Community: Driver Seats #6

We expect to be posting a lot of information-heavy posts in the coming days and weeks concerning the upcoming DLC and game updates. But we hope that you will not mind us taking a little break again, to revisit the topic of pictures of community driver seats.

We're back with the sixth set of photos with custom home-made gaming setups, built by some of the most devoted fans of our games, to haul cargo in Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator.

The number of pictures we are receiving from you every week is impressive, and we have a hard time choosing the best to publish. It's incredible to see so much effort (and money) spent to enjoy playing our humble games. It looks like the effort was worth it!

Thanks everybody for sending your cool photos to us. If you have a cool driving rig setup that you would like to share with us, you can always send your photos straight to the inboxes on our Facebook profiles: ETS2, ATS or SCS Software. Also, don't forget to keep an eye on our Instagram and Twitter profile too if you don't want to miss anything important about us, our games, and projects.

Related articles: Community's Driver Seats #1, #2, #3, #4, #5

BIG Announcement

Today, we'd like to provide you with a quite detailed look at a project that has been underway for well over a year - our upcoming Special Transport DLC for Euro Truck Simulator 2.

We have hinted at its existence in last year's New Year Wishes video, at that point we actually thought that we would be ready to release it in only a few months. Obviously, the project needed more time to mature. So we kept on working; you may have noticed that a few months ago a screenshot was revealed in a report from Gamescom 2017 private presentation. Recently several curious visitors were allowed to try it at Warsaw Games Week 2017 and then we've allowed local TV to come to try and record it as a little teaser.

Ultimately, a cross-disciplinary team has poured an incredible amount of time into this project, and today we are finally revealing it in full glory.

But first, a photo...

Some time ago, a couple of our colleagues were invited to become a part of a convoy for oversized transport of a huge metal tank to the city of Mělník, Czech Republic. This rare two-day experience had one goal - to gather as much data and info as possible about the whole transport and how things like this are done. Why? Because we know that our community is obsessed with realism and authenticity, you guys are always pushing us to make things more real, and want to avoid making big and unnecessary mistakes. A lot our fans are very vocal about getting something new and more challenging to test your skills. We felt that it's time to try and satisfy some of this hunger!

A lot of time has passed, and now as you can see in the video below, we are testing one of these Special Transport jobs on our motion seat in the office. What's going on there? It's quite big, right? And what are those cars with flashing beacons? Are they perhaps escort vehicles?

Yes, they are. Yes, the cargo is big, it's huge. And yes, the escort vehicles can affect the traffic. There will be two of these, one escorting the player in front of him/her and one in the back. Their purpose is clear, to assist the driver to get the cargo from the start to the finish line of each special transport job. But that's not all.

Let's review what this DLC is all about: 

• 11 New Special Cargoes (up to 70 tons, 6 m width, 5+ m height and 20+ m length)
• 4 New Trailers
• 17 Unique Routes with the Special Transport Jobs (12 Base Map, 2 Scandinavia, 2 Going East!, 1 Vive la France !). This list will grow over time.
• A combination of over 80 Special Transport Jobs
• Escort Vehicles with a custom AI like clearing the path, stopping traffic, giving advice, pushing opposing vehicles to the side etc.
• Special intros and cutscenes related to the cargoes, missions or places along the routes
• New Models, characters, and animations of people around the scene
• Pedestrians, journalists or transport co-workers along the routes recognizing day, night or bad weather
• Possibility to Fail the "Mission" if you do not adhere to strict regulations
• New Checkpoints System to keep your progress in a special transport job safe
• New Warning Beacons Animations
• New Achievements
• Higher XP and Money Profit for successful completion of this type of jobs

There is more, but we think that's enough for now. Better do some preparing, because this is going to be the biggest challenge for you and your mighty diesel beast so far!

We are not yet ready to promise a particular release date, but the wait should not be too long anymore. We are super busy finalizing, bug-testing, and releasing a lot of stuff that we want to get into your hands before the end of the year, but we hope that you will have a chance to deliver Special Cargo in Euro Truck Simulator 2 still this side of Christmas.

