And so back in January 2026 the Distant Worlds III expedition began. And Alec Turner along with several other racers didst travel therewith.
And thus the Buckyball Discord was silenced,
For a time. For the longest time, it seemed.
During that time, however, a lot happened with my alt account – Cmdr. Freya Crescent. She is my main on foot Cmdr. and she was busy darting around the Bubble, doing on foot missions for various anarchy factions, basically, whoever would pay her the materials she needed to engineer and modify all her remaining unmodified arsenal of weapons. And I was enjoying this very much!
Her squadron, a small band of pirates known as the Yomar Consortium, had all but disbanded, with the usual regular members not having played the game for months. Including their leader, Avetre Snow.
I boot up my gaming pc, log into Freya’s account, load in the game. Dive into Open, (almost always Open these days) and there’s a message waiting for me…
Due to Snow being absent for the game for over three months, and no one else in game to answer the call, Freya had been selected as the new leader of the Yomar Consortium. I was pretty gobsmacked to be honest. I dropped an urgent message on the squadron’s Discord and, to cut a long story short, and after a rather a lot of mirth it has to be said, a vote was taken as to whether I’d be accepted as leader. I was willing to give it a shot, but only if everyone else agreed. I abstained, of course, but the result was otherwise unanimous.
Everybody was happy for me to be Crime Lady Boss Freya Crescent.
As we are a small squadron of just a handful of active members (3-4 at any given time, sometimes just two) and our home was surrounded by ruthless Imperial bullies who spend all day simping over the Banal, Blue-Haired, Boggy Bathwater Bint, and mindlessly driving any Pirates they find out of any systems in which they find them.
Therefore I decided we should set up a new colony far away, and hopefully we’d be left alone. So a new colony was started. Freya got to recreate her ancestral homeland and soon came our first war. Only problem was, it clashed directly with the latest Buckyball race.
Prison Circuit!
A race that, we were assured by the race sponsor, Arrowroot 66, was all, “…perfectly legal, especially if we didn’t get caught!” All we had to do was to launch from Cummings Ring in the Vaiurisc system, pick up a special consumer technology package from The Beefy Boiler nearby in Puppis Sector ON-T b3-5, fly to four specific detention centre ships and manoeuvre through the habitation rings where certain prisoners were (unjustly, we were assured) being kept. Information would be sent and received from these prisoners via the consumer technology as we flew though, and the quicker the better. We were to then land on the prison ship (presumably to alleviate any suspicion) to refuel, repair or whatever was needed before flying off to the next.
Doesn’t sound dodgy at all does it? Heh! But, we are Buckyball pilots and, according to Cmdr. Buur, madder than a box of frogs. So, basically, we are up for anything if it can be used as an excuse for a race. The deadlier, the better!
Now, we can visit the detention ships in any order but me must return to Cummings Ring to “sell” the consumer technology to the agent…er…I mean vendor we bought it from. Complete with all the messages sent and received from the rings. First things first, it was time to go out for a scouting run, determine the order in which to visit each prison, and which would be the optimum ship to use. I chose the RushFleet’s Mandalay (of course, what other ship is as good for Buckyball?), the Rhythm Method, due to the distances involved and its unrivalled supercruise performance. And, after just a little navigating, the order became reasonably straightforward. especially as I really couldn’t be bothered with factoring in white dwarf boosts, and with no more than 2 jumps to each destination, there was no real point anyway. But each prison ship also had little problems to overcome with regards to approach, navigating the habitation rings and, in one instance, the direction from which to leave afterwards.
Ok! Before I start I’m just going to reach for my sixty inch demolition crowbar to insert this terribly precarious link…ready?
With all this talk of Freya and her small band of pirates. And with her feeling rather…er…stretched…due to all the colonisation hauling, BGS work and CZ fighting she has to do, it brought me in mind of another band of pirates from the Borger family’s favourite anime – the incomparable, absurdist, bonkers, marathon watch of One Piece!
