Topic: Simulator Games Thread

[kev_goss]

Cheers

I'm so tempted to try and set it up

we have an oculus in the house but am not sure how to connect it all up. There are loads of youtube vids, but have not invested the time

I was the RAF in the 90's and our simulator then was state of bollox and nowhere near this. This seems absolutely incredible

Mate honestly its worth the time and effort, I had my father here last week, (he was in the Navy on the ark royal), he was blown away by the VR and flew around in the AV8B for a few hours. I had to teach him how to vertically land on a carrier and he was mind blown.

[Andy @ Allerton!]

Loving Farming Sim 22

The thing that sets it apart is that there are no missions to have to take. There are, in fact, no actions you need to take. You can terraform to your hearts content - flatten or build mountains, concrete over fields and build a massive farm, invest in animals or farming or lumbering or you can buy new businesses so that your raw products can be sent into a production line and made into other finished products and you can sell them in a ton of places.

More mods are appearing by the day and it's such a great way to genuinely chill. I've got four tractors now, quite a lot of farmland with loads of terraforming. I've built up quite the collection of tools and trailers to do most tasks. And again - not cheating is the way to go - slowly, slowly I improve the stuff I've got. Potato harvesters cost a fortune, but you can buy a topper and a harvester to be dragged by a good tractor for half the price.

Do contracts, mow grass, bail it up and sell it. Gather your slurry and manure and take your animals to the slaughter (Felt gutted the first time I did that) - collect honey from your bees, eggs from your chickens and wool from your sheep. Ride your horses to make them worth more and you have hundreds of ways of playing the game and hundreds of tools to use.

I haven't even started on the Production lines yet - got a pretty decent set of fields and have merged a couple. Got enough now that I've got a platform where i'm slowly building up silos, storage and vehicle sheds and stuff you use like manure dumps and water stations.


Amazing game and the more you learn, the more you need to learn.

Got it on easy-ish, so once it goes up a level, it's a lot more demanding and once you have a load of fields and workers working for you, it's great to be managing a massive industy as you buy better and better stuff and dominate the map until it's all yours!! Muwahahahahah!

Oh. And the best bit is because the world is just the world. If you are doing too much. If you want to relax a bit more. If you want to take it easy. You can just sit back. No demands on you at all.

If you want to sell all your stuff and wander around walking or in your trusty pickup with a ton of cash in the bank - you can do that too. Until the urge to farm becomes too strong again

[Andy @ Allerton!]

Baking bread now. Awesomeness.

I recommend you get oat, turn the hay thingy on and you make extra off the bales you can make (You need a baler and a bale loader) which you can take to the Animal Dealer

Harvest the oat, buy the grain thing and dump it there. Set your oats to make flour and set it to deliver (Oh, you need to buy the bakery as well)

Set the bakery to sell bread (If you can't be arsed) or to store if you want to sell it for the best price.

And you're off!

I tend to sell my bread at the grocery

Also; Now got sheep, pigs and chickens

Chickens make eggs and breed super-fast.

Sheep make wool which is worth a fortune.

Pigs make slurry (that you can fertilize with) and also manure that you can manure your fields with - or you can sell either to the Biogas plant.


I also have a few beehives which are a gold mine. I have the farm in the centre of Elm Creek, so I tend to sell those to the fast food outfit as it's nearer, but if you can be bothered loading up a load then the cereal factory in the town (Near the baseball stadium) tends to offer the best prices.

Also now can plant potatoes and harvest them and I have several fields (72 south of the Railway Silos) and I've made all the central ones into one mega field. I've bought 40 as well and planted trees in the area past the roads (But you can make it into a decent fileld if you buy the field next to it) - I've planted a ton of trees as they can sell for a load - you have the option of woodchips (To be sold at the train solo or the other bio energy plant (The Southern one)) or yoiu can take wood to the sawmill - the longer and straighter they are the more they are worth.

