Canine

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Not a lot more to it than that, other than all fiddly technical bits

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This, you see, is the bit that worries me. Chaplain mentioned something about Thermal Paste, which I may have to go shopping for on Saturday.

Any suggestions on how to "dispose" of evil, banjaxxed, old motherboard?

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Thermal paste. Goop that goes between the CPU and the Heatsink.

Get hold of some Arctic Silver 5, then go to the Website and read the application instructions. SEVERAL TIMES.

Oh, and clean off any existing gunk from both the CPU and Heatsink with some isopropyl alcohol and a lint free cloth before applying fresh.

Disposing of old Motherboards? Technically it should be taken to a specialist recycler to be properly dealt with, given the list of potentially toxic/noxious materials in it. The local Council Tip may have a waste electronics collection area. if you're looking for something alittle more exciting, then your imagination's the limit... You could demount hte CPU socet using a hairdryer/hot air gun, drill a hole in it and use it as a key fob, I suppose...

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And that, when I built my first ever PC is how I got through 3 Mobo's and 2 Processors... Static fried first Mobo/Processor then put old processor in new board - killed that one too... it's a wonder I ever progressed from crayola's and circles of sugar paper it really is...

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You had Crayola's not generaic wax crayons? You rich spoiled so and so

Hmm... I'm beginning to suspect that my level of comfort with fiddling in the guts of my PC is not exactly average.... Maybe not everyone demounts and cleans their Heatsink every couple of months, then remounts it with fresh thermal compound. Maybe not everyone considers changing out a duff PSU to be a purely routine procedure. Maybe I'd better not mention that within 1.5 years of getting my first PC, I'd ripped out the 486SX/25 and replaced it with a whopping 486DX2/66

Hohum, I wouldn't worry too much MBar, Messing with the guts of your PC is an acquired skill, which can occasionally be a tad expensive to acquire, but it's all a learning experience

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Edit: Oh, and apparently several boxes have arrived for me at home. w00t! Now I just have to print out several pages relating to motherboard replacement procedures ... at work ...

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Motherboard replacement procedure.

1) rip out the old one.

2) shove in the new one

3) connect everything up.

4) power up the box.

Not a lot more to it than that, other than all fiddly technical bits (like grounding yourself regularly on the case to make sure there's no potential buildup, but I'll assume you've got at least some idea of what you're doing...<famous last words&gt

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Dabs and Overclockers received a couple of orders two nights ago:

Gigabyte GA K8NE Motherboard
Tagan 530W PSU

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Nooooo! Why Tagan?

There have been three or four of thse things go through my house, and every single one of them has failed. My first one was dead on arrival. Second one I had lost control over it's voltage levels, and my brother's had one or two fail on him (forget exactly what his score was). Antec would be my first choice these days, possibly followed by OCZ.

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Floppy Disk Drive

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Ten quid and it can save you a lot of strife, so still worth having as far as I'm concerned. Unless your motherboard can treat a USB pendrive as a floppy.

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Mobo is a newer replacement for the old one, and has a single PCI-E slot for use with the other new graphics card I had. Hopefully it's killing two birds with one stone. Either way, eBay's going to have a few more items sooner or later.

Should be here today, so installation should happen Saturday. Holding of your breath shouldn't start yet though.

Edit: BTW, it took me until yesterday to realise that "no CoX make MBar ... something something ..." could be twisted into something resembling innuendo. Jiaozy, you dirty-minded jerk.

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And that, my dear sir, is why I always tend to abbreviate it to Co?

:edit: oh, and bear in mind you'llmost likely have to do a complete reinstall of windows, including drivers etc. so that's a good couple of hours even after all the hardware's talking to itself porperly...

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Socket 754 mobos are goin cheap cheap cheap at the moment....try having a look here , there are a few decent mobo's in the clearance line so you should be able to get back up and running ASAP...theres one on there for £20 + Vat actually....

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Aaaahhhhh, the 754's are in their clearance section ... no wonder I couldn't find them earlier!

Thanks!

Edit: Also on the shopping list is a Floppy Disk Drive. The amount of grief regarding the BIOS I could've avoided if I had one is shocking.

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Sooo...

Any progress yet?

Just wondering if you'd managed to break anything else in the meantime :P

BTW, I wouldn't worry (if you were) about Toybox leaving you behind. Since the patch isn't going up until next week, I'm not likely to be playing him until then...

