Don’t get me wrong – Buckyballing is one of the greatest, most fun things you can do in Elite Dangerous. It has a fabulous community. teaches you a lot of new skills and lets you see some of the most spectacular parts of the Bubble in an entirely new light. Not to mention that each race is a lot of fun and brings with it unique challenges.

But, after a season of Buckyballing, I feel I’ve sort of hit a ceiling. A ceiling I’m trying desperately to punch through. A ceiling I’m determined to rise above. The problem is, it’s giving me a headache. There are a lot a feelings of disappointment, of feeling unworthy, of feeling that I could, and should be doing a whole lot better than I am. And I almost got there with this, the first race of the new season.

Almost.

Owing to the unprecedented success of the last year’s season of eight re-runs of classic Buckyball races, a second season of eight races for this year has begun! Most are re-runs of classic races but there will be a few new ones too. My main account, Cmdr Homborger, will not be taking part as he is halfway to Colonia gathering as much bio data as he can so he can buy a Fleet Carrier once he gets there; so this year the Cmdr I created to take care of the Rush Fleet once it had been transferred from PS to PC, Cmdr Leeya Geddy, will be taking over the racing.

And so we have the first race of the new “Sweet Sixteen” Buckyball season – “The Empire Hustle“. It’s a simple course, all we have to do is to begin at Agnews’ Folly station in the Imperial system of Vequess, fly to four other stations in Imperial systems (all of which happen to be Orbis type stations) but before docking we have to approach from the front and fly all the way around the rear before making our way back to the mailslot and docking. Sounds so easy and straight forward doesn’t it? Ought to be a cinch. I thought I’d lay down a decent time on the first Saturday morning and that would be that.

I haven’t really learned anything about Buckyballing have I?

I called the new Regulation Cobra the My Favorite Headache for two reasons. The first will be blindingly obvious to seasoned Rush fans. “Leeya Geddy” is a play on the name of the most awesome bass player of all time, Geddy Lee (who just happens to have been the bass player for Rush). Now, he released a solo album called, “My Favorite Headache” (I know there’e supposed to be a “u” in there, British people). But also because Buckyballing can be quite the headache sometimes. Especially if you’re the host I would imagine.

Anyway, back to my first attempts. I was finding that, on the run around the five stations, struts and solar panel arms were swinging towards me out of the shadows, seemingly as if from nowhere sometimes, only for me to crash into them and go hopelessly spinning off course. Once I did this twice. On the way to the rear of the station and also on my way back to the slot. Of course, the second hit caused me to cannon off into another part of the superstructure and that ended my attempt right there. Not only that, but a ton of real life interruptions were disrupting my runs, meaning I’d have to abort and go back to the start.

I was getting a little too stressed about all this and so, to calm down I fired up my original Homborger account and carried on my slow journey to Colonia (via V1357 Cygni). It really helped, but I couldn’t help wondering when I would get the chance to complete a run.

I complained about this in the Buckyball forum and was told that Night Vision was a standard requirement for this procedure. Of course it was. One of the most obvious things to do if you can’t see things properly because of shadows or if the sunlight on the station has been eclipsed by the body it orbits.

Armed with this (rather obvious) bit of advice I completed my first successful attempt. I knew it wasn’t going to be a great time but at least it ought to have been an adequate time. When the first leaderboard was posted, however, my heart sank.

Last place. Of course it was last place, it’s always last place. Why did I think it would be any quicker? But not only that, the commander in ninth place had only been playing the game for two weeks! TWO WEEKS?! And to rub salt into the ugly gaping maw of a wound that was my pride they were over three minutes faster than my best, hardest won attempt.

The problem was, and the reason I was feeling so bitter, was that I had promised myself that I would practice the occultic Buckyballing racing technique of “Gravity Braking” – the mystic art of using a body’s gravity to slow your ship down rather than the standard “throttle to three quarters” steady approach that takes an age to slow your ship until it’s at the perfect speed and distance to emerge from supercruise next to the station (in fact, supercruise assist uses this standard approach and there is plenty of time to make yourself a nice, hot cup of tea and drink it before you arrive). It’s an incredibly tricky skill to master and, if you visit the video section on the Buckyball Racing Club‘s website, you can see various examples of this. Also, the crazed SRV “flyver”, Cmdr Alec Turner has posted a classic example on YouTube.

Now there are two main schools of Gravity Braking. The classic, “Spiralling In” method and the more accessible, yet slower “Loop and Swoop” or “Loop of Fame” method.

I began experimenting with the spiralling in method but, no matter how many times I attempted the manoeuvre I always had trouble controlling my speed and would shoot past the target body like a blob of faeces from a territorial, muck spreading rhino’s anus. My sense of direction completely disorientated as I flew aimlessly in supercruise trying to crowbar my poor, protesting Cobra around to face the station.

I clearly needed far more time than I had to master that particular school! So I tried my hand at the Loop and Swoop and was pleasantly surprised that I managed to just about nail it on my first attempt. Whilst experimenting with this method I was able to get roughly an 80% success rate. Which was rather encouraging.

On my next session, however, I couldn’t get it to work at all. And was having particular trouble on the approach to Gottlob Frege Colliseum. That body was rather small and the station seemed to be orbiting at a much greater distance than the others which made it difficult to judge just how much throttle to use for the swoop part of the technique.

Again, it was time to turn to the ever helpful and supportive Buckyballing community. Alec Turner advised that Gottlob was indeed a pain in the arse to approach, and that the station never seemed to be pointing toward the correct place. So! Ready or not it was time to begin another series of attempts, this time utilizing my unpractised grasp of the Loop and Swoop.

It did not begin well. Attempt after attempt had to be aborted either because real life would rather rudely interrupt (a phone call late at night, dog being sick, and once I got cramp in my foot, resulting in my knee jerking up sharply sending the keyboard which rests on my lap slapping me in the face), or because of a hardware failure (wireless mouse froze once whilst pulling up hard, leaving me spinning hopelessly into the vacuum) or because of shear, careless absentmindedness (how many damn times am I going to forget to commence recording before I start off?). There were also plenty of runs where I would totally misjudge the throttle needed to approach the station and shoot past it. I think I must have aborted around twelve attempts as the final day of racing was fast approaching. This race really was becoming quite the headache.

I think the scowl on my face as I made the solemn journey back to the start each time would have curdled milk.

It was the Saturday evening, just over twenty four hours before the final submissions would be accepted, I attempted another run. Hopefully, I thought, I can at least break the thirty minute barrier.

I was a little more careful with the station approaches which meant I was taking a little too long to drop in on them but I didn’t care. I seemed to be making much better time and I really didn’t want to mess up. I managed to make the entire run but did I manage to beak the thirty minute barrier?

Almost. Almost.

And I’m not last. In fact, I’m six places up!

Buckyballing may well be a headache sometimes, but it’s definitely my favourite one!

Now it’s time to practice Gravity Braking proper, and see if I can get to grips with the dark art of spiralling into the body to slow myself down. Strangely enough, I was playing on one of my other accounts just this morning and I tried it.

And it worked.

Firstly I want to thank Sulu for putting on one hell of a race. It has been a tremendous, unprecedented success with more commanders taking part and a record number of submissions handed in for the first race of the season. Buckyballing has never been so popular! Sulu has really had his work cut out validating all the submissions and producing the results tables. If it wasn’t for him, this race would not have been run.

Secondly, I want to thank everyone who took part. Both old Buckyballing Nutjobs through to returning commanders from last year and the new commanders racing for the first time. You have all made this community an absolute pleasure to be a part of.

It’s too late to take part in this race now. But the next is only a few weeks away and it promises to be an absolute corker! It will be hosted by Alec Turner himself and will be based on the classic “Thargoid Structure Scramble” from 3307. It will run from the 6th May to 14th May.

Sounds most intriguing does it not?

Don’t miss it!

And so…finally…we come to the end of the Buckyball season. The final race entitled “The Last Gasp – Resuscitated” might well be the race to end all races. This time, we aren’t racing for a time. We’re gambling with our lives. How far can we go? How many times can we dock and get back to the start before we die? We are, literally, racing against Death himself.

Unlike the previous race which looked like it might take a lot of research, maths and scouting but actually turned out to be reasonably straightforward, this race really does involve a fair amount of research, maths, and scouting. You see – we must begin at Rebuy Prospect in Fullerene C60. We have to get to at least three, and at most five stations as far away as we dare in order to sell our cargo of five tons of Buckyball Beer Mats (one ton per station). And then we have to make it back again to land at Rebuy Prospect.

Oh, wait a minute, there’s one itsy bitsy detail I forgot to mention. Before we leave, we must turn our life support off. With the life support modules that we are allowed in the regulation Cobra Mk III class, that only gives us twenty five minutes of air. If it runs out before we get back.

We die.

But first, even before we consider launching, we have to find bases where we can sell our beer mats. We can only land at outposts, because if we land at other coriolis or orbis stations then the artificial atmosphere will replenish our air supply and that would be cheating!

For myself, I decided to use the EDDB station finder tool to look for suitable outposts. I decided that having them all around a hundred light years away and only one jump away from each other would be the most efficient run. I thought that would be somewhere to start at least. I should be able to get a five station run with that. Five outposts at an average of a hundered light years away would mean a score of around 500ly. They would also have to be within 20-30 ly or so from the main star so I wouldn’t have to spend too much time in supercruise. I didn’t have a lot of time to play with this race as real life commitments would considerably eat into my usual Elite time, and I really wanted to choose stations at a distance that would be a bit of a challenge (for me at least – you know the trouble I tend to have landing at outposts) but should be quite doable too. I would only have enough time to have a couple of tries at this.

