As mentioned last week, v1.35 is now in open Beta test for both Euro Truck and American Truck. This is a massive update affecting most areas of the game. Firstly, we are getting new roads in both Europe and America – although ATS gets more of those mainly to fill in gaps in the Oregon road system. To make up, Euro Truck is getting more updates to the core Germany map – looking forward to driving those! There are changes to the controls to allow all players to easily adjust the stability and suspension settings – something only possible through the back end console before. And that’s just the basics!
There are going to be lots of new ownable trailers in both versions of the game – and we’re going to be able to use our own trailers in World of trucks jobs! I appreciate that means nothing to most of my readers but, trust me, it’s a huge thing for those of us playing the game! Ok – lets take a short break and share a couple of images because I don’t want to bore you to tears 🙂 Here I am testing the new stability and suspension settings. These are at their most realistic and now you really have to drive sensibly to avoid a roll-over
Pleased to report that I caught both of these incipient roll-overs 🙂 And – No! I don’t normally drive like this 😦
This update also paves the way for the next mapping DLC’s – Washington in the US and the Road to the Black Sea in Europe. Biggest surprise though is the addition of Sardinia in the Italian DLC – another free upgrade! As an aside – I see so much anger in the gamer community about the behaviour of the ‘Triple A’ games publishers. Everything seems to be about making money by ripping off a captive audience. It’s refreshing to see the SCS model where you buy DLC’s to increase the size of your map but upgrades later on come free. There are no loot-boxes and all purchasable DLC’s are non-essential to the basic game. Can you see any of the major publishing houses going back to 6 year old content and upgrading it to the latest standards for free? I think not!
Now, the next change has cost me some cash (a personal choice). This release brings the ability to connect the Tobii 4C Eyetracker into the game. It does what it says on the tin – tracks your eyes to see where you are looking on the screen. It also tracks your head. This is potentially a significant improvement over the TrackIR head movement recognition software/hardware that many of us use – though it does have some issues of its own. The first issue is getting the settings right – I have a stiff neck from working through that process over the last two days! Once up and running well, it is generally a bit better than the TrackIR system but it can feel more twitchy because it follows your eyes as well as your head. Where it loses out is being able to look back along your truck while parking – something that the TrackIR system can do – unless I’ve missed a setting? I’ve surprised myself by finding that I can park on mirrors alone! Anyway, the ability to look back is something that SCS and Tobii will need to address. I also found that you can’t easily do a head-forward to see around window pillars and mirrors when at a junction, which is an issue though sitting a bit further back from the junction can negate this. What the Tobii 4C does do is remove the need for me to wear either a hat with a reflective attachment or wear headphones with a set of LEDs attached, either of which are required for trackIR. Effectively it frees me up to move easily. With this type of tracker I can choose to drive without the headset which is a boon when I’m expecting a delivery, for example – though I’d normally prefer to wear the headset to avoid the rattling noise from the force feedback steering 😉
There are so many new things coming in this release that I’ve run out of words for this post. All I can say is Thank You SCS Software – keep on Truckin’ 🙂
Images from Finchley 