Ha, your backhand compliment / insult wasn't even accurate - 2nd to last!
Cheers for organising. It's definitely been an... experience. Vids from the top chaps would be appreciated, i'm just wondering: but, but, HOW?
Community Event / Creation Buckyball Racing Club presents: The Last Gasp (06.01.3304 - 14.01.3304)
- Thread starter Alec Turner
- Start date
Right, here goes... It looks like I took a somewhat different approach to most people for this one, both for ship and outpost choices.
The Ship
The obvious candidate to me was always the DBX due to its range and small pad. Initially I actually thought it'd be unbeatable as a result... But it has a weakness: its speed in normal space is (for a racing ship) pretty abysmal. I've got grade 5 clean drives on my DBX and it barely nudges past 400.
When you're trying to visit as many outposts as possible, that weakness is significant - and only gets more so the more stops you make. So, I decided to give it a go with an old Buckyball classic: the Hauler. It can't jump quite as far - mine had a full-tank range of 46.77Ly - but it can boost to about 570 with engineered Enhanced Performance Thrusters.
The Route Plan
It seemed sensible to me that to get a good score, the way to go would be to sprint out from LHS 142 as far as feasible, visit a bunch of faraway outposts in succession, and head home. That way you get as many points as possible per landing.
As for choosing the outposts... The first system that came to mind when I read the rules was Pareco, the oddity of a system which has six stations within about 2Mm of each other. Unfortunately, I quickly realised that a) Pareco was barely 100Ly from Vo Dock, b) only two of the six are outposts, and c) they're all 11000Ls from the drop-in point anyway.
But, I was pretty sure I'd seen sort-of similar cases, where co-orbiting binary planets have starports or outposts around both bodies. Such planets would usually be very close together - often as little as 0.1Ls - which would mean outposts easily within supercruise striking distance of each other.
The only questions: are systems with this layout common enough to make a viable route out of, and can you get good runs in despite unpredictable outpost orbits?
As it turned out, the answers were a) just about, and b) just about. One snag I didn't consider, though, was that having two planets in very close vicinity bumps up the likelihood of obscured jump targets from "if you're really unlucky" to "pray to the gods of orbital mechanics."
I managed to find five candidate systems which made a reasonable route - four of them could be hit with consecutive jumps, with the fifth being two jumps away, and all outposts within about 50Ls of the arrival star to minimise supercruise travel.
Both ends were five jumps from LHS 142 - which would have been four jumps in a DBX. So, the ship choice was costing me two jumps - and therefore the straight-line speed and manoeuvrability of the Hauler would need to end up saving me two jumps' worth of oxygen. In the end, I suspect it did that and then some.
The Route
LHS 142 - vo Dock
(5) → Shotel (203.94) - Bharadwaj Stop (12Ls), Nomen Colony (12Ls)
(2) → Aebocorio (196.23) - Dolgov Camp (31Ls), Albitzky Port (31Ls)
(1) → Tirajo (187.37) - Newcomb Port (51Ls), Hooker Colony (51Ls)
(1) → Njoror (213.66) - Alfven Orbital (16Ls), Bouvard Reach (16Ls)
(1) → Teletes (203.33) - Bowen Hub (28Ls), Korolev Mines (28Ls)
(5) → LHS 142 - vo Dock
The supercruise travel time from one outpost to the other varied depending on the orbits, but was usually somewhere between 15 and 30 seconds - significantly quicker than coming in from the main star!
On my first successful run I had to bug out without visiting Korolev, but it was a close call - I knew I didn't have to gain much time to have a shot at getting all ten. Eventually, the stars (and outposts) aligned.
The Video
Honestly, this was the scrappiest out of all the runs I did, successful or otherwise. I have no idea how I still had time left at the end - there certainly aren't many examples of decent landings in there. Planetary braking heroics pay off, I guess?
(Apologies for the occasional A/V issues in the video, I think my PC is slightly unhappy; I also had to cut out a music track that YouTube didn't like.)
