Snow Sheltie

Oof. Well without more info, if you're hitting the far side then you either need sensitivity on your controls up or just slow down. If you're hitting the near side, then remember the acronym S.W.I.F.T: Swing Wide, It's a Friggen Trailer! There's no reason in this game to be cutting corners like a race car. In ETS your truck + trailer are typically short enough that you can make most turns in game without needing to enter opposing traffic. There's a lot more areas, however, where you do need to swing wider to enter or exit customers or services. Take for example the Tamerii depot in Lille (boy, that's a fun place to park and just watch rookies attempt the turn). In the same town, depending on your orientation, you may need to swing wide to enter or exit the repair depot in Lille as well. General rule of thumb I've learned on the road is when in doubt, swing a bit wider on a turn than you think you need. It's far easier to correct yourself by turning in tighter than it is to try to swing wider. Funny enough the same principle applies neatly to the game. I don't know what the European laws are for class 8 trucks but in the U.S., semi trucks are allowed to use any space on the road as needed to successfully navigate their truck, within reason of course. That being said, don't expect other players to yield in the multiplayer mod or expect the AI in singleplayer to get the picture. Hell, I've had a couple funny 'standoffs' with ignorant drivers in real life while attempting to make wide turns though most drivers typically give me space, at least once when they see what I'm doing. As I said before the way damage in this game works is just illogical at times so it's better to just develop a habit of avoiding potential damage to begin with. Also, glance at your mirrors while taking turns.

On one hand the way damage is calculated in this game can make no sense whatsoever. On another hand, when you say you hit the curb, did you brush it with the truck or did you just ram into it hard enough to bounce off of it? Also, AI does suck a lot. At the same time I've seen similar behavior or worse in real life, sometimes at an alarming frequency. One of the worst stunts I've had some idiot attempt to do next to me was on an off-ramp from I-65 into Lafayette, IN. This dingus of an SUV driver was apparently rushing to a fire or something because she decided to try to pass me on the right hand shoulder while I was in the right hand lane, in a Freightliner, with a 53' dry van, making a right hand turn. The only reason this bonehead didn't turn into an ornament on my tandems was because I saw her at the last second when I did my usual glance in my mirror to make sure my trailer was gonna clear the guardrail. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. At least in ATSMP I can live out my fantasy of driving a semi down open, completely empty roads with absolutely no worry of some bonehead, trucker or otherwise, doing 'creative' driving maneuvers around my truck.

Here's the observation. ETS has 4.5 times the population than ATS on any given day. According to the steam chart, ETS averages 55k players daily in the last 30 days while ATS averages a meager 12k a day. Over the last seven days according to Steam Charts, 34k has been the consistent peak numbers for ETS and 8k for ATS, with the peak population for both games occurring at opposite times of the day. So what makes ETS so popular compared to ATS? Looking at Steam Charts, I have the theory that ETS is just far more popular of a game in European countries than ATS is in the Americas but I don't have an explanation of a theory as to why this is the case.

Oh God, I remember those times. Chances are whenever the C-D road is inevitably converted or removed by SCS, something else will draw all the boneheads like moths to a flame. Remember that the mountain road between Innsbruck and Klagenfurt had a brief moment of popularity when it came out. Who knows, maybe they'll flock to that road again. So long as they all stay clustered along a single road and not spread out to cause chaos everywhere, I'll be a happy trucker.

I love it when I can easily tell which people don't read, and I quote myself Also, this would be the continental United States. Some places are better than others though the fact that so many CDL drivers have a need for speed is of great concern to me, particularly during inclement weather or mountainous terrain (why the hell are you going 70 mph during a snowstorm, driver?). I also had my personal list of truck stops I liked to go to because the idiots generally don't know about them and ones I avoid like the plague because of how many idiots are drawn to it for any number of reasons (the Pilot between Cincinnati and Dayton, OH is my go-to example of a truck stop I avoid as much as possible). It's kind of how I avoid the C-D road in ETS for similar reasons regarding how many idiots plague that stretch of road.

There's a term I hear a lot in the trucking industry called the "Steering Wheel Holder". This is a driver who has gone through all the basic requirements to own a CDL but knows absolutely nothing about professional etiquette nor does he care to learn. They're the drivers blocking fuel islands, inventing parking spots everywhere (when there's plenty of legal parking options available, it's a different story if you're in an area with limited or worse, no truck parking), speeding/overtaking in a careless or reckless manner, not turning wide around tight bends/intersections, flying around distribution centers at 20-30 mph (you know, places where there's blind spots everywhere and trucks/equipment moving in every direction), distracted by blue-tooth conversations (or worse, watching a damned movie on a tablet while driving, yes I've seen this before), wearing flip-flops out on job sites instead of work boots or even shoes, leaving trash everywhere, you get the picture. Much of this bad behavior ends up on full display in truckersmp and particularly on the ETS servers. The only thing is it's magnified by a factor of 10. I've spent two years OTR, one of those dedicated, and much of the behavior I see in the multiplayer mod I've seen done by real drivers, from speeding to careless or reckless overtakes (I've had a few moments of other drivers coming dangerously close to hitting me with their trailer while overtaking me). The question I impose to you is have you seen any similarity in bad behavior between players driving semis and real truck drivers? I sure have. After driving the real deal for a couple years it amazes me how much more of a 'simulation' this mod is than intended. It's just missing the spastic AI traffic and then it would be golden.

