Greboth

Phil I think your table is broken as that clearly can't be correct 😆 I can't see me managing to claw back enough on Kiwi to make up for the missed race but it's going to be fun trying anyway.

Yup, I think we need to make a pact to never let something like this happen again 🤣 I’m annoyed at myself as I cost myself second and maybe even the win hitting the wall on the exit of the last corner. Still Phil played a blinder and while I thought it was a mistake to go for it the whole race, especially after the time he lost in the pits but he soon made it back up and obviously it paid off with getting the win.

Agreed it was a great race, it was less than a tenth separating us in quali and that pace carried on in to the race. It's a shame my penalty ruined it somewhat as it was going to be impossible for me to win but the battle was still great. The Mazda's were great fun too. I'm not sure what boost and/or slipsteam settings you had but I think they were perfect @phil bottleas you couldn't insta-catch people but the tow was powerful. Lee in the Gr2's at Monza was a surprise too, absolutely smashed it and was uncatchable! A bit of practise to have that pace in league races would be awesome.

I knew the Beetle was a thirsty bitch but didn’t realise it was that bad. A shame it ruined what was a good race. But as you said you had a lot going on last week so I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself mate. It’s good to have a Kiwi for the competition but it was nice having a week off to have a more relaxed race.

l can’t believe I made such a noob mistake but these things happen. After that though it was a good race trying to catch back up so third wasn’t a bad recovery drive. 1 more lap and I would have had Phil too but thatyhow these things go. Looking forward to next week and not crashing myself out on lap 1. Also, @JBR-Kiwi isn’t it about time your Mrs dropped the sprog so you miss a week or 2 😅

I think this shows that this place is far more than just a clan, it is a community, a group of friends. And no, this isn’t Lee alternate account. So you don’t have to apologise for anything my dude. You’re not the life of the party currently, so what? It’s better that you reflect how you feel than surpress it and cover it all up. You’ll get back to your ‘normal’ self one day but until that day, don’t fee you need to fake it and know we’re all supporting you.

Got the wrong week for a last minute holiday but I’ll be back next week so we’ll have 5 🤣 I think I know who my manufacturer will be but depends on if I can find any good paint jobs for them.

Diddums has it right, your CPU is still good. Just make sure DOCP (AMD’s XMP) is enabled for your ram as ram speed helps a lot with ryzen chips. Add a better GPU and you should be good for a while. in the future, depending on your mobo, you can add a later gen ryzen cpu but I wouldn’t do that now as it’s unnecessary.

Well it helps that they're 3d models and not drawings 😛 I've certainly done drawings similar to this, I think I posted a couple when I started this thread. But God no, I wouldn't want to do that 7 drawings of the same car to that level of detail!

I can't argue with you on that though I have to say, personally, I'm a sucker cars of the 80's and early 90's. Though now I think of it, every car I love from that era are all Group A touring cars or Group B rally cars 😄

So the Artura went by the way side as I got mired in the details. So I started something else instead, a 1961 Jaguar E-type - easily one of the most beautiful cars ever made. And I haven't forgotten you @TurboR56Mini I'm just trying something special for the 300SL but I'm getting there

A few from my day out yesterday Any finally, my favourite of the day 😄

Interesting they've shown wet weather racing off in that preview. I just hope they this comes at release unlike Sport where it got added years later and only to 2? tracks. I also hope they implement it better than Sport where they've made the track look wet and the wet tyres have shit grip but drive a 'wet' track on slicks and it's fine.

So silly season is fully underway with drivers coming, going and switching team. I think most people have seen about Bottas is leaving Merc to move to Alfa Romeo. I always find it slightly odd when a driver leaves a top team to go to a midfield / back of the grid as Bottas will have even less chance of scoring points than he did winning at Merc. Still, I suppose, they're racers to the core so will take any seat they can to continue racing. Though I think it's a shame to see Kimi going, he's very marmite but I fall on the side of loving him. His general no fucks given attitude is great in the very stuck up, media centric corporate world that modern F1 is. Obviously the big news is Russell to Mercedes next year which is fantastic news. Russell seems a star of the future but I do feel it's a year too late as with the new regs next year, I think it would have been better to get him acclimatised to the team and their practices this year ready for next year. In hindsight this would potentially also be a benefit of fighting the Red Bulls as, I like most, think Russell is faster than Bottas. Still hopefully Merc have designed a good car for next year as I'd love to see Hamilton and Russell fighting for the WDC. And finally, announced today is Albon will back and taking Russell's seat at Williams. I still can't make my mind up about Albon though, on the one had he tanked hard in the Red Bull but in junior series, other F1 seats and his stint in DTM he's been pretty good. Added to that, take someone like Gasly, also tanked hard at Red Bull but is killing it now with Alpha Tauri or even Perez who isn't having a great year in the Red Bull. It does make you wonder if it's something to do with the team or the car is so focused on Max that no-one else can drive it. Either way, good to see him back and to see how he does. We've still got some of the 'old' guard around but the future of F1 is exciting with Russell, Norris, Sainz and LeClerc all being young and in top (or top-ish) teams.

