Texas Discussion Thread

[Tristman]

Here's something I've wanted to ask Annie: the gas stations before 1.45 were literal parodies. Why did they change? We can still easily see Driverse as a Pilot, but Phoenix being a Love's is just indistinguishable. And Buc-ee's?

She explained it before:
viewtopic.php?p=1711829#p1711829

[AlexxxF1]

not against new companies, just suggesting a more realistic look at things.
every company needs people. and the bigger the company, the more people it needs. it also works in reverse, the more people works , the bigger and more important this companies. more different companies.

When more people live in one densely populated state, and they all work and earn money somewhere, then there are more companies in this state or these companies are much larger than in states with a small population, in sparsely populated state.
without people, you cannot make a company big or open many new companies.

If each time cite the last 8 states with 34 new companies for ATS as an example vs 33 new companies in Baltics.....well, the last 8 states have only 23.5 million people.
In the same Iberia, we received only 20 new companies where 57.5 million people live. and we could get a lot more new companies. So ETS2 is just as deprived as ATS) especially judging by the release of new trucks for example , 6 vs 2, over the past 3 years).

I mean, if there are 335 million people in the USA, and only 23.5 million in 8 West states, then it is clear to me that the bulk of the people and the bulk of the enterprises are located in the eastern part of the USA, which we have not reached yet. Except for financial and commercial centers, tourism or the service sector, then the diversity of companies, in my opinion, will begin precisely with the addition of the central and eastern states, where most people live.

Perhaps this map will help to diversify and understand how the main companies are located, their main directions and what I mean.
how the US economy works. ( enlarge by clicking on it ).

[ external image ]

[Beardwing]

Definitely excited for Texas but I have no gripes if they wanna take their time getting it polished for release. As beautiful as Montana is it feels a lot more linear to me than many of the other states in terms of roadways. I completely understand that it's meant to simulate the state's vastness vs it's population, however. But much of Texas' driving experience comes from its farm-to-markets and expressways, not just it's highways. There's no arguing that it's a hauling simulator more than it is just a driving sim, but I'd love to see more optional or side routes than Montana offers without racking up a bunch of extra in-game hours deviating from the designated path. I'm also keeping my fingers crossed for a holiday release. Do we know if the Montana team has already started on the next state or are they refining what we already have for now?

[Trakaplex]

I don't think farm-to-market roads have been confirmed to be in ATS yet, they yet have very small status. For example, there is no sign of FM 1013 at Hillister being signed in the photograph. But there are lots of FM routes that could make it such as 1709, 1187, 1764, and 1960 due to how busy they are. But it's overall 1:20, there have been lots of people asking for TX-130, due to its ridiculous speed limit, but there is no practical use for ATS since people can just take I-35/US-290 or whatever. Maybe one suggestion is that they could make the scenic FM/RM roads hidden.

[Optional Features]

It will be interesting to see if Texas has any company prefabs from original California. I believe one of the farm companies in Montana is that old, and it's kinda annoying, especially as I drive by farm after farm with closed gates.

[oldmanclippy]

@AlexxxF1 The number of people has little to no bearing on the number of companies in any given industry, state, or region. Each state, industry, and region has different circumstances that will lead to different distributions of companies.

Different governmental policies, geographical realities, and long-established trends can impact how consolidated or competitive a given industry is in any part of the country. Legal monopolies/duopolies can be granted, increased regulation makes it harder for smaller businesses to survive, price controls make it easier or harder to enter a market, the distribution of towns and roads impacts logistical challenges that determine how easy it is for a company to spread across a region, some industries have been controlled by big players for a long time so it's harder for small players to get started, etc etc.

There is so, so, so much more to determining how many companies should come than just "where do most of the people live". Maybe in a country like Belarus that is more geographically homogeneous with a semi-planned economy it is more straightforward, but in other countries like the US there are so many variables and factors that determine these things that it makes any oversimplification an exercise in futility.

And that map is very misleading for this particular topic. In each and every county on the map, we can't see the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc largest industries. There are some industries that exist all over, and more relevantly some unique industries that wouldn't necessarily be the largest industry in their region.

