“Apocalypse“
Current mainstream thinking mistakenly tells us that the Apocalypse is The End Of The World. It is not. Biblical Scholars and Theologians will tell you, actually “Apocalypse” is the name given to the Final Battle Between Good And Evil. And that, given the current situation in the galaxy, is probably the most appropriate description of the end of this particular era of Elite Dangerous.
“Wot’s wiv deh map of teh London Aandergrand den?” (bit of Turner cockney there for you, folks) I hear you wail!
Well, we’ll get to that.
The problem with the last race of the season was, days before premise and rules for the race was set out, Titan Cocijo (which, google tells me is pronounced : coh-SHEE-ho) upped sticks and proceeded to fly directly in the direction of the Sol system, the birthplace of humanity. It was kinda hard to have any thought space at all for the upcoming race when Earth’s destruction seemed likely to be, indeed, nigh. Many commanders, including myself, began preparing a solid anti-xeno vessel in readiness for the inevitable final showdown. Many commanders, including myself, participated in the evacuation of Sol’s stations in an attempt to extricate as many refugees as possible.
Not long before Cocijo’s arrival the race post appeared. A celebration of ten years of Elite Dangerous involving a classic multi-system run including a dash between the two systems involved in the first ever Buckyball!
X^2 Marks the Dash, is a jumble of two Xs, one where four systems are relatively close (with the start/finish in the centre), and the other where the X is large, the four other systems being much further out. Add to those nine systems the original Buckyball dash from Xiaoguan Hub in the Magec system to Vanarburg Co-Operative in the Wyrd system and you have a total of eleven systems.
Now, we can visit these systems in any order we wish except Vanarburg Co-Op which must be visited directly after Xiaoguan Hub, and this mini run will be timed separately. Classic Buckyball! Give the racers a bagful of stations in systems which they can visit in any order (more or less) and the racers have to work out how to visit them all using the least amount of jumps. No shenanigans, no surface targets, no SRV, no on foot sections.
Just. Pure. Buckyball.
And with eleven stops, this race was going to take one hell of a lot of plotting!
Due to some of the distances involved and due to some of the stations being outposts with only one medium pad my thinking went to a small ship with a massive jump range. So the RushFleet’s DBX, Xanadu seemed the obvious choice. But, under the circumstances, I was already working on getting another ship ready for action!
If you haven’t been to the album page in question here is the Limbo. The Rushfleet’s Alliance Challenger. I chose the Limbo because she has four hardpoints where I can mount modified Guardian Shard Cannons. Having failed miserably with Gauss Cannons I thought this might be my best bet for partaking in Anti-Xeno conflict zones. She’s had a LOT more engineering, lost the shields and has been remodelled as a hull tank with lots of hull and module re-enforcements. Oh, and despite having a pair of small G5 engineered turreted long range thermal vent beam lasers, I gave her a decent amount of heatsinks too as those mod shards generate staggering amounts of heat, even with the thermal vent beam lasers!
Finally, she was ready, but I didn’t want to get stuck in until I knew what I was doing in the Buckyball first. Therefore on the Friday the race was due to start, I took Xanadu over to the start/finish station (Ashton Gateway at VZ Corvi).
Half the task of any Buckyball race is Preparation. The racer needs to scout, measure jump distances, assess approach vectors, and plot a route from the start to finish that uses as few jumps as possible. Or even, in some cases, plotting routes between points in the same system to complete the race in the shortest or at least, most efficient distance possible. With this race featuring no less than eleven stops, a lot of plotting needs to take place.
It has to be said that some commanders, like Arrowroot 66 will put a handy chart in the forum to help other racers plot their routes. This is wonderful but is only of so much use to someone like me. I actually need to get out there in my racing ship and get an idea, just an idea, mind you of where every system is in relation to each other.
The map of the London Underground is not a geographically accurate map. but it gives a clear, concise idea to the traveller where the stations are, which lines they need to travel on, which station they need to alight, which changes, if any, they need to make to arrive at the station closest to their destination. While I am out in the black, in a trip around the star systems, I make a kind of mental representation of where all the important systems are so I can find my way around. The galmap helps a little but I can easily get lost in it. So I make my own.
I had a lot of fun making this. I felt like I was eight years old again, drawing a simple treasure map or something and, let’s be honest, eight year old me would have done a much better job of it. So, yes, it’s far from the stunning work of art of the London Underground map, but it works for me very well. Each arrow represents a jump (although here I’ve just realised I’ve neglected to draw in arrows on the first and final three jumps) and I’ve used green (trust me on the colours, awful photo, sorry) for single jumps, blue for double and red for the original Buckyball run. And as you can count (I hope) the best I could come up with (with the Xanadu’s jump range) was fourteen jumps. Oh, and the exclamation marks? Well, we’ll get to those. First there was the little matter of attempting my first ever Anti Xeno Combat Zone.
