The Bench

[Blooze]

Warped posted this in his "Nuts and Bolts" thread

I don't know, I am really tinkering with the idea of calling it quits. It just seems to take so long to build up one car and get it working right...

...other games are beckoning and my wife starts school soon which means I will have more 'other' work to do. There is just not enough time!

...so I guess "tinkering with the idea" is over.  

We all know doing Forza right is a tremendous time soak.  Back when my wife was alive I was having to back off all the time to keep peace in house.

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[Blooze]

It is the End of the Month again.  I got bookkeeping duties to perform.

I was looking at my Cars roll up sheet and thinking...  So far, I have 140 of 174 registered with the system with a book value of 109 Million Credits.  These cars have a total cost of 46 Million, and a resale value of 36 Million.  I have won a total of 44 Million credits, and currently have 6 of them in my checkbook.

Setting up the Subclass system gave me cause to consider the "real life" aspect of what I am doing here on Forza.  Can you imagine something like this, my little racing organization actually hitting the small town of Skiatook Oklahoma?  140 cars being raced on a somewhat regular basis all over the world.  How many people would be involved with such a process.  Hell's bells - it would require a small Air Force.  Like getting the 7 GT3 cars and their support staff to Atlanta in a moments notice.  And then packing the whole show up for Tsukuba next week.  Just thinking about the number of people required to run that sort of an air operation is a sort of mind boggle. 

No, I much prefer the Forza method where my only responsibility is to ensure that the coffee pot is not empty. 

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[Blooze]

Good morning troops...  grab a cup and have a sit.  There's a just opened sack of Oreos over by the Pot - help yourself.

I been working pretty hard on the subset leaderboard sheet this week and I think I 'bout got it done.  I entertained the idea of clearing some to the tracks that I don't intend to run (Catalunya School - for instance) but decided against it.  That would give me two RWT sheets to keep track of and I got enough of that kind of crap going on as it is.  What I will do is zero off their base times though.

I like working with the sheet - I like having the cars, the leaderboards, and the rollup sheet all in one place.  It cuts down on the PC clutter.

Well, unless there is a major house cleaning on the Leaderboard database, I am officially out of the top 100 now, #102 this morning.  I guess that is good 'cause it means that people are still playing the game.  The player growth has slowed considerably since the announcment that the DLC for this issue was all done, or at least it seems...  the number is down from almost 5000 daily to around 3000 now.

Working with these subsets is not all that good for the leaderboard numbers I 'spose.  According to my Gaposis program I would be better off to go to work in E Class.  But, I'm having too much fun messing with the various Subsets right now.  So be it...

As far as the next "big thing" from Turn 10, I sure have a hard time seeing how Kinect is going to be of any value to the game.  I don't need to watch my Avitar pick his nose in between gear shifts, and I damn sure don't want to have to wave my arms in the air pretending that I am steering... I ain't in that good of shape as it is.

So, have you guys got any Forzacating stories to tell?  Or has the start of the school year, job, etc. gotten in the way?

Hmmm, I may have to make another pot - looks like...

I'm off to run Atlanta with the Vipers after I finish this cup.

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[TheJohnNewton]

I've been wanting to chase Warped up the mountain but work has been in the way 

[Blooze]

Kind of quite around here this morning.  Monday morning... some of you are already at work, some of you holding out for a few more Zs before ya got to get up.  Me, I'm putting the finishing touches the Viper Road Atlanta, and I just made a fresh pot of coffee from a new can of Folgers.

Around midnight I suspect that it will get a bunch slower here in Forza land and will stay that way for a while depending on how good the new Halo is.  I'll still be here, projecting away.  The most Halo I have ever had anything to do with is all the commercials they've been running on it lately.

For a while now it has been looking like I could get buried in this R3 class and not come out for a long time.  But I see an end - it has something to do with the R3 Subclass QRs and the pressing call of the E and D classes for justification...

And the Vintage cars.  $62 Million worth of the cream of a Barette Jackson crop just sitting there and moldering away.