After about an hour of searching, and then scouting the stations in my DBX (some I would have to reject and then find new ones) I settled on Tanaka Landing (Ngargambo 106.84ly), Torricelli Terminal (Samnach 90.21ly), Gohar Refinery (Tripuru 110.47ly), Peano Orbital (Ross 409 97.85ly) and Weber Station (Jittabed 95.35ly). This gave me a total of 500.72ly.

And so I set off. Without life support you don’t notice any change until you exit though the slot, then everything is different. There is now no air in your cockpit to allow the sound from its environmental speaker array (a clever concept that translates everything we do in space into sound in real time to give pilots the illusion they can hear sounds through the vacuum of space) to reach our ears so everything is muffled. and the only sound is the sound of your breathing rattling inside your flight suit helmet.

It took six jumps to reach Tanaka Landing, rather than five because of the extra weight of the five tons of beer mats I was carrying. However, landing there proved to be straight forward as the pad allotted to me was on the same side of the station I dropped out of supercruise from. I landed, sold a ton of beer mats, took off and jumped to the next system.

Things went a bit downhill from there.

I had real trouble finding my allotted landing pads on the next four outposts, as well as a panicked take off from Gohar when I completely forgot which stations I’d already visited and which I had yet to visit. There’s something about flying with a limited air supply that addles your brain. The rattled breaths in your helmet, the muffled sounds of the ship felt through your bones rather than through your ears, and it severely affected not only my ability to fly but also my decision making.

Once I’d dropped off the last ton of beer mats I only had four minutes of air left, and, after the five final jumps back to Fullerene C60, only a minute and a half to get back to Rebuy Prospect. It seemed to take a whole day just to make the 200ls trip to the station and when I eventually dropped out only fifteen seconds left. It spun slowly before me as I boosted toward it in desperation, now choking as I fought for the last dregs of air left in my supply.

I’m not going to make it, I thought. I screwed up too many times.

NO, YOU’RE NOT GOING TO MAKE IT.

The sound of a voice like a thousand coffin lids closing all at once drew words in my brain. I looked to my right, and sure enough, there He was, sitting in the co-pilot seat in a black cowl, eyes of pale blue light and a smile that never left Him.

DON’T WORRY, I’M ONLY HERE TO ESCORT YOU TO THE REBUY SCREEN.

I fared no better on my next attempt, which really stung as I had no more time for any further ones. This was to be the only race of the Magic 8 Buckyball Racing series in which I would not be able to appear on the leaderboard. Not even on the bottom. I would just be far too busy the rest of the week. But then, a couple of nights later, I found I had forty minutes or so to myself and I thought I’d have one more run.

I decided to do the stations in reverse this time, starting with Peano. It only took five jumps to get there this time as it’s much closer and the landing was pretty straight forward, sold my ton of mats, Ninteen minutes left.

The next station, Torricelli Terminal I had a little more trouble finding the pad but it wasn’t too bad, then came the landing at Gohar Refinery.

Ahead of me were pads two and three but I had to encircle the station to find pad four, my allotted pad, before landing and selling my third ton of mats. Keep calm, keep cool, try not to panic. Two stations to go, just under twelve minutes left.

At the next pad, Torricelli Terminal, I had trouble finding the pad too, wasting yet more time but at the last, Tanaka Landing, it was pretty straight forward again, although my approach to the pad was a little panicked and I took more time than I should. Dropped off my last ton of mats, took off, six minutes left!

Now that my cargo hold was empty, it only took five jumps, rather than six, to get back to Fullerene C60. Of course! Why didn’t I do this in the reverse order the first time? Never mind, I dropped out of hyperspace with around three minutes to get back to the station, surely there was enough time!

I managed to drop out of supercruise with about a minute and thirty seconds of air left. Easily enough time! And when I sailed though the slot I still had a total of one minute and four seconds of air left.

I’d done it! The relief of actually being able to post a score on my final attempt almost brought tears to my eyes.

Sigh! And there I am, at the bottom. Again. Where else? Who knows, if I had had more time I could have scouted out a further route? I did have plenty of air left after all. But it doesn’t matter. I have now managed to register a score in every single Buckyball race this season, and I’m damn proud of it!

Special thanks must go to the incomparable Alec Turner for running this race like a boss. Thanks Alec, it’s been an absolute banger of a race this. Special mention also has to go to Shaye (Wait…What? How?) Blackwood for that unbelievable score of 1453ly. How they can mange that I will never fathom! But also, and this is important, an extra special thanks must go to The High Wake for their amazing trailer they put out for the race at the request of Alec Turner. It can be watched here and if you haven’t yet seen it you really should watch it. And then subscribe to their channel and watch all the other wonderful animations they’ve done.

So that’s it commanders! The final race is over. It’s been an absolute blast taking part and being a member of this truly wonderful community! If you haven’t taken part and you would like to (I mean why wouldn’t you?) then I’m sure there will be another season next year, so look out for it!

At first glance the penultimate race of this year’s Buckyball season seems a rather complicated affair. It promises endless preparations full of mathematics, weight to jump ratios and meticulous galaxy plotting. But in reality the Mischief Mile: Rebooted was far simpler than it looked.

So here is the course. You basically have to travel from one end of The Bubble to the other, starting at Hooke Hub in the Tepech system and ending at Ocampo Station all the way over on the other side of densely inhabited space in the system of Mirateje. Only 344 light years. The main catch here being, as it’s a Fuel Rat inspired race, it has to be done without scooping. You can refill at stations along the way (which takes valuable time) or you can get a friend to use fuel transfer limpets (even worse – this requires…gulp…social skills). There are some systems you must call in at on the way. Wollheim, being the home base of the Fuel Rats is a must, along with the two most popular places to run out of fuel – LHS 3719 and NLTT 48288. You can also do the route in reverse if you wish.

Preparation, however, revealed how simple this task actually is. In the regulation Cobra MkIII a full tank, using the fastest route, will get you from the start all the way to Wollheim. Might as well refuel there seeing as you’ve got to land there anyway and then it’s another straightforward run all the way through LHS 3719 right up to NLT48288. Then your fuel is running low again.

After a little bit of scouting around I decided that Hadfield Port in the Brani system was the optimum refuelling place but this still meant an extra jump and docking that would add, for my skill level at least, a good few unwanted minutes. I decided just to go for it and get a time anyway and then maybe see if I could organise something a little more efficient later in the week.

Making sure my scoop was unequipped I began my run. It seemed to go smoothly up until Wollheim, nothing but jumping and the landing there went quite smoothly. The journey then took me from there through the uninhabited required system of LHS 3719 and then on to NLTT 48288 – a red/brown dwarf binary system with no orbiting bodies. With hardly any fuel left it’s only a small hop to Brani and then only a few light seconds to the outpost Hadfield Port.

Landing at Hadfield went surprisingly quickly, although not without it’s problems. Its usually a bit of a struggle finding the correct pad and then I tend to make a meal of the approach and loose a fair amount of my shields before I manage to touchdown. Again, for me, this didn’t go too badly and I refuelled and made my way the remaining six jumps to Marateje and Ocampo Station.

As you can see I finished with a time of 24:40 which, even though I was in last place was a good, solid effort and I was reasonably happy with it. But it did need improving! So for the following couple of mornings I went and did some Fuel Ratting, hanging around in Rat Chat and hoping to latch on to one of my fellow squeakers with a view to getting then to refuel me. They could hang out at NLTT 48288, just waiting for me. I would seek them out just as I would a rescue but instead of me refuelling them, they would be refuelling me.

The results were pretty disappointing. None of the rats on duty seemed to have the time that week for a refuelling, too busy being on call for emergencies, which I really ought to have expected. I would have been fine with this but I didn’t manage to get any rescues in either. Far too slow to call jumps. I wasn’t surprised. Rescuing stranded commanders is far more important than improving a low end Buckyballer’s race time. It was a pity because it would have been interesting to see how much faster my time would have been had I used someone with limpets and not made the extra jump to stop at an outpost. I would just have to try again later in the week. But then, out of the blue, I received a message.

Veteran Fuel Rat, Planet Circumnavigator Extraordinaire, Emerging Gameplay Innovator and Buckyball Racing Legend Cmdr Alec Turner had just sent me a request. We were both active at the same time of day and he wondered if I could help refuel him to try and improve his run. My eyes nearly popped out of my head. It was a no brainer.

“You Betcha!” I replied.

And so, the following morning I was waiting at NLTT 48288 in my Krait Phantom – the Nagisa’s Kiss (Assassination Classroom) equipped with four limpet controllers and a cargo hold chock full of limpets. We used a similar method to a fuel rescue. We winged up, and I would wait until Alec would count down the jumps from LHS 3719, home in on my wing beacon when he arrived in system with navlock on, drop in on my position and I would refuel him. It all sounded rather straight forward and we are both well practiced in this technique. It proved, however, that one or two trail runs would probably have been wise

Everything went smoothly up until Alec arrived in system. I could not see his signal anywhere and he seemed to be taking an age to drop in on my position. Then the message came through on the comms.

“No beacon?”

I cursed profusely. I had totally neglected to light my wing beacon! There was nothing for Alec to drop in on. I fumbled around, panicking, pressing wrong button after wrong button, punctuated by yet more cursing.

I think I must have broken the record for the amount of wrong buttons pressed before eventually managing to light my beacon and, almost immediately, Alec’s regulation Cobra thundered in from supercruise.

I sent out my first limpets, yet barely had I sent out four of them when the Ask Again Later boosted off, taking herself out of limpet range. I pulled the Nagisa’s Kiss up and over and carefully approached, making sure I didn’t boost into her myself, until I was in limpet range again and carried on firing them.

