Community Event / Creation Buckyball Racing Club presents: The A* Challenge
- Status
Intent to Race
CMDR Hanekura Shizuka
Yurei
Diamondback Explorer
Standard Class
CMDR Hanekura Shizuka
Yurei
Diamondback Explorer
Standard Class
I concur ... it is, so much so that I haven't actually raced yet, too busy enjoying the view.
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It's been one of those events that really makes me lament that I cannot race in 5760x1080 (due to the need to record).
This was an interesting one. I guess the best way to put it is to give a quote from Alot from the last time I ran a DBX in A*.
I had thought I had put this to rest last time. What I didn't count on was FD buffing the DBX so that it had a jump range above 40 ly.
So, when Crotalus bested my record in the DBX with the new jump range, I was... not happy. I was perturbed. Well and truly vexed, even. That said, when a Buckyballer is well and truly vexed, well.... strange things happen. Dangerous things. Things that generally involve Leeroy Jenkins.
So, my submission:
I'm not as vexed anymore.
EDIT: For the record: no scanners on the ship, didn't use neutron stars. You think I could use neutron stars with *that* fuel tank?
Hang on you bloody what?!
I had thought I had put this to rest last time. What I didn't count on was FD buffing the DBX so that it had a jump range above 40 ly.
So, when Crotalus bested my record in the DBX with the new jump range, I was... not happy. I was perturbed. Well and truly vexed, even. That said, when a Buckyballer is well and truly vexed, well.... strange things happen. Dangerous things. Things that generally involve Leeroy Jenkins.
So, my submission:
Race results:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132207737@N08/35147476731
CMDR Hanekura Shizuka
Yurei
Diamondback Explorer
Classic Class
Start time: 20:30:00 June 12 3303
Finish time: 5:19:48 June 13 3303
Race time: 8:49:48
Evidence:
Start:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132207737@N08/35111011892
Finish (first is jump in system, second is galmap):
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132207737@N08/35111002362
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132207737@N08/34890212730
Loadout pictures:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132207737@N08/34890220230
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132207737@N08/35111005692
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132207737@N08/34890216430
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132207737@N08/35111008892
Thanks.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132207737@N08/35147476731
CMDR Hanekura Shizuka
Yurei
Diamondback Explorer
Classic Class
Start time: 20:30:00 June 12 3303
Finish time: 5:19:48 June 13 3303
Race time: 8:49:48
Evidence:
Start:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132207737@N08/35111011892
Finish (first is jump in system, second is galmap):
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132207737@N08/35111002362
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132207737@N08/34890212730
Loadout pictures:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132207737@N08/34890220230
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132207737@N08/35111005692
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132207737@N08/34890216430
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132207737@N08/35111008892
Thanks.
I'm not as vexed anymore.
EDIT: For the record: no scanners on the ship, didn't use neutron stars. You think I could use neutron stars with *that* fuel tank?
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Now come play with colored clouds and floating rocks. Nebulocity awaits!This was an interesting one. I guess the best way to put it is to give a quote from Alot from the last time I ran a DBX in A*.
I had thought I had put this to rest last time. What I didn't count on was FD buffing the DBX so that it had a jump range above 40 ly.
So, when Crotalus bested my record in the DBX with the new jump range, I was... not happy. I was perturbed. Well and truly vexed, even. That said, when a Buckyballer is well and truly vexed, well.... strange things happen. Dangerous things. Things that generally involve Leeroy Jenkins.
So, my submission:
Race results:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132207737@N08/35147476731
CMDR Hanekura Shizuka
Yurei
Diamondback Explorer
Classic Class
Start time: 20:30:00 June 12 3303
Finish time: 5:19:48 June 13 3303
Race time: 8:49:48
Evidence:
Start:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132207737@N08/35111011892
Finish (first is jump in system, second is galmap):
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132207737@N08/35111002362
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132207737@N08/34890212730
Loadout pictures:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132207737@N08/34890220230
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132207737@N08/35111005692
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132207737@N08/34890216430
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132207737@N08/35111008892
Thanks.
I'm not as vexed anymore.
Well done. I knew you were going to do this (and I had a pretty good idea before you told me!). I knew you were going to be fast. I didn't know you were going to be quite that fast.
I could say a lot of things about DBX vs. Hauler and DBX vs. Asp and whether the DBX is now officially the fastest non-Anaconda thing in Buckyball (and I do have some thoughts on those subjects), but I'll save that for a later post. For one, I don't want to diminish your accomplishment with a bunch of analysis, and for two, it's late and I need to sleep.
