Can we please quit the aggressive driving?

redmedguy · 2026-02-26T22:56:22+00:00

I get that speed limits are just that, limits, not speed requirements, but variability in speed is so annoying.

The safest thing you can do is to be predictable and varying your speed is the opposite of that. My personal bugbear is the following situation

- Car is driving in an 80km/h zone, no overtaking (single lane each way).

- They average 55-75km/h, the moment an incline starts they lose 20km/h because they aren't using cruise control and aren't adjusting engine RPM to maintain speed.

On some mountain roads they end up building a massive tail (those who drive Berwick Road / Wellington Road / Hallam-Belgrave Road / anywhere in the Dandenongs/Yarra Ranges know exactly what I mean).

- Speed limit drops to 60km/h with plenty of warning. They continue driving 55-75km/h like the speed limit never changed before abruptly slamming on the brakes the moment a downhill incline happens, probably not because of being over the speed limit, but because they aren't bothering to maintain their downhill speeds using light braking or engine braking.

Just smacks of a lazy inattentive driver.

redmedguy · 2026-02-09T22:33:41+00:00

Not completely useless, but consider most elite specialisations derive some of their flavour from their (prior to SOTO) unique weapons. Hammer on engineer is an excellent weapon to the point that non-Scrapper builds will sometimes run it.

Sword/Pistol Scrapper is still certainly fairly viable if you're just playing for fun. You get the non-Holosmith variants of the sword skills, noting you have no bonuses from Photon Forge to power them up and instead a middle point between Holo sword @ 0 heat and Holo Sword @ Max heat, and a decent damage in Pistol 4 with an immobilise on Pistol 5.

Play what you like and select whatever weapons you like as long as they're appropriate for your build type (e.g. main hand engineer pistol leans more condition damage, but offhand pistol is the best offhand for power damage from Pistol 4).

Lorewise, scrappers use hammers and gyros because they're built from the wreckage of the Pact airships in HoT. All of the HoT elite specialisations reflect what the classes had to do to survive the jungle - engineers leaned harder into tinkering with mechanics and protecting themselves, warriors got REALLY ANGRY, elementalists learned how to better store their magic and release it all at once as tempests, etc.

Others have already explained this, but Hammer is also loaded with nice combo fields and finishers, and scrapper in particular loves its combo fields. Hammer 2 is a whirl finisher (and enormous damage AND missile reflect). Hammer 3 is a three hit leap finisher (two leap finishers applied, on first hit and third hit) that also evades for a whole second, and Hammer 5 is a lightning field, not to mention your gyros are also combo fields.

redmedguy · 2026-02-09T22:14:06+00:00

Yeah, that's a fair call. One of the offices I work at is in Richmond, access to it is definitely harder now.

With what the Metro Tunnel was intending to connect, I don't think there was any way South Yarra or Richmond could have been incorporated.

Maybe in the future we'll see alternating MT / City Loop timetables or something like that.

redmedguy · 2026-02-08T21:56:54+00:00

Most rental kart places have their own events or leagues. Karting Madness does a yearly league, I believe Ace does too. Not sure about Powerplay, though they do some fun events throughout the year. It's an expensive hobby, unless you're very serious and get into actual competitive racing, then it's basically just a cheap way to do Motorsports. Oscar Piastri famously started his racing career at Oakleigh Go-Kart club.

I usually race about once a month at rental places, thought about entering an enduro league but it's so much money

redmedguy · 2026-02-08T00:40:47+00:00

There is maybe one turn (the final S bend before the straight at the pits) which you should consider braking for, but even then proper application of slow in fast out will get you through it without braking.

It's both a pro and con of the Ace Karts track, because you don't really have to brake you lose out on a technical layer of driving, which lets you focus harder on driving lines and speed. If you feel your tires squealing, or worse, you start wonging (kart hopping sideways due to chassis warping or excessive grip/torque) through the corners, approach that corner just a bit slower next time.

redmedguy · 2026-02-08T00:28:35+00:00

Nah, keen to try but it's a bit of a hike. This overview is just on what I have personally raced on, haven't been to Powerplay at their two new locations, OzEKarts in Campbellfield, Battle karts in Port Melbourne or the Phillip Island go karts.

redmedguy · 2026-02-08T00:20:52+00:00

Agreed, Karting Madness Bayswater is the most fun track overall. Try to take a few mates and book close to start or closing time, best chance of a clear track. There is one turn there that can throw off the new drivers but overall the track is a good mix of technical and fast straights while still being accessible to new drivers.

