Interesting. I've mainly been grinding the British Lightweights London course in the A-Spec Professional Series. ~25k credits for just over 3 minutes of racing. (I typically do 4 in a row, gaining a hundred grand in credits over 15 minutes.) Then I check the Used Car Dealer and discover something I *need*, which means restoration, modding and soft race tires, which means more grinding. At least I'm enjoying the course. Have a couple of nice cars that are easy winners there: A '97 Lotus Elise that I think I won, and a Caterham Seven that I bought used. Both have been refurbished (engine and chassis) a couple of times, and both have been substantially lightened, and modded. Soft race tires, and a couple of degrees of negative camber at all four corners makes them easy to throw around the London streets. Every so often, I throw in a run or two on the Top Gear track in the same British Lightweights series... Takes twice as long, but is tons of fun, especially once you've lapped all the other cars and are encountering them in the criss-cross portion of the course... Keep an eye on that map! Jerry, I think I modded the GT40 a bit, but there wasn't much it didn't already have... I know I had to buy soft racing slicks for it, even though it had inters and rain tires - and I think hard slicks when I got it. Haven't figured out how to do a closed online session yet. B-Spec is interesting, and you can win prize cars that are superior to the ones you win for the same events in A-Spec, but usually the races have twice as many laps in B-Spec, and you have to do it in real-time, and the tire limitations are much more severe. The main reason to do it is to develop some decent AI drivers who you can turn loose with a decent car, and let them do the grinding for you. My B-Spec level is 8, but I think my best AI driver (I have two at the moment) is only at Level 5 I think. Guess I need to work more on the special events... Got really frustrated by that Top Gear Lotus Elise thing... After many tries, only silver. Same with the Microbus. The first Rally event, where you provide your own car was a real eye opener to me. Did not do well at all, and haven't gone back yet. _Dave_
When I read this, what I heard in my head was "...do some heavy drinking this weekend..." and I was nodding my head in agreement... _Dave_
So the new patch (V1.05) is pretty substantial, and has lots of worthwhile improvements. Shows that the makers are listening to the comments... Best thing in the new patch: Backing up save game data! Yay! Now I have a "safe" backup of my game save including over 50 cars, a couple of hundred grand in credits, and most importantly, my 1969 Ford GT40! I bravely tested the functionality today, and was relieved to find that it all worked properly, albeit in a fairly clunky manner. I already gifted a car today, so I have to wait until Tuesday to loan Jerry the GT40. Meanwhile, the next great thing about the new patch is the addition of "Seasonal Events"... This is where the GT Academy junk is accessed, but V1.05 also brought with it three groups of short-term, very high-payout single player (A-Spec type) events. The first series is a group of individual, very specific 5-lap races, where you get a flying start, and are in the last position of 12 cars. You have 5 laps to pass every other car in the pack, and it works very smoothly... Payouts are H U G E! (One race gains you a million credits if you take first place, and enough experience points to jump a couple of levels!) Trick seems to be in buying the exact car required, and optimizing the mods very carefully to what is allowed... For example, one of the events requires that you purchase a new 2008 Fiat 500 to compete. I made the mistake of changing the oil right away to get that little HP edge... Well it pushed me right over the HP maximum limit, ad I ended up selling the car at a loss and buying another just like it, so I could compete! Ended up raking in hundreds of thousands of credits for 5 laps effort! And jumped from LVL 20 to 22 just like that! These particular events expire January 6th I think, but there are plans to continue adding new events to replace the expiring ones, so this is a great way to keep the game interesting, while providing a mechanism to gain big money and experience, without the drudgery of grinding. Next great thing from V1.05: You now earn credits and experience for online and arcade racing! That's nice. Oh yeah, there's a new Online Dealer that is very similar to the Used Car Dealer we already had, but it only has 12 slots, and the selections are the same regardless of where you are in the game... Right now, the offerings include a bunch of Skylines, a Veyron, A Formula Gran Tursimo racercar at 4 million creds, and a couple of pickup trucks. Supposedly, the selection will change randomly over time, and allow access to some hard to find cars that don't show up very frequently in the Used Car Dealer. Other improvements: The HUD display is now removable - including from the bumper-cam view, and can be done completely, or just the gauges... This is something I don't have any interest in, but apparently lots of folks were screaming for it. Oh yeah, they fixed the spelling of "Thrustmaster" in the steering wheel options. Used to start with two T's: "TTHRUSTMASTER"... Still no formal support for the Logitech G25 or G27 wheels, but as we know, they work just fine under some of the other profiles. Once you get patched, there's a news item listing all of the improvements in the patch. Very happy to see this sort of thing happen so quickly. By the way, Jerry, I ended up Race Modding my 1969 Camaro Z28 and running it in the LVL 16 Historic races... Golded Deep Valley! Need to tweak it a bit to better the Silver I got at Monaco in my GT40... Thanks for that tip about the RM cars! (Interesting side note: If you RM the 1969 Z28, you get some very nice trans-am style mag wheels with black spokes and polished rims... I took a chance and tried painting them, and it worked great: Only the spokes get the new color, and the rim stays shiny! All of the wheel should work this way...) Oh yeah, that GT40 needs some serious chassis restoration (to the tune of 500,000 creds!) That's a liittle frustrating, especially when the exclusive pre-order Mercedes AMG SLS Stealth only ever costs 500 creds for restoration! (Guess it's a good car to get aggressive in...) AND IN OTHER NEWS... iRacing is releasing the new build this week, including... SPA FRANCORCHAMPS! Spa is one of my favorite circuits, and I've enjoyed watching televised races there, and driving sim races there on various platforms, but I'm so involved in GT5 these days, I can't imagine tearing myself away to get iRacing going again any time soon. hm. iRacing vs. GT5... Both very deep and satisfying racing experiences... VERY different types of simulation, and I wouldn't want to try to determine which is more authentic... iRacing can't be beat for "real" racing against other humans with big stakes; GT5 can't be beat for solo racing, car collecting, variety, and FUN. Both have their place, and I'm glad I have access to both.