A somewhat sheepish apology for the boost emerged over the comms. I grinned. Man, we were rusty! It seemed to take far more limpets than expected to completely fill the Ask Again Later but soon she boosted away, the wing was disbanded, and she was gone.

I was eager to discover what kind of improvement this method might have made to Alec’s time. I didn’t have long to wait. A short while afterwards another message came though.

“Strange. that actually took longer.”

It was perplexing. But the refuelling hadn’t exactly gone smoothly. So we decided to try again the following morning.

This time I made sure my beacon was on right from the beginning. Alec dropped in on me the second he entered the system and the whole process was much, much faster!

As you can see Alec’s time had improved 7 seconds shy of a whole minute! This put Alec right up into second place and breathing down the uncatchable Shaye Blackwood’s neck. We met up in the bar at Ocampo Station afterwards, gave each other a high five, embraced and had a few drinks before saying our farewells. I left feeling elated. Being part of the pit crew, as it were, was even more satisfying than racing itself!

But I still wanted to improve my time. I wasn’t bothered about getting someone to refuel me (that experiment had now been well and truly explored) but I could use the snickers option. The rules state that if I fill my cargo with snickers, picked up from Wollheim (if you want to know the significance of snickers with regards to fuel rats then read this) and carry them the rest of the way to Ocampo then I could have a full two minutes off my time. So, on the final morning of Race Week, I took another go.

And there I am! The final leaderboard and a minute and a half improvement. And nowhere near in last place either! A great bundle of thanks, and snickers, to Ashnak who has worked hard to sponsor and adjudicate the race. It’s a lot of work sifting through all that evidence, forms and creating those leaderboards. Without sponsors like him we would not have these wonderful races.

Unfortunately, this report is late, the race is over, there is no time, now, to enter. But there is one more! If you check the Buckyball Magic 8 page you will see that The Last Gasp begins on the 24th September. C’mon! It’s a marvellous, friendly, if a little unhinged community and trust me – you will be so glad you took part (even if you come last but, c’mon, anyone can beat my times) So make sure you enter!

But this race got me thinking…surely there could be more races where a pit crew would be essential. Using both refuelling and repair limpets. Where the Buckballers race as teams rather than as individuals. Definitely worth thinking about! Buckyball organisers out there how about it? Next season?

Part 1

It’s July 3308. It Buckyball race number SIX! And guess what? Its the Chicken Run!

For some reason I’m having a lot more fun with this race. Dunno if it’s the lack of hyperdictions or that I’ve been finding landing on high gravity worlds a lot of fun recently or maybe it’s because I’ve actually got all week to keep trying. It doesn’t matter. I’m having a ball! A BuckyBall! Haha! Well, at least, at first I was.

Anyway – The Chicken Run. So called because the settlements you have to visit in this race are set on planets with a progressively higher gravity. You can chicken out and return to the start but this comes with a greater time penalty depending on how soon you return.

Ok! So we start at Noriega Station in the system of LTT 2151. Make sure we have an empty hold, check that our modules are within the regulations and it’s time to launch. Before we attempt any planetary landings, we need some delicate cargo, something that can be lost if we approach a little to steep and land a little too heavily. Therefore we need to purchase a minimum of 1t of the rare commodity, Crystalline Spheres. We need to head to Snow Moon (a station not a planetary body, to make things a little confusing) in the Bento system to pick some up. Then once they’re on beard it’s full speed to our first planetary base – Korniyenko Terminal on the not too daunting 0.1G moon Okinura 8c. So far, so straightforward. Unless you’re trying really hard, you’re not going to do too much damage landing there.

I go through the usual ritual – approach the body at 75% throttle in supercruise, keep the targeted settlement in the top 25% of the planet disc, reduce the throttle to almost zero when the disc begins to fill the canopy (otherwise I tend to drop out of supercruise far too early damaging hull and still much too far from the target), wait for orbital flight to engage. Then keep flying straight towards the target until the “glide” phase starts and then this should bring you close enough to the settlement to be able to request docking permission. The higher the gravity, the shallower the angle of approach to the target. This is the way I have figured out is the safest and surest method to land on planetary bodies over the four to five years I’ve had my Pilot’s Federation license. The problem is, even with the lower gravity bodies, the orbital flight phase of the approach seems to take far too long.

Land. Launch. As the landing pad dips and swings around select the next system from the galmap, and lift off. Next settlement Is Koch Beacon on Bliatrimpe 7 – 1.06G. Again, not really a big challenge to land on. But because I’m using a slightly shallower angle of approach, it takes even longer during the orbital flight phase to get to the glide phase. It seems to take an age before glide kicks in and I can make my final approach. Eventually I reach the base, land smoothly and safely, relaunch and make my way to Baffin Plant on Shoujeman 5 – 2.13G

Shoujeman 5 looms large in front of me. Now it’s not just the shallower angle it’s also the sheer size of the planet that feels like its exponentially increasing my approach time. It might be giving me a nice, level flight to the landing pad once I get there but its just taking so, so long. Next is King’s inheritance on Laila’s Memory (2.87g) in the Wolf 562 system, followed by Moore Beacon on 5 G. Capricorni 3 – 3.99G

Both landings are taking increasingly longer to reach and the seconds seem to be ticking away almost as fast as the minutes. I’m beginning to think to myself that there must be a better way to approach this. I am already way past the current slowest time on the leader board and I still have the highest g planet to go, as well as the trip back to Noriega.

As I feared, the last approach takes, by far, the longest of all. Weber Legacy. A base on the planet Robert Kelly – 4.74G in the system Ross 905. By now I’m sure I’m doing it all wrong. I mean, sure I’m landing nice and safely on all these high g planets but “safely” isn’t exactly part of the Buckyball aesthetic! The “D” rated thrusters on my Cobra can barely lift her off the pad as she struggles back up and away from the mass lock of the surface. As the engines groan and the hull creaks with the effort of escaping the mass lock, I begin spooling up the hyperdrive to make my way back to the start.

By now the clock is nearing the hour mark and I know that my final time will be lamentable. By the time I make it back and land at the Noriega Station, my final time is an hour and four minutes. An hour and four minutes! I feel bewildered and confused, yet determined. I disembark and check out the concourse. I manage to find a sympathetic ear (as I so often do) and unload all my inadequacies onto the poor lady. She listens intently but I something tells me she isn’t really interested. When I’m done I go back to the Wormwood’s Bane to think.

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Part 2

After about four days of practicing (about an hour per day) I was ready to take another go. I was hoping to slice around ten minutes off my initial time and maybe move off the bottom of the leaderboard. This time I was approaching space stations by looping toward them, rather than flying directly from the main star. It helps you get closer before you have to reduce your speed to avoid a loop of shame, and also allows you to drop out of supercruise directly in front of the station for a more direct entry. I had been practicing a special technique called “gravity braking” but so far, I have been unable to master it. So, maybe that’s for another race.

The main difference to my initial run, however, was to enter the planetary exclusion zones at a much steeper angle. This drastically reduces the time it takes to get to the surface but, especially on the higher gravity worlds, it means a lot more momentum is carried forward as you try to maneuver toward the pad. My strategy was to just to fly down and attempt to level out just before reaching the pad. This was fine at the 0.1G Korniyenko Terminal but once I got to 1.06G Koch Beacon I carried my momentum forward and missed the pad altogether. I didn’t crash but then had to thrust back upwards and over the perimeter wall, losing valuable time.

The landing at Baffin Plant (2.13G) was a lot smoother although I did belly flop the Cobra before landing on the pad. At least there wasn’t a perimeter fence to hop over this time, but I still managed to faceplant the Wormwood’s Bane onto the pad before leveling out and landing.

And so I carried on to King’s Inheritance (2.87G). My strategy now was to just fly straight to the pad, try and level out and then land. This worked out quite well, more by luck than judgement and I landed (albeit after a bit of scrambled maneuvering) without losing too much of my shields.

This would dictate my landing strategies for the final two bases. However, I was not prepared for just how unforgiving a high g landing can be. Descending down to Moore Beacon (3.99G) was taking a fraction of the time it dd on my first attempt but ended up approaching the pad from an awkward sideways direction. Once you reach a certain speed at that angle it’s impossible to slow down and once I had stuck to the ground I couldn’t orientate myself to the pad properly. I lost at least a couple of precious minutes trying to level out and yaw around to face the correct direction. Then it was time to blast off and head for the terrifying 4.74G of Weber Legacy.

The Weber landing went surprisingly well. I approached with a bit more caution and at a slightly shallower angle and my approach was a little more controlled, although It’s hard not to bellyflop your ship just before bouncing onto the pad!

The journey then back to Noriega was just pretty straightforward. I tried not to rush the docking procedure too much and finished with a time of 52:40. That’s twelve minutes faster than my initial submission! I am over the moon!

And not only that, I am finally off the bottom of the leaderboard!

This isn’t the end! There will be one more submission, if I survive it. There are a handful of places where I can shave off a minute here or there. And the next run will be attempted shieldless! Wish me luck Commanders o7!

---

Part 3

Well, it’s all over, and I can’t help but be a little down about my lack of improvement since the second submission. I’ve only really improved by a few minutes. Either my planetary approaches are too shallow and take too long, or they are too steep and it takes ages to manoeuvrer my ship to the landing pad.

On one of my attempts I decided just to head straight for the pad attempting to level out just before I hit. only I really don’t have the skill yet for this. At Baffin Plant I hit the pad so hard I got stuck and it took my at least two whole minutes to try and extricate myself from the gubbins that surround it.

