Thanks Drakhyr, it's nice to have a thread in the player groups area as the BRC is definitely my "main thing" in ED.
I'm looking forward to BBR-9 EZ, the added chaos of "wait for the CG, then start racing" just makes it all the better. Bucky probably already knows exactly where the new station will be and what the CG will be about, but he's keeping it to himself to make you sweat!
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Regarding my own efforts for the BRC:
- I plan to run a Bootlegger Challenge every year, the format will change year by year.
- I'll be looking into the Black Riband route as soon as I can after today's patch. As there's not been a rollback of the BGS, it seems very likely that Tarach Spice is still going to be suppressed, so I'll have to change the route...
- As we get closer to the time that I'm supposed to run it, I've started to have some concerns about my proposed Galactic Rally. I'm in agreement with Robin's opinion that other than the A* challenge, races should be over within a week or two, and shouldn't take CMDRs away from the main game for a long period. Looking for some feedback, my current thoughts are posted below:
The Galactic Rally.
First off, I still really, really want to run this. I'd enjoy surveying the route, it would likely give my Pioneer explorer rank a bit of a boost so that Elite doesn't look so far away, and quite a lot of CMDRs were enthusiastic about the idea - particularly the 'extreme' option that involves rift crossing and going to extreme-risk POI from the Galactic Mapping Project. I'd also enjoy actually running it.
The extreme race would involve a journey of approx 100KLY around various points of interest in our quadrant of the galaxy. Outside of our quadrant there's virtually no "real" things anyway, even the spectacular "shiney" places are all procedurally generated, with a few exceptions like Sadge. That's the reason big stars like UV Scuti and others are missing, the "real" places are all in the "south", "up north" is all randomly generated.
So to keep the Rally "real" it's a huge tour of this quadrant.
Great so far...
The major issues are both time related, but they are totally opposed:
Alec said that he'd like to join the rally, but struggles to play for more than an hour or two a day. He mentioned that the BBRA was a major undertaking for him, that he needed to plan for well in advance. I totally sympathise with this, as I've mentioned many times my own A* runs are all made overnight Saturday evening to Sunday morning while the kiddies are in bed. I'd like to make a race that Alec can join in. Making the event feasible to play for 1-3 hour per day, 4-5 days per week would probably need a six week window. And almost all of that time would be well away from the bubble.
Robin points out (not necessarily directly about my rally) that BRC events should be 1-2 weeks at most, and shouldn't take CMDRs away from the main game for a long time. I actually agree entirely, and I'd like to create an event that Robin would at least think about joining in - as it is I doubt that he would, and even worse my Gal-Rally would stop Robin from doing any racing in the Bubble for up to six weeks!
So what to do? Helpful feedback would be appreciated at this point! lol
My best solution so far would be to scrap the big single event, and switch to "The Buckyball Racing Club presents: The Galactic Rally Championship." As my planned course followed a cloverleaf pattern, returning to the bubble after each major leg, I'd be able to break up the Rally into 4 much shorter events. Three one week rallies, requiring the same time as a Warm-up race, and one two-week final Rally (the Formidine Rift and back).
Would this be do-able in our calendar?
For players with enough playtime one their hands, the one-week events could be completed in a single day. And no one would be kept away from the bubble for ages.
To prevent stealing warm-up race slots, the three one week races could share a weekend with the warm-ups, so my event could finish on the same weekend that a warm-up race starts (or vice-versa). Since my races would be long ranged (and reversible if necessary) I could also make my finishing lines the same station as the starting line of the "paired" warmup race.
Each of my rallies would have 5-6 stages. So individual CDMRs could opt to join in with individual rallies (or individual stages) if they prefered. The top runners in each race would receive points towards the overall Galactic Rally Championship, which would be awrded to CMDR Alot after the final race.
The most distant places visited would be the Skull & Crossbone Nebula to the Gal-East, the Crab Pulsar to the Gal-South, "Explorer's End" to the Gal-West, plus a suitably big star "up" and "down" from Sol (there are suitable targets approx 1000LY each way, but I forget their names and need to check that you don't need a Conda to reach them!). I've no plans for a Gal-North race, but I'd be open minded to requiring each racer to complete an offical A* run sometime during the year.
Again feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Have you had a chance to review my second race idea, which I've tentatively codenamed "furrycat's race idea number two?"
I'm intregued!!!