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 This thread is a continuation of the old Simulator Megasperg Megathread, where we discuss oddly specific simulator games that are not popular enough to get a thread of their own. So we don't need to hijack the SCS truck sim thread every time. Also, if the games offer it, this is where you can organize a multiplayer with some other goons. There are hundreds of simulator games on the market, most of which are about operating a vehicle. They're easy to identify because they usually have the word "Simulator" in the title, almost always typeset in the Helvetica Ultra Compressed font, a tradition going back many decades. The quality of such games is all over the place, most are pretty bad but every now and then a game pops up which some of us manage to sink great deals of time in. And some get pretty hardcore. Which in this genre means you should congratulate yourself if you can get moving without accidents in under an hour. Many simulator games have excellent modding capabilities, allowing you to customize your experience with a wide variety of free and paid content. These games tend not to require intense attention and become relaxing experiences, which are easily combined with something else in the background, like a podcast or an audio book. The ones that have multiplayer available tend to be cooperative and go very well with some bullshitting around in a voice chat server.  Fishing: Barents Sea - Go fish with officially licensed fishing ships and a cyberpunk soundtrack. review. Farming Simulator - Pussy all night w/ find the right mod on shady sites minigame. Will introduce you to, and make you hate, uploaded.net Construction Simulator - Like farming sim but with construction vehicles. Colourful. OMSI - Bus driving and giving correct change sim. Great sound. Train Simulator 2018/Railworks - The most popular train sim currently on the market, quality of content varies dramatically. Physics for long trains are bad. Sound is usually mediocre. But the 3rd party stuff available outside of Steam can be surprisingly good. Train Sim World - From the same company that brought us Railworks. Very pretty, but the game performs badly even on high-end systems, the physics simulation is bad and there's very little content available for it. But pretty much every switch and lever in the cab can be operated. Diesel Railcar Simulator - Another train sim where you can drive old '50s-'60s diesel multiple units through a fictional route. Good physics and detail and a great sensation of movement, best demonstrated by its bogie cam. Run-8 - A train sim with unimpressive graphics but excellent physics, and multiplayer. Only has US-centric content, so that's diesel freight and diesel Amtrak, nothing else yet. A very sandboxy game that also lets you do stuff like hump  an incoming manifest train and turn it into locals and other trains.MSTS/Open Rails - Old as balls but still being played because there's a mountain of content for it. Open Rails is a free reimplementation of MSTS which should load all MSTS content. Car Mechanic Simulator - Where you take a vehicle apart and put it back together, instead of driving it. The 2015 version is considered to be pretty good, but the 2017 version is still in need of bug fixing and performance optimizations. Here's some sims that currently have their own threads: SCS truck sims - Weirdly zen-like truck driving across miniaturized versions of the US and Europe. Has actually turned a few players into real life truckers. Flight sims - Flying a plane is expensive, you can simulate that experience by spending a small fortune on content and joysticks PC Sim Racing - Drive cars and go fast. Then go online and race your friends.  There are many bad sims around, clearly targeted at children and Germans. Not a lot of gameplay or depth here, but they do tend to get very specific, and you can perhaps still get a little fun out of them by abusing the horrible physics. Most stuff published by UIG Entertainment, which releases both original sims and backyard movie equivalents of popular, good sims. Street Cleaning Simulator - It's not fun but it's also pretty much what I expected Mining and Tunneling Simulator - I said this can get specific. Ship Simulator Extremes - Ships and boats big and small. No mod support: No user-made or 3rd party harbours, ships, etc. Gameplay not as deep as the water. The water does look nice, I'll give them that. European Ship Simulator - The logo and name look an awful lot like Euro Truck Simulator but that doesn't automatically make it just as fun and good. Giant Machines 2017 - Big machines move slowly.  These usually don't simulate a vehicle. SimSig - Simulates the train dispatching screens used in the UK. Some simulations are free, some are payware. Supports multiplayer. Autisim - Free. Simulates the sensory overstimulation that affects most people who post in this thread. Best name though  Surgeon Simulator - Simulates a hand and death through incompetence. Goat Simulator - Baaaah. I'll add more and give some in-depth descriptions for some of these games! Props to Nielsm for the logo at the top. Stick Insect fucked around with this message at 14:24 on Nov 21, 2020 |
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Oct 8, 2016 12:07
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[reserved post]
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Oct 8, 2016 12:07
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Sweet thanks for the speed thread... I'm going to take a look into the recommended autism simulator for trains, because I feel my simulator library doesn't properly have the correct level of my autism.
