Event: Trade Connections - Sweden Summary

The latest World of Trucks event has just ended today. We are happy to see so many people participate!

There were 85,000 people who delivered at least one cargo towards the event's goal. Over 31,000 players went through the pains to deliver the required 10 cargos to 10 different countries - having fun, or so we hope. We feel sorry for 459 players who only managed to deliver 9 cargos before the event's deadline.

It should not take a long time before we issue another World of Trucks call for action. The next event we are planning will be related to our participation in FIA ETRC 2018 season events, and the first race in Misano is just around the corner. So refill your tanks, check your diesel beasts and stay tuned! We are working on some really cool event rewards for you...

Oregon: Scenic road 101

US Route 101 will continue further north from California (part of core American Truck Simulator game) up through the new Oregon map expansion. When the new DLC is complete, the road will start in Los Angeles and end in Astoria. For now, at least - you will have to wait until we release Washington state DLC for the full length of US 101 ;). The section depicted on screenshots below covers the area between Eureka and Crescent City.

This scenic coastal road is known for many landmarks, vistas, beaches or renowned rest stops. Of course, some of them have been transferred to our truck universe. Parts of our virtual rendering of this legendary route are still in development, but you can already see that the result should be worth the effort.

Oregon DLC related articles
Something's cooking, Which way to go? Beaver knows!, Meanwhile in Oregon

Euro Truck Simulator 2 Update 1.31 Open Beta

Update 1.31 for Euro Truck Simulator 2 shares all the new functionality with the same-generation update of ATS, but there are some differences too, and it took us a few more days of internal testing to get it ready for an Open Beta test.

As we have already mentioned when launching ATS 1.31 Open Beta, trailer cables are one of the new shared visible simulation additions. We also have new mirror rendering code, providing more accurate mirrors view, closer to what a real truck driver can see. In addition, there are two main features that ETS2 gets in this update. First, long-awaited random road events finally made it to Europe! There are dozens of them, from the usual minor crashes to the big accidents like burn out vehicles and the emergency landing of small planes. Plus, a small surprise which we kept under the lid till the cable reveal blog post - 8x4 chassis for Next-Gen Scania R and S!

As for smaller changes, 1.31 brings some of the wish list items like a new filter option for job and cargo search, as well as better precision of trip data for dashboard computer. Also when you reload/restart the game or if the gameplay repositions your vehicle to a new place, and you "spawn" in your truck, the parking brake will be automatically set to ON, so that the vehicle may never start moving on its own unintentionally. Besides those additions and a few more fixes, we also updated license plates for various countries. In relation to that, UK trailers are not a standalone vehicle for license plates anymore.

There are also some changes in the tools and mods category. We're currently in the middle of a massive technology change in how our map designers apply textures, materials, and vegetation to road segments. Of course, this will also apply to the mod creators going forward. Historically, we have used a concept of "stamps" with pre-designed patterns to conserve memory and disk space, but we're abandoning this approach, and letting the map designers just "paint" surface properties with a "brush." This will bring more freedom and flexibility to map design; it should make the work more effective when a map designer is in need of a particular terrain feature. For the time being though, it means that map mods will have to be re-touched and re-saved with the new system, so things will need to settle down until everybody catches up. With the cleanup of map import code, we've also dropped support for very old (pre-4.38 format) maps so mods that are no longer maintained (were last saved as of Feb 2017) cannot be loaded in the current version of the game. We hope that this isn't really an issue for any mods in current use.

So enjoy all the new additions, but please remember: It's only an open beta, not a stable public version so you may encounter bugs, instability, and kinks. It's completely okay if you want to wait for the final release. But if you're interested in helping us to move there faster, we'll appreciate all of your feedback on our forum and your bug reports in this section.

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 the Euro Truck Simulator 2 → Properties → Betas tab → public_beta → 1.31 public beta. No password required.

MAIN FEATURES:

• Power/air lines between truck and trailer(s)
• Improved mirror rendering (head position-based FOV, properly curved mirrors)
• Random road events
• 8x4 Scania R and S truck chassis
• New routes for Special Transport DLC missions (read more)
• Mighty Griffin DLC aftermarket tuning parts for next-gen Scania S & R (read more)

MINOR CHANGES:

• Job selection screens have new filter and cargo search elements.
• UK trailers are not a standalone vehicle for license plates anymore
• Parking brake automatically ON after truck spawn (g_park_brake_init)
• Screenshot name format now based on date and time
• Increased precision trip data (dashboard computer display)
• Faster gear shifting for new opticruise transmissions
• Fixed/updated LP in various countries (Belgian, Norway, Polish, Czech)
• Fixed torque converter locking
• Fixed damaged predefined trucks in dealers and quick jobs
• Fixed trailer damage reporting
• Fixed HDR interpolation

TOOLS/ MOD:

• New terrain brushes in the map editor
• Dropped support of the old maps (pre 4.38, due to brushes)
• Mirror_data
• A trailer could be registered as standalone or not 
• Variable shift length
• Truck dealer trucks are not on the list anymore, the game reads all units in given directory 
• Steerable wheel independent on wheel model 
• Dropped support for old attributes

SCS participates in Open House Praha

Every year, the Open House Prague festival opens some unique, architecturally important, and under normal circumstances inaccessible buildings and areas to the general public free of charge. This year, the 4th edition - which will take place on May 19-20, 2018 - will open more than 60 buildings and offices around the city. And we're among them!

