Still mocking the car apparently. By the way, you can clean yourself by sweating in sauna. Heat it up first (may take some time before it's hot; just check the thermometer on the wall) and then throw water on the stove!

The handwritten part in the additional notes says: "Well this car is a total piece of junk."

Still a lot better than my attempts. At best I've gotten the engine assembled and connected to the transmission, only to drive into a tree on a shopping trip with the van. On another time I did get to the shop safely but then couldn't find my way back to the house. One day I'll get the little car running!

Taz: even after you do get the car inspected, remember there's still things left to do. Mainly just the rally challenge and trying to see how fast you can get the car going with tuning.

Darn, Wobbly has beaten by a bit over 0,5 seconds! Let's see what I can do about it...

As for the hypercar challenge, I think Monza or Spa Francorchamps would be good.

I've seen the first two episodes of The Grand Tour. Pretty much exactly what you'd expect from a car show made by Clarkson, May and Hammond. It's basically Top Gear but slightly different. For example, this time the racing driver isn't unidentifiable nor mute; it's the American NASCAR driver Mike Skinner. I'll surely watch the rest of the series if it's as good as the first episodes.

The longer we keep getting better and better lap times, the smaller the time diffence gets. When it's a competition of shaving off fractions of a second, every gear change, every corner exit speed, every braking distance, every bit of grip matters. If you spin off, the lap is done. At worst you just waste two minutes and have another go, while hopefully learning something from the cause of the spin.

Since it seems it's just the three of us (Al, Wobbly, Taz), I think we should definitely have a hypercar challenge with the Ferrari LaFerrari, McLaren P1 and the Porsche 918. The cars should be approximately as powerful and similar in most ways. The idea is that we each pick one car and then compete against the other two with it. As a Porsche fan and maybe as the sole Porsche DLC owner I know my pick.

What do you guys think? Of course we will have the current Nissan GT-R challenge going on for the rest of the month, but what about after that?

I've got 2:08:488! So I'm the fastest by a few seconds now, until someone steps on the gas harder...

I was away from the wheel for the weekend, but on Monday I'll give you a lap time you won't believe! Be it one hour slower or a few seconds faster than the current record...


What DLC have you guys bought? We could get really great challenges with the Porsches or the Mazdas (or with many other cars) but I wouldn't want to force anyone to buy DLC they don't like.

So far Assetto Corsa has the following DLC:
-Dream Pack 1
-Dream Pack 2
-Dream Pack 3
-Japanese Pack
-Red Pack
-Tripl3 Pack
-Porsche Pack I
(-Porsche pack II coming at the end of November)
(-Porsche pack II coming at the end of December)

At first I was hesitating and only bought the best of the best packs but then I wanted to support the developers and of course getting new cars and tracks is fun. So now I've got them all. So which ones do you have?

Who else has been waiting for a simulator of 1990s Finland where you build a car from scratch? Me neither, but here it is; My Summer Car.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/516750/?snr=1_7_15__13

www.amistech.com/msc (deliberately made to look like the 90s)

This is really not a game for everyone, not by a long shot. It's an Early Access title, it's made in Unity, it's partially in Finnish (the speech is subtitled, all the car parts have English names but for example the parts catalogue is only in Finnish, but it does have pictures so you don't need a translation), and I have a hunch that foreigners may not understand the Finnish lifestyle portrayed in the game. I guess some would say it's a perfect game and some would say it's an utter waste of time and money. I say it's great.

The point of the game is to build your car from the parts provided and get it inspected so it's legal to drive it. Currently there is only one small car to build. You can spray paint the body and you can order better parts to get better performance. But the thing is, your project car is in a million pieces (neatly placed on the shelves) and there are no instructions. For a man with the car mechanic talent of zero it's a great puzzle while also being educational. For someone with experience it can still be fun to tune the beater to as good as it can get.

While building the car is your main point, you also have to take care of
- hunger
- thirst
- sleep
- urination
- dirtiness
And if you tick the option at the start, you can have permanent death. To keep yourself alive you can go to the store to buy food and drinks (or just drink straight from the tap by leaning towards it while it's running), there's a bed in the house, you can pee wherever you like and to take care of dirtiness, you go in the hot sauna... which you have to heat first, but it's electric so it's easy. Don't forget to save at the toilets.

To make money for food and car parts you can use an axe on logs and bring firewood to a neighbor, using a tractor and a trailer. You can also use a sewage truck to drain waste, and you get paid for it. To get to the shop and the bar, you can drive your van. If you take your car to the mechanic (if the body is in a bad shape due to crashing into things, it probably won't go through an inspection, and using the Jeremey Clarkson way of banging your car with a hammer may just make things worse, so sometimes you should take your car to a professional) you can borrow the mechanic's powerful American RWD automatic transmission car.

You can drink beer and vodka in the game, and get more and more drunk. First your view gets all wobbly and walking straight becomes impossible. After you drink enough (or too much) you will wake up somewhere else on the map and you have no idea how you got there. The game has a button for swearing and giving the finger once you've gotten frustrated trying to get the engine working. It should be very close to an actual engine and its assembly, but to someone with no experience it can get difficult.

Surprisingly, the game supports force feedback steering wheels and even an H-pattern shifter with a clutch pedal. I haven't tried it yet, but my G27 should work. I'll just have to get the car assembled first... It may get uncomfortable if I try to sqeeze the steering wheel, the gear shifter, the keyboard, and the mouse into a position where I could seamlessly switch between them. I'll have to figure out some clever way.

