Kansas Discussion Thread

[Tristman]

Fairfax has a GM assembly plant, which would make for a nice expansion of the automotive industry.

[PGTransport]

KANSAS Store Page is up on Steam !! Add it to your Wishlist.

[flight50]

The toughest part about getting something in the inner city is access to it. The huge cities in the US all have interstates running thru the core of the cities. Some have rings around them as well. We can't get off ramps to the vast major of them at 1:20 scale and expect a decent size town center. We can get on/off ramps outside of cities though and then get surface streets that take us into the city. Then lies the problem of how much of the city can we access. 1-2 road leading into the city along with only a few city blocks might work for some of the larger cities if we are to get depots in them. Midsize and smaller cities, we can already access town centers. Start with depots in the smaller cities first to establish how it works before trying to figure out how they work in larger cities. The more east we go, the more compact cities get. Chicago is one I've seen videos on in which trucker make deliveries. But there are many midsize cities that can offer them sooner in ATS.

If we ever get multi drop (LTL), that should bring a few inner city depots......small or large. So restrict freight market trailer length. Now owned trailers, different story. Players decide what they are willing to challenge themselves with if they haul their own trailers. We shouldn't get more than 2-3 accessible blocks though for large cities. That takes up a lot of space and the East gets to compact and dense. Real estate because a bit tighter as we can't have cities stack on top of cities.

I see up to about 8-10 marked cities in Kansas as options. More than that and its gets too crowded with marked cities. I-70 could be similar to I-80 in Wyoming. So cities hopefully are proportionate with 1:20 scale based on previous dlc city size that are similar. If we an get Salina, KS marked, I'd really like the chances of getting I-135 and I-335 in the game. Salina and Topeka should both connect to I-35. With all the space in Southeastern Kansas, I-35 can slide South to have a bit more space for I-335. Push Emporia South some to create space. Cheat Topeka a tad West about 5-10 miles. Lawrence can make the game as scenic and even get a remote depot or 2 there. We need exit 202 with the roundabout to access N Iowa St. That brings 4-5 options to choose from for depots there. So if KC gets split up, add Lawrence depots to the Kansas side. There is Del Monte (big name food plant for fruits & vegetable (make a new company brand though)), Berry Global would be cool to get packaging for food and beverages. There's paper, plastic, glass and alumimium that can be cargo for packaging facilities. We don't have a packaging materials depot of these yet. Lawrence Paper Company is a legit option. Use Page & Price Paper but change give us a new company name. Then there is Sterling Boiler & Mechanical. Oklahoma is bringing an appliance depot and this could work for boilers and hvac cargo as well. It gets us cargo equipment to haul to industrial depots and we have plenty of those and even more to come.

If we get exit 202, SCS could tie in US-59 nicely in Lawrence. This is another reason to pull Emporia South so that US-59 fits between I-70 and I-35. Between US-75, US-59 and US-69, can all 3 continue and run North to South to and from Texas? Topeka has US-75, Lawrence has US-59 and then Kansas City will have US-69 running thru it. With so much greenery in the GPs with all the trees, I'm really hoping a lot of compact/dense area can be a new normal. Tree tunnels are much easier for SCS to deal with than mountainous terrains, so expect lots of ETS2 like roads. Tree tunnel roads is a good trade off from beautiful rock formation roads for dense woods and backroads.

[flight50]

@Tristman That GM Plant would be sweet. If US-69 runs thru Kansas City, KS, sure why not. It could be the only depot in that area due to scale though with the Missouri River being there. I-635 more than likely doesn't make it in so US-69 is the best way to get to that plant. I-70 is squirrelly enough running thru KC. So US-69 gives us access. It also gives us access to KS-32 which is a nice industrial area. It has like 4-5 places as options right next to the truck stops that we'll need. If we an every get Parcel Mail as an industry, there's USPS there, Wholesale Groceries distributers, Chemical company, Rail depot for cars and a huge place that sales building materials in Beacon Building Products. Kansas City could be a pretty cool city if we can get about 10 depots for it by the time all of KC is in.

@PGTransport Your about 17 hrs late on the Kansas news my friend. The blog link was posted about 4 pages ago.

