Gran Turismo 5

[Fuddle]

the ferrari f1 seasonals are probably the best thing in the whole game.
i absolutely loved doing them. so tense. i think i only won them by a second or two, apart from the american one, where i seemed to blow them all away.

i should probably go back and try to win the fgt championship again, but it takes such a long time. hopefuly we'll get another update soon with mid championship/endurance saving.

nice to see some fun seasonals back too with the lamborghini races. they're really good, especially compared to bloody pickup trucks!

[Bassman]

I am getting seriously fed up with the speed at which the game manages to crawl between sections. A new Remote Race takes upwards of 15 minutes to get started.

It got to be a bit of a joke just now when I was trying to borrow an X2010 from RogsR34UK2. It took at least 5 minutes (probably nearer 10) before it managed to collect the Profiles of the (relatively) few accounts that are on its Friends List. I selected RogsR34UK1 by which time the UK2 cars were there and I borrowed the X2010. The game definitely was under the impression that the car was coming from UK1 (I checked the confirmation message carefully) and happily allowed me to borrow it.

I have given up trying to do any Remote Racing from RogsR34UK (my main) as the Friends List is almost full and I dread to think how long things are liable to take to start from it.

I am still trying to get RogsR3UK3 to Lv 35 (it is now abour 320K experience short). But the aggravation factor almost outweighs the advantage of being able to do Remote Racing using it.

[Darwock]

That doesn't happen with me - probably something to do with the size of your profiles/friend list?

I've been running my B spec driver in the FGT series. He won all of them up until Monza, which was the first wet race. This was an odd one , because he built up a massive lead at the start, and by the time all drivers pitted to change to inters (started on wets) he was able to do that and still come out first with a 30 second lead. Unfortunately I chose to over-rule the refuelling %age, which caused me problems later. Anyway, despite this early promise he mysteriously lost pace half way through the second stint. He had less fuel than the others, his tyres were in good nick.. still high strength and mental strength. No reason for it at all. The lead reduced to about 5 seconds, and then he just started spinning off all over the place. Dropped back to 12th. I thought it might be a change in the weather, but none of the others came in to pit or anything. Then I started running out of fuel and had to pit again. All chance of victory lost.

So he was crawling around in last place, a minute down. On lap 33 of 34 all the other drivers chose to pit. Mine tried to but I cancelled it. He was too far behind to catch up just from that, but on the final lap all the cars that had pitted RAN OUT OF FUEL. lol! They all started crawling at a snails pace, unfortunately it came too late for my guy as he was still spinning off randomly but I passed enough to get back up to 6th place.

Currently half way through Suzuka, another wet race. Started on inters and within 5 laps of starting everyone came in and changed to dry weather tires. The weather effects on track have not changed at all, it's still raining heavily as far as I can tell. It ought to be made clearer to us when a tyre change is required, because there are no visual clues whatsoever. All I can do is let the driver choose. Maybe they should add in weather predictions or something?

edit- something definitely screwed up with the logic. On the penultimate lap of the Suzuka race every driver (including mine) came into the pits. As soon as he exited the pitlane the pit indicator went on again (as it did for the others too) and sure enough they all pitted on the final lap as well. Ridiculous.

For anyone who is wondering that race took an hour to complete on B spec, and it was the sixth race in the championship. So six hours required if you want to do it this way! I assume that is actually longer than the majority of the endurance races.

[Fuddle]

absolutely loved that final race in the lamborghini.

really thrashed it on the first couple of laps, and managed to get about 13 seconds lead by the time the sun went down. then my lap times dropped by about 5 seconds. the last couple of laps in the pitch black are so tense. trying to remember the track, and hoping not to cock up.
i think it took me 5 attempts to win it. brilliant stuff.
more of this kind of thing please.

[Supergoal]

Wow you guys are still playing it! I haven't really played it for over a month now with other stuff being released that needed attention. I think my problem is that I have a force feedback wheel that I bought specifically for it, but getting it out and setting it up just puts me off from booting up the game from time to time, even though it's amazing.

[Darwock]

I'll be playing it until it's finished, maybe even after that if the seasonals keep coming. As for setting up, well there's no law says you can't still use a controller. Especially for the B-spec stuff, you don't even need a wheel!

[Bassman]

Tried deleting all but three sub accounts on an account (to check the time between races) and with the fewer Friends I reduced the time between races to about 10 minutes (rather than about 20 minutes on an account with more Friends).

Having now got my US and UK3 accounts up to Lv 35 I am now working on my Japanese account which is now getting on towards Lv 29.

Not really playing this a huge amount. For some reason the number of Paints and Museum Cards seems to reduce to 9 even though I try to make sure I start the game every day on every account to receive them. Today I did a Manual Save on every account so I will be interested to see what happens after the reset.

[Darwock]

If I log on every night right after midnight, it drops the paint/card count by one every time. It's like I'm not logging in at all. If I log in every day at noon then it goes up or remains at 10.

Also, I don't get my sending allowance back if it's just turned midnight, or in the early hours of the morning. I can only do it around mid-day. Something odd about the game clock I think.

[Darwock]

Got my Penniless trophy, as expected the easy way is just to buy one of the dream classics (XJ-13, Mk.IV, Ferrari '67) as their price is equal to the maximum cash you can hold.

I've also finished everything up to the endurance series on B spec, and done half of extreme on A spec. Seen the extended ending movie, all in all it feels like I'm approaching the end even though the truth is I'm far from it.

[Supergoal]

Darwock,
Perhaps if you can make some time for a few online races before you pack the game up let me know.
Online can be quite fun.

[SUMIRE]

Darwock, not sure about multiple drivers as I only ever use one (even on the Endurances I've done). That way the driver gets all the experience. On Endurances I think the swap over is automatic.

Sumire, I am Lv 35 A spec and have still not attempted the FGT races (the length of the race and the fact you can't save between them is enough to put me off). That plus having problems with handling the FGT. I even only did three of the Ferrari F1 Seasonals (on the fourth I spun out at the end of the 9th lap of 10 and gave up!).

Yeah I attempted them again and kind of gave up, you put loads of effort in then one mistake and its over. I've not even tried the B-Spec stuff, not really sure what you have to do, I'm going to read up on it today sometime. I just wanted to complete all the A-Spec races, apart from the endurance as thats just crazy.

[Darwock]

It seems to me that the potential of B spec events is only realised in the endurance races. I'm running the 4 hour MX5 race now, and it's bloody brilliant. I'm having to watch the timing monitor to make sure my driver is running at the right pace, managing his strength and his tyres. My first driver (actually my best) was struggling on sports hards and dropping back, so I pitted him and switched to a fresh driver on softs - sent him back out and he was able to reclaim the lead. Now i'm watching carefully to make sure he doesn't screw up.

This is so great, it's a pity the time requirements are so huge as once I go back to work I'll only be able to run these races unattended (and that means making sure I have an overpowered car).

[Bassman]

V1.09 is up. This fixes the Nurburgring Glitch.

OCD is updated so if you want a Kei car there are a few available. Also some Muscle cars. Bought a low mileage Black Suzuki Wagon R RR and a rather nice low mileage Rallye Red Superbird. I rather like the new Veyron colour combination (for some reason). Back to the low mileage Orange FGT. I presume these colours are only on the EU OCD.

Final update is on the Seasonals. All the races have been extended until 30/4/2011, which gives PD a few weeks off and maybe time to implement the in Endurance Race saves.

[SUMIRE]

Has anyone ever seen the Le'mans Mazda RX8 for sale? I've seen it racing but never for sale.

[Darwock]

I have, must have been in the UCD.