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

[disintegration7x]

^ totally agree! Almost 10 days since the last real ATS blog on March 5th.

They'd have more interesting content to share if they weren't so darn secretive all the time.

[A J K 91]

Now that I've seen the attached video, I realize just how incredibly bad the I-80 is in Nevada. It really can't be rebuilt fast enough. However, I thought the mountains would be higher; they were relatively flat, in my opinion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU6J4FN2kRA

[flight50]

^Really good video. I didn't watch the entire thing but I skip thru it like every 10 mins of driving. TONSSS of mountains along that route. Its critical to nail the mountains. Not much else to see. A few eye catchers but the mountains is what's going to make such a long route thru Nevada enjoyable. Where they are rough and imposing, they need to resemble that and not big round hills like we've been getting in phase 3 and phase 4. This is Nevada's 2nd chance on life so I-80 has a good shot at being impressive thru Nevada. Its a very unique path and it will be an awesome trip if SCS puts the effort into it to make I-80 as immersive as possible.

Route 66 gives me high hopes for I-80 Nevada but I won't hold my breathe. But that video is the perfect example why 2016 I-80 is so bad. Its beyond outdated at this point. I know we'll get a much much better I-80 but I'm looking for a really immersive and more accurate I-80 thru Nevada. Hopefully this includes the fix to the Utah Salt Flats. It can easily gain 40% more Salt Flatts if US-93ALT is fixed and placed where it should be.

[Brendan0620]

Where is that one analogy I made a few years ago about I-80?

The yellow tooth (that is I-80 NV) that sits in between clean teeth (other states that include I-80; like CA, UT, WY, NE, and soon to be IA and IL) needs to be cleaned and the rebuild will do just that.

Oh yeah, there it is.

[flight50]

Yeahhh Illinois makes it even worse. Its a milestone state and pushes us further East. Nevada at this point is definitely the weakest link in the entire game followed by Southern Arizona. My guess is that both should be completely rebuilt by Dec 2027 as the absolute worse case imho. If they can do it sooner, cool. But whenever consoles launches, that is really when the entire base map needs to be rebuilt. So the question is..........when is consoles going to launch. ATS was underwhelming when it released on PC. Numbers fell of drastically because ATS didn't meet expectations. 2 maps at launch basically and 2 trucks....can you blame people. Before 2016 was out ATS has 3 maps and 4 trucks. By then the damage was already done. ATS hasn't seen release day peak players since then. Even worse, its was 1:35 scale at release.

10 years forward.......totally different game......except Nevada and now Southern Arizona. Outside of that, the game's visuals have definitely improved.

[Kistk3]

I know we'll get a much much better I-80 but I'm looking for a really immersive and more accurate I-80 thru Nevada. Hopefully this includes the fix to the Utah Salt Flats. It can easily gain 40% more Salt Flatts if US-93ALT is fixed and placed where it should be.

If I'm right, I saw a while ago a concept map you did on that area of I-80 through Salt Flats if the US-93 is place corrected, I hope they can do that, and make the Salt Flats bit longer. Nevada must have some snow mountains, the state is not only sand and wastelands, its on name bring that ''snowy'' directly translated from spanish

And the rework ''dream'' for the rest of 2026, would be the rest of Arizona be complete, and everything north of US-50 in Nevada be made from scratch, and let 2027 to finish the south area of Nevada, and start do some tweaks here and there in Washington and Oregon when the time British Columbia gets close to be released.

[Brendan0620]

I have doubts about Arizona being completed this year, since there's Phoenix and a whole spur of areas like Tucson and Nogales and so on and so forth. I think it would be "easier" to complete Nevada this year in one go but it will depend on how many mappers are on each project, half/half mappers would be fair but Arizona probably needs more mappers to help with the big areas like the ones I mentioned earlier.

Who knows however, I didn't expect California Rework Phase 4 to release in 2024, so anything is possible.

[Kaleidescoop]

It all depends on when the rework teams started on their respective projects. I think we might see southern Arizona or northern Nevada (or whatever chunk it is) release this year, but I'm not really sure that both could. My feeling is that we might get one rework release with 1.60 or 1.61 in the second half of the year, and then the rest of the base map finished in 2027.

[flight50]

^Agreed. Yep it definitely depends on when and how many are doing whatever reworks they are doing. They are so secretive with ATS reworks that we have no idea what's going on. But I agree that we could get one or the other this year hopefully. When I don't know. All of Nevada in one shot could be just as much work as phase 2 Arizona. I think Arizona will be a bit denser than what we have now. Definitely more detail.

The most ideal for is phase 1 Nevada as the minimum for Nevada. That is US-50 and everything North. Do that for 2026 and it should make it out. But as said...when did they start. We'll then have 2 fully rebuilt corridors to get into California with only 2 left in I-10 and I-8. That's feasible in my book for sure. I've found myself driving a bit more ATS lately with the route 66 updates. California is a lil more connected but it will seriously connect well with a rebuilt I-80 in place now.

[flight50]

If I'm right, I saw a while ago a concept map you did on that area of I-80 through Salt Flats if the US-93 is place corrected, I hope they can do that, and make the Salt Flats bit longer.

Correct. That was over in the public research thread for the Utah reworks. viewtopic.php?p=1561760#p1561760

With as much as SCS can cram into 1:20 scale now.......no reason why US-93 ALT can't go where it needs to go. Make West Wendover scenic. That way it blends into the Salt Flatts better. There's a ton of nothing out there and I don't know how they got so off with that alignment. Wayyyy to much space to not get that right. I'm sure I-80 bleeding over in to Utah is an easy fix. I was hoping we actually got a depot for the Salt Flatts. If they give us that 40% extra Salt Flatts, they can easily add Intrepid Potash and tag it to SLC. We already have potash as cargo iirc.