If you want to cheat just a tiny bit then I recommend the super strength and also the lumberjack mods (Super strength) and (Super strenght/able to chop and sell trees all over the map)

I'll stop doing this though Once I have a few trees of my Own (Had to buy a tree planter for that and also some sapling pallets)

The game demands that you spend most of it deeply in debt - I have a ton of machinery but I'm in over £500,000 down. You just have to be patient and try not to cheat

I find cheating properly just completely ruins the game. Also, don't be in a hurry. Enjoy it and get used to doing stuff yourselft with some workers doing some of the graft for you)

I've also tarmacced over the field to the left of the main farm to store my crap on, but turned the triangle field into a huge one for grass (You need a mower (to mow), a windrower (To put into lines that you can drive over), a baler (to bale it up) and a bale collector to pick it up automatically.

[stoa]

Have to say chicken and sheep are insane money makers in this version. Same goes for fertilizing contracts. In my current game I have just bought the spinnery for my wool, but I'm kind of at a point where I don't want to keep playing. Just waiting for some new maps to try and some proper autoload equipment coming out. Oh and greenhouses are also a great way to get a constant income. Get yourself a bigger water trailer (have a modded one with 18k litres capacity) and just fill the greenhoses up every other day.

[gazzalfc]

Planet Coaster and 2 Point Hospital are great

Great modern clones of Rollercoaster tycoon and Theme Hospital. Play really well on PC or Console and can be picked up quite cheap now

[Andy @ Allerton!]

Have to say chicken and sheep are insane money makers in this version. Same goes for fertilizing contracts. In my current game I have just bought the spinnery for my wool, but I'm kind of at a point where I don't want to keep playing. Just waiting for some new maps to try and some proper autoload equipment coming out. Oh and greenhouses are also a great way to get a constant income. Get yourself a bigger water trailer (have a modded one with 18k litres capacity) and just fill the greenhoses up every other day.

Honey makes a ton of cash.

I'm enjoying progressing - my aim is to own the entire map and all production and every type of equipment

Have you tried creating silage? I have been wrapping it, but tried to use a silage silo and what a pain in the arse that is. Getting it to not leak out is a night mare and collecting some of it at the end is un-doable. The wrapped not coming off can be fixed by driving a leveller at it, but honestly with the wagon picking it up and taking it to the animal dealer, it just isn't worth the hassle.

I've got two pickups with trailers. One sat near my sheep/pigs/chickens/bees and used to transfer to wherever (I use the deliver missions) - it's also got a towable trailer (12000 cap) if I need it for a harvest mission.

I've got an identical setup near field 72 (If you buy the field, you get an extra bit that is great to put greenhouses on) and it sits there with a water tank and a towable water trailer. It's job is to ferry the strawberries etc. (usually to the grocery store) and harvest support when needed

I've now got four large tractors that can do any job and the way I do it is usually to have three doing my own fields/jobs or contracted out with one that I use myself to do stuff.

Once you get past the 'rushing around everywhere' bit then you actually enjoy the laid-back approach.

The idea is to have so many fields and so much stuff going on that I'll have the speed at 0.5 and do everything. It's quite enjoyable if you don't stress about it all.

I guess they are coming, but I haven't seen any transport missions yet.

[stoa]

Yeah, I think silage is decent enough to make a bit of money on the side, but not as the main income. I had one of the bunkers, but it was buggy and some of the grass got stuck in the walls or whatever and I couldn't pick it up (it also didn't turn into silage). Don't know if they've fixed that yet, but I sold the bunker and still have some  chaff lying around in a big pile on my farm. I do now make bales (mainly hay for the sheep and maybe later for horses), but as I have shitloads of that from time to time I also do a bit of silage in between and sell it. Can get a decent amount when selling a full bale trailer at the animal dealer. I play on the French map and had one of the small starting fields with grass, but also cut the trees  next to the fields, so I could mow the grass there. Getting a full trailer of round bales or so whenever the grass is 100 percent and I cut it, which is more than enough for the sheep and horses (if I ever get them).

