Turf Zone – RabbitER
There’s a zone in Edinburgh I’ve managed to avoid taking for almost 5-years now. It’s located at the foot of the Royal Mile and goes by the zone name HolyroodAbbey. I’ve avoided this zone because you have to pay to gain entrance to the remains of the abbey and the Palace of Holyrood. However, today, Choccy Muffin and myself forked out some cash from our hard-earned pension and paid the entrance fee. This probably makes this the most expensive turf zone I’ve taken to date. In fact, I may even request the zone name be changed to FiftyQuidWasted!
Of course, we did the tour of the Palace of Holyrood, joining the throngs of tourists shuffling their way silently from room to room, listening to the audio guide and, I suspect, wondering, like I was, why they bothered. Okay, the main purpose of our visit is to take the turf zone but I must say I was very disappointed in the Palace of Holyrood tour. The rooms were all dark and dingy – to protect the precious painting of various nobility and faded dull-brown tapestries – and the furniture was sparce and equally uninspiring. Won’t be going there again, even when you can validate your ticket to last for a whole year.
Okay, enough of that. Time for something different. The El Staminatore medal, taking 200 zones in a 24-hour period. This one stands at the top of my turf medal wish list and I was thinking about this challenging medal the other day wondering if it might be possible to take 200 zones in my local patch of Bonnyrigg without travelling further afield for additional zones. However, Bonnyrigg only has around 40 zones. The answer came from the Strategy guide page on Warded.
“One way to tackle the high stamina medals (for example El Staminatore and Staminatrix) is to either turf with a player with a higher rank to shorten your takeover time, or run loops with another players in an area to be able to take each zone after two block times. In this way, you can find a zone-dense area so you do not have to travel as long distances and thus maximize the number of zone shots over time and get the medals a little easier.”
The part that produced the Eureka moment was “run loops with another players”. However, while I could probably enlist the help of local turfers, there is another way. And that is to create a turfer to assist me on the run, or rather, two additional turfers.
Briefly, so as not to put you off, I’d setup another turf account on my spare (old) mobile phone, tether the phone to my main phone to give internet access (the spare phone has no sim card), then go and take the 40 zones. The key here is to allow the additional turfer to take the zones while I get the assist, which is permitted in the El Staminatore. Next, repeat the 40 zones with a second additional turf account then alternate between the two turf accounts until I get 200 assists and the El Staminatore medal. I need to avoid taking zones myself as they will be blocked for 23-hours unless cleared.
Now, in more detail, which may put you off. First the mobile phones. On my main phone, I need to setup a WIFI hotspot which allows me to tether the spare phone and provide internet access. On the spare phone, I need to install the Turf app, create two turf user accounts, get them all working correctly and thoroughly test in the field. I’ll also need to create email accounts for each additional turf user account as when switching between turf accounts the system sends a code to the registered email account for that turf name. You need to uninstall the turf app to switch between turf accounts as there’s no login/logout facility.
The plan is to have both phones mounted on the bike handlebars and I have enough mounts for this, so that’s easy enough. On the phones, I need to configure to keep both screens on at all times, so screens savers, power saving, etc are all switched off. As the battery on the spare phone is rather old and does not have a great capacity, I’ll carry a 20000 Mah power bank just in case. Just need to make sure I have the right cables with me for both phones.
Setting up the two turf accounts is easy enough. Install the turf app, create a turfname and follow the instructions. You will need to register an email address for each and you need different email addresses for each turf account. I’m fortunate to have my own hosting and my own domain names which I can use for email addresses but you can get free email addresses from the likes of Google and various others.
Now, the overall plan. The target area is my local patch of Bonnyrigg; 40 zones I know like to back of my hand. It takes approx. 1 hour 30 minutes to complete a circuit of Bonnyrigg, excluding the time-consuming outliers like Wee, BroomieGolf and KirkCockpen. First session, allow the additional turfer to take the zones, myself getting the assists. Second session, change to the other additional turfer and repeat. Third session, same again with the first additional turfer. Fourth session, same again with the second additional turfer. Fifth and final session, take the zones as myself. That should give me 5 sessions x 40 assists, thus 200 zones and the El Staminatore medal. Overall, should take me less than 8-hours to complete. Hopefully.
Of course, there are a few issues I need to address or keep an eye on. One is takeover times. As my PlanetGary account has a takeover time of 18.6 seconds and the new turf accounts both start at 30 seconds, I’ll need to make sure I don’t take the zone first. Easy enough to prevent this by briefly switching the GPS off and back on again. Juts a matter of careful timing. I do this with ChoccyMuffin to allow her to get the takes when we are out turfing together. Another point to be aware off is the plethora of popups you will get with a new turf account when taking 200 zones. The final issue is differences in the GPS signal between the two different phone midels which can sometimes have the turf man anywhere except inside the zone.
Finally, I’ve no doubt some of your thinking what a carry on, why not just take 200 zones and forget about all this fuss? And yes, I agree, you are quite right. However, the idea here is to complete the El Staminatore medal while staying local. And there are good benefits to this. No time wasted travelling further afield and you have your own home as a base to work from, for rest stops and refreshments. And if it all works to plan might also be a good model for the 400 zones in 24-hours of the Staminatrix. More later, or when someone takes all the Bonnyrigg zones I hold and I can get started. However, lots of setups and testing before then. Back soon.
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