Re-Ignition

You’ve all had those dreams haven’t you? You know the ones. The great ones. The ecstatic ones. The ones where you can fly. For me they usually follow a day where I’ve spent a period having about as much fun as it’s possible for a Homborger to handle. I tend to get them when I’ve been particularly successful at something, or when I’ve discovered a new thing that’s more fun than I ever thought possible, like the first time I galloped on my horse. The wind rushing into my face, his mane streaming out behind his neck as his hoofs thunder out the rhythm underneath (depressingly, not something I’ve had an opportunity to do these days).

They’re pretty rare all in all. It’s just…I’ve been having them every night for the latter half of the week.

Since the last Buckyball, wonderful though it was, I stopped playing Elite Dangerous.

Completely.

I had become totaly numb to it’s lure. I tried No Man’s Sky. It was quite fun for a week or so but, well, it’s not the same. It’s a game, not a simulator. The planets of each system all huddle together on one side of the star (which you can’t really get close to) and all those lush worlds and creatures all start looking the same after a while. It’s fun, mysterious, and bright but it didn’t hold my attention much after 50 or so hours.

I tried other games, all sorts of games.

Nothing.

It felt like video gaming was dropping off my fun radar completely. But the next Buckyball was coming up and I felt I was going to be doing it as much out of obligation than leisure. Still, during the previous weekend I became obsessed with checking the BRC (Buckyball Racing Club, c’mon, you should know by now) discord, waiting for Raiko, the race sponsor, to post details of the race.

Sure enough, up they popped. The forum thread was begun and I started to pour over the rules. And there were rules. Lots of rules. And the rules included shenanigans. Lots of shenanigans. It pretty much hurt my brain. But, like most Buckyball courses, I expected it would become a lot less complicated once I’d scouted the route and tried a few of those shenanigans out.

And so I took out My Favorite Headache to have a look around. Starting at Hoshide in the Adivarakhe system, we need to use Jacksons to boost our FSDs to get to the distant main systems in just two jumps. There were only three, each with two places to visit, and an optional shenanigan at every stop. The shenanigans came with bonuses off your total time. Quite generous bonuses, in fact. Generous enough to make each one almost essential. I was intrigued. It looked intense, but promised exceptional fun!

I had multiple shots at the shenanigans and they were nowhere near as tricky as I feared. They mostly involved acrobatics around, or through, various parts of the installations. Apart from one which invloved travelling for 5km by SRV before recalling your ship. I wasn’t too sure about that one. My flyving technique leaves a lot to be desired. It’s fine for 2 -3 km and then it turns back into rollving and uncontolled bounceving. It isn’t long before it gets back to flyving again but in lots of different directions at the same time. But I was willing to at least give it a go.

I had several dry runs in the Cobra. I would explode at least once on every run but eventually I managed to get around unscathed. I wasn’t happy with my handling of the regualtion ship, I hadn’t played for about a month and I struggled with its drifty thrusters. And that wasn’t my only problem.

For the rest of the prep week and the first weekend of the race I would be running on limited sleep. One of our pet rats had to have a tumour removed and Wifeborger and I would share the nightwatch duties. Nothing worse than waking up on the morning after a ratty operation and seeing a gaping maw where there had been a beautifully sewn wound. Been there. Done that. Never again! So she would watch for the first four hours and I would wake up at 3,00 am and take over. I didn’t have a choice this time, Elite would have to wait.

The problem for the following week was, even though I could then sleep through the night, after 5 days of limited sleep I found myself too tired to play late evening and not being able to wake up in time to play in the morning. I was really struggling to find time in game. The prospect of this being the first Buckyball race where I would not be able to register a time loomed before me like a gaping, black hole.

I decided to ditch the regulation class. I was having a lot of fun in the unlimited class during the last race and I remember particularly enjoying scouting out the course in the Rushfleet’s iCourier the Afterimage. So I opted to use that.

I was so glad that I did!

The Afterimage is such a lovely craft to fly. Just performing those loops through the rings at White Grove Homestead in the Beatis system felt effortless and free. Then it was time to tackle Neff Hub.

All you have to do here is just dock and leave. But, of course, there is a shenanigan here and then an advanced shenanigan. For a bonus of two minutes you can just fly around the back of the station before you dock (just like The Empire Hustle) But you can double that to four minutes by entering the docking slot, then exiting it, then you have to loop around the rearmost habitation ring both before and after passing around the back of the station. Then you can dock! So that’s what I chose to do.

