The CDC, SSC and TGFT are proud to bring you The Deneb Run this weekend.

*** The TIME will be 5pm Eastern Daylight Time, 2pm Pacific, 9pm Saturday GMT (Or 21:00) ***

*** More sponsors means more prize money! (see below) ***

The race progress announcements will be announced on Channel 500

Listen to racing music on Radio TGFT at: http://www.live365.com/stations/dj_screwball

All citizens are welcome to race, there is no entrance fee, and 6 Million credits in prizes are available. Some of it could be yours!

Once again, the rules are:

1) Racers must race from Odia M14 through Deneb heading clockwise back to Odia M14.
2) Race starts in Odia M14 near the station.
3) Contestants must be within 100m of me before the start
4) No shooting before the race starts.
5) You die and you're out (so no /exploding)
6) All weapons and ships allowed, except those listed in #10.
7) First person to get back and dock at Odia M14 wins the first prize. (3 million credits)
8) Second person back gets 2nd place prize (2 million credits)
9) Third person back gets 3rd place prize (1 million credits)
10 Valkyrie ships are not allowed.
11) Attempting to trigger a false start of the race is grounds for disqualification.
12) Money for killing other racers: Any pilot, racing or not, is eligible to earn money as follows:

Pre-condition #1: There must be at least 3 racers
Pre-condition #2: Less than 3 racers complete The Deneb Run
If the above pre-conditions are met, the undistributed prize money will be awarded to those who killed the racers as follows:
- Kills in the Odia M-14 sector are not eligible
- The most recent eligible kill earns the highest unawarded prize money (3 mil, 2 mil, 1 mil, or 0)
- The 2nd most recent eligible kill earns the 2nd highest unawarded prize money (2 mil, 1 mil, or 0)
- The 3rd most recent eligible kill earns the 3rd highest unawarded prize money (1 mil or 0)

Please reply to this thread if you intend to race.

I intend to race as Istamir Sol.

I intend to race, but it's not for sure and certain (subject to IRL)
I know of several top contenders who should be there, too.
-- Foo Fighter.

Thanks to Miharu and Eonis for hosting this race.

And congrats to Foo for docking right ahead of me. I wasn't able to catch him up as I wanted. Not being able to blame myself, I blame his better loading times. :)

Well, at least got a PK out of the pirate who tried to kill me in Pelatus.

Awful race for me. And i raced awfully.

==The Racers==
Katrina Le-Feir - Union pilot, council of PA. A veteran racer who rarely fails to place in the top three in her trademark Orion Hornet, the "Kit-e-Kat".
Foo Fighter - Itani pilot, council of ITAN. New to the racing scene, but has skill.
tumblemonster - UIT member of CLM.
Mick - UIT council of PA. Veteran racer who almost always places, often in first.
NP - UIT member of PA. This was his second race.
Istamir Sol - Itani pilot. Not sure if this was his first race or not.
luckydog - Serco member of SAF. This was his first race.
Dartok Anto - Itani member of MFA. This was not his first race, but he hasn't raced in over a month.

==The Results==
Foo Fighter | 26:40 | Warthog MkII, FC, no weapons.
Katrina Le-Feir | 26:44 | Orion Hornet Convoy Guardian, FC, no weapons.
Istamir Sol | 28:51 | Orion Hornet Convoy Guardian, FC, no weapons.
tumblemonster | 29:47 | Vulture MkIII, FC, no weapons.
NP | 33:21 | Vulture MkIII, FC, no weapons.
luckydog | 37:01 | Warthog MkII, FC, Gatling Turret + Neutron Blaster MkII.
Mick | DNF | Vulture MkIII, FC, no weapons.
Dartok Anto | DQ | Centurion MkI, FC, no weapons.

==Observations==
1) I apologize for my snippiness in getting the race started on time last night, however there are some things I don't think got across to some of the people racing, or the people watching:
- I have a life outside of VO. Running this race takes between an hour and a half to two hours of my free time each week, usually because the race starts late from having to wait for people.
- In the US, this weekend is Labor Day weekend. Lots of places (including my school) have temporarily different hours for the weekend. For me, the dining hall closes an hour and a half earlier than it usually does for dinner (6:30PM opposed to 8PM). Because of the apparent "tradition" of starting late, the early slot races tend to not be done until 6:15PM or so. It takes about 15 minutes to get to the dining hall from where I live on campus. On Saturday night, if I don't eat in the dining hall, I'll be wasting money on the meal plan.
- I may be moving the "early" slot an hour earlier to 4PM EDT so that neither Eonis nor I have to deal with missing meals and being hungry when the race is being held.\
- For the record, I announced early on that the race was not only starting on time, but that registration was closing at 2050h GMT several times. During the registration period, I repeatedly stated how much time was remaining before registration was closed. If people can't be bothered to read the chat, that is not my problem. I don't have the ability to make big bright white messages in the chat area that catch players' attention, so if they aren't paying attention, their loss.
2) One racer (Mick) was killed 24 minutes and 19 seconds into the race by an unnamed pirate. Another was disqualified by a false start.

