Montana Discussion Thread

[flight50]

But Pavel also said, that this big state is scarying them - which suggests it is huge. Montana is big, but not that big I think. Montana do not have very dense road network (and this counts rather than it's surface) And montana will be weird without Wyoming...
And in terms of Huge and small states, that are close to each other... Texas and Oklahoma... One is large (and scary with it's size) and second one is rather small... Nobody is considering Oklahoma soon

Montana is nowhere near scary imo. While it is big in real life, in game it will be something like Oregon dlc in terms of road mileage.

There is only one scary state and that is Texas. No if ands or butts about it. Montana is big but its not Texas big. Its not Texas dense with cities nor roads but the road layout will be awesome. The scenery will be awesome. But better that Texas for sure. I too say it will be like Oregon. In fact, the entire Eastern portion fits Oregon in it. I'd imagine Montana is 5200-5800 miles of road. There is no way that Montana shouldn't have the most road miles of all paid dlc's prior to Texas. Montana shouldn't come before Wyoming though. But if it does, we can't do anything about it. In terms of boxing up the map to avoid crazy gaps, Wyoming, just has to come before Montana.

again adding more people ain't gonna make it come sooner v: Plus a 3rd team is possible so you have that. Plus its better to be patient. even if it takes a decade or so. Its worth it in the end pretty much.

Agreed. More people doesn't equal faster maps at all. More people means more content on a map or more map in general per calendar year though. The same amount of time to produce 1 state will pretty much be the same. SCS allocates (x) amount of people per state but the devleopment will generally always be the same. But I understand people's thinking because at one point I was green, new to the SCS world. I also thought more people meant faster dev time until I been thru enough of these ATS dlcs to realize, you can't rush quality. Time decreased a lil but not much.

One thing I always say is we get quality, speed and quantity. Pick 2 of the 3. You will never get all 3. Me personally, I will always pick quality and quantity. If you pick speed, in any equation, you won't get quality imo. You will get more bugs and you will get a thinned out dlc in terms of missing roads and cities. Idaho proved the quality part. It wasn't speedy nor did we get quantity. But we definitely got quality. In Idaho's case, the devs can always go back and add quantity. The question is.....will they. ATS is not a small project anymore. It has grown to be a platform. SCS has invested in ATS and more staff is coming because of it. We a still 1-2 teams short though. 3 map teams is the minimum I always say. As Pavel stated before, our wallets will determine if a 4th or 5th map team comes. If we all want to not only complete the US but get Canada and Mexico.....we have to pay up to get more of this good stuff.

@flight50 Since in your poll it's the most requested state, I figured it might deserve a thread, even though it's still pretty far away from release.

Agreed. Montana is definitely in the pipe line but its leading the polls because of Idaho's border layout. If we got US-12 to US-93 and a pole reset, I think the poles would say Wyoming and Texas honestly. But I understand why its ahead. I just disagree with putting it over Wyoming. I'd deal with it if I had to though. I'd just avoid lots of Eastern Montana to Eastern Colorado or New Mexico trips. I'd say any state that is in the public research thread, can get a discussion thread for sure. But yeah I agree that all conversations do lead to Texas, lol. Once it arrives, Texas will still probably come up, lol. But ATS is not all about Texas. It takes all lower 48 to make ATS great and I think the devs can make that happen. Looking at 55sixxx's map, that is the line I can't wait to see. Now if SCS stair steps the map to Florida, it will take a little longer to get Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas. But once those are filled in, oh man will we have a heck of a map. Wide open roads with gorgeous landscapes. Follow that up with dense Eastern states and Texas and the amount of space we have to drive is enormous.

[killingjoke28336]

Agreed. More people doesn't equal faster maps at all. More people means more content on a map or more map in general per calendar year though. The same amount of time to produce 1 state will pretty much be the same. SCS allocates (x) amount of people per state but the devleopment will generally always be the same. But I understand people's thinking because at one point I was green, new to the SCS world. I also thought more people meant faster dev time until I been thru enough of these ATS dlcs to realize, you can't rush quality. Time decreased a lil but not much.

I didn't mean that more people equals faster map development, I think more teams will lead to more maps developed simultanously which leads to more states per year.

[parasaurolophus67]

the max would be three a year is what there are aiming I believe. so that should be enough v:

[xyzan]

I could go to 4 a year... rather no more than that. It would be hard to explore all of those new maps in this pace.

[flight50]

I still think if we get 3 or 4 map teams that SCS should go ETS2 style. Make the dlc's larger at that point. Doing 3 or 4 individual states seems like a headache on the devs and the testers.

[KnuteOle]

I think Pavel was definitely talking about scary old Texas. Not really sure why they should be scared, though... Texas is pretty much the same size as the original map (California and Nevada), though making that size of a map with the new techniques and details might be what's causing them to lose sleep. That, or Pavel has a fear of longhorns.

[FrancescoMasci]

It's a DLC with almos the size of the base map (don't forget that it was originally released at a smaller scale) with a bigger and more complex road network, different climates and environments, big urban cities and has to live up to the expectations.
No wonder it's scary.

[Xaagon]

I think Pavel was definitely talking about scary old Texas. Not really sure why they should be scared, though... Texas is pretty much the same size as the original map (California and Nevada), though making that size of a map with the new techniques and details might be what's causing them to lose sleep. That, or Pavel has a fear of longhorns.

Texas has three major cities and the road network is scary dense compared to the parts of the country covered so far:
https://www.google.com/maps/@31.0847425 ... 1701,7.07z

Montana, while really big, seems to be more in line with what we've seen in released DLC so far:
https://www.google.com/maps/@46.8772879 ... 3354,7.07z

Both of these links are at the same zoom level.

[goalsa320]

And the largest city in Montana is Billings which is a fraction of the population of Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and El Paso.

[flight50]

3 major cities? Most would consider Vegas, Portland, Detroit as major cities. I always consider the top 30 as the largest but Texas has 6 in the top 25. Its not just Houston, Dallas and San Antonio. Those 3 are in the top 10 but Austin is at 11 and Ft. Worth is at 13. El Paso is the only one stretched out at 22. To put it in perspective, Billings is Montana's largest city and it comes in as the 276 largest city by population. It a nutshell, that good. Good for all the cities of Montana that is. I think Billings, Missoula, Helena, Great Falls, Bozeman and Kalispell will be very very similar to Idaho city wise. I think SCS makes these just as good and just a dense but still in proportion to their actual size. I'd rather have more roads in Montana than focusing on its cities and making them too big. Montana should have almost 3 times the roads as Idaho. If Idaho got 3300 miles of road, I'd expect Montana to almost double that. 6000 is about the max I'd go with in Montana though. But I don't think we get much more than 5600. Especially with the quality of Idaho.