Montana Discussion Thread

[beto1912]

IIRC the Montana Expansion map mod has that actual climb in I-90 (Lookout Pass is it?) modeled right in the border between ID and MO, just after CDA and it's pretty steep and challenging when you're carrying heavy loads.
I love it

[howey]

IIRC the Montana Expansion map mod has that actual climb in I-90 (Lookout Pass is it?) modeled right in the border between ID and MO, just after CDA and it's pretty steep and challenging when you're carrying heavy loads.
I love it

I agree it might not be completely accurate but the grades going into Montana from Idaho and Wyoming on the I-15 and 90 are the best by far i've ever driven in game. Usually down the 3rd gear (5 or 6 counting splits) doing 12-15mph on 110-115,000lb B-train gross and have a ball doing it lol.

[flight50]

Oh wow. That does sound intriguing. Is there a youtube clip I can look at of that mod and on that grade? It would be nice if SCS has seen that mod. I know SCS let me down in Idaho on White Bird. That hill could have been soooooooooo much better. I was highly anticipating that dlc purely for that hill. I expected more accuracy. I wish the Colorado mapper(s) that did US-550, US-40, CO-139 or US-160 did White Bird. The hill is visually okay but the grade is off and lacks a summit. The road type is also completely wrong. It should be 2+1 road. 2 lanes up hill and one down.

In the Western US, its all about grades and summits and if SCS misses the mark, people will talk. I'd love to get Lookout Pass in the game. When I get time, I need to find a trucker video of that and see for myself. But I'll take you guys word for it.

[TheAmir259]

Nonono, you do not simply say that. Especially not asking SCS to use that mod for reference. I've tried using it once but as an avid quality map user, that map mod is definitely wrong, on all levels. Things also explains itself when the description mentions being a legacy of C2C. It is quite hard to explain in detail what is exactly wrong with it, but i'll try to state it with the best of my abilities.

The key component of the map, which are gradients, has way too many drastic, erratic changes, super unrealistic, and quality-wise, super terrible. The elevation changes goes way beyond SCS's standards. Throughout my journey i've only been sticking on the I-90, and relooking at the I-90 again, there were way too many "humps" and that in a lot of places, the gradient goes way over the maximum allowed on Interstates, that being 6% (in mountain passes). Of course there were more things wrong with it such as details, accuracy & sceneries, but with this alone being so wrong, i refuse to accept that the Montana map mod be an acceptable reference. If you guys think it is a good reference, i suggest you reevaluate what is an excellent map (& mapmods) and what is a terrible map (mods). I also have yet to touch on how SCS does their approach, but i'll leave it here for now.

It would be nice for anyone from the SCS side to explain on how to create an acceptable-quality mountain pass. This triggers me so much as it isn't just SCS's way of doing it, even ProMods practices this, and there are specific places where such gradient changes in that mod is acceptable, but what that mod did, the execution of it, is utterly awful, just terrible.

Away from venting my anger, it also is a no-brainer move for SCS, I-90 holds three passes at the very least for this DLC, there is no way SCS will miss this out, especially knowing its Montana. The eastern side might be flat, but not so for the western side, have they not done this before on Colorado & Wyoming?

[flight50]

^I am only referring to the Lookout Pass grade. If others enjoyed the grade, I'd like to get that. I am not referring to the detailing for the mod at all. I'd never do that...not even for ProMods. I give SCS many brownie points for the way the detail things out. I have zero issues with their detail. Many others state Reforma and ProMods does it better. What they are not factoring is though is that what they are comparing, is not the exact same road/area. To do a proper comparison. Take the exact same city, the exact same road....a direct duplicated area and compare that. That is how you compare apples to apples. People keep comparing apples to oranges with SCS with it comes to map quality. Anywho I am not calling the Montana mod a quality map at all. I don't play any map mods outside of ProMods. I use to run Sierra Nevada and PaZz Mod but I even stopped those once they merged with Mexico which I won't touch again. I am extremely picky on map mods. My no means am I asking SCS to use this mod as a whole to build the Montana dlc.