Congratulations, friend. You earned this.
I could say a lot of things about DBX vs. Hauler and DBX vs. Asp and whether the DBX is now officially the fastest non-Anaconda thing in Buckyball (and I do have some thoughts on those subjects), but I'll save that for a later post. For one, I don't want to diminish your accomplishment with a bunch of analysis, and for two, it's late and I need to sleep.
Congratulations, friend. You earned this.
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Sorry if I came on a little strong there. Basically, when I ran it last year, I beat Alot's theoretical minimums at the time by over 22 minutes, because I had a different pattern of scooping and jumping with the DBX than was typically practiced at the time. When you make Alot change his spreadsheets, that becomes something to savor. I didn't beat Alot's theoretical minimums this time, because my scooping method is a part of his calculations now, but it was in the area.
Thanks.
As for Anaconda v. DBX v. AspX v. Hauler, what strikes me about the list is that one ship is easy to fly well (the AspX), but that the other three require time and experience and love in order to make them truly sing. An Anaconda turns at about the same rate as a clock hand; a DBX has a fuel scoop the size of a tablespoon; and a Hauler melts like a candle if overheated. In order to race them effectively, it is important to know the limits of each ship, the advantages and disadvantages, what the ship will and won't do, and what the ship just might do if you fly it right. In other words, an AspX is hard to mess up. An Anaconda, DBX, or Hauler on the other hand, is easy to dismiss at first, but can produce incredible results if you get to know the ship.
Now come play with colored clouds and floating rocks. Nebulocity awaits!
Thanks for the offer, but not this time. I generally self-destruct my ships only in extreme situatlons; to put it another way, I mourn my ships when they are destroyed. Which, well, is an indicator of how much I wanted this record back, as I plotted the route for this - and self-destructed to get back and race. Current plan is to go to Colonia and get her fitted for exploration, and go out and scan some things that I'd lost when my Anaconda blew up early this year.
There are a few observations I'd make.
1). I think some people who have flown the Hauler in shorter races may not realize why you and I describe it as so fragile - you watched me make one of my runs, so you have a better idea.
Truth is, I didn't understand how fragile the Hauler was myself until I started running the FdL. Before this, my only real point of comparison was the Courier, and we all know about its problems, right? But I can tell you, flying the FdL for the Challenge is pretty much Easy Mode compared to flying the Hauler... and from the way Shizuka describes racing the Asp to me, I suspect I'd feel the same way about it that I do about the FdL in that regard.
The thing with the Hauler is that any time you go over 100%, you take damage on multiple modules. It may be only 1% damage, but it's still damage. So every little misjudgement, every indiscretion, accumulates damage. Over a 50 jump race, this is only a problem if you overheat on every jump. But over a 770 (number from memory, may not be accurate) jump race... it's really easy to accumulate that 21 points of heat damage on your FSD that puts you into malfunction territory. And once you malfunction once, you will keep malfunctioning until you stop and repair it - which costs time. Not so much a problem if you're not trying to push the absolute limit; very definitely a problem if you are.
Worse than that, a single event that puts you at 120% or higher heat can, if you're unlucky, do 10% or more damage to your FSD (it's for this reason that I had to stop and repair after my very first leg during my Hauler plotting run - I had one bad heat incident and my FSD went to 83%!). It's really not that hard to get to 120% heat if you are using the absolute max-range build (with the 2D power plant) - pushing the button a couple of seconds too soon on one of those big F-class or K-class stars in the core (to say nothing of an A-class or B-class), and not pulling hard enough away from the star when you start charging the drive, will get you to that level of heat very quickly.
In addition, the Hauler does not dissipate its heat via radiation as quickly as other ships - it takes time to come down from 120 - time enough that if you just dive right into the next star, you will overheat again on that one. This was one of those things that has shocked me while flying the Fer-de-Lance - its temperature drops very rapidly once you're away from the star, even while still charging the drive. If I overheat the FdL a bit, it's no big deal. It can take it, and it won't stay overheated nearly as long.
