Your Personal Micro Blog(s)

quicc video on my own channel

 

So I've been on and off reverse engineering Rally Championship 2000
I have a basic level viewer and level property editor

As of yesterday it looked like this

Missing sky, PCX loader didn't have 256 color paletted support, etc.

This morning I dug into the level info file further, and found a few values
- Sun azimuth angle
- Sun altitude angle
- Sun intensity (at 100% this makes the screen totally white)
- Sun haze intensity (adds fog color to the sun screen effect)
If both of the above values are zero, sun is disabled
- Sky rotation
- Sky height offset

So I got to work adding these to the editor (and making them modifiable), and it makes a huge difference!

 

Slightly damp and soft conditions with my bike ride today, had similar ride 2 days earlier, no map, no compass, no phone, completely unknown area, there is nobody out there, that is the thrill. Yeah it gets dark and sweat + drizzle makes sure that with poor gear you feel terrible, so one needs bit better gear for these rides.


Yeah that is over 4 hours, no eating, no stopping for much other than sipping water every now and then.

Total system weight 150kg That includes bike, all gear, tools, backback filled with weights as such sort rides don't get on legs too much otherwise, I had bit over 30kg of weights on this ride, quite heavy gear, tools, spare parts, lots of water etc. it all sums up.

It sucks that there are no more people that are willing to do such rides as doing these alone gets bit boring at times, but I do enjoy being out there bit more than BeamNG, even BeamNG is quite lot of fun, those rides are just from another planet really, nothing comes close to satisfaction of what one gets from completing those challenges.

Wet roots are pretty slippery.

 

I had an enjoyable bike ride today. The days are getting shorter, and the weather has been rather wet lately (still ride in it though). But today was blooming lovely outside. The skatepark was more or less empty too, so I had free reign to do as I feel. With my injuries I am still unable to do more than 2hr/20km of riding currently, but things are gradually improving.

I'm now back to being able to do jumps and drops, the only problem is my core muscles on my right side, but for cycling they aren't too big a problem. I just need to keep an eye out for them so that I don't give them too much work.

(I don't do quite as much data aquisition for my rides as fufsgen, so no heart rate data)

 

As for updates, right then....got my car into the garage a week ago came back fixed but at speed it started making a screeching noise and and apparently a rock was in the front right braking assembly and it was causing the sound so I had to get it in on Monday, now problem with that, I work on a Monday and from the garage to my work is 3.6 miles, in a car that takes me 26 minutes to drive, problem no car, so I did a ballsy move and walked to work with steel toe capped boots on so I got 10,000 steps in but god it was hard in the last bit and I didnt stop once apart from traffic lights and the obvious stuff, so I had to head back to the garage after work and this was even more painful because I had no energy left at the time, I ran out of energy just as I hit the Tesco Local and then I forced myself on to the garage and that was my final rest stop in total I covered 12.17 miles did 3 hours 10 minutes of walking and had a pace of 17,483 steps with a total step count of 21,161 steps on Monday....I normally pull about 6000 steps daily, so I did 3.5x as much as that and my legs were screaming at the end of the day...and I burned 1644 kcal and I doubt I will be doing that again, Monaco last year I wanted to try for 50,000 steps in 3 days I was there I didnt manage it I got like 49,000 steps roughly, but thats a lot of walking in just 1 day for me

As for Friday I went out and saw the film Le Mans 66, lets just say its a must watch movie it was definitely one to watch, after all it was Rush but more of it, thats what I liken it to, Rush from 2013 its just that good!

Everything was right with it and I know there were errors in the film and stuff and well you cant have a good movie without a few errors in it but everything was so right in it and a few hours later I pre-ordered the movie thats how good it was!

 

So Forza just announced that Toyota is coming back to Forza. Im a little hyped to be honest.

 

im glad
what got into them in the first place? promoting street racing? umm- it's better to do it here and not IRL

 

Possibly some Japanese honor-shame thing, combined with modern w o k eness.

Or, as some people have speculated, they were just trying to keep themselves exclusive to Japanese developers all along, and are now realizing that's a stupid fricking idea because giant money printing publishers like EA and Microsoft exist elsewhere.

 

Assetto Corsa has quite a few Toyota's.


