dxVQ


Eagle run:
Source: https://youtu.be/d5xNw9bTowU


Some bloopers:
Source: https://youtu.be/AZtlpqVyE38
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Just watched the Viper run ... wow! Those 0:02 second ETA station approaches are really quite something, every single one, even Whitson Hub!! How the hell did you manage to find a supercruise approach vector that allowed that? Incredible. Were you able to do that consistently or did you just have a miracle on that run? Also ... smashing into the front of the penultimate station! Damn ... without that it would have been sub-20 don't you think?

Anyway, congratulations to the winners and everyone who took part and massive thanks to Bruski for a really fantastic race. I'll grab those final leaderboards and get them on the Buckyball website later today.

So, err ... about the prize money? Not that I need it but it would seem ungrateful not to claim it. How's that gonna work then?
 

Fish172

Fish172
Well I did honestly believe sub 20 was possible, but I have to agree that Whitson hub was a royal pain in the rear and to get that approach required real precision. Mr Turner I thought the prize was new pilots only. You are most certainly not a new pilot.
Total respects to Shaye and that fantastic time.
But reading it it does seem to say there is prize money, so err if there is a runners up prize cough cough......
 

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
Fish172 said:
Well I did honestly believe sub 20 was possible, but I have to agree that Whitson hub was a royal pain in the rear and to get that approach required real precision. Mr Turner I thought the prize was new pilots only. You are most certainly not a new pilot.
Total respects to Shaye and that fantastic time.
But reading it it does seem to say there is prize money, so err if there is a runners up prize cough cough......
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Re-reads the OP

Drat!
 

Darkfyre99

Darkfyre99
Alec Turner said:
Just watched the Viper run ... wow! Those 0:02 second ETA station approaches are really quite something, every single one, even Whitson Hub!! How the hell did you manage to find a supercruise approach vector that allowed that? Incredible. Were you able to do that consistently or did you just have a miracle on that run?
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I just watched it myself, and you know the old saying: "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, everything after that is deliberate." It looked like they came very close to overshooting Leonard Nimoy Station, though. They've got an interesting Supercruise approach that I'm going to see if I can replicate.

I'm pretty much out of G5 materials now, and with eight confirmed races in the future, Commander Stevenson's coming out semi-retirement to prepare for them. I'll probably never have a whole slate of fully engineered ships, too much time for too little benefit IMO, but I'd like to get a couple dedicated "unlimited" class ships to that stage of development. That'll also hopefully keep my skills sharp for a change. ;)
 

Shaye Blackwood

S
Darkfyre99 said:
I just watched it myself, and you know the old saying: "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, everything after that is deliberate." It looked like they came very close to overshooting Leonard Nimoy Station, though. They've got an interesting Supercruise approach that I'm going to see if I can replicate.

I'm pretty much out of G5 materials now, and with eight confirmed races in the future, Commander Stevenson's coming out semi-retirement to prepare for them. I'll probably never have a whole slate of fully engineered ships, too much time for too little benefit IMO, but I'd like to get a couple dedicated "unlimited" class ships to that stage of development. That'll also hopefully keep my skills sharp for a change. ;)
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The Leonard Nimoy approach is the only one I'm happy with actually, if I get the option to disengage the FSD at 1 Mm I've dropped time on the approach. 500 km and less is good, this one was very close to overshooting though :)

Good shout on the ships to prioritize from Fish172 as well. Viper is really really fast but in longer races will hurt from the shorter jump range, the Courier is often the best compromise between range and speed.
 
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Shaye Blackwood

S
Alec Turner said:
Just watched the Viper run ... wow! Those 0:02 second ETA station approaches are really quite something, every single one, even Whitson Hub!! How the hell did you manage to find a supercruise approach vector that allowed that? Incredible. Were you able to do that consistently or did you just have a miracle on that run? Also ... smashing into the front of the penultimate station! Damn ... without that it would have been sub-20 don't you think?

Anyway, congratulations to the winners and everyone who took part and massive thanks to Bruski for a really fantastic race. I'll grab those final leaderboards and get them on the Buckyball website later today.

So, err ... about the prize money? Not that I need it but it would seem ungrateful not to claim it. How's that gonna work then?
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Not every time, but most of them. I don't think I did that approach the same way twice, the times don't change much though. Avoiding the gravity well of the gas giant alltogether and approach from the outside was not the fastest possible way but easier to get consistent. In this run I used one of the moons to slow down as well.

The times from pad touchdown in Rakapila to drop out in Meliae for the Viper was 2:57, 3:05, 2:58, 2:56 and 2:57 and I'm pretty sure the 3:05 was when I got too close to the gas giant. Need to check the footage if I still have it to be sure.

I don't think I lost more than 12-15 seconds on the crash so would still have been over 20 minutes, I'm convinced sub 20 is possible though.
 

Ronzer

Ronzer
Im not considering this an entry, since it's far past the final entry day, but thought I'd link to it anyways. I did runs in both Odyssey and Horizons. Things were a bit smoother in Horizons and it feels like I had more engine power to boost, but check out that walking to the ship stuff. :)
I got about 29:58 in Odyssey and 29:42 in Horizons. First time doing a race around stations only like this.
I actually prefer the Odyssey bookmarks, other than its a bit laggy still. I think in time they'll have that sorted out. The one thing that stands out in Odyssey's is that you can favourite the ones you want. I had mine numbered as well, but toggling it on and off is very convenient.
I also like the darkness in Odyssey. There were a few runs where I flew right into one of the Orbis posts, or side pods or something, since it's almost pitch black (plus a slight lack of focus). Hope to do more of these in future and preferrably before the deadline of course.

O7

Name: CMDR Isurus
Class: Regulation Eagle
Ship: Eagle Mark II
Ship Name: Bucky Balled Eagle

Buckyball-New Pilots Hustle-Odyssey

Buckyball-New Pilots Hustle-Horizons
 

Seingalt

Seingalt
Ignore my previous post.

Thanks so much for this experience. I am thrilled and want to do it again !
I have enough credits to offer a cash reward for a race, is it possible ? What are the criteria to host a race ?
I'd love to have one that is really short but happends in a CG system, what do you think ?
 
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