This race has been really good fun - and part of me wonders if the mechanic of racing the O₂ counter might be interesting enough to justify its use in other races. Until I actually did the race I wasn't expecting it to be quite as compelling as it was! In summary: excellent job Alec, and thanks very much for hosting
The Ship
The obvious candidate to me was always the DBX due to its range and small pad. Initially I actually thought it'd be unbeatable as a result... But it has a weakness: its speed in normal space is (for a racing ship) pretty abysmal. I've got grade 5 clean drives on my DBX and it barely nudges past 400.
When you're trying to visit as many outposts as possible, that weakness is significant - and only gets more so the more stops you make. So, I decided to give it a go with an old Buckyball classic: the Hauler. It can't jump quite as far - mine had a full-tank range of 46.77Ly - but it can boost to about 570 with engineered Enhanced Performance Thrusters.
The Route Plan
It seemed sensible to me that to get a good score, the way to go would be to sprint out from LHS 142 as far as feasible, visit a bunch of faraway outposts in succession, and head home. That way you get as many points as possible per landing.
As for choosing the outposts... The first system that came to mind when I read the rules was Pareco, the oddity of a system which has six stations within about 2Mm of each other. Unfortunately, I quickly realised that a) Pareco was barely 100Ly from Vo Dock, b) only two of the six are outposts, and c) they're all 11000Ls from the drop-in point anyway.
But, I was pretty sure I'd seen sort-of similar cases, where co-orbiting binary planets have starports or outposts around both bodies. Such planets would usually be very close together - often as little as 0.1Ls - which would mean outposts easily within supercruise striking distance of each other.
The only questions: are systems with this layout common enough to make a viable route out of, and can you get good runs in despite unpredictable outpost orbits?
As it turned out, the answers were a) just about, and b) just about. One snag I didn't consider, though, was that having two planets in very close vicinity bumps up the likelihood of obscured jump targets from "if you're really unlucky" to "pray to the gods of orbital mechanics."
I managed to find five candidate systems which made a reasonable route - four of them could be hit with consecutive jumps, with the fifth being two jumps away, and all outposts within about 50Ls of the arrival star to minimise supercruise travel.
Both ends were five jumps from LHS 142 - which would have been four jumps in a DBX. So, the ship choice was costing me two jumps - and therefore the straight-line speed and manoeuvrability of the Hauler would need to end up saving me two jumps' worth of oxygen. In the end, I suspect it did that and then some.
The Route
LHS 142 - vo Dock
(5) → Shotel (203.94) - Bharadwaj Stop (12Ls), Nomen Colony (12Ls)
(2) → Aebocorio (196.23) - Dolgov Camp (31Ls), Albitzky Port (31Ls)
(1) → Tirajo (187.37) - Newcomb Port (51Ls), Hooker Colony (51Ls)
(1) → Njoror (213.66) - Alfven Orbital (16Ls), Bouvard Reach (16Ls)
(1) → Teletes (203.33) - Bowen Hub (28Ls), Korolev Mines (28Ls)
(5) → LHS 142 - vo Dock
The supercruise travel time from one outpost to the other varied depending on the orbits, but was usually somewhere between 15 and 30 seconds - significantly quicker than coming in from the main star!
On my first successful run I had to bug out without visiting Korolev, but it was a close call - I knew I didn't have to gain much time to have a shot at getting all ten. Eventually, the stars (and outposts) aligned.
The Video
Honestly, this was the scrappiest out of all the runs I did, successful or otherwise. I have no idea how I still had time left at the end - there certainly aren't many examples of decent landings in there. Planetary braking heroics pay off, I guess?
(Apologies for the occasional A/V issues in the video, I think my PC is slightly unhappy; I also had to cut out a music track that YouTube didn't like.)
