@MacrosTheBlack: I really like the idea for your event. If you do use BB missions though, I'd suggest not awarding bonus points for missions that pay higher, as the high paying missions are all reserved for high ranked players (as well as the BB being really random), so since rankings are really just achieved by playing for longer, you'd be giving a big extra advantage to more experienced players and penalising any new players who fancied giving your event a go.
If you do have a regulation Cobra version, please use a virtual budget of 100CR to start with, it's traditional.
Galactic Rally Planning Update
Thanks Drakhyr and everyone else for your feedback about the Galactic Rally. I've not had chance to reply in detail to your earlier posts about the rally until now, but I have been giving it some thought as I really liked some of the suggestions and helpful thoughts.
I'd definitely prefer to split the GalRally into separate events rather than running it as one, and I'd actually prefer these to be spread around the year, rather than all together. I'm not an Elite explorer myself and over 75% of my total light years travelled is just from my BBRA runs, so planning the GalRally stages is quite a big undertaking for me (this isn't a complaint though, I'm very, very keen to do it). It's much better for me to be able to plan the overall rally one part at a time. This would also allow me take make alterations to my plans for the later, more challenging stages based on how the earlier, more local stages worked out.
I don't want to hog the calendar though, which was why I had hoped to be able to squeeze individual weeks into the calendar, but I've realised that this would be very restrictive as CMDRs would end up being be forced out of the rally by real-life commitments.
Instead I've come up with a solution that I think would allow me to split the GalRally into 4 rounds plus an A* run, with the rounds spread over the whole of 3302, without restricting CMDRs and without needing to take a single slot in the BRC calendar!
Basically each round will have 6+ stages and will be run over a two month period, with a one month gap between rounds. Each stage will have a leader-board, each round will have a leader-board, and the overall BRC Galactic Rally Championship will have a leader-board (based on points rather than cumulative time). The stages for each round will be published at approx. 0:00GMT on the first day of the two month slot (so I'll try to be sober at New Year, until after midnight!). Competitors will also be allowed to submit a single A* challenge run between 01-Jan and 31-Nov that counts towards the overall championship. For the official rounds each stage must be completed within the two month window in the correct order. Unlike normal BRC events racers will only get one shot at each stage (I'll be using a Google Doc form similar to EZ's BBR-9 form to register that you're about to start a stage)
The BRC Presents: The Galactic Rally Championship:
One thing that I'm considering is using the reversed version of Erimus' Scenic route to the Core for stages on the way back from Sadge, so that you could stay in the core for as long as you like (or continue onto the far rim if you wish), but your actual return run from Sadge to the bubble would be timed over manageable 2-3000LY stages. You effectively stop the clock upon reaching Sadge, and then restart it again to race home in 13 timed stages whenever you felt like it.
Because each round is spread over a two month period, and is broken into stages, it should be possible for CMDRs to fit in each round however it best suits them and their other gaming and real-life commitments - while still having a fixed end date for each round, to allow the Championship leader-board to work round by round. Certainly rounds 1 and 2 should be manageable over a single weekend for any hard-core gamers, but even someone like myself with significantly limited playtime should be able to fit in the runs somewhere, without needing to stop racing, etc. back in the bubble. Rounds 4 and A* need more commitment and time away from the bubble, but at least if I used the 14 stage version of the Sadge run, both these rounds should be able to take you back to the bubble within 2-3 weeks of departure. And the Sadge run could be done whenever best suits you during the year.
In addition there will be a "Grand Tour" leader-board that would allow any published stage to be run in any order, any time during 3302. I need to have a little bit of a think about how this particular leader-board will be set up, as the total distance/time for the grand tour will keep changing every time the stages of a new round is published. At a guess I expect that it would sort of work like a skiing or golf leader-board. While the BRC GalRally Championship leader-board will be points based, the Grand Tour leader-board will use cumulative time.
If you do have a regulation Cobra version, please use a virtual budget of 100CR to start with, it's traditional.
Galactic Rally Planning Update
Thanks Drakhyr and everyone else for your feedback about the Galactic Rally. I've not had chance to reply in detail to your earlier posts about the rally until now, but I have been giving it some thought as I really liked some of the suggestions and helpful thoughts.
