Texas Discussion Thread

[Tristman]

I’m also expecting an August release for Montana, so the OB will probably go for another month.

Texas I still think is a Christmas release, but it really depends on the pace after Montana.

[Sametbey2]

What do you think of the new car carrier trailers? We need bigger vehicle carriers.

The San Antonio car factory will be the first in ATS. And in California renovations, we're going to get large ports, as well as large warehouses for cars.

[flight50]

@Sametbey2 There are 3 car factories here in Texas. The microsite says car factory, not car factories. At this point, we really don't know which plant we will get so I wouldn't get my hopes up too high on a particular plant. But the car hauler is definitely the trailer now that I see Texas needing with tankers being released with Montana and perhaps even another type of tanker coming later per the 1.45 beta blog.

But if we can get anything like this blog that came for ETS2 in May 2020, I think ATS can have a legit auto industry. I made a post in 2020 based on that ETS2 auto industry blog that I'd love to see come to fruition for ATS. Things are being put in place to support it.

So autoracks should come to ATS as a train car addition, ports for the auto industry, better car hauler, larger car dealership and some other type of manufacturer to support the car industry. We are getting glass with Texas and we already have Voltison for parts. Tires and miscellaneous stuff is left. I'd suspect Tires is a Oklahoma thing though. Michelin and Goodyear are there. I hope SCS negotiated with Goodyear to be licensed in the game. I believe Cooper is in Texarkana but that should be an Arkansas dlc thing there. So I doubt we get that. One thing I'd love to see is a depot for rental fleets though. That gives us 2 car additional lots to deliver to instead of the 3 small depots we have now in Voltison, Drake and DeMuro. It can be a rarer spawn but even these places can have lots the size of a dealership in which they keep new cars available for rent.

[Tristman]

My biggest fear is that they will put the Ford S-Max on any new car hauler, as it appears in ATS traffic and on those ETS2 car carriers, but it was never sold in the US.

We have chances of getting RoRo terminals in Beaumont, Galveston and Houston it seems (according to this: https://www.portsamerica.com/operations ... -auto-roro).
We know that we are getting a very big port in Houston, so maybe they will make it over there?

Tires with Oklahoma is fine by me. I'd say the sooner the better, but I wouldn't be mad with all the industry Texas is seemingly getting.

@flight50 I agree on the rental depots. It's a really big industry in the US, so it would be cool to have a big rental car lot to deliver to next to an airport or something.

[flight50]

RoRo is sweet actually. I'd love that. It gives opportunity to haul agriculture and other equipment to ports and it make sense. Texas has several ports but will they make the game. There are sea ports and intermodal ports. We've seen intermodal on the blog and we have seen shoreline stuff but putting it all together to paint the picture is yet to be seen. But yeahhhhh, that would extend usage for heavy haul for sure. Only if SCS would put all these 3d models laying around the map on trailers to increase the cargo.

For the car hauler update, its needs a whole new inventory. What ever factory SCS is making, how many vehicles will we get. I'd hope for 3-4 trailer combinations of vehicles from that manufacturer. Then new AI models in traffic could come and we can haul those to and from the older dealerships as diversity. If we get rentals.......ohhhh yeah. Now ever late model vehicle in ATS is on the menu. We could have a solid dozen car hauler combinations at that point. Mix it up between half full, full, nearly empty, top loaded, bottom loaded, some with new plastic/covering still on, stickers/tags on windows, trucks, vans, cars.......I don't see what less than 12 different combinations for an auto hauler can't exist.

[Optional Features]

If we had rigid frame support, we could get proper car haulers with three on the truck and eight on the trailer. If only.

[SouthernMan]

@seriousmods And to be honest, that's something I'm really looking forward to in ATS/ETS2. But that, tbh, seems to be something that is very far away.

[flight50]

Dedicated haulers would be nice but it seems like a performance hog imo. I could be wrong. But that is a lot of high quality tube setup. Maybe SCS could cheat and do triangles. The flat face on the outside of the frame and the point on the inner part. Now in cabin view we are good, no frame to see. Outside of cabin is iffy. But outside the cabin, fps is higher due to mirrors not in the equation. The biggest question for dedicated is how to modify the truck chassis. The 5th wheel has to be removed, deck added and add a smaller 5th wheel for car haulers down below the truck frame. Will the license agreement allow this? Its altering the truck but the agreement could be flexible and we don't know the limits.

Whether dedicated or not, a better one is needed. If we got dedicated, the best way to implement it is the head rack as an accessory. That adds the head rack, adds the deck and relocates the fifth wheel all in one operation. Empty, I see it being in the same boat as the lowboys with spreaders and jeeps. When not in use, a new model is hauled. The car hauler collapsed and the low boy hauling its extra components on its main deck in a stacked configuration. Lowboys are easier to stack than it is for a new model to be collapsed unless its all animated.

Honestly, I don't expect a dedicated hauler. So don't get your hopes up too high.

[Optional Features]

@seriousmods And to be honest, that's something I'm really looking forward to in ATS/ETS2. But that, tbh, seems to be something that is very far away.

Yeah, sadly.

Honestly, I don't expect a dedicated hauler. So don't get your hopes up too high.

I wouldn't expect SCS to make a dedicated hauler necessarily either, but I wish the game supported it. That's a common problem: we don't have the background support for a lot of things that are relevant to trucking.

Modders have created the models for a proper car hauler, but it only half works because there is no rigid support.

[Trakaplex]

Montana is definitely no longer than October due to the content. After that Texas could be around December 15th due to the developing content. After Montana releases, Texas blogs will kick in more. 1.46 for Montana and San Jose addition to Cali rework seems plausible. 1.47 for Texas? Hmm.