Should SCS have a dedicated cargo team???

[Optional Features]

^Agreed. Which is why the pool of cargo ideas seriousmods mentioned before works well. Not only does a pool of cargo work well if we can pick and choose what and how to load trailers ourselves with some type of interactive setup, but it brings the most important part about hauling cargo.....weight. We should be able to overload, do less than load and max out a trailer if we choose. This makes the weigh stations and scales a part of the game now. To go deeper, now inspection stations and other check points come into play. The end of this, now prechecks and brake checks come into play. To build on that....now introduce brake fade as part of maintenance to make the brake check areas worth it.

Its seems like we might be getting somewhere with tire grip now. All the above plays into the favor of controlling weight. What I'd like to see is that pool of cargo get pulled into a mini pool. Each industry should have a mini pool. Example lets say the lumber industry. If there is like 20 cargoes all pertaining to Lumber under this mini pool, there are (x) amount of trailers that apply. So if there are 20 different cargoes for the Lumber industry and like 3-4 companies belonging to the Lumber industry, each depot could offer 3-5 cargoes that you can haul to or from another designation. That 3-5 cargoes that you can haul is dependent on the trailer you are attached to and that is what shows up on your job list. Currently, we have to attach a trailer to see the available loads first. What should happen is we see all the depots that we can haul for. But if there is a mini pool, there should already be options available for the trailer you have attached. Change trailers and another selection of cargo is available. I'm sure Cargo Market already works like this but it can be setup a bit differently so that people don't have to disconnect use another trailer just to take a load.

Someone mentioned a great idea some time ago. It was to see all the cargo in the game but only highlight the ones you can take based on the trailer you have attached. The rest is greyed out. I'm taking it a step further with a filter to sort by industry. So lets use the above situation with the Lumber industry again. You take those same 20 cargoes and populate them in the job menu. Based on the cargo that you can haul in that industry, you can only haul only so many with the current attached trailer. Whatever is highlighted, that is what applies to your trailer. But the ones you can not haul (unless you change trailers) is greyed out. This works very well and shows the entire mini pool of cargo...if you sort by industry. If not, you have a ton more pages to go thru. Kind of like Freight Market unless you sort. Its also a great way to see the entire library for the game or per industry. There could be 500+ cargoes in the game but you only see ones available to haul with your current trailer by the way you sort.

So the more overall cargo added to the man pool, that allows more cargo to get added to the mini pool of cargo.

I agree 99%. We should have an option to try to haul anything with any trailer. People haul hay, grain, and potatoes in vans. Theoretically (with a tank or ibc pallets), it's possible to haul chemicals on a flatbed. And there are special "containers" to haul lumber on a container chassis.

I, as a player, should be able to make smart or stupid decisions regarding my cargo. If I want to try to haul a 53 foot trailer's worth of lumber in a 28 foot van, I should be able to try. Maybe I have to make several trips, lease a flatbed (leasing and rental should be part of the game), or hire someone to haul part of the load for me (another option we need), but I don't want SCS deciding how I should play.

I feel increasingly that this is one of the worst features of the game. We cannot make mistakes; therefore, success/victory isn't sweet.

So yes on the cargo pool, weigh stations, and load variety, but no on grayed out loads. I want to be able to haul loads in multiple trips or have to spec my truck and trailer properly to legally haul what I want to haul. And that should be up to me, not the devs.

The cargo pool should represent SCS leaving hauling decisions up to us, and letting us challenge ourselves to do it well.

I know if presented with a trailer's worth of mixed cargo, most of us will probably find different ways to haul it. And if we scale properly, all of those ways are acceptable. And if we don't or it's too much for the trailer, that's fine too. Lesson learned: plan better next time.

[flight50]

I'd rather see loading our trailers than something like get out the truck to go into the store to eat. If we are going to get out the truck, its needs to stay truck related. Prechecks, fuel and maybe open trailer doors to dock. We need a lot more core stuff before going off to none core things at this point. The least that can happing is loading animations though. I'm fine with showing cutscenes of us getting loaded and unloaded. That too is still as step in the right direction.

[Optional Features]

I'd rather see loading our trailers than something like get out the truck to go into the store to eat. If we are going to get out the truck, its needs to stay truck related. Prechecks, fuel and maybe open trailer doors to dock. We need a lot more core stuff before going off to none core things at this point. The least that can happing is loading animations though. I'm fine with showing cutscenes of us getting loaded and unloaded. That too is still as step in the right direction.

SCS will never give us an option to eat, but if they disconnect the player from the vehicle and don't limit everything, some modder might.

But the cargo system rework could happen without walk mode: all we need is a screen for it (like the store) that pops up when we are parked within the trigger.

[HagenXXV]

since the Dropdeck trailers have already arrived, it would be good to add this baby as a loading option, don't you think so?

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[Optional Features]

If they just took all the stuff on the ground and put it on trailers, the cargo pool would increase by probably 50x instantly.

Just in that pic are four loads we don't have: sheet steel, steel rebar, dunnage, and the telehandler.