Set in a fantastical, mostly flooded world the final words of legendary pirate captain Gul D. Roger at his execution had set forth an age known as The Great Pirate Era. Roger was the King of the Pirates and had claimed to have found the legendary “One Piece” – a great treasure giving anyone who finds it considerable power over the forces of the world.
The world itself is mostly water, around which runs an equatorial stretch of dangerous seas called the “Grand Line” which a sailing ship can only enter via a perilous phenomenon known as reverse mountain where currents from all the oceans are forced via several violent canals to a vicious whirlpool up to its summit only to descend down a steep cascade and onto the grand line itself. A gateway precious few crews manage to navigate.
Monkey D Luffy (pronounced “loofee”), the main protagonist and captain of the ever increasingly notorious “Strawhat Pirates” (as Luffy wears the very straw hat Rodger wore) manages to overcome this in a series of ever increasingly insurmountable hazards as they travel throughout the Grand Line in search of the One Piece.
Luffy is no typical adventurer. He is simple, impulsive and easily distracted. Yet he is also fiercely loyal, driven, and deceptively strong. At his weakest, he is able to smash rocks with his fists. When he was a boy he ate the Gum Gum Fruit (Gomu Gomu no Mi), one of many kinds of “devil” fruits that give the consumer special powers. The Devil Fruits are individually unique – only one of each kind exists. Once it’s consumed, nobody else can use its power, until the user dies and the fruit shows up somewhere else. There are many, many kinds, too. Some enable their users to master a certain element such as light, fire, lightning, lava or smoke, others enable transformations and partial transformations into a certain animal, some are just really, really weird such as the Flower Flower Fruit (Hana Hana no Mi) which allows the user to sprout multiple limbs from anywhere in their vicinity. Each fruit’s power comes with the caveat that the user looses their ability to swim, in fact even being slightly immersed in seawater can weaken the user immensely. The Gum Gum Fruit has changed Luffy’s body into rubber, and he is learning how to utilise this in surprisingly ingenious ways.
For example…
Gum Gum Pistol (Gomu Gomu no Pisutoru) fires Luffy’s fist out at the speed of a bullet whilst Gum Gum Gattling (Gomu Gomu no Gatoringu) makes his fists fire out so quickly it looks like dozens of them are flying at once. As is the custom with action manga and anime, he frequently calls out his move just as he does it. He even learns to use his rubber body to pump his blood much faster allowing him to move at dizzying speed and hit much harder, or inflate a limb enough to dwarf his body and hit with devastating force.
In my opinion, not only is it one of the greatest anime of all time, it’s one of the greatest series of all time, too. Managing to merge absurdist comedy with some of the strangest powers and attacks ever seen, but also hitting on deep and very dark themes such as slavery, racism and child experimentation. It’s a long, long haul though. Its been going since 1999 and is currently running at episode 1157. It keeps up with the manga it’s based on and its author, Eichiro Oda (who in my opinion is the Dickens of mangaka) has stated it’s finally winding down and entering its final few story arcs. At times hilariously funny, sometimes downright bizarre yet in the most fascinating and imaginative ways, sometimes delivering on the edge of your seat thrills and, quite often, deeply and poignantly moving (some episodes have had us crying our eyes out). Oda’s imagination just never sems to run out of steam. An amazing achievement for such a long running series.
We are currently on episode 664 and have just been moved to tears once more over a payback that has taken over 200 episodes to build.