When Cojico arrived in Sol it sent a chill down everyone’s spine. It caused the invasion of sixteen neighbouring systems. Four of those systems, Alpha Centauri, Wolf 359, Barnard’s Star and WISE 1506-7027 were under complete Thargoid control while a further twelve – Procyon, Dumata, Sirius, Tau Ceti, Ez Aquarii, 61 Cygni, LHS 380, Epsilon Eridani, LHS 450, Groombridge 34, WISE 0855-0714 and Luhman 16 were actively and furiously being invaded. The task ahead was daunting. It looked like it might take a good couple of weeks to whittle the invaded systems down to three or less, thereby causing the Titan to become vulnerable to attack.
The first system I fought in was Procyon. At the time it was the system most likely to repel its Thargoid invasion first and much of humanity’s efforts were initially concentrated here. I chose to fight at the Schade Horizons surface installation so I wouldn’t have to deal with Thargoid swarms.
I struggled at first, and therefore neglected to take any screenshots (I had to pop over there once the invasion had been repelled to get the one above). I needed four rebuys, but contributed, with massive help, to the destruction of a handful of interceptors including a Hydra. And boy, do those Hydra’s take a long time to go down! It was really good fun, and despite those rebuys still managed to earn well over 100 million credits. I was eager to get on and find some more surface combat zones, but I thought I’d better go and lay down my first run in the Buckyball.
With the Garden berthed at Ross 104, both a single jump away from Sol and from VZ Corvi where the start/finish station lay. It was time to jump back into Xanadu and get down to some serious Buckyballing!
There has been a problem in Elite Dangerous ever since the introduction of Powerplay 2.0.
Braben Tunnels!
These are extra long periods of hyperspace between systems. They usually last around thirteen seconds but, very occasionally can last quite a bit longer and even crash the game to desktop with an error message if they last too long. Powerplay 2.0 brought a lot of people back into the game. I suppose the servers were having to work extra hard to put everyone in an instance so these “Braben Tunnels” as they have come to be known, have been popping up for too regularly.
Their profusion is ruining Buckyball due to their random nature. We now do not have complete control over our times because the Braben Tunnels are adding arbitrary amounts of time to our runs. Someone with a less skilled run could end up being faster than someone with a precise run because the latter was faced with a high number of much longer than usual jumps through hyperspace. Luckily, I only managed to experience one on my first run.
Firstly, three things – Shaye Blackwood, thirty minutes, Federal Assault Ship?
For a first run, it was pretty good. I over shot about half of my approaches, completely messed up the approach to Vonarburg Co-Operative, but apart from there, didn’t loose too much time overshooting the supercruise exit windows. The thing was, it looked like I could be able to do the course in at least one fewer jump. I was going to have to have another look at my plotting! But I really wanted to carry on helping to liberate invaded systems surrounding Sol. And those systems were being freed remarkably quickly.
The invasion at Procyon had already been repelled the evening the race began (Friday 7 December), help was now needed most at Dumata and Sirius. Heavy surface fighting was reported on Lucifer at Marco Quent’s place. So I decided to take the Limbo there to see what I could do.
It was fierce! I had learned a lot since last time, and suffered no rebuys. But Hydra’s take such a long time to go down, I lost count of the amount of times I had to repair at the port before the first Hydra exploded. It was really sweet seeing the 60,000,000 credit bond flash up on my cockpit. After completing the combat zone, I jumped back to the Garden to fire up Xanadu to just try and figure out how I could save a jump on the course.
I worked it out. Instead of the two jumps from Somerset Station (bottom left) to Velho Dock (top right), I could take the one jump from Somerset to BD-17 3725, then Pawelczk Hanger, then Velho Dock. The problem was the 74ly jump back to the finish at Ashton Gate was greater than Xanadu could manage on a full tank of fuel. I would have to not refuel at any of the three or so stops before the last jump so Xanadu could make it.
I redrew the diagram, placing exclamation marks where I must not refuel (you may notice them also in the original diagram – this is because I thought I might need less fuel for the last jump then, too. Turns out I didn’t).
One less jump! But there was no time to test it out. I needed to jump back into the fray one more time.
By mid Saturday afternoon (7th) Sirius had been freed. The following morning both Dumata and Tau Ceti had also been liberated. Later that Sunday EZ Aquarii, Epsilon Eridani and Tau Ceti had been cleared of the ‘Goids. Systems were being rescued fast.