Ah, so little time and so many, many Forza types of things to do.

The Viper project has gotten me sort of bit by the painting bug and I spend more and more time off messing around with that kind of stuff.  Also, the Viper project has me looking at a spread sheet of some sort to manage all the settings for the various Vinyls involved with the ACR-X paint jobs.  Right now I am using a Steno note pad and a couple post-its.  

Because of the lighting in the paint booth I have started painting the cars with a light grey primer before adding the stickers and vinyls and what have you.  Sometimes the colours chosen in the middle of the heat of battle don't work so good when the car is returned to the real paint colour.  That can be a real pain when the colour in question is two layers deep in a vinyl...  Me and a buddy worked for a while at running our own body shop and our little homemade booth was better lit than that mess in Forza - where did they get the idea that shadows in the paint booth would be cool, anyway.  I haven't looked, but I imagine there's been some serious bitching about it over in the painting threads of the Daught GNet.

And all the painting has me buried in saved replays.  A 'Round Tuit problem really.  I save a particular run because I want to get some pictures out of it later, but between here and there I've changed the paint job, in some cases, sold the car, or just plain old forgot why the hell I saved it.  My hard drive will thank me, no doubt.  

And there is that - taking pictures...  boy, do I have some dues to pay in that department.

Yeppers...

I should have everything I can do in Forza all wrapped up sometime next week...

heh... oh good...

The coffee pot just gurgled.  Anybody need a heater?

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[Spiny Anteater]

Because of the lighting in the paint booth I have started painting the cars with a light grey primer before adding the stickers and vinyls and what have you.  Sometimes the colours chosen in the middle of the heat of battle don't work so could when the car is returned to the real paint colour.  That can be a real pain when the colour in question is two layers deep in a vinyl...  Me and a buddy worked for a while at running our own body shop and our little homemade booth was better lit than that mess in Forza - where did they get the idea that shadows in the paint booth would be cool, anyway.  I haven't looked, but I imagine there's been some serious bitching about it over in the painting threads of the Daught GNet.

Got that right - load of complaints about it when the game came out (I think I even mentioned it in my initial summary on here from before the game came out in the states). Don't know what they were thinking, but I can only think it came out of the same brainstorming session as the hopper idea.

As for what I've been doing, the last couple of weeks have been busy what with hospital, getting the new car and now I've just got back from a well-deserved (well, I think it is) holiday. So, back to the random E-classers. Can't remember exactly how far I got through, but I think it was one of the new 'Ring tracks.

Oddly enough, being away from the game hasn't left me desperate to play it like I thought it would. The lack of jalopnik news has also made me consider splashing my points on Worms Armageddon rather than waiting ages for the pack to come out.

[Blooze]

Whoa...  it sounds like you had a car wreck of some sort or other misery - I hope things are going better.

Jalopnic?  I thought they were all done with the DLC.  Is there sposed to be one more?

I need to get out more... 

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[Spiny Anteater]

Oh no, not a wreck at all. Just that I finally reached the top of the NHS waiting list for my kidney stones at about the same time as my old car got a bit too rusty to get through the MoT this year (they do seem very hot on rust over here). As I have no convictions and a nice big No Claims Bonus, the insurance wasn't too bad which meant I could afford this little present to myself



So, I'm E-Class in game and E-class in real life too

With the DLC, the official line is that monthly DLC is done with. As for the Jalopnik classic pack (the one we voted for a few months back), I'm losing faith rapidly. The original promise was that it would be out in summer, well summer has been and gone over here and it's now officially autumn. So that would be another broken promise to add to the list. Wouldn't be so bad if they'd actually told us it was going to be late/cancelled, but now a word.

[BarbecuePete]

Hey y'all! Well its been a while since I've been out on track, I moved in with a mate of mine back in May and as the X-box is in the living room its mainly been used for watching films and the odd round of golf... I think i'd burnt out really and so Forzacating took a back seat but lately the itch to race again has been getting stronger and so the other weekend I had the house to myself and took the chance to jump behind the wheel again for the first time in about 4-5 months!

