I must confess to to never playing AA, so my comment was extremely toungue in cheek and the point that Fonnybone made about BF2 having it's truly golden moments is right. When everything is working; when you have your squads and a comander that not only cares but does his job too; when you know there are other squads out there either backing you up or competing for their own flag; When you have an enemy that is equal if not better playing fair and well; when everyone can get the vehicle of their choice and hold on to an experianced and reliable gunner; when all that comes together then BF2 is one of the greatest games that has ever been created.

But, it happens all to infrequently. Maybe if I had joined a clan it would be different. But I don't have the luxory of having a set timetable to my life to dedicate evenings or weekends to quality gameplay with fellow clanmates. I want to be able to pick up a game anytime and have a good one. Plus with the load times and the general shitty patching efforts and gameplay issues and lacklustre developer support BF2 just doesn't have the legs for me. But saying that . . . . . . . .

Or This was the first time I played BF2 in six months.

You could say that too.

Just keep playing with the settings you have. You will get really frustrated when you just destroyed a setup that was working for you and you cant get it back again, but that's all part of leaqrning. But once you get to a point where you know what is happening to the car and what the track is doing to the car then you can setup a car for anywhere anytime.


I just started from the beginning very rarely taking and using sets from anyone. But there does come a point (Espeically with some idiosyncrasies like the old high nose bug) when you just need a some reference material. Someone elses set might still not work for you but you can factor in some of their attributes and gop from there. Making your own setups can be a bit time consuming at times but for me that is as much a part of LFS as the raceing is.

America's Army never appealed. Well actually thats a lie. It's free, that appealed. But even the fact that it's free couldn't over come the title and content of the game. Why on earth would I want to learn how to shoot and kill my own side? Whats the point in that?

'America's Army. Now you too can learn how to endanger you own troop, place your men in the firing line and kill more of your side and your allies than the enemy. Learn how to completly underestimate the opposing side, learn how to completly destroy local infrastructure and defraud the occupied territory. Place yourself in the boots of the man on the front line praying to his god that his commander can read the map and place the arty strike where asked. Play the Body armour lottery. Will you, won't you. And as a bonus game, play guess the militia. The very people you are trying to set free are now the ones who want you dead!

Get it. It's free. America's Army. They need you. Because we killed all the rest.'

I used to run my FZR with a 40/80 split. But then I was a mouser so I needed the exit control and the engine braking.

I raced the FZR pretty much exlusivly and the setups I got for it where pretty nuetral to cope with the Mousing aspect. What I did find with it was that it was very susceptable to tyre pressure differential. If the front pressure was higher than the rear you had a more controllable rear but less stopping power. Lower front pressure you got more stopping power (Increases contact patch) but a much more twitchy rear.

I was still working on the the new patch suspension settings when I had to give up racing so I can't really add anything useful there. But from memory I used to run a fairly soft rear with bump emphasied on the front to keep the rear from stopping out. Again Anti-roll with the new patch still needed a bit of looking at but I did generally run more anti roll on the front that on the rear. Quite alot more. But then that as also track dependant. Ast-Nat I was running 100-50 front rear split on the anti-roll.

Also with mousing I had the rear toe-in dialled up to keep the arse from stepping out under power. But I was finding that I was taking that out gradually with the new patch.

Seeing what has been written about ET:QW the devs seem to be drawn from the same base as the original ET:CW. From what I can gather they seem to operate olong the same lines as Scawen and the boys do. They don't seem to be under as much pressure from a big publishing house to just churn the stuff out. So I really hope that they can stick to their guns and produce a worthy, innovative and above all cracking piece of work.

They have already made massive breakthroughs in terrain resource management and are using 'real' physics to drive the engine rather than the 'false' physics that BF2 uses. All the vehicles will drive how they should rather than how the devs think they should and they also have levels of ability depending on how you want to use them. Fly the aircraft on basic and they do basic things. Learn to fly them properly using the full range of physics properties and you can do a hel of a lot more. Wheeled vehicles will still drive even with the wheels blown of with,of course, the obvious drop in performance. The game play looks to be innovative having learnt from the original and also from other FPOLS out there.

I hope I can get a rig up and running in time to get the most from it when it eventually comes out. I hope it's as good as I want it to be.

like i said, the 'random' eliment to the .50 cal sniper rifle was an oft talked (slagged off?) about topic in the BF2 forums.

BF2 seems to be the one of the, in terms of player numbers and playability, big hitters out there at the moment. But they suffer from having to cater for the console market too. So sharing servers with Xbox users is bound to generate lag, hitbox issues and associated problems. The code is too lax and full of holes. Pc users being a slightly more deserning group as a whole need something with more grit. I really hope that Quake Wars can deliver. It seems to have the right ethos and developement community and with the ET heritage thatit should be a fps that delivers.