On social media a dynamic frenzy was whipping up. Everyone, including hoards of commanders I had never seen before was weighing in on the Sol invasion. Many, many new players asking how they could get involved with many more experienced commanders falling over themselves to give advice and offering to coach them in game. New commanders were even boasting about buying the prebuild AX ships and evacuation ships and reporting how much fun they’d been having. More commanders came rushing in from their exploration endeavours deep in the black hoping to make it back in time to defend their home systems from the invading Thargoids. And also a great many commanders who hadn’t touched the game for years, were dusting off their old anti-xeno ships, eager to join in the fight.
Elite Dangerous was suddenly becoming cool again!
Meanwhile, I myself found I had a free Monday. The house all to myself. Understand, dear reader, that this almost never happens. I had to seize my chance! What better than to spend as much of the day as possible filling the faces of Thargoid interceptors full of guardian shards? I decided the surface port of Edison Hub in the Luhman system would be my next conflict zone.
I had a difficult time of it here. There were but few commanders in my instance and quite often I found I would be taking on the interceptors solo. I destroyed a Cyclops solo, no problem, really, with the four modified shard cannons, but for large periods of time I was up against a Hydra all by myself. I felt I was making no headway on it whatsoever, although I eventually managed to get two of its hearts before the cavalry arrived and I let them get on with finishing the damn thing off. Still, I managed to eventually complete the conflict zone after which I made my way back to the Garden,
By that Monday evening, both LHS 380 and Luhman 16 were secured, but it was still going to be a lot of work to clear the remaining systems over the next couple of days.
Now it was time to get serious about racing. No more distractions! Yet I little realised I would be facing the greatest obstacle to Buckyball I had ever faced.
New sofas! (cue jarring chord on a pipe organ)
The ‘Borgers’ busted up, threadbare old sofas had had it. And we could put up with them no longer. So new sofas were ordered and arrived on the Tuesday. Now my old sofas had nice, thick arms on which I can rest a mouse. In case you don’t know, I play on the living room tele with the keyboard on my lap and mouse on the arm of the sofa. Our new sofas have arms barely over an inch wide. How am I supposed to use a mouse on those? Buckyballing was out of the question. A new solution was found using a firm cushion and a small blanket but I had to get used to this unfamiliar arrangement before I cold deal with the kind of precision needed for racing.
During the next couple of days the rest of the invaded systems began to clear. By 15,00 Tuesday evening Groombridge 34, LHS 450 and Wolf 359 had been cleared and overnight Barnard’s Star, WISE 0855-0714 and WISE 1506-7027 were also cleared. The occupations and invasions were now falling like dominoes – so ferocious the defence had become. Only Alpha Centauri now remained, and it was proving a problem. The distance to the conflict around Hutton Orbital was hampering the resistance. So much so that the Anti Xeno Initiative offered a free Anaconda to any commander who would brave the dozens of interdictions on the long journey to the legendary remote outpost.
Early in the morning on Thursday 12th December, the defenders at Hutton were victorious! It had been a staggering achievement. One of which humankind can be most proud. All sixteen of the invaded or occupied systems had been liberated. Now all humanity could do was wait.
It was anticipated that Cocijo should become vulnerable on the Thursday server reset although the possibility the Thargoids might deliver a googly into the fray did not escape us. Anything could happen!
Once the servers had been re-established on Thursday (12th), it became immediately apparent Cocijo was completely vulnerable. I brought Freya over from Kumo controlled space, and readied both Amarant and the Tom Sawyer for their bombing runs. The prospect of both Leeya and Freya earning that prestigious eight star decal was irresistible!
Even Buckyball had to take second fiddle to that.
The bombing runs went off without a hitch, during which news of a new community goal began to filter through the information channels. An offering of six, yes, six double engineered A-rated SCO-FSDs sized 2 through 7 would be made available to each commander inflicting damage on Cocijo’s core. Added to that significant credit rewards as well as the decal and ship kits. Excitement began to work into a frenzy once more, commanders who had never even imagined diving into a maelstrom now asked desperately on forums and social media how to build their ships and researched Titan bombing videos. It was promising to be the biggest battle in Elite Dangerous’ ten year history.
It was time to test my theory. If I didn’t refuel at Somerset, Pawelczyk or Velho I should be able to make it back to the finish in just one jump. So to test this I began from Ashton Gateway and jumped straight to Somerset, then Pawelczyk and lastly Velho without refuelling (in fact there was no need to visit any of those stations at all, just their systems) and plotted a route back to Ashton.
Two Jumps.
Wait…what? But…what? Maybe…maybe my jump range wasn’t quite big enough. Sure enough an experimental hadn’t been applied to the FSD and neither the life support, power plant, distributor nor the sensors had been light weighted to maximum. I toured the necessary engineers and maximised Xanadu’s jump range and did the test again. Ashton, Somerset, Pawelczyk, Velho, plot home. Surely this time?
