Road Trip Discussion Thread

[Brendan0620]

I believe Station Wagons were phased out of many manufacturers catalogues in the mid/late 2000s here in the US. I remember when Ford was still selling the Flex which blurs the line between Car and SUV based on the Taurus Unibody. Ford was the last American manufacturer to sell a Station Wagon because GM stopped doing so long before Ford and Chrysler stopped after the Magnum, which was just a Dodge Charger 4-door as a Station Wagon.

There is still a market for modern "Station Wagons", but it's primarily from European brand automakers. I know Mercedes Benz and Audi still like to sell "Station Wagons" in limited quantities here in the US. The Full-Size SUV has a huge market here, with Ford, GM, Chrysler (via Jeep), Toyota and Nissan all having full-size SUVs they sell here in the United States.

On the topic of full-size SUVs, would love to see the Sequoia get the nod for the Toyota pack, although I think they might go with the 4-Runner instead if they put the Tundra in since the Tundra and Sequoia are on the same platform.

[Tim The Terrible 777]

The station wagon era in the US basically helped start the minivan era with the drive of people wanting to get a family vehicle

[San_Sany4]

I went for a summer holiday for just one week, and damn you guys really flooded the topic, it took me some time to catch up. This is going to be my "general" response to many things said by multiple people, without calling anyone particularly.

I personally love the idea of driving cars in ATS world (or ETS2 as well). I really hate to run my truck empty, but I don't feel the same for driving a car somewhere, even without a "job" like courier (which will apparently be available for cars). I also like that it will require getting the game away from "job=trailer" system and allow rigid trucks. In that part, I don't think SCS is wasting time or effort on PRT. However, I hate that it takes such a big toll on truck behaviour, including the recent engine mapping and clutch fiasco. This is unacceptable for a Truck Simulator title. Those changes should have been introduced in a Experimental Beta or something and kept there until they are polished. Truck simulation must have undisputed priority. I'm ok with slower release of truck models for the sake of other vehicle models, but truck driving aspects must be sacred.

Additionally, I really don't like that there will be a mode switch. It tells me that SCS were unable to make the game handle multiple vehicle classes as is, and switching between them on the go. So there's a switch that replaces some aspects of game UI, economy, and probably even physics. The fact that there's a mode switch makes me doubt that physics will work for both cars and trucks and everything in between, and we might get "two physics", one fine-tuned for trucks, one for cars. Hope I'm wrong, but I fail to see a different explanation for mode switch.

Also, hate to disappoint, and I hope I'm wrong, but currently it looks like Dodge/RAM pack will be late and PRT might launch with Ford only. Which is, in my opinion, perfectly fine. On-brand for SCS, even. I also think that rolling out Atlas with only some states is fine, as long as there are jobs for cars all over the map.

[harishw8r]

Mode switch makes some sense when it comes to handling clutter in the menu. Take settings and key assignment for example. Some of them are irrelevant for Road Trip (like trailer settings differential, suspension raise and so on). Having all of the settings in one place is definitely chaotic and potentially confusing, and having separate modes solves most of that. I would expect dealerships to work differently as well. Then it also translates to game UI, icons in the map etc.,

And given we haven't seen anything from Dodge-RAM, I would agree that the pack might take time.

[Bandit & The Snowman]

Well technically it would be possible to make the UI context sensitive. You drive a truck, you get the truck specific UI, same with a car. But the mode switch is another clue that convoys might be separated too. No mixed truck and car convoys, no Special Transport roleplay.

[San_Sany4]

Exactly, all stuff irrelevant to current vehicle can be hidden with a simple if-then-else or switch-case check of player's current vehicle class, if the game can handle any class. That's why I'm sure there's something funky that requires different approach for different vehicles, and a "loading screen" to switch between them when the game unloads some stuff for one vehicle class and loads different stuff, maybe including relaunching the physics server. It also makes me doubt that we will see convoys with mix of cars and trucks.

[Bandit & The Snowman]

I’m interested what the next gameplay video(s) will reveal about the whole thing all the more.

[robty96]

How we switch modes and how many things from truck mode carry over to car mode is also interesting to see.

Will the location of us being in truck, then get switched to us being in a car when switching modes? (would obviously only work without active job)
Will cars be assigned to a garage and can we only switch modes in a garage of ours like we can switch trucks only in there too?

Or would the car location/mode be completely separate from the truck one? So we could be with our truck in California, while our car is in Texas?


Another thing is fast travel for cars
In pic 1 of the blog post, we see an option to quick travel to locations. In truck mode, repair shops allow us to fast travel, but they also would mean at least repair (but also customization) options to cars which we didn't see in any footage provided by SCS yet. Then the logic aspect whether a repair shop for trucks (especially the ones at a dealership) could be used for cars as well?

So question is where do we fast travel to? The repair shop or another location? But the repair shop would mean a repair and customization system for cars in my opinion.

[San_Sany4]

I'm pretty sure we see repair and customization for cars. SCS told us that the postcards we receive from Atlas will be accessory for the interior.

As for location, I expect cars and trucks be fully separate, and jumping between them to be possible at any point when not on the job, not just in garages. Which is not how I would prefer it. But SCS still didn't make any system that allows us to switch trucks realistically, so I don't expect it appear for cars.

By "realistically" I mean this: I drive to the garage where the new truck is located and I take it without being teleported back to HQ. The truck I arrived on is left in this garage, and the new truck is considered to be in my HQ. Right now, I can only drive to the garage and relocate my driver character to the garage with the new truck. But that leaves my old truck not in the current garage but in previous. And it obviously changes the HQ. It's possible to sort out the truck positions in the slots manually, and keep the HQ, but that will require using a teleport after being spawned at the HQ to return back.

[Marcello Julio]

I believe you'll be able to switch at any time in the menu when you're not on a job, but you'll probably be teleported to your HQ when you do that, just like it currently is when you switch for a truck.