Texas Discussion Thread

User avatar
Sora
Posts: 2183
Joined: 22 Feb 2017 18:47

Re: Texas Discussion Thread

#1051 Post by Sora » 20 Apr 2021 02:00

I feel like there are a few things to keep in mind regarding this comparison:
  • I'm pretty sure the average ETS2 city has fewer companies than the average ATS city. I don't think there was a single city with more than 5 company prefabs prior to Scandinavia, whereas ATS had cities with ten or more in the base game. ETS2 also has a lot of 'small dot' cities even in recent expansions that only have 1-2 companies, while ATS hasn't had a city with fewer than 3 since Washington (and Pioche is the only city in the entire game with just one.) On the flipside, I don't think any ETS2 city has more than 12 companies while Albuquerque (of all places) is sitting pretty at 14 -- the highest number of any city.
  • ETS2 has a lot of different countries, which are naturally going to have a wider selection of companies than a game that takes place in one. This isn't to say that regional companies don't exist in the United States -- they absolutely do -- but it doesn't seem unusual to me that there'd be a lot more consistency for what companies are used... compared to a game that takes place in different countries, with different languages, and sometimes even different alphabets.
  • ETS2 has a lot of base map companies that were summarily dropped from Scandinavia onward, or otherwise used only very sparingly, and I recognize most of the names from that list as being base-map companies. ATS's base map is more consistent with the rest of the world, which honestly feels like a good thing to me; it'd be really jarring if the southwest just had a completely different slate of companies for no particular reason, potentially including exclusive dibs on Walmart when that probably should be the most common company on the map.
All that said, I do agree that there's room for improvement, and in particular I'd agree with your two specific points:
  • Now would be an excellent time to stop using Plaster & Sons forever. Hell, just replace it with one of the other fake construction companies that already exists in game.
  • Convert about a third of all Wallbert prefabs into a Target parody. From there, convert about half of the large Wallberts in WA/OR/AZ/CO/NorCal into a Safeway parody, and about half of the small Wallberts in WA/OR/CA/AZ into a Trader Joe's parody. Do the same with future states as necessary -- HEB for south Texas, Kroger for most of the inland eastern US (Aldi for the smaller ones), and whatever people have on the east coast for there.
I don't think the others are too worrisome. Wallbert should still be the most common prefab at the end of the game, and even with two-thirds of them culled it'll still catch up easily enough assuming that Coastline Mining and Plaster & Sons are retired. Bitumen and Voltison aren't used anywhere nearly as often as they were on the base map, so those are fine. (Maybe change a few earlier Voltisons to Drake/De Muro? But it's not a huge concern for me tbh.)
Last edited by Sora on 20 Apr 2021 03:17, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Xaagon
Posts: 990
Joined: 07 May 2016 02:35
Location: Colorado Springs, CO, USA

Re: Texas Discussion Thread

#1052 Post by Xaagon » 20 Apr 2021 02:35

Why retire companies? Pare them down maybe, but I'd keep at least a few around if for no other reason than to have more variety in the AI traffic.
User avatar
supersobes
Global moderator
Posts: 13712
Joined: 07 Dec 2016 21:53
Location: Northern Virginia, USA
Contact:

Re: Texas Discussion Thread

#1053 Post by supersobes » 20 Apr 2021 03:12

Sora wrote: 20 Apr 2021 02:00 ETS2 also has a lot of 'small dot' cities even in recent expansions that only have 0-1 companies,
There are no marked cities in either game that have zero companies. If a city has no companies, then it's just a scenic, unmarked city as it has no use to the player in terms of gameplay. Don't forget that the ferry ports in ETS2 also double as delivery companies, so even those with no other companies still have at least one company.
User avatar
Sora
Posts: 2183
Joined: 22 Feb 2017 18:47

Re: Texas Discussion Thread

#1054 Post by Sora » 20 Apr 2021 03:19

That was a typo and I meant 1-2. Having said that, there are a handful of ferry ports that don't have any companies on the base map, so I could conceivably try to defend my case if it weren't (though there'd be the soft counterpoint of a similar "city" existing in Washington.)
User avatar
Xaagon
Posts: 990
Joined: 07 May 2016 02:35
Location: Colorado Springs, CO, USA

