Trucking Digest

This week took on importance in the SCS community because Saturday marked the 3rd anniversary of the release of American Truck Simulator. The release represented a major milestone in that the developers made a mistake in opting for a smaller scale map than the one used in Euro Truck. Why was that so? It resulted in a prompt decision to rescale the entire released map to match the Euro truck maps and saw the start of a number of innovations that not only impacted on the ongoing expansion of American Truck Sim but also introduced new elements to Euro truck that might not have happened had American Truck been released at the 1:20 scale initially. Now we see ongoing re-mapping of existing maps alongside new development and I wonder if that would have happened without the advent of American Truck Simulator?

That SCS intend to move forwards in both simulators is very apparent from their communications with community. We’ve been shown the next truck to appear in ATS – the International Lonestar……seen in early development courtesy of Carthoo. That’s gonna be one divisive truck – you’ll either love or hate it – I’m tending towards dislike 😉

With the ATS anniversary I thought I’d get into the spirit of things. Three trucks formed the basis of available fleets when the game launched – which was one more than the states delivered back in February 2016. In fact, the Kenworth W900 only made it by the skin of its teeth otherwise we’d have only had the Kenworth T680 and the Peterbilt 579 to choose from at the start. Back then the Peterbilt was my weapon of choice and I chose to fit one of those out in celebration. Here’s a couple of shots from a run between Bakersfield and Elko crossing the only two states in the game when it released, California and Nevada……running through a quiet downtown Stockton in the night before crossing donner pass in the dark and passing Reno’s lights. Here we are clearing Carlin tunnel in dawn’s light after cresting the summit of I80 between Winnemucca and Elko……and finally we parked up next to a Kenworth T680 in a reunion of the first trucks…

I’m aware that one of my followers, Cee, lives in Oregon – a state that was added to American Truck Sim just before Christmas. Here’s some shots from a short drive earlier today carrying a load of butter from The Dalles to Eugene via Portland…

I will finish by adding that I’ve had to add new hardware to my set-up. It was precipitated by having a wheel and pedal for Truck Simulator and the effect that has on other computing wishes and requirements. I think that deserves a post in itself for a full description – maybe next week’s trucking Digest will be a ‘Hardware’ issue? 😉 Rock on everyone 🙂