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10-4 Good Buddy (American Truck Simulator) Montana released
SmokeStacks
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Do you hear the calling of the long and lonesome highway? There are over four million miles of navigable roads in the United States, and with the help of American Truck Simulator you can explore a small (but growing) number of them.
WHAT IS AMERICAN TRUCK SIMULATOR?
It's a simulator game where you drive a semi truck through the United States, making deliveries, earning money, and investing said money into anything from vehicle upgrades, new trucks, or even hiring drivers to run cargo for you. Delivering cargo not only earns you cold, hard cash, but also awards you with experience that you can use to increase your attributes (allowing you to do everything from taking longer or urgent deliveries, hauling fragile cargo, or hauling hazardous materials). With a little work, and a lot of miles, you can grow from a lowly Company Driver to Owner/Operator to Manager of your very own trucking empire.
WHAT MAKES IT DIFFERENT FROM EURO TRUCK SIMULATOR?
Bigger roads, bigger trucks, and bigger dreams.
HOW MUCH OF THE UNITED STATES IS ACTUALLY DRIVABLE?
The eventual goal is the main roads and highways in the entire country, but so far only the western third of the US is included. The game originally launched with just California and Nevada, but the developers have since launched Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana as a mixture of free and paid DLC. The next state planned to be added is Texas, with a release date TBD (Texas has taken longer than other states due to its sheer size). The size of the country is condensed obviously, but the level of detail in the areas and landmarks that are included is fairly high, making areas instantly recognizable if you have been to their real world locations (I can drive past a section of the interstate that is just a couple of miles from my house, for example).
IS THERE TRUCK CUSTOMIZATION?
Yes. You can customize your own truck, the trucks in your fleet, as well as any trailers that your company owns, with a staggering number of licensed upgrades (not just paint, everything from mechanical parts like engines/transmissions/chassis/fuel tanks, to exterior components like lighting and air horns, and even which brand of tires or type of wheel rims and lug nuts you want).
IS THERE MULTIPLAYER?
You bet your ass:
There is a Convoy Mode where up to eight players can drive around in the same world, either taking the same jobs together or just doing their own jobs anywhere on the map while shooting the breeze with the in-game CB radio.
CAN I USE A WHEEL TO CONTROL MY SEMI?
Yes, the game supports steering wheels as well as controllers and KBAM, with every function in the game being user mappable. You can map everything from switching from standard headlights to high beams, activating your engine's retarder (easy there), to rolling down your left or right window.
DOES IT RUN ON THE STEAM DECK?
Yes, it is currently listed as "Compatible" on the Steam Deck Certified list (meaning it will run, but might require a little work and/or performance may be impacted).
DOES IT HAVE A GOOD SOUNDTRACK?
Technically yes and no. The game uses streaming internet radio stations as regular FM "radio stations" that you can switch between while you're driving. The list of stations is user editable, so you can tailor it to your liking (and if you have a Logitech wheel with an adjuster knob you can use it as a "dial" to switch radio stations and its great).
IS IT EXPENSIVE?
The base game is currently on sale on Steam for $4.99 until September 13th.
DOES IT HAVE A PHOTO MODE SO I CAN TAKE COOL PICTURES OF MY TRUCK OR THINGS I SEE ON THE ROAD?
Yes.
It's trucks hauling trucks all the way down.
CLOSING THOUGHTS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdZVWeA7a-Q
American Truck Simulator is a very unique style of game. If you are at all interested in driving sims, or just the sort of game you can play while listening to music and getting in the zone, it's definitely worth checking out (especially for five bucks). The multiplayer Convoy mode is a ton of fun, and you should get the game and play it with other forumers.
Remember - keep the greasy side down. See you out there on the big slab.
WHAT IS AMERICAN TRUCK SIMULATOR?
It's a simulator game where you drive a semi truck through the United States, making deliveries, earning money, and investing said money into anything from vehicle upgrades, new trucks, or even hiring drivers to run cargo for you. Delivering cargo not only earns you cold, hard cash, but also awards you with experience that you can use to increase your attributes (allowing you to do everything from taking longer or urgent deliveries, hauling fragile cargo, or hauling hazardous materials). With a little work, and a lot of miles, you can grow from a lowly Company Driver to Owner/Operator to Manager of your very own trucking empire.
