About traffic, harsh weather, dirt roads and more...

[Cem123]

Hello everyone,

I own both Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator with all avaible DLC’s. In total, I played 50 + hours each of them. I would like to ask some questions.

1) In both games there is rain, but now snow. Why is that? Wouldn’t it be more challenging if there is a snowy weather?

2) In both games traffic density is light, even in the cities there are no major traffic jams. Wouldn’t it be more realistic/challenging if there were traffic jams in certain times/places?

3) No road is narrow enough for me since, why not adding inner cities, streets, small towns or villages with tight turns which offers very difficult maneuver conditions?

4) There are quarries, construction sites, logging sites and even agriculturel zones; but I never drive in a dirt road, gravel road, stone road or something rather than asphalt. Wouldn’t it be very entertaining/challeging to drive on some alternative road terrains?

Thank you for your reply.

[Bedavd]

Hey @Cem123, and welcome to the forums. I don't have all the answers for you, but I can speak to a few of your points.

1) The game is currently set in late June season-wise. It has been that way since at least ETS2 released and probably even before that. Adding dynamic seasons would add a TON to the game but it's a big task to create. It would require making at least 2 new versions of each asset, but we'd want even more for different levels of snowfall, leaves, etc, as well as changing the physics for slick conditions. SCS has mentioned they are looking into this feature, but we have no idea when/if it will come.

2) Traffic density has also been something frequently talked about here as well. There are certain mods that dramatically increase traffic during rush hour and create those traffic jams, but if I recall correctly they also eat up performance on slower computers when there are 10x more cars than usual. I think SCS may implement something similar in the future, but it would be at the cost of possibly losing support on older setups.

3) I think there are some more challenging roads and pre-fabs, but I believe, generally, US cities forbid vehicles of a certain length from entering the core because of how narrow and challenging it is. You can find videos online of large trucks on surface streets in NYC demolishing parked cars and street lights. Generally, truck routes are going to be designated on roads that are certain to be wide enough. If you want the tight maneuvering challenge, ETS2 is going to have much much better content for you, particularly in the new DLCs.

4) There are actually lots of dirt roads in the newer ATS DLCs, particularly in the Oregon, Washignton, Idaho and Colorado that that take you to logging sites, farms, oil pumps, and quarries. Colorado and Washington in particular have some of my favorite examples of these roads.

[supersobes]

About point number three with narrow roads, some of the roads that are depicted in ATS are narrow in real-life, but they are still wide in the game. It seems that SCS makes roads a lot wider than they are in real-life deliberately, and I assume that is done to make the game easier to play for players who may not be as skilled as a real-life truck driver. In the real world, the standard width of a semi truck is 8 feet while the standard width of a highway lane is 12 feet.

Using the measuring tool in the map editor, it shows that the highway lanes in ATS are 14 feet 6 inches wide.

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The back roads that have lanes narrower than highway lanes are 14 feet wide. In the real world, a lot of these rural roads have lanes that are between 8 to 10 feet wide. On a road with 8 foot lanes, a truck would touch the lines on both sides.

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[Cem123]

Thank you for your replies.

[Freeze338]

1) Pavel said that they have to remake entire map for different seasons and it was a hard task. So probably we won't see active seasons for a long time. Because it's the job for map team and map team is so busy.

2) Simple answer. Optimization. Change your traffic density on console, you'll realize.

3) Think about where you live. How many times you see trucks in your city center? Trucks are not allowed in most cities all around the world. There are some and SCS is adding them. Boise for an example.

4) Deepgrove in Bellingham. Just try it. But don't use aero Mack on there. Unlike ETS2, ATS has a lot of logging and dirt roads. And a some of them aren't existing on the map. They are hidden So you'll find out. ( there is one on CO-50 and one on OR-58) Just a quick demonstration

[joschac2]

Seasons won't be here for a long time. But it is on the SCS wishlist to get to that point one day

[Cem123]

Understood, thank you.

[Bob123412]

Are the lanes in ets2 narrower than the lanes in ATS? I found they seemed a bit narrower. I always assume the lanes were so wide cuz that's just the way it is on the West coast ( never driven there). I do hope they add some roads with narrow Lanes maybe if they marked them somehow as hard roads so that drivers could avoid them if they were less skilled.

[flight50]

Yes, Europe (at least in some parts) have narrower roads. US roads in general are wider. Now there are narrower roads in the US but its not always typical for all truck traffic. There are rural roads that are narrow. Remote locations like farms, mines, logging, quarries and oil/gas sites would be cool. Basically, one lane roads that AI trucks don't access.

[Bob123412]

I know that Europe does have narrower roads on average than America. But I was specifically referencing ets2 not IRL. If ets2 does have narrower Lanes than ATS, then it's not really a difficulty thing why the lanes are so wide.

I find Lane width varies from state to state. Road type to road type. Another thing that causes laying scenario is construction zones. There's always some major construction project somewhere on i-95 which takes months-years to complete and leaves semi-permanent narrow Lanes.