Where to start – it’s been a while and ironically I’ve done a lot of driving in the past three weeks as a direct result of the troubles with Windows 10 that I wrote about in the previous post. Test driving you might say 😉
I think we’ll talk American truck Simulator to start with. SCS Software had a big surprise planned for late September – a new truck. So new, in fact, that at the time of the first hints from SCS the real truck wasn’t available to buy yet! It was to be the NEXT Western Star – so a new manufacturer for the game. The real world truck was to be released on September 29th with a synchronised release of the virtual truck by SCS on the 30th – The first time this has happened! So, on the September 30th many of us were making our way to new Western Star dealerships in ATS to buy our first 49X as the truck is branded. You can read about the new truck and its release on SCS’s blog.
To synchronise the release must have taken a lot of planning and making the virtual truck ready on time required some compromise. The initial options are limited to a day cab version with just 6×2 and 6×4 chassis options. There are a few gearbox options – none of which have retarders. As the truck is marketed as ‘Vocational’, the day cab option makes sense – this truck will be ideally suited to heavy work in the forestry and plant hire sectors. I think we will be getting the sleeper cab and other chassis options as part of general game releases over the coming months. I spec’d my day cab with the 600HP Detroit Diesel engine and the Detroit auto 12speed box. Initially, I’ve tried the truck on a mix of jobs but In the long term I expect to use her solely on the types of work mentioned above, so there is a headache rack fitted too. I’ve named her Altair…
…She becomes only the second day cab in the current fleet. So lets have a quick mention of the other one, Ol’Dawg. The Dawg has had a makeover and now looks resplendent in an old-school Mack scheme…
…Posing outside our Elko depot.
Coming soon to ATS, we are expecting our second new state for the year – Colorado. In v1.39 release, currently in open beta, we’re getting lowboy trailers that we can own. I expect to attach one of those to Altair and get moving some plant soon after!
The Lowboy trailers will also be coming to Euro Truck Simulator 2. v1.39 for that game went into open beta testing yesterday, so it won’t be long. We’re also getting a rebuild of the area around Calais to bring that up to the latest mapping standards 🙂 SCS have been giving a lot of sneak previews of the planned Iberia map dlc that is due to release although they’ve been rather coy about a possible date.
As a make-weight for a new truck in ATS, we got a new paint jobs pack in ETS2 called Super Stripes. I’ve used it to give my DAF XF105 a face lift…
…I’ve also finally given her a name – Madeleine – bringing her into line with my two Euro6 XF’s Lady Galadriel and Renzo. Until recently I’ve always struggled to give names to my European Trucks but I’m now on a bit of a roll 🙂 The other truck to benefit from a Super Stripes repaint was my Euro6 MAN TGX …
…She’s been named too – Maria de Montpelhièr or Maria for short. I was looking for some context and found a historical one! Maria de Montpelhièr was the 12th century heiress to the Lordship of Montpellier and married the King of Aragon. So this name symbolises our planned expansion into northern Spain when the Iberia dlc releases.
I hope to share some more trucking with you next week – Keep the shiny side up! 🙂
Images from Finchley 