[video=youtube_share;BoNnRQHgaXc]https://youtu.be/BoNnRQHgaXc[/video]
This race has been really good fun - and part of me wonders if the mechanic of racing the O₂ counter might be interesting enough to justify its use in other races. Until I actually did the race I wasn't expecting it to be quite as compelling as it was! In summary: excellent job Alec, and thanks very much for hosting
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First, Alec, thanks for organizing the race. This was an absolute joy to be in, and a clinic in some classic Buckyball racing technique: route planning, planetary braking, scoop-and-jump, efficient landing (Well, maybe a clinic in how not to do that...)
Observations:
1. Planetary braking I'm getting better at. Landing... not so much.
2. What's interesting about this race was how the route evolved over time. The premise is fairly straightforward: Go out as far as you think feasible, land on as many outposts as you can, go back. So we all go onto eddb to look up candidates, we try a few things, we figure out how many we can fit in. We experiment with things like one-station-per-visit versus multiple-stations-per-visit; we work on our planetary braking technique; we get better at reading the station and how to get to the landing pad. It took several unsuccessful runs before I found one that worked. And, then, once I found that one that worked, I could run the math and make it better. Put simply, there was an evolution to the run.
3. My personal favorite unsuccessful run: jumping into a white-dwarf system with 0:02 on the clock, and not having time to turn on the oxygen. What a beautiful way to go. (Will have to post a pic of that later.)
4. To me, the question of distance v. stops came down to this math: Another jump and back to get to wherever I was going added a minute to the time - and 30 ly to every station I landed on. So if it takes roughly 2.5-3 minutes to add another station jump-in and landing... another station would subtract at least 60-90 ly from EVERY OTHER station result. For 5 stations (which is what I determined I could fit in at distance), that's a hefty penalty. So, to me, going as far out as feasible, landing on 5 stations there, and going back... the question was how far I could go out. If the bubble extended out 30ly further, it would be even better. So, for me, it became a question of "How far out can I go, and still have a 5-station run"? As it turned out, pretty far.
5. The first successful run I made was a Basuseku - Ngeratha - Skoko - Ngeratha - Pipinoukhe run - one which left 2 minutes on the clock. It took 8 jumps to get to Basuseku and to Pipinoukhe. So... I decided to extend it out a bit and see if I could add a jump to get to the stations, which led to my final route.
6. Which brings me into why I wanted the number kept secret. I'm not the best pilot here - and it would be VERY easy to figure out the stations I went to, just based on the numbers. 5 stations, 1210.73 "raw" distance... that means an *average* of 240 light-years distance. There aren't that many that fit. The stations, in order:
Royo Hub - Votadja - 231.73 ly
Danjon Stop - Atjil - 247.04 ly
Smirnova Port - Papako - 253.19 ly
Fedden Stop - Atjil - 247.04 ly
Chiang Landing - Votadja - 231.73 ly
If you go into EDDB and look up stations within 50ls of their primary, Papako and Atjil are near the end of that list, at the very edges of the Bubble; beyond that is sparse territory. Also, Votadja to Atjil and Atjil to Papako were single-jump.
7. When I planned my final route, I calculated that the additional jump there and back should leave me with 1 minute left when I get into the station. The first run ended with only 0:07 left. In other words, my first successful run was run better, but my second had the higher score. So... I ran one more time, to get the final entry.
8. Unintentional Intimidation: getting rep from Cookiehole two hours before the end of a race you're leading in.
The run can be found in video form here: https://youtu.be/HyT07IlMwHU
Observations:
1. Planetary braking I'm getting better at. Landing... not so much.
2. What's interesting about this race was how the route evolved over time. The premise is fairly straightforward: Go out as far as you think feasible, land on as many outposts as you can, go back. So we all go onto eddb to look up candidates, we try a few things, we figure out how many we can fit in. We experiment with things like one-station-per-visit versus multiple-stations-per-visit; we work on our planetary braking technique; we get better at reading the station and how to get to the landing pad. It took several unsuccessful runs before I found one that worked. And, then, once I found that one that worked, I could run the math and make it better. Put simply, there was an evolution to the run.
3. My personal favorite unsuccessful run: jumping into a white-dwarf system with 0:02 on the clock, and not having time to turn on the oxygen. What a beautiful way to go. (Will have to post a pic of that later.)