[flight50]

I can agree with that. Every prop in the game should be cargo imho. If its on a prefab on the ground somewhere, a truck probably delivered it. Or it parachuted in from the sky .


From the Montana landscape blog, all this can be flat bed loads. Full loads, partial loads, one product, multiple products.....a lot of variety here.

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[VTXcnME]

Flat bed loads of the top off my head (that already exist in game):
Concrete blocks, Roof trusses (depending on size, I've made a new escorted load here too), roofing shingles (change the labels on the fertilizer bags, and that'd be close), Coiled pipe.

Drop deck trailers could use the same, plus add telehandler vehicles.

Those things literally add next to no additional coding/3d modeling. They already exist. I don't know how many times I've hauled to a construction site and thought "Why can't I haul that?" looking at blocks/bricks/rebar/plates.

One thing I didn't see mentioned, maybe it was: Flat deck trailers also haul other flat deck trailers. I don't know how many times I've seen a flat deck with others flipped and lashed down on one. Either as a transport between carriers, or new delivery.

As far as cargo loading, how hard would it be to replace the black screen and load bar with a few cut scenes loading a flat bed? Using prefabs, I can't see that being super difficult. If you broke the trailer into thirds or quarters (I'm thinking like Snowrunner/Mudrunner here, where some prefab cargos are 1 block of space, some prefabs are 2 blocks. Some take all 4). SCS could add definitions to different prefab cargos. Say a load of pipes is 2 units of the trailer (or 4 if it's the big full sized tubes), coiled pipe/tube is 1 unit of the trailer. Pallet cargo is 1 unit. Roof trusses come in two sizes 4 slot (regular) and 5 slot (oversized, requiring escort). So on and so forth. Now you mark out on the trailers slots for cargo: 53ft has 5 slots. 48 ft 4 slots. 45ft 4 slots. 32ft has 3 slots. 28ft only has 2. Something like that or similar. Maybe the 45 ft and 48ft trailers (both 4 slot) have different handling physics or it's a matter of preference on maneuverability. Maybe it's not load balancing, but it'd be a start.

Using my above idea: Imagine if the pick up site has two pipes and a three roofing shingles going from their business to the home improvement store. Let's say you need 7 total trailer slots for the cargo. Now you either make two trips (under a deadline like now), you have a friend help you (convoy mode), or you need to buy/set up a tandem trailer to haul it all at once. Like the heavy haul, add a message if it's over a certain GVWR, "You need a heavy haul set up" kind of message we have now for heavy special transports. I think the point is, there's a lot of variety and addition that could be made to improve the product. Everyone here has contributed a lot of good ideas. I hope that SCS reads thru some of this and takes some of this advice at some point.

[flight50]

@VTXcnME I have several of what you have stated in the ATS flatbed thread in my signature. So yes hopefully Cargo Market can take that next step and have a slot system.

Trusses
Plastic Piping
Metal Piping
Stacked Trailers
Bagged product
Landscaping supplies


There are a ton of cargo ideas posted on this forum. The way I imagine things, I bet I could go thru the whole ATS side and find 200-300 feasible cargoes posted. Of those 200-300, I bet there an be 400-1200 combinations of cargoes. That is enough to employ a dedicated cargo team imho. That ensures that we don't keep getting such repetitiveness. If it too much work for core, heck that's why I advocate industry cargo packs as dlc's. That why I categorized the things I posted on the ATS flatbed thread. Each of those could be dlc's. That's like a dozen cargo packs for just flatbed, sliding tarps, step decks, lowboys, curtain siders and double step decks right there.

[VTXcnME]

Even picking 100 of the ideas.... With 4 or 5 slots on a flat bed or step deck trailer.... that's a TON of possible combinations. If I'm doing my math right, and admittedly Combination/Permutation math isn't my strong suit at all. 5 nodes with 100 choices for each node: 75,287,520 different combinations or 91,962,520 total combinations (with repetitions on the first few nodes)

Again... someone might wanna check that who's better at combination/permutation math.... but 100 different cargo types that could be slotted into nodes.... you'd never haul the same exact cargo twice. 75 million combinations. Not too bad. With 50 different cargos you'd still have over 2 million combinations, I doubt anyone (maybe a VERY select few) would hit *every* possible combination.

I used this method, which may or may not be correct:
To calculate combinations use the formula nCr = n / r * (n - r), where n represents the total number of items, and r represents the number of items being chosen at a time.

With 100 different cargo types
5 node trailer: 75,287,520 combinations
4 node trailer: 3,921,225 combinations
3 node trailer: 161,700 combinations


With 50 different cargo types:
5 node trailer: 2,118,760 combinations
4 node trailer: 230,300 combinations
3 node trailer: 19,600 combinations

So assuming my math is correct... which might be a tall order, it's been a few years since I was in college and needed to do this kind of math equation. If it's correct, 50 "best of the best" cargos on a 3 slot trailer gives you a very solid number of combinations. I'd be hard pressed to think many folks would get to see every possible combination. Honestly even if you did, you couldn't remember them all !

[Optional Features]

Cargo is such a low hanging fruit, and would do so much for this game. Not sure why it gets so little attention.