Re: Texas Discussion Thread

#1055 Post by Xaagon » 20 Apr 2021 04:51

supersobes wrote: 20 Apr 2021 03:12 If a city has no companies, then it's just a scenic, unmarked city as it has no use to the player in terms of gameplay.
I wouldn't say no use. Many of them have services (fuel, repair, sleep).
User avatar
flight50
Posts: 30156
Joined: 20 May 2017 03:33
Location: Dallas/Ft. Worth, Tx - USA

Re: Texas Discussion Thread

#1056 Post by flight50 » 20 Apr 2021 04:57

@Sora We can't make excuses for them on this. The amount of depots per city doesn't mean much. The amount of countries doesn't mean much. There are 50 countries in Europe. Same as the US. 48 of them are contiguous for the US that will definitely make the game. If you are going to have 170 companies and Europe is not even finish yet, you could have 170 once ATS reaches the same size, but ATS isn't even remotely close to that ratio. At 170, you obviously have a wide array of companies which is my argument. That 170 in diversity brings cargo. They could have easily repeated the amount of companies in ETS2 just like they did for ATS. Its a video game and all companies are fake so it doesn't really matter if they repeat of not. They chose not to for one game but chose to repeat more companies for the other game. If ATS has 10+ companies per city, that's even more of a reason for ATS to be just as diverse with just as many companies. The amount of countries is really no different than the amount of states in the US. So in a nutshell, every state should have new companies in the US too just like there are basically the same amount of companies in ETS2's countries? If you want to go by countries/states. Add in Canada and Mexico and its even worse with what we are getting.

Now, what the US does perhaps have is more National chain companies. I don't know European companies and how they populate the lands. But the amount of National chains that would make ATS is probably less than 30% of real companies here. So far we Walmart, Home Depot, Best Buy and CVS/Walgreens in Eddy's as a few examples. Perhaps a few more but not enough to go beyond 30%. There are many regional companies in the US which would be equal to the repeats in ETS2......but its not setup that way for ATS. Even if we consider the many National chains and regional chains, that would still count for 50% less than ETS2 which would put ATS at 85 companies. We barely have half of half of ETS2 companies. If you remove the base map from ETS2, which is really UK and Germany Simulator, ETS2 is pretty much the same size as ATS, if we pretend Texas is in the game to balance out with Iberia since it just released. ATS was built from scratch so no head starts with anything. ETS2 was from 2 existing games which gave it a head start. ATS wasn't a port from 18WoS to carry those company names over.

Texas and Wyoming are up on the board. What will we get with them? Idaho did nothing for us and dropped the ball for new companies. Colorado only added 3 companies. That is 3 new companies in a matter of a year. That's not a lot of effort put into the ATS economy and something needs to change. I spend a lot of time defending SCS from many things but when there's something that needs to be called out, I'm speaking up. If no one else has the same concerns, I'll just talk it into existence myself. ICC's is my thing. Lack of AA, poor AI, better optimizing, more trucks, move to D12/Vulkan, etc might be some other people's big thing to rant about. We all have something big that we'd like to change and mine is the gameplay..the economy. I'd love to see SCS get major hype for Texas and sell a lot. Texas is huge and can do a lot for the game. But why wait until Texas comes to start adding a load of new companies. Do it along the way with every new dlc and you chip away at it more. If you add them later, it makes it more difficult to populate the existing parts of the map with lets say Target, Sam's club, Costco, Lowe's, Tractor Supply, CarMax, AutoNation, Kohls, Kroger, Alberstons, JB Hunt, Amazon, USPS, etc...those places should go everywhere. Not just Texas and beyond. Wyoming, Texas, California rebuild all have a chance to start making changes now. This 0-3 companies per dlc is disappointing. I don't feel like I'm getting a new dlc. I just feel like I'm getting new roads with the same ole prefabs........just somewhere else along the new roads.

