SCS On The Road: ETRC Zolder & IAA preparations

If you follow our social media profiles on Twitter and Instagram, you have probably noticed that our SCS Sim Trailer is currently on the way across Germany to Hannover. The big transportation show is now only a couple of weeks away, and we need to start construction of our IAA 2018 booth there! As you can see below, we had a good reason to stop by in the city of Werlte...

In fact, the truck and trailer need to be parked on the final spot in the middle of the hall at Hannover Fairground well over a week ahead of the IAA show. But this is a bit of a complication for us - the next round of FIA ETRC 2018 season is approaching, too!

We'll be forced to split our On the road team to cover all the important events being prepared hundreds of kilometers apart. So while our sim trailer will stay in Hannover, a part of our crew are going to Zolder, Belgium. We'll not be there alone, we are sending big thanks to Cooper of the Fast Cargo VTC for joining us there to help out!

Our team will be there at Zolder during the race event, ready for your visit in the Fan Village as usual. There will be a small change though this time - without our sim trailer, we have to improvise. We have obtained an extra 4D motion seat, and we'll place it in a big shared presentation booth marked with KRONE and Euro Truck Simulator 2 signs. The key members of the team will be there and looking forward to meeting our fans. If you plan to go to the races, make sure to stop by at our booth, say hi to our crew and maybe get an advanced sneak peek of our upcoming ATS and ETS2 map expansions!

Let us wrap this up with a little photo diary from the previous event at Autodrom Most. We have survived the difficult weather, and met with a bunch of really dedicated fans!

Baltic Landmarks

Today, we are bringing you a sampling of various landmarks and recognizable places from the upcoming ETS2 Beyond the Baltic Sea map expansion. Unique landmark models always add a lot to the authenticity and immersion of the experience. They make the locals super happy that it was "their" place that got some love from the developers, they are a proof that we try really hard to capture the spirit of the region.

It is not easy to decide on the list of landmarks; of out maybe tens of thousands of potentially recognizable locations along the planned routes, we have the list pruned to a couple of hundred during the research stage, and then down to a manageable level as the final locations are decided upon. Each such model represents day or sometimes weeks of work, so we need to use them carefully to spice up the game world without overloading the art team.

Like what you see? Let us know, and please don't forget to add the upcoming DLC to your Steam Wishlist!

Space up your Truck!

Raise your eyes to the sky and marvel at the night sky - Euro Truck Simulator2: Space Paint Jobs Pack brings a touch of extra-terrestrial experience to the game. We have created 6 spacy paint jobs to decorate your trucks, plus 2 brand new cool cabin toys...


You have probably noticed that we have slowed down the introduction of new cosmetic items via DLC to our games in recent times, even though a lot of players keep asking us for new decorations. We are trying to strike a new balance with the timing, and new cool stuff is also now coming as rewards for successful participation in the various World of Trucks events.

We have quite a bunch of ideas for topics worth covering in future thematic paintjob packs, but we also enjoy working on input from the fan community, so if you have a great suggestion, we'll be happy to hear it. Then there are the country-based paint sets, we still owe the players in several large fan communities their set of truck paints. We'll need to see what we can do about it, especially as new map expansions are under development ;).

SCS On The Road: Most

Five weeks of summer break in the FIA ETRC 2018 season are over. We have kept ourselves very busy in the meantime, traveling to other big events, so now we need to gather our crew again, refill our Sim Trailer with goodies, and set the course to Autodrom Most circuit for the next round of the championship.

If you think about going to the Most truck race, make sure to stop by our place and spend some time with us. You'll be able to try our 4D motion seats, play our game (we can even give you a sneak peek at the upcoming DLC content!), get the latest info about our current projects, grab a piece of our merchandise, or have a chat with the devs.

If you can't make it there, you can follow us on our Twitter and Instagram profiles where we'll be posting what's going on around this event, just as usual.

As an inspiration, here is a little travel report from the most recent event we have visited. We have just arrived from this year's Gamescom, and below you can see a few photos and a little video celebrating our participation in the largest European gaming expo. It was five days full of virtual trucking and meeting with amazing people and fans of our games. It was also the first time we have been publicly showing bits of the upcoming map expansions of ATS: Oregon and ETS2: Beyond the Baltic Sea.