WHAT MAKES IT DIFFERENT FROM EURO TRUCK SIMULATOR?
Bigger roads, bigger trucks, and bigger dreams.
HOW MUCH OF THE UNITED STATES IS ACTUALLY DRIVABLE?
The eventual goal is the main roads and highways in the entire country, but so far only the western third of the US is included. The game originally launched with just California and Nevada, but the developers have since launched Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana as a mixture of free and paid DLC. The next state planned to be added is Texas, with a release date TBD (Texas has taken longer than other states due to its sheer size). The size of the country is condensed obviously, but the level of detail in the areas and landmarks that are included is fairly high, making areas instantly recognizable if you have been to their real world locations (I can drive past a section of the interstate that is just a couple of miles from my house, for example).
IS THERE TRUCK CUSTOMIZATION?
Yes. You can customize your own truck, the trucks in your fleet, as well as any trailers that your company owns, with a staggering number of licensed upgrades (not just paint, everything from mechanical parts like engines/transmissions/chassis/fuel tanks, to exterior components like lighting and air horns, and even which brand of tires or type of wheel rims and lug nuts you want).
IS THERE MULTIPLAYER?
You bet your ass:
There is a Convoy Mode where up to eight players can drive around in the same world, either taking the same jobs together or just doing their own jobs anywhere on the map while shooting the breeze with the in-game CB radio.
CAN I USE A WHEEL TO CONTROL MY SEMI?
Yes, the game supports steering wheels as well as controllers and KBAM, with every function in the game being user mappable. You can map everything from switching from standard headlights to high beams, activating your engine's retarder (easy there), to rolling down your left or right window.
DOES IT RUN ON THE STEAM DECK?
Yes, it is currently listed as "Compatible" on the Steam Deck Certified list (meaning it will run, but might require a little work and/or performance may be impacted).
DOES IT HAVE A GOOD SOUNDTRACK?
Technically yes and no. The game uses streaming internet radio stations as regular FM "radio stations" that you can switch between while you're driving. The list of stations is user editable, so you can tailor it to your liking (and if you have a Logitech wheel with an adjuster knob you can use it as a "dial" to switch radio stations and its great).
IS IT EXPENSIVE?
The base game is currently on sale on Steam for $4.99 until September 13th.
DOES IT HAVE A PHOTO MODE SO I CAN TAKE COOL PICTURES OF MY TRUCK OR THINGS I SEE ON THE ROAD?
Yes.
It's trucks hauling trucks all the way down.
CLOSING THOUGHTS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdZVWeA7a-QAmerican Truck Simulator is a very unique style of game. If you are at all interested in driving sims, or just the sort of game you can play while listening to music and getting in the zone, it's definitely worth checking out (especially for five bucks). The multiplayer Convoy mode is a ton of fun, and you should get the game and play it with other forumers.
Remember - keep the greasy side down. See you out there on the big slab.
SmokeStacks on
+7
Posts
Steam | XBL
Steam: betsuni7
I don’t know how they would do Hawaii on a 1:20 scale Oahu would take like 10 minutes to circumnavigate.
Test Drive Unlimited did a good Oahu some years ago.
Steam | XBL
Thinking they could do drayage on the island (unless that's not possible in the game). Plus I've spent a good amount of time there so would be nice to drive it in a sim rather than arcade driving.
But yeah guess nobody would do either of those locations as a sim.
Steam: betsuni7
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
I am potentially busy tonight, but I am likely free tomorrow night and wouldn't mind making the trip out there.
As an aside Devils Tower has some pretty interesting folklore. There are a bunch of old indian legends about its formation, they tend to vary a bit depending on the tribe, but most of them follow the format that a couple of people were being chased by a giant bear, so they climbed on top of a rock and prayed to the great spirit for help. The great spirit hears their cries for help and lifts the rock they were on by pushing the earth beneath it up into the sky, creating the tower. The giant bear, naturally unhappy about this turn of events, tries to climb the tower to eat the people, but cannot because the tower is too steep. He eventually gives up, but not before leaving the sides of the tower completely covered in claw marks (the vertical rock striations that run up and down the side).
