The Cortes Base drag strip challenge: another standing SRV time trial from the Buckyball Racing Club

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
Quick scoreboard update for Shaye who's knocked 3 further seconds off his time to solidify that pole position with a time of 4 minutes 13 seconds.

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Nice!
 

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
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So Mr Blackwood ... are you gonna post the video of how you managed to do such a fast turn around at the 10k line or shall I?

Un-be-frickin-lievable! :LOL:

I was gonna say I'd love to see the 4 minute barrier go but I don't really see how that 4:06 is possible to beat! (famous last words)
 

sgurr

S
Good work AkenBosch (y)

( Except, you're too close to 05:00 to not go under surely ;) Go on! I mean, that's what I'll be doing as soon as I've stopped falling off the Pomeche ridge )

Edit: and PS, if anyone's keen for the ridge the sun rose a few hours ago, should be a couple of days of daylight now.
 
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AkenBosch

AkenBosch
Alec Turner said:
Cmdr Aken B. is back on the track and, with his traditional battle cry of "AAAAAAaaaaaAAAAAaaAaAAAAAaahhhhrgh!", he leapfrogs Sgurr by just 2 seconds to take 4th place.
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Yes, yes I, ah, the traditional battle cry, that's just my, yes as you said, I....uhm, yes it's my battlecry, that's my battlecry, indeed...

Sgurr said:
( Except, you're too close to 05:00 to not go under surely ;) Go on! I mean, that's what I'll be doing as soon as I've stopped falling off the Pomeche ridge )
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It would have been under that already, if only I could aim for one of those ramps and not for the main city walls...but all things considered, that time was already an outlier, can't shake myself off the 5:20 ballpark otherwise. Don't know why, I feel like something's changed from the past, there's something preventing me from gaining speed as I'd like (as I usually did), it's almost as if the SRV didn't pitch fast enough, or the boost reserve was less lasting than before, but it really must be just old me....
 

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
It's been a bit slow round here but the drag strip finally saw some new action yesterday as Cmdr Alvin Wall blew the cobwebs out of Cortes in a very nice 6min 59sec run to take 8th place, just 5 seconds ahead of MrMike.

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Walter2

Walter2
Terrorsidic said:
Wooo, Cortes Base Drag Strip entry IN!

An attempt was made to fly over the base, but lost all my momentum to a spin out.
Did manage to accidently wander UNDER Cortes Base, so that's an exciting bonus. :cool:
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Turns out that Cortes Base is suspended over a crater as wide as the base itself - those outer struts rest on the rim of the crater (mostly). If they can get over the temperature control problem, what a wine cellar/entertainment centre/SRV maintenance bay this will be once they get rid of the mining facility. In anticipation, one-way armoured glass has already been fitted to the floors on the upper storey so that visitors to the lower level can keep an eye on their ships (top right).

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Alec Turner

Alec Turner
IMPORTANT NEWS

Alec Turner said:
From the information contained in Kay Ross's talk on last night's Discovery Scanner livestream many people will already have twigged that the terrain features on all the landable planets that we're currently familiar with from Horizons are going to change with the launch of Odyssey.

To be clear what I mean by this is that notable planetary features like canyons, mountains, ridges, valleys, craters, etc that we're currently familiar with will almost certainly no longer exist in Odyssey in their current form. Don't get me wrong, these kinds of features will all still exist, but they'll be in completely different locations and arrangements.

Since one of the consequences of this is that all pre-existing "race tracks" (by which I mean interesting planetary locations that have been scouted, mapped and bookmarked by the racing community as good places to hold SRV or canyon based ship racing events) will cease to exist in their current form, Frontier were kind enough to reach out to me on Wednesday asking if I could spread the word on this subject. For the avoidance of chinese whispers I think it's best if I simply quote that message directly.
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I have some news which will affect future Buckyball (and other organised) races in Elite that I want to share with you.​
​
It’s no secret that planets will change a lot when Odyssey lands. Given the way the Stellar Forge produces landscapes on each planet, the update will mean a regeneration of all land formations (canyons, ridges, valleys etc.) on planets which have them. To a large degree, the regeneration will be random (working within certain criteria for each planet such as being an ice world). Unfortunately, this means existing race courses are very likely to change.​
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While it’s possible some planets will remain great for racing, we imagine this will mean groups like the Buckyball Racers will want to find new places to determine courses. We’d like to offer our support here in particular. If any of the racing groups choose to hold a racetrack discovery competition or similar, we’re more than happy to sponsor them with prizes and promotion to help re-establish this key part of the racing community.​
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So, when Odyssey launches, things like the existing Buckyball "Pomeche Ridge Challenge" and "Cortes Drag Strip Challenge" will come to an end, their scoreboards will be frozen and we'll begin a search to find new venues for these challenges with fresh new leaderboards.

Although I will be sad to see these much loved locations go I totally appreciate the need for this (it's kind of a consequence of a very complex procedural generation algorithm, there's a butterfly effect, so if you change the algorithm even slightly, let alone with the large changes no doubt required for Odyssey, you're going to get completely different results coming out of the other end). Personally I'm very excited by this prospect and can't wait to see what this new world looks like!

So, what existing planetary features will you be most sad to lose and what new features are you must loooking forward to finding?
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Alec Turner

Alec Turner
It's been nearly 10 months since we last had a new submission for the Drag Strip Challenge but Shaye Blackwood is back, knocking a further 8 seconds of his already pretty extraordinary time to tighten his grip on first place with a time of 3 minutes and 44 seconds.

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I confess I'd almost forgotten about this one myself. Might have to go back and give it another run or two while we still can.
 

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
OK - it turns out Shaye's run was in a head to head race with Sgurr who actually won (I hadn't initially spotted him off to the right in Shaye's video) but who didn't submit the run until yesterday. So, the updated leaderboard now looks like this.

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Congratulations to Cmdr Sgurr, a superb time of 3 mins 28 secs which makes him the new champion of the Cortes Drag Strip.

P.S. I tend to use the date that's at the bottom of the submission form but in this case that's probably wrong and should read 24/07/3307, the same as Shaye's run.
 
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