Wishlists Megathread

[Bandit & The Snowman]

As in reduced XP and revenue when you’re late, yes. The game doesn’t care if you deliver too early, though. Not sure why it should, as you can always wait until the delivery window opens.

[Trucker_71]

Waiting around for the game to penalize the player for assorted indiscrimination's may be fun for some of you, but for me to sit and stare at my screen for no good reason would just frustrate me and make me not want to play ATS/ETS2. What's fun for some is a deal breaker for others.

[Bandit & The Snowman]

Well all that would have to happen is you’d have to be standing resp. stop somewhere appropriate and then after clicking away a penalty dialogue time would advance according to the situation. What I miss is how the other players in convoy mode should be treated, time-wise. Should their time just advance without notice?

[Vinnie Terranova]

Regarding convoy other players must be notified of one player getting fined. And ofcourse for all players: time must be advanced.

[Some newbie driver]

As far as I understand you get more XP if you deliver in that specific timeframe?

I would say the XP is the same no matter if you deliver in the time frame or sooner. Of course if later, you are penalized. But I would not bet my liver on my answer.

Really 99,9% of your deliveries are going to be on that time window; unless you play Need for Speed style. If driving following speed limits, the only way to deliver way sooner is if the route has one or more long ferry routes and you can leverage them to get rested. Route advisor doesn't consider the time we save resting WHILE traveling during a ferry route; so you can save up to 9h with each of those if they are long enough and taken on the precise moment.

Regards

[yukonjack_ak]

Yeah I don't have a clue how it'd work with convoy. It's just an idea I've been kicking around in my modding notebook on my desk for a year or so.

As for moving violations, a time penalty would only occur if a cop was involved. The game already distinguishes between if a cop is present or not so it should be easy to add a time penalty to one but not the other.

And the game already has a way of fast forwarding time; if I go to a dealership via the menu and it's Sunday at 10pm, it'll immediately fast forward to Monday at 8am. A time penalty would be instant: you hit "T" to hook up a trailer at 9:03am and instantly it's now 9:48am (simulates manual hook up and pre trip time).

To clarify, yes the game gives you a delivery timeframe but it's useless. I get no bonus for being early and the late penalty is a joke. I was trying to say that a destination shouldn't even allow you in until your appointment time. We shouldn't be pulling up to random depot's at 3am for a delivery if that's not in our window. Maybe the icon doesn't show up until the window?

And on a final note, yes this whole idea is probably more for the simulator crowd and it should be toggle-able like fines and fatigue are now. But the game sorely lacks any economy depth and making time a commodity would (IMO) bring some sense of realism and weight to your choices and actions.


EDIT:
Just going to toss out a couple of scenarios:

A) You damaged your truck enough that it needs repairs in excess of 48 hours. Now do you have enough money to sit idle? Do you grab a quick job to make some income while you're down? Do you have a back-up truck to use?
B) You're running late and making your delivery on time is going to be close... do you consider a reroute to avoid a weigh station cause that'll cost you 15-30 minutes? Do you speed and hope there isn't a cop that'll cost you 30 minutes while he takes his sweet time writing you a ticket?
C) Knowing that you have a border crossing and several weigh stations to hit between you and your destination, how do you plan your route to sleep and fuel and allow for those other "time sinks" and still make it on time?

To me, that's fun. It makes me have to think and would elevate gameplay from "scenic driving from point A to point B in a truck" to "business decisions need to be made if you want to be a successful O/O". And it could easily be made optional.

[rookie31st]

If you want to implement waiting time for police issuing violations you'd need to implement the mechanics of police pulling you over. I wouldn't go this way, yet.

The game still doesn't enforce DOT Hours of Service. Various time skips would actually help to improve compliance. Waiting time for a delivery appointment, waiting time for truck servicing, even waiting time for paperwork completion when dropping the trailer or taking another one. 15 minutes here, 15 minutes there, and you have plenty of "On Duty Not Driving" for a daily 14-hour shift.

