Monday, July 19, 2010

This blog has moved

This blog is now located at http://blog.wuphonsreach.org/.
You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here.

For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
http://blog.wuphonsreach.org/rss.xml.

posted by Wuphon's at 10:03 AM (0 comments)

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

US Gov't $50 Gold Buffalo

So, been watching some shows on the TruTV channel and have been inundated with the commercial for that Buffalo Gold proof that is supposed to be worth $50 but you can have it for only $19.95.

US Gov't $50 Gold Buffalo
Purest 24kt Gold Coin Ever Struck by the United States Gov't

Of course, the actual gold content of this supposed $50 gold piece proof? Only 31 mgs (that's milligrams). Which, given the current price of gold (around $1124 USD per troy oz) means that 31 mgs is only 0.00109 oz or about $1.22 USD.

And that 1oz printed on the piece? That's the avdp (International avoirdupois ounce) weight of the entire proof piece, not the amount of gold contained within. The avdp oz is smaller then a troy oz.

Labels: 2010, Scams

posted by Wuphon's at 11:22 AM (0 comments)

Monday, December 28, 2009

x264: Encoding times for Baldur's Gate footage

While the Baldur's Gate game runs at a measly 640x480 screen size, it has a lot of dithering which can easily be washed out / muddied up by a low bitrate. So when encoding with x264, I recommend a decent CRF value (I'm currently using CRF 24). The major problems that you'll see are where a fireplace is present in a dithered / shadowed area (such as inside the Candlekeep Inn).

On the upside, a large portion of the screen rarely changes due to the large buttons along the left / right / bottom edges. So that simplifies the encoder's job.

The bitrate for the final file usually ends up in the 550-660 kilobits/sec range. Which is about 167:1 to 200:1 over the original FRAPS footage. At the upper end, that's around 4.8 megabytes per minute of footage (the lower end is 4.1 megabytes/minute). That includes a 130Kbps AC3 audio track, so the video portion is compressing down nicely.

Update: Later encodes are more in the range of 800-950Kbps due to lots of panning in outdoors areas. Which is more in the range of 5.5 to 6.7 megabytes per minute of footage. Or about 400MB per hour at the upper-end.

On my aging quad-core Phenom 2.5GHz machine, I'm seeing encoding speeds of 30-45 frames/sec which is a bit better then real time. However, the major impediment to maxing out all 4 cores seems to be disk accesses. So the CPUs are only working about 75-85% during the video encoding portion of the task. That's with a 750GB 7200RPM SATA drive. It would go faster if I was using a 10k RPM drive or a RAID-0 or RAID-10 array.

Labels: 2009, VideoEncoding, x264

posted by Wuphon's at 11:02 AM (0 comments)

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Baldur's Gate: Start of chapter one, your first party

Herein lie a few spoilers.

Before leaving Candlekeep

Before leaving, you're going to want the following items (including what you have equipped):

- (3) slings, one for yourself, one spare, and one for a future party member
- (5) stacks of sling ammo (bullets)
- (3) short bows, one for Imoen, one spare, and one for a future party member
- (5) stacks of arrows
- (1) studded leather for Imoen

The slings and bullets along with the short bow are not that expensive and will stand you in good stead once you meet up with the mage (Xzar) & thief (Montaron) on the path near Candlekeep. That will let you equip all 4 members of the party at that point with ranged weapons before heading to Friendly Arm Inn (FAI).

The other two party members that you'll meet soon are found inside of FAI where you can buy equipment from the inn keeper. So there's no need to carry equipment for them all the way from Candlekeep.

Basic combat tips

Hopefully, you took my advice and went into the game options and set things up to auto-pause when enemies are sighted (along with a few other events). This pause will allow you to quickly issue orders for all of your party members, or to reposition into a skirmish line.

First off, don't charge the enemy, make them come to you. Keep your fighters (tanks) in front, with the weaker ranged party members in the back. Draw the enemy into a kill area that is safe where the fight won't spill over into uncleared areas.

You should go into each party member's profile page and choose "Customize Character" and then "Script". This is where you can change how the party responds if you happen to leave the AI turned on. Now, I tend to be a micromanager, but if you pick the proper scripts, you can probably do less micromanaging of the party members.

Your opening attack should always be ranged, either via weapons or spells (including dispels). Four or six party members all plinking away with ranged weapons can do a lot of damage to an incoming ogre before it gets close enough to engage with melee. Have your fighters switch to heavier hitting melee weapons once the target gets within range.