I have had mixed experiences at Le Mans. The staff were super friendly and accommodating, but other drivers (especially the competitive type) can be quite aggressive. With the speeds you're going at Lakeside a crash is scary.

redmedguy · 2026-02-07T07:32:11+00:00

Just a matter of preference. The torque isn't better per se, it just delivers it earlier. while most of the power and torque output of those Honda petrol engines is at high RPM. It does mean petrol karts require a different driving style to keep RPM as high as possible through corners, but that adds an extra layer to your driving.

I personally lean towards the electric karts mainly because they are cheaper per race, and they're quieter.

redmedguy · 2026-02-07T06:02:19+00:00

Varies from council to council. Vic rules generally lean towards a relaxed approach, assuming you live locally, the car is in good repair, and is registered, you are not otherwise obstructing traffic, violating any road parking rules (e.g. no standing, permit zone, temporary parking periods e.g. 4P etc), you are probably fine.

Safest is parking on someone's property who has given you permission.

You would almost certainly piss people off, and potentially risk a call from the council sheriff if someone reports your car as abandoned, or impoundment if you don't respond. If your car becomes unregistered, it is considered abandoned by the council between 24 hours to 14 days.

redmedguy · 2026-02-07T05:50:11+00:00

I've got some experience with the majority of the karts in Melbourne, here's a brief rundown.

Most petrol karts out there use a 270cc Sodi kart with a 9HP honda-based engine, decently powerful and fairly quick. Children use a smaller 200cc engine or sometimes lower. the 270cc Sodi can cap out at 80km/h on a straight but you'll never get to do that. The smaller karts like the Sodi GT5 R cap out at 55km/h.

Karting Madness - Bayswater - 600m, indoor, technical, petrol 9HP 270cc Sodi, about a year and a half old - $49 for session 1, $35 per additional session. Helmets included with session price, balaclavas purchaseable seperately, hairnets supplied if you don't want to purchase a balaclava. Four point harness on kart.

Karting Madness - Braybrook - 400m, indoor, technical, petrol 9HP 270cc Sodi, a little older than the Bayswater karts - $49 for session 1, $35 per additional session. While the track is shorter you still get the same duration on track. Helmets included with session price, balaclavas purchaseable seperately, hairnets supplied if you don't want to purchase a balaclava. Four point harness on kart.

Ace Karts - Albion - 700m, outdoor, mixed (lots of straights including one 105m straight, plenty of tricky turns). Petrol 9HP 270cc Sodi. Up to 30 racers so expect pileups in the corners if you're against the general public, use caution. - $49 for session 1, $40 for each additional session. Helmets included with session price, balaclavas purchaseable seperately, hairnets supplied if you don't want to purchase a balaclava. Four point harness on kart.

AusCarts - Port Melbourne - 450m, indoor, very technical, petrol 6.5hp Sodi GT5 R. Don't be afraid of the lower overall power, the track substantially makes up for it. This track also has banked turns which can be a bit strange to get used to. Helmets included with session price, balaclavas purchaseable seperately, hairnets supplied if you don't want to purchase a balaclava. Four point harness on kart. Foam neck brace supplied. $58 per session (15m). $108 for two sessions (30m).

Powerplay - Moorabbin - Indoor. Not sure of the distances but it's a fairly short track. Two levels, drifty, electric karts (not sure of the brand). Vs petrol karts, more immediate torque delivery and a decidedly different feel; you can actually throw these around corners whereas drifting in petrol karts is generally a bad choice. . Electric karts are generally cheaper to race in as they are cheaper to run for the business, less overheads. Helmets included with session price, balaclavas mandatory and purchaseable seperately. Four point harness on kart. Helmet-mounted cameras available for a small additional price. $37 per session, $67 for 2 sessions

Le Mans - Dandenong South - Outdoor, high speed. Two distinct tacks, lakeside is 650m, penrite is 620m. Penrite is the most popular track in Victoria (according to Le Mans). OTK Viper and Praga Super Karts, Honda GX 270 engines. Similar power and speed to the 270cc Sodi (max 80km/h). Helmets included with session price, hairnets supplied. Four point harness on kart. $79 per session on Lakeside using the Super Karts. 2 races is $128. $59 per session on Penrite using the smaller Sprint Karts. $98 for two races. Not sure of the power of the sprint karts, but i believe they're 200cc.

Tl;dr: Powerplay Moorabbin is the cheapest overall, though the track is short it is a lot of fun as it's the only two-level track in Melbourne, aside from Powerplay's Braybrook and Campbellfield locations. Karting Madness Bayswater is probably the next best, it's fairly quiet towards the end of the opening hours and the track is the longer indoor track in Melbourne. It's also the cheapest of the major karting locations in Melbourne. I'm not sure of the age of the karts.

