American Truck Simulator has launched! (Linux, Mac, Windows)

[sandman2575]

Speaking of roads...did y'all know that you drive on the wrong side of them?!  It's quite jarring to be sat on the left side of the cabin!

Don't you know your history, man? The inalienable right to drive on the correct side of the road is one of the reasons we Yanks fought the American Revolution.

Pretty sure it's in the Bill of Rights........  :D

[DennisS]

Steam page

The sequel to the hugely popular - for good reason - Euro Truck Simulator 2 is here!  Initially the areas offered are California and Nevada (excellent choices in my opinion), with more, starting with Arizona, to come.

I've bought it already and am very excited to play it tonight.  ETS2 was, to my complete surprise, absolutely brilliant and hopefully ATS will be even more so.  I'll post impressions later.

Only £15 by the way!

Only two states, one of which is over 1200KM from north to south. California alone is 77% the size of France.

I really amazed myself by how much time I spent in ETS2.  America is the land of highways, not to mention a large and geographically diverse nation, so in theory, ATS could be a significantly more varied and altogether superior game.  I have really been looking forward to this, and am a little surprised it is already out.

A bit disappointed, though, that there are only 2 states.  I may stay out of the pool for a while - especially since I just got my Xcom 2 key from cdkeys.com!

It's not really an American Truck Simulator if you can't drive from Texarkana to Atlanta.   

[jomni]

The rest of continental Europe drives at the same side as America.

[Huw the Poo]

I managed to put in a further hour and a half tonight and I'm happy to report that I'm even more impressed.

So far the scenery has definitely been much more varied than in ETS2.  In fact, doing a relatively lengthy job this evening I actually drove through a couple of small towns, which I don't recall doing in ETS2.  The towns are all hand-crafted, nothing identikit to them, and coupled with the more varied scenery I haven't felt like I've seen it all before at all yet.  The graphics are pretty good too, and crucially, the game runs extremely well.  On high settings neither my CPU nor my GPU break a sweat.

Parking.  It turns out that when you get to your destination, you have a choice of hard parking, normal parking or auto parking.  The normal parking is comparable to ETS2 so I've finally been able to park a few times now!  Hard parking remains beyond my skill.  The last job I just did, I had to go onto a tanker and the hard parking choice wanted me to turn around in an extremely small space and reverse in between two tightly-packed rows of containers.  I could barely get it in going forwards, there was no way I could do it backwards!

The roads continue to be much wider than in ETS2 wherever I've gone so far.  I mean it isn't stupid, you still need to keep your eyes peeled, but you can definitely enjoy the scenery more in ATS.

The only real criticism I can level at the game so far is the lack of content compared to ETS2.  The map is obviously smaller, and thus far there seem only to be two truck dealers (there are more than two dealerships, but only two dealers).  More will come in time, just as it did with ETS2, but if you think you'll get bored very quickly then you may want to hold off for a while - although if you do, you're missing out big time in my opinion.  If you liked ETS2 this is a no-brainer.  ATS is a very, very good game.

[Huw the Poo]

Just bought my first truck:



The plan for now is to do jobs in as many different places as possible in order to build up a cash reserve while mapping the area.  Then, when I've found some recruitment agencies, I'll hire another driver and start making serious cash.

[undercovergeek]

Steam page

The sequel to the hugely popular - for good reason - Euro Truck Simulator 2 is here!  Initially the areas offered are California and Nevada (excellent choices in my opinion), with more, starting with Arizona, to come.

I've bought it already and am very excited to play it tonight.  ETS2 was, to my complete surprise, absolutely brilliant and hopefully ATS will be even more so.  I'll post impressions later.

Only £15 by the way!

I really amazed myself by how much time I spent in ETS2.  America is the land of highways, not to mention a large and geographically diverse nation, so in theory, ATS could be a significantly more varied and altogether superior game.  I have really been looking forward to this, and am a little surprised it is already out.

A bit disappointed, though, that there are only 2 states.  I may stay out of the pool for a while - especially since I just got my Xcom 2 key from cdkeys.com!

It's not really an American Truck Simulator if you can't drive from Texarkana to Atlanta.   

i passed a truck this morning with this exact image painted on the back

[BanzaiCat]

So can you get in the left (passing) lane and not pass anything, holding up traffic, like so many American truckers do?

[Huw the Poo]

Yeah, the only traffic laws that are enforced are speed and crashing into other vehicles.  Apart from that, you can be as much of a bellend on the road as you like. :)

[BanzaiCat]

How is speed enforced? Are there actually cops on the side of the road every so often? Or does it just automatically fine you? The latter sounds lame.

[Huw the Poo]

There are cops actively patrolling.  A suspiciously high number of them if you ask me!  Yeah, you can often get away with exceeding the speed limit but if a cop sees you exceed it by so much as 1mph you're instantly fined.  I've acquired a lot of fines.

Look, here's me being a bellend:



As you can see, I'm within 1mph of the speed limit so it took me bloody ages to pass that guy. :)

[Huw the Poo]

Stopping for petrol at sunset:



Driving through the California wilderness shortly afterward:



Hanging around in LA, watching all the failed actors going in search of their next heroin fix:



Hmm...I haven't tried running anyone over yet...

[BanzaiCat]

[JasonPratt]

^^ Thought that was an early mod at first!  >:D

A few years ago, my brother actually had an opportunity for us to invest in a small trucking company (although someone else would have been the driver. But since I don't have a family, I could have learned and gotten a license and been the first fleet extension.)

Had things worked out differently, I'd be doing this for real right now. 

Instead I'm playing Evochron.  :P ::)

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Do they model seedy truck stops with meth dealers and hookers?

[jomni]

How is speed enforced? Are there actually cops on the side of the road every so often? Or does it just automatically fine you? The latter sounds lame.

I got speeding tickets twice already. :(

There are cops all around.  They patrol or sometimes hide and wait.
In Europe, there is no speed limit for most stretch of highways.  O0