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My question is what do you guys usualy slot the 1st set of henchies with if at all.

Many thanks in advance.

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Personally, as a Robotics/Traps, I slot them 3 acc, 3 damage. And I run Assault and Tactics as well.

I know other people in this thread have said this, but not slotting your minions is a loony idea. At all levels, they will be providing a significant chunk of your damage output.

Especially for Robotics, a fully upgraded set of Minions all deciding to go SoE on a mob can drop that spawn to about 25-20% health in one fell swoop. And if you've managed to get an AoE immobilise on the spawn too, and Stompy decides to use Incendiary Swarm missiles, then that group of opposition isn't long for this world.

As far as thugs goes, I believe the tier 1 and 2 pets are ranged and get AoE's eventually, so similar rules should hold true.

Also, pretty much any high level MM will notice a drop in their damage output from losing even just one Tier 1 pet. I know that I do... They don't do particularly big lumps of damage, but they do lots of little lumps.

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Happy Birthday Vel, and Green Jet incidently. OMG - THEY ARE THE SAME PERSON!!! Yikes.

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Okaayyyy.

Chaplain, I don't know what You've been eating/smoking/drinking/whatever, but you need to stop it. now.

Oh, and happy wotsit, Vel.

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Thanks to the DarkWings and everyone else I've played with up until this point. This isn't "Goodbye", it's "See you in a while."

Oh, and Happy Birthday, Mr. Jet!

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If it's any consolation, I can't see myself playing Toybox until they fix a few issues (the main one at the moment stopping me playing is the immob/KB autofail on stop x from escaping missions. Which is irritating as Immob and KB is about all Toybox does, and I can't really stop my pets from doing KB... ***)

Of course the fact that the mission in question that's stalling me right now is full of nothing but Longbow Spec Ops.... (Limited to one per spawn? Yea Verily Bollards! )

This of course means that by the time you get back, Seethe may once again have roughly equivalent level fire support available.

Ah well, good luck resurrecting your pc, but bear in mind you could replace just the Motherboard for about £40-£50 and have a functional pc again sooner than it takes to save up for a more comprehensive system upgrade...


:edit: *** - Yes, I could just fail the mission and move one, but that goes against the grain.... I don't fail missions if I've got any say in the matter.

Hmm, nasty....

Without knowing Socket type, CPU and so forth, I can't really suggest a replacement motherboard...

But IMO a replacement mobo is probably your best bet.

A motherboard with a screwed BIOS flash is a sad and lonely thing, rescuing it usually comes in one of three flavours.

1) the motherboard already came with a second BIOS EEPROM in case of accidents like this. You flick a jumper and once again have a functional PC. Doesn't seem to apply in this case.

2) The BIOS is in a DIL package and you send away fr a replacement BIOR ROM, swap them over and pray it works.

3) It all gets technical and expensive, and it almost certainly works out cheaper to buy a new suitable motherboard.

Oh, and you left out all the swearing that was no doubt involved, MBar :P

You have my commiserations MBar, my previous PC died in a cloud of magic blue smoke when a MOSFET on the pump control board of the watercooling system I had at the time died. It's not nice to lose a PC when you're as hopelessly addicted as some

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Thanks max, that will help. BTW, could you type in the macro for all my pets to go into BG mode? it would be appreciated, I'm a noob when it comes to MM macros.

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Type the following into your chat window:

/macro BG "petcom_all Defensive Follow"

that'll create a macro icon with BG on it in one of your power trays. Click the icon and your pets will go into bodyguard mode.

If you've got a spare mouse button, and feel like mapping the command to that, then :

/bind button5 "petcom_all Defensive Follow"

Would (on my mouse) set the forward button on the side of my mouse to command all of my pets into BG mode. Replace the 'button5' bit with any other key you want to bind it to a different key.

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What way did you command your heavy, my zombies all headed for the turrets with him set at defensive/follow ie Bodyguard mode

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Can't remember exactly what I was doing, but given that Pet AI seems to have chenged a little in the recent MM bugfix patches, it's entirely possible that what I was doing wouldn't work any more.

That said, from what I remember, I just had all my pets set to aggressive/follow, targeted a turret, right clicked the Heavy and set it to attack my target. Once the heavy had opened fire, then hit Mouse button 5 (which is bound to /petcom_all Attack Aggressive) and the rest of the bots joined in. For rather puny amounts of DoT, but never mind.

