Montana Discussion Thread

Quark
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Re: Montana Discussion Thread

#4071 Post by Quark » 29 Sep 2022 13:05

Some good points, thx for the reply. And sorry for calling you "Tristam" in one of my posts further up lol
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Re: Montana Discussion Thread

#4072 Post by oldmanclippy » 29 Sep 2022 14:23

Barebones is a good way to describe Helena. It just seems like the bare minimum attention was paid to it. There's a ton of varied industry between the airport and US-12 and they chose to do 3 Wallberts, a Western Star dealer, and a Plaster and Sons. Which by the way there's also another Plaster and Sons on the other side of I-15 :P Throw in the Tidbit, and there's 4 companies for 7 depots, one of which doubles as a truck dealer.

They could have added a Steeler/Avalanche Steel, USBB, Gallon, SellGoods, NAMIQ, MWM, Home Store, Faraday, HMS, Page & Price, Heartwood, Johnson and Smith, Darwing, Voltison/Drake/DeMuro, and many more.

Instead, they chose to make 5 of the 7 depots belong to the 2 most overused companies. Literally. Wallbert has 125 depots, Plaster and Sons has 75 depots, and the next most overused has 50 depots. Helena is a microcosm of everything wrong with SCS's approach to the economy in ATS. So maybe it's not the "worst" city since New Mexico in terms of overall objective quality, but it certainly is the most indicative of the wider issues that ATS has. It's kind of the straw that broke the camel's back for me in terms of, it's very clear that SCS doesn't care very much about company and industry diversity. Hopefully Texas will come in and fix everything and while I believe Annie when she hinted that we'll be happy with the companies in Texas, I am afraid it will be too little too late. But we'll have to wait and see.
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flight50
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Re: Montana Discussion Thread

#4073 Post by flight50 » 29 Sep 2022 15:01

^Ditto..........to a degree. With the way SCS has the ability to rework, its never too late. If SCS wanted to, they could go back and replace 50% of all the over used companies in the game now and give us new companies. That is really the only way to stop the bleeding and fix it. Will they, we have no clue. I wish they see it like we do. What will Texas do, we don't know but it has to do 2-3 times more than what Montana did but I don't think it will.

I'm really hoping to be wrong here but I see the better chance at a flood of companies coming after Texas releases. Smaller states and the team can break up more. With states that have few big cities and less industry than Texas, after Texas is the time to take advantage and add the flood of new companies. Add them and then go back and start replacing a lot of the over used companies. This is where the flood of national and regional companies play into the favor of ATS. Believe it or not, national companies should be a lot easier to implement in ATS that ETS2 getting so many new companies. ATS could get 40-50 new national companies tomorrow and 25-30 new regional companies per new region and ATS would pretty much be set. All that would need to come at that point are the one offs and state specific companies. ATS can be easy to deal with if the asset team paused and took time to develop a ton of new prefabs and companies.

Pausing for the rescale was very impactful. I see addressing ICC'S just as impactful if they add a flood of companies. They can even be implemented over the course of a year or 2 but make them so that diversity comes.
Last edited by flight50 on 29 Sep 2022 16:44, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Montana Discussion Thread

#4074 Post by Trakaplex » 29 Sep 2022 16:30

Tristman wrote: 29 Sep 2022 06:24 I think people complain less about the lack of CO-14 because with US-34 in place, there is no opportunity for it anymore. I think not connecting US-24 between Colo Springs and Limon was a bad choice though. Some other roads could be added in the future, but are not too important right now.

I personally don’t have an issue with cities in Colorado, we finally got big distribution centers as well, which have been lacking in both Wyoming and Montana. Regarding the worst city, I think Alamosa is one of the better ones. It has an interesting road layout, and even though it’s small, it has distinct districts. Montrose would probably be the “worst” to me, because there’s not much to it. Burlington I also think is not that interesting, but that has the excuse of being a typical Great Plains town.

Cattle auction not coming with Colorado was probably not Patrik’s fault. Maybe they were not yet finished by the asset team or the cattle trailer wasn’t finished by the vehicle team, not much the mappers can do about. But it’s clear the two locations in Colorado were already prepared in advance to have them, they don’t feel like late additions at all.

