Base Map Rebuild (CA, NV, AZ) General Discussion Thread

[festmache]

@supersobes, I guess you're right. Still, I don't think there's a technical limitation here, so theoretically a city could have the same prefab twice in the future, if there's a good reason for it. (Such as a second city which is not marked separately.)

[flight50]

@festmache and @supersobes. Supersobes was more elaborate in his explanation. But he is 100% correct. That is the difference. Note that same company name can exist but not the same type of prefab. That is why I stated, prefab and not company. I had a conversation with a dev not to long ago in which I was schooled. I will not share his name but currently that is how depots work. The pic that supersobes posted was similar to what did a snapshot of, as that was my exact confusion. The dev educated me on how it works. We can't have the same prefab in the same marked city though.

2 things must happen to have that same prefab. New company or new marked city to house that same company.

Example. Lets see if this makes since. Lets use Chico and Yuba City. 2 cities that should find their way into the California rebuild as deliverable cities. Great example because I really want a lot of farming along CA-99 to represent California to the fullest and those two cities work well if they are added. So lets say SCS continues \
CA-99 North of Sacramento to I-5 on top of all the other agriculture that should be coming now. We have Sunshine Crops as the fruit and vegetable farm and we have Bushnell as the livestock....correct me if I'm wrong.

I want something like this.
Chico: tomatoes, oranges, peanuts, grapes
Yuba City: lettuce, apples, pecans, plums

4 farms is being greedy for California but for Kansas, Nebraska, Dakotas, Iowa....4 farms in a marked city might be much more realistic. Chico and Yuba could at least get 2 crop farms though. So 2 is realistic because there is a lot of out industry available for those cities beyond just agriculture. So far, only Sunshine Crops can do all 8 of those crops above. Each city would need 4 Sunshine Crop depots in order to pull that off. That can't happen. We need 4 totally different prefabs or we need 4 totally different companies names. I'd much rather 4 different names instead of 4 Sunshine crops lined up in a row to bring more diversity. Real life doesn't have 4 Sunshine crops. They'd just have much much larger fields. Well ATS can have larger field at 1:20. Unfortunately, its probably safe to say SCS isn't interesting in bring a couple new farm companies for the base map/Western region. SCS would take that short cut and just make a new prefab and give us 2 Sunshine Crops. Still limiting ATS.

By time we get to Kansas, Nebraska, Dakotas, etc, we could still be facing non regional based companies. Kansas, Nebraska, etc is all part of the MidWest. Texas, Oklahoma, etc is all part of the South. I'd much rather see each region have totally different farms names. If I'm going to make a farm to farm delivery, I'd rather do it from Sunshine crops to lets say, Horizons, or Greenfield Farms or something. I'm realllly hoping to see a lot more companies start populating ATS regionally, nationally and on a state specific level.

[festmache]

I had a conversation with a dev not to long ago in which I was schooled.

Ok, that was what I was curious about... Whether this limitation was a theory or a confirmed limitation. This answers it. No arguing with the devs

You're right about the states in the great plains needing more farming companies. I'm not as passionate about new companies as you are, in general, but Kansas full of two farming companies would be a little weird

I also hope that, if they add more farm companies in the future, they will replace Idaho's Sunshine Crops farms with a dedicated potato company. If potatoes are so important there, a dedicated company would emohasize that. (And also, for the cattle auctions in Wyoming, I hope they will be a different company in the future. Just to emphasize that it's very different from Bushnell's farms. I would think: if you want to show that there's a specific company type in the game, don't "hide" it by re-using an existing company name.)

[flight50]

Your last paragraph is spot on. It's SCS taking shortcuts and not putting effort into companies like ETS2. I seriously hope Montana and Texas have changed the way the devs approach ATS. I get that not everyone is as passionate about ICCs, but at some point, we all tire of the repetitive companies and want more diversity.

I just seen it wayyyy ahead of many of you. The larger the map gets, the more obvious it gets. This is why I mention regions so much. Everytime I mention ETS2 companies and how much there is compared to ATS, people keep saying different regions require new companies. No doubting that. The US has 4 distinct regions. Will that mindset carry over to ATS? There are region here too.

The US should be viewed totally different than ETS2 to bring MORE diversity. Companies exist nationally, regionally and state specific ones. ATS seems to only be nationally and very limited at that. Retail or end user companies are massively missing in ATS. If you want to go another step forward, Continental companies. There are a few that also exist in both Canda and Mexico. Both deliverable and non deliverable prefabs.

