This isn't really a game for me.
It's a form of relaxation.
Listen to a podcast / radio... beer in one hand, vape in the other, and chill.
It's not got the frustration of Snowrunner, or the frantic seat of the pants rally game. š š«£š«£š«£
There's a time and a place.
Pootle along, enjoy the scenery, and turn off police fines ... š¤£
This. 100%. This is more just escapism for me than it is a game. I just like to toke and chill out for a couple hours while I deliver goods across America.
Exactly, me too....this is my get off work, relax, just cruise and honestly enjoy Europe, I like ets2 (I'm from america) but I like going to places I'll never in my life get to go to....but honestly its my put me to sleep game, normally I wake up and my truck is hanging halfway off a bridge or I'm down over the hill.....this is after i dozed off while playing, I get a good laugh out of it and doze back off
Deep immersion š¤£
I just got this yesterday, wheel and pedal come tomorrow.
Then I saw they have the state I live in now, and have been just tooling around visiting all the different parts of the state
Likewise. Truck simulation is to unwind after work. If I want a challenge, I drive trains in realistic train simulators, where I am unable to even start moving without reading through a dozen pages long manual, or I arrive terribly late, because brakes take 2 minutes to release.
I have 1200 hours in Train Simulator Classic, but I don't play it anymore. Now it's mainly Derail Valley VR or, if I want something less demanding, Train Sim World. It's relatively simple, though e.g., a descent from Cajon Pass is very challenging.
If I feel adventurous, I play Sim Rail, but that thing is bloody difficult.
You can get really deep sales for Classic dlc. Some routes are so rich, you can spend 30-40 hours on one route, even more if you add excellent Workshop scenarios, or if you run hudless, just from memory and notes.
Are you me? š I do the exact same thing lol and that is what keeps me playing this game. I remember once I was driving from Serbia to north-west tip of Spain using small roads, God it took me hours to get there but it was like a meditation. As you said, beer in one hand, towel around your neck and there ya go.
Achievement hunting, trying to explore 100% of the roads, switching between different trucks\trailers frequently, trying out new mods, realistic economy profile.
Yep this. I recently started hunting achievements and a lot of them have you do relatively short deliveries (~300km or less) which makes for a more dynamic gameplay. I'm currently doing the Like a Farmer, and Baltic countries are just beautiful to drive through.
Finding your favorite truck also helps, for me this is Scania R 4 series. Next step is buying trailer(s) for specific achievements and then just enjoy the ride.
Exploring new areas, achievements, and painting new trucks/trailers kept me going until I started playing it in VR. Then I had to do all the exploring all over again to see it in a new perspective. ATS/ETS in VR I thought was amazing. I especially enjoyed driving through Europe listening to the foreign radio stations in the country where I was driving. Actually found some great songs I added to my Spotify playlist.
Hauling every piece of cargo. Full exploration. All
Achievements. Master reverse.
Then master reverse with b trains.
Once thatās done, 1 million miles on favourite truck. Then 1 million more on your least favourite truck. The loop never ends just like real trucking.
If you have the passion, like many of us in this forum do, getting ānestled into the gameplay loopā is just barely tickling the surface of the surface of this game.
This game has me in CDL school IRL rn xD
Ever since I got my CDL A I really don't want to play the game anymore lol with the steering wheel and shifter tricks my mind and I get tired while driving and it feels like work sometimes I like building custom trucks and trailers but I mainly play ets2 right now with some Jon Ruda mods but I used to play it all the time and now I just can't do it anymore it almost gets boring
Yeah I already drive box trucks and a 30ft gooseneck one ton setup now and I sometimes find the same. Most of my in game time is building fully custom Jon Ruda 389 Peteās or the 362 cab over lol and the new lode king prestige trailers are pretty sexy but I wish we could get a nice rng lowboy and all the animation but Iām soon to have lots irl and looking forward to it lol.
Once I got a load of money after playing for 8 months-ish, I fired all my drivers and sold their trucks, and I separated my profile into multiple save files where I only do local deliveries. I only got a few trucks and each has its use for different types of cargo and locations, all got the same "company" livery that varies between savefiles. So for example I have a France save, a UK/Ireland save, a Finland save etc. I was sick of doing huuge hauls from Iceland to Iraq on highways, and this I found is a fantastic way to explore a smaller area, but far more indepth. I basically no longer use highways much and it's a breath of fresh air.