I'd definitely prefer to split the GalRally into separate events rather than running it as one, and I'd actually prefer these to be spread around the year, rather than all together. I'm not an Elite explorer myself and over 75% of my total light years travelled is just from my BBRA runs, so planning the GalRally stages is quite a big undertaking for me (this isn't a complaint though, I'm very, very keen to do it). It's much better for me to be able to plan the overall rally one part at a time. This would also allow me take make alterations to my plans for the later, more challenging stages based on how the earlier, more local stages worked out.
I don't want to hog the calendar though, which was why I had hoped to be able to squeeze individual weeks into the calendar, but I've realised that this would be very restrictive as CMDRs would end up being be forced out of the rally by real-life commitments.
Instead I've come up with a solution that I think would allow me to split the GalRally into 4 rounds plus an A* run, with the rounds spread over the whole of 3302, without restricting CMDRs and without needing to take a single slot in the BRC calendar!
Basically each round will have 6+ stages and will be run over a two month period, with a one month gap between rounds. Each stage will have a leader-board, each round will have a leader-board, and the overall BRC Galactic Rally Championship will have a leader-board (based on points rather than cumulative time). The stages for each round will be published at approx. 0:00GMT on the first day of the two month slot (so I'll try to be sober at New Year, until after midnight!). Competitors will also be allowed to submit a single A* challenge run between 01-Jan and 31-Nov that counts towards the overall championship. For the official rounds each stage must be completed within the two month window in the correct order. Unlike normal BRC events racers will only get one shot at each stage (I'll be using a Google Doc form similar to EZ's BBR-9 form to register that you're about to start a stage)
The BRC Presents: The Galactic Rally Championship:
- January-Feb 3302 BRC Galactic Rally Championship Round 1: The Local Region (6 Stages, about 10-15 Kylies total)
- April-May 3302 BRC Galactic Rally Championship Round 2: The Crab Pulsar (6 Stages, about 15-25 Kylies total)
- July-August 3302 BRC Galactic Rally Championship Round 3: The Skull and Crossbones Nebula (6-7 Stages, 40+ Kylies total)
- October-November 3302 BRC Galactic Rally Championship Round 4: Across the Formidine Rift (7-8 Stages, 50+ Kylies Total)
- Anytime before 31-Nov-3302 BRC Galactic Rally Championship Round A*: Do the A* Challenge (1 Stage, 25800LY or 1 Stage there plus 13 Stages back, 60+ Kylies total)
One thing that I'm considering is using the reversed version of Erimus' Scenic route to the Core for stages on the way back from Sadge, so that you could stay in the core for as long as you like (or continue onto the far rim if you wish), but your actual return run from Sadge to the bubble would be timed over manageable 2-3000LY stages. You effectively stop the clock upon reaching Sadge, and then restart it again to race home in 13 timed stages whenever you felt like it.
Because each round is spread over a two month period, and is broken into stages, it should be possible for CMDRs to fit in each round however it best suits them and their other gaming and real-life commitments - while still having a fixed end date for each round, to allow the Championship leader-board to work round by round. Certainly rounds 1 and 2 should be manageable over a single weekend for any hard-core gamers, but even someone like myself with significantly limited playtime should be able to fit in the runs somewhere, without needing to stop racing, etc. back in the bubble. Rounds 4 and A* need more commitment and time away from the bubble, but at least if I used the 14 stage version of the Sadge run, both these rounds should be able to take you back to the bubble within 2-3 weeks of departure. And the Sadge run could be done whenever best suits you during the year.
In addition there will be a "Grand Tour" leader-board that would allow any published stage to be run in any order, any time during 3302. I need to have a little bit of a think about how this particular leader-board will be set up, as the total distance/time for the grand tour will keep changing every time the stages of a new round is published. At a guess I expect that it would sort of work like a skiing or golf leader-board. While the BRC GalRally Championship leader-board will be points based, the Grand Tour leader-board will use cumulative time.
- 01-Jan to 31-Dec 3302 BRC Galactic Rally Championship "Grand Tour": Cumulative time of all stages including Sadge run