Ended up reverting back an update because the new UI changes are just intolerable for me, meaning I won't be playing about the multiplayer mod anytime soon. Tis sad because I like the updated road network. I'm just getting that "new and improved" microsoft windows vibe with the update of everything getting hidden behind extra menus for what is little reason for me. About the only thing that didn't get moved was the drive button. I'm not even sure what the hell was so wrong with the old UI that justified what looks like a complete scrapping and rebuild of the entire thing. The style chosen is completely void of any charm or personality the older menu had. It just looks completely bland and corporatized. Also, why the hell can't I see from a glance what trailer I'm hauling anymore (It's changes like this one that's particularly frustrating and head-scratching as to what the hell is going on in the dev's heads or who the hell are they listening to?) Then I can start nit-picking about things like the idiotic opaque circle somebody thought was a good thing to add to the GPS arrow but I think you should get my point by now.

I couldn't start to give a time frame on if/when SCS would finish the continental United States. I do know I'm not gonna have the whole continental US on my game because I'm not willing to spend $540 on a single bloody game. (Take 45 states for DLC, multiply that by $12 per state, and you're now on the road to think of competing with train simulator's legendary dlc spam.)

I played one of SCS' early works, 'Hard Truck 18 Wheels of Steel'. Played it until the CD quite literally blew up in my CD-rom drive. That game was far harder to play than ETS or ATS. It was only California and a part of Arizona, truck options were few, you started off with a piece-of-junk truck and have to work your way up to a trucking empire. If you hired drivers, you not only had to give them a truck to drive, you also had to set up their job schedule for the week which required obtaining dedicated routes by successfully driving the routes yourself. The game took into account driver's time-off or driving time to the next job and if you couldn't give your drivers enough work, they'll quit. There were overweight loads that required avoiding weight scales (or if you were stupid try to outrun the bears). It was a good game, shame the CD got destroyed. Randomly came across ETS on Steam, recognized the publisher, decided to give it a go, then ATS when that rolled out. I found this mod when my curiosity got to me and I searched for multiplayer mods. I just wished some of those challenging options carried over from that early game, would've made the game a far better challenge for me.

The new menu I could describe in a few different words. It looks bland, corporatized, looks like something straight out of Microsoft Excel. Why can't I see from a glance if I am attached to a trailer or not? It just begs the question I frequently find myself asking about old games receiving oddball "upgrades" like this that really don't do much, if anything, to improve the game experience itself, just ends up making things either unnecessarily complicated or just rearranges things around for honestly no good reason. I've had similar gripe with some steam updates in the past, mostly ones adding unnecessary crap to my library that I honestly don't care about and went through the trouble of disabling. I took a quick screenshot of both menus from the new update and from ATS. I'm failing to see exactly who the new menu setup is appealing to, it certainly isn't appealing to me.

I would argue this is not the case. SCS is busy rebuilding their map to better simulating/emulate real life locations. TMP's rendition is based on who's playing the game. TMP went out of their way to purposefully design a city centered entirely around the players in a very successful attempt to keep heavy truck traffic flowing in and out of the city with few to no delays. If you didn't experience the nightmare that was the old Duisburg, you'll know what I'm talking about. If you want a current hint at how bad old Duisburg is, look at Calais today.

Sounds like they'd be right at home with the EVE Online folks who are obsessed with zkillboard. God, it's been so long since I touched that game. I wonder if that old carrier I donated to my last alliance is still alive?

How did I forget to mention those player tags? You're right, you can basically assume whatever somebody has in their player tag, they'll do the opposite.

Never really considered doing that myself mainly because I personally doubt other players have come to the same conclusion I have. Besides, I tend to drive in less populated areas so I can live out my fantasy of driving a semi with little to no traffic around. I drive a semi for my job and the four-wheelers and steering wheel holders are both entertainment and a curse at the same time, and I got a few good stories of people driving in incredibly stupid ways around my truck.

Maybe it's just me, but any time I see somebody with 'Rec' or 'Rec/Ban' in their description, it pops out like a huge red flag for me that this driver is reckless and I need to steer clear of them (sometimes literally) if I don't want my drive to end up reloading a save or restarting at the shop. I don't know why this is a thing. I've seen it for many years and so often I've considered it a driver stereotype in truckersmp. The number one rules in truckersmp is assume everyone's an idiot, but it's nice when somebody gives me a clue of who is the bigger idiot. Anyone else ever notice this pattern?