American Truck Simulator

[ErichB 3,640]

To me this is the bad thing. As I said, imagine they would do this with FSX/Prepar3D: doesn't make sense to me.

 

 

But that's exactly the problem.  We are thinking with our flightsim hats on.    I don't think 'as real as it gets' was ever the mantra of the trucksim genre.  

 

The environment is very plausible, and the scenery in ATS is beautiful.  But that's about it.  This is clearly about creating an environment to build points (money in this case) upon which you progress to bigger and better in a reasonable amount of time. i.e. its a classic game.  It serves the abilities of increasingly limited attention span audiences.  

[Guest]

But that's exactly the problem.  We are thinking with our flightsim hats on.    I don't think 'as real as it gets' was ever the mantra of the trucksim genre.  

 

The environment is very plausible, and the scenery in ATS is beautiful.  But that's about it.  This is clearly about creating an environment to build points (money in this case) upon which you progress to bigger and better in a reasonable amount of time. i.e. its a classic game.  It serves the abilities increasingly limited attention span audiences.  

 

True. But I would like a flightimslike truck game.  :wink:

 

But er... I have to add: I just looked at some video's of ATS and noticed it isn't indeed as much copy and paste as ETS2 is where I always had the idea every city was the same. Some sort of ground hog day effect. But ATS looks a lot more diverse and it seems you actually can drive through cities...? I seem to remember that in ETS2 you could only drive in the small part where you had to deliver stuff and the city always stayed on the horizon.

 

I might give ATS a try anyway: I understood there is a demo...? Might be nice indeed for a quick fix of nice scenery...

[ErichB 3,640]

True. But I would like a flightimslike truck game. :wink:

 

But er... I have to add: I just looked at some video's of ATS and noticed it isn't indeed as much copy and paste as ETS2 is where I always had the idea every city was the same. Some sort of ground hog day effect. But ATS looks a lot more diverse and it seems you actually can drive through cities...? I seem to remember that in ETS2 you could only drive in the small part where you had to deliver stuff and the city always stayed on the horizon.

 

I might give ATS a try anyway: I understood there is a demo...? Might be nice indeed for a quick fix of nice scenery...

 

In my opinion, if there is any version of Trucksim to buy, it is this one. I agree with your views on the cities. Each one seems to be unique - and there is alot of detail happening between each one. This must be one of the best looking environments I've seen in a sim game. I've also only watched videos. I'll buy it this weekend - probably.

 

I think this game will be amazing when Promods et al start building out the various states. Then you WILL have long enough driving distances and probably will have had enough for one day once you have driven from east to west coast. It's the modding that will make this a really superb experience.

 

Ice Road trucking in Alaska anyone?

[Jimmy RFR 406]

So, does anyone know the ATS size of California? For example, what is the "length" from top to bottom? The problem I have with a 1:30 compression is that it would essentially ruin an iconic area of the USA like San Francisco Bay. Can you imagine driving through San Jose, and then crossing the Golden Gate Bridge a couple of minutes later?!! :huh:

 

I've done a few deliveries to / from San Francisco in the game. It actually feels quite large (obviously very miniature still), and the Golden Gate Bridge feels very large.  I doubt the bridge is 1:1, but it's sure not 1:30!

 

Actually, the way cities are implemented, it feels quite nice. While the distance between cities is small (with time sped up while on the highways to simulate greater distance traveled), cities take a bit more time to drive through, and it's much easier to suspend disbelief and think you're in a city as opposed to ETS2.

 

I'm not sure I'd want a 1:1 game of this nature, or even 1:10 (given the distances in NA).  It would take marathon sessions to ever complete a delivery, which would make many of the in-game goals (like owning a truck) unattainable for myself.  I remember 20 years ago driving from Redding to Reno; while it was sure a beautiful drive, I couldn't imagine ever sitting at my computer for that long.

 

The other thing to think of is that compared to flight simming, this (much more casual) game requires a different level of focused attention - you have to pay attention to the traffic around you, speed limits, weight scales, turns, where you are in your lane, etc. It's not to say that you aren't quite busy at times in a simulated aircraft, but you're not going to run off the road if you turn your eyes away from the screen a few times over the course of your overall flight.

