FH5, Series 57, Week 3

Straight onto the weekly in the Mazda RX-7 Spirit. Bunch of nuisance activities. I like the car well enough, though.

I moved on to the PR stunts. One of these days I must try building something in S2 class for rural STs and the like. I do have my low S2-class International Scout, but need something much faster. Can’t help but predict that I’ll still make an arse of myself several times before completing the stunt. One-third excellent SWS and an Ultima, which I gave away. I one-shotted the DZ, but barely (i.e., not my finest hour). One-third very good SWS. I was rewarded for incompetence, but this does seem to be the way of the world.

Eventlab (1). Imperial Circuit. Layout, good; props, good. SWS included two cars, but not ones worth inflicting… I mean, donating to some anonymous, worthy player.

Eventlab (2). Puanke Hill Touge. Good for testing a car’s first three gears and its ability to turn tight corners. Bizarre finish line. I don’t understand the appeal of this sort of thing, which is the kind of thing you’d do on a bicycle at a maniacally fast speed. However, I appreciate the work that went into constructing it.

I wandered about the airfield looking for the photo op, and ran over the cats instead before finding that the lanterns were in front of the control tower.

The HT was cross country in A800 vans and utility. I opted for the Vandura, not rating my chances. Came 2nd in all three races, but twice from the player in 2nd making a mistake. A 3✰ player in a Wuling Sunshine was well fast, but when I caught up to him in Restos, it was clear that the van had more power than he was competent to handle.

I one-shotted the HW PR stunt for another one-third very good SWS.

I also managed to one-shot the RA PR stunt for the first (?) time ever, landing on a road off to the right and missing the trees.

I picked the Nissan Silvia Spec R for the Trial because, er, I like the livery. I started in last place round Estadio and finished 4th. Pablo was uncatchable, but I kept catching the other players through the corners. I thought it better not to overtake because there was some dirty(/incompetent) driving. Bola Ocho was a mess. I started in fourth, but in the straight heading towards the bridge, there were cars being flung left and right. One went right across my bows, causing me to spin round and get ghosted. I decided to persevere since my team was in the lead, and I clawed my way back through the field to finish in 5th. When I say “clawed”, I really mean that I passed drivatars who’d decided it was more fun to randomly turn into a wall. Seriously, that was three of them quite without any prompting from me or anyone else.

I also voted for the BMW X6M, having recently realised that I’ve only ever had one, and a second one has never come my way.

Name that tune

For something to do, I’ve been installing other people’s tunes on cars and racing them to see how their tunes compare with mine. The question is whether the imported tune can get a car round a circuit faster than a build and tune of my own devising. The answer so far is no. Even though my tunes produce slower cars, they also show how much handling counts, and ironically in one case, I did better in a car sans aero and then even better in a car with aero even though it was slower overall.

Of course, there are caveats. Most tunes, I’d reckon, are created by players on controllers who may have no major issues with them. In other words, they’re not necessarily best suited to those of us who play on keyboards. Also, I probably ought to do the race first with my own tune because I always seem to do the same race faster if I do it twice in a row.

A lot of the tunes look to be iffy. AWD – tick that box; inappropriate tyre compound – tick that box; ridiculous amounts of power – tick that box. I’ve encountered two tunes so far that seemed decent (including a ugrundy tune; I was still able to go faster with my own tune), and a couple which I immediately rejected because even driving in a straight line showed up how bad they were. In a number of cases I’ve wondered what the tuner’s intention was. Drifting, drag racing, what?

FH6, game play, anyone?

I’ve seen one or two comments about the absence of much actual game play from FH6. To me game play means actual races rather than driving across the map. We’ve had a little of that time trial event, and there was a mention of drag races (yawn).

I was wondering how flat Tokyo was overall because as far as I’ve noticed from what we’ve seen, it does seem rather level. Even Edinburgh had some hilly bits.

I also hear that we’re going to get some details about customisation next week. However, I have to wonder what this will mean. The superficial stuff such as painting, vinyls and body kits, or the sufficial¹ stuff such as building and tuning?

Notes

1. All right, I made this word up from sub- + -ficial as an antonym of superficial. Also, I refer the honourable reader to the word suffice as a potential stem. Unfortunately, *sufficialis is not to be found in Latin, so there you go Romans, a new one from me for you.

Anyway, I must e-mail the OED, Collins, etc. with this new word or they’ll look like right mugs with out-of-date dictionaries. Probably drop a quick note to Susie Dent as well because I’m sure she’ll be well excited. And no doubt the palace will be in touch with news of my impending OBE for services to the English lexicon. [More like ‘services to talking utter bollocks’ –ed.]