Initial runs proved reasonably promising. I have about a 80-90% success rate when it comes to orbital installation approaches and this race provided four unique orbital situations, each needing its own particular strategy. The Beefy Boiler, where we needed to collect the single ton of consumer technology, was orbiting at a pretty standard distance from it’s body, but it was one of those new fangled dodecahedron stations with porcupine noob hammers flying around all over the place, causing me to be mindful of not sailing into the path of one as I boosted toward the mailslot,
My first stop was the Mercy’s Hammer, Now this ship orbits within a thin set of planetary rings (even though it looks as if it’s orbiting in empty space) and this makes the approach a little dicey. As you spiral in you cannot afford to travel though the disc of the rings or it tears you out of supercruise far too early and that’s an abandoned run, right there, There are also two habitation rings to negotiate at the end of the ship, There isn’t exactly a lot of space between all those spokes and dome habitats spinning around and you need to allow braking and room to pull up and over onto the docking portion of the ship to be able to land, Yet it’s also leaving this ship that provides a conundrum. At first, none of us could understand why it was taking so long to escape the mass lock of the ship and it wasn’t until someone on the forum pointed out the prison is still technically within the ring system, so you have to boost at 90 degrees from the almost imperceptible rings in order to be able to engage supercruise after the usual distance from the megaship,
The Fist of the Empire came next, Only 200 odd light seconds from the main star making the timing of deactivating the SCO rather tricky. It orbits much closer to its planet, too, so this makes the approach tighter. You have to go in quite fast or the proximity of the planet slows you down far too much as you get closer to the drop out point. Two hoops to manage here although they are so close together and co-ordinated it feels like just the one but still a little tight getting through there. There is a third ring on the side and halfway up and this confused a lot of us at first as we didn’t have to bother with it and as the first pair felt like just one we thought we might have entered a foul run by missing out this ring.
The Shield of Resolve was the third stop. This one was over 12,000 ls away so, again, a tricky timing to turn off the SCO, again orbiting close to its planet. Only the one ring and it being half way up the ship to one side made for some fiddly lateral flying to find the docking pad afterwards.
Fourth and final ship for me was Detention Ship Beta. This was a brown dwarf system with a large parent planet to negotiate and I was frequently pulled too much by the gravity, slowing my final approach a lot more than I was happy with. Again just the one ring, not too much trouble here except for the usual coping with drift whilst navigating the Rhythm Method to the docking pad.
From there it was just two jumps to reach Cummings Ring and the finish! Pretty straightforward approach although its parent planet (a beautiful Earth like world) orbits a secondary star which can slow you down a bit if your spiral approach is off by too much. Hopefully, I thought, I could nail all my approaches, that was my goal for this race.
Nail them all!
Warning! If you wish to watch One Piece or haven’t watched up to episode 664 yet, then this next section contains spoilers. Not that spoilers spoil much in One Piece – for me at least. The reveals hit just as hard if I know about them than if I don’t. But, as I said, that’s just me. Up to you if you wish to miss this next section out and scroll hastily down to the following one.
(Haven’t worked out anchor links just yet, so scrolling it’ll have to be)
The “Post War Arc” happens after one of the most devastating stories of the anime – the Marineford arc. It is a flashback, where Luffy remembers his upbringing just after he ate the Gum Gum fruit. Luffy is taken by his Grandfather, Marine Vice Admiral Monkey D. Garp to be brought up by friend who was also looking after another boy. Consequently that boy is Portugas D. Ace, who would later come to be known as “Fire Fist” Ace, a division commander under one of the most powerful pirates who ever lived, Edward Newgate otherwise known as Whitebeard, Whilst Ace resented Luffy being around at first the two became firm friends with Luffy growing to be fiercely devoted to Ace. They later meet up with Sabo, who is the son of a Noble family and, having seen the corruption and selfishness of the upper class was trying to run away from his life of privilege. The three became incredibly close and swore themselves to be brothers. After having adventures together and trying to thwart the destruction of the local settlement, Sabo’s boat is blown up by a Celestial Dragon, a class of citizen who form the largest part of the World Government. Celestial Dragons are born into the highest privilege and can never be touched by the law. They are the highest class in the World Government and are free to do anything they wish without fear of consequence for themselves. Luffy and Ace are heartbroken at the loss of their brother and the two, at the extreme anger of their grandfather, grow up vowing to become powerful pirates.
