Texas Discussion Thread

[flight50]

^Agreed. I'd love to reach every corner or Texas. You never know until the dlc is out though. Even with that said, we got both Clifton, Az and Cody, Wy after those states were already in the game. So it can always come later too.

[killingjoke28336]

It could come later. But I guess there won't be that uproar as with Cody. But there is hoping after all. I think the more important roads are in South Utah, really big gap in the map there.

[oldmanclippy]

Presidio would be a cool town to get. Definitely not what I would call integral to the road network, at least until Chihuahua would come. But having Presidio as marked would be the only excuse they could think of to get us close to Big Bend National Park. They could do a loop with US-67, US-385, and the Farm-to-Market, state, and NP roads if they really wanted I think (like I have in my prediction map, not really a prediction more so of a "here's what they would do if they wanted Big Bend"). But there are so, so, so many roads I'd rather them try to fit in in Texas instead. But that would get us some nice scenery for sure.

[flight50]

@oldmanclippy Agreed and wait a minute, lol. When did you do those prediction maps. I remember your Montana one. I like it. Glad you did it along with Oklahoma. Let me analyze this bad boy and get back to you. But yessss I love what you did with Presidio. That fills out that area nicely and we get all corners of Texas filled up. That's pretty close to what I posted back Oct 2020 viewtopic.php?p=1430966#p1430966

[oldmanclippy]

@oldmanclippy Agreed and wait a minute, lol. When did you do those prediction maps. I remember your Montana one. I like it. Glad you did it along with Oklahoma. Let me analyze this bad boy and get back to you. But yessss I love what you did with Presidio. That fills out that area nicely and we get all corners of Texas filled up. That's pretty close to what I posted back Oct 2020 viewtopic.php?p=1430966#p1430966

I just keep them in my signature for curious passersby, I don't really announce them unless a relevant topic comes up like Presidio for example. The Texas/Oklahoma one I feel will look very very very dissimilar from the actual one Too many unknowns and too many screenshots that may or may not suggest the existence of other roads etc to the point where making an entire prediction map is pretty premature at this stage. But I like making them for fun and updating them when new evidence comes in from the blog posts. Over time they converge on the actual map which is neat to see since I hold on to all the versions I make so I can see how they got more accurate as more blogs and game files came out.

And I originally had separate ones for Texas and Oklahoma, but it became a bit of a pain to update the Oklahoma one separately when I came across something that changed my mind about which roads were likely to cross the borders so I just consolidated them. I'll give Oklahoma its own map once we get the Texas map revealed. OK is kind of just in there for fun at the moment. I try to base the Texas one on the evidence we have as much as possible.

I would say everything west of US-183 and north of US-67 is gonna be pretty close when it's all said and done. East Texas is a bit of a cluster so who knows which roads they'll use and which roads will be dead ends like US-287 in Montana. Victoria is crazy because we have screenshots of US-87 and US-77 leaving town to the north so who knows what's gonna happen there. And of course the roads leading to and from Austin and Temple are a tossup. So the map is very much going to be one I can look back on in a year and go "wow that was really wrong"

[Sora]

Presidio would be neat, but to be perfectly blunt, I don't expect it. With how many "necessary" roads Texas has, Presidio is more of a bonus to me - obviously it'd be great if we could have everything, but if we can't, it's the first thing I'd sacrifice.

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One other thing about ATS companies is that America has a lot of... consolidation, I guess you might call it. Whole Foods is currently part of Amazon. Sam's Club is part of Wal-Mart. Cabela's is currently owned by Bass Pro. Albertsons owns a lot of local grocery chains, most notably Safeway. While you can strictly make the argument that both Sam's Club and Wal-Mart should be different companies in ATS, for example, I don't see lumping them together as inherently wrong. If anything, I feel like portraying America as the sort of country where half the market is ultimately owned by a relatively small handful of companies... amuses me.

Of course, it's silly to argue whether or not Whole Foods and Amazon should be distinct when, you know, neither of them are actually in the game. I also agree that we should at least have Costco, Target, and at least one "smaller" grocery chain like Safeway/Albertson's for the western US (and another for Texas, the midwest, etc.). Some of the smaller stores that represent things like Trader Joe's should at least be converted to Tidbit or Eddy's, too.

[flight50]

After looking everything over, not bad. I'd be content with that road layout. The only road that I see missing that I hope makes the game is US-75 from Dallas to McAlester. At least North of town center Dallas to US-70 to a scenic Durant. Then go East or West from there. I like the overall density in both states though. Nicely done. If you got 85% or better accuracy, that would be sweet. Try discovering all that in a weekend, lol. I'm sure someone will but that's rushing thru the map big time.

I have no idea how I will discover Texas. Hard to do it in parts because of its shape and vastness. I think I'll discover all cities along the major interstates first. I wanna see the 6 mega cities asap. Then I'll branch out. First trip will be coming from Helena to Austin. That trip I know for sure. I think I'll take the lonnnng way in though.
I-15 to I-90 to I-25 and go t thru El Paso so that I can stick to interstates only. Then I'll try to knock out the Texas Triangle first.

I wouldn't call those companies consolidation. They are substitutes. They could easily carry the parent company name into other locations but they change the names so its still 2 stores and not one, they don't do less stores. Not if you're saying consolidate in ATS, that's different but we still loose variety. Sam's and Walmart or 2 totally different markets. One is bulk wholesale the other is for regular customer who don't need bulk. Cabela's and Bass Pro can be the same parody thought. But Dicks and Academy would be different.

[parasaurolophus67]

Heh, Thats also my plan! Helena to Austin, Just got to be lucky v:

[harishw8r]

Mine heavily depends on what truck they would launch during the game (if at all), either way it will be from either New Mexico or Arizona.

[hangman005]

@oldmanclippy Quite like that concept and the points @flight50 mentioned aswell. Probably the only change I'd make is shift OK/TX border and make I-40 and US83 the border. East of 83 and North of 40 can come with OK.