Suggestions for the improvement of the cargo market

[dahaka]

One of the two most requested features are multi point deliveries (and pickups) and rigid trucks. It is safe to assume that they will come at some point, and in order for the multi point delivery to come, the cargo market has to be changed and improved.

In this thread, I will suggest a way to overhaul the cargo market, and make it more realistic and immersive, as well as lay the foundation for the multi address delivery and the rigid trucks.

In Europe, the most common way for goods to be packaged, is the euro pallet. The second most popular is the block pallet. A euro pallet is 0.8m x 1.2m, while a block pallet is 1m x 1.2m.
European trucks are optimized for carrying euro pallets, which is evident from the sizes of the trucks/trailers. The current long semi trailers we have in the game have a length of 13.6m, and they fit 33 euro pallets inside them. The short trailer, the front of the B-Double, as well as the drawbar trailer of the double and the cargo space of a rigid truck has a length of 7.8m, and fits a maximum of 19 euro pallets inside.
Maximum weight changes from country to country, therefore to keep things realistic, the game will have to account for the countries the player is going to travel through when allowing him or not to pick up certain cargo, for example, player with a refrigerated semi is loaded with 26 pallets of table salt weighing 20 tons traveling from Hungary to Aberdeen in the UK, and attempts to pick up 6 pallets of cement powder which weighs 6 tons. The game must deny this pickup, if the player is in Germany, as the weight limit there is 40 tons. On the other hand if the player attempts to do the same while he is in the Netherlands, or in London the game should allow it, as the weight limit there is 50 tons or 44 tons respectively.

Refrigerated, Box trailer, Curtainsider
Right now the cargoes we get in the game are one single unit, ex. 24 tons of cement powder. I suggest the cargo to be separated into pallets, each of them forming a unit. ex. 1 euro pallet of cement powder (in bags), weighing 1000kg.
When we open the cargo market, we should see jobs along the lines of: 6 euro pallets of cement powder, 6 tons, sender, receiver etc.
This way the player knows they have room for 27 more pallets, and x amount of weight until their truck is full. Then the player can proceed to keep loading cargoes until their truck/trailer is full.
The cargo market should create a wide variety of jobs, each of them different cargo, and in different quantities. The quantities should range from one single pallet, all the way to full loads of 38 pallets for a rigid with a trailer, or 33 pallets for a semi.
There should also be a mechanic introduced, which makes the cargo market create "groups" of cargo that go not to the same destination, but in the same direction. What do I mean? Lets create an example scenario:

Player is sitting with a 3 axle rigid truck and a 3 axle drawbar trailer in the city of Berlin. The cargo market creates 4 groups of cargo:
Group 1 heading north:
-12 pallets grapes for Denmark
-8 pallets cement powder for Denmark
-22 pallets batteries for Norway
-2 pallets of roof tiles for Sweden
Group 2 heading east:
-6 pallets of canned tuna for Poland
-15 pallets of pork for Lithuania
-18 pallets of acid barrels for Latvia
-12 pallets of bottled water for Russia
group 3 heading south, and group 4 heading west.
The number of pallets of a group don't have to be enough to fill the players vehicle, they could be more than the vehicle could fit, or less. Then the player can decide if which cargoes he want to pick up.
Players might decide to only pick up one cargo of the group, and then proceed to pick up or drop off more cargo on their way to the destination of the first cargo. Players can also choose to deliver a few pallets only as opposed to the current full loads. Obviously, the rewards the player receives will have to also be balanced out. 8 pallets of cargo should yield significantly less than a full load of 33 pallets of the same cargo.

Walking floor
Walking floor trailers can carry pallets, as well as bulk cargo. Obviously, bulk cargo can only be one certain thing, you cant really load potatoes and onions together.

Cisterns ADR and Food
These must obviously remain as full loads only. Technically it possible to carry multiple types of chemicals in one trailer, as there are partitioned trailers, but there are complex regulations about what chemicals can be loaded together into one cistern, therefore I suggest full loads only for cisterns, in order to not complicate things too much.

Low loaders, low beds, truck transporter, van transporter, car transporter
Instead of the pallet system, the size of the cargo must be taken into account when it comes to this type of transport:
One piece cargo like the locomotive should obviously count as a full load.
Cargoes like the forklifts, the excavators, or the tractors should be separated. The player should be allowed to load forklifts or tractors separately, each of them going to a different destination. The player should also be allowed to load 2 or 3 forklifts combined with an excavator (the small one, not the 24 ton one) or 1 tractor and 1 excavator etc.
Cars, vans and trucks should also be single units, when their respective trailers arrive. Deliveries could be made to randomized areas in cities or villages (delivering a car to a resident, a van to the local bakery, or a truck to a truck dealership)

Container chassis
Containers should be separate units. There are 40ft containers, and 20ft containers. These are usually fully loaded, therefore one container should for a unit by itself. The player should be able to choose if they will load one 40ft container, or one 20ft container, or two 20ft containers, if he can find two of them that fit weight wise on his truck.

Flatbed
On flatbed the cargo should be separated based on size. In order to keep things simple, I suggest the cargoes to be separated into different lengths, and the width to be ignored, so no loading different cargo side by side.
For example, metal beams could be separated into 13.6 meter ones, 9 meter ones, and 4.5 meter ones. Tubes, metal rods, and long cargoes could be made the same way. Pressure tanks for example could be separated into their individual units, and the player decides how many and of which shape size and weight they will load (we already have differently shaped ones).

