Most liked posts in thread: Sim racing: PC, PS3, XBox, Wii

My PSN ID is am0ebah (with an "h" at the end and a numeral ZERO in the middle) b/c I apparently signed up a long time ago to whatever the PS2 "insider's" club was, and that automatically got assigned to PSN when I got a PS3...

Anyway, I'm in the middle of Level 19 on A-Spec, and I think Level 4 on B-Spec, which I hate, but seems like the way to get some unusual cars...

Like the Mazda Furai Concept, which is a monster!

Jerry loaned me a really nice VW Lupo Cup car so I could complete the A-Spec Pro series Lupo Challenge - I was checking the UCD (Used Car Dealer) every three game days to make sure I didn't miss one if it showed up... Never did. After Jerry loaned me his, I won a Lupo, and in the few hours I played since early last night, I've seen THREE Lupo's in the UCD! I called it "ornery" programming in a Facebook post last night, and that's exactly what it is.

I think I've completed my IC license level (bronzes and silvers), but I'm not positive... I'm usually pretty beat when I get a chance to "drive" lately, so I don't enjoy getting frustrated with those.

Last couple of sessions, I've been "grinding" for credits on the Pro Series British Lightweight Challenge - mostly London - with a used Lotus Elise that I fixed up pretty nice... The London course is only about 3 minutes with this car, and yields > $25,000 credits each time. I'm pretty smooth with this car and circuit now...

I too received the Stealth Mercedes SLS AMG for pre-ordering, and indeed it is a VERY useful car.

I also got the five Chrome-Line cars for buying the Collector's Edition of the game, and they are fine, but not amazing. (Still haven't put any miles on any but the BMW and the Lambo.)

First car I really beefed up was the '05 MCS. Got a nice yellow paint chip from somewhere, that's fairly close to Liquid Yellow, I think mine is somewhere right around 275 HP, and it feels about right. It's a blast on the London streets course as well. If only it were a convertible...



Second car I worked on was the VW Bus. I think I have THE most tricked-out microbus there is, and it's still s...l...o...w... But tons of fun. Here it is on the Corkscrew:



..and here it is in Photo Mode:



I also admit to spoofing the system a bit, and signing up a family member with an early December birth date in the year 1969, and was awarded a Gulf GT40 racecar for my efforts! Could NOT have been sweeter. Use the other account to test car gifting, and to stock up on my favorite paint chips.

Also won a very balanced 1983 Honda Civic MUGEN racecar, which has been very fun and worthwhile to drive, and I picked up a 1999 Subaru Impreza Coupe WRX STi from the UCD in black, and driving it on some of the older Original tracks from earlier versions of Gran Turismo really brought back some good memories... "In Real Life" a decade ago, I purchased a 1999 Subaru Impreza Coupe 2.5RS new as a result of how it handled in Gran Turismo and GT2!





(Wow, who is that handsome devil?...)


I managed to grab an early 60's E-Type Jaguar from the UCD, and a 1987 Mercury Cougar XR7, which I'm saving for folks who love those cars - haven't put a mile on them, and I've picked up a bunch of cars I'm interested in hot-rodding to see how they run sometime, but I think my favorite car, and the biggest surprise in the game to me, is the 1969 Corvette StingRay Convertible, which no matter what kind of mods it gets, remains incredibly well-balanced and easy to drive. It's got 500+HP now and lots of goodies, and is amazingly versatile in the A-Spec challenges. I can't believe all of the races it qualifies for. Very nice.

I'd be playing right now, but I'm watching my 2 and 1/2 year boy tonight while Mommy has a girls' night out, and I don't want to wake him. He hit the hay about a half hour ago, and if he hears the Racing Rig, he'll try to get up and start racing - yeah, he likes to work the steering while I work the pedals.. Actually completed a lap in the go-kart without hitting a wall! That's my boy!

Here he is a year and a half ago - yeah about 1 year old, working the wheel while watching live F1 racing at our old apartment:



Anyway, GT5 is a blast. It's far from perfect, and in fact seems to be pretty seriously flawed if not outright broken in a few places, but the stuff that was done right was done really right, and it's a real dream for car fans.

By the way, SONY has released three patches for the game since it was released on Nov. 24th. There have been promises to fix most of the things that bug me, so I'm pretty happy about it. I think one of the biggest things will be to convert all of the "standard" cars - available at the UCD - to "premium", which means they will look real purty in the photo mode, will be able to have aftermarket wheels, will be susceptible to crash damage, and will have full interiors. I think the ability to change the stock wheels is what appeals to me most.

Anyway... I'm glad Jerry posted here first... If you're on the fence about getting this, you should do it!

_Dave_

 

You can't change a birthday, but you can add a new PSN account with a new birthday... The new account must have a different name and email address.

I was just messing around taking more pix in Photo Tour mode... pretty cool, but I'm too beat to xfer them to USB stick now. I'll post some soon.

The Lotus / Caterham 7 is supposed to be a monster once you add more lightness and increase power!

I've been doing the oil changes, and engine / chassis rebuilds... Adds up.

_Dave_

PS: Scott, I sent you a friend request.

 

So you can "loan" cars to other folks for races !?!?!

Wow, had no idea. Guess I need to do a bit more research on this game.

 

Scott, it almost seems as if the designers set up the rare car situation specifically to encourage online interaction between players... You "loan" a car by gifting it to someone on your PSN friends list. They, in turn gift it back to you when done. Already there is a culture developing where a borrower spends some credits to improve the borrowed car before returning it. Some folks over on the SONY PS3 Gran Turismo forum have been trading a Ford F-150 pickup truck around and around, and it is apparently quite a monster now, capable of beating some supercars at various tracks.

You can also gift paint chips and other items, such as custom horns (?!?!) to other players... You win these items for completing various challenges. They only work in Premium cars, and some of them are pretty amazing.

