Truck Sims - Euro and American

[Sly Reflex]

It's a cult hit from ages ago. A few of us are playing it now though, so up goes a thread.

 

So I'm not really sure what I should be saying here, other than this game is absorbing as fuck. I've spent pretty much all day today playing this (Euro Truck) with podcasts and shows running on my second screen, and despite it being quite a hands off game, as soon as you take your eyes of the road you're asking for trouble. Barely anything happens and when it does it's usually your fault for letting your mind wander or take a risk you really shouldn't have.

 

For reference Euro Truck now has most of Europe in it. I think originally it had Great Britain, A bit of France, Belgium, Nederland's, a chunk of Germany and a slice of Italy. Since then they've added a fair old portion of the Bloc, A bit of Turkey, Denmark, Sweden, the southern parts of Norway and Finland as well as a taster of Russia. Italy and the islands are present, as well as the rest of France, with the most recent additions being Spain and Portugal. At the end of this year they're planning on adding more of Russia.

 

The map is not 1:1, a lot of cities are missed out and it's sort of scaled back, the UK for instance has really odd motorways, some of them are the 3 lane ones you expect, but the way it deals with slip roads is weird, instead of being how they are in real life the left lane acts as a way off/on. It's caught me off guard more than I'd like to admit and on longer journeys I just sit in the middle lane, because fuck having to move in and out of traffic. There are talks that they're redoing the Great Britain parts of the game, which is something they did with Germany. I've not really driven in Germany that much so I can't really say if the roads there are accurate, but I have German people watching the streams so maybe they can tell me whenever I get to driving there properly. Same for the other countries. I guess they'll pass for someone outside of the country, but under scrutiny of someone that drives in that country they might not be up to scratch.

 

Currently I am trying to set up my own business to make some side income. The game starts you out and allows you to pick any city in the game as your headquarters. I picked Sheffield since Leeds is not in the game. Each city has a few things, mainly pick up and drop off points, dealerships for trucks, agencies that allow you to employ drivers, as well more buildings you can buy and operate out of.

 

The goal is to drive loads from one city to the other. To begin with you don't own any trucks and just use the companies trucks that hire you. This means you make less money, but you also don't have to pay for all the bullshit overheads you would be accountable for, such as damage to the trucks, tolls for ferries, bridges and trains and fuel. Jobs are generated at random and expire with the in game clock. To begin with you might be going one city over, but as you progress you end up going further and further afield or taking on harder jobs that go less distance. 

 

Some of these jobs are very easy, and some of them are very hard. Some let you make your own way there while others like the heavy wide load jobs give you an escort and force you into taking a specific route, mainly one where you can take up two lanes since your cargo is usually ultra heavy and ultra wide, so while the normal jobs will have you contesting with traffic laws, the heavy cargo ones will have you struggling up hills at 3mph and threading the needle through gates that only just fit and navigating corners wide so you don't snag your trailers. Randomly things can happen in game that make your life a little harder, such as roads being cordoned off or roadworks. These throw a spanner in the works and can add hundreds of miles on to your plan, and of course jeopardise the timely delivery of whatever you've got on the back.

 

There are other types of loads. One that I've been hitting quite hard because it gives a lot of money are the double trailers. Generally these are fine when you're trucking around the open roads, but are a complete bastard when you have to do any city driving because you have to take into consideration of the length of the vehicle and also the way it tows. There's been numerous times I've gone around a corner tighter than I should have that I'd have gotten away with with a single tow, but the double snags and then I have to reverse and end up racking up a load of damages and fines.

 

Speaking of fines they come in a few different flavours. They're pretty obvious though, don't speed, don't drive on the wrong side of the road, don't run red lights, don't drive in the dark with your lights off and don't hit other cars. Sounds simple, but you'll be racking these fucking fines up like nobodies business if you play.

 

When you get to your destination you usually have 3 options. One is "Not my problem, fuck off and do it yourself", "Ok, I'll put this where you want" and "OK, I'll spend the next 20 minutes trying to reverse this bastard into a gap tighter than a ducks arse". You get XP for doing the latter two, but obviously you get more XP for doing the harder one.

 

You have XP that levels you up. There's skill trees but they're not really deep or anything like that. They allow you to take on different types of jobs that you are originally locked out of, give you bonus XP and cash, allow you to unlock longer jobs and make fuel go further.

 

You have to deal with fuel and sleep as well, these need to be taken into consideration when you set off on a job. Using a train or boat gives you some sleep so sometimes it's worth driving through the yawns if you're pretty close to the ferry. Although if you do fail to get there in time, you will start to lose focus and the screen will black out while you doze. Going too long without sleep also incurs fines.

 

It really is an oddity of a game. I've just read this post back to proofread it and it sounds boring as fuck, and to most of you reading this, it probably will be. But there's something really compelling about it. Each time you do a delivery you'll look at the quick jobs screen to see what's available and there's usually always something there to make you take another job. It could be an unusually high pay out, a cargo you've not seen before or a journey to somewhere you've not seen yet. Generally it's one of those things where when you get close to a city you can see landmarks as well, like the Liver Building in Liverpool, or the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. You even get to drive on some landmarks like the Oresund Bridge between Denmark and Sweden. Scenery overall is unremarkable, but when you see something interesting it really stands out. Driving into Warsaw was like this for me, I had no idea it looked like this.