Ah yea. Way cool. Sharks with laser beams. And. And. And. Stuff. Big stuff. With guns. And Cheese. Need cheese. Can't have a good game without cheese.

it would make sense to develope an intergrated Aero-wheel package that could shift easily and competently between the two discaplines of aeronautics and autonautics (sic). The future of personal travel lies in that direction after all and some car/plane prototypes are already out there. Simulators could be one step ahead of the game if they could accuratly simulate the transition between flight and the mechanical grip of a tyre.

Imagine the rather funky side games you could have.

'Cause you could be this get away driver right, in the future yea. And the city you live in is like a huge three dimensional thingy where Banks and other places that your crew rob could be 600 storys up in the air as well as 40 floors below groundlevel and you gotta make your getaways by making the most of the underground, ground and air aspects of the city. The more money you earn you can upgrade your 'Aero-car' (TM. . . by me.) And 'cause the physics all rocks then it's uber realistic both in the air and on the road.

Coool.

I quite like some of the title music . . . . Is that wrong?

Check out OLGA (Online Guitar Archive) Not the best but a good resource nonetheless.

Check out Nuno Bentoncourt's 'Flight of the wounded Bumblebee'

If anyone can be arsed also check out Nightwish's version of the theme fromj Crimson Tide. If you like your guitar rock work then you'll love it. I found a vid and the music on Bearshare.

Also anything Dave Gilmour plays. I love that swooping, melodic guitar voice. Thats how a guitar should be played.

Been playing myself for over 10 years (Been playing the piano for since I was a kid. Mothers a concert pianist). Just got an accoustic atm. Need cashola to get meself a nice electric.

Plus that kid playing Air on a G string. That is virgeing on the virtuoso. I think I'm getting good and then I see something like that and just feel like chucking it all in and doing something else.

We should get a LFS band together or something.

I think, from what I gathered whilst still playing it, that many of the weapons suffer from the whole lag/prediction/hitbox issues. It was an often brought up critism on the forums and Dice had never really got to fixing it. Apparently (I used to play Sniper quite a bit) there is a way to minimize your losses and aim above-side-below-100yards behind you target but it was so counter-intuitive that I could never get the hang of it. Which is why I would quitew often switch to tanking. The splash damage from the big shells can rack up some massive scores. You just gotta watch you arse for covert.

In fact, checking out my stats, my most played characture was an engineer and the most played vehicle was tank quickly followed by the chopper.

I tell you one thing I did like about BF2. Whoever designed those maps should get a medal. A healthy balance between realism and playability. Well balanced with good implementation of choke points, sneak arounds and scale. Believable situations and locations and plenty to do for all classes. It's just a shame the game as a whole couldn't back up the brilliance in the maps.

I was addicted to BF2 for ages when it first came out. But as with any marriage I soon realised what faults lay in the game and like many marriages it was a case of give but not a hell of a lot of take. The more you play BF2 and look into it the more it appears that EA couldn't really give a huge amount for their games. It took months to sort out the BH Whoring that any dev worth their salt should have got too straight away. I'm not even sure how it got through the play testers. There was far too many wankers on the servers but I generally changed my game play to deal with them, i.e. stay away from anything that flies. I was a chopper pilot and a pretty good one too but was forever being FF'ed out of the sky by chopper whores or I could never get a gunner to stay with me. The load up times where just ludicrous, the interface clunky and ill-concieved and the add-ons and so called 'patches' where bug ridden and expensive.

But all that said, when everything worked with a squad playing well as a team and using comms effectivly it was the best game ever. A good squad and commander can take an entire map just by being effective and communicating.

It was my favorite thing in the world to be choppering and have my gunner place a TOW just where the sniper had called for it and then to lay suppressing misile fire whilst the assault guys moved up or the covert got a C4 on the defensive tank.

When it very occasionally worked it kicked arse but it just became to much of an effort to get those one in a thousand times when it did work.

I'm waiting out for a new Comp and ET: Quake Wars. That game looks to have promise.

Which view are you driving in? Side on?

Quote from tristancliffe :

Aren't you meant to have left us in peace?

I'm going. Got till the end the end of the week . . .lol.

Quote from somasleep :

Thanks Bal00!!

I saw your replay. Wow! Nice overtake. I never thought I could go into 2nd gear and take him on the inside like that. Anyway, it's really intimidating seeing how people like you drive. I feel like such a rookie but I'm improving little by little.

I notice you and others slide into curves and power through. Is that always the best way?

Just keep driving buddy. If I where you (yousound like your getting into this) I'd shell out the £24 and get S2. The drivings better, you don't get the crashfests (Well, nearly don't anyway) and people are around that will help you get the most from your driving and setup. But there is no substitute for just getting out there and racing. You only learn from the mistakes you make .. . .

Quote from tristancliffe :

JJ - Methane, the major constituent of fart is a hydrocarbon, CH4. It is perfectly viable as a fuel if you can harness enough of it. I don't know the calorific value nor the volatility of methane, or even it's knock resistance, so I can't begin to guess how useable it would be, and what quantities you'd need. Cows, for example, produce a lot of the worlds atmospheric methane content (is a cow environemntally unfriendly?), so perhaps you could run a small car on cows?