I think it's a shame that the game still doesn't have proper Hours of Service counters and rest periods. Real shame.

[GT182]

Another wish.... Wreckers and rollback trucks. Every once in a while you see an accident here and there. Also a truck or car on the side of the road broke down. Or a downed aircraft. Something needs to be ready to haul them away. Sadly our big rigs never break, but we need wreckers just in case, because someday...... who knows what will happen in ATS.

[Bob123412]

I would like to see some time penalties added to the game. I think it would be hard to implement into convoy mode, unless instead of advance the in game time it just subtracted from the remaining delivery time. Personally I would reserve it for solo only.

As far as your examples go, my opinion of each is as follows:

Traffic accidents: there should be a speed consideration added onto the time penalty to account for ai glitches. I got stuck in the left lane one time when the highway was closed and none of the ai would move onto the ramp. I had to push the cars out of the way to get off the highway.

Border crossings: I have only played ETS a little bit but of the few times i have played I never had a problem with my paperwork check. My question is can you have an issue with your paperwork at the border in ETS? I ask this as I don't know and the answer could make this part of my suggestion mute. With my experiences crossing the border (IRL) the only times there is Delays is from either a high volume of traffic or a problem with the paperwork. With no issues and low traffic I can usually get across the CAN US Border in under 5 minutes. I think it would be interesting to see a chance of paperwork issues added to the game or random border inspections and those should have the time penalty added to them. If there is no issues It should only take a short amount of time to cross the border. Inspections could range between .5-2hours depending on the cargo. Paperwork issues could result in a U-turn or a time penalty. Maybe have an Icon the represents a broker that you would have to drive to and "wait".

Weigh station: I think the whole scale system needs to be revamped But i won't dive to deep into that. Proper, working, open close signs on every scale and allow the turning off of the prepass system. There should only be a time penalty if the truck gets selected for a random inspection simply pulling in and getting weighed should not cause 15 minutes to go by, just like the border I think a random inspection process should be added instead of an automatic warning or fine when you pull in with a damaged truck. I also think the probability of getting called in should be based off of where the damage is instead of the average. For example if the engine is 70% damaged but the body is in perfect condition then it should have a lower chance of getting inspected than a truck with lots of body damage and perfect everything else. Level 1 inspection 1 hour. Level 2 inspection 30min Level 3 inspection 15 min.

Refueling: I don't think any extra time penalty should be added. The time it takes to hold the button is all it should need. Also, I don't run reefer much (In game) do those need to be refueled? That could be an extra added item.

Truck repair: I think different jobs should have different time values associated with them. There should be an option to switch the a different truck (if you have one), or just "wait" until the repair is complete. If it's trailer repairs, maybe add an option to transfer the load onto a different trailer. There could also be a truck rental system added into the game while you wait for repairs. Really big jobs could take a few days and you could just leave the truck there. This would also be better if you were able to hire your own mechanics.


There does seem to be traffic cameras i the game, I don't know if they are realistic or not but they are there.


The delivery time frame window could use a complete rework too. I think there could be three different types 1) Appointment only these places require an appointment and it could be implemented by either a very small window of delivery time (not to be confused with a short total delivery time). this could be either automatic or manual and the player could "call and set it" when they got close enough to feel like they could make it comfortably. possibly a minimum of 24hours before delivery. 2) Limited operating hours. these would be businesses that are only open at certain times of day. 3) 24 hour operations that is what we have now and some places should stay this way.

If this was implemented I think each business (or chain of businesses) in the game should get there operating hours set and that would be accounted for when picking up the load. Certain businesses have gates so if the business is closed the gate should stay closed as well. There could be additional tags added to businesses such as Allow Trailer dropping when closed or Operate outside of regular hours for urgent delivery. Maybe even different operating hours for different product types. This could also apply when picking up a load.

[Vinnie Terranova]

Technically it shouldn't be too difficult to implement time penalties. We already have something similar with loading/delivering special transport.