It also has some really nice tight and technical tarmac rally stages, as well as the LA Canyons (as featured in smoking tyre one takes).

 

Weren't most of those there from before, though? I'm pretty sure most of those were added to the game before Toyota went off its meds, and they also were treating their race cars differently from their road cars.

 

Some of it was DLC:
Ready to Race pack: may 2017

• Celica ST185 Turbo
• TS040 Hybrid

Japanese Pack: may 2016

• Supra MK IV (+Time attack and drift versions)
• AE86 Trueno (+tuned and drift versions)

But I haven't been following stuff super closely with Toyota, because they have typically been pretty dull. However, with the GT86, new Supra, I do find myself caring about them a little more these days.

They are even giving us the Camry this year, the fact that this excites me speaks more to how interesting their previous lineup was. Not only that, but they are giving us the option of a 180hp corolla... 180hp !


Previously we had the Auris, and the hottest version of that had 134hp. With a whopping 88hp being the base Diesel model. I bet that thing just flew up hills...


But if you want a manual in any"normal" car above a Yaris. They don't have that much to offer. They are not cheap either, especially when you consider that the base Corolla costs more than a base Mercedes A-class.


But all my grumbling aside, I do think they are getting a lot better. I also feel like I see more of them now than I did 5 years ago. But maybe thats just because some neighbours own them around me atm.

 

This is going to sound odd coming from me but I doubt the base Corolla was really that bad climbing hills. That's exactly what my Escort wagon was rated at stock, lucky to have anywhere close to that now, and the only time it ever really struggles is trying to climb steep hills with a full cargo load in the back. HOWSOMEVER, my Escort is also a lot lighter. I would say that with maybe 75-80 crank horsepower at this point and a weight of about 2450-2500 pounds wet with driver, it's on the low end of adequate if adequate is defined as the ability to keep up with freeway traffic.

 

what do?
I own an RSX base, 04
i want to do something with the motor. i was thinking of just fully A2 swapping it, but is there any other cost effective ways of going about it to get close to or past the same performance?
Like a cam and rocker swap or something?

 

My mum used to have Hyundai I10 which is a smaller and lighter car with around 70hp. With 5 adults inside, some hills (on rural roads) required 1st gear. Weight makes a huge difference, because the engine has to physicaly lift that weight up the side of the hill. Putting 5 adults in is essentially adding around 35% to the cars weight.

 

Engine swaps are nearly always a moneypit without too much gain for it id say stay away from it.

 

If you stay within the same brand, sometimes it can be plug and play depending on the motor. They are very expensive to do unless you do it yourself and know what you are doing, and the ECU will need a reflash/retune.

 

i looked into doing that and for VW its a pain even though they are plug and play

 

What I meant was that after the pain and agony of fitting a different engine, then it isn't less reliable than any other car. Unless of course, if you were to swap to an unreliable engine.

 

If you can station it and use another car instead in the meantime ? Sure, then you can plan things nice and
easily so all works fine and no money is wasted and so on.. If I myself need a daily driver I am NOT going
to mess with other camshafts, rockers, 'alien' fuel systems or ecu's or whatever, not even an engine swap !
Does things can all be done but as others posted : everything you don't fix yourself is going to cost a lot and
consider the gain. You gotta really love that car cause even when it all works no one is going to give you the
price that's it worth to you if you ever want to sell it. The best deal for starters you're going to get imo is
'K&N air supply' and a sports exhaust and maybe some 'ecu tune' to accommodate for the altered air flow
and exhaust pressure. Swapping the engine is nice off course but it takes expertise (whether your own or
someone else's) but just consider what's worth to you and what's not
--- Post updated ---

Dear man, I LOVE to take long walks as a hobby or sometimes even to go to work. As a hobby I can walk up to
20-30 km's in a day. What walking over distance does to my brain is simply indescribable but take this advice
from an experienced walker : Take separate shoes (and or socks) with you and you'll just be fine ! Also (I'm getting
more personal know - giggles) after or during long walks I like to consume a fresh orange juice or a smoothie and
never walk without carrying water

 

that makes sense
it has quite a bit of miles and runs like a clock so i think we will just do something like that.
i dont need it right now either so having it parked for a bit is no issue.
Thanks!