Italia: Core Map Enhancements

As we were working on our Italia map expansion DLC for Euro Truck Simulator 2 (please consider wish-listing it on the Steam page!), we also reserved some time for retouching the bit of northern Italy that is already included in the core of the game's world. As a result, there is going to be a very visible change for you in the upcoming game version update, whether you hurry to get the DLC to enjoy driving all the way to the south of Italy or not.

Euro Truck Simulator 2 already contains several cities and quite a stretch of road in Po Valley. We have added considerable improvements to the whole region, but we went even further with Milano. The city was completely rebuilt from scratch.

Articles related to Italia expansion:

Bella Italia
Architecture
Ring Roads
New Industries

American Truck Simulator Update 1.29 Open Beta

We are happy to announce that the 1.29 Update Open Beta for American Truck Simulator is out. Actually, the first build was released on Friday already, we have kind of soft-launched it before the weekend.

There are a lot of changes under the hood in this new game version, there may have been new instabilities introduced. So we thought that we should only expose a limited number of players to the very first iteration of the beta progress, see the reaction, and only then decide if we should start talking aloud about it. Well, the initial reaction was reasonably positive, so here we go!

Let's elaborate on what you can expect and enjoy in this game update...

MAIN FEATURES

• Map improvements (over 600 miles of new roads) - look for US-101 (CA), I-15, US-93 (AZ), CA-190 and few more.
• Complete overhaul of navigation algorithms (direction aware, multiple modes)
• Environmental lighting rebalance
• Two new trailers (food tank and mobile barrier)

MINOR CHANGES

• New road signs (like sign historic Route 66)
• Time zones support (will be handy in the future!)
• 4 roads connecting the future expansion to New Mexico
• reworked/new police cars (including strobe lights)
• Basic engine and transmission info in quick job truck tooltip.
• Trailers with state-specific legal restrictions are towed only to services in given states.
• AI traffic improvements
• Many many hundreds of small map bug fixes - visual glitches, and speed limits

MODDING INFO

• New interactive tool for environmental lighting and weather setting (included in the editor).
• New interactive tool for traffic behavior and rules debugging (included in the editor).
• New scene preview tool (included in the editor).
• New navigation parameters in map data.
• Assistance service parameters in economy data.
• Truck scale weight cost in economic data.

If you wish to participate in the open beta, you can find this version in the public_beta branch on Steam. The way to access it is as follows: Steam client → LIBRARY → right click on American Truck Simulator → Properties → Betas tab → public_beta → 1.29 public beta. No password required.

Just as with the previous Open Beta releases - please keep in mind that this is still only a beta version of the update! You may experience instability and/or bugs and kinks. It’s completely okay if you want to wait for the final release. But if you are interested in providing feedback at this stage, be sure to let us know about your findings on our forum; you can join the general discussion here, and report any bugs here. We appreciate all your feedback.

A TV Show Visit

A few days ago, we were visited by a crew from Czech TV Show "DVA3" - they looked genuinely interested in taking a look at what we are working on.

We decided to show them a glimpse of an internal project that has been underway for well over a year. Fortunately, it looks like we will soon get this work into shape for release (no release date announcement yet though, you know that we only release stuff "when it's done"). Anyway, the project looks very promising now, and we are happy to start showing it to our fans, as some of the curious visitors of Warsaw Games Week last week could confirm.

The DVA3 show also has a YouTube channel to complement the TV show, so we can share the video from their visit to the new SCS Software office with you. It's in Czech language, but they were quite forthcoming to add English subtitles.

So here it is, a work-in-progress peek at our upcoming "Special Transport" DLC for Euro Truck Simulator 2. Stay tuned, because more info about it will come soon.

And a message for the DVA3 team - thank you for your visit and the time you've spent with us, good luck with your show, and we hope to see you again soon!

New Mexico DLC Promo Trailer

As we are putting finishing touches on the New Mexico DLC for American Truck Simulator, we also need to finalize all the various marketing and promo material, so that we are ready for the release day.

One of the key elements is the promotional video trailer. We have been working on it for several days already, and today we are finally happy with the result.

We decided that we should not sit on it until the launch date. Instead, we want to show it to our game's fans now, ahead of the release, to whet your appetite. ;)

New World of Trucks Event: Double-trailer Logistics

American Truck Simulator players deserve their own dedicated event on World of Trucks, and we are launching one just now...