Again, two jumps.
What was I doing wrong? VZ Corvi was only 74ly away and yet my current jump range was over 76! Why is it plotting two jumps? Filled with a growing frustration and disillusionment I took to the BRC Discord and asked. The BRC are, and I know I keep repeating this, a wonderful, totally unhinged yet comprehensively friendly and helpful bunch of people and it wasn’t long before several of them were falling over themselves to give advice.
“Plot the route, allow the two jumps then target the system so it appears targeted in your skybox”
I did just that. Plotted the route, then clicked on VZ Covi. It didn’t show up in the skybox, I tried it again. Nope, nothing there. Now I was completely at a loss. I do what I usually do when I feel thus, just muck about, clicking on random stuff without a clue what I’m doing. I noticed once I’d clicked on VZ Corvi a set of icons appeared vertically on the right. Hadn’t paid much heed to them before apart from the Thargoid War icon. About halfway down is a marker icon that, above which, when hovering the pointer over it, read…
“Target System”
I cursed passionately. And, punctuated by expletives, assigned to myself a plethora of the most filthy, derogatory and demeaning adjectives in the English language. I “targeted” VZ Corvi and, sure as eggs is eggs, it appeared in the skybox. That evening (Sunday 16th) I went for it!
The run went quite well, there were a couple of Braben Tunnels but Bruski, the race sponsor, brought in an ingenious adjustment to the rules to compensate. It made submitting the evidence a tiny bit more fiddly but it worked well. The game bugged out a little at Vonarburg Co-Op and I overshot a few drops. but, I was sure I had gone quicker than my first submission. I had to wait until Monday to see the leaderboard.
This time, I’m ignoring Shaye’s time. He seems to be able to bend time to his will and it shouldn’t be allowed. For me? Just seven seconds over thirty four minutes! Not bad at all! I was all for another run as now, the race finish had been extended until midday on Thursday. But the following Tuesday morning, another situation to drag my attention away from the race presented itself.
When I awoke early on Tuesday morning I was sure Cocijo’s last heart would have been taken overnight. Yet when I checked it’s status there was still a small percentage to go. I readied the Tom Sawyer, jumped to Sol and rushed to the maelstrom as quickly as I could. There I got stuck in and was determined to still be sending ax missiles into that core until it blew for good. It took a bit longer than I thought, at times it felt like I was the only one sending the nano torpedoes into the vents while everyone else waited underneath, but, with just fourteen percent hull remaining, the last heart, of the last Titan, blew in front of my cockpit. I had never been present at the destruction of the final heart before, and became a little emotional at the prospect I might never witness it ever again.
Yet more questions on social media – how long until Cocijo explodes? How do I get there to watch? Where would be the best vantage point? Again the more experienced fell over each other to help, offer a crew position, offer to team up. I have never in all my time playing seen such co-operation on such a massive scale. It has been a wonderful year for Elite and the question has been asked about what commanders’ stand out moment was. Well, according to Inara just 43 shy of 23, 000 commanders took part in the community goal to destroy Cojico. The biggest contribution to a community goal in the game’s history. What other moment could I choose?
The following morning Leeya made her way to watch Cocijo’s final moments. And to paraphrase Douglas Adams in The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy –
“There was a terrible ghastly silence.
There was a terrible ghastly noise.
There was a terrible ghastly silence.”
Cocijo was no more.
The evening before the race was due to finish, I had time for one more run. It felt good, at first, but my enthusiasm wasn’t quite there. My approaches were far too cautious and despite the run being a lot cleaner, it was over a minute longer than my last submitted time. I also had an inkling that there was yet another jump to be saved, and that some of the faster commanders had found that saving. Maybe that played a part too. Still, I definitely seem to be making progress with my racing.
Sigh, not even made the top ten this time. I need to practice so much more, and be far less fearless in my racing.
Many, many thanks to Bruski for a wonderful final race. It’s been a blast, and I’ve learned so much. Many thanks to the other racers, Buckyball wouldn’t be Buckyball without any single one of you! The usual congratulations to all the pilots finishing both just above and well above my position. Excellent flying! Huge congrats to the top three in both categories. KevinTheStabber was particularly excellent winning the regulation category which, by most accounts, was particularly punishing this time.
It’s been an amazing season. The best ever! No, really, it has all been wonderful. But I’m kinda relieved I don’t have to worry about racing for a few months at least. Although, I’m sure I’ll be raring to go come March/April when, hopefully an exiting new season, with a possible new regulation ship, begins.
Until next season, then Buckyball fans!
Elite Dangerous RUSH FLEET 