Now we come to the Marineford arc. A part of the One Piece story which took away a piece of our hearts forever. After becoming separated from his crew Luffy learns his brother has been captured and is being held for execution by the World Government at the Marines’ notorious prison Impel Down. It’s a horrible place, set on multiple levels going down, under the sea. Inspried by Dante’s Inferno, each level of Impel Down carries an increasing level of torture and punishment the further down it’s placed, and Luffy manages to break in and fight his way right to the bottom, rescuing old friends and enemies who band together with him to help him rescue his brother.
But Ace had already been taken away to Marineford to be executed.
Escaping from Impel Down, having had to fight his way back up again, Luffy races to Marineford to take part in one of the most incredible battles in manga/anime history. When Luffy arrives, Ace, bound in Devil Fruit supressing sea stone cuffs and is already kneeling ready to be beheaded. Suddenly, up out of the ocean, Whitebeard’s enormous pirate ship emerges and a fierce war rages between his crew, Luffy, and the Marines. Whitebeard is powerful, one of the emperors of the New World, and commanding many divisions of pirates. He has the power of the Quake Quake Fruit (Gura Gura no Mi) and is able to command earthquakes at will. But he is old and nearing the end of his life, and has to face the might of all three Admirals and some of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, all of whom possess terrifying Devil Fruit powers of their own.
Luffy manages to eventually rescue Ace, but uses all of his stamina and strength to do so. In fact, the battle is so furious even Whitebeard looses his life. Weakened, and slow, Luffy is targeted by Admiral Akainu, a terrifying user of the Magma Magma Fruit (Magu Magu no Mi) who throws a devastating magma fist at him. But Ace throws himself between them, the magma piercing a great hole through his chest, and he dies in Luffy’s arms.
Luffy is completely spent. And totally devasted at the loss of his dear brother. And as he is protected and rescued by friends who arrive just seconds too late to save Ace, he is taken away to be healed and rested.
Forwardwind to Episode 664
The Straw Hats have made it into the New World (the second half of the Grand Line), Luffy’s powers have grown tremendously as has the rest of the crew. They have entered the kingdom of Dressrosa, ruled over by the terrible Warlord Donquixote Dolflamingo. The whole Island is ruled by fear and oppression and the Strawhats are supposed to be there incognito on a mission to destroy a factory manufacturing artificial Devil Fruits. But Dolflamingo has set a trap. He has organised a fighting tournament in the coliseum with the prize being the Flame Flame fruit. Luffy knows it’s a trap, but he cannot resist entering to win the fruit in Ace’s honour. He decides to go in disguise, although, this is Luffy we’re talking about and his disguise is awful, deciding to call himself “Lucy” instead.
Halfway through a stranger comes up to Luffy, knowing exactly who this “Lucy” character is, and confidently stating he will be the one to win the Flame Flame Fruit in Ace’s honour. Luffy, refuses to back down, and demands to know who this stranger thinks he is. The stranger merely replies with, “Luffy…it’s me”
Luffy stares at him, recognition fills his eyes, along with tears. “It’s you!” he whispers. And then throws his arms around his long lost brother.
For the stranger, is Sabo.
My first few runs went badly. Trying to navigate the habitation rings at such a stupidly high speed I would completely destroy my ship, Of course the first two prisons I’d decided to visit both had two closely rotating habitation rings to navigate with barely any room for mistakes. I would end up getting stuck in one or the other, or becoming badly damaged at one and tangled up in the other and, not long thereafter, destroyed.
Of course this would send me to prison, Not “on foot” prison, of course, where you end up inside a prison cell (the picture below is just for illustration purposes), but “in ship” prison. Just in one of the docking bays in your ship.
Run invalidated. Back to the start.
Also, there were times when jumps away from a prison would be obscured and even using a short burst of SCO, would take too long to fly far enough to “unobscure” them. Back to the start, try again next session,
It wasn’t long, however, until I managed to post a valid, if a little messy, run!