4. To me, the question of distance v. stops came down to this math: Another jump and back to get to wherever I was going added a minute to the time - and 30 ly to every station I landed on. So if it takes roughly 2.5-3 minutes to add another station jump-in and landing... another station would subtract at least 60-90 ly from EVERY OTHER station result. For 5 stations (which is what I determined I could fit in at distance), that's a hefty penalty. So, to me, going as far out as feasible, landing on 5 stations there, and going back... the question was how far I could go out. If the bubble extended out 30ly further, it would be even better. So, for me, it became a question of "How far out can I go, and still have a 5-station run"? As it turned out, pretty far.
5. The first successful run I made was a Basuseku - Ngeratha - Skoko - Ngeratha - Pipinoukhe run - one which left 2 minutes on the clock. It took 8 jumps to get to Basuseku and to Pipinoukhe. So... I decided to extend it out a bit and see if I could add a jump to get to the stations, which led to my final route.
6. Which brings me into why I wanted the number kept secret. I'm not the best pilot here - and it would be VERY easy to figure out the stations I went to, just based on the numbers. 5 stations, 1210.73 "raw" distance... that means an *average* of 240 light-years distance. There aren't that many that fit. The stations, in order:
Royo Hub - Votadja - 231.73 ly
Danjon Stop - Atjil - 247.04 ly
Smirnova Port - Papako - 253.19 ly
Fedden Stop - Atjil - 247.04 ly
Chiang Landing - Votadja - 231.73 ly
If you go into EDDB and look up stations within 50ls of their primary, Papako and Atjil are near the end of that list, at the very edges of the Bubble; beyond that is sparse territory. Also, Votadja to Atjil and Atjil to Papako were single-jump.
7. When I planned my final route, I calculated that the additional jump there and back should leave me with 1 minute left when I get into the station. The first run ended with only 0:07 left. In other words, my first successful run was run better, but my second had the higher score. So... I ran one more time, to get the final entry.
8. Unintentional Intimidation: getting rep from Cookiehole two hours before the end of a race you're leading in.
The run can be found in video form here: https://youtu.be/HyT07IlMwHU
Haven't had time to read the comments yet but I see some good stuff in there so thanks everyone!
Meanwhile ... pie charts!
(which I'm not very good at and have been wasting far too much time trying assorted bits of free software)
So, from a simple count of system names from ALL the submissions:
All the Hauler submissions:
And all the Unlimited submissions:
Of course there's all sorts of issues with these. Where people have visited multiple stations in the same system that will skew the count for that system (perhaps rightly, perhaps wrongly) and where some people have submitted more runs than others, sometimes on the same route, that will also skew the count. Ho hum.
Sorry, it's 3pm and I've done zero actual work today!
Meanwhile ... pie charts!
(which I'm not very good at and have been wasting far too much time trying assorted bits of free software)
So, from a simple count of system names from ALL the submissions:
All the Hauler submissions:
And all the Unlimited submissions:
Of course there's all sorts of issues with these. Where people have visited multiple stations in the same system that will skew the count for that system (perhaps rightly, perhaps wrongly) and where some people have submitted more runs than others, sometimes on the same route, that will also skew the count. Ho hum.
Sorry, it's 3pm and I've done zero actual work today!
My stations
Maia - Moni's hub 354.47
Pre logistics support gamma 330.61
Cooper research station 323.00
Pre logistics support zetta 310.95
I very nearly used the same strategy as CMDR alot but decided I was on to a winner with the Pleiades...
I was very close to landing at Pre logistics support delta, but there just wasn't time...
Maia - Moni's hub 354.47
Pre logistics support gamma 330.61
Cooper research station 323.00
Pre logistics support zetta 310.95
I very nearly used the same strategy as CMDR alot but decided I was on to a winner with the Pleiades...
I was very close to landing at Pre logistics support delta, but there just wasn't time...
