American Truck Simulator: 1.43 Update Open Beta

It has only been a short time since we last released an update for our truck simulator titles, however, we are happy to share with you that a new testing cycle for the Open Beta branch for American Truck Simulator has started.

This first iteration of the Open Beta only has a few of the handful of updates we wanted to bring with 1.43. Because of our busy production schedule before Christmas, quite a few of the other features and/or updates did not make it in time for this first release. However, we plan on bringing these later on during the Open Beta. We will be sure to let you know when they do arrive. 

Please keep in mind that this Open Beta is a work-in-progress build. If you plan on participating in this Open Beta, you can contribute by reporting any bugs you may encounter in the appropriate section(s) of our official forums. Your feedback and reports are extremely valuable for our team and we thank you in advance for taking the time to help us out.

So, without further ado, let's take a look at what the first iteration of the 1.43 Open Beta has in store!

Ownable Dumpers

We are happy to announce that Dumper Trailers are now ownable and fully customizable! These trailers are used for transporting bulk materials such as coal, soil, gravel, stone, sand, and much more.

In American Truck Simulator, Dumper Trailers will have 3 customizable body types. These are End Dumpers, Side Dumpers, and Livefloor Dumpers. Each of them are available in different lengths (30ft or 36ft) and in two or three-axle configurations. Side Dumpers are available as a B-double, Turnpike, or Single trailers, and all other body types come with just a single trailer configuration.  

Want to customize your Dumper Trailer? You will be able to add and modify some of the accessories on them, including, markers, rear bumpers, front and rear mudflaps, front and rear fenders, and paint jobs.

We can't wait to see you hauling these new Dumper Trailers in your company and how you will customize them! Be sure to share with us your photos of your newly owned trailers on our Social Media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram)

Interior Cabin Sound Update

In this update, we have also implemented a new sound effect which simulates sound attenuation from surrounding environment noises, as well as the sound of the truck engine and wheels. Since each truck has a different sound insulation, our sound team has simulated this with the use of sound equalization and reverb effects. 

Put simply, interior truck cab sounds have been updated to better simulate how engine, wheel, and other exterior sounds are dampened when driving from a first person view.

This is just the first iteration of this update, as in the future we plan to bring more accurate attenuation simulation by the size of the truck cab. This update has been applied to all trucks in both American Truck Simulator and Euro Truck Simulator 2. 

New SDF Fonts

Another new feature coming along with 1.43 is the use of SDF (Signed Distance Fields) fonts in-game. So how exactly does this affect the game? This font technique allows texts and fonts to be displayed perfectly in any resolution, scale, or from any distance. 

Instead of fonts being displayed like a picture, which can become distorted when on a smaller resolution or zoomed in on from a far distance, SDF fonts can be adjusted to any size and remain perfectly clear and sharp for the user. 

In the first iteration of this update, we are bringing this new font technique to the game's UI. This also in turn improves the clarity and resolution of the Convoy name tags, GPS, License Plates, and Truck Dashboards. We hope you can clearly see the difference when you see them.

Changelog:

Map:

• General Bugfixes

Vehicles: 

• Ownable Dump Trailers
  
  

Other:

• Implemented Sound Attenuation
• MSDF Font Implementation

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, or crashes. It's completely okay if you want to wait for the final release. But if you're interested in helping us to get there faster, we'll appreciate all of your feedback on our forum and your bug reports in this section.

Please check our modding wiki to get details pertaining to mods for the game.

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 → 1.43. No password is required. You may need to restart your Steam client to see the correct branch name there.

Texas - Offshore Shipyard

Since the state of Texas is so enormous, it is only logical that in this upcoming map expansion we are going to bring quite a few new industries to the player to work with. One of these is the Offshore Shipyard industry, which is going to involve some of the biggest industrial complexes. Let’s take a look at why you should really be excited about this great addition!

The offshore service near Corpus Christi has completed some of the biggest projects in the world. Its specialization includes the design and deconstruction of offshore oil rigs, working with shipwrecks, and construction of other subsea and offshore structures. Additionally, this facility features some of the largest cranes ever built.

