Community Event / Creation The Buckyball Racing Club Presents - 4001: A Space Odyssey - Altais 2nd - 10th July 3302

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Note: I have updated the definition of landed, see below.

Altais has recently seen some very strange events with the discovery in late 3301 of a huge monolith on Altais 2B. This quickly became a local tourist attraction with base jumping thrill seekers a regular feature. Then on the 26th May 3302 the monolith disappeared without a trace. Local inhabitants started to mutter about aliens and drew parallels to the occurrences in the 20th century classic novels 2001: A Space Odyssey and sequels where a monolith is discovered, subsequently disappears and converts a planet into a new star. People were understandably nervous.

In an effort to reassure local residents and tourists alike Manager Garret Bryant of Altais Industries has asked the Buckyball Racing Club to host an event to demonstrate that Altais is as safe ever and open for business as usual.

Although Bucky is not so sure. Having visited the site he reckons he can see the von Neumann machines at work! Take a look when you land, be careful you aren’t converted into star fuel though.

Potential racers for the event are encouraged to gather in the Monolith bar at Swanson Plant, Altais.

The event will run from 0000 IGT/UTC 2nd July until 2359 IGT/UTC 10th July 3302. Any runs must have a start time before 2359 IGT/UTC 10th July 3302 to be eligible.

Final Results

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New to Racing?

Please refer to the following instructional video, courtesy of CMDR furrycat:

[video=youtube;6Pk5rjMu11Q]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Pk5rjMu11Q[/video]

Don't worry too much about all the rules and regulations below it pretty easy once you give it a go.

Rules and Regulations

There are two classes the Regulation Sidewinder and Open Unlimited.

The regulation sidewinder must be outfitted as follows. The docking computer must be fitted for its theme relevant soundtrack although it need not be used during the race ;) Note after marveling at the musical docking skills of the SDC I suggest you disable it in your modules tab to avoid it taking over at an inopportune moment lol.

https://coriolis.io/outfit/sidewind...-2o012h24.Iw1-EA==.Aw1-EA==?bn=4001 Reg Sidey

The basic discovery scanner may be exchanged for the intermediate or advanced equivalents.

In Open Unlimited anything goes – Engineer’s modifications and FSD boosts are allowed.

This race requires the Elite Dangerous: Horizons expansion.

When docked in station you must take a screen shot showing the on screen clock. You must be docked.

When landing on a planet you must take a screen shot with the ship landed. After struggling to land a couple of times I have decided to redefine "landed".

To be landed you must:
1. Have an altitude of 10m or less
2. Have a speed of 0
3. Have your gear down

You must land within +/- 0.02 degrees latitude/longitude of the coordinates given.

The use of wingman nav lock is not permitted.

The Route

We will be visiting some 2001/2010 themed sites around the Altais area. For the two planetary landings that you take off from I have give two options to land at. They are on opposite sides of the planet so hopefully your next destination will never be obscured from one of them. You only need to land at one destination on each planet not both.

Start at Swanson Plant, Altais

Visit in any order
USS Discovery - AKA - Asaro Dock, Kholedo
Space Station V - AKA - Llyod Terminal, Tatil
Europan Ice Canyon - AKA - Aurea 1 C 30.88/-159.95 or -26.04/159.93
Tycho Crater - AKA - Clotti A 2 -20.50/-120.59 or 16.42/119.03

Finish landed on Altais 2B 1.80/46.00 lat/long, the site of the vanished monolith.

Race submissions:
Screenshot @ start, finish and each checkpoint or video showing station clock
Screenshot of modules screen
Your CMDR name
Your forum name if not the same as your CMDR name
Your ship type
Your ship name
Race Class (open unlimited or regulation sidey)
Game Mode (open/solo) - The official race is Open only. Times can be submitted in Private or Solo as a 'guest' time and will be marked accordingly.