A little rusty to start but soon I was back into the rhythm and so I started looking around for a little project to work on, first up was trying to tidy up my P2P times, but I still need to refresh myself on Kaido and Positano a bit more to really get back in the groove there. So I decided to tackle my old nemesis, Catalunya GP.

Looking around my garage I found a bit of a hole in D-class with only an old Brera setup really suitable for Catalunya and that had never really put up a good fight there before either so it was off to dealers to see what else was around. I decided to step away from older RWD that much of my garage is and picked up a tidy '99 Civic Si Coupe as my weapon of choice. A initial build with a few tweaks has already knocked over a second off the old Brera's time so as time allows i'll be trying out a few more things to see what she'll do.

One things for certain, It felt good to be back on track!

[larryCR]

So, I'm E-Class in game and E-class in real life too

Nice. You going to try some non-virtual track days with that? Nothing against virtual adrenaline, but the real stuff is really a gas. 

[Blooze]

Congratulations on the slick looking ride Spiny!!

And welcome back BBQ!  I can't imagine being gone that long.  All it takes is a road race, or even a NASCAR roundy rounder and I start Jone-zing for the track.

Since you mentioned it, I've seen some pretty nasty crap on the Daught GNet about the Jalopnic DLC... It seems like they would learn that just the slightest bit of information is all that is required to sooth the beast - but that nothing at all business makes them unruly...

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[Spiny Anteater]

So, I'm E-Class in game and E-class in real life too

Nice. You going to try some non-virtual track days with that? Nothing against virtual adrenaline, but the real stuff is really a gas. 

Think I'll stick to the road stuff - the price of tyres and brakes, not to mention other bits like fuel is just a bit scary. But, I am certainly tempted by some of the track days where you use their car. 9 laps of the Southern track at Silverstone (approx. 20 miles) in an Exige plus one lap as a passenger to a racing driver for the price of 2 tyres for mine just seems better value. Almost did that a couple of years ago, but decided to do the skid training course instead. And if I use their car, it helps if I come to sell it as I can still say it's not been tracked .

[BarbecuePete]

And welcome back BBQ!  I can't imagine being gone that long.  All it takes is a road race, or even a NASCAR roundy rounder and I start Jone-zing for the track.

Cheers Blooze, its good to be back! Funny you should say about watching some racing making you want to get out on track, it was watching some of the BTCC races last weekend that got me itching to get back out there again...

Think I'll stick to the road stuff - the price of tyres and brakes, not to mention other bits like fuel is just a bit scary. But, I am certainly tempted by some of the track days where you use their car. 9 laps of the Southern track at Silverstone (approx. 20 miles) in an Exige plus one lap as a passenger to a racing driver for the price of 2 tyres for mine just seems better value. Almost did that a couple of years ago, but decided to do the skid training course instead. And if I use their car, it helps if I come to sell it as I can still say it's not been tracked .

I did a single seater track day at Thruxton a couple of years back, 3 laps in an RX8 and 7 laps in a Formula Renault http://www.thruxtonracing.co.uk/specifications/specs_racingcar.html plus one fast lap as a passanger in the RX8. It was such a buzz! And like you said Spiny a lot cheaper than taking your own car out there!

[Blooze]

Sorry to have been so sporatic with the communications as of late - I've been having a ragged time dealing with the siesures.

I have moved my entire circus to Class E.  This includes BucksToon who is, as we speak, trying to get the kinks out and get used to driving a much slower car than he has messed with as of late.  I am looking forward to reworking some of my old cars with a different set of parts.  Also, the Exodus boys have been doing quite a bit of Hotlapping in the lower classes as of late and have some interesting builds posted for some interesting cars.  So, I will be trying them out with my setup as well.  I plan on goofing with E class quite a while.  I think it is my most underdeveloped class at this time.  All of the E class spreadsheets were 4 or 5 versions old... enough so that trashing them and starting over with an update model was easier than trying to update the old ones.  Quite a bit of work, that.  There are 12 worksheets involved with a "Class Office" as I like to call the workbook that contains them.  The D Class Office is in similar shape.  It is next after I finish with E.

