Elite Dangerous Formula One.

[Orby one]

07 Fellow Cmdrs.
A while back I had an idea and I thought I would lay it out here and see what sort of traction it would get on the forum.
How cool would it be if Buckeyball and FDEV worked together to create a Formula One championship that operates in a similar way to RL.
Because of their experience, Buckeyball would identify and lay out the required tracks across various systems.
Fdev would provide the necessary assets to turn these courses into proper racetracks with the courses properly marked with clearly visible markers and lights. Each track would also require a pit area where racing teams could repair if needed.
I would think that competition should be restricted to racing teams consisting of at least 3 Cmdrs. A limited number of teams should be permitted to compete, being required to qualify prior to the seasons start.
Before each race time trials would determine starting positions. It would require Fdev providing a starting grid which would be nothing more than the required number of small landing pads, arranged in the proper layout. All teams would required to fly the same ship, but would be free to engineer and outfit the ships however they want to. Each team would field 2 pilots per race. If a Cmdrs ship is destroyed they are retired from the race.
Spectators would be encouraged to attend although they would be required to land away from the track and approach spectator areas via SRV.
Once Oddessy is released there should be social viewing areas.
Races would be livestreamed and there would be both a team and a Pilot championship with points being awarded in the same way that they are in RL.
Sorry for the long post.

 

[Speedcuffs]

approach spectator areas via SRV.

On foot.

 

[StuartGT]

07 Fellow Cmdrs.
A while back I had an idea and I thought I would lay it out here and see what sort of traction it would get on the forum.
How cool would it be if Buckeyball and FDEV worked together to create a Formula One championship that operates in a similar way to RL.
Because of their experience, Buckeyball would identify and lay out the required tracks across various systems.
Fdev would provide the necessary assets to turn these courses into proper racetracks with the courses properly marked with clearly visible markers and lights. Each track would also require a pit area where racing teams could repair if needed.
I would think that competition should be restricted to racing teams consisting of at least 3 Cmdrs. A limited number of teams should be permitted to compete, being required to qualify prior to the seasons start.
Before each race time trials would determine starting positions. It would require Fdev providing a starting grid which would be nothing more than the required number of small landing pads, arranged in the proper layout. All teams would required to fly the same ship, but would be free to engineer and outfit the ships however they want to. Each team would field 2 pilots per race. If a Cmdrs ship is destroyed they are retired from the race.
Spectators would be encouraged to attend although they would be required to land away from the track and approach spectator areas via SRV.
Once Oddessy is released there should be social viewing areas.
Races would be livestreamed and there would be both a team and a Pilot championship with points being awarded in the same way that they are in RL.
Sorry for the long post.

r/EliteRacers

r/EliteRacers: Elite Dangerous Racing Club

www.reddit.com

Source: https://youtu.be/1KOt-9GcAQA

 

[Orby one]

On foot.

Yup, if you could land close enough, or use your SRV to get closer before carrying on on foot.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

I'd love to see frontier tag in even a simple racing mode, it's been a repeatedly asked for feature for all of the five years I've been in game. I'd rather they didn't use SRV, but instead went with SLF racing, and or new ground vehicles, think star wars pod racer. I think having only one SRV for everything from combat, logistics, mining, exploration, racing is a bit janky, and compounding it with a new racing mode with the same SRV model would really rub salt in the "5 years later and you only have one surface vehicle" wound.

They can't use the words "formula 1" or "formula one" or "F1" as those all trademarked up the wazoo by the Federation International de la Autosport... However, Frontier has signed a deal to make a racing management game under the F1 franchise, while not using the trademarked words, maybe the race team management mechanics could be dovetailed into the update after Odyssey, specifically by throwing "squadrons" a bone and allowing a "squadron" to field a "team". This would allow the squadron's CMDRs to assume the role of "team manager" or "racer" or "mechanic" other team roles like "truck drivers" (read space truckers) forming part of the support package? I'm sort of seeing this like a more polished "TOCA Race Diver in space" meets "XYZ Mechanic Simulator" meets "Truck Simulator"

 

[Alec Turner]

There are some great ideas here. I'm glad to see @StuartGT highlighting the Elite Racers tho because, although the Buckyball Racing Club are probably more well known and are slightly better at publicising their races and giving them a certain back story and brand that sits nicely in-universe (we even have tourist beacons, NPC crew biographies and some old Galnet articles based on the club), the Elite Racers, and in particular @BlackMaze with his recent SRV championships, has already been doing several of the things you've mentioned. The SRV Endurance Championship had the genius idea of pit stops (essentially no synthesis repairs were allowed - you had to return to your ship for repair which introduced fantastic tactics around the perfect trade off between speed/damage and number of pit stops for each course). Both that and the Scarab Mastery Championship use a points system carried across multiple events (with the ultimate championship winner having the most points at the end), and they have livestreamed eSports like coverage (with sophisticated race tracking displays and live commentary). There's even a concept of starting grid positions being determined by earlier time trial performance.

I know Frontier seem increasingly interested in racing (they featured two races in their recent anniversary livestream after all) so I guess, once Odyssey has settled down (which I'm sure is occupying 99% of their attention at the moment), let's see what happens!