[Xaagon]

I think I-135 & I-335 should get into ATS as they both are important connectors to Wichita.

Lawrence is a good question. It's big by Kansas standards, but will there be room? I kind of like the idea of putting KS-10 in. When I traveled through this area I always left I-70 near Lawrence and took KS-10 to avoid tolls and get a highway that goes directly to the I-435 loop around the south side of KC.

[Trakaplex]

I think I-135 & I-335 should get into ATS as they both are important connectors to Wichita.

Lawrence is a good question. It's big by Kansas standards, but will there be room? I kind of like the idea of putting KS-10 in. When I traveled through this area I always left I-70 near Lawrence and took KS-10 to avoid tolls and get a highway that goes directly to the I-435 loop around the south side of KC.

They could cheat Topeka by pushing it more west like they did for Olympia-Tacoma-Seattle. That would create enough space for Lawrence. It's a small city and I honestly don't want any of those omissions anymore in game. I don't think KS-10 would be all the way to I-435 due to space issues.

[Shiva]

Oh yikes, Lawrence is in a bad spot.

[flight50]

Lawrence could get the Laurel, MT treatment. Davido's team squeezed that one in and no one saw that coming. If Topeka does slide West, that only really effects I-35. Instead of being more like 45 deg, it would be more like 55-60 deg up to Emporia and then East of Emporia does whatever it needs to do. There's just a lot of space between Salina and Topeka to play with and the only thing on that stretch of road will be all scenic anyways.

If Lawrence is marked though, it can easily get 3-4 depots and that then means Kansas City, KS can add stuff that is actually in KC. KS-10 wouldn't be too bad of an idea though. As curvy as that road is, it just might squeeze in if Topeka goes West enough. US-59 @ KS-10 junction, US-59 @ W 6th St, I-70 @ exit 202 or even exit 204 can be all we need in Lawrence to bring industry. I'd like to see Lawrence look something like this:

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Pretty simple road infrastructure. Just depends on how and where they can squeeze in the junctions. We only need one of the 2 off I-70. Exit 204 (the East one) might be easier so that SCS has space to get in North Iowa St to get to industry North of I-70. Industry around the KS-10 junction, there's lots of retail options there. The most important depot to add to Kansas is Menards. Its the Home Depot competitor in the MidWest. It would be a great time to add that parody as an alternate to Home Store. Menards would be a miss depot imho for the entire MidWest. They are literally everywhere. We have plenty of Walmart and Home Depots in ATS. It would be great to get some fresh retailers in ATS with the West. Texas didn't do it and not telling what Oklahoma does but fresh blood will be a nice heartbeat for the MidWest. There is also a Target in this same area. So Menards and Target would be great options to make Kansas feel different. We shouldn't have to depend on Kansas agriculture alone. Make some retail changes for Kansas. Both are off W31st street on opposite sides of US-59. So that spreads them out to fill up space. If SCS is truly going to focus on ICCs, it would be a great time start introducing new retailer to ATS. We haven't really gotten it since Home Store was added and that was with Oregon which was 2018. Its now 2023 and we still pretty much have the same retail chains. We need new bloodlines on the retail side as well. Texas added a lot of alternates but only Pickit was added for retail.

2 depots to the South and 2 on the North can make Lawrence worth the add as a marked city. KS-10 links Lawrence with US-59 and US-69 nicely. I-35 has a lot of wiggle room from Emporia to play with to get all this fit.

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[interstate trav]

This is exciting.

I don’t get why people think these states will be bundled. I think as we move further there are also more routes, the west has Mountains and when you get past the Mountains it’s more highways.

Kansas will most likely have quite a few different routes.
Not long ago it feels like we only had a few states and it limited where to drive and all and now where getting to the Center of the Country. Kansas.

[oldmanclippy]

I was in Madison this weekend so I missed this announcement. I've never been to Kansas IRL but we are creeping closer and closer to states that I have been to. Pic 2 with those rolling wide open plains is awesome. Very very exciting time in ATS.

I think US-40/US-500 is a better fit for Pic 1.

As for Pittsburg, yeah it definitely looks to be marked since we're getting into town. I think that could be a hint about how far east I-35 and I-70 will go. It might be a while before we get any confirmation about that though.