New Holland combine headers: Varifeed 41 vs. SuperFlex Draper 45

[Hemet Nesingwary]

Hello all,

I'm wondering what the real difference is beyond the 45 having its own wheels and being longer and the 41 being (slightly) shorter and (slightly) cheaper. Is there something special the 41 does that would make you want to choose it? The price difference is minimal by the time you can afford the CR 10.90 Harvester— a few thousand is nothing, but the 1.7' working width difference will make a difference, though not a huge one. So why would anyone every buy the 41? Is it just a supreme lack of balance?

Thanks,

[Rev Counter]

In game, it'd be a lack of balance, as you say, but in real life I suppose some people are actually limited by the size of the header - in terms of transportation, etc. and often don't need a bigger one as the efficiency won't outweigh the maintenance costs.

[Hemet Nesingwary]

Fair enough. I thought maybe the Varifeed did something cool. Sometimes I forget that FS isn't so much a game as it is a way to drive what you see going down the roads IRL. As much as I wish it was, it really isn't an economic simulator. I bothered to look up both types of header on NH's website and, basically, the Varifeed has a bunch of in-cab controls that allow you to change the position and angle of things in it in real time, such as knife-angle and distance and the header itself moves into a bunch of positions, too. And the Draper is just big and tried and true.

I live in a massive grass seed farming region and I see combines on the road all the time, but always carrying their own header. They're rarely too big that they can't fit on a highway with a car at the same time if they pull partially into the ditch. A lot of the older John Deere ones around here are so small they don't even have their own hoppers. Though one time there was some gigantaur harester thing I'd never seen before nor seen the likes of since and I had to pull completely off the road into a field to let it pass. And last week I got stuck behind a Case IH 620 Quadtrac wheeled version with a baler so big it took up both lanes. So maybe price is more of an issue vs. size.

[Rev Counter]

Yeah, see where I live space is a real limitation. I was cycling round the lanes when I came across a Fendt 900 and slurry tanker which took up the entire road, and the wheels were so far up the bank that the front tyres were almost a foot off the tarmac!

I have some Youtube videos of our little farm in England if you're interested (linked to my Steam profile or 'SMcG Guy' on YT :)

[Hemet Nesingwary]

Wow, you work some oldies, but goodies, don't you? Do you play ever play FS with the classic pack exclusively? I work on older stuff myself, I have a 1946 "Agrijeep" I'm working on. It's broken about 50% of the time, which I guess in the grand scheme of things isn't all that bad for being 71 years old. I mostly use it for spraying weeds (40 gallon tank fits nicely in the back) and repairing fences because it can go everywhere a quad can, but can actually haul supplies without needing to bother with a trailer.

The family ranch we have is mostly cattle and we have one old (your style of old) Massey-Ferguson front-end loader for stacking hay bales. Other than that we only need pickups and various trailers.

The ranch I live on does a lot of logging in addition to cattle, but I only really run saw and drive the Cat. The skidders and semis are from an outside company.

[Rev Counter]

Awesome! Yeah, I do sometimes do all-classic starts on maps (FS2013 was the best for that)!

That Agrijeep sounds really interesting, and being broken is what old things are best at in my opinion - yesterday I spent a good few hours stripping the power steering pump down on the Ford 5000 because the steering got immensly heavy - changed the filters and it's a bit better now.

Funnily our David Brown 1490 (the 'newest' tractor, made in 1983 I think) is in the shed for some major repairs as the turbo blew and caused the engine to seize up while mowing a couple months ago! The simpler the better if you ask me, those Massey 35s are brilliant!

[Hemet Nesingwary]

Yeah. Turbos have been the bain of many a good motor. I used to be a mechanic, and it's pretty awful when a turbo starves a motor for oil. Does a turbo do much in a piece of equipment like that? Don't you have to be at a certain speed for the exhaust pressure to be useful or does it work when RPMs are up due to the PTO?

Also, I checked out your vids and left some comments. Fun stuff!

Do you know any good classic pack-style mods for FS? The tiny wooden tipper drives me up the wall when trying to get anything done.

[Rev Counter]

For FS2013, the NI Modding and EuroDZN stuff was amazing, in later games the 'classic' mods seem to have shifted to modern classics, the Ford TW pack, Deutz Agrostars, Valmets etc. are all real fun, and the BSM Massey pack brings back the good old days of 2013! With FS17 I think the best bet is to do an 80s setup.

As for the turbo, I think it does help when doing the more intensive tasks like mowing, and for loader work there's no noticeable lag that I've experienced, I'll have to pay closer attention to it in the future! I've heard that some tractors, like a 3 cyl. turboed Massey have to be pushed a bit compared to the bigger non turboed counterpart (might have been the 300 series but not sure).

Still, I like tractors nice and simple, the MF 35 is about as good as it gets for me!

[Hemet Nesingwary]

I play 15 because my 'puter can't handle 17. Someday, someday. I'll have to check out those packs. Whenever I go on a modding site, all I seem to find are monster trucks, low-riders and tractors with 50-billion HP that make the game a bit too easy. A few mods I've tried are so poorly rendered they'll kill my FPS. There's this orange truck with a trailer I really liked, but it had something wrong with its design so that looking at it in game would drop my FPS to nothing.

[Hemet Nesingwary]

I will say I do really love the Spintire mods. I blew way too many hours in that game.

[Rev Counter]

Me too :D