I apologize for the lack of videos. it's not just parenting; it gets really hot on the second floor of my house, which is where my PC is located. So when I get a chance to play it's much more comfortable to do so downstairs in the living room on the PS3. I could play on my wife's computer, but it's not set up to record video of my games.
So it's been all about Gran Turismo 5. I am glad that I don't have to go crazy getting the game's various licenses, as it's a pain in the ass and takes away from the actual racing (I'm sure there are benefits to acquiring the licenses; perhaps access to certain races or cars that otherwise can't be acquired, and certainly 100% completion).
I finally have a car that I want to use for the Gran Turismo World Championship race series. I had originally planned to use my 2010 Camaro SS with the racing modification, but that car will not be sufficient. Instead I will be using a racing modified 2009 Corvette ZR-1. I ran the first race with the ZR-1 I bought for JollyChaos and won handily, despite the fact that it had serious issues with understeer (sheer power won the day). So I bought another ZR-1 (a 185k credit high-end sports car) and applied the racing mod (another 385k credits, ouch! But it includes some upgrades, such as the full customization transmission and suspension) and then the remaining upgrades to make this an 880-horsepower monster.
Racing modifications add some performance upgrades, reduce weight (more so than the typical weight reduction upgrades), and repaint the car to make it look like a professional race car; it's only available on a fairly limited number of models. As I have a preference for American cars with a muscle car heritage (the 2010 Camaro SS, 1969 Camaro Z28, 1970 Challenger R/T, and several Corvettes are eligible), I went with the 'vette.
Lucky for me, there haven't been any cars in the used lot that I really wanted (almost bit on a 1998 Ford Escort rally car, but I generally stick to classic muscle cars), so I was able to just focus on making money and upgrading the Corvette.
JollyChaos' ZR-1 actually came about when I planned to buy him the Lamborghini Aventador, but turns out that that car is paid DLC which is no longer available (I imagine you can still get it if you buy the XL Edition, I have the standard edition). After some consideration he chose the ZR-1, which then led me to decide that I needed one myself (I could easily with the GT championship with my GT-R or R8, but without the racing mod they would look rather out of place).
On another note, Redshirt Brigade is back for Extra Life, but we will be live streaming the weekend after Extra Life Day due to the recently-married mysterysquick going on his honeymoon. We will be broadcasting on his Twitch channel starting at 8 AM on November 14. For the first time we will actually be at his (new) apartment, so there will be some logistics that need to be worked out (previous years have been at my house).
Friday, July 31, 2015
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Finally, a new update!
OK, four months between updates is bad.
I mentioned on one of my videos that my daughter (now 1) is very active, so I can't really just leave her to go jump on my computer. My 6-year-old son can keep an eye on her, but he's not always great about it and working the overnight shift means I have very little energy. I may be going through a shift change in the near future so we'll see how that affects things.
Anyhow, when I have been playing it's been Grand Theft Auto V, as evidenced by my last several videos. Twitch has a new direct export to YouTube feature, which is why the live streams I uploaded lack my usual intro. The annoyance being that it wasn't able to upload it all at once, hence the 15 minute bits.
I recently acquired Gran Turismo 5 for PS3, as anyone who follows my Facebook page knows. God I forgot how much I loved that series (though I probably could have just read my old blog post about it as a reminder). It was rather funny trying to drive a car in GT5 (a fairly accurate simulator) after spending so much time playing GTA V (and its arcade-y driving model). But I made the necessary adjustments. I am by no means a great driver, but I'm better than I used to be.
One of my missions in Gran Turismo is to collect every classic muscle car possible. Here is my list so far:
1969 Chevy Camaro Z28
1970 Dodge Challenger R/T
1970 Dodge Charger 440 R/T
1970 Plymouth Superbird
1970 Chevy Chevelle SS 454
1971 Ford Mustang Mach 1
1966 Shelby Cobra 427
1962 Buick Special
Of course, old school muscle cars have a tendency to be very poor track cars (though they get better with tuning and upgrades) so for races outside the confines of 1979 and earlier, I have a few favorites:
2010 Chevy Camaro SS (700 hp, all upgrades)
2010 Subaru Impreza WRX STi (508 hp)
2009 Nissan GT-R SpecV (850 hp, all upgrades)
Recently I also purchased a 2009 Audi R8 5.2L FSI Quattro for races requiring German makes. I'm not fond of it as the rear mounted engine gives it a certain quirkiness at times (i.e. I spin the hell out on it a lot, not easy to do on an AWD vehicle). It's mostly upgraded (870+ hp) needing only the weight reduction and chassis reinforcement upgrades..
