Hired drivers obsess on longest distance trips

[Steve Pitts]

Folks,

My apologies, but I see no way to make this bug report conform to the reporting rules because of the nature of the issue I'm reporting.

This seemingly affects every version from v1.35.1.1 to the current version v1.36.2.17 running on Windows 10 64-bit and thus would seem to be fairly reproducible. I have all map DLCs installed _except_ the Black Sea (making my way home and finishing off the Christmas event before adding that one, which I was given as a Christmas gift, and getting unceremoniously dumped onto a garage forecourt in Cambridge). I cannot imagine it will be useful, but here is the game log from my current session, which is the one the screenshots were taken in:

game.log_20200104_2048.txt

(46.14 KiB) Downloaded 105 times

Since the point at which I moved up to v1.35 all of my hired hands with a long distance skill of 6 (which is currently 132 of the 140 but may have been as few as 122 to start with) started to concentrate on maximising the distance of their longest trips and thus only taking jobs to either Palermo or Vyborg (or in a handful of instances, both) depending on where they are based. I don't have garages in either city but currently 57 of my 140 drivers are on their way either to/from Palermo and 48 of them to/from Vyborg and reviewing all of their journeys since installing v1.35 I see that whenever they take a job over 1500km it is nearly always to one or other of those two cities.

The new Driver Manager map feature of showing driver locations made this particular 'feature' readily apparent (which was originally noticed by another ETS2 player with 270+ drivers) and the rest was filled in via reviewing the driver logs from 330+ game saves since that version (and the 2091 from before that, for comparison purposes). Absent uploading the CSV files generated by my tools all I can offer are some screenshots that make it apparent that nearly everyone seems to be treading the same furrows.

(I couldn't get the upload to work for the screenshots, so herewith links instead)
ets2_hired_driver_clumping_20200104_184045_00.png
ets2_hired_driver_clumping_20200104_184121_00.png
ets2_hired_driver_clumping_20200104_184135_00.png

[ScaniaMaster]

I just looked at my drivers and I think I can see what you are seeing. And yes drivers were modified in the last version, specifically for faster generation, so that could explain the reason.

[The_SimTrucker]

I see what you mean. My drivers seem to have a deep desire to go to Istanbul or Tekirdag. That is most likely not the most profitable route they can do, time to fine-tune the training policy...
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[Boy]

this must be because it's in balanced

changes to another type, I hired three drivers and they will work in "dangerous".

must be dangerous cargo.

[Madkine]

I see what you mean. My drivers seem to have a deep desire to go to Istanbul or Tekirdag. That is most likely not the most profitable route they can do, time to fine-tune the training policy...

Given most of the drivers you showed are at max training level, the policy isn't going to change anything.

[Steve Pitts]

Having added Road to the Black Sea and with more than ten in game days having passed (which ought to be enough for all drivers to have completed both legs of any existing haul) the situation has changed roughly as I would have anticipated.

Of my 140 drivers, 126 (of the 133 with a 6 in long distance skill) are making deliveries of more than 1500 kms, of those
40 are on their way to/from Palermo
37 to/from Tekirdag (and 3 Istanbul)
24 to/from Vyborg

Anyone from SCS care to comment on whether or not this is deliberate (and ideally whether or not it will be 'fixed')?

[The Old Fart]

@Steve Pitts, thanks for bringing this up, I had not noticed this behaviour until I read your post and checked for myself.

In ATS, with a big map combo, my Level 6 long distance drivers are making runs to the furthest corners of the map (West Coast or Mexico Origin drivers to Halifax or Northern Canada, and similar inverse runs). Drivers making 3000 mile runs - taking six or seven days to do so - is is hardly the most effective use of their time.

For drivers who have not reached level 6 long distance skill, I will simply prevent them from doing so. Since I can't steal levels back from my drivers, the only way I can think of at present to limit their journeys is to edit the economy.sii file. I will reduce the range permitted at the higher levels, particularly 6; which permits deliveries anywhere. This will reduce my range as well - but I can live with that!

Hopefully SCS will revise how this is implemented. AND, to throw in my 'two bits', PLEASE give us a freight and cargo market option of selecting an outward bound job AND a return Job to our point of origin! Just like in real life.

[3am]

For God's sake... please do something to fix this. The change to the way AI select jobs has been a disaster. There is no variety anymore.