[Bedavd]

The Montana industries blog made me feel hopeful, as a number of the industries aren't able to be slid into existing companies. The Talc, Grain Silos, and Silane gas might be slotted into NAMIQ, Sunshine, and Chemso, respectively, but the other 6 5 really don't fit with anything we already have.

The "Electricity Network Services" being added also gives me hope that we'll see power stations added as depots in the future a la Nucleon in ETS2. Also, depending on how the Truck Trailer Service is implemented, they might be able to go back and loop all the old standalone services stations as part of that company and deliverable!

Edit: Actually the Sugar could go under Global Mills, I suppose. I hope that all 9 industries featured in that blog get their own companies, but I feel more confident that 5 of them will.

[axl135]

The conversation over farming suddenly brings to mind the lack of food processing plants in the base map. I cannot recall seeing any of those prefabs in California, Nevada, or Arizona. Hopefully, the California rebuild will start to address this.

Even with the later map DLC’s, the food industry seems sparse as well, with no dairy or meat processing plants, even though milk and live cattle are included as cargo. In the game, there are only three that I can recall: Global Mills (first appeared with New Mexico), USBB (first appeared with Colorado), and a frozen seafood company (forgot the name, first appeared with Washington).

[fra_ba]

Grain silos currently slotted into Farmers Barn. Regarding power stations, I like to see various power generation facilities beside wind power like coal fired power stations. I love to see a new company for sugar factory. That would be beneficial for future states like North Dakota.

[Bedavd]

Forgot Farmers Barn also had silos. So weird. I don't think Tractor Supply holds any non-retail spaces. Hopefully they don't get the Silos and also might get the Landscaping industry if we're really unlucky now that I think about it.

Coal, Hydro, Natural Gas, Nuclear and Solar like we have in France and Spain. All of those are all over the map as we currently have it. There are at least 3 major dams we pass over/next to that I can think of in the game (Hoover, Coulee, Glen Canyon, Flaming Gorge) but probably more.

[rbsanford]

Something we'll need with California is a produce company. Sunshine Crops can still grow the crops, but we'll need a processor/distributor to pack them and send them off to grocery/food distributors or to ports for exporting. We should also receive exotic produce (bananas, mangoes, coconuts, pineapples, etc) in seaports and bring those to grocery distributors as well. These distributors should also receive all the products of food and meat processing plants, as those aren't shipped directly to stores either.

But first things first: produce. California produces a ton of fruits and vegetables year round; that kind of bounty was one of the reasons why people risked everything to move there. Based off of what I've seen at work (produce dept), northern CA provides grapes and berries (notably strawberries); the Central Valleys, Salinas Valley, and Imperial Valley mostly produce vegetables (both leaves and roots); and SoCal produces citrus. That could be three different companies right there that could expand across the country, and then toss in one for apples/pears (like Sage Fruit; maybe stonefruit, like peaches, could be included), maybe one dedicated to root vegetables and squash, and one that deals with exotic fruit (like Dole) and maybe forwards produce from Mexico (tomatoes, leaf vegetables, melons) and Canada (tomatoes, blueberries, mushrooms). You're looking at a diverse group of industries for diverse agriculture. Again, these companies won't be growing the crops directly like Sunshine Crops, but would be receiving the crops from farms and packing/distributing them. All the other states in the game would benefit from this (OR/WA with their fruit, ID with root vegetables, CO with peaches from the Grand Valley, NM with peppers), so it's something that could be worked in, but California is the perfect place to start, what with its huge and diverse agricultural output.

[Xaagon]

I get that not everyone is as passionate about ICCs, but at some point, we all tire of the repetitive companies and want more diversity.

For me I think it's the AI truck traffic that I most want to see more diversity with. I don't mind that every town with more than 10,000 residents has a Walbert. This would be pretty realistic. I do get tired of passing the same 10 trailers on the highway on every trip. This is why I've been speaking up when they release a new company without a corresponding trailer skin, such as Farmers Barn.

That said, I have been wondering why we have the S-Crop farms, but they also have farm equipment dealerships under the same company. They could also consider splitting up the Walberts that resemble Wal-Mart (big department store) and the ones that resemble Walgreens (local pharmacy/convenience store) into separate companies. They kind of did this with the introduction of Eddy's and Tidbit, but there's another two companies without dedicated AI trailers.