Let me know if there's any particular car you're looking for in the UCD... I'm still looking for a Lotus Europa, although I don't NEED it anymore... I just like 'em.

Here's my complete car list at the moment (compiled it last night):

Premium cars:
69 Chevy Corvette Convertible (C3)
08 Ferrari California
06 Ferrari F430
10 Toyota FT-86G SPORTS Concept (x2)
?? Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Stealth
08 Tesla Roadster
07 Mitsubishi Lancer EVO X GSR P.P.
69 Chevy Camaro Z28
62 VW typ2(T1) SambaBus
05 MINI Cooper S
?? Shelby Cobra 427 S/C Chrome Line
?? Mercedes Benz 300 SL Coupe Chrome Line
?? Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 Chrome Line
?? BMW M3 Coupe Chrome Line
?? Audi R8 5.2 FSI quattro Chrome Line
?? Gran Turismo PDI Racing Kart 100 (x2)
07 Toyota VITZ RS 1.5

Standard:
99 Hommell Berlinetta R/S Coupe
?? Toyota ALTEZZA Touring Car
67 Mercury Cougar XR-7
65 Alfa Giulia Sprint GTA 1600
62 Buick Special (560HP out of the box!)
61 Jaguar E-Type Coupe
99 Subaru IMPREZA Coupe WRX type R STi Version VI
62 Lotus Elan
71 Plymouth Cuda 440 Six Pack
00 Mazda MX-4 Miata 1800 RS (NB, J)
02 Toyota MR2 Spyder (6MT)
74 Lamborghini Countach LP400
03 BMW M3 CSL
69 Ford GT40 Racecar Gulf Livery
02 Acura DN-X Concept
87 Honda MUGAN MOTUL Civic Si Racecar
78 Dome ZERO Concept
08 Mazda Furai Concept
03 Ford SVT F-150 Lightning Pickup
79 Autobianchi A112 Abarth (looks like an old Mini)
73 Lancia Stratos (Spent half a million buying and restoring this one!)
01 Lotus Elise Type 72
69 Chevy Corvette Stingray L46 350 (C3) Hardtop
74 Triumph Spitfire 1500
73 BMW 2002 turbo
02 VW Lupo 1.4
00 RUF RGT (Porsche 911 Carrerra)
00 Toyota Yaris U Euro Sport Edition (J)
58 Subaru 360


Fun!

_Dave_

 

'member how I said I couldn't fire up the racing rig last night? So I turned on the PS3 and ran GT5 without the rig. No driving, but I was able to transcribe the list by hand with paper and pencil.

But yeah, it sure would be nice to be able to do a screen cap, or even export the list!

But this lack of functionality fits right in with the rest of GT5's GUI...

After I made the list, I then typed it into a text file, then inserted some commas and renamed the extension from .txt to .csv and imported it into an Excel spreadsheet.

Too much like work. Oh well. I like having the list.

_Dave_

edit: oops missed the GT40 question... as I said before, I used the BIRTHDAY spoof. I signed up another PSN account with a birth date of December 5, 1969. On my "birthday" when I loaded GT5, I got a message saying happy birthday, and here's your car!

Note: When GT5 was first released, there was a "Birthday Hack", which involved doing what I described, but you were able to SELL the gift for credits. They fixed that in the 2nd patch. You can no longer sell your Birthday car, just like those Chrome Line cars that came with the Collector's Edition.

And no offense, but I'm not lending that one out. I trust you, but I've already lost a couple of cars through the gifting process itself (car disappeared from my list, and never showed up in the recipient's list, even when my other ID was the recipient!) so I'm not lending any cars that I'm "attached" to... By the way, I picked 1969 as the birth year, because I saw that there were a LOT of great cars in the game from that year. I was really hoping for the GT40, but not expecting it. And especially not in the Gulf colors - that was like frosting on the cake!

My real birthday is in January, and as far as I can tell, there aren't any cars in the game from that year, so it will be interesting to see what shows up...

 

Sounds like I am going to need to do some heavy driving this weekend just to try and catch up........

 

Thanks for that list Jerry! That's very useful. Also really surprising which specific cars they decided to allow the RM on... ?

I'll consider loaning you the GT40 once they release the next patch that is supposed to allow copying a game save to an external drive. If that allows me any way to ensure I don't lose the car, I'm willing to share it with you.

BTW: I tried to use the GT40 on the Historic race you're talking about, and maybe I'm just not good enough yet, but I got blown away by at least half of the field on the first corner, and appeared to be losing position rapidly, so I bailed, and haven't gone back to it yet.

I'm at Lvl 20 on A-Spec now, and have completed all of the license tests - mostly bronzes with some silvers and an occasional gold here and there. Will go back sometime and try to gold them all, but right now busy grinding for cash/cars/points. My B-Spec is still stuck on Lvl 8, as I really don't enjoy it at all. Still got a bunch of the Special Events to do.

Went online for only the second time, and got in a room where it was run what ya brung TRACK DAY at Nurb Nord... I was enjoying flying in my Stealth AMG SLS until some buffoon came flying around the course in the reverse direction and slammed head-on into me.

Looking forward to some closed-session racing with adults...

_Dave_

 

Thanks Jerry.

Does the RM in the name designate that you have already RMed it? Or is it named that way to indicate it can be RMed?

 

Only at L16 on A-spec (I think). How are you guys getting so many cars and cash so quick? I don't have that many cars and not nearly as much cash. Are you just doing the same races over and over to grind up the cash?

 

I have done all of the licenses except for S and have at least silvers. Have done the specials that I can so far.

Questions about the specials.....how did you ever complete that frikkin' tour race in the dark? I can't seem to see anything beyond the front of the car and I have tried all of the views.