aabicus – Page 38 – The Daily SPUF

Dem Choppas continued

April 15, 2016July 22, 2017 aabicus 0 Comments dem choppas, mod, modding, sniper, weapon

It’s been a long time since I wrote about my favorite custom model in TF2, the choppa. I’ve changed a lot as a person and my tastes have grown more refined, but nowadays if I again had to pick a favorite custom model, I’d still have to go with the choppa. It’s just the best. Hell, it’s even better than it was before! In late 2013 creator Bl8demast3r made some tweaks that included working killstreak sheens and a new golden model for owners of the Australium SMG: And while he didn’t add anything for weapon skins (how the hell would he?), that turned… [Continue Reading]

Now for Something Completely Different The SPUF of Legend

An English Major’s Guide to Computer Care

April 11, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments Not TF2

Get a load of that amazing video. I just got off the phone with Steven Spielberg and have been informed my Oscar is in the mail. I really don’t have anyone to blame but myself for the state of my poor desktop, though. When the thunderstorm-induced powerout caused unknown damage to my video driver, my surge-protected power strip proved insufficient protection. But even in less hostile environments, my adventures turning my old Windows 7 laptop into a usable piece of hardware again have taught me a lot of things about how to care for your equipment from a position of relative ignorance… [Continue Reading]

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Decorating ourselves in other ways, a followup

April 6, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments CSGO, skins, weapon skins

Medic recently published an article discussing the myriad of ways Valve has allowed players to decorate themselves, and it got me thinking about a lot of the different points she brought up. It’s definitely true that Valve’s gotten more and more bold with every new cosmetic addition. We’ve come a long way since the simple character model toggles from Team Fortress Classic. But of course we can go further. As Medic mentioned, stickers are the most obvious cosmetic advancement we’re currently missing, since it’s mind-bogglingly easy to implement (just add it to the texture square the game is drawing the skin… [Continue Reading]

Now for Something Completely Different

How to be “invisible” on Steam

April 3, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments advice, settings, steam, tips

I know Steam likes to market itself as a social media network, and we’ve all got online friends who we like to chat to, but there are plenty of times that I really wish Steam had an invisible setting. Steam does not have a traditional “hidden” option, where you can still receive chats but nobody knows if you’re at the computer. You’re either various time-sensitive flavors of online, in-game, or offline where you’re prevented from chatting with your friends. You can set yourself to “Away”, but if you do start up a game, there’s no way to keep that fact hidden… [Continue Reading]

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How to Get Your Friends to Play Undertale

March 26, 2016March 25, 2019 aabicus 0 Comments fad, Filler, Not TF2, undertale

“I’m sorry, why have ALL my friends begged me to play Undertale? I’ve played up to the Comic Sans jokes and I cannot stand all the false choice so far. NPC: Don’t progress further! I’m protecting you from the world for your own good! Go back to bed! “Do you wanna fight, talk, or flee from the friendly cow?” aabicus: Uhh, talk “You cant think of anything to talk about” aabicus: okay, flee? “you flee. it’s still in the way of the rest of the game” aabicus: I guess turn around and go back to bed “The narrator shouts at… [Continue Reading]

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The Righteous Pomson

March 23, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments engineer, pomson, soldier, update

I’d been meaning to talk about this for a while, but back when Tough Break came out, there was an unintended side effect caused by the Flamethrower tweaks, and it doesn’t even refer to the Pyro. Tough Break’s patch notes mentioned that “The base Flamethrower’s damage fall off over distance has been decreased, resulting in higher damage output at range” and I could write a whole article about how all of these stock flamethrower buffs have elevated the weapon back to a surprising level of viability. But this affected more than just the flamethrowers; the Righteous Bison and Pomson 6000 mimic ‘lasers’… [Continue Reading]

The SPUF of Legend

Regenerating Health – The Concheror, Cozy Camper, and Amputator

March 20, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments health, medic, sniper, soldier, weapon

Today I want to go over a trio of related weapons that were all affected by a change made to the Medic’s base regen during the Tough Break Update. As you can see, the description to the Concheror claims “+4 hp regenerated per second” but what actually happens is that you start regenerating at 1 hp and that number gradually increases to 4 the longer you go without taking damage. The Cozy Camper and the Amputator are identical, except that the Amputator stops at 3. I thought I’d talk about what this means for each weapon, because it’s interesting to… [Continue Reading]

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The Black Box

March 19, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, soldier, weapon

So the other day I tried out the Black Box for the first time in ages. Never thought I’d use that gun again. It used to be my go-to; an everpresent mainstay in my Soldier arsenal that I adapted each and every loadout around. I’d use it with Gunboats to dominate close-range combat, I’d use it with shotgun for all-purpose versatility, I’d use it in all-crit servers with the Battalion’s Backup to negate crits while firing healing crockets, heck I’d even use it in the early waves of MvM to regenerate health until I had the credits to deck out… [Continue Reading]

Featured The SPUF of Legend

Low Bow – My current favorite Payday 2 playstyle

March 19, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments loadout, Not TF2, payday 2

Ever since Overkill rebalanced the weapons in Payday 2, secondaries have overtaken the metagame as the primary weapons of choice. Pistols are ludicrously powerful and accurate, and most SMGs are just souped-up versions of the assault rifles rather than the other way around. This means that I often can’t find a real rationale to bring a traditional primary weapon when I can easily play the entire heist relying wholly on my Bronco revolver to kill anything that gets in my way. So my primary slot has almost always been filled with a utility weapon, and the weapon I’ve found that brings… [Continue Reading]

Featured

Five Things Valve Didn’t Intend for the Sandman to Do

March 17, 2016 aabicus 2 Comments Exploit, glitches, melee, pass time, scout

When the Sandman debuted during the Scout Update, Valve broke new ground regarding ranged melee weapons. Not since the Direct Hit has Team Fortress 2 been given a more spammable immediate-range weapon that crits like crazy, since the Sandman’s baseball shares the bat’s increased melee crit chance. However, perhaps because of its unusual design, there have been a number of bizarre exploits associated with this weapon over the years and a few of these are still in the game today. 5. Hitting the ball through thin walls. Setup gates, windows, just random walls that happen to be narrow enough; the scout… [Continue Reading]