"In celebration of the 1333rd anniversary of the legendary first human landing on the Earth's Moon the historical reenactment society "Ex Luna Scientia" have partnered with the famous Buckyball Racing Club to organize a commemorative race, in the form of one their trademark "Midweek Madness" events. The race will be held from 19th through 21st of July starting from Lem Dock in the Chaac system, on a course including several systems with stations named after the crew of the historic "Apollo 11" mission team. The finish line is Moon Prospect in the Turot system, where participants will be involved in surface racing with their rovers. Members of the "Ex Luna Scientia" group will entertain spectators reenacting sequences from that first Moon landing using exact replicas of the ships, space suits and primitive technology from the era. On static display at the intermediate race stages in the Faust 3566, Xevioso and Nyanmil systems will be replicas of several pre-FTL ships and technologies; including full-scale models of legendary 20th century vessels like the Saturn V rocket, the Apollo Command Module and Eagle Lander, Soyuz and Space Shuttles plus many others, courtesy of the society's vast collection. Hopefully racers won’t be distracted!
The race will be open to everyone, from regular "Buckyballers" to first-time racing pilots looking for some action. In this regard the race committee would like to suggest that due to the risks involved in this type of event all potential participants are strongly advised to provide full insurance coverage for their ships before entering the race."
So finally it's that time of the year again when systems all around celebrate one the first small steps of our spacefaring civilization. The show is starting, spectators are already arriving, the reenactors are preparing for their exhibitions, but most important of all, stations administrators have given their "go" for "Buckyballers docking & departing priority protocols" (a mostly polite way to say that additional traffic controllers, emergency teams and repairing crews are on the ready). Time to reach Chaac and get in your ships pilots!
New to racing?
Please take a look to the following instructional video, courtesy of CMDR furrycat:
[video=youtube;6Pk5rjMu11Q]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Pk5rjMu11Q[/video]
Easy to learn, hard to master!
Easy to learn, hard to master!
Rules are pretty straightforward this time: depart from Lem Dock in the Chaac system (either in a "Eagle Lander" or a ship of your choice, more on this below), touch & go at Collins Dock in Faust 3566, Armstrong Gateway in Xevioso, Aldrin Terminal in Nyanmil, exactly in this order, then finally point your ship to Moon Prospect on the surface of Turot 1A. Here there's a little twist: since the base administration is expecting a high volume of incoming traffic due to spectators arriving to attend the Moon landing reenactment by the Ex Luna society, a "race no-landing zone" extending for 10 km around the base has been authorized as a safety measure.
For this reason, pilots will have to land anywhere outside of this area and cover the last leg to Moon Prospect by SRV. A bit of buggyball has never hurt anyone (well, sort of).
One last thing: a penalty mechanism will be present, officially to reassure stations administrators that the race committee discourage inconsiderate behaviours in proximity of their structures and historical vessels on display. You lose hull points, you add seconds on your final time, simple as that.
RACE CLASSES, RULES AND REGULATIONS
The race runs from Tuesday July 19th at 00:00:00 to Thursday July 21st at 23:59:59 (times are server time). All entries must start and end within this time period to be considered valid, but can be submitted until Friday July 22nd at 9:00:00 server time.
Only entries made in Open game mode will be considered valid. Entries made in Solo or Private will be counted as "Mission Simulations" and as such will be present in the leaderboard but won't be valid for final ranking.
Two ship classes are present for this race: Open Unlimited and Eagle Lander. Participants can have entries in both classes, in case of multiple Open Unlimited entries only the fastest one will be accounted for.
As the name suggests, Open Unlimited accepts any ship able to land on small up to medium pads (Armstrong Gateway and Aldrin Terminal are outposts, sorry Orca and Annie flyers!). Any loadout, Engineer modifications, FSD injection, anything goes. Mind the restriction though, only ships able to land at outposts!
For the Eagle Lander class pilots will fly a Core Dynamics Eagle equipped with the following loadout:
https://coriolis.io/outfit/eagle/0p3t5F5l3d5s8f2----2tv6--.Iw1-EA==.Aw1-EA==?bn=Eagle%20Lander (yes, there are no shields, it's been done on purpose. Handle with care )
Of course ship kits, paintjobs and any kind of ship decorations are allowed.
(Note: Lem Dock doesn't provide all the equipment needed for the Eagle Lander, you may take a look at Ahern Enterprise in the nearby Tellus system, but only for outfitting, they don't sell Eagles there!)
Race instructions
Once you are ready in your ship docked at Lem Dock in the Chaac system, do as follows:
- if you are flying in the Eagle Lander class, take a screenshot of the module panel of your ship (the panel should fit all the modules in view without need to scroll). Not needed for the Open Unlimited class.
- take a screenshot of your ship on the pad at Lem Dock ready for take-off. The time shown will be the start time for your entry.
- fly to Collins Dock in Faust 3566 and take a screenshot when landed (station interface and clock must be visible).
- fly to Armstrong Gateway in Xevioso and take another screenshot there.
- fly to Aldrin Terminal in Nyanmil and take another screenshot when landed (pay attention, Aldrin Terminal has no refueling facility! Make your calculations accordingly).
- fly to Moon Prospect in Turot. Once there, you must land at no less than 10 km from the base, any point is good for landing until it's at least 10 km away.
