So, I had planned to write a nice and detailed "how I planned this race" post, but I've had a busy IRL week, so haven't quite gotten around to it. Here instead is the deranged recollections of a race planner thrown together at the last minute....
First of all, I do owe a
little bit of an apology to anyone who was hoping for the
simple race that I promised this year, after my madcap Se7en Sisters Remixed last year. Sorry!
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I did try for a simpler race, especially when I was trying to make a sequel to Galaxy's End, but it didn't quite work out.
Originally this was going to be a "pub-crawl" race, around several systems, with two stations visited in each system. I'd been planning this for a while, so I started with the idea of hauling Buckyball Beer Mats again, and this time keeping the race shorter by using a few local systems rather than far-away rare commodity systems. Preferably agricultural or industrial systems, so the beermats could at least be swapped for beer or liquor. Nice and simple, not a Lonnigan shenanigan in sight.
So... that really didn't work out, because Rebuy Prospect is out on the edge of the bubble, so there aren't a great number of multi-station systems to choose from close to Fullerene C60.
This got me thinking that it's a shame Fullerene C60 isn't close to a neutron star so the Regulation Cobras could quickly hop back to a more densely populated area of the bubble, which in turn led to the brainwave that if I dropped the beermats then the pub-crawl could start near to Jackson's Lighthouse, with most of the race occurring 100ly away. 2 jumps out in the Cobra and 4 back sounded good with the fun of a neutron charge thrown in, plus in Unlimited Class the NS would maybe allow Vipers and Eagles to be balanced in the same race as iCouriers and DBXs.
With this idea for the race sorted, I jumped in my taxi-DBX and used spansh to locate a few multi-station systems located 95-105ly from Jackson's Lighthouse, and not too far apart, then inspected them in game with the DBX.
Eventually I had a nice,
simple little race planned out. Start at Hoshide Dock, the closest station to Jackson's Lighthouse, jump 100ly or so into the bubble and then back and forth between stations in a cluster of 3 or 4 systems with two stations visited in each. There was even a tricky 25.8ly jump between two of them that would require some careful fuel management in regulation - especially if your route also needed to jump from Jackson's to one of the systems more than 100ly away.
I hadn't done a full test run in the Cobra and wanted to keep the race down to 30 minutes in regulation, but that was okay, I could do that after Tunnel-ish Vision, and if a regulation run was too long, just drop the fourth system, no problem. Race sorted (tick!), nice and simple (tick!), but with a few little nav puzzles to keep it interesting (tick!).
The Lonnigans were there in my ear, saying how this would be more fun with a few shenanigans thrown in, but I wasn't listening, this time it was going to be a Raiko race that was nice and simple.
Then...
I saw...
What...
@sgurr...
Had planned for Tunnel-ish Vision....
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WHAT THE HECK? He had a nice simple little race. It had multiple waypoints in two of the systems, he even had that tricky 25.8ly thing! And it had optional shenanigans,
really good ones, ones that Little Nuk would have been proud of!
And, as it turned out, it was also maybe the most fun that I'd had at a BRC race, ever! Since that was coming straight after Alec's Thargoid Structure Scramble, which had also been one of my favourite races ever, and Sulu's Empire Hustle which I hadn't managed to have a proper go at, but I'd still enjoyed, well my little simple multi station race was looking a little lame. And I knew what the race after mine was, so I knew everyone would have a great time at
@psykit's race.
"But, what if we added some shenanigans?" said Little Nuk....
Race in the bin, forget the two stations thing, what else is available in those systems? Well it turned out that Vodyanes had a really nice little comms installation tucked in close to a tiny moon with a nice OC zone. I really liked the SC approach to that installation and the installation itself appeared to only have a single tunnel. Now that was great, because while the bootlegger reverskis from the original Tunnel Vision weren't what Alec had in mind, they were cool, and combined with that tunnel with the chicane baffles thingies would be ideal for a simple shenanigan. Simple - I like it!
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It occurred to me that Sgurr's Tunnel-ish Vision didn't have too many traditional installation tunnels, and the ones that were in were at two identical installations. So if I picked one installation per system, making sure they were all different to the type that Sgurr had used (and preferably to each other) and swapped my race title back to the original "Double Trouble" then I could have a good race again, and still reasonably simple.
Also, now that shenanigan's were back on the board, I'd long fancied putting an Elite Racers style lap of the station into a race, including the reverse inside the docking bay. I knew it would be popular, because every station hustle race has mention of "why not loop around the rings?" and if I say I prefer video evidence, it might not be too tricky to administer. I even had a name that gave due credit to it's origins, and "Okinura Baby!!!" sounded suitably
as well.
This one could be an "upgrade" shenanigan, with the station hustle type lap as an easier option (and a fall-back if someone forgot part of the lap). Not such a
simple race any more, but the Lonnigans were starting to
really like where we were going.