You obviously hadn't read my post . . . .

Yes, cows are (in the numbers we use them) bad for the enviroment. Some, I'm sure, can argue they are worse than cars . . . but I reckon it's a close run thing . . .

I can generally tell when My own car understeers becuase I loose feeling through the steering wheel. In front wheel drive cars you still have the transmission doing funny things to the system, but in rear wheel drive you just got the tyres on the road. When you accelerate the front of the car gets lighter, thus makeing the steering lighter, thus loosing feel and sensation. So wouldn't that mean that any FFB in an acceleration understeer moment would be a lack of feel rather than anything else?

Although understeer under braking is a different kettle of mad frogs altogether . . .

lol. Good point actually. I'll have to remember that one.

Awwwww. *sniff*

I, er . . . .

I, um . .. . .

It's, er . . . .

I can't . . . .. . Er.

I'm speechless.

Quote from Becky Rose :

I could recycle the coffee mug on my desk, but i'll probably put it into the dish washer and get out a fresh one... Another milligram of carbon enters the atmosphere...

I think that is the proverbial nail on the head . . . .

We all whinge and whine about what the government is and isn't doing. What it should be doing and why it isn't doing it, all of which are valid points, but at the end of the day the buck stops here. I am very aware atm of what my actions are doing. I'm turning more lights of, at work, at home. I'm not flushing the toilet as often as I used to, i it's brown flush it down, if it's yellow be mellow. I'm walking to a lot more places and a lot further. I'm turning heaters of earlier, only heatring the water once a day. I'm trying to do the little things because I can't do teh big things.

If we all did the little things, then big things will happen. If we changed out buying habits, big business will listen. If we swamped the councils with compostable refuse, the governements will listen. If we recycle and run a 'greener' home then our kids will listen.

We have to do our own thing as much as telling others to do it too. Thats the way you get change.

A major point for me atm is food. How far it's travelled, how it's grown, what happening to the local enviroment. I don't eat fish, unless I've caught it myself or it's been hook and line caught. Those massive factory ships are at sea for months at a time and run at about 80-95% bycatch. Which is useless, dead and thrown back in the sea. They destroy the ocean floor in the maritime equavilent of Strip Mining and we have no fish left . . . Quite literally, we have no fish left.

I don't eat beef anywhere near as much as I used too. Beef is the most energy intensive animal produce out there. It takes about 30,000litres (Could be wrong there, buts it's a huge amount anyway) of water to put one Steak on your plate. Cows are a major . . . . yes a major contributer of methane, a far more harmful and reactive 'greenhouse' gas than CO2. I don't agree with cutting down the amazon rainforest to make way for bad pastures for emmaciated cows destined for Mcdonalds Beef Paties. If I buy beef, I buy british, organic, good tasting, homegrown cow. I don't eat at MCDonalds, I don't buy cheap supermarket shit meat.

It's stuff like that that can change the world. Just take more thought into how you go about your daily lives, make these things a habit and actually stop yourself from partaking or doing something.

Thats the way we save this green and blue home of ours. There ain't any others you know. This planet, it's the only one. And we can't get back what we've lost.

-

And in regards to the Nuclear power issue, doesn't it cost more in energy to make a nuclear power station than you actually harvest from one?

Well guys.


Come the end of the week I shall be saying goodbye to LFS and the associated detritus.

Due to touring commitments, A brand new ex partner, and having no computer or broadband where ever I end up calling home I shall not be able to service my LFS addiction.

Your a great bunch of guys, the game is a great game with a great, honourable and innovative concept and the racing has been second to none.

And thus, I take my bow and face the final curtain.

'Cause, now the end is near, of this I'm certain.

But . . . I did it my way.


I'll be boshing around untill the end of the week, Matinee friday and saturday at 2.30. Sourvineer programmes available for a modest fee . .

So it's good bye from him, and it's good bye from me . . .

Hiii . . . Thankyou.

P.S. Anyone fancy giving me a job in the gaming industry? Don't have to pay much, just enough to have a connection, aliean machine and a tin of beans. I can't programme, or do any fancy graphical stuff. Nor am I shit hot webber. But I can talk. On and on and on and on. I'm good at that. And I can hit things with an hammer. I'm good at that too.

I'm waffling again. Shoot me. Shoot me now!

Laters kids.

Na, hubcab. From a 75 chevy impaler. The one with the funny conical bit in the middle. I should think some kids are fooling around on the estate past the grandstand.

Just go round and show 'em your gun.

you havn't seen mine yet . . .

People make the skins they want to make . . . if they want tobacco on their cars thats just fine by me . . . Now, if they paint their car red and stick prancing horses all over it that is another matter. That is just wrong. That I deem vulgar and offensive . . .