Another one of my frustrations was to utterly fail at quickly finding the pad I was supposed to land on. For some reason it was usually at the other side of the base from my approach and trying to efficiently make my way there without crashing into the base itself was a skill far too high for my current level, at least in high gravity. This usually tended to happen at King’s Inheritance.

It didn’t seem to matter how many runs I made, I just didn’t have the skill or the experience to fly quickly to the landing pad. Even at Baffin Plant, which is only around 3G, I decided not to fly straight into the pad this time but as soon as I banked my Cobra around to quickly approach it from the right direction I would loose height, The lateral thrusters just aren’t powerful enough to keep you in the air on those massive worlds. So it was yet another “Baffinflop” for me!

For my final submission I was determined to get a sub 50 minute time. So I ran a shieldless run, chickening out at King’s inheritance to make it straight back to Noriega. Before I launched from King’s, I made sure to bash the Wormwood’s Bane against the pad a few times to get the hull to under 10%, thereby qualifying me for the “crash pilot” bonus. I made it in a total time, including penalties for chickening out on two landings, of 54.55. Take off three minutes for going shieldless and another three for having less than 10% hull. A time of 48.55 – enough for a sub fifty! A day later, however, the message came through from the race judge that you only qualify for the “crash pilot” bonus if you have less than 10% hull as you’ve landed at the last planet! So it was actually only a time of 51:55. Serve me right for not reading the rules properly!

And there I am…not last! Sixth off the bottom in fact. It’s a pity my best run ended in an explosion. I did that run in about 43 minutes with a single chicken out on Weber Legacy. Add the eight for missing it out and minus the three for a shieldless run and it would have been 48 minutes. Still, I’ve no one to blame but myself., and I’ve learned a lot of flying skills and tips that will help me in getting even more out of my spacefaring career. Special mention must go to Ozric for running what was quite possibly the most amazing race of the season so far.

On to the next commanders! o7

I was just pottering about in the Bubble, ratting here, fighting a CZ for the Hosemen there when the message came through that Mission Farsight would be celebrating it’s 2000th day in the black on 06/25/3308 – just over a month’s time. The most exciting thing, though, was that there were to be celebrations. They were to be held somewhere in the vicinity of the Rykers Hope region just the other side of the centre of the galaxy. I was very eager to join in, but I had never travelled more than around 8000 light years from home. It would be a long journey, and, due to there being a Buckyball event happening only the week before, I wouldn’t have all that much time to get there. I put out the message to some of my Commander friends if it was feasible to be able to get to that area within a week. The message came back, unanimously – “Easy!”. So I sent one to Cmdr Picard asking if he minded if I attended. The response was immediate! Of course he’d like to see me. Expect a message detailing the exact system closer to the time.

Surely enough, two weeks before the special day I received a message from the Hermes‘ communications officer. The system was to be DRYOEA BLAO YA-O e6-5399, near the border between Ryker’s Hope and the Epyrean Straits, and a little over 30,000 light years away! I would need to plan my trip.

I would also need to keep the system secret. There are many trigger happy commanders out there who would love to add the Hermes to their trophy list. And when I finally got there I would expect Picard to be cautious. We had never met before, and the esteemed mission reputedly had billions of credits worth of exploration data yet to be handed in. That’s a lot to loose!

The quickest way would be to use a neutron star plotter. And I wanted to have a break halfway just to be sure of repairs, Travelling almost exclusively using neutron boosts would take a serious toll on my Frame Shift Drive. I decided to take my newly named and freshly painted anaconda the Brenda Zephyr, Her jump range was nothing to shout about – somewhere in the region of sixty two light years with a half load of limpets – but she had a full compliment of SRVs on board, including a scorpion. I also took a fighter bay, repair limpets, a larger fuel scoop, a small shield generator, a good AFMU and a large extra fuel tank. This meant I could boost off a lot more neutron jet cones before needing to scoop fuel. I found a DSSA fleet carrier almost exactly halfway and decided I would stop there for the three Rs of long range interstellar travel. – Repair, Rest and Restock. It only took a day and a half to complete a run on the latest Buckyball race and send in my evidence. Then, at 22.30 on 06/19/3308 I set off from my home station of Oleskiw City in the Valtys system.

Starting with Jackson’s lighthouse, I made my first cone boost, then it took several main sequence stars before the next neutron. Before long, great big strings in excess of twenty neutrons at a time were in order. I expected travelling mainly via neutrons to become tedious very quickly. Arrive, honk, carefully skim the jet cone heading away from the star until supercharged, manually enter the system name of the next neutron, plot course, initiate next jump, aim at next neutron, wait for spooling to accumulate, jump. But the process of being meticulous and careful enough not to stay too long in the cone, or to stray too near to the star itself overcame all that. A neutron star is tiny, and the slightest slip of the throttle when arriving can throw you straight into its deadly emissions without warning, from which only the luckiest of pilots escape.

Of course you also have to keep an eye on your fuel and when it begins to get low you have to make a short detour to a fuel star in order to scoop it. Then it’s back to the neutron highway. If I was lucky, there would be a fuel star in a binary orbit with the neutron star. This happened a lot more than I was expecting, too. Coincidently, my tanks needed refilling at more or less the same time that my FSD needed to be repaired. And so I would double up fuel stops with repair stops in the same system. Whilst refuelling I would also use the FSS scanner to see what was in the system I was at and would investigate anything I found interesting. I couldn’t do too much in the way of exploring, however. There just wasn’t the time.

After a couple of days I arrived at the system Greae Phio VK-O e6-4343, where the DSSA Carrier Void Crusader awaited the needy traveller. I had heard that the wonderfully generous owners of the DSSA carriers had parked them at some of the most stunning locations in the galaxy and the Void Crusader is no exception! The star-field begins to become really dense here as one nears the core, and the system itself boasts an impressive array of stellar bodies. But there was no time to investigate. There’s no exaggerating the sense of relief I felt, after two whole days of travel, at finally jumping to the enormous blue supergiant, then scanning the system to find a lone, human vessel offering repairs and a comfortable bed for the night.

The DSSA is a wonderful organisation. An array of deep space fleet carriers that explorers can visit to refresh themselves and their ships, sell exploration data, or just to use as waypoints on arduous journeys. There are usually two carriers in each region of the Milky Way, and each carrier (including their upkeep) is donated by wonderfully generous commanders, eager to see the knowledge of the cosmos exponentially expand. The crew of the Void Crusader were very accommodating and friendly. I expect, even though this vessel is here for this very purpose, they still don’t get to see new faces very often. The food was good, and my cabin was spacious, comfortable and a pleasant change from my quarters on the Brenda Zephyr. After a few hours sleep, and a quick breakfast, it was time to leave.

I was travelling through several main sequence stars on my way to the next neutron that I made my first major discovery. Checking the FSS revealed a water world signal, and once I had located and scanned it I found that it had a ring system! I couldn’t pass this opportunity up, and I was ahead of schedule too so – why not? Once I reached it I was presented with the most perfect blue ball I have ever had the pleasure of witnessing, and when viewed from within the ring system it was doubly exhilarating. Great Braben it was beautiful!

From then on, tired with having to manually enter the system for each neutron star, I decided to trust Brenda’s route plotter. I checked the option to cone boost, made sure I filtered out any dreaded white dwarfs from my route, entered the target system where I hoped I would finally meet Picard and let Brenda work out the rest. Surely enough, because of the density of stars now that I was so close to the core, almost every jump would be a neutron boost, and all I had to do was supercharge the FSD and line up for the next jump. All while still keeping an eye on fuel and drive damage of course!

Now every single neutron was a newly discovered star! And I scanned for every body orbiting each one. I made such good progress that I made my second carrier stop, the Destiny Ascension at Scheau Blao TB-A c28-274, within a day and a half. It was a little beyond my final destination, but I wanted to drop off all the exploration data I’d accumulated since the last stop before the rendezvous with the Hermes. And besides, I had discovered yet another ringed water world! I really wanted my name next to it, just in case.

Now it was just a matter of nineteen jumps back to the rendezvous system. This didn’t take long, and I also had the lovely surprise of an Earth Like World on the way.

The main star of DRYOEA BLAO YA-O e6-5399 is a neutron with no orbiting bodies, the secondary system consisted of a white star with an orbital plane of seventeen bodies. Only one of these had a tenuous atmosphere and bio signals so, on the evening of July 23rd 3308 I decided to land the Brenda Zephyr there and wait for a message from the Hermes to announce they had arrived.

It wasn’t until the evening of 06/25/3308 that the message came through from Cmdr Picard himself that he was wating for me on DRYOEA BLAO YA-O e6-5399 B2a. Full of excitement, I hurried to the cockpit and started up Brenda’s systems. I had thought that the moon of the second planet out from the huge white star would have been a little too hot to meet on foot but, as I approached and detected Cmdr Picard’s team beacon I realised that he was on the night side of the moon and it would be just cool enough for us to safely leave our ships and meet face to face on the surface!

I descended to the moon’s surface keeping the beacon centred and it wasn’t long before I could see a small figure watching and waving from the top of a hill. I manoeuvred Brenda and attempted to land on the hill but due to her being so big there was no suitable terrain. Picard’s voice then crackled into my headset.

“Nice” he said. admiring the ship.

“How are you doing?” I replied, “I’m just going down to the valley, nowhere to put down up here.”

I flew down into the valley. As I slowly let Brenda down I noticed the amount of volcanic activity that was going on all over the place. Hardly surprising as this moon was orbiting so close to its planet. I also noticed that there was no sign of the Hermes, and, in the distance, a lone SRV was hurtling toward my ship down the hillside. I touched down and hurried from the cockpit to sit in one of my own SRVs. It descended out of its hanger and gently dropped to the moon’s surface, then I turned it toward the other one, now getting much closer and sped off to meet it.