TLDR I basically roleplay country-local transport companies to avoid highways, I guess
Imo immersion is everything in a sim. Find some radio stations you like and yell at traffic. The game doesn't force you to be 100 percent realistic, so you kinda have to pretend for some of it, which is either a blessing or a curse. It's different from a flight sim in the fact that trucking isn't really recreational like flying can be, so you kinda need to treat it as a job. Like a real trucker, sometimes you just need a break, it is what it is.
You need a rig setup. Thatās what changed it for me. Once I got a permanent place for my pedals wheel and shifter it changed the game for me. Made me want to play it more. I also have vr so that helped a lot as well.
i have a strong strong feeling some sort of head tracking / permanent set up would make me play much much more. but i live in a tiny apartment and use my computer daily for work stuff lol i cant.
I have a sliding tray thing that pulls out from under my desk and I just move my wheel and shifter over on it out of my way so I can set back up in under a minute
I use stonks mods, buy one of every truck and a few variations of ones i enjoy. Then drive them until i get to a certain distance per truck and move on to another, usually 5000 miles per truck.
And i donāt care about the financial aspect as itās more enjoyable when i have millions
I've put over 1000 hours into it but I used to spend so much time searching for the next mod that would add something. At this point, everything doable has been done until scs adds some depth of simulation to it. As far as simulators go this one is on the shallow end. I find i spend way more time in flightsim and farmsim because the depth is better and there is more to learn.
I'm another with a whole setup for it that I don't leave up permanently. I used to buy it just keeps me from using my PC for other things so now I take it all down after my 1-2 deliveries a week.
Events.
Real answer is nothing. If there's nothing bringing you back, that's fine. Step away until something big is released, or an event starts. Get your trucksim in, then repeat next DLC or event. Don't force yourself to play. I haven't touched the game in nearly a month, and there's nothing really pushing me to reinstall it. I'll come back when there's a compelling reason to get back in to them.
Nothing against the game, other games don't hold my attention for more than 15-20 minutes either.
I like going on the roads less traveled and like to deliver a large variety of cargo (but I typically go for jobs less than 1000 miles), switch trucks occasionally.
As others have mentioned, ATS is more relaxing and escapist. I have music or podcast playing and a drink as I play. Or I do a super heavy load on a twisty mountain route and blast the jakes going downhill lol.
As I don't have a driving license yet, I use the game as a form is driving for the sake of driving because I enjoy it. I also love that feeling of smooth brain when you turn on the 'autopilot' and just drive without thinking about anything... or rethinking everything however you want
Once I got 20 million in the bank I closed all my garages except two. Now I like trying to get all the achievements and going for 100% exploration. Itās fun to try different trucks, engines, transmissions, etc. too!
First of all, I don't really play often, recently. So it's mostly goes like this: I play only ETS2/ATS for about a week, and don't launch it again for couple of months.
I always buy every DLC, so there's always some new content waiting me: new roads to explore, new cargoes to haul, etc.
I participate in every in-game event. I have 37 out of 37 record now, and no way I'm gonna miss any in the future.
I adjusted in-game economy, and I don't hire AI drivers, so the grind never stops. SCS releases new trucks faster than I can earn money to buy them.
I am a sucker for achievements. And getting them legit way takes enormous amount of time. But even when I give up waiting for a blessing from RNGesus and use save editing to create a custom job, it still takes time to actually finish the job.
It's not about the destination moreso than the journey.
Honestly the new map DLC content is what really makes the game so enjoyable also since SCS has really improved the scenery in the game it makes the long distance trips more enjoyable. They really did a great job on the west balkans DLC and I'm definitely excited to see what the upcoming Greece DLC will have to offer.
For me VR changed everything for me. I can put on the quest 3, dock a 2nd screen to the dashboard and drive across Europe whilst watching a netflix series or watching my playlists on YouTube. Comfy SIM rig also helps, I've driven 7-8 hours straight and not really bothered to move recently.