This way, the player has the most freedom possible, and the cargo market becomes as close to real life as possible.
Will it be complicated to implement? Probably yes. But since SCS has to overhaul the cargo market sooner or later, I think the logical thing to do is to make an effort and make it as realistic as possible. The immersion and the freedom the players will receive will make the effort well worth it.

I am curious to see what my fellow players think, so, discuss, and if you have any ideas, write them down in this thread to help SCS improve the cargo market.

[Some newbie driver]

I've some details about what you suggested so far dahaka.

First is that, as far as I know, SCS already works with pallet units for cargo on "boxed" trailers. I don't know if done that change time ago in preparation for future multi-load or just because they thought it makes more sense. But point is that part is already working internally. The difference is that the market only provides "full trailer" loads. And for machinery loads they already work too the way you said (each vehicle being one whole unit and every trailer having a limit of how many units of that vehicle can be loaded)

And about the load of the cargo; I would like to see the amount of axles of the tractor and trailer to have a real impact in the cargo chosen (either allowing/denying it, or forcing us to take certain router through countries that allow our specific combo)

In general terms, I think that's one of the things that would require the game to have two separate profiles (arcade and hard modes) So people who just want to drive don't have to bother with all those details and possible combinations and all that kind of things. If not possible, I would limit it to the cargo market for people owning its trailers. As a real differentiation that would make sense to purchase and manage your own fleet of trailers (not just due aesthetics as it is now).

Regards

[kenyelmes9465]

The idea is very good, but groupage seems too complicated. The task of logistics companies is to assemble the goods into a unit load in the warehouses. Delivery to the addresses, resp. addresses should be delivered in 1-1 units with smaller vehicles. (For this, it would be good to have vans that can be bought at TMP from time to time = fleet expansion.) I would also be happy if not only refrigerated goods could be loaded into the refrigerated trailer, but also dry goods, as can be done in the ATS! Also, the goods that can be loaded into a moving floor trailer should be rethought! It could also be used to transport sawdust, bark, wood chips and light bulk goods. New companies could be installed for these (eg power plants, OSB / furniture board production plants.)
Although not closely related to this topic, the trailers available for purchase could also be expanded. At least be able to buy those that are already in the program anyway!

[Abbasoturi]

This method is used in my country a lot. The Trucker calculates pallet room for truck and collects as much he/she can and tries to get the truck full before heading to B point and also changing load down the road. Id like to see this system in ETS 2

[TomJC]

Just searched for Multi Drop loads and found this topic.

My 2 cents on it are from personal experience delivering loads from Ireland to various European countries.

I was fortunate with the company I worked for in that I was paid by the day out of Ireland.
Single drop loads therefore paid me less than multi drop work.

My personal best entailed 11 drops in 11 different countries as follows.
Loaded in Southern Ireland, drops in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, Frankfurt, Geneva, Vienna, Milan and finally Madrid.
All locations based near major Airports, can't go into specific locations even 15 years later for security reasons as those types of loads are still ongoing.
It could often mean up to a month away, which as a young buck in my mid to late 20's, was a blast.

That would be a non normal load, but would have 2-3 a year.

A normal load could see me doing 10 + drops in a specific country, more like what can be seen on YouTube on the Leven op wielen series of vlogs.
Mostly either Spain or Italy, but could often be France and Italy or France and Spain.
Then most likely a similar series of pickups to go home either direct to Ireland, or via a drop and pick in the UK, thankfully, other than Swiss borders, no customs to worry about then, as Brexit wasn't even dreamed of then.

That is some thing that would seriously interest me for ETS 2.
I often find the single drop load a bit of a bore, but I guess it's better than not even having the ability to remember my trucking days.

[Some newbie driver]

Let's suppose we will have tomorrow the multi-drops option then. What would be the way to manage it you would prefer:

- A given route and fixed max-times to arrive each location?
- A list of destinations and a time limit to do them all, allowing you to decide the order?
- Some other option that didn't came to mi mind so far?

[dahaka]

I think each cargo should have its own timer, then the player must decide if he can realistically deliver it or not. My boss has been greedy a couple times, deciding to pick up 3 or 4 extra pallets, which made me late with one or more of the deliveries.
It is going to be more important than ever for the game to generate enough cargo. With my suggestion, you could pick up 2 cargoes from Berlin, start heading west, pick up 1 more from Amsterdam, drop one of the Berlin cargoes in Paris, pick up 1 more in Bordeaux, and deliver 2 cargoes to Spain and 1 to Portugal, for example.
This is also why I suggested that in each city, the game generates 4 groups of cargo, heading in the 4 directions each. This way the life of the player becomes easier, and the most freedom is achieved.
You could for example pick up 5 addresses in Spain and France and take all the cargo to a single destination in the Netherlands, as another example (I used to do this IRL, picked up wine from multiple French vineyards from Banyuls-sur-Mer all the way up to Lyon, and then took them to a wine dealer in the Netherlands.)

Maybe it would be best for the game to also generate some cargoes that go to the same destination that you are already heading to.

[Andy_GTI]

Since Knox_xss stopped supporting his great TEDIT program which made multi drop deliveries possible, I’ve really missed this feature. It would be great if someone smarter than me could pick up where he left off and make TEDIT compatible with 1.43.

[r131w]

Ownable ADR tank trailers are my most missed cargo feature currently. Once we have them, your mulit point cargo routes sound very interesting.