The Camaro was really my go-to vehicle for quite some time, up until I reached the Expert series races. There's a series for turbo-powered cars with a race on the High Speed Ring track (very easy) that rakes in $36k for a win, against cars in the 300+ hp range. The Camaro is a normally aspirated vehicle (albeit with a supercharger) that's ineligible, while my modestly upgraded WRX sedan was already running over 400 hp. I made sure to upgrade the suspension and transmission (the full customize transmission is one of the most important upgrades for your vehicle; for money I took my Camaro to the Supercar championship race on Daytona. $17k per win!) and went nuts. This was around the time I decided to get the GT-R, as it's one of the best cars for the money imo.
At some point I'll tackle the Gran Turismo and Polyphony Digital championships, but I haven't decided what car to run yet. I want one with a racing modification, or at least a full-on race car, but we'll see what unfolds. I need to stop blowing money on muscle cars for a while though.
I mentioned on one of my videos that my daughter (now 1) is very active, so I can't really just leave her to go jump on my computer. My 6-year-old son can keep an eye on her, but he's not always great about it and working the overnight shift means I have very little energy. I may be going through a shift change in the near future so we'll see how that affects things.
Anyhow, when I have been playing it's been Grand Theft Auto V, as evidenced by my last several videos. Twitch has a new direct export to YouTube feature, which is why the live streams I uploaded lack my usual intro. The annoyance being that it wasn't able to upload it all at once, hence the 15 minute bits.
I recently acquired Gran Turismo 5 for PS3, as anyone who follows my Facebook page knows. God I forgot how much I loved that series (though I probably could have just read my old blog post about it as a reminder). It was rather funny trying to drive a car in GT5 (a fairly accurate simulator) after spending so much time playing GTA V (and its arcade-y driving model). But I made the necessary adjustments. I am by no means a great driver, but I'm better than I used to be.
One of my missions in Gran Turismo is to collect every classic muscle car possible. Here is my list so far:
1969 Chevy Camaro Z28
1970 Dodge Challenger R/T
1970 Dodge Charger 440 R/T
1970 Plymouth Superbird
1970 Chevy Chevelle SS 454
1971 Ford Mustang Mach 1
1966 Shelby Cobra 427
1962 Buick Special
Of course, old school muscle cars have a tendency to be very poor track cars (though they get better with tuning and upgrades) so for races outside the confines of 1979 and earlier, I have a few favorites:
2010 Chevy Camaro SS (700 hp, all upgrades)
2010 Subaru Impreza WRX STi (508 hp)
2009 Nissan GT-R SpecV (850 hp, all upgrades)
Recently I also purchased a 2009 Audi R8 5.2L FSI Quattro for races requiring German makes. I'm not fond of it as the rear mounted engine gives it a certain quirkiness at times (i.e. I spin the hell out on it a lot, not easy to do on an AWD vehicle). It's mostly upgraded (870+ hp) needing only the weight reduction and chassis reinforcement upgrades..
The Camaro was really my go-to vehicle for quite some time, up until I reached the Expert series races. There's a series for turbo-powered cars with a race on the High Speed Ring track (very easy) that rakes in $36k for a win, against cars in the 300+ hp range. The Camaro is a normally aspirated vehicle (albeit with a supercharger) that's ineligible, while my modestly upgraded WRX sedan was already running over 400 hp. I made sure to upgrade the suspension and transmission (the full customize transmission is one of the most important upgrades for your vehicle; for money I took my Camaro to the Supercar championship race on Daytona. $17k per win!) and went nuts. This was around the time I decided to get the GT-R, as it's one of the best cars for the money imo.
At some point I'll tackle the Gran Turismo and Polyphony Digital championships, but I haven't decided what car to run yet. I want one with a racing modification, or at least a full-on race car, but we'll see what unfolds. I need to stop blowing money on muscle cars for a while though.
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