The Hauler isn't the Courier, which will sometimes overheat just while scooping before you even touch the FSD, but with a 2D powerplant it certainly does not run cool and you can get yourself in trouble with it really fast if you aren't precise. The flip side of this is that the Hauler is a remarkably nimble little ship - even with D-rated thrusters, it's below minimum mass - and so if you fly it with proper technique it's entirely possible to not overheat it at all. Or, at least, it was before 2.2. Whether that's still the case is something I need to test. I know it's possible away from the core, but I'm not sure how it will behave in the core, where you have to use a very different technique to get least-time jumps since the 2.2 hyperspace changes.
2). Where the A* Challenge is concerned, it's clear however that the DBX - if you can master it - will utterly romp on the Hauler.
I still suspect it is possible to get the Hauler below 9:30, and I intend to try before too long (maybe September or so? I figure I will want a break from long trips after I run my FdL and then fly it home), but that would still leave it almost 45 minutes behind the DBX. In shorter races, with stops and docking involved, it's a more complex question, as the Hauler's ability to load Enhanced Performance Thrusters adds new and interesting trade-offs to the mix. Even so, I suspect the DBX is going to dominate a lot of Buckyball events going forward.
For me, this is kind of saddening, because it pushes my beloved Courier further out of contention than it already was in long-distance races. Oh, what I would not give, to trade my Class 4 power plant bay (in which I have never slotted a class 4 power plant - even my combat Courier uses a 3A!) for one of my Class 3 internals...!
3). It appears the DBX has eclipsed the Asp as well, as a long-range racer.
This is the question that really makes me curious right now. Does the Asp have more to give than we've gotten from it, or has the DBX surpassed it as well, leaving it second only to the Anaconda as an endurance racer? For that, I'd need the perspective of those who have actually raced the thing, as I myself never have.
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I can appreciate that.
I had been holding on to a bunch of bookmarks of things I wanted to go rescan out on the other side of the galaxy until recently. I finally decided that the planetary nebulae are unlikely to still be unclaimed by the time I make it back, and that there will always be more ELWs to find. Good luck out there.Well, two, but I was a complete n00b for one of those.
I'm reminded of the answer my old Data Mining teacher gave for every question asked in his class: "It depends." For a racer experienced with how to get the most out of a DBX, I think the answer is yes for a long-distance endurance race, by the slimmest of margins - maybe 10-15 seconds per kylie. (That's not much when you consider that the gap between either one and the Anaconda is roughly 2 minutes per kylie.) This gap bears out in Alot's calculations, and in the difference between the two cases where a DBX pilot and an AspX pilot just pulled out every stop and went as fast as their ship could possibly go. That gap between the DBX and the AspX widens for shorter routes like Nebulocity, because a racer could probably just let the DBX fry in the star to scoop as much as possible, and it'll still be around at the end of the journey. However, that DBX racer has to be experienced in racing the ship for the long haul. A relative newcomer who isn't familiar with the details and quirks of the DBX will do better with the AspX, because the AspX doesn't really have any glaring weaknesses. Anyone who races a DBX like your typical E
ship - dive in, scoop, get out, start the FSD charge - is going to do worse than the AspX, because that method of racing exposes the DBX's weaknesses while not taking advantage of its strengths. Thus, the importance of familarity with the ship.I got distracted with real life, I had intending on post a message saying good luck and that I hope that you got there time under 9 hours
When I did the run my main aim was to get the cargo there I thought beating your previous record would be possible due the changes made
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Well, two, but I was a complete n00b for one of those.
Weren't we all, back then? But yeah, that first run seems so long ago I barely remember it (other than the utter nightmare that was the route plotter back then).
I'm reminded of the answer my old Data Mining teacher gave for every question asked in his class: "It depends." For a racer experienced with how to get the most out of a DBX, I think the answer is yes for a long-distance endurance race, by the slimmest of margins - maybe 10-15 seconds per kylie. (That's not much when you consider that the gap between either one and the Anaconda is roughly 2 minutes per kylie.) This gap bears out in Alot's calculations, and in the difference between the two cases where a DBX pilot and an AspX pilot just pulled out every stop and went as fast as their ship could possibly go. That gap between the DBX and the AspX widens for shorter routes like Nebulocity, because a racer could probably just let the DBX fry in the star to scoop as much as possible, and it'll still be around at the end of the journey. However, that DBX racer has to be experienced in racing the ship for the long haul. A relative newcomer who isn't familiar with the details and quirks of the DBX will do better with the AspX, because the AspX doesn't really have any glaring weaknesses. Anyone who races a DBX like your typical E
In essence, yes, the two are close enough that it comes down to who is a better pilot in that particular race... but at the peak of their capabilities, the DBX now comes out ahead.