Use line of sight to draw ranged enemies closer. Send a sacrificial lamb forward to get their attention, then run back around a corner to draw them in.

The number keys (1-6) can be used to select your party members. In addition, keys 7-9, 0 and the minus can be used to select portions of the party. The select all is, by default, the equals sign. To make things easier, I recommend that the character's ranged weapon always be placed in the first weapon slot. That way you can select the character and then hit F3 to have them attack with their ranged weapon.

Save your spells for dire situations. Have your mage use a sling on low-level critters and save their spells for either large groups or the tougher enemies.

Enemy spell casters should be your primary target in most cases. Such as the assassin who jumps you when you try to enter the inn in FAI. It's important to hit them with ranged attacks before they can get spells off, hopefully interrupting their casts. (After failing the FAI fight a few times, I went back when 3 characters equipped with ranged weapons. The fight suddenly got a lot easier.)

Montaron and Xzar

This thief and mage pair are found soon after you join up with Imoen. Unfortunately, if you're going to form a "good" alignment party, they're going to eventually leave you. But for the initial journey to FAI and dealing with the assassin that lies in wait, they'll do for the moment. After that, I suggest not shedding any tears if they pass away by accident or on purpose (unless you're going for an evil party).

Xzar can use a sling and bullets, while Montaron can use a short bow and arrows as their ranged weapon. Montaron is not a very good fighter (very low hit points) and is more of a ranged / thief type. Xzar has a miniscule amount of hit points unless he uses his drain spell, so keep him well back from the action.

Use them, and then abandon them once you find better choices.

Party balance

The ideal party consists of the following roles:

- someone to take a beating, preferably two such people
- someone to heal, preferably two healers
- a thief to detect/disarm traps and open locks
- evil parties will want a pickpocket thief
- a high charisma person to be leader
- an archer or two for ranged support
- at least one mage for lore purposes and to use scrolls

Some characters can serve multiple roles, even if they don't multi-class or dual-class. For instance, at the start, Imoen has a high charisma, so she's a good person to send off to talk to the inn keeper to sell goods. Later on, Imoen makes a good dual-spec mage / thief.

If we look at the five characters that you'll run across within the first hour or two of play:

Imoen - thief & 16 CHA
Xzar - mage
Montaron - fighter/thief
Jaheira - fighter/druid & 15 CHA
Khalid - fighter

That means that your character can really be any of the main archetypes without encountering any issues at the very start. You could multi-class as a fighter/cleric or play a bard or play a pure class like mage or cleric. Since you'll also run into other characters once you move south from FAI, you can fill in any holes before you encounter any serious opposition.

Labels: 2009, BaldursGate

posted by Wuphon's at 11:45 PM (0 comments)

Baldur's Gate: Starting with a cleric

There's a lot of useful information out there for getting started with Baldur's Gate, but not much directed specifically at starting a cleric and getting past the start of Chapter One. Nonetheless, you'll want to at least read the manual (available in PDF form on the 4-in-1 boxset) and make a list of the default key strokes (look for the "Keymap.ini" file to see what the current configuration is). Looking for "Baldur's Gate Character Creation Guide (by Tazar)" and the massive "Baldur's Gate: FAQ/Walkthrough by DSimpson" are also recommended.

To start off, Baldur's Gate is hard - really hard at first. The AD&D 2nd edition ruleset is very strict and Baldur's Gate follows it rather closely. Combine that with a character who starts at level 1 and there are going to be a lot of fights where running away is the best choice. The UI is old and dated, and as such the feedback about what actions are about to be performed can be subtle to nonexistent. You will want to save after every major battle, save before resting, and save before entering a new area. While you can use the Quick-Save feature to accomplish this, you should also create multiple permanent saves just in case the quick-save was in a bad location or you need to back-step farther.

On the flip side, the voice acting is good, the characters and storyline are well written, and it will take you a few weeks or longer to progress through the storyline. A few dozen hours if you do only the main quest chain up to thrice that if you do a lot of side quests and exploration. Give it at least 2 hours and don't leave Candlekeep until you've got a basic grasp on group combat, how to position your characters, and have the options for pausing set to sane non-default values.

Specifically, you'll want to go into game options and the "Auto Pause" options. Turn on the options for "Enemy Sighted", "Character's Target Destroyed", "Weapon Unusable", and possibly "End of Round". This will slow things down enough that you get frequent pauses during the action and can take corrective action and issue new orders.