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Oct 8, 2016 12:58
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It's great to have this thread back, thanks Stick Insect! In recent years more and more of my gaming time has been spent on normcore dadgames, most prominently ETS2/ATS, a little OMSI, and a poo poo ton of Farming Simulator 15. At some point I want to make a big post about my long-rear end, realism-focused modded-all-to-poo poo farming For now, I just want to add that I'd put Car Mechanic Simulator 2015 on the Good List. It's definitely not a deep sim, but it's way more competent and entertaining than 99% of the "Simulator" shitpile. If you're not a car guy (like me), you'll probably learn a cool thing or two about how cars work as you make repairs for customers and run your little shop. Eventually you can buy rusted out junkers at auction and customize them however you like (then sell them for a profit, or not). It's a very repetitive game to be sure, but kind of in a good way...? For me, stripping down and repairing/rebuilding a vehicle in CMS15 has the same kind of meditative quality as playing ETS/ATS. Once you get the hang of the game mechanics, you can just put on a podcast and zone out for a while, pullin' pistons and luggin' nuts.
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Oct 8, 2016 14:26
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Did Fernbus manage to not be poo poo yet?
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Oct 8, 2016 18:13
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Trustworthy posted:It's great to have this thread back, thanks Stick Insect!
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Oct 9, 2016 02:17
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I'm half German and I wholeheartedly approve of this thread.
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Oct 9, 2016 02:27
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do you wish there was a german simulator creator simulator?
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Oct 9, 2016 02:42
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Trustworthy posted:For now, I just want to add that I'd put Car Mechanic Simulator 2015 on the Good List
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Oct 9, 2016 12:42
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Last time I played it I stripped down and restored a Maserati Sebring 
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Oct 9, 2016 17:20
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Yeah, Car Mechanic Simulator 2015 is a good for a few hours. If you're not sure if you'd like it, I recommend Griffin and Justin McElroy's (the Monster Factory guys) overview of it for a laugh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykSzQ0utxtg
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Oct 9, 2016 22:44
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I have to admit a weakness for SAM Simulator, found here: https://sites.google.com/site/samsimulator1972/home I think Flare Path has covered it some but basically you get to operate old Soviet surface-to-air missiles. Test your skill against a Cessna or a F-4 with this Hungarian-made software with some terrifying documentation! It's actually been very useful as a learning tool, surprisingly.
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Oct 9, 2016 23:38
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Dovetail is working on rewriting Railworks in UE4 to make it look like something that has been made this decade https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J4U-yv9fgM&t=221s It is also going to make the thousands of dollars of DLC stuff obsolete
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Oct 10, 2016 19:20
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I fully expect dovetail to massively gently caress up the new version somehow
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Oct 10, 2016 21:45
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cool new Metroid game posted:I fully expect dovetail to massively gently caress up everything they touch
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Oct 11, 2016 03:37
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farm sim is extremely good and im hype for 2017. Car mechanic sim is like.. a meditative experience for me. I'd love to do LSD and play it, I think I would just lose the entire week.
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Oct 11, 2016 07:27
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[edit: Welp, wait for the next update, grain drier's got a big obvious bug that could have been caught with about ten seconds of testing] Kid's annoying as gently caress on streams/YouTube videos, but when he can be bothered to give bug-testing and polishing his full attention, he makes a damned fine map. Sandy Bay Redux (3.1?) and Knaveswell have been my two main farms for a while now. Even though I'm usually a fan of smaller maps, I'm looking forward to upgrading Knaveswell to the huge Extended version. Still deciding if I'm going to be the xxxtreme hardcorest and tackle all ~125 fields with Soilmod on. Trustworthy fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Oct 12, 2016 |
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Oct 11, 2016 23:55
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OMSI has had a fairly good bus released a couple of weeks ago, the MAN Shittybus. It's on Steam. Get it if you enjoy driving on maps that look like a student's graduate thesis (oh wait...) at a blistering 15fps. Brand Name Simulator 17 looks about as interesting as Farming Sim 15 did. Basically the same engine with some mods and new licenses thrown in. Undoubtedly they will have hosed something up performance wise. Haven't heard a peep from the Courseplay guys. If that mod doesn't get updated, I can't imagine playing it. track day bro! posted:Did Fernbus manage to not be poo poo yet? Nope. Aerosoft have said it's being worked on and will be the best bus simulator ever, but lmao if you'd trust Aerosoft.