It was also famously featured in Close Encounters of the Third Kind as the landing site for tuba playing aliens.
I still need another 7 cities in WY for the personal goal. getting there slowly as I am obsessed with long haul jobs at the moment.
Bravely Default / 3DS Friend Code = 3394-3571-1609
I can has cheezburger, yes?
Wait, we can request photos? I'm so going to request one of sitting in traffic. Do they have lots of traffic in the game? Dangit, I might install this game to drive around in CA since you said it started there. *sigh* I need to make more time in my day to play more games.
Steam: betsuni7
Mine's the blue one with the stripes and the trailer of hay.
Steam | XBL
Bravely Default / 3DS Friend Code = 3394-3571-1609
Yeah, but the number of actual roads is much less than probably any other state.
There’s like 5 places that are even drivable, so while Alaska is “big,” a truck sim dlc for it would be *tiny*
But hey, ferries!
(Unless you could drive through Canada to get there)
Twitch: akThera
Steam: Thera
This is one of those games that is totally impossible to describe why its fun but it is very fun.
It's all of the weird and fun minutia management of a Simulator game, plus being a driving sim with the novelty of driving something that is very distinct from the race cars that normally propagate driving sims, plus it has the additional benefit of having an environment composed entirely of real-world (and sometimes absolutely gorgeous) locations.
This does not translate well when you are trying to explain it to people who have never played the game. I was talking to a friend last night and he was endlessly confused as to why a "trucking simulator" would be fun.
"Yeah in-game I'm about $480,000 in debt"
"So you're losing?"
"No way, that money helped me finance the rapid expansion of my trucking company, I have my own rig plus a fleet of four additional company trucks that I am slowly upgrading over time, and my drivers are bringing in more average income per day than my daily loan repayments cost, so they're basically paying my loans for me. I am planning on doing a couple more long runs so I can pay off the $100k loan because the interest on that is 18%, whereas the interest on the older $400k loan is only 12% though. Once that's done I'm going to start looking at opening another garage, either in Eugene because its got good routes to the entire northwest and is right next to the I-5, or maybe Vegas since its fairly centrally located and is right on the I-15"
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
Its really neat, its the same game pretty much, but that being said it really brings out the difference between the continents. Small things like the speed limits being lower for trucks, or having to consider ferries in your route planning, or having to switch sides of the road when going into Britain bring out the differences. Europe is also just so much more dense, with towns everywhere and less straight line routes, which is pretty cool.
@Iolo
A bit late and not a group photo sadly, but here it is with my truck, at least!
Steam | XBL
I was just thinking a bit about this, and really unless they added British Columbia Alaska would be almost impossible to do, but it would be a neat addition if they did. You’d have to also add enough of the Yukon to include whitehorse to make it workable, but that shouldn’t be a problem.
British Columbia would be pretty similar to a normal state, then you do a 12 hour route from smithers up to whitehorse, a 12 hour route from there over to anchorage, you could connect the ferry points at Skagway and Haines to Juneau, then obviously routes from the above to fairbanks as well.
There may only be 3 major cities (4 counting whitehorse) but there’s a lot of neat content you could include between them.
WOO!!!
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
THE MONILITH CAN ONLY BE TRANSPORTED BY THE RIGHTEOUS
THE FOLLOWERS OF THE MONOLITH WILL ENTER THEIR PILGRIMAGE ALONGSIDE YOU
BOW BEFORE THE MONOLITH
THE MONOLITH IS PLEASED
My front escort vehicle ran into a repeating bug where it would take the wrong road and crash, and the rear escort vehicle would stop, and I'd have to load a save, so I basically just drove really slow so the escort vehicle would take the wrong road and completely disappear, then I just kept going without them and ignored the message that kept popping up on my GPS. The police were still blocking all of the ramps, so there was no traffic in front of me on the freeway, but once I got off onto a smaller, windy road to get to the town where the drop off point was I barely managed to squeeze by a couple of cars. There was normal traffic in the town, so that was an adventure. I really had to thread the needle a few times. Finally I made it to the depot in the middle of the night, parked it, and got paid. I have done a couple more since then that worked fine though.