Rolling up a cleric

A lot of the guides recommend a human fighter so that you can dual-class later on into a cleric or other secondary specialization. Since I'm not interested in playing a human or a fighter or in multi-classing, I'm rolling up a pure dwarven cleric instead. This will give me a high constitution, a good bit of wisdom, and the charisma of a love-sick ox. Since some of the other NPCs will have a good CHA score (such as the first NPC that joins your party), this is really only a problem during the prologue inside of Candlekeep.

That being said, there are ranges within which you'll want your ability scores (attributes) to fall. Refer to the end of the manual (pages 134-137) to see the table of attributes and how they impact some side issues.

STR (Strength) - If you bash your opponents over the head with heavy weapons, this stat is important. Fighters value this above all else, and it's somewhat important for cleric. It also governs the amount of weight that you can carry. No matter what, try to stay above 8 points to avoid some negative modifiers and preferably above 16 for a melee focused character.

DEX (Dexterity) - Only of modest importance for a cleric, you can shave points here if you need. You'll want something in the 7+ range for a cleric, but you don't have to go much past 10 points here.

CON (Constitution) - As a dwarf, I consider this to be a key stat. Remember that AD&D clerics can wear plate armor and get into the thick of battle. This also controls how many hit points you gain when you level up. You'll want a minimum of 15 points, but there's not a lot of benefit past 16 points for a cleric.

INT (Intelligence) - Key stat for a mage, not so important for a cleric. Still, stay above 10 points and preferably closer to an average score of 12 points.

WIS (Wisdom) - Key stat for a cleric. Go for at least 16 points here as it governs many cleric abilities. The closer to 18 or 19 you can get the better. While there is a book of wisdom that can boost your score by 1 point later, you may wish to go with maximum WIS out of the gate.

CHA (Charisma) - Not terribly important for a cleric, but you'll want to stay above X-Y in order to avoid some negatives. You can go as low as 8 without negative adjustments in reaction by other NPCs, but 10 points might be a more comfortable middle ground for a dwarf.

For the weapon proficiencies, I recommend taking a melee weapon for one point and a ranged weapon for the other point. For clerics, this means putting a point into missile weapons (slings and bullets/stones) and a point into either spiked or blunt weapons. It's a bit of a toss-up for spiked vs blunt, but I'd recommend blunt at the start.

On the initial spell pick, make sure you choose Cure Light Wounds at the start. The other spells won't matter much. As a cleric, you won't have to go rummaging for spells in the dark corners of the kingdom because your deity will teach them to you automatically. If you want to memorize a different set of spells, open up your prayer book (P) and left-click on the left side to clear spells and then pick from the right side to choose spells. You'll then have to rest for 8 hours in order to memorize the new spell selection. One thing to keep in mind is that if you have 3 spell slots, you can memorize any combination of up to 3 spells, including simply learning Cure Light Wounds three times. After casting a spell slot, that spell is spent until the next time that you rest for 8 hours.

For the character portrait, any BMP (Windows Bitmap) file that is properly sized will work. These go in a "Portraits" folder created in the same location as the BGMain2.exe file (this folder does not exist by default). The filenames should probably match except for the last letter which should either be "S" (small) or "L" (large). The large portraits are 110x170 (24 bit) BMP files and the small portraits are 38x60 (8 bit). Large portraits are used in the character screen while the small portraits appear along the right side of the main user interface.

Equipping a cleric

At the start, you're going to have ~70gp to spend and you can easily earn / find another 50 or so before leaving Candlekeep. Your primary equipment list is approximately:

- 2 melee weapons (in case one breaks)
- 1 or 2 ranged weapons (a sling for a cleric)
- 3 stacks of ammo (bullets for your sling)
- a medium shield
- regular or studded leather
- a helmet

Once you have purchased these, you should equip everything to get it out of your bags and to free up inventory slots (which are very limited). You can put 3 stacks of ammo in your quiver and you can carry both the ranged and melee weapon at the same time in the quick weapon slots. I tend to drop the 2H staff on the floor outside the inn rather then continue to carry it around.

Note: If you want to give an item to another member in the party, simply drag and drop it onto their portrait along the right side of the window. It will then appear in their main inventory bag and can be equipped / used from there.