 

If I had to pay the sort of close attention that driving demands over a 1:1 scale road network, I'd want to be paid for it. :wink:

[n4gix 4,947]

Now correct me if I am wrong but does Promods remedy this compression problem? I understand it at least makes the roads a bit 'longer'? Is this ONE download that will enhance everything or do I need multiple files? I am VERY interested in getting ETS2 closer to Prepar3D when it comes to distances! I had a quick look at the site, which is only a forum (?) and instantly got very confused with everything I saw so I was hoping you could enlighten me a little here.

The 1:19 compression remains the same, but by stretching out the roads between the cities it provides the illusion of being longer somehow.

 

ProMods is a single mod that is honestly so large that it has to be delivered in multiple compressed files (due to the 250MB limit on the download host), so they have a little .exe that will automatically extract the "part files" and reassemble the folders/files for you. There is also an option for $1 to have it delivered in two part files instead of six or seven (I've lost count now).

 

The team at ProMods range in age from thirteen to thirty and they are very talented! They have added enough new terrain to more than triple the area of the default SCS scenery, and are also reworking the default scenery to replace the rather lame efforts of SCS's artists.

 

The only other scenery mod would be RusMap that adds quite a bit of new territory to explore. The longest delivery I've ever made was from Moscow to Reykjavik, Iceland. It took me nearly four "real time hours" to make the drive...

 

BTW, getting back to ATS, the guys at ProMods are looking to "hire" a new team to tackle ATS mods. They will have to successfully complete their tutoring in the "ProMods Academy" to earn their place on the new team, just as the ETS2 team members had to do.

[Pe11e 812]

Well, after few days of ATS, I'm back to good old ETS2. Too many bugs with AI at the moment. On one drive through LA, I waited at least 10 minutes for AI to "unjam" the street, pretty frustrating when you are driving at 2am before the sleep.

 

The only positive thing that I could remember of in ATS is much larger cities, and a bit more diverse environment (sort of).

 

I hear a lot of praise for ProMods for ETS2, and I see that is an additional map for the rest of the europe, but I had some negative experiences with map mods (bugs and performance) so I hesitate to download this one. Any additional words of praise? How is fps with ProMods, any bugs or errors in map design? Any cons?

 

cheers!

[Jimmy RFR 406]

 

 

Well, after few days of ATS, I'm back to good old ETS2. Too many bugs with AI at the moment. On one drive through LA, I waited at least 10 minutes for AI to "unjam" the street, pretty frustrating when you are driving at 2am before the sleep.

 

A good trick when you don't feel like waiting / taking the chance of being broadsided is to save the game, then load your save.  There won't be a bit of traffic in sight.  I've only had to do this a few times, but sometimes it's needed.  Last night, for example, I was making a delivery into south Las Vegas, and was faced with making a left hand turn across three lanes of busy traffic, with three cars in front of me.  No way that that was going to clear any time soon!

[Pe11e 812]

A good trick when you don't feel like waiting / taking the chance of being broadsided is to save the game, then load your save.  There won't be a bit of traffic in sight.  I've only had to do this a few times, but sometimes it's needed.  Last night, for example, I was making a delivery into south Las Vegas, and was faced with making a left hand turn across three lanes of busy traffic, with three cars in front of me.  No way that that was going to clear any time soon!

 

Good idea, actually never thought of that probably because it will kill all the immersion and a bit of realism that these games have. That's exactly like you were told by ATC to go around because of AI plane 1nm in front of you, and because you are a bit late on ETA you decide to quite the sim and load it on approach. Well, that possibly would be cool for some simmers if that is possible in any sim with so many saved variables and active addons and apps during flight.  :smile:

 

Regarding ETS2, I'm trying to be realistic as possible, like saving and exiting the game when parked for a sleep, on rare occasions I exit on some random locations. 

 

What is confusing to me is how developers made same mistakes as in first few versions of ETS2? If they adopted every bit of code from ETS2, how AI is so bad? I don't get it really because in ETS2 I didn't saw any bugs related to AI in latest versions.

[greggerm 312]

 

 

A good trick when you don't feel like waiting / taking the chance of being broadsided is to save the game, then load your save.