As our two SRV’s met Picard’s skidded to a halt, he jumped out and aimed a rifle right at the cabin. I got out, slowly, remembering that from his perspective I was yet to earn his trust, and assuming he must have run into trouble before. I realised then that he had sent the Hermes away to protect her and her crew. The bravery of the man hit me like a sledgehammer!

I slowly emerged from my vehicle, smiling, not in the least bit concerned. I knew Picard wasn’t a killer. He grinned at me, noticing I wore the same style retro spacesuit. He shouldered his rifle, walked up and shook my hand.

“Cmdr Picard, I must say it is an absolute honour finally meeting you!” I declared. I could barely believe this was happening.

“No,” he replied, “It is an honour to meet you Homborger, it is always humbling to meet my fans. C’mon, you want to take some shots don’t you? I know I do!”

“Of course!”

We posed for the remote camera, trying to salute and take a picture all at the same time. It took a few attempts. And this made us both laugh, and if there had been any ice left after our initial contact it was all water now.

We chatted for a while, him asking me how far I’d come and me asking things like why he’d chose this place and congratulating him on his 2000th day. There were supposed to be others arriving later on but, for now, it was just Picard and I. It was a stunning valley, fumaroles, gas vents and lava spouts dotted all over the place. We went to see a nearby lava spout and got as close as our suit’s AIs would allow us. It was such an amazing thing to see on foot, and all the while chatting to one of my heroes!

“Why don’t we go for a drive?” he suggested, heading back to his Scarab.

“Love to!” I announced, hurrying back to my own.

“Race ya to the top of the hill!” came his voice over my vehicles speakers.

I threw the throttle forward and spun my SRV around to join the race. Just ahead was Picard in his. I heard him laughing over the comms. I don’t think he had seen anyone but his own crew for months. It wasn’t too long before I caught up and managed to use my Scarab’s boosters to get ahead.

“Oh! You’re good!” came the joyful response.

I had almost reached the summit when I heard the sound of SRV boosters getting louder from behind and, sure enough, over my head soared Picard, beating me to the top of the hill by a whisker.

“That was close!”

We parked up and gazed at the night sky from the ridge, continuing our chat from the valley. We discussed about all sorts of things, how long we had had our Pilot’s Federation licenses, near misses, landing on high G worlds, the commanders who come out every few months to resupply and repair the Hermes and some of the amazing things he’d seen on his ridiculously long journey out in the black. I also asked him if there was anything he wanted to see but hadn’t seen yet. His reply surprised me. A ringed Earth-like world. He had never discovered one of those yet. Even after two thousand days!

“I’d love to discover one of those!” I replied, “That, for me, is the Holy Grail of exploration!”

“No.” he came back, “Not for me.” I looked at him. “For me the Holy Grail would be a moon in close orbit to an Earth-like, rings or no rings. The beauty of seeing the planet, huge, rising over the horizon. That would be my Holy Grail.”

Now I have always yearned to get out there, into the black. And when the Buckyball season ends that’s just what I’ll do. But nothing has ever ignited the desire to get out there quite like that statement just did. He looked at me and grinned.

“Want me to call in the Hermes?”

Of course I did! We took our Scarabs back down into the valley and waited for the familiar thump of a spaceship dropping out of supercruise. It wasn’t long before the noise echoed in our suits’ helmets and the Hermes materialised in the sky with a flash of light. She gracefully lowered herself down and settled in front of Brenda.

The Hermes is such a beautiful ship. And she bears the scars of her immense voyage with grace. Not one scrap of the original Beluga paintjob remains, and even a fair amount of the primer has been worn away by relentless and intense interstellar travel. But even so, the patina just adds to the romance of her voyage. Once we had finished admiring her, Picard invited me inside to meet the crew.

We jetpacked down to the ground as the Hermes‘ boarding ramp descended from underneath. A lone female officer made her way down to greet us as we reached the stairway up into the hull.

“May I introduce Lieutenant Commander Politano, my excellent First Officer!” boomed Picard with pride. She smiled from within her helmet as I shook her hand.

“A pleasure!” she returned, and gestured back up the boarding ramp, “After you Commander Homborger.”

I ascended into the ship, Picard and Politano following behind. The ramp led to the airlock and we all waited the few seconds needed for the air pressure to match that of the ship. Once we emerged, I was greeted by another member of the crew, this one was armed with a plasma rifle, although it was hanging loosely over his shoulder.

“May I introduce Lieutenant Edwards, the Hermes’ security officer.”

Edwards smiled and shook my hand, “We rarely get visitors on Mission Farsight commander! It is a pleasure to make your company!”

“The pleasure is all mine I assure you!” I gasped. I was not expecting to actually get to go aboard the Hermes at all.

“Lieutenant Edwards will show you around the ship Homborger,” announced Picard, “he…” but Edwards interrupted him.

“I think that honour belongs to you, Sir” he said, almost mischievously, “Politano and I have something to attend to. Don’t worry!” he continued, seeing Picard frown, “It’s nothing to concern you at the moment, I’ll give you a full report later. Why don’t you show Homborger around? We all know how much you love showing off the Hermes.”

Picard relented, chuckled to himself and gestured me through the sliding door that led to the rest of the ship.

If meeting Cmdr. Picard was the cake, being shown around the interior of the Hermes was the enormous cherry on top. The Beluga had originally been designed as a luxury deep space liner, but all the luxury cabins, spas and entertainment venues had been ripped out to make way for laboratories, observatories, extensive analytical and diagnostic equipment and cabins for the crew. There was even a small arboretum where, Picard informed me, they took samples from the various biological specimens they found and simulated their ideal environments in small, sealed off greenhouses (even though the majority of the plant specimens were anything but green) hoping they would grow. The laboratories were many and varied, analysing anything from planetary surface volcanic samples to small chunks of asteroids. There was an awful lot of science being done. The mission would be finished in another year and a half and the amount of new knowledge the mission would be bringing back to civilisation was unimaginable! As Picard was showing me around the feeling that he was immensely proud of what he and his crew had achieved was palpable. Speaking of the crew the thing that struck me most about the tour was that there was barely any sign of them! I asked Picard if most of them had disembarked somewhere to celebrate and he shook his head.

“No, I have a feeling I know where they are. And I’m sure we’ll run into them all soon.” he replied with a wry smile.

The last place I was shown, just after the bridge (the only part of the ship that remained largely similar to the luxury model) we visited the galley. The galley had once been the observation area of the liner and now housed kitchens and a dining area for the crew. As soon as the sliding doors opened and we walked though we were startled by a huge roar of, “SURPRISE!” and, surely enough, the entire crew were wating for their captain, cheering and applauding, led by Edwards and Politano.

Even though I suspected Picard had been expecting something like this, he looked visibly moved. He embraced his officers, and gave a brief speech, giving the majority of the plaudits for the mission’s success so far to his crew.

I felt that this was a moment between a Commander and his crew that I should not be intruding on. I caught the attention of the Captain and he immediately came over. I told him that it was really time that I must go. Picard’s face fell a little, and he placed his hand on my back.

“Of course! Of course. But, before you go – there’s something we must do. It’s a little…game…that the crew play sometimes to help stave off space madness. It would be nice if I we could have a little bit more fun while you’re here.”

He took me outside the ship again and suggested I go and get my SRV, but I hadn’t taken my scorpion out this trip so I decided to get that instead. It took me a little while to swap vehicles and while I did Picard’s voice crackled into my helmet once more.

“You see those rocks over there to your left?”

“Yes.”

“Go park your SRV just the other side a little way and wait.”

“Why?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“You’ll see.”

I parked the other side of the rocks. They sloped upwards toward me slightly. I left and ran to the side before noticing Picard’s Scarab hurtling towards me. He hit the rocks, engaged his vehicle’s thrusters and flew right over my Scorpion, landing in a cloud of dust on the other side.

“Your turn.”

I hurried back to my vehicle and had a go. The gravity was quite low and it was easy. I just sailed over his SRV and landed, bounced twice and spun a little out of control before skidding to a halt.

“That’s a lot more fun than I thought it would be!” I laughed.

We carried on like this, leapfrogging each other until the fuel in my Scorpion was running low. I was just about to synthesise some more when I heard Picard’s voice one final time.

“Well, I really must be getting back to the party. It was really nice meeting you Cmdr Homborger!”

My heart fell. I really was leaving this time. “Thank you so much for inviting me Cmdr Picard, it’s been amazing!”

“If you’re ever out in the black and we’re in the same region, you really must come and visit again.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I will. See you around! Oh seven commander!”

“Oh seven!”

I drove back to Brenda and stopped under the vehicle hanger. I felt the arms grab the Scorpion and pull it up into the ship, then I left the vehicle and made my way to the cockpit. I took one final look at the Hermes, then launched back into space.

Now I had planned to go back home via Sagittarius A*, but, now that it came to it, I really didn’t want to make a detour. I just wanted to fly straight back, hopefully discovering some nice systems along the way. No neutron highway this time. I would just trust Brenda’s own route plotter. As I punched the co-ordinates of the Void Crusader’s system into the galmap, it returned a distance that would take over two hundred and fifty jumps, and then probably another two hundred and fifty from there back to Valtys. I pointed Brenda’s nose toward the first system and jumped to witch space.

It was a long journey, at least twice as long back as it took to get out. I scanned everything I could and discovered some wonderful places.