Regarding Helena, I think the blog post about it was already a sign of things to come. It spoke of “no lack of landmarks”, but in the pictures there wasn’t much to see. Now in-game, you can see the state capitol in the distance and that’s it. The 3 Wallberts is an obvious disappointment, but the main gripe was that in their irl locations, there are other companies thar could have come instead. 2 out of 3 were entirely different businesses irl I believe. It just feels like a very barebones city, and it’s centered around an industrial zone that isn’t really accurate with how it is irl. On top of that, the city is only connected by the interstate north and south. Being the capital city of Montana, that makes it just feel like a miss.
Honestly, CO-14 to Ault made a hole in the map for me. The quality is superb. It's better than any past or current DLC, but they left out quite a few places that many local Coloradoans were complaining about such as Greeley, Boulder, and Vail. They also complained that they left a lot out on the south side of Million Dollar Highway, but also blame scale. Montrose is okay to me, but the problem is that on the south side, there isn't much compared to Ouray. As I said, maybe they could extend US-12 west and that could add more detail. Also, they used a lot of old prefabs in the Helena area. I think all the other cities are way more accurate, but trimmed due to scale, as there could have been more residences and depots in west Billings. I suspect Jackson is my favorite town in ATS so far, because of its stunning detail and it's almost built to 1:1 scale.
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Re: Montana Discussion Thread

#4075 Post by oldmanclippy » 03 Oct 2022 14:35

I "finished" exploring Montana the other night, with the only roads I haven't seen being US-191 from Lewistown to to MT-19 and MT-16 from Glendive to Sidney. Took a job from Havre to Yuma via the entirety of I-15 and will probably spend the time between now and Texas in the 4 corners region.

Here's my favorite things about Montana, since I have spent so much time being critical of it:

- The cities and towns, besides Helena, are at minimum solid and at best fantastic. Butte, Bozeman, Havre, Miles City, and Thompson Falls are probably my favorites. In addition, all the unmarked towns along US-2 in particular are really well done. They're the towns in ATS that, to me, have the most realistic detailing to what you see IRL. They feel right, and that's about the best compliment I can give the vibe of a town.

- US-2, especially from Havre to Glacier National Park, might be my new favorite road in the game, right up there with US-191 through Jackson Hole. The reveal of the mountains coming out of Cut Bank Coulee is perfect as far as I can tell. That moment will be a great payoff after a long stretch of open plains that will only get greater as ND, MN, WI, and MI come.

- The elevation changes seem to have been given special attention in Montana. I-90 in particular has some hills where you have to use the engine brake. Going into and out of river valleys, over passes, etc actually feels like you're following the lay of the land, more so than any DLC besides Colorado. Perhaps even surpassing it in that regard. It's close for sure.

- Most of the roads in the eastern half of the state portend well for the future Great Plains states. Great detailing, wide open, some pretty convincing view distances in some parts, particularly north of US-2 by Chester.

- The hidden road by Thompson Falls is great fun. Would love to see a little challenge road come with every state.

- Of course the Going-to-the-Sun road is fantastic, that's been talked about a lot. Of course I would have traded it for some more roads in the western half of the state but that's separate from its quality.

- Some of the exits off of I-15 in particular are far more realistic than what ATS has given us previously, with long on/off-ramps and a proper climb up to the bridges that cross the interstate. It's hard to explain but they feel much more real and I'd like to see that replicated across the Great Plains which have very similar exits.
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Re: Montana Discussion Thread

#4076 Post by oldmanclippy » 05 Oct 2022 03:56

US-20 is pretty great. Really well done elevation. Slightly bummed that Rexburg isn't there but I don't care too much. Just kind of weird that there's signs for Rexburg but it's demonstrably not there. I wish there was a bit more consistency on that front.

But most important is that it's here. Idaho Falls to Bozeman is possible now, and US-191 south of Bozeman is now valid. Again it's great that it got added so quickly.
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Re: Montana Discussion Thread

#4077 Post by flight50 » 05 Oct 2022 04:16

It might actually make more sense to just remove the signage referencing Rexburg if its not there. Reference WYS and Island Park for more consistency.
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Re: Montana Discussion Thread

#4078 Post by Tristman » 05 Oct 2022 06:03

I believe they do this often though, include towns that aren’t in the game on mileage signs. I think it’s fair they don’t restrict themselves to just towns that are in-game, it would make for empty/unrealistic signs every now and then.
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Re: Montana Discussion Thread

#4079 Post by nautofon » 05 Oct 2022 12:35

It's usually places outside the game world / modelled area though—Safford, AZ for example.

If they inserted a small town along US 20 near where Rexburg would be, perhaps that name should be on the signs? And/or really highlight WYS over Rexburg on signs? Not really sure; haven't jumped into the beta myself yet so don't have an opinion on this specific case here.
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Re: Montana Discussion Thread

#4080 Post by oldmanclippy » 05 Oct 2022 13:38

Yeah it's quite rare for them to reference things on signs that you can drive past where they *should* be. It's usually things like Canadian/Mexican/Future DLC/etc cities.
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