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Oct 12, 2016 14:09
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mackintosh posted:OMSI has had a fairly good bus released a couple of weeks ago, the MAN Shittybus. It's on Steam. Get it if you enjoy driving on maps that look like a student's graduate thesis (oh wait...) at a blistering 15fps. Does the OMSI 2 catalog ever go on sale? I've spent a fair bit of time with the original game (and enjoyed it greatly), but I'm a poor and stocking up on all OMSI 2 has to offer is going to cost me, like, a couple hundred bucks.
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Oct 12, 2016 16:30
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The only non-poo poo Aerosoft products I have purchase Airbus Extended (A318/19/20/21 addon for FSX) Aspen X and Approaching Innsbruck (both sceneries for FSX) Trustworthy posted:Does the OMSI 2 catalog ever go on sale? I've spent a fair bit of time with the original game (and enjoyed it greatly), but I'm a poor and stocking up on all OMSI 2 has to offer is going to cost me, like, a couple hundred bucks. 
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Oct 12, 2016 16:30
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Trustworthy posted:Does the OMSI 2 catalog ever go on sale? I've spent a fair bit of time with the original game (and enjoyed it greatly), but I'm a poor and stocking up on all OMSI 2 has to offer is going to cost me, like, a couple hundred bucks. Very rarely. I think the last sale was in May. Aerosoft aren't very big on discounts outside of the usual bi-annual Steam sales. Can't blame them really, it's such a niche product, any change in pricing is very unlikely to affect sales in any meaningful way.
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Oct 12, 2016 17:04
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The new Railworks, I'll believe it when I see it, they've been announcing the new version for 'next year' for a few years now. They also promised the old content would work with it. For a company using the razor and blades business model that's obviously a dumb idea, so I can see why they've changed their mind on that. They've used post processing and effects in older videos to make things look fancier than they actually were in the game, so I'll be skeptic about what the game looks like until I actually see it running on my comp. To illustrate, here's a promo vid they made for some older stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjumqlWSFZA It's in-game footage but some of the clouds, exhaust smoke and some of the snow effects are faked. Some of the stuff is sped up so you can't notice the bad framerates and framedrops. The music covers up the bad sound effects, often simply copied from earlier, different content. They've gotten a little better at actually bothering to record proper accurate sounds. There's also unofficial third party mod seller Armstrong Powerhouse who's made it his business to record and apply proper sounds to the trains: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/09/23/the-flare-path-the-man-who-listens-to-trains/ Why they don't just hire him, I dunno. I own some of AP's trains and sound mods (which also sometimes improve locomotive physics and add more features) and find that convincing audio makes the whole simulation that much better. The Class 66 and Class 101 soundpacks drastically change and improve the original content from DTG. I'll put up an effortpost about Railworks/TS-TYOOL at some point because I like trains and have been trainsimming since MS-DOS, because the real life train operators won't hire me with my bad eyesight 
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Oct 15, 2016 15:47
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Just the other day I was thinking how rad it'd be to have Farming Simulator 2142 or some other far future thing where it's all hover tractors and laser corn but it's still a completely dry and serious sim.