It was for the first time at Gamescom for us when we've been placed inside a hall in full glory with our sim trailer, and we loved every single moment of our stay. Thanks to all of all who have stopped by our #GCTrucking spot and spent some time with us!

Portland, Oregon

There is no way to leave out Portland if you want to portray Oregon properly. It’s the biggest city in the state, the core of a populated region and a very important transport hub. There is a big harbor there and lots of industry. All that should be reflected in American Truck Simulator, not just in appearance, but also in the game's economy.

We knew that this would not be an easy task right from the early research stages of the Oregon project. The city crosses the Willamette River, and even its nickname "Bridge City" hinted that we would have to deal with several bridges and difficult-to-optimize topology of the area with a lot of reflective water splitting it in half. Indeed, several critical bridges form the very backbone of the transport network. So there is a lot of candidate geometry to render and to strain the 3D card.

Our team has spent a lot of effort and time to build our take on Portland. It has really been quite tough to optimize the layout and design to achieve an acceptable framerate. We are quite happy with the result, we believe that it is very representative of the city as seen by a truck driver passing through it, giving the right impression we have been aiming for.

More screenshots on Oregon's Coming Soon Steam store page here.

World of Trucks - testing of new website internals

Testing and fixing of open betas for both Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator is in full swing, but there is even more happening behind the scenes. We would like to ask you to also take a quick test drive of updated World of Trucks; a new site update is in open beta starting today.

The World Of Trucks website is in the final stages of extensive internal restructuring. The new system should allow for easier iteration of new features, faster deployment of updates, and even localization, but also nice to have things like responsive layout. It should give us more precious time for development instead of spending it performing the old maintenance routines.

At this moment, our goal is to ensure that all of the existing web features on the testing site are operating exactly the same as the current live web.

If you are willing to take a look at the testing site, your help and feedback will be really appreciated. Head to openbeta.worldoftrucks.com, and begin testing it feature by feature, link by link, page by page. The look and feel of the open beta web should be identical to the live site at worldoftrucks.com. There are some minor layout improvements and better wrapping of some texts on various browsers in the new system, however, feature-wise they should be totally identical, and any difference is unintentional and worth reporting.

In case you'll find any inconsistency or bugs, please report them here on the Dedicated Section on the Forum. We are really grateful for your help!

Gamescom 2018 is here

Gamescom expo is starting today - and we are there in full force! The biggest European games industry show usually attracts over 300,000 visitors; the crowds are huge and the lines are long.

Our Sim Trailer is parked in the center of Hall 8 of Gamescom. We are looking forward to meeting fans of our games as well as introducing our sims to people who are new to the genre! We'll be happy to let the visitors drive through a few spots in Oregon and in the Baltic region - showing several already finished locations from the upcoming DLC.

However, we are aware that the majority of our fan base cannot make it to the show. To make it up for you, we are sharing two new short videos with you. These video loops are currently playing on the screens attached to our sim trailer, teasing the line waiting to try our motion seats. We thought you may want to see them, too. Please be aware that this is still very much a work in progress. Especially for the Beyond the Baltic Sea video - the content of the DLC is still far from finished, so the videos do not yet represent the final result.

We have uploaded the videos to the respective Steam Store pages of both DLC. Our goal is clear - we want to attract you there first to give you a chance to add the DLC to your wishlist already! ;)

American Truck Simulator Update 1.32 Open Beta

The open Beta of American Truck Simulator Update 1.32 is available now, bringing most of the additions ETS2 received a week ago plus some ATS specific bonuses.

IMPORTANT: Due to the scope and scale of the major changes to the game, in order to receive as much feedback as possible, we're sharing this open beta with the community earlier than usual in the development cycle. There are still minor known issues that we're working on, and it’s possible there are even bigger bugs hidden away that we hope you’ll help us discover. If you think that the risk and possible frustration with an unstable and unpolished beta is worth it for you, make sure to backup your player profile to have a safe way to revert to 1.31 in case you get tired of testing. Many mods may have become broken due to extensive data format and logic changes. An early open beta gives the mod authors a chance to start making the necessary changes right away, but for testing at this moment, you may need to disable most mods just to get things working.