Located in Brownsville, the other facility presents the foremost offshore shipyard in the Gulf of Mexico, and its experienced workforce is focused more on the oil rigs. With the up-to-date technological innovation, players who will find themselves inside this area will definitely have a huge story to tell!

This is just a small glimpse into the new industries that are arriving in the Texas DLC. After all, it would be unreasonable to leave them out, given the massive size of the state and the local economy. And if you are still safely outside the mentality of "information overload", don’t forget to add the map expansion to your Steam Wishlist!

Steering Wheel Roll-Out Event Conclusion

A couple of weeks ago we brought to you a rather special event to celebrate the release of Thrustmaster’s new T248 Steering Wheel. In addition to receiving your reward for completing the World of Trucks personal goal, there were numerous ways that you could enter to win the real T248! It is now time to conclude the event and present to you the winners.

The statistics of this short event are really cool. Over 100,000 players have participated in the event, with over 380,000 combined jobs completed and over 2,000,000 km (1,242,742 miles) combined distance driven. That is just massive, especially considering the time period in which this event was active. We’d like to thank each and every single one of you for taking part!

Let us mention here that we are delighted that we have had the opportunity to join forces with Thrustmaster in the celebration of their new product. Using a World of Trucks event to bring some extra entertainment to our community while also helping our partners with promotion was something fresh and we hope that you have enjoyed this idea.

In total, we had 11 special limited edition T248 Steering Wheels to give away to our #BestCommunityEver, and we started by picking a winner for the first one during our stream with game designer Gavin. Once again, congratulations to the winner!

We have absolutely loved seeing all the social media posts under the #T248RollOut hashtag (Twitter, Instagram), and it was really difficult to pick just two winning screenshots out of all valid entries. After long consideration, due to their amazing creativity, we are happy to announce these two winning screenshots! We will be in touch with you both soon to ask you for your shipping details as you’ve just won yourselves a new, very exclusive, ATS/ETS2 limited edition T248 Steering Wheel. Congratulations!

truck_gaming

dok52ru

Next, we would also like to reveal the lucky winners that have been randomly picked from the list of World of Trucks’ account names of the players who have participated in the event and completed their personal goals. The list was provided to us by our World of Trucks team and we have randomly selected 5 lucky winners who will all be contacted soon, since they too will receive their own special ATS/ETS2 limited edition T248 Steering Wheel - just as was promised. Congratulations and well done on completing the event goal!

luzius27

DedPavel

lightfire007

XEHKOK007

Tom_166666

And finally, it’s also time to wrap up the Gleam.io part of the giveaway, which was the fourth way how players and members of the community could test their luck to win one of the special steering wheels. There were more than 60,000 entries that were made by more than 5,300 participants. In the end, we have used the Gleam.io random winner picker feature to select the last 3 winners of the ATS/ETS2 limited edition T248 Steering Wheel.

Onur Erbaş

Alexander

Wiszkas

We urge all the winners to check their email/social media inboxes and reply to our message with the shipping details. If you do not get back to us, you might lose the right to claim the prize!

We are grateful to our #BestCommunityEver for joining the event. The number of participants was truly impressive! Please let us know if you have enjoyed such a small, extra-ish event in which you were able to get some in-game rewards as well as having the chance to enter a huge giveaway in which you could test your luck to get your hands on a cool reward too. Would you like to see similar events in the future?

Speaking of the future, we have another World of Trucks event already in preparation for you to participate in, coming very soon. Keep an eye on our blog and social media and you will soon find out more!

ETS2: 1.43 Special Transport Update

We are happy to announce that the small team responsible for the Special Transport DLC has managed to find the time to delight our #BestCommunityEver by designing a bunch of new routes across the previously released map expansions. The additions will arrive with the upcoming 1.43 update for Euro Truck Simulator 2!

