American Truck Simulator is out!

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

... and it is good.

if you enjoyed European Truck Simulator, you'll gonna like this. California and Nevada already supplied, Arizona coming.
I'd love to drive thru Monument Valley!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/270880/

I don't know if it comes with development tools and documentation. There is a lively mod scene, but it provides mostly custom paint jobs.
Farming Simulator comes with full tools and docs, and has an enormous collection of tractors, maps and implements because of this. I have seen ETS trucks being imported in FS.

Now we only need Russian/African/South American Truck Simulator where you have to drive your truck over unpaved roads, through deep mud, over truck wide mountain ledges, escaping highwaymen and robbers, corrupt police officers, etc.

Spin Tires, that kept Oovee Studios from releasing their promised U25B, is a drive through wilderness simulator/game using big Soviet style army trucks. Only intercontinental ballistic rocket carriers are failing, and these are huge trucks!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT-2PM2_Topol-M

Or more peaceful, Australian Truck Simulator with those "road trains", red dust, endless horizons and kangaroo's hopping in the wilderness next the road.

http://www.outback-australia-travel-secrets.com/australian-road-trains.html
http://www.roadtrains.com.au

[JohnS]

Graphics look really good on this one.

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

Graphics look really good on this one.

It does, doesn't it?

The benefits of a modern graphics engine. There are working mirrors as well.
As are HDR graphics, crepuscular rays (God's rays), reflections, dynamic weather and other options that tax your GPU. My 2014 21" iMac only has a 750M GPU, it lacks the oomph for the game's highest setting.

Somehow, the modern streamlined Peterbilt supplied looks a bit "plastic". I like the older, angular, style better. Perhaps modders will supply more trucks? Or some official DLC, also some cab-over-engine trucks, trucks with those 'suicide cabs', tippers, etc.

It is an open game and given ETS' excellent rating, should attract lots of players.

[JohnS]

I'm not so much into trucks but I think if I had this most of my time would be spent crashing. There is so much to look at.

[Griphos]

It's basically a reskin of ETS2, but they got the details right. There's a grittiness and lived in feel ETS doesnt have, and I love the animated people and road textures. I've been enjoying the heck out of it. I suspect they'll keep adding states and we'll eventually have some nice long trips.

My only complaints so far are the abrupt speed changes (often without signage) and the finickyness about how you stop at red lights. I've lost several thousand $ in fines to that already. The graphics are top notch, including some of the most realistic light and shadow effects I've seen. I was watching the play of light and shadow on a stop sign yesterday and it was indistinguishable from reality.

And there are a lot of mods already, like the older, squarer cabs. Looks at mats mods.com, for instance.

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

It's basically a reskin of ETS2, but they got the details right. There's a grittiness and lived in feel ETS doesnt have, and I love the animated people and road textures. I've been enjoying the heck out of it. I suspect they'll keep adding states and we'll eventually have some nice long trips.

My only complaints so far are the abrupt speed changes (often without signage) and the finickyness about how you stop at red lights. I've lost several thousand $ in fines to that already. The graphics are top notch, including some of the most realistic light and shadow effects I've seen. I was watching the play of light and shadow on a stop sign yesterday and it was indistinguishable from reality.

And there are a lot of mods already, like the older, squarer cabs. Looks at mats mods.com, for instance.

Thanks, Griphos. I'll look there for some mods.



SCS are quite responsive in dealing with bugs and findings like yours at the lights. If other players find them also, it'll probably be fixed by next update.

What I also like about is that the cabs have 6 DOF, so you can use head tracker or free face tracker software to look around. Add a wheel and pedals and you'll hardly use the keyboard or mouse while driving.

Edit: read here for some first hand info from SCS about getting official licenses, etc.:http://blog.scssoft.com

[Chacal]

ETS is inexplicably good.
Driving trucks endlessly should be boring as hell, but for some reason it is not.
I hope this variant goes the same way.

[Bcbuhler]

I played it yesterday kind of takes me back to playing 18 wheels of steel as a kid. Sure is fun and since I don't have a wheel mouse steering is great for having more control. Already there are quite a few mods I've got 5-6 trucks and a big cattle pot. And since I have no urge to learn how to modify the game it's relaxing to not have to try and fix stuff.