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I'll post a picture of my last route planning scratch sheet later on, but like Hanekura Shizuka said, it was an evolution. I tried to tackle the course in a beefed up Hauler (not quite as good as CMDR Alot's), simply because I don't like to use a DBX.
At the start, I did a few back-of-an-envelope calculations regarding the number of jumps and the number of landings, and found a broad optimum somewhere on the middle ground - going further out or trying to collect more landings would both result in a lower overall score. After the first successful run, it was basically a matter of optimization: how many more systems can I find within my range that are further out than the systems I have already used?
Invaluable for that were eddb (of course) and the distance matrix of edtools. Unlike the others, I first limited my station distances to 10, later 25 ls from the jump-in point, and unlike Esvandiary, I also only found one system with close orbiting dual stations, HIP 51280.
My optimum turned out to be 4 jumps out, visit the stations, then 4 jumps back. Going further out would have reduced the number of systems I could have visited, increasing the number of systems would have reduced the range. And for those 4 jumps, refuelling at a station for me is (marginally - but those make the difference between bonus points and asphyxation) faster than scooping on the way.
Thanks to Alec for creating an interesting race (my HRM recorded that as "elevated excercise level", which I don't always manage when cycling to work...), and to everyone else for keeping it interesting.
At the start, I did a few back-of-an-envelope calculations regarding the number of jumps and the number of landings, and found a broad optimum somewhere on the middle ground - going further out or trying to collect more landings would both result in a lower overall score. After the first successful run, it was basically a matter of optimization: how many more systems can I find within my range that are further out than the systems I have already used?
Invaluable for that were eddb (of course) and the distance matrix of edtools. Unlike the others, I first limited my station distances to 10, later 25 ls from the jump-in point, and unlike Esvandiary, I also only found one system with close orbiting dual stations, HIP 51280.
My optimum turned out to be 4 jumps out, visit the stations, then 4 jumps back. Going further out would have reduced the number of systems I could have visited, increasing the number of systems would have reduced the range. And for those 4 jumps, refuelling at a station for me is (marginally - but those make the difference between bonus points and asphyxation) faster than scooping on the way.
Thanks to Alec for creating an interesting race (my HRM recorded that as "elevated excercise level", which I don't always manage when cycling to work...), and to everyone else for keeping it interesting.
Two observations...
a) I have skewed the hell out of those due to submitting several runs containing two stops in (mostly) the same set of systems.
b) Nobody else went to any of the aforementioned systems!
excellent race idea Alec and thanks for hosting. really enjoyed it.
after my first, rather rudimentary, attempts at route plotting and the subsequent requirement to go further a revised strategy was needed. I took to inara and used the 'nearest' function to locate suitable candidates. I too flirted with the Pleiades but soon discovered that despite it being one of the most remote areas of the bubble almost all the docks are full blown starports, and as Mark found out it the ones that are there don't add up to enough!
i managed to find a route that netted 2,099 Ly but unfortunately i only left myself enough time for one run at it! alas i muffed the first two approaches and it was an uphill battle after that. I hissy fit quitted after i realised i wasn't going to get back in time. [cry] Looking back i think my insistence -rather than testing - that jumping out and back in rather than supercruising may have been an error. (I may revisit the route this week to see if it could have been a contender)
mostly i'm pleased that after a couple of months off i can still fly (obviously coming second is pretty cool too)!
congratulations to CMDR Hanekura Shizuka and CMDR Alot.
much fun and glad to be back.
<-lightspeed->
after my first, rather rudimentary, attempts at route plotting and the subsequent requirement to go further a revised strategy was needed. I took to inara and used the 'nearest' function to locate suitable candidates. I too flirted with the Pleiades but soon discovered that despite it being one of the most remote areas of the bubble almost all the docks are full blown starports, and as Mark found out it the ones that are there don't add up to enough!
i managed to find a route that netted 2,099 Ly but unfortunately i only left myself enough time for one run at it! alas i muffed the first two approaches and it was an uphill battle after that. I hissy fit quitted after i realised i wasn't going to get back in time. [cry] Looking back i think my insistence -rather than testing - that jumping out and back in rather than supercruising may have been an error. (I may revisit the route this week to see if it could have been a contender)
mostly i'm pleased that after a couple of months off i can still fly (obviously coming second is pretty cool too)!
congratulations to CMDR Hanekura Shizuka and CMDR Alot.
much fun and glad to be back.