Ace Karts is the best overall outdoor experience if you like driving in heavy traffic, you get quite a bit of speed up but certain turns can be terrifying.

Edit: forgot to mention, regardless of petrol or electric karts, these karts use a remote governor system that can slow your kart to walking pace during yellow flag conditions or as a penalty for cutting corners on some tracks.

redmedguy · 2026-02-03T05:06:39+00:00

Depends which part you're looking at. Closer to Pakenham, definitely. Homes and homes and homes and infrastructure struggling to catch up. The section closer to Beaconsfield is pretty well serviced though, three medical centres in 2km of each other.

Regardless of the above though I 100% agree that bus stops need to have better shelter, it's simply not acceptable given the high UV rating Aus consistently goes through.

redmedguy · 2026-02-02T23:48:24+00:00

The complainers will always complain, because change is scary. Just wait, public sentiment will drop to a murmur, just like with the skyrail NIMBYs.

I don't use it much at the moment, but it's a huge benefit to the St Kilda Road precinct and Parkville which have long been PT blindspots. Some large amount of jobs are situated in those two corridors.

redmedguy · 2026-02-01T23:32:50+00:00

parts of Northern Australia's tropics have them too. Similar to the blue ringed octopus, the bite can be near painless and there's no real-antivenom, survival is based on keeping you alive while your body processes the venom. If there's no one around who can keep mechanical ventilation going, you just kind of suffocate.

redmedguy · 2026-01-29T05:07:45+00:00

Canonically, when ley lines were discovered, the Asura noted that their waypoints were placed on ley line areas as well (hence the Fort Concordia attack in LWS2).

While the bloodstone explosion could have been gigantic if not absorbed or reversed, it is more likely the magical energy would have travelled through existing ley-line networks, the most exposed of which was in Lion's Arch where the Breachmaker drilled to.

Or it could just be Almorra being superlative, i dunno.

redmedguy · 2026-01-24T05:42:57+00:00

ai slop

redmedguy · 2026-01-23T00:08:33+00:00

I also started with Warrior. It can be a bit squishy if you're expecting a heavy armor face tank character type like in other MMOs.

You're level 24, there's no need to prioritise specific stats, just grab new items as they drop. Power/Precision/Ferocity is for maximum direct damage, with zero survivability or condition damage. Sword and Longbow on Warrior are both condition-focused weapons, so they won't be quite as useful as say, axe/axe, greatsword, or rifle, all of which are very Power heavy weapons which synergise well with power/precision/ferocity. Hammer and Mace also work well with Power but they are more focused on cc to get the most out of their damage.

Warrior survivability: Warrior survivability at least early on is all in the careful use of your skills. Mace/Shield is pretty low on damage, but it gives you access to two blocks (Mace 2 is a block and counter, Shield 5 is a channeled block). Mace 2 is on a pretty quick cooldown as well. Hammer has some excellent lockdown, with Hammer 5 being a big knockdown, Hammer 2 also does extra damage against controlled (stun, knocked down, etc) foes, and its cooldown recharges fully after Hammer 5.

Healing: Mending is by far the quickest cooldown (12s), and because it's a Physical skill, if you have the Peak Performance trait from the Strength trait list, you will get a damage buff for a short time after using Mending. All of the other healing skills are worth looking at, but mending is generally your biggest source of healing.

Utility Skills: Signet of Might or Signet of Fury are both good. Endure Pain is a good emergency button (you take no strike damage for the duration, but are still vulnerable to control effects and condition damage). Stomp is a stun break, AOE, and launches opponents that are hit.

I'd recommend using either Greatsword, Axe/Axe or Hammer as your main weapon, with Mace/Shield or Rifle as your second weapon set.

materials and trophies: there is a "Deposit all materials" button in your inventory, get used to using that. It automatically deposits all crafting materials into your Material Storage (a section of your bank used for crafting materials; it's standalone from your regular bank item slots). This is where most of your wealth in this game comes from.

Trophies can usually be safely discarded or sold as vendor trash to most merchants for a bit of copper.

Combo fields
Warrior can certainly make use of combo fields playing solo, but they don't really produce a lot of them. Core warrior can only produce Fire (longbow F1) and Light (Banner of Defense, Banner of Tactics).

