Trucking Digest

I don’t cover my truck simulator driving on here as much as I maybe should – it is a major part of my gaming activity. In some ways it has been usurped by the farming activity because I have been running a series of posts based on Farming Simulator 2022. My activity stats tell the real story though – 28% of my gaming spent on FS22 and 50% equally shared between Euro Truck and American Truck.

In this post I’m going to only talk about Euro Truck although I am also playing American Truck. The most recent update, while largely applicable to both, most obviously affects ETS2 – or, at least, that’s where the changes are more readily visible to me in daily play.

I changed truck again – it happens roughly once every 100000km although I did throw in a cameo 25km performance by a Renault Magnum which I named Cousteau. My current truck, named Lena, is a Next Generation DAF XG…

…There’s a lot being talked about regards these new DAF’s – in particular the aerodynamic changes that, combined with updates to engine technology, bring big fuel consumption dividends. I was interested to see if these have translated into the game. So… Currently, this truck compared with the Renault T – itself popular because of its good fuel consumption – is saving me around 3 litres of fuel per 100km and that’s broadly in agreement with the savings that DAF promise on their IRL website. The background to this is that DAF held back on their next truck until after new European rules came into being allowing a longer cab unit. They’re achieving a lot of this improvement by taking advantage of that rule change to make a good aero design. It is, and certainly feels like, a larger truck than the previous generation. But the smooth curvature of the front seems to reduce the impact of the increased physical length when parking. I’m loving this truck so much that I think I’ll be driving her for a long time 👍

That cuts nicely into the next subject – update 1.47. The new update brings a change to how we can view our in-game trucking career. I’d like to draw your attention to the screenshot below…

…We’ve needed this for a while. It’s great to see how you are doing. It’s not a competition board – unlike some games where you see opponents scores. It’s a reflection of the fact that in Truck Simulator, the buck stops with you and you alone. The 4th column is the one that I will be watching with care – Traffic Violations. As an example of how personal gameplay is – many players have fines turned off! I leave it on because I want to be reminded when I do something wrong. My commonest fine is No Lights – because it’s past ‘bedtime’, the game will issue a fine despite the fact that it’s a gloriously sunny evening out there🤣 That is annoying🙄 But on this first week with the new release, you can see I got a speeding fine! That’s as rare as hen’s teeth. So here’s the explanation and it relates to the v1.47 release.

One of the smaller changes in v1.47 was an upgrade to the engine sounds of the DAF new generation trucks. So there I was, accelerating down the road… Thinking, this sounds good… Then I got fined – I hadn’t been watching the speed and the Spanish Police were happy to take a donation for the policeman’s ball😂 Expect to see more ‘No Lights’ fines and the occasional ‘Red Light’ but that’s almost certainly my only speeding fine😎👍

The introduction of this new career screen has also encouraged me to reinstate the ‘Fatigue Simulation’ functionality. So I’m now driving with the threat of fines for going beyond my hours on each trip. Here’s a fairly typical run – Stuttgart to Nantes…

…The blue triangle in top centre is me at the overnight rest stop. Before reactivating the Fatigue sim, I’d been basically following the regime of stopping around the correct time – stretching or shrinking each leg as necessary, so I’m not really having to change my method of playing too much. The only difference is that I now have to carefully assess potential issues along the way and also to take into account my speed compared with the speed that the map uses to estimate the time that the trip will take. If you look in the top right corner, the map is estimating a time of 7 hours – well inside the 11 hours of an in-game shift. Am I good to go for a no-worries completion?… No! There’s a reason why we experienced players tell noobs to turn off Fatigue Simulation. To Quote the immortal Star Wars meme – “It’s a Trap!” Firstly the map assumes you’ll be doing 90kmh all the way – Not likely and don’t forget those toll gates. If you’re like me you’re probably driving slower anyway to improve fuel consumption. Then you have to allow for roadworks, accidents and other random events. There’s no way you will drive those 550km in 7 Hours. At the end, you also need to factor in finding somewhere to rest before you run out of hours. By the time I dropped off the load at the customer outside Nantes, I had around 1.5 hours left but it takes nearly 2 hours to drive to my Nantes garage. Fortunately, I could drive to a rest stop halfway between the delivery point and my garage. That’s a tight run and a beginner would probably have got a sleep fine – or a speeding fine for trying to avoid the sleep fine🤣

Another major change arriving with v1.47 is Adaptive Cruise Control and Emergency Braking System – Things fitted to real world trucks for a long time. It’s good to see these finally coming to the game. I saw a lot of complaints during the Beta testing but my personal experience following release is generally ok. If anything it’s about learning how to work with the new systems – when to turn off the cruise control for example. And no more drifting up behind another vehicle on a climb and allowing the gradient to slow you down to avoid a collision – the EBS doesn’t like that🤣 Overall, a major improvement to realism that players who prefer to drive recklessly can turn off😅

V1.47 has also brought in some major rebuilds of German cities – Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Nuremburg and Erfurt all have newly created scenes and road systems. I joked, after delivering a load of post to Stuttgart’s airport, that I was going to play ‘hunt the garage’….

…Found it ok – it’s there behind me😂 But the road system has totally changed and there’s lots of great new additions to the scenery. Oh!.. And from this angle you can get an idea of how stretched the cab of the DAF XG is!

I may not be reporting much on the Truck Simulator games but I’m in the cab most days…

…Enjoying the view 😎👍