And even when you get the car started and running, you may run into issues. Are you sure you secured each and every single bolt? Is everything adjusted in the way they should? Are the parts connected properly?


Did I get you excited? Did you even read all of the text? The Steam page has some informative videos and screenshots, as well as more summaries. I say it was worth the 15 € I put into it.


Edit: I forgot to mention the cool leaning mechanics: by pressing Q you lean forward, getting you closer to the engine bay for example. Connecting car parts can be tricky, because they have to be aligned pretty well.

Time to revive the good old Assetto Corsa Periodic Challenge!

Since I don't know what DLC people have been buying, I'll try to use vanilla AC cars and tracks here. Otherwise I would be tempted to suggest the Porsche Cayman or the McLaren F1...


Challenge Revival - Nissan GT-R on Mugello.
Default settings and whatever driving assists you feel like using. Time limit: no entries after November. Let's see if we can revive the need for speed in our hearts!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/526060/

Porsche pack 1 is now available! Two more are coming later this year.

Contents:
Porsche 911 Carrera S
Porsche 918 Spyder
Porsche 911 Carrera RSR 3.0
Porsche 718 Cayman S
Porsche 917/30 Spyder
Porsche 935/78 'Moby Dick'
Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport
(Porsche Panamera Turbo, free update for all players)


If one of the previous DLCs had me buying it right on the day of release, the Porsche DLC had me refreshing the Steam page until I could buy it. I've had a quick go with all of the Porsches on Imola, my favorite track. The following reviews are only based on about two or three laps on one track.

Porsche 911 Carrera S (2016)

The more powerful version of the basic Carrera (which is not in the game). The first one I tried. Good performance and good handling, but not exceptional. PDK gearbox, as in "flappy paddles" or semi-automatic double-clutch transmission. The gearbox does offer great performance, but it's not very exciting to just pull the paddles. I didn't really experience any lift-off oversteer even if I tried. I was expecting the 911 to be more lively. This one was heavy. Easy to control, sure, but with the default setting it was close to impossible to do any fun maneuvers even with all driving assists off.


Porsche 718 Cayman S (2016)

Sort of a little brother to the 911, always just almost as good as the 911. But not in this game. It is a very agile car, and comes with a manual gearbox. A lot of fun to drive. Similar to the RUF Yellowbird, but easier to control thanks to not having turbo lag. If I want to go sideways through a corner, I will with the Cayman. It just goes exactly where I want it to. My favorite of the DLC based on the short run with all of the cars.


Porsche 911 Carrera RSR 3.0 (1974?)

A very light car for the track, but all in all not very fast. Could be good.


Porsche 935/78 'Moby Dick' (1976)

An old race car with lots of power and that looks very good. Handles pretty well for an old race car.


Porsche 917/30 Spyder (1970)

1200 bhp. 4 gears. After accelerating fairly slowly for a brief moment, the race car accelerates like a space rocket. 0-62 mph (100 km/h) time of 2.3 seconds, 0–124 mph (200 km/h) in 5.3 seconds. Wow. You will need to brake hard and early to make this thing stop from the enormous speeds it achieves.


Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport (2016?)

The GT4 version of the Cayman. I'm not much of a fan of the modern race cars as opposed to the street cars, as the race cars tend to feel very similar to each otehr. The Cayman actually felt fun.


Porsche Panamera Turbo (2016?)

The family car with 550 bhp, which is over 100 bhp more than the 911 Carrera S. But it's a big and heavy family car. I would achieve a close lap time with the Panamera as I did with the 911. I can imagine it being fun to overtake BMWs and Audis with it on the Autobahn, but in the game it's just so heavy and stiff that it's not very much fun to drive.


Porsche 918 Spyder (2016)

The hybrid hypercar from Porsche, rivaling the Ferrari LaFerrari and McLaren P1. Incredible performance and handling. The PDK transmission is really the only one that makes sense in a car like this. A manual transmission would just be slower and would feel like the stone age.

PORSCHE is coming to Assetto Corsa! Also, Assetto Corsa coming to consoles!


While Porsche is still doing exclusive deals about their cars appearing in only very few and specific games (which meant basically only the Need for Speed games in the last decade... or two), finally the legendary brand will appear in a true simulator! In the video I think I saw a glimpse of a 911 GT3, Cayman GT4, Carrera GT, 919 LMP1 prototype, as well as many older ones. No idea of the release date for the 2 DLC packs unfortunately.



https://www.facebook.com/Assetto.Corsa ... /1444103855615928/?type=3

Today, Kunos Simulazioni and 505 Games are proud to announce that after more than 12 years away from the sim-racing world, the Porsche Brand will be available as exclusive DLC content available for the PC and forthcoming console editions of Assetto Corsa.

Assetto Corsa has established itself as the leading and benchmark PC racing simulation experience thanks to its focus on purity of handling, accuracy of cars & tracks, and the trust of automotive partners to feature premium licensing content and top class manufacturers.

The close partnership extends to the creation of 2 DLC packs that will deliver the most accurate Porsche experience for fans and motorsport enthusiasts worldwide across a variety of classic and new Porsche models alongside the provision of customised software for virtual experiences worldwide at selected Porsche dealer and race centres.

Joining the available PC version, Assetto Corsa will hit the track on Xbox One and PlayStation®4 on August 26th in Europe and August 30th in North America.

Information and pre-order details for the console releases can be found at: http://console.assettocorsa.net