Economy Overhaul?

[rookie31st]

Will trailer ownership and cargo-centered economy result is general economy overhaul?

There are many aspects of economy still missing in this game. Garages generate no maintenance or real estate tax bills? They also cannot be used for truck repairs, so functionally are same as parking lot. Trucks do not require regular insurance payments? Repairs for wear and tear are surprisingly covered by same totally free insurance?

Is it really hard to add daily charges for each truck and garage, or something else prevents such implementation? Small charges won't make things much harder for new players, I think current bank loan terms give them more troubles. Default loan periods should be increased at least 10 times, this will result in much lower daily charges.

The list of basic stuff needed is really short:

- garage property maintenance and tax bills
- ability to do repairs in own garages (cheaper to justify maintenance and tax bills)
- no insurance coverage for wear and tear repairs, only body and chassis damages (usually result of collision) should be covered by coinsurance
- regular truck insurance payments for each truck, with assigned driver rating factored

[Boeing73FLY]

I second all of these basics. I do highly agree about the coinsurance part. It really shouldn't cover everything except for the mentioned (chassis and body). And as for the ability to repair from your garage, make the costs slightly cheaper than what the dealers will charge you for.

Some extras for SCS to consider for a little economic challenge for the player:

Warranty (bumper-to-bumper and powertrain, to name a few) when buying a new truck for X amount of in-game years. Then after the warranty expires, they will have to pay out of pocket.

Used trucks. As time goes on, there will be newer trucks in the market. For example (not ATS related but it follows the point I'm trying to make), those Euro 4 / 5 trucks that have been in ETS2 since their debut, why not make them be sold used (with wear and tear, and even some damages) now that they are replaced by technologically advanced trucks? I think there should be used truck dealers for this case. And maybe there can be something like "sweet deals" for certified pre-owned trucks at the dealerships, which it is cheaper to buy than new but also more expensive than used.

Just some of my extra ideas to make the game economy better and slightly challenging for the player.

[supersobes]

Another part of the game economy that I would like to see reworked is how much the loads pay and how much your company drivers bring in. Today, I took a reefer load from Roswell to Phoenix, and it payed $42,000! That's more than some truck driver make in an entire year! When I look at the driver log for any of the drivers, they bring in anywhere between $5,000 and $40,000 per load. The payment side of the economy is way off balance, and it is why many vetran players end up with hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank.

[genbrien]

personally I would love that they change how tickets/ law is done.

there's no point to follow rules because its only a tiny amout of $$ and at one point we done care.

We could have something like point,s like IRL, that we lose each time with a ticket. The fewer points we have, the cheaper/ more commun the load we can have.
After all, you wont let a reckleess driver haul your multi milion machinery

Points would be given back after some times, or after finishing a load with no infraction
As always it should be an option, something like '' difficult law''
What do you think?

[rookie31st]

Another part of the game economy that I would like to see reworked is how much the loads pay and how much your company drivers bring in.

This can be changed already by changing g_income_factor if I recall correctly. I currently play with 0.25, meaning I get only about 25% of default payout. My drivers also bring me only 25% of default profit.

In another thread Max said that value 0.05 would be closest to real life but 0.20 is about lowest playable. I tried 0.10 and observed financial losses despite having 15 trucks with drivers including myself and no loans.

The fact that you cannot survive in this game's economy using real world $/mile despite complete absence of household expenses, insurance payments, garage maintenance bills etc only shows that economy is flawed.

[dave_th]

I would like to see a economy level setting that is NOT mod-able.
Insurance should not cover wear items and wear should increase with truck age/mileage.
Companies should have a progressive unlock levels for their loads as you gain reputation with them - work your way up to the articulated/heavy loads.

All of this should be optional of course, or there is gonna be that 'OMG the GRIND' guys.

[supersobes]

This can be changed already by changing g_economy_factor if I recall correctly.

Is "g_economy_factor" a console command, or does it require editing a game file?

[rookie31st]

It works either way, but correct line is g_income_factor

It is within config.cfg which can be opened by Notepad, or you can open console and type 'g_income_factor X' where X would be desired number (1 is default). In my game, with 0.05 I get income from about $1.70/mile for simple cargo to $5.50/mile for special heavy cargo which is still pretty high compared to real world.

With about 500 daily miles, it is possible to make over $1K a day in the game with g_income_factor 0.05 if you have driver profile with all skills, while RL driver would make about $150. On top of this, players have no household/family or personal expenses, no need to pay for insurance, no proper truck maintenance cost, no garage expenses...

[supersobes]

@rookie31st Thanks! Those figure feel a whole lot more realistic than getting $75.00/mile - $100.00/mile for every load. If you receive no fines and no damage to your load or truck, fuel expenses will be your only expenses (assuming that you have no active bank loans). Earning $1K/day should cover the fuel, and you should come out with at least some profit. Having more realistic pay also gives more incentive to follow traffic laws and avoid damaging your truck because it will result in financial loss, just like it would in real-life.

[rookie31st]

Enjoy! However keep in mind that your drivers will be giving you less profit as well, but their maintenance and fuel cost in case they are not able to find a job would still be at game's default level, so they will probably show overall losses over time unless you adjust AI driver parameters in economy_data.sii within /def folder

SCS Software, I understand this is just a game and I am not asking to hit players with financial hardship. We can have adjustable expenses just like income. What about g_expense_factor? We just need those expenses coded so they could be adjusted to provide either enjoyable worry-free gameplay or realistic financial environment where every dollar would count