But the most fantastic find was when I scanned what seemed like a rather uninteresting system, only to have the hairs stand up on the back of my neck when the words “Notable Stellar Phenomena Discovered” flashed up on my FSS scanner. My very first! I targeted it and hurried over, only a few hundred light seconds away from the main star. As I dropped out of supercruise I was presented with a beautiful, serene, crimson Lagrange cloud. Just hanging in space. As I cautiously approached and entered the cloud I noticed geographical shapes, slowly spinning in the red mist. I had discovered, for the very first time, a space born lifeform!

Prasnium and Pupureum metallic crystals! I was awestruck, and spend a good hour just gently drifting though these incredible constructs.

About 8 days after I had left the meeting place, I finally jumped into the Valtys system. I made my way to Oleskiw City tired, but feeling very, very happy and fulfilled. Something Picard had said will stay with me forever.

“Some people filter the galmap in order to make it easier to find certain discoveries, K class stars for Earth like worlds and so on. But don’t. I’ve found Earths around brown dwarfs, and if you miss out these lesser systems, you will miss out on some spectacular discoveries!”

So visit everywhere. Scan everything. You never know what you are going to miss.

You know, they say you should never meet your heroes. But that is not true of Cmdr Picard. He is an inspiration to all of us! And if I’m ever in the same region as him when next I’m out in the Black – I’m definitely going to pay the Hermes another visit!

First of all I’d like to apologise. Apologise for not attending to this blogsite since the RushFleet was finally completed. Even though it was a labour of love and I had a tremendous amount of fun building it, toward the end it felt liike I was playing for the blog and not playing for me. So over the past month or so I’ve rectified that, and started to just have fun playing this amazing game we all love to bits, rather than using it to work to toward an end. The creative holiday, however, ends now. Beginning with this Buckyball report there will soon be more added to the “My PC Ships” section of the menu and I am also currently working hard on part II of The Fuel Rat Diaries. Also, hopefully in September the Fleet will be copied from my PlayStation account to a new PC account and I will be revisiting every ship in the Odyssey expansion, trying to look at each one in a whole new light.

But on to the current Buckyball race!

Race number five Buckyball fans, number five! Still three to go too! And this one is a real humdinger of a course! I don’t think I’ve ever been as stressed, or as desperate to just get any kind of time registered for a Buckyball run. It’s got everything. It’s long and physically demanding, There are stunning places to visit. There are tunnels to fly through. And its set in some of the most dangerous hyperspace lanes in the galaxy. It’s the Seven Sisters Speedway Remix! But Buckyball races are all inherently dangerous – I hear you cry (well, one or two of you maybe). Yes, but this race sends you though the Pleiades. And we all know what Dastardly, Deadly Daffodils infest that area of space don’t we? And we all know how perilous it can be, and how regularly innocent spacefarers get violently yanked out of hyperspace to be inspected by the Curious Chrysanthemums of Chaos – the Thargoids! So not only do I have to put up with hopelessly inadequate flying to hamper my time, I have to deal with hyperdictions as well!

It’s also quite a long one. Starting at Ohm Horizons in the HIP 29312 system – the closest system in the Bubble to the Pleiades with a large station – it takes thirteen jumps to reach Asterope, one of the nearest of the Seven Sisters (the seven biggest, brightest blue-white stars that make up the Pleiades). You then have to visit each of the sisters in any order, landing at stations at some and flying through at least one tunnel at the Squirrels Nest Bar at Pleione. It’s then another 13 jumps back to HIP 29312. That’s a total of 33 jumps. That’s a huge chunk of your time right there! Thank goodness fuel scooping is permitted.

I thought it wise to spend a few days scouting out the Pleiades, making sure I had scanned all the bodies in the systems I was to fly though, and to practice with a few dry runs. What struck me first was just how stunning a place the Pleiades sector is. Every system you arrive at just has some of the most jaw dropping vistas in the galaxy! This race was going to be a pleasure to fly, I thought. It all seemed reasonably straight forward. Although, as is usual with Buckyball, even though each step is reasonably simple, stringing each one together, and doing it all without hitting anything, at speed, under pressure, is another matter altogether. Add to that the threat of a hyperdiction or two and it ramps the difficulty up considerably. Even so, with each dry run I was only hyperdicted once. Three dry runs, one hyperdiction during each run. That’s fine, I thought to myself, I might be lucky and not get hyperdicted by those Pesky Penstemons at all.

This time around there are optional shenanigans too, which will all help to lower your time. These all involve stunts of daring and skill that only the very best BuckyBall pilots attempt. Skilled “spaceobatics” around stations, flying backwards through the slot, playing chicken with the ‘Goids themselves and almost melting your ship. But I just wanted to concentrate on getting a time in.

On my first official attempt (I won’t bother counting my actual first attempt where, launching from within Ohm Horizons, I hit the throttle instead of lift, along with the boost, and rammed the bulkhead in front of the landing pad, causing my poor Wormwood’s Bane to spin over and over and then get totally stuck between two buildings before receiving a reckless flying fine and exploding) I managed to get hyperdicted before I even reached the first of the Sisters and somehow flew directly into the Offending Osteospermum just as it deployed its shutdown field. It howled with wild rage as it encircled my stricken, helpless vessel and proceeded to open fire with reckless abandon. Wormwood’s Bane was destroyed in seconds.

On the following attempt, I had the misfortune of being wrenched from the comparative serenity of hyperspace even earlier, and had the indignity of sitting, helpless as one of those Rascally Rhododendrons scanned my vessel whilst two more hung in space before me, menacingly watching my vessel’s violation as if they were students, learning how it was done. I was then hyperdicted one further time between the systems of Maia and Pleione. The wrench as the hyperspace conduit begins to break down almost throws you out of your seat, and then, as you are unceremoniously dumped back into real space it takes a second or two to get the ship back under control before the roar of an Acrimonious Agapanthus chills you to your bones. The shutdown field is deployed and you remain totally at their mercy. And then, unless you’re really unlucky, you are released. The distant wail, the echoing thud of a rift torn in space time and the distorted aftermath of their departure is all you are left with, You just shake yourself down, orientate your ship to your target system and re=engage your Frame Shift Drive.

This particular encounter shook me quite badly. Because when I reached the Squirrel’s Nest Bar in Pleione I had trouble finding a tunnel and when I did, I hurtled down toward it at full throttle. Forgetting to compensate for the Cobra’s D rated thrusters I drifted straight past the metal orifice only to crash pathetically into the superstructure and get stuck. And again, within seconds, I began the Remlock Ride of Regret in my escape pod back to Obsidian Orbital in Maia.

Yet another new ship. Yet another long, remorseful flight back to the start.

Third attempt. And by now I didn’t care how fast I was, I just wanted to be able get back to the finish and enter a time. I calmed myself down as I flew into the Pleiades Sector and prepared myself for the inevitable jolt. And it came just as I was jumping to Asterope, the first Sister. I just sat there, praying that the Vicious Vibernum would finish soon and then carried on my way as soon as I could. Then again, two jumps later, the same three as before. The two students and the teacher. My spirit withered as they gloated over my helpless vulnerability. Then they let me go. And I was on my way once more.

The Squirrel’s Nest Bar can be quite a welcome distraction from all the oppression of the relentless hyperdictions. Bars are infamous for having the odd punch up and the Squirrel’s Nest is no exception. A dank hive of a place for hardened Anti Xeno pilots, it can suddenly spring to life when a raid comes in and the resident ships emerge to defend their favourite boozer. Only not with fists, but with muti-cannons and energy weapons. And just the action of flying though the tunnels can help take the mind of the ever present Thargoid threat – just make sure you don’t fly into one of the combatants on your way out, like I did. Although not on this attempt. Thankfully, I made it through this time, unlike one of my dry runs a couple of weeks before. It didn’t destroy my ship, but the resulting vexation of the rammed vessel’s faction did. Again – ship eviscerated within seconds.

I jumped from Pleione to Merope, needing to dock with and immediately relaunch from the megaship the Glorious Prospect as part of the race. Witch Space was flowing past smoothly, there were only two more stops before heading home. I let myself feel a little bit of relief when that familiar jolt wrenched the controls from my grasp. Oh come on I thought to myself, it can’t be. The Wormwood’s Bane squirted out from hyperspace and tumbled several times before I managed to pull her up to face the Pernicious Petunia. It roared toward my ship and glared at me, seemingly disbelievingly. I recognized it somehow. I can’t be sure but I could have sworn I’d been pulled by this ‘goid before, several times in fact. It grumbled with what I can only translate as an “Oh no! Not again!” while it scanned me, disinterestedly. Then my systems fired up and I was gone, not bothering to see where it went.

That was the final interdiction. I visited the final two systems and headed back, albeit a little more carefully than I needed to. I just needed everything to go smoothly from now on. I really didn’t want to have to do all this again. Get back I did, although my time was appalling.

Sigh! Last again. But only five registered times after three days of racing. Thoughts and prayers to the Great Braben for Cmdr Alec Turner for putting in a blinding time but, well, you’ll see. Like he says Buckyball can be cruel sometimes. Do you dare to take on the Seven Sisters Speedway? Do you wish to marvel at the beauty? Do you dare to brave the dangers? The violation? The almost physical sensation of withering contempt? I am physically and emotionally exhausted after that last run. Not sure I’ll attempt another. And anyway – I really have to go. I have a long, long way to go and a short time to get there, report to follow once I get back (watch this space – it will be special).

If you feel you have what it takes to even register a time in this incredible race you can see the details here. You have until 23:59 on Monday June 27 and, you never know – you may never see a damn Thargoid for the whole run. The BRC will probably run this race again next season. Will I enter after all the exhaustion and mental trauma this time around?