<-lightspeed->
I have plans to do another set of pies based on different routes only and only counting each system once per route. I'm not sure I can be bothered tho. Has everyone had their fill of pie?
Quite right! I'd also like to add that I feel, due to a certain familiarity via the Fuel Rats, I probably haven't treated you with the courtesy and respect normally due to a newcomer to Buckyball Racing.
I trust this hasn't given you a bad first impression (we're a friendly bunch usually) and really hope that you'll come back for another race in the future.[yesnod]
That goes for all the newcomers here actually and massive thanks for giving the race a try, we really appreciate it.
We try to maintain a timetable of upcoming events at http://buckyballracing.org.uk and will also generally post a link to the next race (when it's available) at the end of the thread for the previous one so if you stay subscribed and check your subscriptions regularly you should spot it. I and a few others also tend to change our signature images here on the forum to a race banner when a race is in the offing so if you ever see something that looks like a Buckyball banner (it will usually feature the club logo) then click on it.
Also - do let me know if you can think of other ways we can spread the word. For this one I mentioned it all over the forums, I did numerous posts in various ED related facebooks groups, I managed to get an advert into the pre-christmas Sagittarius Eye magazine, we got featured in the official Frontier newsletter, Pete Wotherspoon gave us a shoutout in his Galnet News roundup and the race was mentioned on Lave Radio. Frankly I'm always slightly baffled as to why we don't get more participants - then again, maintaining the scoreboard for hundreds of racers would have killed me!
[heart]
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Excellent race Alec, thanks for hosting. I think the audio of having life support off added to the racing 'feel'.
Unfortunately the only run I completed was my starter / testing run which came in at around 650ly (less than leaving the station and going back in) ��. Interestingly I was looking at systems with multiple outposts around binary planets but never got a good run at a longer strategy.
Unfortunately the only run I completed was my starter / testing run which came in at around 650ly (less than leaving the station and going back in) ��. Interestingly I was looking at systems with multiple outposts around binary planets but never got a good run at a longer strategy.
Why do I get the feeling the usual introduction involves having your ship exploded?... the courtesy and respect normally due to a newcomer to Buckyball Racing.
As a guess: the extreme nerdiness of adding spreadsheeting, on top of the oft lamented boring travel bit, of a niche sim(ish) spaceship game
Yeah i'll be back, but next time i'll have my protractors and abacus ready!
So my plan, which obviously wasn't good / let down by lack of skill, was to jump out some way, single hop between as many stations as possible, then hop to Jackson's to one-jump back to LHS 142.
I had tried SCing between stations in a system, but it didn't seem better than jumping between systems, what with issues around obscured destinations and gravity wells. Lacking these fancy PC-tools, I would just hop and see what was within one-jump, look for a close outpost, hop over and bookmark, and search for the next likely system. Then head back to LHS 142 and run the route...
In the end didn't get enough time to refine things, and ran out of time to do a hauler run properly either - stupid real life.
Don't know about the next one, but the one after that will have your route predefined for you. Just land at the stations in sequence and finally return to the starting port.
Of course, there will be other complications.
Thanks to Alec for hosting another cracking race.
Just what I needed after a long time away.
Loved the life-support countdown idea.
Was convinced I could get just one more station but never did manage it.
I'm now wondering if ditching the Asp so soon was the best move (still not happy about this DBX takeover!!).
Congrats to Cmdr Alot and Cmdr Hanekura for quite outstanding runs and thanks for your videos.
Last Gasp 2 will certainly be interesting.
Lastly thanks to the folks at Vo Dock for not fining me too heavily for numerous "racing incidents".
Just what I needed after a long time away.
Loved the life-support countdown idea.
