Spotting 2024 – Weeks 20 & 21

Spotting activities were hit by the same Trucking Events as my blog posts. I also had a tweaky ankle during week 20 as well as some wet weather – enough to make it easier to mope around indoors and drive my Trucks.

So here’s a little sideways look at the Trucking – and I mean sideways! That’s a view you don’t see very often, if at all – My truck sitting in a ditch…

…As you may guess, this was not due to bad driving on my part. When any game update and new map releases there will always be minor bugs. Usually they are harmless – just a visual annoyance like this ‘Close’ with crossbars that appears in my mirror as I finish a job…

On this occasion a new animated loading process was introduced to the game. Something that players have been asking for, it is being trialled with grains and root vegetables but only within the state of Nebraska. You pull up under a Silo with your own hopper and it loads…

…In this case, Sugar Beet. The Dev’s clearly wanted to give us a chance to try it but I don’t think they tried driving it very far from the grain store – probably assumed that the trailers would work as normal. Unfortunately, they don’t, resulting in off-road excursions and sudden mysterious impacts that damage your truck. This was happening at specific locations – Here was one such site where my truck suddenly lurched sideways and it felt like I was driving over rough boulders…

…I caught that one! The rough patch was around where the front pick-up is in the shot and it caused 15% damage to my truck and cargo. If you’re not seeing anything in the road to cause that damage, then don’t worry – neither are we😅 Subsequent test driving through the affected areas suggest that this issue is limited to hoppers that have been through the new animated loading process – Other loads pass safely.

I can’t report this on the official bug reporting page because SCS Software require all testing to be done on a clean game-save which mine is anything but (I have mods installed). SCS refer to us as #BestCommunityEver though and an example of that is the way we work together – I flagged the problem on ‘X’ (twitter). One of my German friends, Angela, then tested at the original location with her clean profile and had the same problem. I supplied several more locations and she tested each one to demonstrate that it was a real fault and has submitted a bug report.

So I may not have been out trainspotting but I did have fun in week 20 and I did my bit for our trucking community😎 Of course, there are trains to see in American Truck Simulator like this Amtrak just outside Spokane…

Week 21 was also lacking trainspotting until Friday and Saturday but neither of those days were dedicated trips. The first was a meeting with old workmates near Liverpool Street for a beer and a meal. I logged 44 that day of which I actually needed 1 and I also picked up 4 new for haulage.

Saturday was a day out with Epi – A visit to Kew Gardens which included taking a varied route there and back because the District Line was out of action for some major engineering work. So I got to log 57 of which I needed 4 Victoria Line units and I also picked up 7 new rides😎 Kew was beautiful as always – Here’s some Californian Poppies…

… and some Irises

And a dragon to guard your house…