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Oct 15, 2016 15:56
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I always keep on meaning to learn how to properly operate a steam engine in train sim but I never get around to it. doesn't help that the few guides I've seen just tell you to do this and do that and don't really explain the whys of most things, maybe I should just learn how a real one works and go from there. I might pick up one of those 'advanced' steam trains that just train sells, I have the voyager advanced which is pretty neat
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Oct 15, 2016 16:42
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Driving a steam locomotive in Railworks/TSTYOOL: Driving: Put reverser (aka cutoff) as far forward as it goes. Open cylinder cocks (c) Release brake Open throttle enough to start moving Close cylinder cocks after the piston's made a few strokes. but enough about my sex life  Apply more throttle, ease off if you get wheelspin (or add some more sand) Move reverser a little bit backwards every time you notice you stop speeding up. Consider it like changing gears in a car. Braking: The brake lever has three settings: 'release', 'lap', 'apply'. In release the brakes are released. Lap maintains whatever pressure your brakes are on. Apply applies the brakes. So you have to look at the brake gauge in the cab to see how just how strongly you're braking. Most braking systems use 0 to mean 'max brakes', and some arbitrary value to mean 'brakes released'. UK Steam usually has "21 inches" to mean 'brakes released'. If the brakes have been released, move lever back to 'lap' so as not to waste steam. Firing (unless you have auto fireman turned on): There is a sweet spot for the firebox mass, it differs between locomotives. It's sometimes in the manual. If you're above or below that sweet spot, you don't generate steam as well. On some trains, you can see the colour of the smoke change when it's time to add more coal. And more advanced trains let you open the firebox grates to control the steam generation rate a bit better. Always make sure there's at least some water in the boiler, it's game over if it reaches 0. Adding water makes your boiler pressure drop. If you try to add more water than would fit, it drains onto the track so it's wasted. You can turn on the blower to increase the steam generation rate When entering a tunnel, make sure you're not adding coal to the fire, and maybe even turn the blower on. Otherwise you may get a 'fatal blowback' which is where the fire comes out of the firebox and burns the driver and fireman. If you see your boiler pressure drop rapidly for a few seconds once every minute, the safeties are going off to reduce boiler pressure, because you have too much of it. Some locomotives can't generate steam very well, no matter your firing technique. The GWR 5700 Class (Pannier Tank) is one of those. If you find this simulation a bit too simplistic, try the UP FEF-3 in Advanced mode, they're really pushing the limits of what the game can simulate. Pretty much every lever and knob does something. It's also oil-fired to shake things up a bit more, and has gauges that can give wrong indications because they get clogged up.
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Oct 15, 2016 17:29
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Yeah I can get the things moving around but usually end up loving something up and running out of steam or something, probably because I'm always loving around with the various wheels and gauges. I've not been keeping up with trainsim poo poo for a while and didn't see how dovetail have categorised all the pro advanced trains http://train-simulator.com/the-ts-pro-range-roster/ that's pretty neat for finding actual simulations of trains rather than the usual half assed poo poo that makes up 90% of addons. I wonder if there's a chance in hell that the all new train sim will let you rebind controls and let you use controllers other than xbox style gamepads. I have no interest in one of those train sim controllers but it'd be neat be able to actually use my flight sim throttle with its dials and knobs for the various train controls. Probably not. gently caress dovetail. I remember someone made an app years back that let you use other controllers but I don't think you could actually properly use analogue controls due to the game engine.
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Oct 15, 2016 20:01
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The old BVE2 had joystick support. You just set a joystick axis as the brake-accel axis and it worked. I'd like to use my steering wheel as a throttle control like in those German locos  Not sure if the "Pro Range" is much more than marketing bollocks, the old DB BR420 has no fancy controls yet is in that range. I believe DTG required 3rd party creators to dumb down their DLC (or offer a dumbed-down edition alongside) if a they wanted to release on Steam. It's why the FEF-3 and, say, AP Class 90 give you the option between a HUD (simplified) and full version. Try looking outside of Steam for your content if you want more complex stuff. I have some Armstrong Powerhouse and VirtualRailroads stuff, it's miles above the stuff on Steam. I have no idea if there's an equivalent for US-centric content.
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Oct 15, 2016 20:40
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yeah I got a couple of trains and routes from Just Trains and an Armstrong sound enhancement for something I forget now, picked it up years ago. Probably for some modernish UK EMU I was driving a bit back then.
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Oct 15, 2016 21:14
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DTG are a joke, and so is Train Simulator. They haven't updated that thing since Railworks. I'm tried of its lovely performance and severely dated graphics, and that's without going into how little it actually simulates. JT, AP and some others are desperately trying to squeeze more life out of it, but the limitations are glaringly obvious. I really hope DTG go out of business, though that is not very likely with all those sheep throwing money at them.
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Oct 15, 2016 22:19
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I was actually doing pretty well with a steam train earlier but then I forgot to stop shovelling in more coal when going into a long tunnel. rip in piss gwr 5700
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Oct 18, 2016 20:24
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Multiple streamers got advance copies of Farming Simulator 17. Shouldn't be a problem finding them on YouTube. If you can't be arsed watching - it's basically Farming Simulator 15 with some mods and new field textures thrown in.