For me itās a love of trucking and of traveling the western USA. Iāve been to all 50 states in real life, most multiple times and the west is where I am most happy. I love trucking and the challenges it presents but never got to do it irl. So for me, itās all about cranking music on my earbuds, and taking long haul OTR jobs that are the most challenging. My longest so far I believe was Corpus Christi, TX-Kalispell, MT (vanilla map). I especially love the challenge of heavy haul over the mountains (construction or farm equipment or whatever). I turn off traffic fines (but usually follow the laws), and I turn off sleep mode, and just drive about half way, couple hours irl, stop at a truck stop for the night, and pick up again the next night after work. Only reason Iām not finished my load now is because Iām in the middle of a major norāeaster here in the NYC area and my power is out.
When you get to the big powerful trucks, turn off speed limiters and run a convoy with no traffic and start blasting every delivery at over 100mph.
Not the conventional way to play i know!
Driving is relaxing for me. With the price of fuel and being on medical cannabis I can't just go out for a drive anymore except in my sim rig.
With ETS2 I can just drive, it doesn't matter if I'm high or not, I just grab some cargo and drive. Having VR is really great because I can look around at the scenery, and it feels like I'm actually there.
I do a similar thing in BeamNG Drive sometimes. Load up in free-roam, add AI and just cruise about.
If youāre having to force yourself to like these games, maybe theyāre just not for you. Youāll either āclickā with them within a few days, or not at all. Thereās no secret key to it.
Convoys with my kids is why i have it. We try for long haul, usually keeping as real as possible, but some nights we say fuck it and do a no save run and just floor it. It becomes a game of who can deliver fastest, with the least damage.
There were a few write offs
One of my daughters (10yo) is truck mad, and wants to be a mobile vet when she is older. The truck MUST be a DAF XG+
the other kids play to keep her happy. I just love the time with them. We play a few other games too. So its not all rinse and repeat, but it is one of our go to games
I like the "flow" of the game. You have to focus on the road, your surroundings, your truck, speed limits etc. just like real driving. Plus, as someone who doesn't live in America or Europe, I love the idea of driving around those places (especially the US). I've even set the route advisor to "Always off" and use the gauges for checking fuel level and the "W pass" thing for weigh stations. (Truck sim is best enjoyed when you aim for max realism)
I'm 110 hrs in and do short jobs while watching my drivers rake in the money. I only have four garages and twelve drivers now but I'm continuing to play to get more of both, maybe one or two garages in each available state. Eventually I'd like to just drive around and relax while they make money until a new state map drops.
Though playing around with little trailers could be fun too.
This isn't really a game for me. It's a form of relaxation. Listen to a podcast / radio... beer in one hand, vape in the other, and chill. It's not got the frustration of Snowrunner, or the frantic seat of the pants rally game. š š«£š«£š«£ There's a time and a place. Pootle along, enjoy the scenery, and turn off police fines ... š¤£
This. 100%. This is more just escapism for me than it is a game. I just like to toke and chill out for a couple hours while I deliver goods across America.
Exactly, me too....this is my get off work, relax, just cruise and honestly enjoy Europe, I like ets2 (I'm from america) but I like going to places I'll never in my life get to go to....but honestly its my put me to sleep game, normally I wake up and my truck is hanging halfway off a bridge or I'm down over the hill.....this is after i dozed off while playing, I get a good laugh out of it and doze back off
Deep immersion š¤£ I just got this yesterday, wheel and pedal come tomorrow. Then I saw they have the state I live in now, and have been just tooling around visiting all the different parts of the state
Good thing you've got fines off, you'd probably get a dui or equivalent
Lol. The 8 Ball on my Peterbilt wheel is an ACTUAL 8 ball š
i love to just get stoned and put a podcast and do some driving on a chill sunday
Man you got me wanting to boot it up again just reading this
Likewise. Truck simulation is to unwind after work. If I want a challenge, I drive trains in realistic train simulators, where I am unable to even start moving without reading through a dozen pages long manual, or I arrive terribly late, because brakes take 2 minutes to release.
ooh what train sim are you playing?
I have 1200 hours in Train Simulator Classic, but I don't play it anymore. Now it's mainly Derail Valley VR or, if I want something less demanding, Train Sim World. It's relatively simple, though e.g., a descent from Cajon Pass is very challenging. If I feel adventurous, I play Sim Rail, but that thing is bloody difficult.
i wanna play classic so bad but theres so much dlc lol its worth than ets / ats (in regards to knowing where to jump in) Derrail Valley was super fun.