refer to Buckyball Racing Club site for details

E-mail (markzx59@buckyballracing <dot> org <dot> uk) or PM me the above

Hints and Tips for Getting to Coordinates
Some tips that I find useful.
1 Scan the nav beacon then you can use other stellar bodies to tell which way up you are on approach
2 O'Connor hanger around Clotti A 2 is in an equatorial orbit
3 Clotti A 2 landing site 16.42/119.03 is East of the peak
4 Clotti A 2 landing site -20.50/120.59 is on the peak
5 Aurea 1 C A is in an approximately equatorial orbit
6 Aurea 1 C landing sites are on small plateaus within canyons
7 Altais 1 B landing site is in a huge crater - you can't miss it ;)
8 Learn about latitude and longitude and how the numbers move relative to NSEW. In ED they seem to be the opposite of what I would expect based on google searches...
9 Take screen shots/video on departure so you can use them in reverse on the way in
10 Guide for navigating to planetary coordinates https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...Worlds-Finding-surface-coordinates-discussion

Please state you intent to race in the thread below

Your CMDR name
Your ship type
Your ship name
Race Class

This my first go at organising a race so if you see any issues do let me know :)
 
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Intent to return to Buckyballing.

Alec Turner
Undecided
Undecided
Open Unlimited

Glad you've got your mojo back!

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Intent to get haplessly lost attempting to find co ordinates

Sidey
Maybe open if I can get me some mods
 
Glad you've got your mojo back!

Cheers. Sorry I missed your race ... it looked cool and one of my end of race music videos would have fitted the theme nicely.

I got some quality time with the new mission system (which is terrific), did my first Fuel Rat rescue for several months, ticked a few sights off my todo list, verified that the rumours of overpowered AI have been greatly exagerrated and found myself a new HUD colour. So all in all a pretty nice break from racing.
 
Intent to race

CMDR Stern Winter, flying my brand spanking new
Imperial Eagle "Snowbird" in
Open Unlimited.

Just finished a recon run of the course - holy smell, finding those coordinates takes a long time. Wish we could bookmark a spot on a planet.
 
Cheers. Sorry I missed your race ... it looked cool and one of my end of race music videos would have fitted the theme nicely.

I got some quality time with the new mission system (which is terrific), did my first Fuel Rat rescue for several months, ticked a few sights off my todo list, verified that the rumours of overpowered AI have been greatly exagerrated and found myself a new HUD colour. So all in all a pretty nice break from racing.

no worries, i'll be back hosting for sure.

what's you're new HUD? i like changing mine often. *off topic
 
Jhyrryl I think I've fixed the font colouring. Let me know if I haven't...

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Let me know what you guys think on the coordinate finding and if anyone finds a good way maybe they could share lol.

I was half wondering if it was too hard to still be fun. I look forward to your feedback.

I half considered having a second race in parallel where all you had to do was land anywhere on planet for the two planetary check points.
 
Some tips that I find useful.
1 Scan the nav beacon then you can use other stellar bodies to tell which way up you are on approach
2 O'Connor hanger around Clotti is in an equatorial orbit... I think
3 Learn about latitude and longitude and how the numbers move relative to NSEW. In ED they seem to be the opposite of what I would expect based on google searches...
4 Take screen shots/video on departure so you can use them in reverse on the way in

After just struggling to find a decent landing place at one of the sites I think I will allow you to be stationary with an altitude of less than 10m to count as landed. I will update the OP.

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OP updated:

To be landed you must:

1. Have an altitude of 10m or less
2. Have a speed of 0
3. Have your gear down
 
This my first go at organising a race so if you see any issues do let me know :)

Thanks for stepping up and running one! I also appreciate the longer duration, last race I ran out of decent attempts (thought that was my fault).

Also nice work on the backstory, I like it!

However, you're missing the random question! (e.g. "What's the most dangerous lifeform in the galaxy?" "What band are you transporting?")

Other than that, looks great! Looking forward to trying the planetary landings.

CMDR Bruski
Sidewinder
Planck's Puck
Regulation Sidewinder

(maybe open in Sugar Glider if I can ever find some stupid Chemical Manipulators)
 
looks like I'm gonna have to practice finding coordinates , its a shame you cant bookmark them.

However, you're missing the random question! (e.g. "What's the most dangerous lifeform in the galaxy?" "What band are you transporting?")