If you're thinking ahead, I suggest also picking up (1) short sword, (1) stack of arrows, (1) stack of bolts and (1) regular or studded leather for later.

Labels: 2009, BaldursGate

posted by Wuphon's at 7:30 PM (0 comments)

Baldur's Gate: Black box bug on NVIDIA cards

So I got the Baldur's Gate 4-in-1 boxset recently and installed it on my Windows XP box. Everything works fine (unlike some other older games), except that the sprite overlay animations (butterflies, birds flying overhead) would display as black boxes. This is due to a bug in the NVIDIA display drivers that has never been fixed. I'm using a GeForce 8800 GT 512MB pair of cards in SLI mode.





One solution to this is to use the NVIDIA DDraw Fix by JLanger (nvidia_ddraw_fix_1.0.3.zip). You place the DLL and EXE file in your Baldur's Gate directory, then patch the BGMain2.exe file. The downside of this fix is that it will prevent you from using other patching type modifications of the original game executable (such as trying to use the widescreen mod via WeiDU).

Note: Baldur's Gate 2 uses OpenGL for rendering and not DirectDraw, so it will not encounter this problem.

Labels: 2009, BaldursGate

posted by Wuphon's at 12:27 PM (0 comments)

Monday, December 21, 2009

Civ4: Favorite map scripts

Tectonics
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=149278

Tectonics does a very good job at creating semi-realistic land masses with interesting terrain and choke points. I recommend using either "Earthlike (70% water)" or "60% Water" settings to get a nice collection of continents with a few small islands spread around.

For a naval-centric setup, try "Islands", which creates a lot of smaller islands and probably close to 90% ocean.

Labels: 2009, CivilizationIV

posted by Wuphon's at 6:56 PM (0 comments)

Saturday, November 07, 2009

GTA3:SA Zero's New World Army (hacking the mission timer)

If you thought Zero's "Supply Lines..." mission was hard, wait until you get a load of "New World Army" where you only have 8 minutes to tackle the objective. Personally, on the PC, I found this mission to be so frustrating that I delved into editing the main.scm file to change the timer from 8 minutes to 15 minutes.

Things that you need to know:

• Changing the main.scm file (under data/scripts in the install folder) is dangerous and could corrupt your save files. Make backups of the main.scm, script.img and save game files prior to starting.
  
• This is for GTA:SA second edition (v2.00 or special edition) for the PC.
  
• Time is stored in milliseconds in the decompiled source code for the SCM file, so we're looking for a value of 8*60*1000 (480000). In hex, this is 0x0075300.
  
• Byte order seems to be reversed in the compiled SCM file, so we're looking for "00 53 07 00".
  
• This only appears in 2 places in the entire main.scm file. The key is that the identifier Z4_M11 appears near one of the two occurences.
  

001ce4e0h: 02 FD 06 03 44 00 06 00 00 00 3F 06 00 03 6E 00 ; .ý..D.....?...n.
001ce4f0h: 04 00 06 00 03 6F 00 04 03 06 00 03 7F 00 04 03 ; .....o.........
001ce500h: 04 00 02 20 74 01 00 53 07 00 C3 03 02 20 74 04 ; ... t..S..Ã.. t.
001ce510h: 01 09 5A 34 5F 4D 31 31 00 00 F7 04 02 24 74 04 ; ..Z4_M11..÷..$t.
001ce520h: 01 04 01 09 5A 34 5F 4D 30 36 00 00 06 00 03 41 ; ....Z4_M06.....A

The source code for this section when decompiled looks like:


:ZERO4_9417
110@ = 0
111@ = 3
127@ = 3
$ZERO4_TIME = 900000
03C3: set_timer_to $ZERO4_TIME type 1 GXT 'Z4_M11' // global_variable // Timer
04F7: status_text $ZERO4_CAR_HEALTH type 1 line 1 GXT 'Z4_M06' // global_variable // Bandit
65@ = -1000
64@ = 10000
35@ += 1


Notice the "Z4_M11" and "Z4_M06" strings, which gives us a good idea that we've found the right hex code to edit.

We're going to change "00 53 07 00" (480,000 milliseconds or 0x0075300) to "A0 BB 0D 00" (900,000 milliseconds or 0x000DBBA0). I used UltraEdit-32 to make my changes, but you could use other hex editors.

Once changed, load up your save game and start the New Model Army mission, you'll see that the timer now starts at 15 minutes instead of 8 minutes. The other way to check is to use "Sanny Builder 3" and decompile the new main.scm file to double-check that you changed ZERO4_TIME correctly.