[Ed-Zeppelin]

How intensive and involved is FS22 once you start getting lots of things on the farm? I quite fancy a go but am not sure I have the time or patience if it takes a lot of time to manage? Once things are up and running is it fairly simple to keep them ticking over or a constant juggling act?

[bailey90]

Planet Coaster and 2 Point Hospital are great

Great modern clones of Rollercoaster tycoon and Theme Hospital. Play really well on PC or Console and can be picked up quite cheap now

Two Point Hospital is on Prime Gaming if anybody has it.

[Andy @ Allerton!]

How intensive and involved is FS22 once you start getting lots of things on the farm? I quite fancy a go but am not sure I have the time or patience if it takes a lot of time to manage? Once things are up and running is it fairly simple to keep them ticking over or a constant juggling act?

The thing I love about it is that it NEVER gets too much.

Usually management games start you off slowly and you have things that you learn and take onboard, but the list of stuff you HAVE to do grows and grows and grows until you feel like it's just massive hassle to even play the game.

This is totally different. Let's say you've bought 20 tractors, every piece of equipment going, 30 fields and a ton of production stuff and you think "Shit! This is too much"

You can sell it all. Get back to one tractor and one field. Flog all your animals and all your stuff and then play other AI missions or just chill.

The choice is up to you - you can do as much as you want, or as little as you want and you can increase or decrease your work as much as you like.

There are NO things you have to do. There are no time pressures. Just do what you want to do, when you want to do it.

That's why I really like it. I've bitten off more than I can chew a couple of times and scaled back slightly.

Want it manic? Speed up time like a nutter. Instant grow fields. Add all the stuff to make it busy, busy, busy!

Want it chilled? Sell most of your stuff. Set time to 0.5. Just sit and wait and tootle about. Do your stuff as slowly and as carefully as you like.

The other good thing is that it's easy to find stuff you really like doing. I didn't like mowing initially, but if you have your baler on the back and a mini-mower on the front of a tractor then tootling along carefully baling and then getting them wrapped and waiting for fermantation is a slow, but rewarding endevour. Want it fiddly? Get a trailer and load them using a tractor with bale forks. Want it easier? Get a bale collector and pick them up then drop them at the Biogas Plant for Animal Dealer (Check the prices)

You can take a back seat and let production take over, you can own all or none of the stuff and you can sell it back. You can store your stuff in silos and wait months for it to be priced well or speed time like a crazy madman and sell it straight away.

All totally up to you.

[Ed-Zeppelin]

Thanks for that, really helpful. It sounds ideal really, I fancy something I could scale to suit how much time I have.

I like the idea of setting up quite a varied farm but suspect I’d leave lots of it to the AI and just focus on things like ploughing and baling. Will keep an eye on the price of it on the PS Store but with your recommendation will probably pick it up soon. Only thing stopping me is GT7 arriving in March which could take over for a while.

[Andy @ Allerton!]

Thanks for that, really helpful. It sounds ideal really, I fancy something I could scale to suit how much time I have.

I like the idea of setting up quite a varied farm but suspect I’d leave lots of it to the AI and just focus on things like ploughing and baling. Will keep an eye on the price of it on the PS Store but with your recommendation will probably pick it up soon. Only thing stopping me is GT7 arriving in March which could take over for a while.

I quite like idle games, so with the features that they've put in (Currently a bit hit-and-miss but I'm sure they'll get it all working properly down the line)

You can get hands on and do everything yourself or (in the future when it's all working) - you can tell your harvester to do a field and tell a truck/tractor to pick up the harvest and deliver or store or sell it somewhere.

It's like the ultimate idle game if you want to manage but not do, or you can do everything.

I'd aim to get large tractors that go at a fair clip as well (I love the JCB Fast Track - 45 mph) - it makes a big difference when you've had to start off with a crappy Fiat or something that can only do 15 MPH

[Mr Mingebag Squid]

Two Point Hospital is on Prime Gaming if anybody has it.