Of course I will!

And before you know it, it’s Buckyball week yet again! It’s race number 4 in the Magic 8 Buckyball series and this time it’s the On The Rocks Race. This race has been brought to us by the incomparable Cmdr Psykit (not that you can tell with all the marvellous pinky neon stuff). “But why is it called ‘On The Rocks’?” I hear you all cry. Well, lets go through the details and we’ll see if we can’t figure out the answer!

After all the derring-do of the last three races (docking with as many stations as you can within a time limit, rollving across SRV hostile terrain, squeezing a shield less ship through a tiny tunnel at stupid speeds) we have a little change of pace. In fact, I’d go as far as to say this race is more relaxed than the others. Shields? Yup! Refuelling at stops? Yup! Scooping? Yup! Repairs? Uh-huh. Just an old fashioned call in at five stations and distribute beer mats race. Oh! And pick up some water on the way back. Sound straight forward? Well, yes, actually, this time it is.

There is a small catch. If you do make a mistake (and on my first attempt I made a BIG one) then it’s a long, long way back to the start. You have to pick up five Buckball Beer Mats from Rebuy Prospect at Fullerene C60 and distribute one each at the following five stations – Big Pappa’s Base, Freeholm, Jack’s Town, Simbad’s Refuge and Lone Rock. Then, collecting 5tons of water from Jack’s Town on the way back to sell to Rebuy Prospect. The furthest station being almost 266ly from the start this is quite a journey. But, as you can see, it takes you to some pretty stunning locations.

One problem I encountered was that one of the stations is in the Artemis system and, trying to plot a course there, I plotted one to Artemis Lodge in the Celeano system by mistake. So that run was aborted. It was a very long way back to Fullerene C60! Serves me right. The next run went a lot better, although I kept spelling the names of the systems wrong in the galmap and wasting time. But, at least I managed to get a time down on my second attempt! Which is a record for me!

Before any attempt it’s a good idea to study the galmap around the systems you will be visiting. There are no rules regarding the order but logistics dictates that it will be easiest to visit Jack’s Town to pick up your five tons of water last. Therefore, after studying this particular area in space, consulting Psykit’s distance table which she so helpfully placed on the race forum page, and drawing a rough diagram, I decided the stations should be visited in this order:

• Simbad’s Refuge
• Freeholm
• Lone Rock
• Big Pappa’s Base
• Jack’s Town

Simbad’s Refuge

A really stunning location! Set in a rich ring system surrounding an eye popping lava world. Just supercruise here although, because it’s in a ring system its best to approach from a 45 degree angle to the rings on the side of the planet the station is facing. Docking here went ok although I have a habit of over shooting the landing pad and have to fumble around on manoeuvring thrusters before the clamps take hold. Then I drop off a mat and relaunch back out to admire the view.

Freeholm

Run by the East India Company this is in the Artemis system and is 2000ls or so from the main star. So, takes a little while to supercruise out there. It’s in an asteroid belt this time so there’s no need for a special approach, just need to pay attention so that I don’t overshoot it and have to loop back to be able to drop out of supercruise next to the station (known by commanders as the “Loop Of Shame”).

Lone Rock

The furthest station from the starting point we visit, this really is a beautiful place. It is set very close to the main star, Othime, which happens to be a brown dwarf. Everything is bathed in its ethereal, purple glow. I could sit out here for ages, mesmerized by the way the light makes everything look so dreamlike. I just couldn’t capture just quite how lovely it is here in the screenshot I’m afraid. You’ll just have to come here yourselves.

Big Pappa’s Base

Another stunning location! This is where it all started to go wrong though. After exiting Lone Rock I found myself forgetting how to spell the system name “Andhrimi” putting an “n” in where there should be an “m” and wondering why in the Great Braben’s Name the galmap couldn’t find it! Eventually, after rechecking my notes I found my error and, after cursing my ineptitude, managed to plot a course here. Another ring system surrounding a beautiful blue gas giant. Here, though I got confused as to which end of the station was which and wasted yet more time finding the slot. I should have gone with my first choice of end as it was there but just hidden a little because of my angle of approach. Got there in the end though.

Jack’s Town

Again, yet another beautiful place. No ring system, just a lowly station in a hollowed out asteroid that happens to be orbiting a beautiful, serene, Earth like world. No problems here. It’s time to drop off that last beer mat, collect the five tons of water, and make the long eight jump journey back to Rebuy Prospect. But yet again I couldn’t remember how to spell “Fullerene” to plot my way back to the start and wasted yet more valuable time trying to sort this out. But, eventually, the route was found and the journey back began.

The biggest problem with this race is that you are carrying a rare commodity. And there is a good change you will be interdicted. In a Cobra these can be easily shaken off but those interdictions cost time. Luckily though I didn’t get interdicted once. And a good thing too or my terrible time would have been even worse!

And there I am! Number 13, last, on the leaderboard. Again! It’s a bit of a long race though. The time barrier seems to be at the forty minute mark. I’m sure I can do a lot better, and, now the Rush Fleet is complete, I should have time to do at least one more run. And I know how to spell all the system names this time. So, all you Buckyball virgins out there, why not have a crack at this race? Beating 55:13 ought to be a cinch! Trust me, becoming a part of the Buckyballing community is highly recommended. They are a wonderful bunch of people and so friendly if you happen to bump into one during the race. You don’t have to use a regulation Cobra if you don’t want to. As always, there is an unlimited class too. Just go here to read up on the details and enter your time. You’ll visit some stunning places and have a lot of fun. And maybe, just maybe, you might be able to figure out why the race is called “On The Rocks”.

The week of the Wiccan BeWare Race is upon us! That’s right folks it’s Buckball time again. This time trading is the object of the race. It’s a good one this week Buckyball fans – racing to and fro like maniacs, trying to get the best profits everywhere we go, and generally flying as dangerously as we can. I have a record number of reckless flying fines after doing this one. It’s a surprisingly tricky one too. You’d have thought a trading race would be the most straight forward of the lot but, there are so many things that can go disastrously wrong. Then there’s the tunnel at the Gateway Interchange Hub, a narrow conduit that has to be flown through at speed two thirds of the way through the race.

Again, this is a version of one of the earliest races. You have to fly fast, with no shields, a paper thin hull, no refuelling (or even scooping), no repairs, no automated docking or cruising. Just in and out of spaceports buying and selling. Profit is must. Loss means disqualification. You even get bonus points for having virtually no hull left. Slow and sure comes last in the race.

I scouted out the area beforehand, the race doesn’t tell you where to buy your goods, only where they must be sold. You have to work that out for yourself. Oddly, bonuses are not given for the amount of profit you make. I thought that would have been an integral part of the challenge. But no, the transportation of said cargo is more important that the amount of profit made in this venture. I would leave the start, Dublin Citadel in the Gateway system, and decided to get my Consumer Technology from Ahern Enterprise at Tellus, in order to then sell them at the required Soholia system. I chose to land there at Kyoto Park – a starport. There is an outpost that’s closer but, well, you know how I deal with landing at outposts.

You then have to fill your hold anything in the Soholia system and return to Dublin Citadel to sell at a profit. And it must be a profit, or at the very least break even. A loss and you’re out of the race. Next comes the scary bit – you have to fly the short distance to the Gateway Exchange Hub, find the tunnel, fly through it at at least 200m/s (if you are in the regulation Cobra Mk III), then find 1t of domestic appliances to sell at the LP 131-66 system. Again, like many of the Buckyball races it all sounds straightforward, except for the tunnel – I was dreading that. But, typically like a Buckyball race it’s far trickier than it sounds and the tunnel, well, it’s a lot more straightforward than it sounds. Just one mistake though…

All in all it took me five attempts before I managed to register an allowable time. I will document each attempt and what went wrong. It was the most frustrating race I have ever done, especially when I was thinking before my first attempt that it would be quite easy. I really need to stop my prejudgment of these challenges!

First Attempt

Began pretty badly. Launched from Dublin and boosted out of the slot, only to meet a Type 7 coming the other way. Lost the majority of my hull there and then and incurred a fine for reckless flying. Kept on going regardless, landing more gingerly than I would otherwise have done due to having only 8% hull. On return to Dublin I realised I would have to go to the authority office to pay the fine before I was allowed to sell my goods. Found a couple of commanders behaving…well…inappropriately with each other outside the office. It greatly increased my time. Left Dublin, headed for the Hub, attempted a fly through but connected sharply with the narrow entrance. Exploded. Rebuy.

Second Attempt

All went ok. Had lots of trouble landing at the starports and lots of fumbling around trying to purchase and sell the commodities, and also trying to set the navigation to the correct systems. Ended up with a time of about 28 minutes but forgot to display my module loadout to the adjudicators to prove I wasn’t cheating. So, a further attempt had to be made.

Third Attempt

This run seemed to go well, and I appeared to be making rather good time. Managed to land recklessly and quickly enough at each port losing a manageable amount of hull each time. Flew through the tunnel like a dream! Boy it feels good when you get that part right! Managed to reach Vasiliyev Vision at LP 131-66 at just over 25 minutes. I just had to dock. Now, you all know that automatic reaction to boost out of the slot when leaving a starport? Yeah? Well, for some reason it kicked in when I entered the slot at Vasiliyev. I shot to the back of the docking hall like a blind pig, a wailing, “NOOooooooooo!” pathetically extruding from my gaping mouth as I smashed into the antennae at the rear. Exploded. Rebuy.

