No official chicken cargo in the game but I wonder if they’ll add that as an Easter egg with Colorado.
ATS updates so frequently that I’m not bothering with mods and having to wait for updates to make them compatible with each new game version.
150+ hours in the American version here. What GuanoLad said, there is more variety to the scenery in the default Euro version than the default American version. Also the original Euro one takes place in different countries, so there’s different road signs, markings, etc. And you have to be alert when crossing a country line, sometimes they drive on the wrong side of the road 
I just have the default Euro version, but have all the American expansions except Idaho, and going from New Mexico up to Washington does vary the scenery quite a bit. I also got the heavy load expansion, and you kind of have to learn what the best truck setup (can, engine, etc) is for those. Pulling a heavy load up a steep hill in Washington state requires a truck setup that can handle it.
I learned to drive a semi-automatic transmission from this game! I can use the sequential gear shift now but not the clutch petal. I have never driven a sequential manual shifter vehicle in real life, but I feel like I could probably drive with it in Real Life 
I really want to get a decent steering wheel and pedals, but I don’t have $200-$250 right now.
I’ve got both ETS2 and ATS and spend far more time in ETS2. I’ve got most of the expansions so I can drive from Glasgow to Corsica to St Petersburg. The Alps in Northern Italy are particularly good. If you ever plan on visiting the UK and renting a car use can use ETS2 to see what it’s like driving a right-hand drive vehicle on the left side of the road and dealing with roundabouts.
You guys are killing me.
Every once in a while I do a game purge and pick a few different ones to re-download from Steam. So I’ve been playing American Truck Simulator the last few days and after previously whining about not wanting to spend money on DLCs which were on sale at the time, I’m kicking myself for being limited to CA, NV & AZ.
As usual, I’ve modded it like crazy so I’m just tooling around piling up bank. Only one garage, only one truck, tons of cash, so I’m not really playing the management part of it - just the sight seeing part. It would be nice to have more sights to see.
You’re not missing much. I have one large garage in each state and three million in the bank.
The management part of it is just buying new garages, new trucks, then hiring drivers. And that’s pretty much it. You don’t need to control the driversor missions, repair their trucks, etc. You just get a notice once in a while “driver X completed a delivery for $x profit”, and your money goes up slightly. If you get up to 10-15 drivers you’ll make tons of money for it, plus get to design cool looking trucks for your drivers.
So when they release a state dlc, how much of the state is mapped? Certainly you can not drive around the entire state?
Major highways, cities, and landmarks. The devs went out of their way to include the singing part of 66.
Here’s the official map, pre-Idaho:
Neat. I’m in Michigan, so I’m guessing no shot of it being added.
They’re slowly working east. One of the devs has been on their forum asking for input on Montana, Wyoming, Oklahoma, and Texas.
To offer a suggestion on a similar game, I just picked a game called Fishing: Barents Sea. A lot like ATS, but on the water; instead of picking up and dropping off cargo, you drop fishing lines or nets or crab pots, go explore, do other stuff, or just boat around a while, then come back, pick up the gear, process your catch, then return to port and unload to get paid. Processing the catch on board involves a bunch of little minigames, but they’re really easy. You earn money, upgrade your boat/equipment, hire crew, buy new boats, etc. Fun little game.
I don’t recall even running across that! I’ll probably check it out. After getting burnt out on Division 2, I wanted to relax a little and have spend a good amount of time in 2021 playing Farming Simulator 19; I imagine they probably both scratch the same itch.
It looks like Truck Sim has put out some new content since we last spoke…anyone have any feedback on that? I might be in the mood for more trucking soon.
I participated in the “event” the devs put on for exploring Idaho, which is the latest DLC I bought. I think I have all the states except Colorado now. I visited all the sites. Then, coming back to the game a few months later, I noticed even more stuff had been crammed in, into previously explored locations: viewpoints (where you pull over and gander at the scenery they thoughtfully put in). We were able to do this previously however I see they put in a bunch of new ones, because the game keeps telling me “you found another viewpoint” as I drive past a place I had previously visited, according to the map.
As for terrain variation, sure, initially it was just the dry western states, but Oregon, Washington and Idaho are certainly modeled lovingly and have beautiful forested mountains. The level of detail is pretty good but I wish it was even more extensive. Driving north through downtown Seattle, just about where Lake Union and north Seattle should be there is…a bit of a skip then you’re adjacent to Everett. That’s 20 miles, my real life neighborhood, that was sadly left out of the game.
The view out the window really is good though. As I noted in my Steam review of ATS, there are times when driving in WA or NM in the game that I get the feeling I’ve been there in real life…which would make sense if the game were properly modeled on real stretches of highway.
Now, someday, I must get a steering wheel controller so I can drive better than I do in GTAV (wasd keys only)…
ATS is modeled on real stretches of highway but not necessarily the same highway as the one your virtual rig is driving on. I’ve found one particular tunnel from ETS 2 in Google Street View.
ETA: The ATS map was actually worse on release day; entire interchanges were missing! They’ve since adjusted the ratio so now it uses the same as ETS 2. Las Vegas, in particular, has been completely reworked.
Makes sense. And yeah, the game isn’t perfect, with ongoing issues such as
- Really stupid AI that will do things like suddenly stop, full halt, in the middle of making a right turn. In my many decades of real life driving, I’ve not seen this except for emergency stops to avoid pedestrians. But there are no pedestrians crossing the street in ATS. Vehicles just stop, with no warning and for no reason.
- Very heavy traffic at 3AM in some rural locations. Fortunately, there are AI traffic mods that can regulate such things, including how often and for how long you get a red light when there’s nobody else around late at night. Also make it such that there’s hardly any AI traffic at night, but lots during “rush hour.”
- Traffic events (obstructions) that not only force you onto a detour of hundreds of miles (!!) out of your way, but can easily be avoided without penalty by driving onto the shoulder. Oh, and the traffic backup behind this obstruction is only a few cars long, not stretching for miles as in real life.
Since that song was composed the road was significantly widened and given proper drainage, with a new tunnel added.
My, ain’t this purty up here.
If anyone is interested in starting up - or restarting up, as I have - it’s a publisher’s weekend. Everything Truck Simulator is on sale. I just broke down this morning and filled out all my states. I hadn’t played in several months just because I got a little bored with the three or four states I had. I’m impressed with the additional scenery so far. I’ve driven up to Seattle and down to Salt Lake City. Next I’m heading off to Steamboat Springs.
Thing is, I’m just a sight seer. I have the - make me a shit load of money - mod loaded, so I can’t lose. Crashes? Moving violations? Repairs? Paint jobs? A dog to sit next to me in the cab? Child’s play.
I have no idea what that would do to me if I played online. I’m not even sure what playing online entails as I’ve never done it with this game.
Officially, not much at this point. You link your ETS2 and/or ATS accounts to World of Trucks and run external contracts in the game. Right now, with the Iberian Peninsula just released, they’re doing an event where delivering cargo to or from 20 different cities on the peninsula grants you access to a special paint job and a cabin accessory.
ISTR seeing gameplay from unofficial multiplayer mods. I don’t know how those work, either.
I just got ATS, and not every interchange is there; for example, when you get off the Bay Bridge and head north (well, east) on I-80, the first exit is Berkeley, which is actually the third in reality.
Speaking of just getting into ATS, I don’t want to shell out $200 or so for a decent wheel (and even if I did, I’m not sure I could connect it to my table, which has a inward-curved edge), but I’m having problems handling the truck with a joystick (Thrustmaster T16000M); the slightest jiggle puts the truck halfway into the next lane. Any suggestions as to how to set it up?