Community Event / Creation The Sidewinder Trophy

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Ok Monday update for the race.

We have had a couple of new entries to the board From FearlessF21 and Sir Boundness. Fearless had a really good run at the limbo with an impressive 347 m/s but then landed on a 4.3g planet upside down! Not sure that is the fastest way but who am I to judge? Sir boundness came in with an overall superb run, however limbo is just not his thing, even so he is in first place so that is all that matters eh.

I have noted that there also seems to be a fair bit more wreckage floating around these systems. Keep it up all!
 
Hi all ... I'm back! I've been VERY distracted with the conclusion of the Elite Racers Winter Olympics and with my new PC but I finally got to this yesterday and did my first actual attempts at a run today.

Jeez Sulu ... this is actually really HARD!

First off, as the kind of person who just slaps some engineering on a ship, bookmarks the required systems and then leaps into the fray thinking he can win without trying ..

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.. this race has slapped me down hard! :ROFLMAO:

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Here's how day #1 played out.

I built my engineered Sidewinder yesterday. Today, as I'm reading the rules I see this ... "yes, the Sidey will go way past 600".

Err, what? My Sidey is definitely not going WAY past 600.
Doh! 🤦‍♂️
I've poured a shed ton of engineering materials into G5 thrusters, completely forgetting that I can fit enhanced thrusters to a Sidewinder.
Dear Frontier ... while you're revamping engineering, PLEASE can we have salvage options for engineered modules that gives at least some of the engineering materials back again! (for idiots like me who engineered the wrong thing).

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Time passes.

OK, now I can go way past 600.

Next ... I fly to the Scientific Installation (without bothering with any kind of scouting run) and discover it has about 175 wrong tunnels!!!
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It takes me a good 15 minutes to find the right tunnel.
Sulu ... you absolute swine!!!

Back to the start with a mental image of the right tunnel ... ace the tunnel ... on to Ruchbah.
Doh! 🤦‍♂️
I run out of fuel on the way (partly 'cos I've still got routing via WD's).
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And then, because I always fit a half size tank to my ships, I assume I've done that again and head off to fit a size 2 Fuel Tank.
Wait ... the Sidey can only fit a size 1!
A brief moment of panic before I remember one can fit EXTRA fuel tanks.

Back to the start, tunnel layout memorised and (for now) extra fuel capacity.

I ace the tunnel and manage to land on Ruchbach. On to Dav's Hope.
And here begins an absolute tail of death and destruction.
Holy Moly boosting under that limbo is HARD!!!
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Who put all those damn lamposts there?
My sheidless Sidey doesn't stand a chance and EDCoPilot tells me I've soliled the bed about a dozen times.

Also, this ship is running so hot that I actually blew up just charging my FSD!

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get that much needed burger and then find out why I should have scouted Red Tunnel Drilling.

Woo hoo ... Buckyball is back, and then some!
 
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Jeez Sulu ... this is actually really HARD!

I'm not sure which is worse... the fact that every single attempt to complete a Regulation Run yesterday resulted in a DNF, or the fact that said DNFs were early enough in the run that I didn't notice that my more accurate bookmarks from my (submitted) scouting run had one in the wrong order. 🤦‍♀️

Which I only found out after I'd gotten up early enough to think "I can get in a Regulation and Unlimited run" ended up with two early Regulation aborts due to excessive damage at the tunnels, and said discovery of the wrong book marks in the Unlimited attempt resulted in much longer time.

Which was a pity, because the limbo at Dav Hope was pretty good (for me), and probably won't ever happen again. Still wouldn't have recovered the bookmarking error, unfortunately. Still good practice in the long run. :)
 
