I would be interested in this post when it’s convenient. Some things have been stated pretty clearly and Monumental is not significantly changing code yet, I wouldn’t expect changes in those areas.
Each world server is independent in basically all ways. Timers or other things on one server aren’t affected by activities on other worlds. The race timers are affected by completion of meteors, with some lesser impact from long planet cooldowns. There is also a player timer and a world timer.
It seems one skilled player can push the timers down to 20 seconds or less for an entire planet within a couple hours of active hunting. Their personal timer could then get below 10s per meteor.
It takes a few (no data from me on threshold) incomplete for the timers to start moving noticeably back up, then they move back up increasingly fast - some sort of curve here it seems.
IIRC you have to make it to the meteor, then lose it, for it to lower the timers, Otherwise (if you spawn them but don’t make it to them) they will continue to decrease on the slower cooldown curve.
I don’t think they removed the personal timer with the addition of the gleamtrunks because it wasn’t presented as such and the whole group hunt method and “don’t finish the meteor we’re hunting sacs” dynamic seems to have been an emergent thing.
However, the personal timer may be affecting the group times. If you have a leader or someone who is fast or staying ahead triggering regions I would expect a more orderly progression vs. a less controlled/organized situation with random people hitting center first - it could really cloud any data being collected (or even just the ‘feel’ of it) on timers.
If you’re willing to share any observations/conclusions there are those of us that would love to hear them. Please take the time when you have the chance.