Was convinced I could get just one more station but never did manage it.
I'm now wondering if ditching the Asp so soon was the best move (still not happy about this DBX takeover!!
).Congrats to Cmdr Alot and Cmdr Hanekura for quite outstanding runs and thanks for your videos.
Last Gasp 2 will certainly be interesting.
Lastly thanks to the folks at Vo Dock for not fining me too heavily for numerous "racing incidents".
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One more video for the Last Gasp. Any run starts with experimentation. With this race, it was easy to lose the ship.
That said, sometimes losing the ship was a beautiful thing.
That said, sometimes losing the ship was a beautiful thing.
[video=youtube;yFrnHO0l1TY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFrnHO0l1TY[/video]
Yesterday I dedicate part of the morning to visualize the routes in 3D (doing some excel, and then other software (not supposed to be used to do star plotting)), and found that Alot's route was very close to optimal...
The sweet spot is between 185ly and 220ly aprox for a 5 point route, extending the filter will make the candidates to become sparse.
The sweet spot is between 185ly and 220ly aprox for a 5 point route, extending the filter will make the candidates to become sparse.
Here's the "extended" full clip of my extremely Last Gasp run in the DBX, with all the approaches and landings (take it as a "brief tutorial at far-from-perfect-but-good-enough gravity manoeuvers" ):
[video=youtube_share;YJ5jN--dr7o]https://youtu.be/YJ5jN--dr7o[/video]
More than the spreadsheeting nerdiness (a thing actually not needed for many races), I feel that the removal of Galnet updates and the latest rearrangements of forum sections did everything but helping the visibility of such events. Personally, if it wasn't for a Galnet article on the launcher I'd never have known of Stern Winter's Kessel Run back in20153301...I'd have probably stumbled in some other race later on, one way or the other, but for me Galnet was of big help to visibility. Other than this, yes it's a niche activity and many players probably have simply different tastes about gameplay (no surprise, this should primarily be a space simulator with dogfighting action after all).
And then as I pointed out in one of the first replies in this thread, there's also the "whiny" attitude of a part of the players pool, waiting for the game to be practically self-playing but exactly as they envision in their heads, no need to waste time in this "racing for the fun of it" tomfoolery...
Back on the spreadsheeting nerdiness, you actually had the "luck" of making a debut in one of the most extreme route-planning events, the hunting fields of the min-maxing gods like Alot, Bruski or Cookiehole (purely in alphabetic order), but we also had (and will have...don't we?) several more linear races. I for once have a liking for the simpler, fixed route and closed track courses (totally not related to being crap at optimal route plotting [yesnod]).
"Of course, there will be other complications."
And here's another definition of "BRC in a nutshell".
):[video=youtube_share;YJ5jN--dr7o]https://youtu.be/YJ5jN--dr7o[/video]
As a guess: the extreme nerdiness of adding spreadsheeting, on top of the oft lamented boring travel bit, of a niche sim(ish) spaceship game
Yeah i'll be back, but next time i'll have my protractors and abacus ready!
More than the spreadsheeting nerdiness (a thing actually not needed for many races), I feel that the removal of Galnet updates and the latest rearrangements of forum sections did everything but helping the visibility of such events. Personally, if it wasn't for a Galnet article on the launcher I'd never have known of Stern Winter's Kessel Run back in
And then as I pointed out in one of the first replies in this thread, there's also the "whiny" attitude of a part of the players pool, waiting for the game to be practically self-playing but exactly as they envision in their heads, no need to waste time in this "racing for the fun of it" tomfoolery
...Back on the spreadsheeting nerdiness, you actually had the "luck" of making a debut in one of the most extreme route-planning events, the hunting fields of the min-maxing gods like Alot, Bruski or Cookiehole (purely in alphabetic order
), but we also had (and will have...don't we?) several more linear races. I for once have a liking for the simpler, fixed route and closed track courses (totally not related to being crap at optimal route plotting [yesnod])."Of course, there will be other complications."
And here's another definition of "BRC in a nutshell".
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