SCS Software’s Truck Sim’s are about to undergo the biggest change in a very long time. Finally we will be able to own our own trailers as well as trucks. This is a fundamental change that will allow us to operate as a real trucking company does rather than as some form of owner operator collaboration which is how our companies currently function. The updated game will still need to cater for the driver for hire period that beginners go through and it will also still need to provide the current owner-operator option. So, the economy of the game will see a huge change. All the background screens where we select what we want to do in the game will have to be altered to accommodate the new options including, for example, access to a trailer dealer.
Not content with those changes, SCS are also delivering new map content to both games as well as updated physics for the trailers. American Truck Sim will see some new roads in Arizona including the missing section of Route 95 from Yuma to Blythe. There will also be the preparatory work for the coming map DLC of Oregon that is expected to release in the autumn. Meanwhile, Euro Truck will see the upgrade of northern Germany with all the roads brought up to the standard of the France and Italy DLC’s. The work to achieve that has resulted in several German cities being completely rebuilt. Again, there will also be preparatory work for the next map expansion, Beyond the Baltic Sea.
All of those changes require a lot of testing. The testing is being handled in a way that is almost unique to SCS – The whole community have been offered the chance to do Beta Testing in both games. It’s totally voluntary but quite a lot of the community will give it a go because that’s how the Truck Sim community is! We join together to do community events and what bigger community event is there than testing the future version of the game we love? 🙂
So, for the past 10 days I’ve been driving around in Europe trying out the new features and experiencing some of the ongoing bugs and game crashes. And I’ve seen the improvements as each fix is dropped into the Beta. I think they finally nailed the game crashes when moving to drive from a selections screen on Wednesday. Today they lost my trailer for me though I eventually worked out how to get it back 😉
I mentioned in the last Digest about the changes that had been made to the trailer physics which I tested by rolling a DAF 🙂 Subsequent to that early testing I’ve started a company from scratch on two occasions and built up to trailer ownership. I’m now pushing on to expand my garage and get a second truck and trailer for an employee to drive. In my first company I based myself in Brussels – close enough to Germany to be able to drive into the new map section and see what it looks like. I did that testing with a Scania. Subsequently, in order to get rid of any residual mod code that might be loitering in the background I reinstalled the Beta and started out again with a slightly different plan of action based on what I had learned from the first experiments. This time I was back in my favourite MAN TGX and based in my preferred home of Montpellier. Here are some screenshots taken during testing…
Hamburg is one of the cities that have changed out of all recognition and this view from the autobahn is much closer to real life…
My first trailer – a curtainside suited to general dry cargoes. I also tried out a flatbed while driving this Scania Streamline…
This is how Berlin looks now from the ring road which skirts the industrial area…
And the power station at Rostock is no longer a blurry blob on a hill above the road…
My MAN TGX sitting at the loading dock with my current curtainside trailer. This time I’ve used one of the special paint schemes to give a bit of individuality…
It looks like the range of random events is increasing too. This is a new one with fire fighters attending a burnt out truck in France…
Not all random events are big. Bin bags dumped at the side of the road – one of those things from the dark side of real life (in Switzerland of all places!)…
I haven’t done much in American Truck but I will have a tale to tell from there in another post, probably on Sunday 😉
… There are three sheep but only two wear bells. Christ stands between them but to the left there is a foot that is clearly not his (follow the line of his leg beneath his gown). It is possible that these are allegorical references to the Whyte family with one of the children returning belatedly to the fold though who is standing behind Christ I have no idea. It certainly isn’t the Devil – that’s a foot, not a cloven hoof! The window is in St. Serf’s church, Dunning and was made by Ballantine and Gardiner in Edinburgh. Reputedly these were top of the range glass makers so it must have cost a pretty penny back in 1899!
Images from Finchley 