As for shorter events, you don't need to explain that one to me. How do you think I'm running as close to the leaders as I am in Nebulocity... in a Courier? I can pretty much sum it up in six words: "Damn the heat, full speed ahead!" I mean, it's kind of telling when I say things like, "I mostly managed to keep it under 130% that time."
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Understood, and no worries. I knew someone would break the record - or at least try to - the moment FD made the changes. 2.3 made changes that, while probably a good idea, threatened to erase a lot of the history of the A* Challenge - the buffs to the jump ranges of ships, and the neutron star jumping. That was the source of much of my ire.
Well, I think the neutron stars actually happened in 2.2, didn't they? It's just that nobody managed to take advantage of it until 2.3.
But... even if my numbers are more optimistic than Crotalus', I'm pretty convinced now that the only ships that might possibly benefit from neutron star routing in Standard are the Anaconda, Asp, and DBX... and I'm pretty dubious even about those three. To put it in other terms, I have not been able to coax routes out of Spansh which are faster for any of those three classes, even breaking the routes into three segments (to the neutron star field, through it, and from it to A*) once refueling jumps have been added. Logic suggests that a manually-plotted route would be slightly more efficient than simply adding jumps every time fuel is needed (since the refueling jump covers some distance as well), but... sufficiently more efficient? I'm doubtful.
So the perspective from here is that neutron stars are likely to remain an Unlimited feature for the most part... of course, if someone goes and proves otherwise, then that would change things.
Fantastic time, as always.
I think I'd agree that only the higher-range ships are likely to get benefit from neutron routing in Standard, but I do think they have the potential to go faster as a result. I haven't actually tried to plot a route with that low a range, though, so I can't be sure - the neutron field is relatively sparse at the start of the route so you might end up taking some pretty hefty detours (you still have to do so to a lesser degree with a much higher range).
If I get lots of time available to me sometime soon, and if this current route planning doesn't completely burn me out, maybe I'll give it a go... If I pulled it off it'd be a very unlikely result indeed.
But first... I need to finish the aforementioned planning.
Hey Crotalus,
I don't know if Allitnil's run used double-boosting from neutron stars, but I assume not since it wasn't mentioned in the write-up and in the thread for "Ascent" and "Descent" it mentions the previous reluctance to use it.
So, I pose the question: how much of an improvement would double-boosting make? I've not tried it, so this is firmly in the "armchair enthusiast" tradition, but I assume that it could save the time it takes to supercharge the FSD each time AND give one more neutron boosted jump so potentially reducing the number of detours needed. Of course, the jets need to line up with the destination so it's not going to work every time, but for those interested in the "pursuit of marginal gains" this will probably give the edge.
Who wants to try it first?
IMHO, it would be a hindrance rather than a help. In order to use it you have to line things up properly which takes a lot longer than just getting the normal boost so there's absolutely no point if your next system is a neutron star. So it would only be of potential help for the relatively few jumps where you are going from a neutron star to a non-NS, ie mostly the jumps to scoopable stars for refuelling. But given that you can use jumponium from the refuelling star you are only going to be gaining a little even if you could do it with minimal time lost and - for me at least - it would be rather more than minimal time lost!
I guess it is something that might just come into play if we ever get to the stage where we are competing for saving a minute or two over the whole run. But even then, more engineer rolls and / or better route plotting might still be a better approach.
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/640/962/d91.gif
Fantastic time, as always.
I think I'd agree that only the higher-range ships are likely to get benefit from neutron routing in Standard, but I do think they have the potential to go faster as a result. I haven't actually tried to plot a route with that low a range, though, so I can't be sure - the neutron field is relatively sparse at the start of the route so you might end up taking some pretty hefty detours (you still have to do so to a lesser degree with a much higher range).
If I get lots of time available to me sometime soon, and if this current route planning doesn't completely burn me out, maybe I'll give it a go... If I pulled it off it'd be a very unlikely result indeed.
But first... I need to finish the aforementioned planning.
I suppose what I should really say is - I think the Anaconda can benefit from it. I wouldn't be shocked if the DBX can, but I also wouldn't be surprised if it can't, and I haven't done the math to see what its jump range in an 8-jump build is. I'm more dubious about the Asp... I know what it's jump range in an 8-jump build is, and I don't think it's enough. I'm pretty sure the Hauler can't, because carrying enough fuel for even four jumps really cuts into its jump range, much less more.
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