Next week's Deneb Run will be in the LATE slot. See you next week!

First, thx to Miharu and Eonis for hosting, I think it is a nice thing you are doing for the VO community, so keep up the good job :-)

Second, I like the idea of moving the early slot an hour, so that I may be able to compete without spending too much of my precious sleeping-time (since I live in europe...)

Cya all in VO

NP

Four seconds! :O

Seriously, I'm happy about the incredible times, just shy of the DR record. But I'm wondering if the times are accurate. It didn't feel a particularly fast run... Had to route around storms in Deneb, Pherona, Jallik and Edras, and dodge Quietus in Pelatus, not to mention a couple distraction errors in serco space, and the distinct feeling that I emerged from WHs on the wrong side (between WH and the nearest roid field)...

ARRRRRRRRR

An "unnamed pirate"?
Mick's not the easiest racer to take down!
Do your homework and give me credit at least!

-Q

Kat: I calculate the run time by the time passed between when I get the message that says you warped out of M-14 and the message that says you entered the bar. Here are those times (in GMT) for the racers who finished:

Foo:
Warped: 21:00:23
Docked: 21:27:03
Change: 00:26:40

Katrina:
Warped: 21:00:26
Docked: 21:27:10
Change: 00:26:44

Istamir Sol:
Warped: 21:00:24
Docked: 21:29:15
Change: 00:28:51

tumble:
Warped: 21:00:23
Docked: 21:30:10
Change: 00:29:47

NP:
Warped: 21:00:24
Docked: 21:33:45
Change: 00:33:21

luckydog:
Warped: 21:00:26
Docked: 21:37:27
Change: 00:37:01

Quietus » Do your homework and give me credit at least!
I asked Mick to tell me who shot him down, and he refused to tell me. I was not in the best of moods at the time and didn't feel like asking again.

I overwrote my errors.log right after the DR, so I had no way to check. I was following gut feeling about how fast the race was/was not; didn't intend to doubt about your timekeeping, really.

One thing I noticed: you count the time from when the pilot warps out? I always counted from my "GO", regardless of when the pilot is awake or not (like me). After all, who docks first wins, not who has the lowest time... Thus, I will consider my time to be SEVEN seconds higher than Foo's, not just four.

You can also notice that I wasted three whole seconds before jumping - an eternity. You didn't count down, and instead utterly shouted "GO!": I read your "Go" in the console while I was furiously shiftclicking/zooming in the galactic map, setting the navroute... :)

why zooming? can you detect ion storms that way? O_o

Yay, earlier races. I might participate again, too.

Yeah I like the idea of moving the early race 1hr forward; I'd also support moving the late race 1hr forward too. I fully appreciate the efforts of the race organizers though.

Regarding times, i think it's not the best idea to start counting times from the moment someone jumps now.
Especially since that's not how they were counted until now and it introduces possibility of discrepancies (someone winning and not having best time, admitedly extreme and unlikely but still...) and minor exploits.
Also makes all times shorter by ~10 seconds (average time of empty sector loading, could be a bit different, on second thought prolly less since it most likely reports before sector is loaded) then those counted up to this change.

(Unless that's how it always was and i somehow didn't notice?)

For the record that's precisely the reason that during Tube Race i'm not taking into account times as reported by VO.

As for changing times, moving early slot earlier is fine.
Moving late slot even later would mean there would be even smaller chance europeans could participate (of course this time slot is not for them/us :) ).

Yeah maq: actually I said bring the late slot forward by an hour to make it earlier (not later).
Though I appreciate this has been debated before in earlier times (excuse the pun, none intended).

Oops, somehow read that wrong.
Well then, i'm certainly for moving it earlier.

When Erik and Joyce MCed the race, they counted from when the racer left the sector, or at the very least, that was what I was told when they bugged out. I'm just following the example I was given. If it really bugs people that much, I can change how I count the times.

The late slot is moving neither earlier nor later; I have no conflicting activities at the time it is held. It is the early slot that conflicts with things, namely the dining hall's hours and my need to eat, and I wanted to move it earlier so that it didn't.

Seems more natural to count from the 'Go' i'd say.
Maybe they counted from when the first racer left sector? Makes more sense.

No, they counted for each individual racer. I was there helping when Erik was trying to write a script to get the race times and calculate them automatically, and he wanted it to calculate as he already did it, and that was the difference between the warp-out message and the "entered the bar" message for each racer.