A 1:1 Map Scale Is Feasible, But Not Manually

[oldmanclippy]

I would love a 1:1 city as an experiment. If SCS were able to solve their view distance and CPU utilization issues, then a 1:1 Amsterdam or Boston could be really interesting.

I've said it before, but I don't think SCS needs to be beholden to just making 1:19/1:20 map expansions for ETS2/ATS forever. They could make addons within the game that either include 1:1 cities, special challenge roads like Extreme Trucker, etc. Make them as DLCs so they can still use the truck/trailer licenses, but just have them be accessed through the launcher. That could be an option particularly for ETS2 if they don't decide to venture into North Africa or Asia.

[KeganMinecraft]

Disclaimer: this is just a speculation.

One of the negatives and controversies of both games is that we know they are in 1:20 map scale. ATS used to be in 1:35 and in December 2016 they rescaled it to fit that of ETS2. But ever since then, in both games, there are still complaints every now and then of “missing towns”. A trucker was like, “where’s Mesquite? That’s near the Virgin River Gorge. It’s not modeled in this game,” or “I’m scared my hometown won’t be in there”. We see many of these issues, even in ATS. Colorado Springs to Denver is really condensed. A Utahan replied, “that’s not how it is in real life. Ogden is not one exit from Salt Lake. It’s a good thirty-minute drive.” People from those areas will relate with the game better. Terrain is other such obstacle, usually when it’s mountainous. And the map scale is why there is so much speculation for Texas. You also have small towns the same size of some portions of metro areas. With the omission of certain roads, doesn’t accurately simulate certain trucking routes, etc. That creates big arguments of what to fit in. Now in ETS2, it isn’t as bad, but there plenty of places that still didn’t make it.
Now we have people here on the forum asking for 1:10. But even that might not be good for them as well when their town is still missing.

1:1?

A 1:1 scale map for the world is possible but won’t be a good idea.
Of course, 1:1 is too large and tedious to build manually for a small developing team like SCS. There was a Minecraft project created in 2020 with the same theme and it barely has 100,000 buildings done. The idea of scrimmaging everything on Earth to build an in-game copy, would theoretically be impossible. For example, the amount of devs building Texas in 1:20 are about 30 (as said by Pavel), and it’s still taking over three years. To build a 1:1 scale Texas in the same timeframe, that would be about 600 to 1000 people (or more).

Only there is a game in 1:1. MFS2020. The map wasn’t built manually either. It, if I recall, was used by aerial imagery. But that game has lots of problems, such as dysfunctional buildings, bad AI. This makes up 75% of the game’s complaints. So theoretically, if we combine MFS2020 and Truck Simulator, would we get a 1:1 scale world driving map?

This has been my question for the last year, and I am glad for you all to answer it. One thing we might know, is that the imagery would need to have a MUCH higher resolution. But overall, I still enjoy 1:20 due to convenience and to see how much work SCS has put into their maps. And this is the prime reason why certain buildings don’t show up in MFS, because it’s automated.

That Minecraft project you are referring to i am apart of and with thousands of builders in total that contributed to the project, and it is still a hassle definitely not happening unless we have a better way of mapping the earth

[TheAmir259]

Possibility you ask? 1:1? It is possible, if you ask me, although they first need to get rid of their current mapmaking software, and use a heightmap-based one, preferably ones that utilize DEM datas, not just a map overlay and guesses or whatnot. And then comes the next daunting task of placing in all the decorations and stuffs, basically their gameworld would be different from how it is right now. Of course i haven't talked about how resource intensive this would be on one's PC, especially when we want the whole of Europe (for ETS2) or the whole of USA at least (for ATS).

[Axel Slingerland]

I look at it like this... If you want to try, go for it. It's your life and you can do whatever gets your motor running. But is a 1:1 world map practical? No, not by a long shot.

[angrybirdseller]

1:1 scale in MSFS 2020 does not impress me as it auto-generated. Just something nice with hand crafted map ATS and ETS2 even with its flaws is nicer than auto generated map you can see creativity and distinctiveness in creating little world.

[Axel Slingerland]

I know it's odd to rebut your own post, but IF you were to make a base map some of the areas of whatever you want to start with and then make the rest as addon mods, kind of like SCS did with their maps and DLCs and ProMods, I suppose it would work. Because with ProMods 2.33 added to ETS2 1.34, it runs great.

[Trakaplex]

I forgot about SpaceEngine. It's a 1:1 observable universe sandbox only made by one person. Much of the uncharted regions are autogenerated with 1:1 solar systems and planets. That would be about 291 billion light years squared. 2.6046074892e+37 (26 undecillion) square km. And it's only 4 GB.

I do believe a 1:1 autogenerated world map like MSFS is doable by SCS. Problems though as mentioned above, it would lack a bit of flavor. They could use Google Maps to identify the streets and add the AI. Use Street View to capture underneath bridges and other buildings, and live traffic lights.

[xXCARL1992Xx]

what do you do with countreis that dont have Streetview ?

also, the MSFS map is not even on your computer, it is stored on servers where you download chuncks from, the whole "map" is over 2PB in size and that with the quality we know from MSFS where the ground outside of airports isnt really important

[Trakaplex]

what do you do with countreis that dont have Streetview ?

also, the MSFS map is not even on your computer, it is stored on servers where you download chuncks from, the whole "map" is over 2PB in size and that with the quality we know from MSFS where the ground outside of airports isnt really important

Many countries that don't have street view filmed by Google are filmed by independent motorists and uploaded on Google. Examples are Germany and Cuba. China could be included if that happens. We won't have to make every road accessible. For areas like Alaska that have nothing at all, there could be backdrops. But I'm sure a downloadable map could only be a few GB if SCS decides to diminish the byte rate and wise storage.

[xXCARL1992Xx]

no, it wouldnt be "a few GB" and MSFS already showed it, and ETS/ATS arent even graphically that demanding yet, you can download maps in a cache, but then you are stuck with this cached map or you have to constantly stream it, which is also not an option because of the server network you need for this to make it playable around the world