Fourth Attempt

All went ok although incurred another fine at Dublin for hitting the slot on the way out. There’s something about the grating noise when you drag your ship’s sorry hull across the toast rack at boost speed that gives you a viciously nervous tick for the rest of the race. Flew through the tunnel again, like a dream. Boosted through there in fact! Boy, was I beginning to love that part of the race. I then headed to Archer Station at the Idaho system to buy my domestic appliances in order to sell them at LP 131-66. Flew in, landed nicely. However, once I’d landed, instead of engaging with Starport Services I pressed the launch button instead. I panicked wildly as the docking platform dipped and spun the Wormwood’s Bane around to face the docking slot and released the clamps. I would now have to leave the station and re-enter in order to buy the goods! In my desperation I collided with a ship on the way out and got caught hopelessly in the toast rack on the way back in. I struggled furiously to extricate my craft. Loitering Fine. I struggled further, hull strength depleting constantly. Further loitering warning. I watched helplessly while a large queue of ships waited impatiently either side of the slot. My hull soon counted down to zero. Explosion. Rebuy.

Fifth Attempt

This one seemed to go too well. I was keeping 100% hull the entire way through and making decent time (at least, decent for me). Then it was time to approach the Interchange Hub and the, now no longer dreaded tunnel. I got lined up, decided to be a little more careful and adjusted my speed to about 230ms rather than boosting. I thought I’d lined up fine, but halfway through I heard a massive “DONK!” from my right wing. I was almost torn out of my seat as the Wormwood’s Bane spun around in the enclosed space. My head swam. I couldn’t tell where in space I was. The inside of the tunnel was moving violently to the left in front of the canopy and the way I had just come whizzed passed. Somehow the little cobra managed to perform a perfect pirouette as the forward thrusters gained hold and threw me out from the other side of the tunnel. I hit the boost button, desperate to get away, to leave mass locked space behind. The hull creaked and groaned terrifyingly in complaint. The mass lock indicator blinked off, I hit the jump button, the frame shift drive charged up, and I was in witch space.

As I dropped out at Indaol and pointed the ship towards Archer Settlement I noticed I had only 3% of hull integrity remaining. I silently breathed a prayer of thanks to the Great Braben. I should not have survived that crash. I gingerly landed at the starport, purchased my goods and made my way to the final system. Never have I been so relived to see a white dwarf. I cruised to Vasiliyev, flew through the slot and gently came to rest on one of the pads. I sold my single ton of cargo and noted the time – 26 minutes and 27 seconds. Could be better, but I wasn’t in the mood for another run.

And there I am! Number 14, last, on the leaderboard. The most difficult race yet. And I’m not the only commander who has had problems. One was attacked, presumably by the authorities, when they reached the Interchange. Blown up by laser fire in the tunnel no less. It’s a much tougher race than you think! You reckon you got it? You reckon you have the skills, the nerve and the patience to take part? Be prepared to have a few attempts before you register a time. C’mon commanders! Come and have a go, get your name on the board! Details and entry form are here. You have until the end of Sunday 24th April to submit your run.

So it’s time for the next Buckyball race in the Super 8 series. Unlike the previous one, this one is a real toughie, and it involves a large SRV section. The rules are very strict compared to the last race and this one took me almost fifty minutes to complete! It’s another re-run of a previous classic “The Lavian Job” and it has been named “The Aquarian Job.”

Inspired by the movie “The Italian Job”, the name of the race is based on the places you will visit. Begin at London Relay at Epsilon Indi, fly to Bridger Town in the Chi Herculis system, land, take off. Fly then to 241 G. Aquarii and land at least eight kilometers away from Cooper Arena. You must then drive your SRV the 8 km to Cooper Arena, scan the data point, then drive at least 5km away before boarding your ship and flying back to London Relay. No refuelling or repairing of your ship is allowed at any point, only fuel scooping and, here’s the thing, it has to be done shieldless. Bonuses are awarded for having as little hull left as possible at the end of the challenge. Console and non Odyssey owners listen up – this challenge can only be done in Horizons so if you are looking for something to get your teeth into and you haven’t yet tried Buckyball now is your chance!

Sounds pretty straight forward doesn’t it? The biggest problem is Coopers Arena is in a canyon system. Getting there from 8km away means launching your SRV off a cliff. Also, for most of the time the part of the moon where Cooper Arena is situated is mostly in darkness, and even for the short time when the star does shine on it the Canyon never really sees any meaningful light. So, top tip, make sure you have your night vision on. I didn’t think of this at all when I scouted out the place for the ideal place to land and so landed in one of the very worst possible places, with little idea what to expect.

How the Buckyball professionals do it is a method called “flyving“. A thrilling hybrid of driving and flying that involves hurling your SRV along the proscribed route and, with extremely skilled management of the Scarab boosters, flying for as long as you can keep the thing in the air and then deftly landing on all eight wheels when you absolutely must come back down to the ground again, only to launch your agile vehicle of the very next ridge to gracefully glide through the air once more.

I leave London Arena with trepidation, jumping from star to star, scooping when I can to arrive at Chi Hercules and supercruise my way to Bridger Town. The trip down to the settlement is uneventful and I land reasonably comfortably, although I can hear a very well spoken gentlemen on the comms complaining that his toilet has been broken into. I launch immediately after landing and am alarmed to discover my regulation Cobra Mk III will take eight jumps to get to 241 G. Aquarii. That was going to take some time. Eventually I reach the system and supercruise the 1000 odd light seconds to the moon on which Cooper Arena can be found. I target the settlement, descend towards the surface and look for a suitable place to land. It takes me another precious minute to find somewhere the prescribed distance away. I plop down and deploy Wobbuffet – my trusty SRV. As it descends from the ship I decide – sod it, I’ll have a good go at this. I’ve never done it before. I’m a very careful SRV driver normally but now is the time to throw caution to the wind. I open up the throttle, shoot across the initial flat section at brake neck speed, and throw myself off the first cliff.

Not sure if I actually achieved flyving, but I think I’ve invented a new method. I call it “rollving” with quite a lot of “spinving ”. The vast majority of the jumps involved poor Wobbuffet landing on his nose and then rolling over, and over. And over, and over, And over, until he comes to a stop facing the wrong way, still in full throttle, wheels spinning desperately and attempting to make his way back up the cliff. I don’t think he was having a very good time. Sometimes I would launch him off a small precipice, whilst still rolling, and he would spin out of control through the air as we made our way down to the bottom of the canyon. It seemed to take forever. And I had trouble telling which way was up. Whenever I did manage to land on the wheels Wobbuffet’s engines would scream agonisingly as he span himself around and attempted to go back the way we had come, or indeed by the time we had got halfway in any direction he chose – so desperate was his panic to get away. I reduced the throttle, I needed to calm Wobbuffett down before he exploded. I’d been keeping my eye on the hull strength and it was getting dangerously low.

Thankfully, synthesised SRV hull repair is allowed so while rolling Wobbuffet down another series of steep bumps, which would surely have ended my run there and then, I flipped to the module screen and repaired the hull back to 100%.

After what seemed like an eternity I could make out the lights of Cooper’s Arena more clearly and the terrain began to flatten out again. We were finally in the basin of the canyon. I opened up the throttle once more and raced toward the settlement, screeching to a halt as we came in range of the data point. As I scanned the information contained therein, I realised how exhausted I felt. It was such a gruelling trip down the cliff, and poor Wobbuffett was sounding very sorry for himself. The thing was, I had to make it out again and I wasn’t at all sure which direction to take. It was so bloody dark!

I turned to the only point I could find, a lonely tourist beacon set here after the first Buckyball event at this location and, using it as a guide in the blackness, opened the throttle once more. This time, as soon as the terrain became uneven, I slowed down, trying to pick as gentle a route as I could back up the cliff. It took a long while, and Wobbuffet complained with every steep climb, but we finally got back up to the top. We hurried along the then much more forgiving ground until I saw that we had reached the required 5km distance and I recalled my ship.

Boy, was she a sight for sore eyes! I felt utterly spent, and I still had four jumps to go before returning to London Relay. When I finally landed there I looked at the clock. An incomprehensible jumble of figures looked back. I had no idea what they read, and I had no idea exactly how long I had been. Forty five minutes? Fifty? Fifty five? It felt like fifty hours. I swore to myself that I would never undertake the challenge again. I uploaded the video footage and entered its address into the Aquarian Job entry form. How anyone could go much quicker than this was beyond me.

And there I am! Number 9 on the leaderboard. Effectively in last place as Phoenix_Dfire has since posted a much faster time. What amazed me are the times further up the leaderboard. Twenty three minutes!? Seriously? How in Witch Space did they manage that? Then I realise how much better at flyving they are, and how much more effectively they scouted the area beforehand. There is a five kilometre route away from Copper’s that stays on the canyon floor and mostly consists of flat terrain. And you can launch off a cliff much closer to the settlement, spending longer in the air before you hit the uneven ground. Add to that more efficient, if dangerous, hyperspace jumps whilst still scooping and one can get closer to a more reasonable time.

Even though I found it rather gruelling, I think I’ll have another crack later in the week. Hopefully a little more actual flyving and a little less rollving this time. It was still an immensely fun challenge and I can’t recommend it enough. You simply must have a go at this! Just click this link, read the instructions and have a go. You don’t even need to buy a regulation ship. You can enter the unlimited class instead. But, please, have a go! You have until Sunday March 27th at 23:59:59 GMT to enter a time. It really is so much fun and it’s really nice to feel part of the Buckyballing community. Even if it’s a totally hopeless, unskilled at anything part. It doesn’t matter that I suck at this game. I still enjoy it tremendously. It’s part of what makes Elite Dangerous so great.

So have a go and keep a look out for other community events! See you out there commanders! o7