Labels: 2009, GTA3

posted by Wuphon's at 9:05 PM (0 comments)

GTA3:SA Doberman (preparing to leave Los Santos)

After you complete the "Doberman" mission from Sweet, you need to take care of some business before you go too far into Sweet's final few missions. The reason for this is that you're coming up on a major story shift where you are going to be introduced to a new area, without any equipment, and with a lot of new expenses. Big expenses.

Recommended goals after "Doberman" but before leaving Los Santos:

• Get your nest egg up to around $100k to $250k. One thing you'll notice after completing "Doberman" is that drug dealers proliferate on the streets like rabbits. It will seem like the more territory that you take, the more will spawn. (Things that make you go "hmm...".) Regardless of the reasons, you're going to see 10x more drug dealers after "Doberman" and before you leave Los Santos. So hunt them down and pocket their cash at every chance.
  
• Date Denise. Go ahead, have fun, see how far you can get while staying busy with all the other things that need doing. Learn how often to show up and take her out.
  
• Finish tagging your turf. This is a good time to find and spray all 100 tags. I recommend downloading a map, printing it out, then mark it up as you complete tags. Otherwise you'll lose track of which ones you've done. (And some of them are infuriatingly difficult to find.) The weapon spawns inside the Johnson House as a result of completing this will help you immensely during this phase.
  
• Take territory away from Ballas (and other gangs). The gang warfare minigame is a good way to learn how to survive heavy combat and will gain you a fair amount of cash. It will also help you raise your weapon skills. I strongly recommend locating the AK-47 spawn points (or completing the 100 tags side quest) or using a full SMG like the MP5. Use your pistol and micro SMG or sawed-off shotgun when you can, but be ready to revert to the AK-47 or MP5 when things get tight. When a wave spawns, run to a part of the block not occupied. This will string out your pursuers so that they come at you a few at a time instead of all at once.
  
• Collect your money from in front of the Johnson House regularly. (If you finished all 100 tags, go inside and restock your weapons too.)
  
• Don't go crazy on hoarding ammunition. You're getting close to the end of Los Santos missions and you'll be stripped of everything anyway. So use it if you have it.
  
• Explore Los Santos. Which you'll do if you chase down all 100 tags, but take time to hit up some of the side games like the dance club, lowrider challenge or racing game at the Los Santos Forum (east Los Santos). Go shopping!
  
• Buy up the three properties that have garages (Santa Marina Beach, El Corona, Mulholland).
  
• Carjack one or two Cheetahs (2-door sports car, similar to a Ferrari Testarossa) that you find in Rodeo, Los Santos. Store them in the garages (no more then 1 car per garage to avoid a bug).
  
• Carjack a few Freeway (motorcycle, similar to classic Harley-Davidsons) and store them for later. Frankly, I usually have at least 4 of these stashed in the four garages available in Los Santos, because I love tooling around on them. They're easier to find north of Los Santos out in Red County.
  
• Lastly, don't go crazy with gang warfare. Take as much territory as you want, but don't try to take over all of Los Santos (it's pointless right now).
  

If you do run short of cash after the Los Santos missions, you can go back to Los Santos (or up to Montgomery in Red County) to the Inside Track (OTB) to bet on the ponies. Between buying new safe houses and having to buy SMGs solely for ammo at the Ammunation stores, I was constantly struggling for cash until I went back and hit the ponies. Eventually, during the San Fiero missions, you'll finally get some assets up and running that will pay you a daily tithe in San Fiero.

Labels: 2009, GTA3

posted by Wuphon's at 1:02 AM (0 comments)

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

GTA3:SA Getting started (tips, help)

Welcome to Los Santos, CJ. You've been robbed by the cops and dropped off in enemy gang territory with no weapons and only a bicycle in the alley.

First Steps

1. Get yourself south/southeast to Ganton where you grew up.
   
2. Follow the quest chain, meeting Big Smoke, Ryder, Sweet and Kendl.
   
3. I recommend stopping after the "Tagging Up Turf" mission.
   
4. Or keep going until after the "Nines and AKs" mission.
   

If you stop chain-running the main missions after "Tagging up Turf", you'll be in a good spot and can treat Los Santos and Red County like a big sandbox. Prior to that point a lot of things are closed off (such as restaurants and barbers). You'll also be able to use the Johnson House as a save point and a place to stash vehicles.