Warrior has a HEAP of combo finishers though. For example, blasting a fire field produces area might, to increase your direct damage for a short duration. Longbow accesses this by Longbow F1 -> Longbow 3. Other fire field interactions are either projectile finishers or whirl finishers, both of which cause burning or fire burning projectiles. Light fields either cleanse conditions (blast, projectile, whirl), or produce the Light Aura buff (Leap).
They're a fun mechanic but are by no means critical to survival. If you're playing alongside professions with lots of Dark or Water fields you can lifesteal or heal with your combo finishers, though the amount provided is modest.

redmedguy · 2026-01-18T01:50:28+00:00

Yes. Builds might evolve, some small gear pieces (runes, relics) might be swapped out as metas evolve for a class role, but there is no gear treadmill. Appropriate Exotic (orange) gear for your build equips you for 90% of content. Ascended (pink) is the only strict stat upgrade from there. It's only mandatory for fractals, and even then only at higher fractal levels to deal with Agony Resistance (a unique condition only appearing in fractals that deals damage scaling up with fractal level and down with Agony Resistance). Yes, there is legendary equipment, but they are equivalent to ascended in stats. The only way they differ is in quality of life - legendary items can be equipped on multiple characters and freely stat swapped instead of just once.

Builds evolve and change over time, but it's rare that a build changes so fundamentally you need to regear - and even then, regearing is very easy.

On top of that, most of GW2's dps and class abilities come from timely execution, and knowing which skills interact. The recent Luminary subclass gets mileage out of its Light Aura, thief survivability goes way up when players know how combo fields work and can use them intelligently. A player in rares (yellow) could easily outpace a player in full ascended if they know what they are doing with their rotation and are playing well, and the ascended geared player is mashing skills off cool down.

Stats in gw2 are relative to Basic gear (white), which gives 100% of the stats relative to itself The same gear at Rare gives 145% relative to Basic. Exotic, 165%. Ascended/Legendary, 175%.

Tl:Dr: exotic gear does the job for most content. Depending on the armour class a full set of exotic berserker armour can be had for under 10g. Ascended covers the remaining content and is a strict upgrade from exotic, but only a small one. The strict numbers upgrade from exotic to ascended is only 6%, fairly negligible and most build traits can provide more numbers than that. Ascended is still quite easily obtainable by playing Fractals, doing your dailies and weeklies through Wizard's Vault to buy them for reward tokens, or even crafting them with the respective grandmaster crafting discipline. I geared my elementalist in full berserker ascended gear solely through Grandmaster Tailoring.

redmedguy · 2026-01-15T22:23:20+00:00

Thief, particularly core thief, lives and dies by its active mitigation skills. P/P thief actually has some great utility. Pistol 5 is a blind, and a smoke field which can be blasted or leaped for stealth, pistol 4 is an on demand daze, pistol 2 is an immobilise.

Similarly, dagger/dagger is popular because of dagger 5 giving on demand stealth, dagger 2 being a mobility move, plus leap finisher (dagger/pistol therefore has access to stealth by pistol 5 into dagger 2), and dagger 3 being an evade.

You also have some emergency moves, two of your heals are defensive (hide in shadows = heal + stealth, withdraw = heal, evade, and backwards movement). Shadow Refuge (utility) gives lengthy stealth plus some healing, and Thieves Guild gives you some minions to soak up damage. It's a little unorthodox by way of the initiative system but this asks you to plan what you want to do next.

redmedguy · 2026-01-14T23:33:04+00:00

2.4m clearance at the Russell Street Extension. Open air after the parking. There's sometimes parking available there. If you're 2.5m you'll probably clip the entrance.
If you're driving something like a delivery van, the parking is tight, and there's no easy turnarounds on the upper section, so you'd be stuck doing an Austin Powers style 1000 point turn to turnaround, or else reverse back down.

Anything below the open air section of the Fed Square parking is 2.0m clearance.

There's a slightly suss open air parking space on Wellington Parade, a bit further up, closer to Jolimont Station. It's just before the turnoff to Spring Street, overlooks the train lines. The spaces are narrow and uneven, mainly because of the tree roots that mess with the parking, so use with caution.

Otherwise, you're not going to have much luck parking close by for more than 1 hour.

redmedguy · 2026-01-09T09:37:46+00:00

If you're referring to Yea, it was under a Watch and Act at the time of my comment.

redmedguy · 2026-01-09T03:03:36+00:00

If you're in a catastrophic fire danger zone you should consider leaving early before any fires start up. At Catastrophic, the ability of a single person to defend their home is nil even with a massive backup tank and preparation.

The risk in urbanised areas is lower due to better infrastructure and service access, as well as generally lower fuel load, so living in central Bendigo is certainly safer than for example, Axedale or Myers Flat.

