Texas Discussion Thread

[Larry71490]

Galveston is a port city. I pulled a lot of bananas out of there from Del Monte. We need a port for Galveston and call it good. Name it say GalPort for Port of Galveston.

[supersobes]

I'm hoping that Texas will have some container ports near Houston similar to the ones that SCS has in the Washington map. They have the container port at Morgan's Point which looks to be a fairly good place for trucks. It's also surrounded by lots of other industries like oil refineries and tank storage sites for oil and gas products.

[Larry71490]

Houston has a AB plant so a USBB would work.

[flight50]

It would be very odd if Texas does not get a container port somewhere along that Gulf coast. I'm sure loads come in from South America there. So lots of agriculture and perhaps building material in raw form go in and out somewhere there. Texas is loaded with refineries down on the coast but I don't think it should over power and push out the other industries along the coast. There are several chemical companies down there too. Texas could be the 11th state in unless Montana did a surprise attack. With 11 states though, that is a lot of industry that has come over the years. Still I believe Texas has several new ones to offer. Texas should have one of the largest economies in ATS mainly due to its massive size to host a lot.

If Texas was the first to introduce more big box stores that are actually nation wide, that would be the icing on the cake for me. ATS is just too thin with companies and its getting too big to stay this way. Regions are starting to form and the appearance of various depot hopefully comes sooner than later. There will never be a dlc the size of Texas again in ATS as a single state dlc. It would take bundling 2-4 Eastern states to equal the size of Texas. After Texas, the devs might not want to tackle such a large task again. I'm sure its going to be a pita. As SCS pushes East, the roads only get more compact so if Texas is a pita, the East will bring the pain, lol.

[EthanE40]

Of the top 20 busiest ports in the United States, 5 are in Texas. These include (in order) Houston, Beaumont, Corpus Christi, Texas City, and Port Arthur.

Outside of the top 20, there is also Freeport (along the coast next door to Lake Jackson), Galveston, Port Lavaca/Port Comfort (one port; likely gets absorbed into Victoria if included), Brownsville, and Victoria.

So yea, that's a lot of ports. Some get in, some don't. If I had to bet, I'd say Houston, Beaumont, Corpus Christi, Galveston, and Brownsville definitely get in; while Freeport amd possibly Port Arthur don't make the cut. SCS may have to decide between Port Lavaca and Victoria, to which I'd rather Port Lavaca since it's bigger and busier and is also along two major highways (TX-35 and US 87; TX-35 not to be confused with I-35). Texas City could make the cut but could also be left out due to space issues.

Now Freeport could make it in if SCS were to include Lake Jackson, which I lean towards not happening due to the proximity to Galveston (40 miles but scale could make it difficult). Port Arthur as well may make it in if SCS wants to include Port Arthur as a scenic city absorbed by Beaumont which already has its own ultra busy port.

[flight50]

Galveston is already in so it could see 1-2 depots at least. Could one of those depots be a port though. We'll have quite the wait to find out. Port Arthur should get absorbed by Beaumont. Texas City gets absorbed by Galveston and Baytown gets absorbed by Houston. Corpus, Brownsville and Victoria could be easy port adds due to having space of their own without conflicts. There is just too much coast line to not have multiple ports for Texas though. I'm going out on edge and guess 3-5 Texas coast cities will get ports.

[Trakaplex]

South Padre and Aransas would be cool. I just don't know how they'd implement it. North Padre could be from TX 358, with one exit from TX 286, possibly Staples/Dodridge. After the JFK bridge, there could be an intersection at TX 361. Now for South Padre, I don't exactly know whether TX 100 could be an exit from I-69E. I was thinking that Kingsville would be the only town in between I-37 and Raymondville (I actually marked a TX map of potential towns and exits).

[EthanE40]

South Padre and Aransas would be cool. I just don't know how they'd implement it. North Padre could be from TX 358, with one exit from TX 286, possibly Staples/Dodridge. After the JFK bridge, there could be an intersection at TX 361. Now for South Padre, I don't exactly know whether TX 100 could be an exit from I-69E. I was thinking that Kingsville would be the only town in between I-37 and Raymondville (I actually marked a TX map of potential towns and exits).

Port Aransas and South Padre are nothing more than beachside tourist towns, and there's really no industry there besides tourism. Plus they're a bit out of the way from their nearest major cities. As for Kingsville, all it really has going for it is a naval air station that I highly doubt makes it in since I'm pretty sure SCS doesn't want anything to do with military in the games. Could be a scenic town along US 77 between Corpus Christi and Brownsville, but nothing more.

[flight50]

I agree with Ethan. Not a lot happens in South Texas South of San Antonio outside of Corpus, Lardeo, Victoria, McAllen and Brownsville. Brownsville would represent that tip well. I don't think there is much to South Padre for ATS. When I went, crossing that bridge to the island is cool and all but once on the island, there isn't much for ATS. I don't recall seeing a lot of trucking going towards the island though. Its mostly a box truck type island imo. Its mostly restaurants, hotels and residences. Harlingen could make the game as scenic but with a depot from Brownsville or McAllen. Between Brownsville, Harlingen and McAllen, 69E, I-2 and 69E could be fairly urban with several depots. That area is remote and spread out and should work with scale very very well. Its like 15-20% of the area of DFW but spreads out like DFW with the same distance.

US-77 does make the most sense to connect up to Corpus to the Brownville area. Maybe we see US-77 all the way to Waco. It intersects with US-290, I-10 and US-59, so I'm hoping for US-77 for sure. US-83 runs all the way up to the panhandle from McAllen so that one can run the Texas border with Mexico with nice open space. Then there are options to link US-77 and/or US-281 to I-35 as we'd need a way to get from Corpus to Laredo. I'd like some type of combination of TX-359, TX-285, TX-16, TX and TX-44 to come with US-59 for the South of San Antonio area. West of US-281 looks like it can bring some oil fields to that region. Oil is kinda spread out all over Texas though. I'm curious to how the remote areas of Texas will contribute to the dlc. What new industries develop in Texas and what industries outside of oil/gas get expanded on. I'm hoping for many depots thru out the entire state though.

[Titan]

On the subject of DFW/Forth Worth... could we get a bigger railyard to represent BNSF being HQ'd in Fort Worth?

I know it'll be a parody but i'd like a decent sized train/rail presence in Fort Worth.