LAN Night 2015 (May 23rd - Mach's House)

[Aggamemnon]

[Fix]

Ah yes, TuF famous LAN night continues in mid-decade - Mach's turn to host so I'll let him take the lead on this one.

[Machine]

Yes, Yes, it seems it is back to sunny Cheshire, Aggs for your planning it's around the area, I'll post you a full address should you decide you are coming, if so I can offer parking for your motorcycle behind the house like I used to do with mine.

Living room has just been redecorated and shifted around dramatically and presents a fantastic setup for all our PC monitors in a line below the TV which could also serve as a screen, I think I could get 3-4 screens on there, later on in the evening we can crack the wood burner on so we'll all be nice and cosey warm snuggles.

Games we'll decide closer to the time, happy to run with something we can't do online, maybe even a single RavenShield LAN night or similar. As we don't have separate rooms we'll be better playing something silly for the first few hours (maybe if next car game is cheap enough I'll blow my load on getting it in for all of us) failing that, flat-out 1 MP - just because shooting ISIL in the face isn't suitable for kids.

Food I say we order from the Chinese or chippy up in town, walk up and collect, will take us 30 minutes tops and worked well at Chainsaws for a break. I'll have to think of something to top his awesome brewing tutorial, hopefully he'll also bring some drinks or the components to make some, I'll think of an activity you can all have a go at here which might be a bit of fun!

Dates, I'm easy with, don't mind resetting to May time or waiting till later in the year!

[Chainsaws]

Affirmative on the free alcohol. If you have any specific requests let me know and I'll tell you if I can make it, you should put these in now though to give me plenty of time to make it.

[Fix]

The lager was good - A keg of that good stuff!

[Aggamemnon]

any type of fruit (or bitter apple I guess) cider is good with me, and yes, I will be attending. You may need to get me up in on a loner if we do PC games though, but again don't mind hotseat either.

I NEED the date for work, asap. Sooner I know the easier it is to arrange.

[Fix]

Lets get a rough date going for Aggs, come on he wants to come! I say May time too.

[Machine]

23rd?

[Fix]

Sounds fine to me, see what everyone else says. At the least we can pencil it in.

[Aggamemnon]

weekend 23rd looks good to me so far.

[Chainsaws]

Looks ok for me.

[Machine]

What does everyone think of trying to obtain RavenShield again? I'll keep an eye out on GOG or Steam for a £1 buy.

I believe there is a HD patch now (v2.0) though online is restricted to LAN so we'll be tunneling to play it.

[Chainsaws]

I think nostalgia plays a large part there. I don't know...I'm kinda happy with Insurgency filling this hole now and there are custom maps when we get bored of the stock ones.

[Machine]

Fair call, I've researched over lunch and TBH Insurgency seems to be touted as the replacement for RvS (RvS being a pain to set up again), we can always like you say get custom maps going to fill the hole. Forget about it for now.

[Fix]

Wonder if there are RvS maps for Insurgency... must be if its the ode to RvS.

[Chainsaws]

It's not a bad idea I just worry we'd see it as totally shit now given the age of it.

RvS maps would be awesome:

[Machine]

Ok, I have thought of, and shall be making the required purchases for the unique "Mach" thing for this and all gaming nights going forward. (Similar to Chainsaws awesome beer making thing)

I'm going to pick up a cheap second hand steering wheel & pedals for the PC, I've got one on snipe today which I've got a good feeling about, I'll have this wheel set up right in front of the main TV (42 Inch) during the day only (in the evening we can play shooting people in the face as there will be no kids!) I've a tonne of driving games and Assetto Corsa especially is supposed to have very realistic FFB settings (Though we'll be the judges of that thanks!), maybe do a few timed laps of the Nurburgring or the like, I'll record the demos and stitch a video together after the event.

The kids will probably want a bash, I'll also try to convince the wife to have a go, and seems to be something we don't normally get to do all the time.

Future gaming nights I can bring the wheel to Chains / Fix for the afternoons when we sometimes have the kids around at our LAN nights? I'm sure it would keep the lads entertained Fix whilst we swap porn, er, music...

Evening setup I've pretty much planned, I'll take my 2 screens off the mount and put them on stands on either side of the TV, one of us can have the TV, the other 2 have the screens so we'll totally be able to see each others views I've got a few logistical things to do with our sofa as hopefully we can change it from a corner sofa to 1 long sofa so we can all sit side by side.

[Fix]

Sounds perfect. I can bring my leather chair if that works or we need an extra seat.

I'll take one of your screens to save me carrying mine... can it do DVI connection?

[Machine]

No sorry, AVI or HDMI, plus some display ports, oddly doesn't have DVI.

Advantage of HDMI is that it'll do sound too , I've got some HDMI cables.

EDIT : Steering Wheel Sniped!

[Fix]

I may have to bring my screen as my card only does DVI I think.... I'll check.

Also just watched Mach OWN all the bidders on a steering wheel on ebay....

[Chainsaws]

Nice one!

[Machine]

Gixen if your interested, used it for years You don't even need to watch the item!

Wheel is a (I paid less than half that, jebus expensive!), reviews and research suggest an excellent wheel and it's got really strong FFB, "too much for a small child" so we'll be trying it with a small child... , it's got 900 degrees of rotation and a simple up / down gear stick - Bring your driving gloves, I might even make everyone wear a motorcycle helmet if I still have one hanging about.

I'll spend a bit of time setting it up right between now and then for us, don't think I'll use it everyday, I think they're quite noisy and most days I just want to mong out with the joypad, but I bet the kids will quite enjoy having it set up for a couple of hours on the weekend on racing sonic or something.

[Machine]

Wheels in and working, took me several laps to realise I was being a spastic and using my left foot for breaking. Basically works though, has a fantastic carpet gripper so the pedals are solid in place, I'll play with the FFB and get it as high as it'll go without clipping as it's a bit of a dull process of drive / change settings / drive / change settings, I made it much more usable just spending an hour or so on it.

Looking at the FFB more closely, if your going over a hump the steering will go light for a second, likewise if your in a dip it'll be heavy, in a corner it'll be heavy till you loose the front then it'll go really light as it slips into under-steer, if you dab the brakes weight will transfer to the front and it goes heavy again, I managed to get that going quite violently! If you stop the car, let go of the wheel, it'll stay where it is, accelerate (without holding the wheel) and it'll snap back to center so you can go round corners and just let go of the wheel like I do IRL letting slip through your fingers. So yeah, a bit better than 15 years ago when fix and I last had a steering wheel!

By Lan Night it'll be perfect and ready for anybody to have a bash during the day.

[Fix]

Looking forward to it. Lets get some recording software on too and post lap results up on the forums.

[Machine]

Assetto corsa records by default, I can then view them later with FRAPS running and take some clips. I'll have Project CARS by then too so I'll ensure similar in there.

I'll combine that then with some footage I'll capture on the camera of us all actually sat in "THE DRIVING CHAIR" (no doubt with drinks all over) and make a 2015 lan night montage,I promise not to use cillit bang again.