While it has seen a significant rise in PC players recently, I think some of the recent rise in popularity is last months launch on consoles. Though as I understand it, the original PC release was different somehow and it got quite the update alongside the launch on consoles.

Anyone else playing this? I missed the launch of it last month on console but downloaded it over the weekend and I'm loving it. For those that don't know what it is then the title pretty much covers it. It's a free to play 4v4 arena based FPS that very much resembles Halo; the standard armour is very Masterchief, teams are red v blue, the standard loadout is (typically) an auto rifle and a battle rifle with special weapons dotted around the map like snipers or a laser weapon (can't remember the name but it's a spartan laser) or a baseball bat looking this that's a Gravity hammer. Not to mention gamemodes like Oddball, SWAT and shotty snipers which have been ripped from Halo. However it also comes with Portals, that work just like in Portal; fire 2 and you can (or anyone else) can go through them and to quote Portal, speedy thing goes in speedy thing comes out, which makes portal jumping across the map great fun. You can also shoot through portals making giving them a tactical element to taking points in domination or king of the hill to just flanking enemies in TDM. A good video review showing off some gameplay too; Gamemodes available are; Team Deathmatch — 4v4: Kill the enemy team to score points. The first team to 50 wins. Free for all - 6 player free for all, first person to 25 kills wins. King of the Hill — 4v4: Score points by standing inside the hill. The first team to 200 points wins. Domination — 4v4: Score points by capturing and controlling the three hills. Once a hill is captured, you don’t need to stay inside of it. The first team to 600 points wins. VIP — 4v4: Each team has a designated VIP. Kill the VIP to score points. The VIP cannot spawn portals, but they have double the health. Team Oddball — 4v4: Grab the ball and run! Control the ball to score points. The player with the ball cannot shoot weapons, but they are free to go through portals and melee enemies to death with the Oddball. The first team to 200 points wins. Team Swat — 4v4: Kill the enemy team to score points. Headshots are insta-kills. Team Shotty Snipers — 4v4: Kill the enemy team to score points. The first team to 50 wins. Gun Game — Free-for-All with Six Players: Kill enemies to advance your gun. Melee kill enemies to decrease their gun tier. Race to the final gun. The first person to get 22 kills with the mode’s 22 weapon tiers wins. Showdown — 3v3: Eliminate the enemy team to win the round. Loadouts are randomized each round. No respawning. The first team to score 6 wins. Takedown — 3v3: Eliminate the enemy team to win each round. Spawn times increase with each death. The first team to score 4 points wins. When queuing you pick which games modes you want to play which I've only excluded FFA and it keeps it more interesting as you don't get bored stuck in one game mode. The standout for me has been Takedown though, it's a twist on a competitive 3v3 mode but the added element of trying to hunt down the last player before the respawn timer counts down to spawn their team mates back or, on the other side, trying to hide so you team mates can come back is great. From memory, the initial respawn time is 5 seconds but the more you die this extends up to 30 seconds so rounds are still over pretty quickly. It's not all perfect though, the UI and menus are rubbish! Luckily as anything offered through buying the season pass or coins is purely cosmetic you don't really need to worry about navigating menu's too much. I'm also not a fan of a couple of the maps (High fall and Olympus) as they're a little too cluttered with too many halls, walls and rooms to have a decent flow to them. There also aren't very many maps (10 I think) so that does limit the game somewhat. As a final note, and most of the reason I mention this game, it also has the option for private lobbies. Private lobbies can be up to 5v5 and, from a quick look, be any of the team game modes above. So if nothing else, could be something to try on an FG Friday as being free no-one can say they don't have it.

