Buckyball races come in all shapes and sizes. Some are themed like The Aquarian Job, some involve terrifying restrictions such as The Last Gasp, others involve carrying dangerous cargo like the Thargoid Structure Scramble. This new race however, is unlike any other race before it. The unlimited category even involved new gaming mechanics that Buckyballers have never had to get to grips with before.
Welcome to the Loose Screws Ring Tossers Rally!
Ok, before I carry on I’ll dispense with the double entendres that will unavoidably arise with the race title. A title with the words “tossers”, “ring” and “screws” will undoubtedly bring sniggers and snorts and all sorts of bawdy statements but, believe me, it’s all been banded around to death in the Buckyball race discord. I’m not going to take them any further here.
Oi! Stop giggling at the back there! Ahem!
Anyway it was really nice to be able to take out the ship I’d prepared months earlier and race her properly! Ladies, Gentlemen, and all those wonderful people around the sides and in between, I present to you my racing adder – the I Think I’m Going Bald!
There she is! Isn’t she beautiful?
The adder, of course, is Cmdr Phoenix DeFire’s favourite ship. He loves them so much he’s renamed this stunning vessel of mine “The Polished Turd”! Charming, yes? And this race involves flying through rings and there’s something to be said about slipping a tur…
I said stop giggling at the back!
Sorry.
She can reach 742 m/s boost speed with minimal modules has a jump range of around 50 light years with the necessary modules and is highly maneuverable. Even so, she may not be the ideal ship for any race but I have a real soft spot for the adder. It reminds me of my T3 VW Caravelle that gave us so many wonderful family holidays while we owned her. We nicknamed her “The Great White Brick” and she was so much fun to drive. Sigh! Good times! But enough about my past, and on to the race!
The race title had us all intrigued. Just what would Cmdr Indigo, the race sponsor, have in store for us with this one? Again, it would prove to be a seemingly simple, yet devilishly complex race to manage with any real speed.
The race started at Bunch City, a coriolis space station in the system Ross 104. We then had to fly between the rings and the body of each of the eight ringed bodies in any order before returning to Bunch City.
That’s it! That’s all we had to do. No landings (apart from start/finish) and no jumping to other systems (although this may have been a strategy in regulation).
This is also the very first Buckyball race to make use of the brand new SCO drive!
So off we all went to practice before the race start and we soon began to learn that the SCO drive is a much more nuanced beast than we ever could have imagined! First, in order to get from one body to another efficiently, precise application of the SCO is required. And the difference between taking too long to reach a destination and overshooting it came down to a couple of seconds.
It also quickly became apparent that the speed needed to pass between the body and its rings would need to be rather velocious! Slightly too slow and the gravity wells of these enormous planets slow you down so much the run isn’t worth continuing. It wasn’t long before I realiised I would probably need to throw my poor adder at these bodies at full supercruise.
Now we come to the bonus given for the race. Our fastest speed through a ring would be awarded time off our total run. From 15 seconds for a measly slow 1C (“C” being the speed of light) to ninety seconds for travelling at an insane 36C! At that speed the only way you’re going to hit the gap is by pure luck.
Such dizzying stunts were well beyond me as I was having trouble with my aim. At first I would hit the first gas giant, Ross 104 ABC 1 every single time. The thing approaches so fast there is barely any time to react. I followed with a tactic of slowing to 3/4 speed after deactivating the overcharge before gunning it to full once the body’s ETA was around six seconds. This proved to be a lot more manageable but was still a lot slower than I was happy with. Less than 1C. Once the race had officially opened I practiced a few more times that evening with a view to attempting a first run the following morning. But now I had another problem – a real life one.
Usually, I only get uninterrupted in game time after everyone in the house has gone to bed or before everyone else has woken up in the morning. I was regularly managing to play for an hour before sleeping and two hours the following morning. Yet recently I’ve been tiring a lot more easily, and sleeping a lot more than I used to. I can think of a lot of reasons for this which I won’t bore anyone with here but that Sunday morning I “overslept” and got out of bed far too late to get in game.
This has been happening an awful lot these past few months. And then in the evening I’m often too tired to do anything but go straight to bed. And that wasn’t the only thing.
I own a horse. He’s a stunning Irish skewbald cob, 14.2 hands high, clever but lacking in confidence when it comes to hacking around the local area since we moved him closer to our home. I’ve been walking him around the village where he’s stabled to acclimatise him to getting out and about. I’ve been neglecting it over the winter because of time constraints and that Sunday morning was the first time I’d taken him out this year.
On the way around the village he spooked at goodness knows what, leapt sideways toward me and stamped down on my ankle. It was rather painful, but seemed ok. I managed to walk him back to the yard, constantly reassuring him, turn him out in his paddock, and then limp carefully home.
I sat down and removed my boots and socks.
Oh my good grief! I wasn’t quite prepared for the onrush of agony which exploded from my foot. All that night I had trouble sleeping so I thought I’d attempt a run.
It was then I discovered I had suddenly completely forgotten how to fly.
Yet another dire initial run. I was confused, I kept selecting the wrong bodies, accidentally quitting to the menu, and either not engaging the SCO for long enough or completely over egging it altogether. I entered it anyway, just in case it would be my only one and tried to play a different game. Clearly Elite was just going to be a mess for me. The pain in my foot was far too distracting. Still no good. I became so completely overwhelmed and confused that it was clear gaming was going to be off the menu for at least a couple of days.
Luckily, the injury seemed to be confined to soft tissue and after a day or two the swelling and pain receded somewhat. It was time to make a few more practice runs and go for another couple of attempts!
First attempt I crashed into the first planet but undeterred I headed back to the start for another attempt. Alec Turner was just logging off at the time and wished me luck. I was hoping that I could do a sub ten minute time. It was all I could hope for.
This time it all went really smoothly, I found if I left the overdrive on for a little too long I could aim well below the body and approach it from underneath and I would slow down in time. I was overjoyed to reach the finish and land within ten minutes! Plus I had a fastest ring pass of 5c which gave yet another thirty seconds off my run.
And so I attempted some more runs. Leaving it a second or so longer in overdrive, approaching the rings faster, trying to be more dynamic with the order in which I flew by each body, yet every time I crashed, This time mostly into the rings themselves.
Frustration replaced motivation. These were new skills I was learning. We all were. Many racers were having a lot of trouble just completing their first run. I decided to go exploring for a while with my original account before trying again.
Yet my fatigue returned. I was hoping to make my last attempts the final Sunday morning of the race, but I overslept, again, and ran out of time.
I was disappointed but I should look on the bright side. Like I’ve stated this is a brand new gaming mechanic for Elite. And this race is completely unlike any other.
Want to see the final Unlimited leaderboard?
Some of those times are insane! And some of those ring speeds are doubly insane! Nearly 70C Raiko? My word, man, are you crazy? And Shaye? In a Beluga?
Beggars belief! Incredible flying!
Just huge congratulations to Cmdr Indingo for giving us a completely original concept. A whole race flown in supercruise. It was such fun, flying through those rings made me clench my butt cheeks every time! They even made a whooshing, rumbly noise as you passed through. I must apologise to you Indigo, for not giving this incredible race the time it deserved. It just was one of those weeks.
Also massive congratulations to Cmdrs Shaye Blackwood, Bruski and Raiko for those aberrant, deranged and deliriously fast runs.
Next race starts June 22nd and is hosted by Caelum Incola.
It will be called Pop Gun. Sounds most intriguing!
Be there!
Elite Dangerous RUSH FLEET 
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