The BRC and the BBR Ez runs though still buckyballing are different entities , BBR is the original and questions are mandatory... for the BRC optional.
the BRC have main, open and mid week madness or mild weekend madness events. so if the banner says MWM itll be a short one..
we use those for the more experimental races. like buggyballs. or if someone wants to try a new concept or just have a short race.
the BRC calender has previously been booked up for months.. so MWM was also a way for us to put more races on in between the main ones.
we all make way for the BBR though. as the BRC was formed when it looked like the BBR had stopped. thankfully EZ came back.
 
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After a slow start participants have started to drag themselves out of the Monolith bar. Manager Garret Bryant was seen complaining to bar staff "I thought they were racers not drinkers. I'm not sure how I can pass this bar bill off on expenses without someone noticing".

CMDR Stern Winter has shot into an early lead with 2 runs so far in Open unlimited, improving on his initial time by over 20%. Kudos to him for his persistent efforts with attempting to land at the specified coordinates.

More updates later as the results come in.

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I'm working on making it pretty ;)
 
Had this weird dream last night ...

He finds himself, still in the pod, in a bedroom appointed in the neoclassical style. He sees older versions of himself, his point of view switching each time, first standing in the bedroom, middle-aged, and still in his spacesuit, then dressed in leisure attire and eating dinner, and finally as an old man lying in the bed. A black monolith appears at the foot of the bed, and as he reaches for it, he is transformed into a fetus enclosed in a transparent orb of light. The dream ends as the new being floats in space beside the Earth, gazing at it.

Have to say, it made no sense whatsoever and seems to bear no relation at all to my ongoing struggles to find time in a DIY packed weekend for a spot of racing but hope springs eternal.
 
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I got very confused trying to find a precise location.. with the numbers not going the way I wanted no matter which way I turned.. I can see that part being the most time consuming.. ill do more practice.
 
lol. It is difficult to get there fast. I am thinking of trying approaching head on using visual cues and dropping out without glide, or trying to manoeuvre for glide at the last moment.

Edit: And I think getting into an equatorial orbit helps with lat and long. I think FDev have got the signs wrong as well lol.
 
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first Sidey run submitted.

Memories of my hopeless navigation and utter reliance on wing bacon came flooding back. Hopefully now I have some screenies of the checkpoints I'll be able to get a quicker time on the board. It's all rather annoying as I can use a map & compass pretty darn well!

as for scouting Altais 2A and not finding a huge crater - you can't miss it ;), "It can only be attributable to human error" as a red eyed computer might say

no longer lost
<-lightspeed->
 
Intent to race.

CMDR Raiko
The Nomad
Asp-X
Open Unlimited.

I'm going to suck big time at this, I visited a few of the the DWE waypoints and in some case couldn't even spot the visual cue after about 30 minutes! Lol
I agree with Robin that FD really need to add something to improve planetary / orbital navigation.

Hopefully I'll have time to visit the surface the locations first and create some DWE style visual cues of the landing zones for myself. :)

Anyway, thanks for the great race idea racer1, I'm definitely looking forward to give it a shot, I've been hoping that someone would try an event like this. I'm gutted that FD "fixed" the monolith though, I hadn't gotten around to visiting it yet.
 
Been location scouting this morning, both Aurea sites and one of the Clotti sites. One of the things I love about Buckyball racing is how much I've learned from them and if I'm to land +/-0.02 of some given planetary co-ordinates and not spend 25 minutes doing it then I've got some serious learning to do this time!

I'm hoping to try my first competitive attempt tomorrow morning.

Ship type: DBX
Ship name: The Fokkest Uppest

.. at least for starters, although given the amount of time I'm spending flying around a few km off the ground watching numbers slowly count down I'm wondering whether an enhanced performance thrustered Imperial Courier might be a better choice.
 
Good to hear you're keeping at it guys.

HAL still has "the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission race" ;)

I must get a mod to correct that title. I seem to be unable to type buckyball without missing out the y at the moment...
 
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CMDR Kliggish ,Open unlimited ,Cobra Mk3 ,Bingo wings+
Run submission incoming.. managed to get the orbit to landing down to a less frustrating amount of minutes after a few practices and came in a bit over the estimated time..
bit disorientating, would prefer the degrees you were pointed in to be displayed in orbital cruise as well as on the surface. its a shame they nerfed the monolith. now I can land at a place without swearing ok.. I can say.. nice race racer1 will try and give it another bash later in the week.
 
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