If you keep going until after "Nines and AKs", you can use the location where you met Emmet for target practice. Although some Ballas gang members might decide to come see what the racket is about.

At this point, you cannot leave Los Santos or Red County. The bridges have roadblocks on them (as do the train tracks).

Weapons

We need weapons in order to easily earn money. (Here-in lie a few spoilers... such is life.)

To the east of the Johnson House is a smaller light blue house. Go around the back to the eastern corner. If you stand about a meter away and jump, CJ should grab the edge of the roof and hang there. Jump again, and he'll climb up onto the roof.

Go west, jump onto the Johnson House garage, then jump again to get up on the sloped roof of the Johnson House. To your south is the flat roof of a store with a rotating can of spray paint. Grab it, then make your way back to the roof of the light blue house.

To the north of the light blue house is Sweet's house. Run towards the edge of the light blue house's roof, then jump at the last minute. If you time it right, CJ will end up on Sweet's roof. Jump a second time to get over the low wall and you'll gain access to the TEC-9.

Jump down from Sweet's roof into the basketball court on the north side and go behind the houses. To the north, in the corner of the backyards is a 9mm pistol.

If you want brass knuckles, look under the overpass west of Ryder's house. If you want a shovel, look behind Ryder's house. Ryder's house is a bit west of the Johnson House.

For armor, go east from Grove Street into the flood control channel (sometimes called an aqueduct). Look under the large bridge just north of Grove Street. You'll want to take careful note of where you find armor because keeping your white armor bar full means that you'll be less likely to get wasted.

Now you'll be strapped with a few basic weapons and you won't have to resort to using your bare fists. Weapons respawn after about 6 hours of game time, but only if you're not in the area. So go inside your house and save (which advances the clock forward 6 hours), or go run around the town for a while and explore.

There are lots of other weapons scattered around Los Santos and Red County. Each weapon type has an associated skill that can only be raised through use (shooting people, vehicles, cardboard boxes, or other destructible items like lights). Higher weapon skill results in more accuracy, better range lock, and other benefits.

Random Gameplay Notes

• If you die (get wasted), all of your weapons and ammo will be removed. You'll be charged $100 and discharged from the hospital. (Much later in the game you can date a nurse and retain your weapons/ammo.) It's a real pain to lose ammo that you've collected, so make sure you always have body armor on.
  
• If you get arrested (busted), you once again lose all of your weapons and ammo. The police will attempt to cuff you if you are not wielding a gun, or they'll attempt to pull you out of vehicles and arrest you. There's a girlfriend that you can date later on in the game who will give your weapons back if you were busted during a mission.
  
• Don't bother hoarding large quantities of ammo. Unless you always plan on reloading your game after getting busted/wasted. There are also a few points in the game where all your weapons are stripped anyway, so use it if you've got it.
  
• On a related note, an automatic weapon will chew through 100-200 rounds of ammo very quickly. While the 9mm pistol will feel like you have plenty of ammo even with only 100 rounds. And 50 rounds for a shotgun can be considered "a lot".
  
• Press the [Tab] key while on foot to see CJ's stats.
  
• To restore health, hit a food joint or vending machine, or go and save the game.
  
• Keep CJ's fat level somewhere in the 5-15% range. If it drops too low, he'll start burning muscle mass. The biggest meal at the chicken / pizza joints adds 3% to the fat bar each, so eating 3 or 4 big meals will be best if you were almost empty.
  
• Don't shoot your weapon or carjack in front of police. Doing so will immediately give you one wanted star.
  
• To get rid of wanted stars, you either need to run away for long enough that they lose you, drive/walk over a police bribe location, or go save the game. Each bribe location or save point will remove a single wanted star. Alternatively, if you're in a vehicle, visiting a Pay'n'Spray will result in all of your wanted stars being suspended. As long as you don't commit any new crimes while the stars are flashing, they'll eventually vanish without police pursuing you again.
  
• If are careful and don't kill bystanders, you can often kill opposing gang members without getting wanted stars. Killing them gains you respect, a bit of money, and possibly weapons and ammo.
  
• Cops don't care if you run red lights or hit other vehicles. Just don't hit a police car or motorcycle or you'll be instantly awarded with a one-star wanted level.
  
• Blowing up a vehicle on purpose by shooting at it results in a one-star wanted level. Even if nobody saw you do it.
  

