American Truck Simulator

[abefroman329]

I don't particularly enjoy playing ETS or ATS, but I do enjoy watching YouTube videos of others playing these games.

[SectorZ]

Two words:

BIG. RIGS.

This Big Rigs? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6DtVHqyYts

[cjk374]

Two words:

BIG. RIGS.

This Big Rigs? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6DtVHqyYts

That was the funniest critique & suckiest video game I have ever seen!

[US 41]

I know it feels like they've been taking forever on this game, but there's a guy (I assume from Mexico) that has been playing with a lot of mods of Mexican highways and the mods look completely legit! The highways look like Mexican highways, the signs are correct, Pemex gas stations, Oxxo mini marts, topes (speed bumps) in towns. The road is also in terrible condition at 10:19 which is also completely legit. I don't know, but I'm completely jealous of this guy. 

[CNGL-Leudimin]

I recently got a new laptop and bought Euro Truck Simulator 2 along with the first two map expansions. I plan to get the rest of the map expansions and American Truck Simulator at a later date.

[ClassicHasClass]

This reminds me a lot of the old Imagic game Truckin'. The maps weren't 100% accurate (some of the Interstate routings were probably elided or merged for space), but I think it's one of the earliest examples of this type of game.

[nexus73]

With all the highway videos available, wouldn't it be fun to have a game with a look as good as those with the ability to drive at the same "super-speed" as most of these videos have?  Dial up the weather, police, bad drivers. lousy pavement and such as one wishes.  Then have people play Cannonball Run online!  Miami to Seattle or San Diego to Boston anyone? 

Rick 

[vtk]

2-digit Interstate routes that can currently be clinched in ATS if you have all the map DLCs:

• 5
• 8
• 11
• 17
• 19
• 82
• (w)84
• (w)86

When the Wyoming expansion is released, we can add 25 to the list. Next will be Texas, which will of course will add its three intra-state Interstates 2, 27, and 45 to this list.

[D-Dey65]

Ah, the time I spent playing Crosscountry USA...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5Dp-BJ2S5o

Damn! That 8-bit shit looks pretty funny today. Then again, almost all 8-bit video games do.

[Ned Weasel]

How realistic is this game?  I haven't tried it or seen videos of it yet, but I gotta say--  It can only be realistic if it puts you in situations where a beginner would spend 30 minutes trying to back up to a dock or back into a parking space at a truck stop.  It's exactly as frustrating and embarrassing as it sounds. 

[vtk]

At truck stops you can usually find (or invent your own) pull-through parking spaces. At the destination where you drop off your trailer, you can choose an easy or hard trailer drop location for an appropriately-varying parking XP bonus, or skip parking and not get the bonus.

One time I got my triple trailer hung up trying to get into a cattle chute to exit an intermodal port. Because of the way the trailers move, I couldn't back up more than a few feet before it all jammed up. So I had to detach the trailers, drive around to the side of one of the trailers and push it sideways to get it into a position where I could re-attach and pull the trailers out into the open then try to exit again. That was frustrating and embarrassing.

[US 41]

I'd buy this game, but I drive an actual semi truck around enough as it is. 

[Ned Weasel]

I tried this game.  It's only $20 on Steam, but then there's the extra DLC.  It's so awkward how you have to use the controller to move your head/eyes, when such a thing is a lot easier in real life.  The scenery and road details are surprisingly life-like, though.

[Henry]

How long will it be before all of the US is drivable in this game (via DLC, not mods)? It certainly sounds interesting!

[bm7]

How long will it be before all of the US is drivable in this game (via DLC, not mods)? It certainly sounds interesting!

The game has been out for 5 years, and they've gotten about the western 1/3rd of the US done. They have been hiring more developers to speed up and improve the quality of new DLCs, so my personal estimate is that they will be finished with the continental US in about 6-8 years.

[index]

I know it feels like they've been taking forever on this game, but there's a guy (I assume from Mexico) that has been playing with a lot of mods of Mexican highways and the mods look completely legit! The highways look like Mexican highways, the signs are correct, Pemex gas stations, Oxxo mini marts, topes (speed bumps) in towns. The road is also in terrible condition at 10:19 which is also completely legit. I don't know, but I'm completely jealous of this guy. 

Old post but they're still at it. It's actually a team, previously it was two people with ties to Mexico, but they've since expanded, they've got a guy from Western Europe, one with ties to Morocco I think, and I think two more people with ties to Mexico now working on stuff, maybe there's some others I'm forgetting, my memory sucks. Since this post they've also started to rework sections of the US for more realistic mountain roads/roads in general, since the old base map areas are kind of lacking compared to SCS's newest work. When that was released I was impressed at how well they emulated CalTrans specs/the general feel of their standards. I beta test their maps and the quality has skyrocketed too, it was good before but it's even better now.

[MoiraPrime]

I hope this is relevant enough to bump this old thread, but I wanted to mention this game just turned 6 years old. It was released on February 2, 2016. Since then it has gotten the addition of a truck from every major truck brand, and it now has Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, and Wyoming (on top of the base states of California and Nevada. Two states have been announced over the last year (Texas and Wyoming).

Prior to the release of New Mexico they completely re-scaled the map from 1:35 to 1:20.

They re-signed the entire state of Arizona and upgraded all the signs in the DLCs a bit. They did an entire rebuild of Las Vegas (and it looks amazing)

California is currently getting a massive remapping. There's a few blog posts about that, here's the most recent one from today: https://blog.scssoft.com/2022/02/california-rework-road-network-1.html

This game has a lot of love put into it and if you haven't checked it out in a while, please do! Especially the new DLCs.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

Its sister game Euro Truck Simulator 2 added Iberia as an early birthday gift for me. I'm now based in Zaragoza in that game, as that is the closest city to me to appear in game. Yes, since my previous post I bought every map DLC, as well as American Truck Simulator and its map DLCs, and I've continued to get new map DLCs as they came out. I appreciate the effort SCS Software is doing in rebuilding the old base maps, which are nowhere near the realism of the latest DLCs, and bringing them to current standards. They are currently redoing Austria as well.

[MoiraPrime]

They just announced the Texas DLC's release date! November 15th!


Here's the trailer for it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMSEm-dbTCQ

[Scott5114]

Screw US-75 to Sherman-Denison, and I-40 east of Amarillo, I guess?

I mean, I guess I kinda get it if they're going to release that when they release Oklahoma, but they seem to have I-35 to Gainesville, so I'd at least think they'd want to include Denison.

[MoiraPrime]

There's always a couple sections of road they add in later patches. Here's an example of Cody and US 14 they added to Wyoming. https://blog.scssoft.com/2022/06/Cody-and-US-14.html

[MoiraPrime]

Also, a couple people here have been wondering about the quality of the map and such since the game released. Back in 2019 I recorded a trip from Santa Fe to Portland. You can skim through it to see the different areas mapped: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeZQWE6N1aw

I'm going to do a new one soon doing a long mid-map route through the new DLCs.

[MikieTimT]

Seems to be a rather large chunk of I-30 missing.  Like anything east of Dallas!

[XamotCGC]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBr7EhL6Jpg

[Scott5114]

I just watched the trailer in full screen mode to look at the details, and...



They actually took the time to model a Texas goalpost, and include the little reflective collar on it? Either one of the devs is a Texan or this game goes to ridiculous lengths when it comes to realism.