The special cargo missions are fun to do as a challenge, and they have a very high dollar per mile payout, but they're relatively short runs and you're so limited on both your speed and the amount of extra time and care you have to give to turns, and they require a very expensive setup on your truck (you need serious horsepower and torque), so ultimately they're not very good economically. I do want to find the one where you carry a firefighting tanker helicopter into Yellowstone though.
Someone needs to put in a Mod where you deliver the Space Shuttle.
Edit: Like they did in Los Angeles.
Steam: betsuni7
Something like those Microsoft flight simulator servers where you log your flight plan with the admin?
Multiplayer sessions do need a host, and so far there's no host migration. And no logging needed (unless you're talking wood cargo
Steam | XBL
Bravely Default / 3DS Friend Code = 3394-3571-1609
Also, when someone in the server gets a job, as long as you have the required qualifications you can take the same job no matter where you are on the map and fast travel to the nearest town, which is nice. Since joining with a friend means you both could be on complete opposite sides of the map it makes it super easy to teleport to them so you can link up and make an actual convoy. Having a lead truck letting the person or persons behind them know about upcoming roadwork, traffic increases, freeway exits, speed limit changes, and stuff like that has been super helpful. Unfortunately the game doesn't simulate reduced air resistance from drafting, so you don't see any fuel efficiency increases from being right on someone's ass, but with the way road conditions can change (and the occasionally suicidal nature of the traffic AI) it's good to give your convoy partner a few car lengths worth of buffer space anyway.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Bravely Default / 3DS Friend Code = 3394-3571-1609
Does it auto disable them or do you have to go in and turn everything off manually?
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
No mods in multiplayer sucks, but I get the reasoning, they don't want there to be desyncs between what one client has and what another client thinks they have. I do wish they would at least let you use texture replacement mods though, since having realistic billboards and company logos on stores is pretty nice in singleplayer.
Also, this may not prove to be the greatest use of money ever, but I bought my own trailer to match my truck.
Steam | XBL
So in other words if you have a garage nearby you can go to the garage (which IIRC fast travel is free to garage), look for a job with just cab, swap on a trailer, get a different set of jobs, switch trailer types for another set of jobs, etc.
If you are going to just be roaming around the countryside and don’t have access to your garage to switch trailers theres not as much advantage though.
Also when you hire new drivers set their first skill learn to Long Distance, then once they are maxed set it to balanced. It's the fastest way to get them to make money. My entire fleet are Basic Freightliner K100 trucks decked out in the Lynx trucking company skin from Stranger things, while I drive a fully kitted K100.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
1.) Copy a bunch of music and put it into the game's directory
Pros - Easy
Cons - This would entail copying multiple gigs of music and taking up a bunch of space on an SSD
2.) Listen to my own music on an audio player in the background while the game is playing
Pros - Even easier
Cons - I wouldn't be able to turn the volume up and down using buttons on my steering wheel, which is 80% of the reason I bought a steering wheel
3.) Upload a bunch of music to an internet radio hosting company and pay them to run my own internet radio station
Pros - Would be entirely in-game, switching to my own radio station would be pretty cool, I could record my own bumpers, other forumers could listen as well
Cons - Would cost between $6 and $13 a month, other forumers could find out how shitty my taste in music is
Decisions, decisions.
Also, I have been stalling on repaying my loans and have been using my money to expand instead. Well, I finally had enough money saved up to repay my final loan, so instead I borrowed another $60,000 and bought another garage, moved a couple of my drivers to it, bought another truck, and hired another driver. While it would be nice to be free and clear, debtmaxxing and having my peons drivers pay my loans off for me has been working out pretty well so far, so I decided to stick with it for a little while longer.