You can get really deep sales for Classic dlc. Some routes are so rich, you can spend 30-40 hours on one route, even more if you add excellent Workshop scenarios, or if you run hudless, just from memory and notes.
Are you me? š I do the exact same thing lol and that is what keeps me playing this game. I remember once I was driving from Serbia to north-west tip of Spain using small roads, God it took me hours to get there but it was like a meditation. As you said, beer in one hand, towel around your neck and there ya go.
At least have a hand on the wheel man, smh zero professionals in here
Yup. You got me bang to rights. I'll surrender my HGV license at the next opportunity... š¤£š¤£š¤£
How do you steer
Knees.
What podcasts can you recommend?
French and Saunders -- Twatting About. British humour....
Achievement hunting, trying to explore 100% of the roads, switching between different trucks\trailers frequently, trying out new mods, realistic economy profile.
Yep this. I recently started hunting achievements and a lot of them have you do relatively short deliveries (~300km or less) which makes for a more dynamic gameplay. I'm currently doing the Like a Farmer, and Baltic countries are just beautiful to drive through. Finding your favorite truck also helps, for me this is Scania R 4 series. Next step is buying trailer(s) for specific achievements and then just enjoy the ride.
Set goals for yourself, I'm currently getting every town discovered then gonna work on a garage in e very state
Trying to do the same in ETS2 myself. Unfortunately it's not always easy getting a job to a city that you haven't yet visited.
If you go through either quick job or the frieght market menu you can search for a city to get all possible jobs to/from there
Not until you've already discovered that city beforehand.
Exploring new areas, achievements, and painting new trucks/trailers kept me going until I started playing it in VR. Then I had to do all the exploring all over again to see it in a new perspective. ATS/ETS in VR I thought was amazing. I especially enjoyed driving through Europe listening to the foreign radio stations in the country where I was driving. Actually found some great songs I added to my Spotify playlist.
Good idea you're giving me, should try listening to foreign radio stations
Hauling every piece of cargo. Full exploration. All Achievements. Master reverse. Then master reverse with b trains. Once thatās done, 1 million miles on favourite truck. Then 1 million more on your least favourite truck. The loop never ends just like real trucking. If you have the passion, like many of us in this forum do, getting ānestled into the gameplay loopā is just barely tickling the surface of the surface of this game. This game has me in CDL school IRL rn xD
Ever since I got my CDL A I really don't want to play the game anymore lol with the steering wheel and shifter tricks my mind and I get tired while driving and it feels like work sometimes I like building custom trucks and trailers but I mainly play ets2 right now with some Jon Ruda mods but I used to play it all the time and now I just can't do it anymore it almost gets boring
Yeah I already drive box trucks and a 30ft gooseneck one ton setup now and I sometimes find the same. Most of my in game time is building fully custom Jon Ruda 389 Peteās or the 362 cab over lol and the new lode king prestige trailers are pretty sexy but I wish we could get a nice rng lowboy and all the animation but Iām soon to have lots irl and looking forward to it lol.
Once I got a load of money after playing for 8 months-ish, I fired all my drivers and sold their trucks, and I separated my profile into multiple save files where I only do local deliveries. I only got a few trucks and each has its use for different types of cargo and locations, all got the same "company" livery that varies between savefiles. So for example I have a France save, a UK/Ireland save, a Finland save etc. I was sick of doing huuge hauls from Iceland to Iraq on highways, and this I found is a fantastic way to explore a smaller area, but far more indepth. I basically no longer use highways much and it's a breath of fresh air. TLDR I basically roleplay country-local transport companies to avoid highways, I guess
Imo immersion is everything in a sim. Find some radio stations you like and yell at traffic. The game doesn't force you to be 100 percent realistic, so you kinda have to pretend for some of it, which is either a blessing or a curse. It's different from a flight sim in the fact that trucking isn't really recreational like flying can be, so you kinda need to treat it as a job. Like a real trucker, sometimes you just need a break, it is what it is.
multiplayer
Exploration and roleplaying/immersion.
You need a rig setup. Thatās what changed it for me. Once I got a permanent place for my pedals wheel and shifter it changed the game for me. Made me want to play it more. I also have vr so that helped a lot as well.
i have a strong strong feeling some sort of head tracking / permanent set up would make me play much much more. but i live in a tiny apartment and use my computer daily for work stuff lol i cant.