 

I noticed this behavior when, mid-drive, I esc'ed out to the menu and changed a graphics option. Boom, suddenly there was no traffic around.  If that remains, it may be quicker than the save/load method? Worth a shot anyway!

[tonywob 4,768]

The team at ProMods range in age from thirteen to thirty and they are very talented! They have added enough new terrain to more than triple the area of the default SCS scenery, and are also reworking the default scenery to replace the rather lame efforts of SCS's artists.

 

I've been watching their forums (I believe you're a mod there as well). The talent is incredible and makes me jealous we don't have the same modding enthusiasm in the flight simulator community. Following the development screenshots, everyday there are new images and it's incredible what they're able to do. I'm particularly looking forward to the far north and Spain.

 

I've only just installed RuMaps, but found it was really buggy on OpenGL, but luckily one of the ProMods team is actively fixing their bugs. The map I have now has increased massively. The biggest drive I've done without ferries I think was from Inverness in Scotland to Budapest in Hungary (using the Eurotunnel). It took probably about 3 hours, but I remember I stopped after an hour and resumed later on. That's how much bigger this map is than ATS at the moment, but I suspect it won't stay a small map for long.

[Guest]

The 1:19 compression remains the same, but by stretching out the roads between the cities it provides the illusion of being longer somehow.

 

ProMods is a single mod that is honestly so large that it has to be delivered in multiple compressed files (due to the 250MB limit on the download host), so they have a little .exe that will automatically extract the "part files" and reassemble the folders/files for you. There is also an option for $1 to have it delivered in two part files instead of six or seven (I've lost count now).

 

The team at ProMods range in age from thirteen to thirty and they are very talented! They have added enough new terrain to more than triple the area of the default SCS scenery, and are also reworking the default scenery to replace the rather lame efforts of SCS's artists.

 

The only other scenery mod would be RusMap that adds quite a bit of new territory to explore. The longest delivery I've ever made was from Moscow to Reykjavik, Iceland. It took me nearly four "real time hours" to make the drive...

 

BTW, getting back to ATS, the guys at ProMods are looking to "hire" a new team to tackle ATS mods. They will have to successfully complete their tutoring in the "ProMods Academy" to earn their place on the new team, just as the ETS2 team members had to do.

 

Thanks for the detailed reply! Good to hear it is a single mod: having to download it in smaller pieces is no problem as long as the install is an easy one click affair so that's great. I think I will reinstall ETS2 somewhere the coming week and give this mod a try!

 

EDIT

Well, it's not ONE click apparently: http://promods.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3852 but it is ONE mod and that's fine already.  :wink:

[Cjr60611 31]

I drive enough as it is, I can't imagine doing it in a sim.

HaHaHa....  +1

 

Wish I had that problem with flying...

[Jimmy RFR 406]

 

 

The talent is incredible and makes me jealous we don't have the same modding enthusiasm in the flight simulator community.

 

Well, there's considerable talent around in the flight sim community...  my flight last night in XP reminded me of that! :wink:
 

However, some of the modding work is quite amazing - there's already a ton of trucks out for ATS.  I was checking out a few cabovers last night, and it blew me away how good they were.  I realize that they were likely already existing because of ETS2, but still.

[n4gix 4,947]

EDIT

Well, it's not ONE click apparently: http://promods.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3852 but it is ONE mod and that's fine already.  :wink:

They may have abandoned the .exe one-click effort since apparently many folks couldn't figure that out either...

 

Apparently the concept of splitting up a huge package into multiple "part" files is foreign to many users these days too, because that seems to be where 90% of our moderator support is required.

I've been watching their forums (I believe you're a mod there as well).

Yes, I've been a mod there for almost two years now. Unfortunately my "real world work" for Milviz has kept me from even having time to reinstall ETS2 since the "Big Hard Disk Crash of 2015" occurred. :blink:

 

Maybe I'll be able to set some time aside tomorrow to re-install ETS2 and purchase/install ATS as well!

[razalom 19]

Really enjoying ATS so far even with the limited driving area at this time. So many great mods already and more official trucks will be on the way. Hope they get Arizona out soon to just make the area a little bigger.