[ex-railwayman]

I've already downloaded a few mods to correct the colour saturation, better weather, authentic billboards, realistically named gas stations, lots of different trailers, and a few new trucks that have been adopted from 18 Wheels of Steel fame. I've been driving a Freightliner Argosy today, it's absolutely magnificent, and I've got a couple of mods for relaxing the stupid fines and having a bit more money to start with. I'm delighted with the attention to detail they've poured into this offering, the lighting, the ground textures, vegetation, the Pacific Ocean, the new animations such as skydivers, crop sprayers, skateboarding teenagers, the Sage Brush being blown across the desert roads in the wind, it's all very surreal, wonderful stuff, and only £15 for me, about 22 bucks for you. I've already had a 'crunch' with a Streetcar in San Fransisco, I won of course, but, I was to blame for not looking where I was going, I was too busy sightseeing. I saw a train in the game I think it was supposed to be an SD40-2 with the old orange and green BNSF livery, but, the letters on it were something like BFLM, I guess this licencing issue has also had a profound impact with other types of Simulators and computer games in general.

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.

[Bananarama]

The only issue I've heard about is over-compression, and that it takes about 15min to drive from LA to Las Vegas. Nevertheless, I'll be purchasing a copy over the coming weekend.

[DrewG]

The only issue I've heard about is over-compression, and that it takes about 15min to drive from LA to Las Vegas. Nevertheless, I'll be purchasing a copy over the coming weekend.

It's quite fun, even with the compression. I can see why they did it though, as they continue to expand across the US, having compressed distances will make crossing the US possible without taking forever, which I quite like.

It's well worth the money.

[Griphos]

It is a little too compressed, and the AI will pull out in front of you in stupid ways, but....that's probably realistic. I've been all over Nevada and CA and it doesn't take long at all to travel the longer routes, but, yeah, once we're traveling across a half dozen to a dozen states, it will probably be just fine. I do hope they'll put in really long routes.

I have that green Mack in your pics, Edwin. It's my current main drive, and even though I lost about $50k on the trade-in of my starter Peterbilt, I like it a lot. The Freightliner Argosy is one of the best I've found so far, as is the Freightliner Coronado.

I can't get more than one of them to show in the dealer at any one time, however. Whichever one of them is on the top of the mod list shows up and the others don't, even though they don't show as conflicting. I'm not very familiar with ETS or ATS mods, though.

I think modland.net is one of the better mod sites I've found. Easier to search for things there, and they seem to have all the good ones.

[ex-railwayman]

Yes, that's one of the better ones Griphos, I use the SCS default site and the Lithuanian website for American Truck Sim, as they also attract the best modders and update the site several times a day, Jazzycat did a lot of top quality stuff for EuroTruck Sim, I'm sure his American content will be equally as good.
I'm just waiting for someone to provide us with a Californian Chapter of Hell's Angels, then I can run them all off the road.....

This is my baby at the moment, parked up at the Port of Oakland.

Cheerz. ex.

ats_00094.jpg

[Griphos]

I don't know the link for the SCS default site. Do you have a link? I know the Lithuanian site. I do like the Argosy. It and the Mack are the best mods I've found.

Any idea on how to get them all to show properly in the job list and dealers?

[ex-railwayman]

This is the SCS site for Am Truck Sim - http://forum.scssoft.com/viewforum.php?f=122

If you want to post anything you need to register for an account which is free and easy. otherwise, just browse through the various threads, Mods is the most visited thread I would think.

When you download something you need to put the .scs file in your C:Drive>My Documents>American Truck Simulator>Mod folder, then, when you go into the game click on Mod Manager and move from the left hand box the mods you want into the game to the right hand side, scroll down to the bottom of the page and confirm the changes. Any new trucks should appear in their appropriate dealers, Peterbilt, or, Kenworth, if the creator has done a Mack, or, a Freightliner, then they should tell you which dealer's showroom the vehicle will appear in, supposedly........ I know that on occasions if you have 3/4/5/6 different Kenworths in your garage, they might conflict with each other and crash your game, so, you may need to take extract some of them out of your Mod Manager to allow just 1 of them to show up in the garage for you to drive it, it's all trial and error with it being a new game structure.

Cheerz. ex.