- take a screenshot of your landed ship, the clock, distance from Moon Prospect and remaining hull must be clearly visible. (this will count for the penalty time, see below)
- get in your SRV and take a screenshot with your speed at 0 m/s with clock and distance from the base both clearly visible (the distance must be equal or bigger than 10 km, 9.99 won't make for a valid entry)
- drive as fast as you can toward Moon Prospect, dock into an hangar there and take the final screenshot as soon as you are back again in your ship with the clock visible. The time shown will count as the finishing time for your entry.
(should you find yourself in your ship hovering high above the base instead of docked at it, it's a known bug and won't compromise your entry. Just take the final screenshot as written above, the clock will still count for your final time)
- if you are flying in the Eagle Lander class, take a screenshot of the module panel of your ship (the panel should fit all the modules in view without need to scroll). Not needed for the Open Unlimited class.
- take a screenshot of your ship on the pad at Lem Dock ready for take-off. The time shown will be the start time for your entry.
- fly to Collins Dock in Faust 3566 and take a screenshot when landed (station interface and clock must be visible).
- fly to Armstrong Gateway in Xevioso and take another screenshot there.
- fly to Aldrin Terminal in Nyanmil and take another screenshot when landed (pay attention, Aldrin Terminal has no refueling facility! Make your calculations accordingly).
- fly to Moon Prospect in Turot. Once there, you must land at no less than 10 km from the base, any point is good for landing until it's at least 10 km away.
- take a screenshot of your landed ship, the clock, distance from Moon Prospect and remaining hull must be clearly visible. (this will count for the penalty time, see below)
- get in your SRV and take a screenshot with your speed at 0 m/s with clock and distance from the base both clearly visible (the distance must be equal or bigger than 10 km, 9.99 won't make for a valid entry)
- drive as fast as you can toward Moon Prospect, dock into an hangar there and take the final screenshot as soon as you are back again in your ship with the clock visible. The time shown will count as the finishing time for your entry.
(should you find yourself in your ship hovering high above the base instead of docked at it, it's a known bug and won't compromise your entry. Just take the final screenshot as written above, the clock will still count for your final time)
Penalty rule
The remaining hull percentage after landing near Moon Prospect will count for the calculation of the final leaderboard time. Any hull point lost will add one penalty second to this time, so if a pilot makes a complete run (ship+SRV time) in 28:30 with ship hull at 67% after landing, a penalty time of 33 seconds will be added, for a calculated final time of 29:03.
Yes, the Eagle Lander has no shield. And you'll have to manage your fuel wisely. And you'll need to eyeball a good landing point at Moon Prospect. Nothing that hasn't been done already more than 1300 years ago. Have fun.
HOW TO ENTER
Declare your intent to race by posting in this thread the following informations:
- Cmdr name
- Forum name (if different from cmdr name)
- Ship Name
- Ship type (if Open Unlimited)
- Race class (Open Unlimited or Eagle Lander)
- Game mode (Open, Solo or Private)
- Your mission's motto (a very brief sentence in the style of the ones used in space missions more than a thousand years ago, anything like "Ex Luna, Scientia", "Ex Tomato, Ketchup" or "Look ma, no hands!" will do)
To submit a run, send me via PM or email at akenbosch <at> buckyballracing <dot> org <dot> uk all the informations above, together with the following documentation:
- screenshot of the module panel of the ship (not required if racing in Open Unlimited class)
- screenshot of the ship docked at Lem Dock (counts for starting time)
- screenshot of the ship docked at Collins Dock
- screenshot of the ship docked at Armstrong Gateway
- screenshot of the ship docked at Aldrin Terminal
- screenshot of the ship landed near Moon Prospect, with distance, clock and hull visible (hull counts for penalty time)
- screenshot of the still SRV with distance and clock visible (counts for SRV starting time)
- screenshot of the ship docked at Moon Prospect (or above it, counts for the finishing time)
Screenshots can be taken in game using the F10 key (Steam users can also use F12), or captured from a complete video recording of the run. The latter mode is suggested if possible, to avoid missing to take some screenshots in the heat of the race. Uploading them to http://imgur.com/]Imgur is suggested for easier management, though any other similar service will be good too.
- screenshot of the ship docked at Lem Dock (counts for starting time)
- screenshot of the ship docked at Collins Dock
- screenshot of the ship docked at Armstrong Gateway
- screenshot of the ship docked at Aldrin Terminal
- screenshot of the ship landed near Moon Prospect, with distance, clock and hull visible (hull counts for penalty time)
- screenshot of the still SRV with distance and clock visible (counts for SRV starting time)
- screenshot of the ship docked at Moon Prospect (or above it, counts for the finishing time)
Screenshots can be taken in game using the F10 key (Steam users can also use F12), or captured from a complete video recording of the run. The latter mode is suggested if possible, to avoid missing to take some screenshots in the heat of the race. Uploading them to http://imgur.com/]Imgur is suggested for easier management, though any other similar service will be good too.
Beauty shot
The top three competitors in each race class will be asked to provide a beauty shot of their ship, for awarding reasons.
Beauty shots should be taken using the classified camera (Control-Alt-Space) and should clearly show your ship. The recommended way to take a beauty shot is to jump to a system with a bright star (eg F class star) and orientate your ship so that the star fills the top left quadrant of the screen. Then position the classified camera to show your ship illuminated by the light from the star.
Ship image and text courtesy of furrycat, again. Sorry for stealing, I'm that lazy .
This is the first time for me hosting an event, if you see something important missing, unclear or not working as intended please let me know!
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