 

I think it's one of those games where you sort of enjoy because it's placid for the most part. It's one of those games where you make your own stories as you get handed jobs. Whether people want to hear those stories is a completely different story. I'll continue to play it, and to be perfectly honest it's my new time killer, it wouldn't surprise me if I end up topping the hours play on my friends list. I'm not sure if it's something I could talk about much more though, because at the end of it all it's about driving trucks with big shit on the back across Europe. There's not really much more to say.

 

Well there is. Go to Twitch and see how Americans deal with roundabouts. It's hilarious. 

[Sly Reflex]

I just managed to get 50% of the map uncovered. I've been chipping away at the achievements but the RNG nature of how it deals jobs out is making it a lot harder than it should be.

 

Still very relaxing though. Bang a podcast on and go. I like to wind down with it as well since despite having time limits for the deliveries even the harshest ones are reasonable as long as you don't mess up.

 

One thing I am really not a fan of is driving the Eastern Bloc countries. There's a lot of countries roads and when you're in the pitch black it's really easy to miss a turning, especially when it rains. I still have a lot of driving to do in that neck of the woods.

 

I did completely finish Iberia though. I still have roads to drive on to uncover them, but I'll do it as and when. I'm in no rush.

[Jimboxy]

Are you going to look at American Truck Sim or not bother? This and Elite:D are the two games I'm very eager to get back to when I have a moment.

[Sly Reflex]

American Truck Sim has the worst things that I dislike about in ETS2 as standard. The weighing in thing does my head in. Going into any non EU country and having to fuck around with weighing in and getting x rayed and all that stuff makes crossing borders such a pain. You have to stop quite a lot in American Truck Sim from what I've seen watching people play on Twitch.

 

I think what I'm going to do is try to get all the achievements here, then maybe install promods. By that time maybe the Russia DLC will be out. Hopefully it's nicer than the rest of the Black Sea stuff.

[Sly Reflex]

Russia DLC cancelled for the foreseeable.

 

https://blog.scssoft.com/2022/05/heart-of-russia-dlc-statement.html

 

Quote

Our dearest community,

 

We’ve been receiving a lot of questions from you about the future of Heart of Russia, our map expansion DLC for Euro Truck Simulator 2. So today, after much consideration, we feel it is time to respond by shedding some light on the situation for everyone.

 

On the 24th of February 2022, our Heart of Russia team was some 6-8 weeks away from completing work on the highly anticipated new DLC. We all felt really good about the result; a lot of effort had been invested in making this new region look truly fantastic in the game. We were absolutely sure that our community, especially those in Russia, would really appreciate that.

 

Then, all of a sudden, the entire world was rocked by the news that Ukraine had been invaded by Russia. We were in shock.

 

With deep concern, we watched the news about the war, and we quickly realized we had to do something to help those who were suffering. Immediately, we started contributing to several charities providing humanitarian aid within the territory of Ukraine and assistance to those who were evacuating. Later on, with the kind participation of the #BestCommunityEver, we have further increased the donations by contributing all the proceeds from the sales of the Ukrainian Paint Jobs Pack DLC. It’s incredible to see that, as of now, over 85,000 of you have decided to purchase it and contribute to this noble cause. Thank you!

 

However, now Heart of Russia DLC was facing a lot of uncertainty. We asked ourselves many questions, including the obvious ones. Can we ever release the Heart of Russia DLC? Should we even finish the work? Since then, we have finally consolidated our thoughts.

 

When developing our games we try to be as apolitical as possible, in a way shielding the global player audience from everyday controversies. We quite like the idea that our shared passion, for a truck simulation, allows people to connect, to pay a virtual visit to a neighbouring country in peace, and to enjoy a hobby that we commonly share, rather than allowing anything divisive to set us apart. But since our DLC, Heart of Russia, directly concerns Russia, and with so many people suffering, we decided to refrain from releasing the DLC so that it is not perceived in any way as being in support of or tolerance of the aggression.

 

We strongly believe that there is hope for the proud people of Ukraine to prevail and for the suffering to end for all. Injustice cannot and must not win. And, when the time comes for Ukraine to rebuild and heal, then we will endeavour to find a way for our Heart of Russia DLC to play whatever part it can in that healing process, for everyone.

 

Let us work together and live in hope that the days of despair and grief will be over soon.

 

Thank you for your patience, understanding, and support.

 

SCS Software.

 

Understandable.

 

I've talked about where they could go with ETS and tbh it gets a bit lairy when you consider the political stuff concerning the places that are not in game currently. A lot of the former Yugoslavia isn't represented at all, I can understand why they want to avoid that. They can't really do the rest of Turkey because of the Kurdish thing. Greece would also be hard to do because of the politics with the surrounding countries. Only a small part of Russia is represented and now that's fucked. If it was me making decisions for SCS I'd consider putting in Ireland, Iceland and filling out Norway and Finland. Maybe even going into the north of Africa. Morocco and Egypt would be pretty cool to visit. Egypt would especially make sense given the Suez is there.

 

Going to be interesting to see where they go from here given the only obvious option has been removed from the table.

[DANGERMAN]

have they done the Alps and those winding roads

[Sly Reflex]

They have. Super pretty but fuck taking heavy loads (KappaPride?) through those areas unless you have a beefy engine.

 

And they shifted to do the Western Balkans in the next DLC. I thought they would have dodged that because the borders around that area really aren't solidified after all these years, they're still bickering of who owns what.

 

Looks like I'll be able to visit Magical Croatia after all. Be a while out, but I might install it again and go for a drive while I try and plough through some podcasts.