All in all, there will be an addition of 8 new Special Transport routes and each will feature multiple missions. The new routes are:

Daugavpils to Rezekne
Soria to Teruel
Galati to Iasi
Cagliari to Sassari
Gothenburg to Helsinborg
Brest to Rennes
Bremen to Travemunde

Warszawa to Katowice

We know you are excited but keep in mind that these unique missions will be without a doubt a real challenge as well. Therefore, until the 1.43 update is here, you should try to achieve maximum focus and practice, so you can be ready for anything once these additions to the Special Transport DLC are out.

#CruisingWyoming Event Extended!

Since the release of Wyoming for American Truck Simulator, drivers from around the world have been taking part in our World of Trucks #CruisingWyoming. In just 11 days, you, our #BestCommunityEver, smashed the set goal of traveling a combined  80,000,000 miles (128,747,520 km) in Wyoming, WOW! 

So far, more than 26,000 truckers have achieved their personal goal of completing deliveries to or from any of the 10 unique cities in Wyoming, with thousands more moving closer towards their goal. We've also been continuing to receive a lot of amazing photos and videos under the #CruisingWyoming hashtag!

So, in an effort to give players more time to complete their personal goal and to explore Wyoming at a more leisurely pace, we've decided to extend the #CruisingWyoming event until Tuesday, December 7th, 2021, 23:59 UTC

There was also a small surprise reward to be earned in Wyoming, which we want to remind you about. Lots of you have already claimed your special reward, a Triceratops plush cabin toy, so well done! The rest of you Wyoming-early-adopters can still earn one too! Simply take any External Contract or External Market job to or from the city of Gillette and you can ride with this piece of prehistoric history in your cab. 

This special reward originally mentioned in the paragraph above is no longer available as it has been concluded on Sunday, May 29 2022, 23:59 UTC

If you would like to take part and earn free in-game rewards, make sure to read all the requirements and rules at our previous dedicated blogpost by clicking here or at WorldofTrucks.com.

Heart of Russia - Water Bodies

Did you know that Russia possesses one-fifth of the world’s freshwater reserves? Knowing this information, the motivation for today’s blog becomes quite clear. Hold your breath for a moment and dive with us into the interesting topic of water bodies in the upcoming Heart of Russia DLC.

Russia is a country exceptionally wealthy in water, boasting approximately 2 million lakes and about 210,000 rivers. Some of the rather famous rivers will be featured in the upcoming map expansion and truckers will pass them by, or travel over them by bridges, fairly often. These include rivers such as Volga or Oka. Additionally, reservoirs are also a must; for example, the Vyshnevolotsk Reservoir which has a history dating back to Peter I and has an important social value due to fishing and water energy generation.

Quite uniquely, there will also be a ferry dedicated to transporting you to the other side of the river Svir. Even though this ferry is not used for trucks in real life, we figured that due to the map layout and to boost the gameplay experience a little bit, it would be a good idea to allow trucks to be transported as well.

It’s difficult to express with words the beauty of the charming and magnificent water bodies in Russia, but we hope the short description and screenshots have done the job! If they did, don’t forget to add Heart of Russia to your Steam Wishlist, so you can always keep your "head above the water" and stay in touch with the latest updates.

#Pinktober 2021 Update

The month of October is now behind us and so is #Pinktober2021. As we mentioned in our previous blog post, this time we are here to inform you about the amount that has been raised over the past year. 

Thanks to the continuous support from the #BestCommunityEver, the total amount is 60,000 USD! That sum is truly exceptional and we thank each and every single one of you. This final sum will be evenly split into 15,000 USD and donated to the following 4 charities:

Alliance of Women with Breast Cancer

Brustkrebs Deutschland e.V.

Breast Cancer Now

Breast Cancer Research Foundation

Keep in mind, you are free to support these, or any other organizations throughout the whole year. However, during this entire period donating money is not the primary way that you can join the fight! Spreading awareness, or making sure that those you hold dear will get their regular doctor and self-checks done is what matters the most! If you or anyone around you feels that something is not right, not being shy and seeking help is always strongly suggested!

And finally, we greatly appreciate the collective effort to raise awareness for this issue. Apart from the support on our special #Pinktober2021 live stream, we have also noticed numerous social media posts that were spreading the word about the fight against Breast Cancer, and about health overall. Thank you very much!