November 3310 Update (1 of 3)
Well, at least it isn't 3311 yet...
Okay, so I didn't keep the thread up-to-date so well, but I did keep in touch with the participants via the BRC Discord, and we have had some EPIC racing in the A* Challenge since the last update, as well as several A* Challenge milestones.
Things began relatively quietly at the end of January, as Cmdr ElitePenguin (
@FlyingPenguin), fresh from setting the first sub-90 minute time in a non-Conda earlier in the month in his Krait Phantom, turned his attention to the Diamondback Explorer. Arriving at the core in an incredible 01h37m38s, ElitePenguin smashed the existing DBX record by more than 30 minutes in Diligence. It wasn't another sub-90 run, but is by far the fastest ever run in a small ship.
Next Cmdr ElitePenguin switch back to his Phantom Lonesome Phantom and an epic battle began, the likes of which hasn't been seen since Ravenov achieved dominance of the challenge in 3306.
On 20-Feb-3310 ElitePenguin arrived at Sadge in Lonesome Phantom 01h24m36s after departing from Galileo, taking two seconds off the existing A* speedrun record. This run achieved the seemingly impossible and marked the first occasion since 02-May-3301 that the record had not been held by an Anaconda.
Four days later Cmdr
@Ravenov was back. Running in the Conda Wake Turbulence, Ravenov retook the record with a run of 01h24m24s on 24-Feb-3310. That record lasted only until the 26th, when ElitePenguin in Lonesome Phantom set yet another new record of 01h24m06s, which remains the record time in a non-Conda.
March 3310 belonged to Cmdr Ravenov; making two more runs in Wake Turbulence, Ravenov knocked 25 seconds from the record with times of 01h24m01s on the 1st and 01h23m41s on 13-Mar-3310.
That marked the 14th time that Cmdr Ravenov had set a new A* Speedrun record, a staggering achievement and combined with setting the non-conda record eight times, Cmdr Ravonev is a true legend of Buckyball racing. o7 Cmdr!
In April Cmdr ElitePenguin made, what is for now, the decisive move. Switching to an Anaconda of his own, ElitePenguin made two runs in Wanda (not to be confused with
@Esvandiary's Rhonda), setting new records each time. A run of 01h22m16s on 22nd was followed up the next day another record run (but not his last one, see update 3 of 3 below) of 01h21m39s.
o7 Cmdr ElitePenguin and o7 Wanda the Conda!
While the battle raged between the two fastest pilots in the galaxy a BRC Championship regular
@CMDR Sir Boundness quietly arrived at Sagittarius A* in his loudly named Krait Phantom OUTA BUBBLE HUBBLE in a very respectable time of 02h33m18s, Sir Boundness became the 26th Buckyball Racing Club member with access to the Three Hour Club lounge at Rebuy Prospect in Fullerene C60.
Sir Boundness modestly commented, "I am not shooting for any leaderboard, just wanted to do the challenge once and see how fast I can manage. At least, ~30mins faster than spansh asumed I would be," however, this run was a major milestone in the history of the A* Challenge and so deserves a post of it's own (see update 2 of 3 below).
The last uplimited run of this update was, unsuprisingly, made by Cmdr
@crotalus. On 08-Aug-3310 Crotalus made a run of 03h08m56s in Liasis. This run the first A* Challenge run in the new Python Mk II, and only the second ever run powered by the latest generation of frame shift drives with supercruise overdrive technology, offering A* runners a slightly increased jump range at the expense of increased fuel consumption.
Three days later, and again to the surprise of no A* Challenge fans, Cmdr
@Darplata94 took a Python Mk II of his own - this one unengineered and with the SCO drive replaced with a standard FSD - to the core in a slightly longer time of 13h52m25s to take yet another Classic Class record.
Congratulations to both Crotalus and Darplata94, the A* Challenge record tables would look a lot different without you.
With galaxy's first ever dedicated Buckyball racing ship the Mandalay only months away from entering full production at the Zorgon Peterson shipyards, the era of the Anaconda looks to be almost over. The oldest record in Buckyball, Alot's 07h56m41s Classic Run of 31-May-3301, looks set be shattered early in 3311 - Darplata certainly has his eyes on it and has offered Cmdr Alot the chance to go head-to-head when the Mandalay Racer enters full production.
If you fancy having a go yourself, in Classic or Unlimited, remember that runs made in preproduction Mandalay's will not be valid until one week after full production begins, and may be disqualified if Zorgon Peterson are force to make late changes to the production vehicles.
For Classic Class I'll just include the records table for this post, as the full Classic Class table is huge - the full leaderboard is on page 1 of the thread.
