Back to the car gang

Hello everyone,

I may have gotten slightly addicted to a game. Yep. Another game.

Picture. A black Sausage dog is sitting by a car being worked on by a mechanic. The dog is wearing a jacket with various spanners in pockets. The caption is "Mechanic: I can get you back on the road but it's gonna cost you some chicken nuggos sir"
Will work for noms

The latest curiosity is Car Mechanic Simulator 2021. It’s the latest in a series of games where you take a car, light truck or van in various states of repair and your job is to fix them up to an acceptable state. That is, acceptable to the customer … You know car repairs … you don’t get a car back that’s absolutely perfect, that would cost a lot of money. Especially if there’s like 20,000 miles left on the cambelt or the tyres. They can wait for the next service.

I digress :-D. The idea is to take something like this :

Game screenshot. Car Mechanic Simulator. We're looking at a stripped chassis of a car. There's literally no components left on. The basic shell is that of a powerful convertible.
Erm, may have to order in a few parts for this one

That’s after I got it home and stripped everything off the car to see what could be salvaged. Because, even the junkyard parts can be repaired sometimes. And then you put it back together and resurrect it into something like :

Game screenshot. Car Mechanic Simulator. We're looking at the same car as before but it is now complete. It's a stunning looking convertible, sitting in a spray painting room. The colour is a metallic purple, with a black stripe down the centre.
Yep. I chose that colour willingly

That’s after completing the rebuild and renovation and perhaps even popping in a little upgrade too with that supercharger popping out of the hood. Looks nice, they did a good one with the graphics. It continues under the skin too although you start seeing the short cuts that turn it from something annoying and into a playable, addictive game.

And by that, I mean commonality of parts. The suspension and engine parts on the car above are the same as in the rest of the cars. Mostly. There’s a little bit of variation in layout but a front spring for the sports car is the same as the spring that goes into the McPherson struts for a Fiesta type car. There are just 3 types of alternator and only 1 type of battery. I’m very ok with that kind of simplification, it’s a huge difference from what a real car mechanic will have to cope with but the simplification makes for a better game. In my opinion :-D.

And there’s some lovely variation in the cars that go into the shop too.

Game screenshot. Car Mechanic Simulator. An old design pick up truck is sitting in front of garage doors. It looks like the suspension is lowered and it has a winch crane arm on the back. The truck is painted in metallic green.
There are many like it but this is mine

Have truck, will travel etc. Every garage needs a shop truck, so this is the first of the rebuilt cars that I kept. I’ll keep the next one too when it’s complete. A game like this tends to go for lookalike type cars due to licensing issues, unless they can cover that through paid DLC. I’ll be looking for the old classic Jaguar E-Type to put in the collection. The current project car is a Ferrari which is in there courtesy of a mod.

That’s one weird thing. With the mods and the gamification, you can find the Ferraris and the McLaren F1’s in the junkyard or barn, waiting to be found and done up. I have been enjoying it though and it’s got me caught enough to keep going back in for more cars to fix. While the variation is limited, it does show you things around getting to the parts to be taken apart and the components needed for the cars to go. Like not forgetting to put the wheel bearings in and that you need to take the caps off the bottom of the pistons before taking the pistons out.

Found this too …

Game screenshot. Car Mechanic Simulator. We're in a junkyard looking at piles of derelict, rusting cars. In front of us, there is a vague promise of a wedge shaped sporty looking car.
It’s been a while since this has done 88mph

Anyone recognise what that is yet ? It’s from another mod and I had to take it home with me.

Game screenshot. Car Mechanic Simulator. We're looking at the underneath back end of the car, raised up in the garage on the lifters. We're seeing an engine at the back, with drive gear, suspension and brake parts on the right.
All shiny new bits

Steadily coming together here. This one has the engine in the back, just like the real version of the car which was only made for a couple of years. I’ve seen two of them in the wild over the last 35 years so that’s actually, more common than Ferraris or Rolls Royces.

Ok, here’s the end result with a few special modifications.

Game screenshot. Car Mechanic Simulator. We're outside the garage, looking at a DeLorean. It's an 80s wedge shaped two seat sports car, in the metallic silvery livery, with a few curious objects on the bonnet and trunk.
Set the time controls Doc

Looking shiny. This one is a DeLorean from a mod as well, with the mod including some very special modifications from a classic movie.

Game screenshot. Car Mechanic Simulator. We're looking at the inside of the Delorean. It's normal at the driver's position but on the centre console is a display with 3 sets of dates and time on it.
Bring back the future lottery numbers please

Yep. I was having fun putting this one back together.

Apart from that, I’ve been enjoying watching the cricket T20 world cup games so far. There’s been some good games and a couple of teams have been surprised already. The saying in cricket is “you are only as good as your last game”. I think more than a few players forget that and turn up with their self proclaimed legend status and assume they’ll have another great game. And then they meet a team working hard to stay at their highest level and get murdered. We saw that with West Indies vs England the other day where it was a rather one sided game. Hopefully West Indies will pick up their game against the other teams. I’m firmly on the Support England side with cricket but I do like to see good games, like the India vs Pakistan game where Pakistan broke a jinx by turning over a record where they’d always lost to India in world cups.

I think it’s time for me to hit post now though and stop typing. My shoulder wasn’t happy with me yesterday or today (too much car poking ?) and it’s really reminding me about that at the moment. Possibly down to also doing piloting earlier. I’m at the opposite end of the galaxy now …

Game screenshot. Elite Dangerous. Our pink and white checkered ship is flying towards the right side of shot. Beyond, is a large vessel with glowing green engines. We'll be headed for the landing platforms on her top side.
Tower request permission to land

I’m at Beagle Point at the moment, which is on the far side of the galaxy. One thought is to try and get home for a player driven event on the 18th of November. I might have to use my second account as an imposter, this one is courtesy of a freebie week on the Epic store and I’ve never used the account.

One last picture though …

Picture. A black and white cat is on a car, with its paw leaning into the engine bay. The caption is split in two "No, duct tape won't fix this." and "Fetch me some bubble gum and a stapler." At the top "We need this type of mechanic".
Cat Mechanic knows best

Both the meme pics from today were raided from a site with “interest” in its name, so who knows there with copyright ! Although that last one retained its tag.

That’s it for me for now – have fun everyone. Stay safe, be well.