I've got the standard PS5 version ordered and most probably will be the version I'll stick with. I can understand getting the gold edition if you're on last gen and looking to upgrade at some point but harder to justify getting the gold version to be able to play last gen. I did think about getting the ultimate version as if it's good I'd be looking at getting the season passes however I've been burned by it before. So think I'll wait and see if the game is good first as if it costs a bit more it shouldn't be too much extra.

I'm easy either way with the manufacturer. Though I liked Kiwi's idea from last week of us having a randomly chosen manufacturer or having you lot choose what we use 😄 It would certainly mix it up a bit.

Nice calendar and looking forward to it. Given it’s not long to the season, are we doing manufacturers again?

I believe that advice should also extend to PC’s 🤣

On that note, I didn’t realise for a while that a long press on the mute button mutes everyone in the chat. Interesting, I prefer the PS5 way of doing things especially in that quick menu does cover up half the screen you can still see the game you’re in. It just seems more intuitive to me that a quick press is the quick menu, long press is the full menu.

I usually end up having a week or 2 off work at the end of Feb to use the last of my leave so that is perfect timing for me. Loved HZD so this is a day 1 purchase for me.

Update time 🙂 Matt continues to work on his castle is (currently) the biggest build in the little FG village. Though Mike has started outlining a build on top of the hill next door. I think he said with the intention of maybe joining it in to Matt's castle which would make it a pretty big build. While the house on the hill which, I think, was built by James and Lee has also gained an extension of a tower. Jordie has decided to move a bit closer than his first base so has moored his Dreamboat on the river at the foot of Mike's work in progress The storage room has finally got an outside too, I decided to go with something that leaves no doubt as to what the building is for 😄 And lastly we've also gained a villager trading hall next door to the storage Currently it has 8 prisoners...I mean volunteers in captivity, 4 farmers to trade crops for emeralds one each for wheat, beetroot, potatoes and carrots. Though they all do melons and pumpkins which is the easiest as they're both can be farmed automatically. I've done some trading so we're starting to build up a supply of emeralds in the storage room. The other 4 are enchanted books and the sign above their heads tells you what each sells. I've also traded with them and left a supply of each book in the chests above their heads. Each villager has been zombified and cured so should be offering most things at a rate of 1 emerald. If the figure is higher it's because they've been traded with recently and if you wait a day or 2 in game their prices should come back down. Currently have trades for; Mending (armour and tools get repaired as you gain XP) Impaling 4 (I think there's an impaling 5 but two impaling 4 books can be combined should anyone want this) Looting 3 (Gives you better / more loot when killing passive or hostile mobs) Aqua Affinity (goes on your helmet and allows you mine faster under water) Fire Protection 4 (exactly what it says on the tin, protects you from fire so you take less damage if you're set on fire. Best combined with Protection, Blast Protection and Projectile Protection but we don't have them yet) Infinity (goes on your bow and means you only need 1 arrow in your inventory to fire an infinite number of arrows) On the list still to get; Unbreaking 3 (tools and armour wear out slower) Efficiency 5 (tools mine quicker) Fortune 3 (get more drops when mining ores) Silk Touch (get the block you mine, stone won't turn in to cobblestone etc. and you can also mine glass and other breakable blocks) Sharpness (goes on sword or axe and increases damage) Protection (goes on your armour and does exactly what it says) Blast Protection (goes on your armour and does exactly what it says) Projective Protection (goes on your armour and also does what it says) Feather Falling (you can fall further without losing health or lose less health if you fall a long way) Respiration (Stay under water longer) Depth Strider (Move faster in water) Smite 5 (goes on your sword or axe and does extra damager to undead mobs; zombies, skeletons, drowned, wither skeletons and the wither boss) Knockback (goes on your sword and maybe your axe but knocks enemies back when you hit them - great for creepers as it can knock them out of exploding range) Fire Aspect (goes on your weapons and sets mobs on fire when you hit them) Flame (same as fire aspect above but for your bow) Power (goes on your bow and increases arrow damage) By my count that is 21 enchants so with 4 farmers, we will have 25 villagers. So while I think I've covered the important enchants, we have 7 slots spare if there's any you want that I have missed. Any spare slots at the end, I'll probably fill with tool/weapon smiths to save us always having use diamonds to make tools and weapons.