 

[Orby one]

I'd love to see frontier tag in even a simple racing mode, it's been a repeatedly asked for feature for all of the five years I've been in game. I'd rather they didn't use SRV, but instead went with SLF racing, and or new ground vehicles, think star wars pod racer. I think having only one SRV for everything from combat, logistics, mining, exploration, racing is a bit janky, and compounding it with a new racing mode with the same SRV model would really rub salt in the "5 years later and you only have one surface vehicle" wound.

They can't use the words "formula 1" or "formula one" or "F1" as those all trademarked up the wazoo by the Federation International de la Autosport... However, Frontier has signed a deal to make a racing management game under the F1 franchise, while not using the trademarked words, maybe the race team management mechanics could be dovetailed into the update after Odyssey, specifically by throwing "squadrons" a bone and allowing a "squadron" to field a "team". This would allow the squadron's CMDRs to assume the role of "team manager" or "racer" or "mechanic" other team roles like "truck drivers" (read space truckers) forming part of the support package? I'm sort of seeing this like a more polished "TOCA Race Diver in space" meets "XYZ Mechanic Simulator" meets "Truck Simulator"

07, my idea was specifically for small fighters or SLFs, I meant that spectators would use their SRVs to view the action.

 

[Orby one]

There are some great ideas here. I'm glad to see @StuartGT highlighting the Elite Racers tho because, although the Buckyball Racing Club are probably more well known and are slightly better at publicising their races and giving them a certain back story and brand that sits nicely in-universe (we even have tourist beacons, NPC crew biographies and some old Galnet articles based on the club), the Elite Racers, and in particular @BlackMaze with his recent SRV championships, has already been doing several of the things you've mentioned. The SRV Endurance Championship had the genius idea of pit stops (essentially no synthesis repairs were allowed - you had to return to your ship for repair which introduced fantastic tactics around the perfect trade off between speed/damage and number of pit stops for each course). Both that and the Scarab Mastery Championship use a points system carried across multiple events (with the ultimate championship winner having the most points at the end), and they have livestreamed eSports like coverage (with sophisticated race tracking displays and live commentary). There's even a concept of starting grid positions being determined by earlier time trial performance.

I know Frontier seem increasingly interested in racing (they featured two races in their recent anniversary livestream after all) so I guess, once Odyssey has settled down (which I'm sure is occupying 99% of their attention at the moment), let's see what happens!

07 Cmdr, congrats on your big win, I enjoyed watching you race. I really hope that Fdev meet the community halfway and at least provide some of the needed assets, even if the events themselves remain community driven.

 

[Stealthie]

If space-races in ED were live-streamed, why would I bother with the inconvenience of attending one in person?

But, yeah.

I kind of wish FDev would come up with a small(ish) update (another paid DLC, perhaps?) that gave people access to formal assets that allowed them to create racing circuits/tracks; things like start/finish lines, waypoints, posts and hoops that pilots could fly around etc and a GUI that allowed a race to be controlled, with timing screens and a leaderboard etc.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

I genuinely do not see why FDev don't either build some "official" race courses for space races, using things like the CQC "power up gates"...

...and the settlement arches for surface courses...

...or a mixture for low altitude race courses?

Alternatively, they could let players deploy those gates as temporary beacons with a short shelflife. Even if they did something like say they player courses got scrubbed every Thursday morning on server reset / powerplay tick, this could leave race challenges open for nigh on one week, and the weekly purge of them would prevent there being eleventeen TerraBytes of storage used just logging all the locations of the waypoint "gates".

 

[Alec Turner]

If space-races in ED were live-streamed, why would I bother with the inconvenience of attending one in person?

Actually, cute tho the idea of having in-game spectators is, you're right. For the aforementioned SRV races, in-game spectators were actively discouraged as instancing becomes a problem with much more than a dozen competitors and alas, with the game's multiplayer networking as it stands, spectators would just add to the problem.

...and the settlement arches for surface courses...

07 Cmdr, congrats on your big win, I enjoyed watching you race.

Thanks! (I assume you mean the SRV/SLF/Ship triathlon we did on Frontier's livestream?)

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

Actually, cute tho the idea of having in-game spectators is, you're right. For the aforementioned SRV races, in-game spectators were actively discouraged as instancing becomes a problem with much more than a dozen competitors and alas, with the game's multiplayer networking as it stands, spectators would just add to the problem.

Thanks! (I assume you mean the SRV/SLF/Ship triathlon we did on Frontier's livestream?)

It could be triathlons, or it could be planet side races with couple of the CQC gates in the sky, with some arches used as waypoints in a course designed to incorporate some super-talented-uber-low-level-flying like your epic trident screenshot!

 

[Quantis Trap]

Currently, Frontier is loathed to do thing which put a spotlight on the biggest failure of Elite Dangerous, its multi-player code!

With Odyssey, I hope Frontier finally fixes multi-player! If not Odyssey has a hard road ahead!

 

[ocflyer]

FDev should allow anyone on foot (eg Sand People) to fire on the ships.

 

[Chazzie]

It is strange that FD have neve officially added racing tracks and events, more so since they even have racing livery and all the assets to make them. I enjoy the odd sessicon of CQC and I sure as hell would take part in a properly setup and supported race.

Why not even have a Elite Badge for Racing? CQC has one, but give players the option to hide it - as the last one caused a riot.