Richard Western Trailer.

Last night the first job was to go over to the farm store and buy myself a new trailer. I decided to go for a 'Richard Western' Trailer, http://www.ls-uk.info/downloads/56/18129. I chose this one because basically I liked the look of it. It works okay in the game except for when tipping the contents which appear to be missing the hole but the load is registering as having gone in the right place and there is no heap left behind when you move off so that's not to bad. I posed a question yesterday about attaching the green trailer to my Ford and would the same thing happen with all the trailers but it appears to be the green trailer that it doesn't like as this new one hooks up okay whereas the green one leaps about ten feet off the ground for some reason which looks a bit strange but as I said yesterday, once it's landed back on it's wheels it functions as intended.

Below is a video of the Richard Western trailer.

Also last night I loaded a new map and I think this is the one I'm mostly going to call home. This is the link to the map which is called Wellbrook Farms. http://www.ls-uk.info/downloads/5/17281  The surprising thing about this map is that of all the maps I've tried this is the first one where you start off with some decent machinery. I haven't explored it to any great extent but it seems a big map with three farms and more fields than you can hope for, probably way to many for one person to work but if I understand it right you can just work what you want to and forget the rest. The map is very authentic of the UK countryside with various shapes to the fields and undulating landscape. The farms have a good range of buildings arranged in a way to make using the game great fun. I've been using the East Peak Farms map most of the time and I will keep that game going as it's a nice map to use but I think I will forget about any of the others and make Wellbrook my main game from now on. On most of the maps that I have tried the satnav thingy on the PDA that shows you where you are doesn't work in that respect but on the Wellbrook map it works fine. I wish there was a plan of the whole farm so as to get a better understanding of where everything is in relation to each other. I guess in time you figure out which is the quickest way to the mill from where you are. You can drive round and round until you don't have a clue as to which way is back to the farm

I had a go at harvesting some Barley on the East Peak Farms map last night (See the above video) which is where I bought the new trailer for, it's proving to be quite a slow job with the old combine harvester that I have so I'm looking in to buying a new one when I have saved up some cash. I want something with a bigger cut mainly as I'm going round and round and hardly getting anywhere.

I also mentioned yesterday that I couldn't work out what the PgUp/PgDn button was for, well it appears to turn off the notifications on the screen so that's put another one to rest.

New Ford TW25.

Ford TW25

Yesterday as stated in my last post I took delivery of my new tractor. In real terms it's not actually a modern day tractor but I don't think that matters to much when it comes to playing the game, you need a tractor that's up to the job but a lot is down to person preference. I chose this particular model because I used to drive one on occasion. The tractors you start your career with are old and not very powerful and not really the sort of tractor you want to be seen driving around on. I wanted something bigger than the start up models so I can add better and bigger machinery. That doesn't mean to say you want the biggest tractor going because sometimes it isn't possible to fit in to some places with them if they're to big. Anyway this tractor has turned out to be a good choice because not only does it fit the bill it's also pretty cheap to buy at 20,000 dollars. When you first start your career you only have a limited amount of cash to spend. I don't remember exactly and I can't check now but I think this tractor is something like a third of a price of something equivalent on sale at the farming shop, so I'm pleased with it. I think it looks okay and sounds good and work very well although there is some kind of issue when coupling up the trailer. I don't know if this happens with anything other than the trailer provided but it doesn't affect the game at all so I can live with that. It also comes with a set of dual wheels, the front set and rear set can be added and removed separately, press 9 on the keyboard to add/remove the rear set of wheels and 8 to add/remove the front set. Pressing 7 adds or removes the front weights, 6 operates the rear working lights and 5 starts the tractor which had me baffled for a while because the normal key for starting the machines is the letter E. As it turns out I was being dumb though because if you look at the display on the corner pillar of the cab there is a key symbol with a 5 by the side of it. Anyway we got that figured out okay in the end. When you start your career you have a certain amount of cash in the bank and there are some 'Fruits' as they are called, i.e. Wheat, Barley etc. that can be carted off the farm to be sold in various places so you can use these funds to buy your new toys, I chose to sell the old yellow combine as there was already a green one so I figured I didn't need two so I sold that to pay for the new tractor and also have some cast left over. Today I am going to look in to buying at least one new trailer as the one provided isn't really enough but more about that another time.

There is another function on the display in the cab of the tractor and this is operated by pressing the 'PgUp and PgDn' keys on the keyboard but as yet I can't see what they do so if you know can you let me know please.

This tractor is what is known as a 'Mod'. You won't find it at the farming shop without you first download it from here http://www.ls-uk.info/downloads It's easy enough to install if you follow the instructions, it should go to your 'Downloads' from where you either extract it to a folder in 'Documents' called 'My Games' in which there should be your 'Farming Simulator' folder. Once you have it in that folder the game just finds it when you play. On some of the 'Mods' you can just double click on the downloaded folder and everything is done for you without unzipping anything, it depends on which file you download. But as I say it's all explained and really simple.

I will leave you with a video of the picking up of the new tractor and the drive back to the farm. By the way I apologise if you were the driver of the car that passed me as I was on the way to the barn, I'm not used to you all driving on the wrong side of the road!!

In The beginning.

First of all thank you for taking a look at my blog. This is a bit of a departure from my usual blog topics but I'm a great believer that a change is as good as a rest so I thought why not give it a go.

As with a lot of things in life this all came about by accident when one night last week I was at a lose end so decided to look up some tractor video's on Youtube. I've always liked tractors since I first became of the world around me but unfortunately these days I have no opportunity to play with them so I usually just look and remember bygone times. After viewing several video's and as one does on Youtube I got sidetracked and eventually came upon some video's posted of fun people were having with this game from Giants Software called Farming Simulator 2011. It doesn't replace the real boys toys but it looked good enough to tempt me to the Giants Software website in search of more information. Once there I downloaded a trial version of the game, this was mainly to see if it would actually work on my PC, these things often have a way of disappointing you but on this occasion everything worked as it should which encouraged me to place an order with Amazon for the fully functioning version, this arrived by post on the 24th March.

Since I started playing the game I've mostly worked my way through some of the missions. These are a bit tedious but worth doing as they help you to get used to how things work and where different things are and what they do. The highest award I managed was bronze but that's okay I'm doing it for fun rather than high scores. Also when I was doing the missions I was still getting to grips with the controls so no doubt if I go back to them in the future I should do better.

Since the missions I have been checking out different maps, the one that comes with the game is okay but I've seen a few other maps that look a bit less flat with fields that aren't all square. One I quite like is http://www.ls-uk.info/downloads/5/22819 and the other is http://www.ls-uk.info/downloads/5/22502
not that I have really settled for either of them yet but I do like the look of them. If anyone can recommend any good ones let me know. I want to try and find one that I'm happy with before I embark on my career proper.

I think that will do for today, I will leave you with a video of a walk round at East Peak Farms.

When you first start a career you get some run down old equipment for free, included among this are a couple of old combine harvesters so tonight I am selling on of these so I can buy a half decent tractor as the ones that come with the game aren't very good ones.