[ external image ]
Tristman
Posts: 1543
Joined: 17 Mar 2021 20:15
Location: Pizza Hut

Re: Texas Discussion Thread

#1057 Post by Tristman » 20 Apr 2021 07:58

I have to agree with Sora here, 50 countries that all have their own culture and mostly different languages makes for a very different company landscape than 1 country with 50 states.

Yes, ATS needs more variety, and there isn’t really any excuse to not replace some Wallbert locations with competitors (Bullseye when?).

But having a company like Wallbert that is present in many cities in every country would not make sense in Europe. There is Carrefour, which is present in multiple countries, and IKEA of course. Perhaps Aldi/Lidl would also be a good example, but I don’t think it’s the same scale as American companies. Europe as a whole (outside of maybe the UK) also doesn’t have this crazy chain culture that the US has. Independent companies or companies dominant in a single country are much more common.
Shiva
Posts: 4967
Joined: 21 Dec 2018 16:16

Re: Texas Discussion Thread

#1058 Post by Shiva » 20 Apr 2021 09:50

IKA Bohags, that is surely missing from ATS. It is worldwide. Only Antarctica does not have IKEA. Well, South America does not have any yet.
The blue dot in South America in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... KEA_stores is French Guiana and it does not have IKEA.
More of those Wallbert competitors would be nice.
NTM's B-Double Telescopic Skeletal Container Carrier. Youtube video on how it works. W & S thread.
B-Double trailer and short modes: EN 7.82 swap body, 20’ or 30’ containers.
Standalone 40' mode: EN 7.82 swap body, 20', 30', 40' or 2 x 20' trailer.
User avatar
Marcello Julio
Posts: 5664
Joined: 12 Nov 2016 19:27
Location: Ceará, Brazil

Re: Texas Discussion Thread

#1059 Post by Marcello Julio » 20 Apr 2021 12:01

Exactly! IKA Bohag on ATS would be perfect. I hope they’ll add her to Texas. It would greatly increase the companies variety!
User avatar
flight50
Posts: 30156
Joined: 20 May 2017 03:33
Location: Dallas/Ft. Worth, Tx - USA

Re: Texas Discussion Thread

#1060 Post by flight50 » 20 Apr 2021 13:16

Tristam-94 wrote: 20 Apr 2021 07:58 But having a company like Wallbert that is present in many cities in every country would not make sense in Europe. There is Carrefour, which is present in multiple countries, and IKEA of course. Perhaps Aldi/Lidl would also be a good example, but I don’t think it’s the same scale as American companies. Europe as a whole (outside of maybe the UK) also doesn’t have this crazy chain culture that the US has. Independent companies or companies dominant in a single country are much more common.
Understood and thanks for the confirmation on European companies and the culture of companies. I briefly touched on the map size along with ATS having less than half of half. The culture in Europe might be by country more than the US for companies but the US should be looked at as a whole and not in pieces like it is now. At least for the National chain companies. For regional, Texas is the first state outside of the West coming to ATS. Will some regional companies start to kick in to separate from the West? Texas has depots like H.E.B., Whole Foods and Central Market that are primarily Texas. Texas is large enough to have specific stores in Texas. Otherwise, its regional and national chains that need to populate ATS. There are enough National chain companies here in the US is my point to have much more than what is provided. There's a solid 15-20 National chain companies that can be in ATS by now. Many more that could come once more map is developed. You mentioned Aldi. Aldi is here in the US and is very populated outside of the Western US. Ikea would be another good one. I made several pitches for it a couple years back when I posted a map of all of North America and where Ikea was. I only mention a dozen national companies or so all the time but I could easily come up with 50+ companies that benefits all of ATS. Even those dozen that I always talk about would make a huge difference imho.
Post Reply

Return to “General discussion about the game”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Darsol, ETS-20B, HagenXXV, Harpole94, IHAVEADREAM2595, krmarci, LeGod7, majessky, Tails, VonMacaroni, xDope and 20 guests