Poll: Choose (3) States you would like to see next

What state should be next

Kentucky
11
2%
Mississippi
28
6%
Iowa
99
20%
Tennessee
22
4%
South Dakota
95
19%
Louisiana
121
24%
North Dakota
44
9%
Illinois
82
16%
 
Total votes: 502

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oldmanclippy
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Re: Poll: Choose (2) States you would like to see next

#5431 Post by oldmanclippy » 20 Sep 2021 17:38

I am ok with map distortion, but loading screens outside of ferries are an absolute deal breaker for me. Coast to Coast with a loading screen isn't coast to coast, it's coast to river and river to coast.

With the east coast, they will have to just allude at the existence of lots more cities but only show the main ones. I-95 corridor can be:

Washington -> Baltimore -> Wilmington -> Philadelphia -> Trenton -> Newark -> New York -> Bridgeport -> Providence -> Boston

Washington DC to Boston MA: 459 miles for 10 cities (9 gaps between cities) = 51 miles average distance between cities.

Eugene OR to Bellingham WA: 371 miles for 10 cities / 9 gaps = 41 miles average distance between cities

So that corridor is slightly less dense than the I-5 corridor we already have in-game. The difference is that the I-95 corridor is a beast the likes of which we haven't seen in either game yet:

Washington: pop 690,000 (metro 6,385,000)
Baltimore: pop 585,000 (metro 2,845,000)
Wilmington: pop 70,000 (part of Philadelphia metro)
Philadelphia: pop 1,605,000 (metro 6,245,000)
Trenton: pop 85,000 (part of NYC metro but fits better with Philly IMO)
Newark: pop 310,00 (part of NYC metro)
New York: pop 8,805,000 (metro 20,140,000)
Bridgeport: pop 150,000 (metro 940,000)
Providence: pop 180,000 (metro 1,605,000)
Boston: pop 675,000 (metro 4,940,000)
Total population: 13,155,000 (metro 43,100,000)

For comparison, here's the stats on the aforementioned Eugene to Bellingham corridor:

Eugene: pop 170,000 (metro 375,000)
Salem: pop 175,000 (metro 400,000)
Portland: pop 650,000 (metro 2,510,000)
Vancouver: pop 185,000 (part of Portland metro)
Longview: pop 40,000 (metro 110,000)
Olympia: pop 50,000 (metro 285,000)
Tacoma: pop 215,000 (part of Seattle metro)
Seattle: pop 740,000 (metro 4,020,000)
Everett: pop 110,000 (part of Seattle metro)
Bellingham: pop 90,000 (metro 225,000)
Total city population: 2,425,000 (metro 7,925,000)

It's really not even close, there is no comparison. There are three Portland/Seattle sized cities, one that is double that size, and one that dwarfs them all. There are 5 (almost 6) metro areas on the I-95 corridor that have more than a million people, compared with 2 in the I-5 corridor.

Population isn't the end-all-be-all but it can be a good indicator of how complex the cityscapes will be. There will also be countless intersections that need to be modeled, which will take up lots of space.

That being said, I agree with @Sora that the I-95 corridor is manageable for SCS. They have shown they can do density when they need to, they just need to do it over a much larger area for the northeast/midatlantic. They just need to make sure they aren't overextending themselves. It's better to have 10 great cities that allude to 5 more than 15 cities all present that all mush into each other.
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AlexxxF1
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Re: Poll: Choose (2) States you would like to see next

#5432 Post by AlexxxF1 » 21 Sep 2021 00:52

it doesn't make sense to show all cities. just show the most important ones.
in the same 18 Wheels of Steel across america, we had a much smaller scale, and a large number of cities are shown. and then that was enough for us. no one complained that scale should change.
it was just that everything was done in the same style and standard.

this is critical for me. since changing the scale changes the passage of time.
I do not want to get when driving a small section of road in the East, will be spent as much real time as I spent before driving from West coast to that East coast.


inside cities change of scale is works, there inside you drive a small section of the road.
but driving along the road that will connect the cities in East coast, this road will be very long in new scale, if it is resized for the entire East Coast, it will immediately be noticeable.
all the more, it will inevitably cause problems with eastern Canada too, when it remains at a scale of 1:20.
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angrybirdseller
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Re: Poll: Choose (2) States you would like to see next

#5433 Post by angrybirdseller » 21 Sep 2021 01:56

East Coast will be fine at 1:20 scale. Still, two cities can fit in Connecticut and three in Massachusetts, but Rhode Island can still get one city.