was home sick today. Ran all the Seasonal events. That Fiat took me a while to get gold in. The second one, Honda CR-Z, still have a silver in. Golded the 3rd and 4th events (Mazda RX7 '00 and Dodge R/T), but only got a bronze in the Skyline event. Need to tweak some settings. Got tons of credits, spend most of it on cars and mods. Level 24 now. Need that Formula Gran Tursimo for 4 million. Time to save up. Gonna give that 69 camaro RM a shot. But gonna need that
You guys make me sick...........lol I don't have the time during the week to put in those kinds of hours. But I do have all of next wek off! Thanks for the heads up on the new version.
Exit the game. Insert USB drive into a USB slot. Go to "Save Game Data Utility" under the Joystick icon in the main PS3 menu. Find the save data for GT5. (Be sure you're logged in under the user ID you want to do the backup for. Also, don't get confused by the replay save files if any, which are different. And don't try this before getting your V1.05 patch and saving the game.) Once you've selected the save file, press triangle on the controller to get the contextual "options" menu. Select "copy", then select the external USB drive (or the other way around... not sure I recall correctly...) Yer done. Like I said: clunky. I got your email about the GT40, but I had already sent it on its way! Feel free to mess with it all you want. Enjoy. (It's so weird to blow away the GT40's with the Z28 RM! Just weird!) Scott, I'm on use-or-lose leave through the end of the year, but have lots of family obligations... Let me know if there's any particular car you're looking for, and I'll try to help! I have a couple of Toyota FT-86G Sports Concepts, which I won as prizes, and are pretty capable for some of the races. I don't have any of the really big bux cars except the GT40, and then the Veyron. _Dave_
If you have the credits and the DTM CLK is available in the online dealership, I recommend it. I bought it for the DTM series, lvl 22 I think, and was able to beat all three tracks handily in stock form without have to buy any additional mods.
Awesome tip Jerry! Thanks. _Dave_ edit - PS: The setup on the GT40 was for Monaco, and even so, needs a LOT of tweaking...
I have this too but am not able to get on as much as I would like. I think I'm level 16 or so. The way to set up a private room is to go to lounge. Everyone would need to go to the hosts lounge and of course the host needs to start it. Edit #2: my friends and I are trying to figure out a good pwr/weight ratio have for balanced races. That way we can run a good variety of cars.
Curious to see what you have it set up as. I'll add what ever you're missing. Power, drivetrain, aero if available. Honestly, I run about the same set up on most cars. -3F -2R camber +.2F -.2R toe slam the car down as low as possible for every click of drop I go about .75 up in spring rate couple of clicks up on rebound and dampening. Sway bars are different. Depends on the car. On the Enzo and the Louts I really had to go high in the front and low in the back because the cars were so twitchy. Other direction for some of the american muscle. I have a theory on setting the brakes and the ABS but I need to do some testing first.
Also my psn is RotorheadFred (I love 1st gen rx7s). I'm up late most nights. Work until 10pm central. Hit me up if you want.
I really need to upgrade cause I'm still playing forza on xbox. I want a 360 for forza 3 but I've had every playstation but the newest one.
I have a 360, it has been sitting there for the most part. Once I got ps3 I just slowly stopped using my 360. Now I just use it to play rb2 and gears 2 (horde). That's really it.
The GT40 worked decent. Thanks Dave. Used it for Monaco only. Sent the car back. LMK if you want the settings I ran with. Let's just say I could not make it work with traction turned off.
I am just getting into it, though having it since a couple days after release(Black Ops has been filling most of the gaming time). I forgot just HOW involved the GT series is, WOW! I think I am merely at level 7, but need to do some purchases to get into more races apparently. For PSN, feel free to add me TATTRAT
Got it, Jerry! Thanks for the speedy return. I ran Monaco with it using the settings you left on it, and managed a silver after a couple of tries. Not sure what assists I ran, but definitely no skid recovery or ASM. I think we have similar ideas about setup where I have an understanding, but stuff like spring rates and dampers leave me gaping. I liked the settings you had for these... Car felt a lot more drivable. Durn Fan car Chapparal kept coming out of nowhere just before the swimming pool on the last lap! Bah! Staying up way too late tonight b/c in-laws are visiting starting tomorrow afternoon... I may be MIA for several days... We need to try a closed online session sometime soon! _Dave_
And here is the "secret". Traction Control at 8. ABS at 10. Skid Recovery On. I found ASM was robbing too much speed. Could probably drop the traction a bit if you want more speed, but with those settings I finished first by a couple of seconds. Easy throttle and early braking were the key. That car is squirrly. I won some race care for completing something else. 880 hp and 800 kgs. This thing: It makes my RM'ed ZR1 'Vette feel like it's standing still. That 300 kilo difference is really there. Ran it on level 24. 10 laps of Indy. No changes to the car and finished a lap up in the middle of the pack. Then I realized that I left traction control on. Turned it off and tried again. Could not keep the power to the ground. I know the G25/G27 are the better choices out there, but I still wish there was a way to adjust the X/Y axis on the pedals. Sometimes they still feel like an off/on switch. Very hard to modulate.