I had a look at the installations available in my other systems and found a nice agricultural installation with two rings that could be used for shenanigans, but the only other suitable installation was in Adivarakhe, which was supposed to be the starting system, so not good.
Plus I still had my 25.8ly jump, which I didn't want anymore, not for this race anyway.
So I set up a draft race, with a different starting system and Adivarakhe as a waypoint system, but only as a fallback. Then I scouted out local systems manually, starting with those nearby my favourite installation - Conjunct Transmittal Satellite in Vodyanes.
Also I wanted one of the installations to be in the same system as a low gravity landable planet with surface ports. I knew that Alec had sort of wanted to run a new Total Recall race this year, but hadn't used it in Swift-16 because he was thinking of including Odyssey planets. I thought a single "Total Recall" would make a nice optional bonus, and at the original 5km not give too big an advantage to the flyving experts.
Scouting near Vodyanes, uncovered another of those nice agriculture installations - this time in deep space - with a nice Orbis station nearby for the Okinura bonus.
I could use one of the Coriolis stations in Vodyanes for variety, and fortunately Lewis Hub was orbiting an Earthlike which is always nice. So now I just needed my low-grav surface port...
At first glance Nauani looked like a bad choice, the only installation was over 900ls from entry, which was a bit longer than I liked. However it turned out to be located in a really nice little planetary system around a binary star and that little system included some low gravity surface ports. A binary star only 900ls out wasn't bad at all, and two locations orbiting it gave me the kind of navigational puzzle that I'd wanted.
The only problem was that the installation (Intermutual Interchange) didn't appear to have tunnels, although it did have a nice big space to fly through in the middle. Then I found the twin tunnels sealed behind blast doors and "breaking & entering" was born, along with the option to refit last year's frag cannons in regulation which would add a fuel management (and power management) aspect to regulation class.
By this time I'd already added the "IronBucky" option, thanks to a little comment from Alec in the last race about banning shields next time. I've always liked those bonuses for 100%/1% (or 0%!) hull, but I really personally dislike the whole idea of flying around the whole race with 90% hull and then hammering it down to 1% at the end. At previous Lonnigan races I've added a little jeopardy to the last docking, because Little Nuk loves a little salt, so I came up with the evil little idea of making you commit to a high or low hull with one stop to go, and risking losing it on the final docking. A quick test at Intermutual proved that it was possible to bash through both doors in an unshielded Cobra, so we were almost good to go.
I now had 7 locations in 4 systems that included 3 different looking installations and 4 station types. 5 out of 6 destinations had their own optional bonuses, with only the Coriolis Lewis Hub left to get its own.
Hauling a single unit of beer from the Agricultural station would add something simple and different to the race, that's easy to accidently forget in the rush of racing. It also tied in with the Lonnigan Brothers' original Bootlegger Challenge / Black Riband race and with my cancelled pub-crawl race. So beer it was. Race done,
nice and simple?
Not crazy at all!
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As those active on the BRC Discord will know, I was a little worried by the Wednesday that I'd gone too far and put off racers. I was happy with how much those who were participating were enjoying it, but I didn't want to put a big dent in the popularity of the Swift-16.
It turns out that complex races just need a little more time for racers to get their heads around and tricky shenanigans take a while to practice without blowing up. Also missiles at Intermutual and pirate attacks at White Grove Homestead made the bonuses a little more shenanigany than I planned.
So I again want to say a big thank you to anyone who was daunted by their first read of the rules, but still gave it a go, especially those who then told that they loved it. Thank you
I especially want to thank those who cheered me up when I was a bit worried,
@sgurr telling me that it was maybe his favourite race ever was brilliant, particularly after I'd enjoyed his race so much.
@Fish172 kept me up to date with his misadventures throughout, and even though I shared his frustration with the autopilot, I knew he was mostly still enjoying the race.
@Bruski and
@Shaye Blackwood enjoying the challenge meant that I at least knew that I'd made the intended "hard mode" Buckyball.
And last, but not least
@Alec Turner, who not only did the PR stuff that I didn't get time for and made a great tutorial video that I also didn't get time for. He also made my whole week with his amazing video on the final day of "maybe his most exciting Buckyball attempt ever."
So that's all from me and the Lonnigan brothers for now. We'll be back for next year's championship I hope - indeed a race is already being planned.
In the meantime, if this madness seemed like a great way to throw away 30 minutes of your life, then you might well enjoy the 60 minutes of cardiac arresting frustration and joy that Fat Tony and Little Nuk are cooking up for the back end of the year...
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Next up in the Swift-16 is a return to Buckyball favourite Pareco again, hosted by Cmdr
@psykit and scheduled to begin on 26-Aug-3309. See you all there Cmdrs o7.
I slaute your determination, poor frame rates and low hull really don't mix well do they!
C'est la vie.