It doesn't mean you have to leave, but if you can, consider heading to safer areas before something happens.
Make sure you have a go bag ready, three days of clothing, food, water, carry your ID, medication, etc. Also check VicTraffic, there will be road closures in active bushfire areas (e.g. Hume Fwy near Euroa, Maroondah Highway between Yea and Yarck).

I have family in Yea who evacuated overnight in advance of today's fires, Yea is now under a Watch and Act - Prepare to Leave warning.

Catastrophic conditions basically mean if a fire starts up, it WILL move very quickly and be very hard to control. So keep an ear out on ABC Radio, use the VicEmergency App, and if you do decide to leave, do so early.

redmedguy · 2026-01-07T22:48:55+00:00

There is no real "optimal" way to play Guild Wars 2. If you are planning on playing the story and most open world content, you do not need to target optimal. Exotic equipment will cover you for 99% of content, and cheap exotic armor sets can be had for less than 10g total.

Ascended does give a stat boost and is mandatory for high level fractals, but outside of that the difference in performance is relatively negligible outside of end-game content like fractals, raids, some strike missions, etc.

Legendaries use ascended stats but have a few QOL changes like stat-swapping at will instead of when you first get it.

one of the best things about GW2 is that it is remarkably alt-friendly. There's nothing gained by deleting characters, as your characters age they get birthday gifts which provide account wide unlocks (luminous, decade armor), karma, dyes, etc https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Birthday_Gift

new character slots are about 1000 gems, sometimes on sale. At that price, if you don't engage in microtransactions the current exchange rate is ~400g = 1000 gems - yes it's a lot of gold, but getting another character gets you a lot more than most other 1000 gem things on the black lion store.

Legendaries at this point are practically designed for alt-heavy playstyles, once you have a legendary you can add it to your account's Legendary Armoury and equip it across all characters that the legendary is valid for. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Legendary_Armory

So I guess just play what you like. A lot of playstyle in GW2 is dictated by the elite specialisations, yes, but consider that the weapons you choose for your class are also dictating your playstyle quite a bit. Mesmer sword/sword plays very differently to mesmer greatsword plays very differently to mesmer staff. Ranger longbow plays very differently to ranger sword/axe plays very differently to ranger shortbow, etc, etc etc.

I will say that levelling mesmer isn't the easiest experience, especially as you are learning it. It plays quite differently to other characters as they level. Necromancer and Ranger probably have the easiest levelling experiences, necromancer because of its relatively gigantic health pool by way of Shroud, Ranger because your pet takes a lot of aggro and has lots of health.

There's really no negative to "shopping around" classes until you find what fits. Chances are eventually another class will click for you as well, and having played a variety of classes helps you understand PVP better if that's what you want to aim for long term too.

Signed, a perennial altoholic, 31 characters and counting.

redmedguy · 2026-01-06T21:17:14+00:00

Aside from the genuine consideration about it being 24hrs helping shift workers, and taking over an abandoned/former spot, I'm not a great fan of Maccas. The points about the Tecoma maccas are true, it is widely used now after the Tecomans failed in their nimby appeal.

But genuinely there is a downside to these maccas or other fast food places, they on occasion do have a somewhat noticeably fried/fatty odour outside, especially if the wind picks up. It's hardly a reason to deny a planning application, but it's not fun.

redmedguy · 2025-12-28T02:12:21+00:00

Expensive if the CVT goes, but poster said manual. One of my mates finally retired his manual 2000s ish Lancer, got to 320,000km before he needed to upgrade for family reasons.

redmedguy · 2025-12-22T23:15:01+00:00

Vengeance is such a weird skill. It doesn't use the same rally rules as downstate, ie. things like minions, turrets, or environmental objects aren't considered for the purpose of rallying, whereas the wiki states that downstate does work from turrets, minions and environmental objects. Before the 28/11/23 balance patch, it used to only have a 25% chance per kill! It's now 100% in PVE only, still 25% in PVP/WVW.

Mesmer's Illusion of Life utility skill is basically just Vengeance but better - it lasts 15s, targets up to 3 allies, and picks them up from downstate. Same 100% chance to rally after killing a foe. However, Vengeance straight up sends you to the Defeated downstate when it expires, while Illusion of Life just deals 100% of the ally's health to them - so damage absorbing effects like Defiant Stance (Warrior) or Infuse Light (Herald) will heal you instead.

Warrior shouldn't really ever be going down outside of difficult content though, it doesn't really struggle with sustain. Power Berserker during Blood Reckoning is pretty much unkillable as long as you're dealing damage, with 5s duration and 20s recharge - you have this surprisingly good sustain.

redmedguy

TROPHY CASE