I like my Gaposis System.  For me, it adds "emersion" to the spreadsheet side of the game.  I didn't duplicate the system for the BucksToon account and I find myself missing all the business involved with the Gaposis System when I am playing the part of Buck.

Since implementing the Gaposis System on June 1^st, I have knocked 1200 seconds off the Circuit overall, and another 750 off of the P2P boards.  That is only about half of what was called for, so there is quite a bit of work left to do, mostly in the lower classes (A and down).  I try not to wish my life away, but I am looking forward to when I call this first pass a done deal and set out in F and R1 to reset the slope. 

How much better will I be? 

How much better will my cars be?

Well, Buck just clumped into the break room to get a cup of coffee and reported that his Positano Overall is 3 seconds off of Spiny's.  He figgers he could make it up, but that it would take all 8 tracks to do it.  And it would take time.  We decided to move along, and he does have 12 seconds on me, he mangaged to point out with that crappy grin of his.  I am going to have to get some sort of ride and knock that kid off his high horse...

Ah, the fresh pot is ready... anybody else want a cup?

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[Blooze]

I have been Forzacating like crazy this morning and haven't turned the XBox on yet.  Yessire... spreadsheets.  And as far as I am concerned, lots of interesting little bits and pieces.

I have been adding the stuff to turn my E Class Office workbook into a "Let's Chase Spiny"... eh, war room, I guess is the best way to describe it.  I hold no delusions (if I did, it would be a "Let's Chase Warped" war room) so I doubt that I will surpass Spiny except on a track here and there where the Random gods were particularly unkind to him.  That said however, I do expect to get fairly close to his times.

So, I am starting out with the Snakes.  These show up to be one of my Cherries in the Gaposis Program (Cherries, at this time, are defined as tracks that are more than 16 seconds off the calculated gap.)  The Snakes came in at 25 off, and I have cleared 8 seconds of the deficit in just 5 tracks.  Of the 5, I bested Spiny only on Boomslang.

Now here is an interesting little bit.  If I am to get very close to Spiny on the Snakes, I am going to have to clear away the best part of 44 seconds.  Let's say that I get 40 of those seconds back.  Doing that will place a 75 second gap between F and E (the calculated gap is 51 secs.)  It also places D Class seriously in arrears by amost 70 seconds.  And it will have a ripple affect across the entire Class system until it concludes with a required time for the R1 class that is seriously lower than its current time.

So, is the Gaposis algorythm flawed?  I think not.  First of all, consider that these 40 seconds are not my gap, they are Spiny's.  My gap is 16 seconds.  If I get close to Spiny, then that indicates to me that I have improved and that my cars have improved substantially since having first set the slope in F and R1 back in May.  In fact, the slope has changed a great deal in that since May, I have lowered the entire range by 100 seconds, and flattened the slope by 50 seconds (lowering F Class flattens the slope - lowering R1 increases the pitch).  Since May, I have worked rather extensively in 4 Classes, and messed around in 2 others.  And that effort seems to be paying off.  From an "old dawgs" view point, that is good to know.

This little exercise has also shown that Paretto's theories concerning population demographics are holding true.  Of the 43.664 seconds between Spiny's time and mine, 22.709 of them are involved with just two tracks - the King Cobras.  Were I to work only on those two tracks, I would have half the battle won.

A recent forray into the R2 class showed that as well, dealing only with the Big Lap tracks, I was able to clear 200 of 300 seconds - that is 7 out of 103 tracks holding 70% of the deficit. 

And Bill Gates has all the money and you and I have none... same deal.

Well, I think I will construct me a BASS (Big Assed Salami Samwich) and then see about jumping back into the middle of the Snakes.  I am still trying to figure out which of ten cars I am going to attack the balance of the Snake tracks with...

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