It was ok. All my approaches were fine, could have been a bit faster, but fine. So there was that, but, somehow, I spun, not rolled – spun, with yaw, as I hurried out through the mailslot at the Beefy Boiler. Also, at Mercy’s Hammer, I hadn’t yet figured out in which direction to boost away to relive my ship of the mass lock in the optimum time and spent a long, long time just boosting before I could supercruise away. More time wasted.
There you go! Not too bad a time, really!
But, I really needed to better it!
Previously unnoticed, there was a bonus of one minute in the rules for flying shieldless! Excellent! That should improve my time quite considerably! And therefore I decided to ditch the Rhythm Method‘s shields, add an engineered size 2 hull reinforcement (didn’t want to compromise the jump range too much) and try again.
After a few attempts and obscured jumps, I finally made what I thought was a rather good run. Good approaches, no obscured jumps, lost the mass lock quickly from the Mercy’s Hammer. One or two of the approaches were a little on the slow side but not too much. Again, the manoeuvring through the rings and onto the pad was rather fiddly. But, no matter how many times I tried to improve this in consequent attempts, I just couldn’t streamline the process any more than I was doing. Possibly timing the SCO deactivation better for each approach would have saved me the most time but, as far as I was concerned, I was doing the best that I could do!
With the minute bonus from going shieldless, 20:20! I believe if I had made many, many more attempts, I may have been able to shave 21 seconds or more off of that time, but would still have been in fourth place. There was no way I was going to be able to better it by much more than that. Not without some sort of Gum Gum Buckyball move (Gomu Gomu no Bakiboru) to get around the habitat rings much faster!
Now let’s have a look at the final unlimited table,
I mean, Shaye Blackwood there! An adjusted time of 16:01! Staggering. All the times here are remarkable. And it is SO reassuring to see Cmdr. Sulu with a finished time here! Really cheers all of our souls!
Ok, now even though I didn’t attempt any runs in the regulation class (although I readied my regulation Cobra Mk V just in case) here is the final board for Regulation.
Great times yet again. Daisy Bell gets her first bronze medal. Fantastic to see the legendary Simstarr with his motion rig putting in a pretty fair time himself!
It was a marvellous race. Massive thanks to Arrowroot 66 for putting it on. Really enjoyed bouncing around inside those damned habitation rings! Quite a good turnout, really considering thousands and thousands of players are away on the Distant Worlds 3 expedition, Although I must also apologise to Arrowroot 66. I was distracted far too much by Freya’s “duties” to her squadron. It wasn’t so bad when she was just a pirate member, but now she’s leader it brings a whole new level of obligation. None of the members expect this kind of dedication, yet I feel Freya must set an example.
But, then again, it is just a game. And I know I’m contradicting one of my first posts by saying that but, at the end of the day, I should be able to play this game how I want and not be locked into certain gaming loops in order to achieve certain objectives. But this is possibly a subject for a future post. And I think I know just who to interview for this. I need to get my head around the concept a bit more before any of that, though.
One Piece is essentially all about freedom. Yes, Luffy has his friends and his brothers and his devotion to them is unmatched but, what Luffy desires deep down is freedom. And he’s willing to put his body and life on the line time and time again to achieve it. Becoming the Pirate King has nothing to do with power or riches. Luffy couldn’t care less about those things. He just sees it as being the ultimate form of freedom, He also fights ruthlessly to give that freedom to everyone. Freedom, yes, but not at the experience of subjugating others. A sin Luffy hates above all else.
And I need to sort of emulate that freedom in the way I play and not let Freya’s squadron leadership pull me away from what I really want to be doing in game. Elite Dangerous gives us this freedom, so why am I not partaking of it?
My…this crowbar is doing a lot of heavy lifting today!
I highly recommend giving One Piece a try if you think you might have the time. I’ll warn you, it’s ever so cartoony and childish for the first fifty (yes fifty) or so episodes but stick with it! Once you hit episode 61, you should be well and truly hooked. You could also use this list to miss out all the filler episodes (which add nothing to the story whatsoever). It’ll cut a fair chunk out of your viewing time!
Until next time! o7
Elite Dangerous RUSH FLEET 