2 Point Hospital and Planet Coaster were both on Games Pass - well worth downloading (although on console Planet Coaster is a little tricky to get to grips with controls wise!)

[bailey90]

Planet Coaster is also going to be on PS Plus in February.

[Andy @ Allerton!]

Farming Sim 22 has got a whole lot better

They have zapped pretty much all the worst bugs and added a load of content.

New maps appearing now, but I'm going to stick with this one until I own all the fields and all the factories.

I own maybe 10% at the moment and four large tractos, plus spud and sugar harvesters, a normal harvester (With normal, corn and sunflower headers) plus a amazing multi-pickup that you can swap backs on

Also got a variety of greenhouses, a bakery, an oil factory, a grain mill plus sheep, cows, pigs and chickens and also some bees.

[Rob K]

2 Point Hospital and Planet Coaster were both on Games Pass - well worth downloading (although on console Planet Coaster is a little tricky to get to grips with controls wise!)

I find Two Point Hospital very therapeutic. Especially if i've gone to shit on another game (the current game in question being F1 2021). 

Helps me to de-stress

Might have to get on Planet Coaster too, use to spend hours on Rollercoaster Tycoon back in the day.

[Mr Mingebag Squid]

I find Two Point Hospital very therapeutic. Especially if i've gone to shit on another game (the current game in question being F1 2021). 

Helps me to de-stress

Might have to get on Planet Coaster too, use to spend hours on Rollercoaster Tycoon back in the day.

I'm looking forward to 2 point campus - think that'll be therapeutic too.

[stoa]

Platinum Expansion for Farming Simulator is out now. New (logging focussed) map and loads of new forestry equipment including winches and new brands like Volvo and some specialised forestry manufacturers (I think they're mainly German). I'm kind of torn about this.

On the one hand, it looks like they really put some effort into the map with new production chains and new products. They also had some great ideas with the rollercoaster you can build and the boats you can manufacture. They even included iron processing (i.e. picking up iron ore at a quarry with a wheel-loader and bringing it to a forge to then make various products from steel bars or whatever.

On the other hand, forestry has to be the worst part of the game and it's insane to have your premium DLC be about that when probably 50 percent of your player base absolutely hate logging (not sure if the actual number of forestry-haters is much higher than 50 percent). I'm one of those people, mainly because the game's engine is just not suited to it. Physics are just too shite to get it done. I'd love nothing more than being able to do some forestry to have a change from doing fieldwork, but it's just a shite experience. The only what it is kind of workable is, if you're using an autoload trailer/truck to pick up logs, but then again there's not a lot of fun in that...

[Andy @ Allerton!]

Platinum Expansion for Farming Simulator is out now. New (logging focussed) map and loads of new forestry equipment including winches and new brands like Volvo and some specialised forestry manufacturers (I think they're mainly German). I'm kind of torn about this.

On the one hand, it looks like they really put some effort into the map with new production chains and new products. They also had some great ideas with the rollercoaster you can build and the boats you can manufacture. They even included iron processing (i.e. picking up iron ore at a quarry with a wheel-loader and bringing it to a forge to then make various products from steel bars or whatever.

On the other hand, forestry has to be the worst part of the game and it's insane to have your premium DLC be about that when probably 50 percent of your player base absolutely hate logging (not sure if the actual number of forestry-haters is much higher than 50 percent). I'm one of those people, mainly because the game's engine is just not suited to it. Physics are just too shite to get it done. I'd love nothing more than being able to do some forestry to have a change from doing fieldwork, but it's just a shite experience. The only what it is kind of workable is, if you're using an autoload trailer/truck to pick up logs, but then again there's not a lot of fun in that...

I find forestry fun if I have the lumberjack mod

Chop 'em down, pick up em and down to the timber merchant

I've also got the mod where I can chop trees down all over the shop