Money

At the start, you're only going to have about $300. Maybe a bit more after running some of the missions for Ryder and Sweet. Clothing, tattoos and haircuts are all in the $50-$500 range for the most part (some clothing is more expensive). Modifications to your car run from $500 up to a few thousand. Houses (a.k.a. save points) cost at least $10,000 at the low end, with one house in Red County going for $120,000.

However, at the start of the game, anything between $10k and $20k will feel very comfortable. On top of that, you'll want another $30k or $40k to purchase 3 or 4 houses in key areas, making it easier to find a save point between missions or to store vehicles for future use. Too much money will make things extremely easy and remove that element from gameplay, so be modest and not too greedy.

That sounds like a lot, but it isn't. You see, there is this rare breed of cat out there called a drug dealer. They stand on sidewalks, carry a decent amount of cash, and are generally easy to take out. Look for a pedestrian who is standing on one place with hands crossed in front of them down around their waist. One style is a black tank top, gold chain, and baggy jeans. The other tends to wear a light grey hooded sweatshirt with the hood up along with blue jeans and white tennis shoes. They typically drop up to around $2000 when killed. So go jack a car and start driving around town, keeping on the lookout for dealers.

Once you have about $10k, it's time to go gambling. For fun, go to the bar at the western end of Grove Street and play pool. The maximum wager is $1000, so you'll have enough cash to play a few games. If you lose, go hunt down some more drug dealers (or enemy gang members).

Alternatively, go bet on the horses. This is a much surer path to winning as the odds are heavily in your favor and the payout is much larger. To get to the "Inside Track" (an OTB betting parlor), you'll need to head towards Mulholland Intersection. This is on the north side of downtown Los Santos, just west of Glen Park. It's located under the stack interchange at the north end of downtown. If you find a gated parking lot under the interchange, you're in the right area. (You pass through this area during the "Sweet and Kendl" mission on your bicycle.)

The rules for horse betting are simple. Pick a horse, pick a wager amount, then start the race. If your horse comes in first place you win, otherwise you lose.

The key is in the odds. There are only five horses, each horse has an even chance of winning (no matter what the odds say). This means that betting on the 11:1 or 12:1 underdog is your best choice over the long haul. Never bet more then 1/10th or 1/20th of your money in a single race, always pick the underdog, and you'll eventually come out on top.

Unlike betting on pool where you can only win/lose $100 at a shot. The horse racing minigame can have payouts in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Which means it's real simple to bulk up that nest egg that you earned from gunning down drug dealers.

Driving Skills

At the start, there are (3) types of vehicles that you can drive. Bicycles, motorcycles and vehicles (cars, trucks, etc). Each vehicle type has an associated skill that needs to be raised in order for you to have better control over the vehicle type. It's fairly easy to max out your bicycle (cycling) and bike (motorcycle) skills, but takes a good bit longer for your driving skill.

To get started, I recommend raising your cycling and bike skills up to about 1/4 to 1/2. Grab a bike or motorcycle and head into the flood control channels and start riding around. After a while, you'll get a lot better, which will make it easier to do missions centered around those two vehicle types. In fact, for getting around Los Santos quickly, nothing beats a crotch rocket style bike. It can fit through small gaps, is highly maneuverable, accelerates quickly, and stops on a dime. I try to stash one in every house that has a garage.

At the start, you can get away with a low driving skill for vehicles. Do spend some time out on the road learning how to drive. Or drive on the railroad tracks or in the flood control channels. But you won't need to get about 5% or 10% skill in it early on, so don't kill yourself trying to raise the skill.

One side effect of raising your cycling skill is that you'll gain health and stamina while working off fat. It's not the fastest way to bulk up, but it kills two birds with one stone. If you want to get tougher, go lift weights or ride the stationary bike at the gym (west end of Grove Street).

Conclusion

That's the basics of GTA:San Andreas. You now have money, weapons and access to vehicles and can start gaining respect and taking back control of Grove Street territory. Go explore Los Santos and Red County. Work on tagging over enemy gang tags. Or find all of the weapon locations. Or go shopping at the clothing stores. Try out the various minigames. Jack a hot ride and go for a fast drive on the freeways.

One final note. Stay away from Officer Tenpenney at the donut shop in the Market District until you are finished with the other missions in Los Santos and you're ready to move on with the main storyline.

Labels: 2009, GTA3

posted by Wuphon's at 4:38 PM (0 comments)