Of all internal projects in SCS Software's production pipeline, the New Mexico DLC for ATS is closest to the finish line. Our team of map designers, QA specialists, and programmers, in cooperation with our volunteer community testers, is in the final stretch of bug fixing and optimizing of the content to make it ready for release. As the saying goes, they are doubling down on their work. The word "doubling" or "double" happens to be our inspiration for the upcoming event.

What if, rather then building the digital rendition of New Mexico in the comfort of our office, we have really been working out there, on the roads, in the fields, towns, or real cities? We would need to double the amount of raw material, tools, parts, and supplies delivered across the economy network so that it can eventually reach all the builders, roadmakers, gardeners, vegetation planters, and everyone involved in building New Mexico and help them work even faster. And that's where our player community comes to play, this gives us the motive for the next World of Trucks event... we hope for your support. Actually, double support!

Let's use "doubles" to double the amount of cargo on the roads! However, we wonder, do we have enough skilled drivers for such a task? Can you answer the call of 'double trailer' duty and haul some supplies to various places around American Truck Simulator?

Now straight to the rules of this new World of Trucks event.

What we need you to do:

Transport a total of 300.000 lb of cargo using only Double Trailers. Do so with jobs connected to World of Trucks, while playing American Truck Simulator, of course. For every delivery, the destination city must be different. Only deliveries with planned trip distance over 100 miles are eligible. We want to give you plenty of time, so we set the deadline to December 3, 2017.

What is the reward:

A new main-menu scene for American Truck Simulator - atmospheric sunset background for your truck. This scene will be delivered to your game as a Steam inventory item on completion of the event assignment. Also, a unique World of Trucks achievement.

See you on the road!

Italia: New Industries

Industries are the backbone of the economy and the main engine of transport business in our simulators because cargo transportation is the most important basic task we put on our players. Local industries and their demands in our games must at least partially reflect the real industry in a given country. Some of the cargoes you will be transporting include, for example, typical Italian scooters.

Carrara marble quarries are one of the largest and yet carefully constructed industries that you can find on the new map of Italy. Marble from these mines belongs to appreciated materials for buildings, monuments, and sculptures since ancient times. We hope you will enjoy plenty of turning bends on their dusty gravel roads.

Steel plant at Taranto is another of the industrial structures built directly for Italia; the largest steelworks in Europe. This giant is one of those industrial stops that you will not forget easily. It's simply huge.

We are confident that you will fall in love with the new map and its unique feel, and transportation of new cargoes will be fun and challenging to your driving skills.


Articles related to Italia expansion:

Bella Italia
Architecture
Ring Roads

SCS On The Road: The wheels go round and round

We continue our journey across Europe, meeting fans of our games and making new friendships on the way. After visiting several races, we dare to say that our sim trailer and our crew have become a part of the big family that is the traveling band of FIA European Truck Racing Championship. We continue our mission to become more visible to the transportation industry, hoping for new opportunities and new partnerships that would help us further improve our games.

We have returned from the most recent FIA ETRC race at Le Mans tired but excited. It's still very inspiring talking to our fans, even if may hit a language barrier problem from time to time. We have also managed to start or continue some very promising business opportunity discussions.

Truck racing at Le Mans has a long tradition, it is one of the biggest events on the circuit, and it has a really unique atmosphere. On the parking lots all around, there were hundreds and hundreds of really amazing trucks, with lots of tuning and cool paint jobs. The Saturday evening truck parade was breathtaking, and the crazy evening stung show and fireworks attracted crowds of tens of thousands. Witnessing this aspect of the trucking phenomenon is still an eye opener for most of us, even if we have tried to touch it in our games for some years already. Let us share a few photos from the event with you...

There are only a few days left before the very last race weekend of this season's FIA European Truck Racing Championship. It is taking place at Circuito del Jarama in Spain, on the 7th and 8th of October. We will be very happy to meet our Spanish fans who make it to Jarama and to our sim trailer, please come and try our games on our 4D motion seats.

Right after Jarama, we will be in a hurry again, as we are looking forward to meeting our Polish fans at the Warsaw Games Week!