[Beardwing]

I don't think farm-to-market roads have been confirmed to be in ATS yet, they yet have very small status. For example, there is no sign of FM 1013 at Hillister being signed in the photograph. But there are lots of FM routes that could make it such as 1709, 1187, 1764, and 1960 due to how busy they are. But it's overall 1:20, there have been lots of people asking for TX-130, due to its ridiculous speed limit, but there is no practical use for ATS since people can just take I-35/US-290 or whatever. Maybe one suggestion is that they could make the scenic FM/RM roads hidden.

Aye, you make a great point. I don't wanna suggest more work for the devs just for the heck of it, which that would essentially be, especially with expressways since they'd pretty much be doubling their workload for aesthetics. FMs are an enjoyable experience for the scenery alone, if not frustrating since most are two lanes and you're stuck behind slow movers for miles. We already have roads like that in game already so I'm sure they'll sprinkle a few in Texas, just not with as much emphasis.

[flight50]

I am with @VTXcnME on a new wind power company for Texas for 3 main reasons. 1) Texas, as stated is the largest producer of it in the US, 2) Texas starts a new region and 3) Texas has the size to actually support 2 companies for wind. Why hasve just one. Wind farms are remote to cities and one thing Texas has if lots of empty space for SCS to play with

Not only could we get this industry thru out the state but if you look at ports on Google Maps, there are ships that haul this stuff. We are missing the rotor as one piece. It should be hauled separate, not attached to the generator. Then we don't have the blades. Obviously full size is tooooo long for ATS but I think a 70% length one works for ATS. The tower sections we do have is way undersized. So the industry could definitely use some improvements in ATS. You can see the sizes of these parts more accurately here. Scroll to the very bottom of this link viewtopic.php?p=1256873#p1256873. If SCS can fix the sizes of the tower parts and the generator cargo that would be great. They should all be oversized and currently they are not. Somethings need to be scaled up and somethings need to be made like a separate rotor and the blades. Then we have the crane to assemble the towers that could be cargo. The boom arm, the tracks and the cab. That is 3 parts right there.

@AlexxxF1 That is a very nice chart you posted. I'm gonna have to use it against ya though, lol. That chart is the exact reason why I keep saying Texas needs so many new companies. When you look at Texas, you almost see every single color represented per your graph. That is why 10-12 new companies doesn't really work for Texas like it can for other ATS dlc's imho. There's a lot of companies that can bring more diversity to this dlc so that is why some of us keep comparing ATS to ETS2 number of companies per dlc. 15+ for Texas would be nice. When ETS2 host 19, 22 or even 33 companies......I don't think asking for at least 15 new ones for Texas is too bad.

Heck there's like 5-6 current companies that can get rebranded as is. Its better to use a new prefab but rebranding works. Orrrr rebrand and add to some prefabs. Sunshine Crops, Deepgrove, Vitas Power, Butimen, Plaster & Sons, Olthon Homes, Bushnell Farms, Chemso, Coastline Mining, Fish Tale Foods, Global Mills, HMS Machinery, Rail Export, Sell Goods, Sea Horizon, Waldens......all those are generic enough to get rebranded at least once in Texas. That's 16 new companies the easy way. Well at least for the asset team. Annie and Petr would have to do quite a bit. Sorry Annie .

[Tristman]

Are there also wind turbine factories in Texas? Like the one in Pueblo, Colorado? Would be cool to see another one of those.

And what about solar power? Is that in Texas at all?

[SCS_Annie]

Here's something I've wanted to ask Annie: the gas stations before 1.45 were literal parodies. Why did they change? We can still easily see Driverse as a Pilot, but Phoenix being a Love's is just indistinguishable. And Buc-ee's?

Potential legal issues. And since the models were outdated and we planned to, yes, add more gas stations in the future, we had to address the problematic ones first.
As for the similarities, our approach in general was, more or less stick to the colors so the gas stations feel familiar to the players, but create entirely NEW companies with their own identity. Phoenix just happens to be more "unique", I guess.
Each one of the new truck stops/gas stations even has new posters and billboards and even more will be added later! We want them to feel like they're a part of the world, and not just something random.

Here's a little bonus, since the in-game texture resolution for the posters has to be pretty low: here's a higher res of some of the posters