Mountain passes in ATS prior to Colorado was lacking energy, lacking grade. Colorado had some Sierra Nevada-ness feel to it. I mentioned a lot to reference SN well before Colorado as many other spoke up on how fun SN was. The Colorado map lead made a trip to the US to research it, went back to Prague and made one hell of a map. Seeing this grades first hand paid off big time. SCS doesn't have to exaggerate like SN but SCS does need to know that its okay to not follow Google Maps road path perfectly for their 1:20 map world. Getting off that path is something they can not be afraid to do. Main reason why I said that a curvy I-90 can't be missed. The best way to pull off I-90 is to cut out quite a bit but make that route just as curvy as real life. I don't think SCS can get in every pass on that route but they'll have to bring enough immersion to make the route a good one.

Whatever scenic towns SCS is planning between CDA and Missoula, I bet SCS sets those towns and work outwards to determine what can fit. The first thing to establish with any dlc is the road network. You can't detail anything out until the roads are pretty much set in stone. CDA does eat of a lot of space so getting to the Idaho/Montana border will be interesting. There are many curves in that road and SCS will have to solve that. From that border, there is still a lot of road left to get to Missoula still. If Lookout is shifted East a bit to perhaps where Haugan or Henderson is, that might not be too bad. But that route must be similar to what it really is in real life in order to pull it off and people recognize it as that portion of I-90.

[TheAmir259]

I don't have problems with them taking roads out of the real alignment, as that's what even ProMods does, and SCS is also doing on a lot of parts. And i'm also not debating as to the details of the Montana mod, as we should already know it by now, but the matter i'm touching on is how utterly unrealistic and ill-executed the grades are on that mod. It goes well against the standard principles of a good mountain pass (for mapping), and definitely not something even SCS could accept as a reference to.

My favourite mountain climb so far has been on the BC-5 in Canada, the Coquihalla Summit climb, Eastbound coming from the south. It is a long, steady and very fine climb, just as mountain pass climbs are in real life. Even though roads can have steeper grades than rails, it doesn't mean they can go to 15-20% without any consequences. It should also be noted how major freeways, and especially the interstates, have set their standards to that the grades shall never exceed 6%, and even in this context alone, that mod failed. Yes i do know of some roads in current maps having upto 14% gradient, but even then is a constant, linear-graph like climbs, not the nonlinear or cubic graph-like climbs in the mod. The changes aren't always instantaneous, and almost always never that short too.

And as for the mountain passes pre-Colorado, they can always be reworked, especially like what we've seen in California Phase 1, and soon to be seen, the I-80 over Sierra Nevada in Phase 2. So the only concern i have here is that the Montana's map mod should not be used as a standard setting for the grade changes and in making climbs, as the mod is not a good example for this even when taking the gradients alone into context.

[fra_ba]

Well IIRC, working outwards from point of interests and scenic areas is the way SCS working, per some dev. And I wish they treat Lookout pass as a such area similar to the way Eisenhower tunnel treated not the way Snoqualmie pass was built. Anyway coming out of CDA toward Lookout pass, there are several point of interests. First is the area around Centennial bridge and Higgens point. Considering the lake is already in, that would be reasonable choice to be represented in game. Then we have 4th of July summit and CDA river crossing areas which I think will be ignored. And there's Wallace downtown. If Lookout pass is shifted a little bit east, I think Wallace could be added too.

[flight50]

Good thing about Wallace is that it is quite small. To float my boat, I'd take a scenic town East and West of Lookout pass as the bar minimum between CDA and Missoula. That gives us 2 marked cities with 3 points of interest within a 165 mile stretch of road.

[Crysta1ake]

Do you think there is a chance of adding a Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park? It seems to me that after SCS was added to Colorado Rocky Mountains National Park it is more than real!

[fra_ba]

In game scale, it's a little bit close to US2, but there is always a chance for such routes. Let's not forget there is a chance to see the extension of US89 from Yellowstone to Livingston with some nice views.