I think the problem may have been the defensive setting on your horde of undead. IIRC, in that settnig, if one pet gets attacked, then they all try to go and help. In aggressive, it seems less likely to happen like that.

Oh, and bear in mind that a lot of your pets are melee, whereas I can keep my pets at range and stuill hurt stuff.

Melee range is a dangerous place to be

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In Bodyguard mode, the pets are set to aggressive/follow, so when an attack is started by one of your pets, the others join in.

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Not quite. Bodyguard mode is Defensive/Follow.

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If you are attacking the turrets, you need to set all your pets on passive and then send in the Heavy just on its own. During this time, you can be vulnerable to attack from external sources.

Put your bodyguard mode back on when moving around the area or when attacking "normal" foes..

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Personally, last time I was in RV, I had my bots set to aggressive/follow incase any fools, sorry, heroes, came close, stayed out of range of the turrets and sent the heavy in. once the heavy had aggro, *then* I sent my pets in. The Heavy is far more able to take the punishment form those turrets than any normal MM pet.

Other than that, it was just a mtter of keeping my eyes open for interfering heroes, and methodically taking out the turrets.

Mind you, I've not been into RV since about 2 days after I7 hit, since I've had better things to do, but I can't see matterc changing any. Without a Heavy though, taking down a pillbox would be a nightmare.

...since they 'fixed' the pet naming bug.

It used to be that I'd go up a lift and my pets would appear in one big lump at the top with me. Occasionally led to slight irritations, but no major issue.

Now, I can go through a lift and have to wait 20 - 40 seconds for my pets to catch up with me. And they come through a single lift, one at a time.

This makes baing hit by a patrol as you come out of a lift, less than pleasant.

The situation gets worse in Mayhem missions.

I've only done one Mayhem since the patch came in, Founders. But going into side missions was an absolute abortion. The only way I found to reliable get my pets to follow me into a side mission (or the cop shop, OR the bank at the end) was to go in and annoy something with my pulse rifle. The victim started to fight back, at which point my bots 'must protect MM' code seems to have kicked in and they (eventually) came running.

I've tried using the group recall temp power, but the pets would appear in the side mission, and then either run out through the door, or run upwards at an angle, through the wall...

So, my question is, is anyone else noticing problems like this with their pets? I've yet to /bug it as I'm usually up to my neck in trouble by the time I notice, and that's not the best time to be afk, filling in a bug report.

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The Brute I team with has confirmed the mace prevents knockback (although there's a mace power that doesn't hold; it knocks people all over the place).

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That doesn't match with my experience. I took BS with Toybox, who's traps secondary.

The /traps web grenade stops immobilised mobs from being knocked back.

However, I've lost count of the number of times I've popped the AoE Web Grenade from the Bane Mace onto a group, and still had them thrown backward by Swarm Missiles from Stompy. Anything in the spawn that I'd tagged with a web grenade as well didn't get thrown back.

So either it does do -KB, but a lower magnitude than the single target web grenade, or it doesn't and Swarm missiles don't always KB.

Personally, I went the the Bane Mace because I've spammed web grenades the most out of any of my powers on Toybox, and it fits.

:edit: Oh, and Stompy isn't slotted for Knockback, either . :/edit:

Well, if maxwell wants to blow stuff up, there's a Posi TF starting saturday evening with (so far) 2 scrappers, about 4 blasters and an empath... You want a slot, you can have one

Especially since Bight has had a little, umm, *boost* to 21

Congrats, sorry I wasn't there, but if you put a shout out on Global, then the recent tantrums the Global server's been having meant it never got to me

Actually, looking at the time stamp, I was busy swearing at a bugged Black Scorpion mission.

But anyway, congrats. What next?

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Well I've gone with teleport.

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Be careful. Something I noticed on my Warshade was that if you tp into a mob, and they notice you before the temporary hover after the tp wears off and smack you with a KB attack, then you go absolutely flying...

And if your KB protection is dependent on you being on the ground........

Just something to bear in mind.

All pets that heal other pets use the heal as and when THEY decide to. You have no say in the matter, other than by putting them in passive, in which case they won't heal at all (unless that behaviour was changed in I7, can't say my PB's are ever in passive, so I haven't noticed)

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yes it is dependant on a target and other than with this toon its my favourite heal. i find it to be extremely powerful even though to be efficient with it i need to slot it up for accuracy. i can be stood next to my minions and i will be healed but they wont...im guessing that this individual toon is just [censored]'d. no biggy was only a test toon anyway

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Ah, so your question wasn't about TG, it was about why it doesn't seem to be working on your robots...