While we occasionally invite members of our fan community like modders, YouTubers, Twitchers or other media and press people to visit our office to spend some time with us, we've never done an official open-day event before. We've decided to take the opportunity and join this festival to let the general public walk around our new office and see where our games are being made.

So, if you'd like to visit our 'home', take a guided tour and engage in a small chat with some members of our team, or try one of our 4D motion seats which we have here, mark these days in your calendar and plan a trip to Prague. This is the place.

We're looking forward to meeting with you, our dear virtual truckers! ;-)

ETS2 Special Transport revisited

Last December's add-on release for Euro Truck Simulator 2 - the Special Transport DLC - has been accepted very positively in the fan community. As you may remember, a comparable game expansion is also in the works for American Truck Simulator, but meanwhile, the team behind Special Transport still keeps on tweaking and improving their creation.

We are happy to reveal that along with the upcoming ETS2 1.31 Update, the Special Transport DLC will also be updated with new jobs. There are new routes added to the core map, and several new routes will also be accessible for owners of other map DLCs.

This is not our last take on Special Transport, you can count on further tweaks and improvements down the road!

American Truck Simulator Update 1.31 Open Beta

We are making American Truck Simulator Update 1.31 accessible in Open Beta form today. We are starting a little rough this time, with several known issues, but at the same time, we are eager to collect feedback and reports already to help us finalize this update ASAP. Open Beta 1.31 for ETS2 should follow in a matter of a few days.

This update brings a mix of new things in many areas of our games. For those of you focused on truck realism, there are simulated trailer cables (with different visibility options) and improved mirror functionality. Explorers taking the CA120 into Yosemite National Park right away - be advised that in National Parks there are some regulations about commercial trucking. And finally, there are also new bottom dumper trailers coming in three versions.

There are also some smaller changes; 1.31 brings a few items from players' wish lists. We are introducing a new filter option for job and cargo search, or better precision of trip data for dashboard computer. As always, we have applied a ton of various fixes and tweaks. There is also one noteworthy change - from now on, when you reload/restart the game or if the gameplay repositions your vehicle to a new place, and you "spawn" in your truck, the parking brake will be always automatically set to ON, so that the vehicle may never start moving on its own unintentionally.

There are also some changes in tools and mods category. We are currently in the middle of a massive tech change in how our map designers apply textures, materials, and vegetation to road segments. Of course, this will also apply to the mod creators going forward. Historically, we have used a concept of "stamps" with pre-designed patterns to conserve memory and disk space, but we are abandoning this approach, and letting the map designers just "paint" surface properties with a "brush." This will bring more freedom and flexibility to map design; it should make the work more effective when a map designer is in need of a particular terrain feature. For the time being though, it means that map mods will have to be re-touched and re-saved with the new system, so things will need to settle down until everybody catches up. With the cleanup of map import code, we have also dropped support for very old (pre-4.38 format) maps so mods that are no longer maintained (were last saved as of Feb 2017) cannot be loaded in the current version of the game. We hope that this is not really an issue for any mods in current use.

Anyway - enjoy all the new additions, but please remember: It's only an open beta, not a stable public version so you may encounter bugs, instability, and kinks. It's completely okay if you want to wait for the final release. But if you're interested in helping us to move there faster, we'll appreciate all of your feedback on our forum and your bug reports in this section.

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 the American Truck Simulator → Properties → Betas tab → public_beta → 1.31 public beta. No password required.

MAIN FEATURES:

• Power/air lines between truck and trailer(s)
• Improved mirror rendering (head position-based FOV, properly curved mirrors)
• New road through Yosemite added (CA-120)
• New trailers (bottom dumpers)

MINOR CHANGES:

• Job selection screens have new filter and cargo search elements (will be added later)
• Parking brake automatically ON after truck spawn (g_park_brake_init)
• Screenshot name format now based on date and time
• Increased precision trip data (dashboard computer display)
• Fixed torque converter locking
• Fixed damaged predefined trucks in dealers and quick jobs
• Fixed trailer damage reporting
• Fixed HDR interpolation

TOOLS/ MOD:

• New terrain brushes in the map editor
• Dropped support of the old maps (pre 4.38, due to brushes)
• Mirror_data
• A trailer could be registered as standalone or not 
• Variable shift length
• Truck dealer trucks are not on the list anymore, the game reads all units in given directory 
• Steerable wheel independent on wheel model 
• Dropped support for old attributes

SCS at EGX Rezzed 2018

EGX Rezzed is the biggest game event held in London, UK. This year's session will take place April 13-15 at the Tobacco Dock. As every year, there will be many presentations of new and upcoming games, development updates, tons announcements and news from the gaming industry. Chances are some of our UK fans are planning to attend.

