Trucking Digest

It is fitting that the one place I was feeling comfortable over the last few weeks has been the Truck Simulator games. It is possible to sit back and relax as you watch the scenery go by most of the time and that gives time to review one’s thoughts. In the course of the last few weeks I’ve driven Azyet and Miss Lola over many long runs. I have in mind target distances for them to achieve before they take a rest stop and let another truck take the reins. Miss Lola is just over halfway to her target of 65000 miles…

…while Azyet is close to 75% of her 100000km target…

Currently we’re expecting another upgrade to the background code of the game in the next couple of weeks – v1.46 is in Beta testing. For Euro Truck, this will include a new area of map around Madrid and in American Truck we’ll be getting a section of US-20 between Idaho and Montana. Both games will get ownable Chemical Tankers (not sure if I have a use for those – possible for pesticides in ATS). There’s also going to be a new Steam achievement in both games for reverse parking 🙂 We’ve been seeing lots of updates on the SCS blog regarding the forthcoming Texas map and it’s looking good. This morning we noticed that 6 new hidden Steam achievements have appeared overnight and that tells us that release of this long awaited DLC is imminent – possibly a week after v1.46 releases? So, I’m in for a busy trucking time 🙂

In my post about some recent mental health issues, I included this image…

…The majority of the serious players of these Simulation games drive very safely (unless they’re having a joke around with friends on multi-player). It has become a bit of a meme that when you roll your truck due to mis-judged handling, you post the image of it lying on its side and other players will sympathise with comments along the lines of “Aww – the poor thing’s tired.” or you may even caption it yourself along the lines of “My truck fell asleep.” In my company profiles I haven’t needed to post one of those for several years 🙂 That doesn’t mean I don’t have accidents. I will occasionally rearend something when the ai stops dead in front of me for no obvious reason – doesn’t happen very often I’m pleased to say! Then there are the accidents caused by changes to the ai behaviours after an update. It’s to the dev’s credit that they continue working to improve that aspect of the game. The v1.45 update brought a change that finally allowed the ai to merge from slip roads and most of the time it works quite well. The only downside is that the traffic on the main highway has to adjust its speed to accommodate the arriving vehicle. As, of necessity, the basic notes of changes delivered with each update don’t mention a lot of the minor background things, that sort of change comes as a surprise, and I had a couple of side taps on my trailer at intersections from vehicles merging before I worked out the new mechanic 😉 The other types of accident I get involved in are purely ai issues – there is a reason why we sometimes refer to non-player vehicles as Assault Imminent or Attack Incoming! The ai sometimes misjudge your position on roundabouts and pull out into the side of your truck. Then there are the T-Boner’s – the ai that drive straight over a give way marking at a normal junction to hit you. There are strategies for both, which mitigate against but can’t entirely prevent these collisions. If that’s given a bad impression of the ai, don’t let it put you off – generally the in-game traffic is quite realistic (if a bit light on traffic volume).

None of the above behaviours explain why Miss Lola is upside down and I appear to be viewing her from the underworld. Every game has glitches. Compared with some high-profile recent releases, the Truck Simulator games have very few. One glitch that occasionally manifests itself revolves around the ai. Normally an ai collision with either the player or another ai results in the ai stopping and putting on hazard lights – and the player cursing, stopping and switching to camera mode to photograph the villAIn 😉 Very occasionally, when one ai hits another, one of the vehicles is launched high into the air – and I mean passing airliner type high! So, there I was, cruising the I-80 just west of Laramie with a load of cattle, when suddenly a trailer dropped onto the highway just in front of Miss Lola. I barely had time to clock what it was and no time to take avoiding action. As I wrote in a community Tweet – “Bang!! 100% damage and burgers-on-the-hoof barbequed” 😉 It’s a very rare occurrence – in 6 years of play I have had ai vehicles spawn in front of my truck on 3 occasions and this is the first time I’ve had something drop out of the sky (though I have seen a very-occasional fly-by). That’s not a bad record for a game that has been in continual development throughout the time that I’ve been playing and represents just 4 bad experiences in over 5500 hours in the cab!