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Back to the start, tunnel layout memorised and (for now) extra fuel capacity.
I'm not using extra fuel. There is a pesky WD that buggers up any run using the auto plotter (even with WD's filtered out) so I've thrown in a couple of extra bookmarks. I'm running a cool, low thermal power plant but that limits modules. Therefore for a "banker" run will be made (I hope, still haven't managed with the limited time available to me) shieldless, with a 2a scoop and a size 2 GFSD. It gives me 37.5ly and I can jump while scooping, although I still have to be careful with heat. I've also put thermal spread on my FSD to help with the heat although I could have left the deep charge and got 40ly, but, it's still possible with just 13 jumps with the 37. Also the lightweight armor is heavy duty with deep plating which negates somewhat with the high g landing and the belly flop limbo at Dav's Hope. IF I manage a run I will then experiment with a deactivated 1c biweave shield which I will only turn on (at the cost of deactivating the GFSD) for the high g landing and the limbo so I can be more reckless. Hopefully I can reactivate my GFSD to jump out again in good time after crashing. All depends on how much sleep my body is able to go without so I will have time.
 
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Ok Tuesday now and we have had a few new entries to the boards. Unlimited Sidey. Caelum Incola has stormed into the lead with a truly excellent run and a half decent bonus, however there is an inquiry going on to check if it really was him in that helmet! Also dropping into 2nd is jspace in his 5th bad idea apparently! Well done indeed. Sir Boundness has dropped to 3rd and Martinjameson has slipped into 4th with a still excellent time under 30 minutes. (There is a stewards enquiry into his bonus but luckily it will not alter his placing) Unfortunately due to some excellent runs now, FearlessF21 and Triplerazor have dropped to the lower places.

Regulation Cobra. Yes we finally have some pilots taking out the regulation Cobra, which as we all know, does far better than its build would suggest.
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We have Sir Boundness shoving the much bigger cobra round in a pretty quick sub 32 time, already lapping a couple of fully engineered sidewinders. Brilliant! jspace has also brought home a run in as much style as his unlimited for an excellent 2nd place. Tobias von Brandt has also placed on regulation so well done. I could not help noticing that if he had dressed correctly his time would have been quicker however.

Thank you all and more updates tomorrow
 
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It was quite a busy night!

Lots of prep work first, including restocking encoded mats at HIP 12099, stopping at two material traders, buying the modules I needed to build my Sidewinder at Ray Gateway and Long Sight Base, upgrading the FSD, and making a cheat sheet for the route.
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Then it was back to Okinura, and I had time to take the Cobra for a lap around the course while waiting for the newly-acquired modules to be delivered. There was definitely a bit of rust to knock off for the little things, such as when to plot the next destination and filtering the nav panel list so I can find POIs quicker. I flew way too far away from the star in LFT 1748 and overshot the Scientific Installation while fumbling around with those things and had to loop back. And, as Sulu mentioned, it turns out the flight suit can't jump over the gantry so I had to run back to my ship to change, oops! But I also had good luck with finding the tunnel and pillars quickly, not encountering any gankers at Dav's Hope, and not pancaking my ship on Ruchbah 2. Lots of things I can improve, but all in all not a bad first run. Felt good to be in the cockpit of my Cobra again! :cool:
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Now to get the Sidey assembled and give it a go!
 
Second unlimited run currently processing very slowly on YT. Think I've knocked a few minutes off my first attempt - but don't worry, folks! I will still be defending my position at the bottom of the table!

First attempt at Regulation abandoned after being interdicted by a Mauve Adder with disconnection cannons. 😡
 
Think I've knocked a few minutes off my first attempt - but don't worry, folks! I will still be defending my position at the bottom of the table!
Well, I'm not there to battle it out with you... ;)
I'm out in the black, earning some money for ships, equipment and rebuys...
While also collecting some materials on the fly and get a requirement to unlock some engineers out of the way - grade 3 dirty drives won't cut te mustard in the long run.
 

Ozric

Volunteer Moderator
Well I wouldn't call that run a total shambles...

I managed to find the right tunnel to fly through in under two minutes this time, misread the speed bonus in the rules thinking it meant through there, so boosted through the second pass. Which fortunately I survived. Didn't explode on contact with the 4g planet, but did get a 'too fast for orbital cruise' at Dav's Hope.

I was quite surprised by the overall time as I expected it to be longer though. A truly evil race Sulu, see I knew pushing you to organise one would lead to great things. Terrible, yes, but great :)
 
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