I like to use my vertical thrusters when performing loops so I can keep an eye on the obstacle I need to loop around. Especially when that object is spinning and there are struts and solar panels to avoid. And as I pulled up and gazed at the greenery inside the ring while I sailed gracefully around a fire re-ignited within my soul.

This game, this game. It is so beautiful, exhilerating and full of awe. The way we can fly. The way our ships behave. The way each ship has a personality of its very own. The things we can do. And the community that is the web that binds us all together, the things that this community creates for us to do. Every moment of sheer joy that I have had interacting with this remarkable jungle of code, hyperspace jumping for the first time, splitting an asteroid to reveal the core, watching the deep red sunrise in a bright pink sky in a oxygen atmosphere, getting caught by and then totally hypnotised by the way light is bending around a black hole, discovering my very first “first discovered” world. Hyperdiction by Thargoids, harvesting Meta Alloys from barnacles, investigating Guardian Ruins, discovering bark mounds in nebulae, collecting raw materials from volcanic vents, successfully completing an on foot stealth mission, finding a rare and lucrative plant species I had never seen before, going silent running whilst smuggling personal technology into theocratic stations…the list is almost endless. It all passed though my mind as I made that initial loop. It felt like the engine of a Dodge Charger roaring back into life, like the secondary section of a rocket, exploding with the fire of thrust and taking over when the main section had dropped away and all had gone quiet.

All this I had done and loved, and yet there is still so much more I have yet to experience in this marvellous game!

And then as I came back around to the mail slot to finally dock in the station I noticed there was an orca blocking the entrance and in my desperation to get around it I crashed and exploded. I just laughed out loud. It had been a long time since I had been that happy. I just took my rebuy and, continuing from Neff Hub, I carried on around the course.

Next was on to Lewis Gateway to pick up a ton of beer to take back to the start for yet another bonus! Then it was on to the final system, Nauani.

Now it came to the final obstacle. The surface port of Lanchester’s Folly. We only have to dock here and then leave but for a six minute bonus (Total Recal) we need to drive an SRV 5km away before we board the ship and fly home. We were allowed to recall our ships before the 5 km but we still had to travel that didtance before boarding. Now I was struggling with this. My record was 4km before losing control completelty and making it not worth my time. I fully intended to include this shenanigan in my submission but I kept messing this up the most. On the final morning of the race I still hadn’t managed to complete a run and so when I had managed to get around the course unscathed, being extra careful not to take much damage, I saw I had enough hull left for the “Iron Bucky – Driving Commander Daisy” challenge of flying the whole course, without shields, and still having above 90% hull remaining. When I landed at Lanchester’s Folly I had 92%. I wasn’t going to risk sending out the SRV. Maybe, if I got back in one piece, I’d do it on another run. So I launched and set the waypoint back to Hoshide.

Something else had been happening since the re-ignition of my deep love for Elite. I hadn’t really noticed it, but I was beginning to bag almost every single gravity breaking maneuver. Somtimes I would break too soon or approach a bit too cautiously but I never overshot. And even a cautious gravity breaking approach is usually quicker than a standard approach. Sometimes I even almost forgot to drop out of supercruise as the option appeared way sooner than I was expecting.

On the approach to Hoshide I managed to perform a textbook approach. Carefully flew in through the mail slot, and docked. Sold my ton of beer. I could now, finally, submit a time.

Once evening came on the final day, though, I was just too tired to try again. It had been a very busy couple of weeks in RL and I had nothing left. That single effort would just have to do. Maybe I wouldn’t be too far from the bottom of the table.

Fourteenth? Out of twenty five racers? Hey! That’s not too bad at all!

I don’t think I can thank Raiko enough. His forum thread spiel about the Lonnigan Brothers creating the race and enforcing the rules is just glorious. And as for the race itself…

Thank you Raiko! I owe you everything. I will have your babies – if you wish!

As for the next race? Well it’s being run by the incomparable Psykit. So we know what kind of thread design we’re getting at least. But as for the place, exact date (sometime in August) and name of the race we’re all still mostly in the dark. She’s mentioned it might be a re-run of the Pareco ring.

It might be nice to have a straightforward one for a change!

Can’t wait!