I misunderstood.

Since you're familiar with the power and its function, then I can only suggest that you do some more testing to make sure it IS actually bugged, and if you find it is, petition it. not sure how much help support would be able to provide, but if it's a bug, then it deserves to be reported as such.

The /dark heal Should work on your robots, since every other heal power I've come across in the game so far does...

From what I gather, the AoE on TG is a little odd.

I *think* it's a PBAoE heal dependent on a ranged target, but I could be mistaken.

What that means is that you need to be stood next to your pets to heal them.

Like I said though, I'm a little vague on /Dark, having never used the set.

One big problem.

You took Detonator on that build.

IMO, that's a seriously not worth it Tier 9 power. Use the power slot for something more useful. Like Triage Beacon.

Triage isn't a massive +regen, but it's significant, and since most of the Thugs are ranged, then keeping them in the Triage radius with an Acid Mortar for company and a Poison Trap and Trip Mine in case anything gets too close can be remarkable effective Or so I've found

Admittedly I'm talking from the POV of a Robotics/Traps, but unless you can use detonator on one of your disposable Gang war summons (Which I seriously doubt) then the idea of sacrificing part of your ongoing damage output for a brief (and not overly spectacular) pulse of damage goes against the way I MM.

your mileage may vary of course, but this post was brought to you by The Society Against Detonator And Other Crappy Tier 9 Powers

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I used to have group fly on my necro/dark. It is a waste of endurance. You minions can't keep up and constantly fall behind. It is quicker to dismiss them and resummon at the destination than to constantly stop to let them catch up.

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Pssst... the trick's to bang the rocks together guys...

Oops, wrong hint...

Target one of your pets.

Press 'F' to start following that pet.

Turn on Group Fly.

Use goto bind/command to send your pets to any point in 3D space, as you keep up with them, and keep them in GF Range.

Repeat until at destination.

Can be a tad slow, but at least you arrive at your destination with all your pets.

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It most definately works on robots. I got it and am skipping Repair, from what I've read they heal for similar amounts but Aid Other works on anyone.

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Repair will take one of your pets from anything other than 0 HP to full in one shot. Aid Other won't.

Repair also partially recharges your targetted pets End bar, and can be slotted for End Mod. Which can be useful if a Longbow Spec Ops just dropped an EMP grenade in the middle of your bots and they're now staning around wondering what to do now their blue bars are empty...

Yes its recharge is next to glacial in speed, and yes, you tend to get beaten to the punch by one of your PB's but it's still worth having IMO, just for those moments when you rescue Stompy from almost certain Scrap status and he turns around and drops Incendiary Swarm Missiles on his tormentors

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Ok, I have the second to last mission in the World Wide Red story arc, I'm pretty sure.

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If your current missions briefing mentions the word Firenze in the description, then it's the precursor to the timed Kronos.

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I expect that once I finish this mission, it will change to a timed 90minute one which will be a defeat all in area, said area containing a Kronos Titan, for which all in the team will receive the Mater of Olympus badge for defeating.

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Once you all exit the Firenze mission, it will indeed activate the 90 minute Train mission with the Kronos in it.

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I would be happy for the team to drop the Titan first, as I know the AV/GM changes might make it difficult and the badge is the priority. I would then ask for everyone to stay and clear the map, as I'm expecting a full team of 8 (with hopefully at least one Rad or Dark) and so the spawns will be a little large for me to clean up on my lonesome.

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Advice:

Clear as many of the Malta spawns in the map as you possibly can before aggroing the Kronos. We beat the self same mission last night (just), and Mr. Kronos now likes to go for a little stroll whilst stomping on the team. I couldn't get an immobilise to stick on it for more than 10 seconds or so, and I'm not exactly short on immobilise with Heat Haze (Power Boost, Vanguard etc. etc. were all used.)

And for the love of all you hold dear, make sure you have a Rad/Kin/Dark on the team. Otherwise you won't even scratch the paintwork

:edit: I hate this keyboard... :/edit:

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You never know, I may use Aiag's shining example as an inspiration and dust off Pax... but I doubt it...

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Well, leave him in stasis until I get Bight to a similar level to him and we'll see if I can return the favour (and start swearing at YOU for applying excess knockback )

I forget Jet, is Pax a multiform like Aiag, or a Blapper like Lightbringer?