New York City and Philadelphia will be biggest problem along with New Jersey because of shape. Not Boston, Providence and Hartford as enough space to spread out.
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Re: Poll: Choose (2) States you would like to see next

#5434 Post by Trucker Nik » 21 Sep 2021 04:46

If more states came in one DLC, wouldn't that affect the scale of the maps?
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Re: Poll: Choose (2) States you would like to see next

#5435 Post by Shiva » 21 Sep 2021 06:38

Why would it?
And the answer is. No.
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Re: Poll: Choose (2) States you would like to see next

#5436 Post by Tristman » 21 Sep 2021 07:02

AlexxxF1 wrote: 21 Sep 2021 00:52 it doesn't make sense to show all cities. just show the most important ones.
in the same 18 Wheels of Steel across america, we had a much smaller scale, and a large number of cities are shown. and then that was enough for us. no one complained that scale should change.
it was just that everything was done in the same style and standard.
18WOS Across America is an 18 year old game that was made by a smaller SCS Software working with the limitations from back then. I don’t think it’s fair to compare it with ATS.

And of course no one complained about the scale, games with big maps were not normal yet at that point. I think around 2006, when Test Drive Unlimited released, huge driveable maps became a more normal thing. Now, 15 years later, countless games have huge maps and a good amount of them have huge maps that are also very detailed. It’s only natural that fans now have higher expectations than in 2003.
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Re: Poll: Choose (2) States you would like to see next

#5437 Post by TheAmir259 » 21 Sep 2021 08:00

I'd prefer them to stick to the current scaling, if i was the one to make the decisions, bigger scalings might be for sequels, preferably even 1:1 by then. I don't think that claims towards accurate representation can be taken seriously for scales other than 1:1 anyway, and finally not everything big is excellent. As it is right now, sticking to the current scaling is better than reworking the scale just for the east coast, makes for annoying inconsistencies too, in which i would rather have the west reworked to the new scaling too. We've seen this done once, but at the time, the states released were still not much.
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angrybirdseller
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Re: Poll: Choose (2) States you would like to see next

#5438 Post by angrybirdseller » 21 Sep 2021 11:24

The 1:20 scale in Connecticut can fit 2-3 cities New Haven, Hartford, Waterbury---Massachusetts--Boston, Worchester, Springfield, Pittsfield, New Providence or New Bedford at 5 cities, Rhode Island-Providence and small chance Newport. There ways to fit it without cities on top of each other the shape of the map and distance with 30-50 mile buffer works and small backtrack on scenic road. Those three tiny states can produce 8-9 cities there alone, and the Martha Vineyard or Nantucket on puppy trailer or Van Truck on ferry.
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Re: Poll: Choose (2) States you would like to see next

#5439 Post by oldmanclippy » 21 Sep 2021 15:14

@TheAmir259 The current ATS map is a bit over 1,000,000 sq mi in area. In 1:1 that would represent 2,500 sq mi, or equivalent to a 50 mi by 50 mi square. But let's say that they do the 1:1 map at a far lower density than what we currently have. Let's say that you only do the interstates. There are 48,440 mi of completed US interstate. Washington has about 3,800 miles of road at 1:20 scale, i.e. 190 miles at 1:1. Let's say that interstates are 50% easier on average to build than a mixture of interstates, us routes, and state routes. So let's say the workload of Washington would be equivalent to 285 mi of 1:1 interstate road.

SCS would have to make Washington a whopping 17 times just to be 10% of the way done. 170 times just to complete it. Even if they only made half of the interstate mileage they would have to do Washington 85 times. That's not happening without a revolution in autogeneration technology like Microsoft Flight Simulator, but autogeneration is a lot easier from the air where innaccuracies are more easily overlooked. On the ground, attention to detail is paramount.

What I think SCS will move towards at some point in the future is 1:1 "episodes" of segments of road around the world. Pavel expressed this desire in a past interview (that I cannot find at the moment) about how great it would be to drive a truck for a job in Canada, then in Indonesia, then in South Africa, etc. Not as part of an integrated open world like ETS2 and ATS, but as one-off missions that are more challenging and a more realistic scale. That's where I think 1:1 could come into play from SCS. But never in the context of a massive open world unless they create a technology that makes Microsoft Flight Simulator look like a tech demo.
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Re: Poll: Choose (2) States you would like to see next

#5440 Post by IvanKuz » 21 Sep 2021 16:09

oldmanclippy wrote: 21 Sep 2021 15:14That's not happening without a revolution in autogeneration technology like Microsoft Flight Simulator, but autogeneration is a lot easier from the air where innaccuracies are more easily overlooked.
I believe this is the future of big open world games like ATS/ETS. But a) like you say, the technology is still very far away from being able to produce an acceptable level of authentic detail for a game where you actually drive through towns on the ground as opposed to looking at them from the sky, and b) 1:1 is going to be a hard sell regardless of how authentic everything is. I think anything larger than maybe 1:7 is going to feel too boring for most players.
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