With the disclaimer out of the way, let's focus on different elements of this open beta.

Those reading the blog on a regular basis already know that the major addition coming in 1.32 is trailer ownership. So all the ATS players can now buy, tune and paint their trailers too. And since the laws and rules are a little bit different in the USA than in Europe, we added the option to use Long/Wide vehicles and Oversize Load banners to the trailer tuning options. Just don't forget to lock the trailers up if you want to use them only for yourself, since your employees might decide to try them out too!

Same as in ETS2, some of the trailers were discarded and redesigned, while the rest was adjusted for trailer ownership.  This is just the first stage, as development is still ongoing – and will continue for at least a few more months of hard work. But we didn't want to keep you waiting for the final result when the actual state of trailer ownership allows us to let you play with these new toys already :)

With trailer ownership came the need to add "icons" to access the new functionality through the game's central "desktop" main menu, so we reorganized the user interface screen. You’ll probably notice that there are two larger widgets on the right side of the screen now, instead of three smaller ones. Also, new screens for trailer management have been added, and some company management screens had to be changed to handle the new feature.

The next addition brings changes in the map. The ATS map design team felt that some gaps in the map deserved to be filled, while some other previous work should get a retouch. So in this update, ATS receives three new roads: US-550 – from Albuquerque to Bloomfield (Farmington), US-95 from Yuma to Quartzsite (Ehrenberg) and US-191 which connects I-10 and US-60. Also, the intersection of I-5 and I-80 has been razed to the ground and built completely from scratch.

When driving on US-191, right by the newly added small city of Clifton, you'll discover Morenci Mine, the biggest copper mine in the United States. Surely a good place to visit, since there’s also a new cargo dock!

As for other changes, the new ATS update brings trailer cables on AI trucks and one new restriction – long trailers (53 feet – 40+ feet from kingpin to rear axle) are now forbidden in California. Plus one of the community's smaller wishes – parking brake is now disabled by default; those who liked this function need to turn it back on in game options.

Several changes to the code and data were made, related to rendering optimization, and it appears to have brought very nice framerate improvements in some scenarios. But since experience may vary, do share yours with us, please. We're really interested in your feedback on any noticeable FPS changes.

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. This time more than ever, due to the sheer size of the update. 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 method to access it is as follows: Steam client → LIBRARY → right click on American Truck Simulator → Properties → Betas tab → public_beta → 1.32 public beta. No password required.

CHANGELOG:

• Trailers ownership (read more)
• Major UI changes (Main menu, Company Management screens, Dealerships, etc.)
• Job filters redesign
• Some of the old trailers discarded and redesigned
• New roads added: US-550 (NM), US-95 (AZ), US-191 (AZ), Clifton city (AZ)
• Remade and redesigned few places (e.g. I5-I80 interchange)
• Power/air lines on AI vehicles (optional)
• Rendering speedup
• Option for automatic parking brake - disabled by default
• Long 53ft trailers (40+ feet from kingpin to rear axle) forbidden in California

MOD ALERT: 

• Completely redesigned trailer-cargo logic (cargo data, trailer data, economy, etc.). Most mods will need some work to catch up!

Countryside and Nature

In the previous blog posts covering the development of Euro Truck Simulator 2: Beyond the Baltic Sea (here and here), we have mostly focused on the new industry "prefabs" for industries. Today, we would like to contrast it by looking at calmer and more relaxing sights along the road, like smaller villages and nature of the countryside.

Part of the reason why we chose to extend the gameworld northeast was to increase the variety of the views along the road. We were looking for a change, and the Baltics are definitely very much unlike the previous Italia DLC. There are vast areas crisscrossed by the road network between larger cities, and we do our best to emulate the experience of driving on these roads with the local architecture and small villages.

You will need to navigate many narrow village roads, and a ton of our time was dedicated to the many natural beauties that reign in these less populated areas. We have added, adjusted, and modified many of our plants, shrubs, and tree models to get the perfect mix for the region. We have, for example, added a revised or new version of pines, birches, cherries, aspens, limes, and oaks. There are also brand new representatives of flora like silver spruce, and hogweed.