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Oct 20, 2016 14:35
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mackintosh posted:Multiple streamers got advance copies of Farming Simulator 17. Shouldn't be a problem finding them on YouTube. If you can't be arsed watching - it's basically Farming Simulator 15 with some mods and new field textures thrown in. Looks like some great quality of life improvements, removing the inevitable jankiness that goes along with having to rely on mods for several must-have gameplay features. The ability to dump loads anywhere, without the need for a Placeable Heaps mod, is kickin' rad. Livestock seems more immersive and well thought out. Holy poo poo, pigs that aren't fake-rear end mannequin pigs! Unlike all the FS15 YouTubers, I'm not itching to dump FS15 and devote myself entirely to FS17 with so little mod support out of the gate. But it's still the only game I've preordered in years, and over time I'm sure the community will help it grow into something really great. Now if the FS community could just produce more than 1 polished mod for every 20 utter pieces of poo poo... 
Trustworthy fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Oct 20, 2016 |
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Oct 20, 2016 17:57
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What about the AI helpers, they were supposed to be much improved right?
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Oct 20, 2016 19:13
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Crossposting from steam thread, My Summer Car Early Access opens next monday  Currently the developer is pondering forcing permadeath or just having it as an option. Rosoboronexport fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Oct 20, 2016 |
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Oct 20, 2016 19:16
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I just preordered Farming Sim 17... can't wait to grow some beets!!
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Oct 20, 2016 19:30
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Womyn Capote posted:I just preordered Farming Sim 17... can't wait to grow some beets!! MOTHER FUCKIN RADISHES YO
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Oct 20, 2016 19:32
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TjyvTompa posted:What about the AI helpers, they were supposed to be much improved right? Haven't seen much improvement so far. They still get stuck, but at least you get a message about it. They still leave bits and pieces here and there. Most streamers are just starting out and exploring though, so maybe in a couple of days we'll see how things really are. On the upside, the AI can do things it previously couldn't, such as windrowing. Trustworthy posted:Looks like some great quality of life improvements, removing the inevitable jankiness that goes along with having to rely on mods for several must-have gameplay features. The ability to dump loads anywhere, without the need for a Placeable Heaps mod, is kickin' rad. Livestock seems more immersive and well thought out. Holy poo poo, pigs that aren't fake-rear end mannequin pigs! Most of the quality of life improvements were there in the form of stable, well tested mods. GIANTS stealing them outright is hardly what I would call an improvement. FS17 is going to live or die by Courseplay anyway. I won't be getting into FS17 until CP guys update it, but seeing how they're also working on Cattle & Crops, this might take a while. The earliest ETA is mid-November. I hope at least GPS, AutoCombine and DriveControl get updated quickly. mackintosh fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Oct 20, 2016 |
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Oct 20, 2016 19:40
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mackintosh posted:Haven't seen much improvement so far. They still get stuck, but at least you get a message about it. They still leave bits and pieces here and there. Most streamers are just starting out and exploring though, so maybe in a couple of days we'll see how things really are. On the upside, the AI can do things it previously couldn't, such as windrowing. Honestly I'm fine with playing with or without CP at this point. I mean, I'll be happy to have it when they get a new version sorted out, but it's no longer the dealbreaker it once might have been. I went through a period of being almost Courseplay exclusive; of automating as much as possible. These days that style of play has lost its sparkle. I use it occasionally, but mostly I get by doing the work myself, slowly but surely, with occasional help from Autocombine, FollowMe, and frequent use of GPS. GPS mod, now that's something I'll be dying to get my hands on in FS17. And FollowMe, I suppose, for working a forage harvester / tractor+trailer combo. edit: I should clarify that I prefer quaintly small English farms with quaintly small English fields. If huge sprawling American maps are your thing, I get how CP could get pretty loving indispensable in a hurry. edit2: VVV yep ^^^ For me, large scale operations like you're talking about usually end up being mind-numbingly boring chore to me, even with CP. I like my tractors like I like my coffee: made in the 1990s and well under 200hp. Trustworthy fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Oct 20, 2016 |
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Oct 20, 2016 20:38
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You can't have an efficient large-scale farm without CP's automation. Even if you do most things manually, and I do a lot of that myself, offloading and selling grain is such a mind numbingly boring chore, the mere thought of doing that myself makes me nauseous. Not to mention the time it takes that is better spent elsewhere.
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Oct 20, 2016 20:43
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Rosoboronexport posted:Crossposting from steam thread, My Summer Car Early Access opens next monday Permadeath on this would be terrifying. Either way though I can't wait! This might my dream game depending on a few things. I guess currently the motor assembly instructions are not in English and I know jack poo poo about cars so trying to build my car will be fun. I'll probably make a thread for this within the next few days unless someone else wants to? Also taking title suggestions.
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Oct 20, 2016 20:49
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