Will the heavy wreckers come to the game? (Speculation)

[bobgrey1997]

Not what I mean. I know it's the same vehicle model, but not the same 3D model file.
It looks like they made a copy of the model file, then edited it to have the engine block and open doors and hood (but can't close them in-game; they'd have to close the game and replace the file with the closed version).

[Some newbie driver]

Whatever, could wreckers came to the game? in short term, sure that no. At long term, if they decide to include vocational trucks and their related jobs to give us more gameplay than just long haul; then yes, wreckers could have a chance to exist. After all, with the licenses they have already, they could do them. The less massive wreckers aren't more than a wreck recovery module over the chassis. They already have licensed trucks big enough to fit those wreck recovery modules. And as there's gazilions of them, they don't need to license exactly one model, just create their own. As far as they keep the general looks it will be enough to make it realistic enough.

[nater6540]

but trucks can have other problems that requiere the truck to be towed, problems without having cosmetic damage, like engine malfuction, or trailer malfuncition, the loads for a hypothetical wrecker doesn't need to have cosmetic damage.

If my memory doesn't fail me, They have a truck with smoke exiting from hood that is used for ramdon events, trailers with various amounts of cosmetic damage, and even a genery old wrecked truck.
So if that is a problem they can make generic trucks for loads with some kind of cosmetic damage.

Yep, fluid leaks, broken tie rods (so no steering), problems with the emissions reduction devices rendering the truck crippled or completely unusable depending on what component doesn’t work, snapped serpentine belts (which not only causes engine overheating, but can also take out your power steering due to the pump for that receiving power from that same belt), flat tires, dangerously low on fuel, hauling away and scrapping the useless steel carcasses of what’s left after a raging inferno of a truck fire that destroys everything and burns all the way down to the frame, rollovers, collisions, the list of things that can go wrong is huge.

[VTXcnME]

There are enough in game situations you pass roadside that don't show damage, you could make it work.

But I wonder about the physics of it. Trailers that are rolled over on their side - are folks expecting animation of them being pulled upright again? Trucks that need to be towed would the load be created a similar to trailer on a dolly type haul? Can you only tow to dealerships with trucks, or would you be able to go to generic service stations? Would the wrecker operator be able to just bring fuel to trucks that were stranded, or would it require a tow?

I almost feel a heavy wrecker module would/could be a standalone DLC down the road. There's enough there to almost make into it's own side-game. But it'd require some full-game level programming to get all the bits and pieces correct. Unless folks wanna just drive heavy wreckers without being able to pick up loads with them...

I think that's probably a ways off, if it comes at all. I also feel like that kind of DLC would appeal to a very small segment of the overall ATS/ETS user group. Not currently worth SCS's time to develop past AI traffic. Maybe at some point. But there are enough other things for the teams to be working on currently.

[J.Random]

> But it'd require some full-game level programming to get all the bits and pieces correct.
Not that much, I'd say. Some features needed:
1. Ability to accept the job remotely - it already exists for online jobs but offline ones still use the outdated "drive to the entrance and ask" mechanic which is especially stupid if you just unloaded and didn't select "jobs from this company" immediately.
2. Dynamic/procedural roadside pickup/delivery points. Pickup for wreckers, delivery for random roadworks (which should have been a thing for a long time, instead of fixed Bitumen roadwork sites).
3. Additional truck controls to lower/lift the hookup point. The way I see the possible process is: you drive up to a truck on a shoulder, press a (new) key to lower the tow bar or whatever it's called, back up until it's under the front of the truck, press "trailer attach/detach" key, press the tow bar key again. That's the only tricky part: tow bar key should perform more than one function depending on attachment status: either switch between low/stowed states (if there is no truck attached to it) or between low/high states (if there is one), with proper collision detection (not allowing player to stow the bar when it's under AI vehicle but isn't attached to it).
4. Job destinations: closest maintenance or dealer centers (which the game can already determine for the player's truck, so not much in terms of code there).

No recovery and winching and stuff, that goes into Spintires territory way too much (although I'm sure some would like it).
But I doubt SCS will ever implement it. I mean, we can't adjust ride height, can't slide loaded tandems, can't even choose rear ratios. There's so much we can't do and so many features implemented in half-baked just-to-tick-the-checkbox state that there's almost no chance it will happen.

[flight50]

My honest thought about the wrecker, is that it will always be AI. We can't drive other non 5th wheel trucks in the vanilla game either. So I don't see this one being the exception.

Now I love the fact that its added. Gives us a tad more immersion as long as it spawns correctly. It should be a rare spawn. Now what I do think is possible is it involved in random events. I can see 2-3 random events with this wrecker. Whether that is on the scene recovering, or backed up like its going to pick up a truck but not actually have it mounted. We can also see the recovering for trailers. Manfuctioning landing gear, broken trailer or rollover. Trailers are not licensed so SCS can do what ever damage they want with them.

If we did have a chance to use these wreckers, I think they'd be perfect for convoy. One person in the group could be a designated wrecker whom is dispatched. I'd increase the player count first though. Don't take away that 8th spot. Or make a dedicated spot just for a wrecker that won't count against the player total. They should be allowed to use the teleport system as well too. Now way one can sit and be forced to wait for hours for a tow. Now if the wrecker chooses not to teleport, that is on that convoy session. They can play how they'd like. A lot of programming has to go into it though. Not only for tow's to service shop, but also for rollovers. Time management comes into play with deliveries. One should lose hrs of time for recovers and effect delivers. Wreckers would use the same gas stations and same service stations as now so we good there. If there was ever a time to get out the truck, a useable wrecker would be the time to do it. I'm not so keen on getting out the truck, but I know many others want that. It should be optional though so no worries.

[Robinicus]

I doubt that they will come to the game anytime soon....I have been running them as mods for quite a while now and it is pretty tough to get them to work properly. It would be different if Jerr-Dan, Century, Vulcan etc were looking to partner and expose their products but none of the truck OEMs market this product directly so even that is unlikely.

[ external image ]

If you are thinking of getting one of the mods, I would only recommend them for a minimum semi-experienced level modder as they take a ton of self tweaking to get them working realistically