We are sending out our team to the show, too. A pair of our senior developers will defend our colors at this extraordinary event, thanks to a kind invitation from Rock, Paper, Shotgun. American Truck Simulator Map Team Lead Ondřej Dufek and Vehicle Department Lead Hynek Svatoš will reveal some secrets from the development of our sims. Attentive viewers will have a chance to learn hot news from the development of ATS: Oregon and what the deal is with our trucks, trailers, and anything with a set of wheels.

Do not miss this developer session which will start on Friday 13th (yay!) At 5pm. You can watch it online on the dedicated Twitch channel.

SCS at Truckfest Peterborough

As the last snow is melting away and winter is finally stepping off its throne, it is about time we start talking about our travel plans. We are finalizing our calendar of events to visit this year with the SCS sim trailer, and the first stop on the journey is clear - the famous Truckfest Peterborough. We hope to see a lot of our UK fans in Peterborough on 6th & 7th of May, 2018!

Our sim trailer has been through a technical upgrade over the winter, and the motion seats are also getting an overhaul - they are currently equipped with a real truck seat and a steering wheel including elements of the instrument cluster. This should raise the simulation fidelity to a whole new level.

We are looking forward to meeting our hardcore fans as well as people all-new to the truck sim phenomenon. The last season was a great trial, and this year we are going to appear at yet more events in yet more countries.

Our two-day presence at Truckfest Peterborough will be spiced up by a couple of visits from notable figures in the fan community. As we have learned that Paul a.k.a the Squirrel is going to be at Truckfest, too, we have invited him to come and see us at our sim trailer. Who knows what happens, perhaps he may find the time to give his fans an autograph or two.

Actually, we went even further, and we are joining forces to co-promote our respective visits of Peterborough with a giveaway. During an upcoming Squirrel's Sunday Night Trucking stream (most likely the one on April 22 we understand), Paul will randomly pick five lucky winners who will receive a big bag of goodies - as long as they can show up in person at Truckfest Peterborough and present us with a secret phrase. The prize will include a selection of cool ETS2 and ATS merchandise from SCS Software plus a Squirrel's signed cap. You can enter the giveaway via this entry form. And of course, you should keep an eye on Squirrel's Twitch Channel.

There will be more celebrity guests showing up at our sim trailer, for now, we are happy to confirm that DJ London from Truckers.FM will come and join us as well. Tune in their radio stream for more of their plans for Truckfest.

What if you cannot make it to Peterborough for a first-hand experience of the motion seats in our sim trailer, or to try to pry some secrets from the SCS crew? Let's see if any of these planned locations make it any easier for you...

ETS2 Baltic: Border Crossing Prefabs

Beyond the Baltic Sea, the new DLC for Euro Truck Simulator 2 that we are working on now, will be one of the largest and most complex expansion regions. The area we plan to cover is vast, and it involves parts of five different countries. This is an additional challenge for us with all the various regional differences, like road signs, or the local industries.

Particular focus is also required for country borders. The border crossings between the EU and Russia are a new phenomenon in our games, as there is much stricter regime there than within EU. Customs checks are taking place on both sides of the border line and they may take a long time to spend in a queue, which may turn out to be clashing with our desire for fluid gameplay.

In our effort for maximum realism in the world, we are building new prefabs to represent the unique architecture of these border crossing hubs. It's not just the buildings of crossings themselves, we also want to improve the fidelity with some still-functional as well as no-more-functional installations from the Soviet era which can be found along the roads near the borders.

Let us show you a little gallery of screenshots including examples of the prefabs that our team is building for the various border crossings for Beyond the Baltic Sea...

Articles related to Beyond the Baltic Sea Expansion:
Beyond the Baltic Sea

Real Truck Sounds by April v 1.4.

On this special day, we'd like to unveil one more cool improvement for our games. It's an experimental next-next-gen approach to engineering truck sounds that you would be a fool to overlook. As it is truly groundbreaking and still experimental, we did not see it prudent to put it into the standard games yet, instead, we have made it available via mods for both games. We are really curious to learn what you will think about them! (or those among you daring to install the mods anyway)

We proudly present „REAL TRUCK SOUNDS MOD by April v 1.4“!

All of the sounds were recorded by very passionate individuals with great care to make sure they receive a healthy dose of special human touch. Only a handful vehicles have got the special treatment so far. Depending on your feedback, we may be able to add more by about April 1, 2019. You can find the list of vehicles with the improved sounds in the respective mod descriptions. You can look up the mods on Steam Workshop:

Euro Truck Simulator 2 April 1.4. Update:

• ETS2 Truck Sound Improvement (April 2018)

American Truck Simulator April 1.4. Update:

• ATS Truck Sound Improvement (April 2018)