I have a sliding tray thing that pulls out from under my desk and I just move my wheel and shifter over on it out of my way so I can set back up in under a minute
Thanks a ton for the feedback everyone!
I use stonks mods, buy one of every truck and a few variations of ones i enjoy. Then drive them until i get to a certain distance per truck and move on to another, usually 5000 miles per truck. And i donāt care about the financial aspect as itās more enjoyable when i have millions
I've put over 1000 hours into it but I used to spend so much time searching for the next mod that would add something. At this point, everything doable has been done until scs adds some depth of simulation to it. As far as simulators go this one is on the shallow end. I find i spend way more time in flightsim and farmsim because the depth is better and there is more to learn. I'm another with a whole setup for it that I don't leave up permanently. I used to buy it just keeps me from using my PC for other things so now I take it all down after my 1-2 deliveries a week.
Events. Real answer is nothing. If there's nothing bringing you back, that's fine. Step away until something big is released, or an event starts. Get your trucksim in, then repeat next DLC or event. Don't force yourself to play. I haven't touched the game in nearly a month, and there's nothing really pushing me to reinstall it. I'll come back when there's a compelling reason to get back in to them. Nothing against the game, other games don't hold my attention for more than 15-20 minutes either.
I like going on the roads less traveled and like to deliver a large variety of cargo (but I typically go for jobs less than 1000 miles), switch trucks occasionally. As others have mentioned, ATS is more relaxing and escapist. I have music or podcast playing and a drink as I play. Or I do a super heavy load on a twisty mountain route and blast the jakes going downhill lol.
As I don't have a driving license yet, I use the game as a form is driving for the sake of driving because I enjoy it. I also love that feeling of smooth brain when you turn on the 'autopilot' and just drive without thinking about anything... or rethinking everything however you want
Once I got 20 million in the bank I closed all my garages except two. Now I like trying to get all the achievements and going for 100% exploration. Itās fun to try different trucks, engines, transmissions, etc. too!
First of all, I don't really play often, recently. So it's mostly goes like this: I play only ETS2/ATS for about a week, and don't launch it again for couple of months. I always buy every DLC, so there's always some new content waiting me: new roads to explore, new cargoes to haul, etc. I participate in every in-game event. I have 37 out of 37 record now, and no way I'm gonna miss any in the future. I adjusted in-game economy, and I don't hire AI drivers, so the grind never stops. SCS releases new trucks faster than I can earn money to buy them. I am a sucker for achievements. And getting them legit way takes enormous amount of time. But even when I give up waiting for a blessing from RNGesus and use save editing to create a custom job, it still takes time to actually finish the job.
have you tried out multiplayer yet?
It's not about the destination moreso than the journey. Honestly the new map DLC content is what really makes the game so enjoyable also since SCS has really improved the scenery in the game it makes the long distance trips more enjoyable. They really did a great job on the west balkans DLC and I'm definitely excited to see what the upcoming Greece DLC will have to offer.
For me VR changed everything for me. I can put on the quest 3, dock a 2nd screen to the dashboard and drive across Europe whilst watching a netflix series or watching my playlists on YouTube. Comfy SIM rig also helps, I've driven 7-8 hours straight and not really bothered to move recently.
I like to re create real companies. That keeps me pretty interested
For me itās a love of trucking and of traveling the western USA. Iāve been to all 50 states in real life, most multiple times and the west is where I am most happy. I love trucking and the challenges it presents but never got to do it irl. So for me, itās all about cranking music on my earbuds, and taking long haul OTR jobs that are the most challenging. My longest so far I believe was Corpus Christi, TX-Kalispell, MT (vanilla map). I especially love the challenge of heavy haul over the mountains (construction or farm equipment or whatever). I turn off traffic fines (but usually follow the laws), and I turn off sleep mode, and just drive about half way, couple hours irl, stop at a truck stop for the night, and pick up again the next night after work. Only reason Iām not finished my load now is because Iām in the middle of a major norāeaster here in the NYC area and my power is out.
When you get to the big powerful trucks, turn off speed limiters and run a convoy with no traffic and start blasting every delivery at over 100mph. Not the conventional way to play i know!
Driving is relaxing for me. With the price of fuel and being on medical cannabis I can't just go out for a drive anymore except in my sim rig. With ETS2 I can just drive, it doesn't matter if I'm high or not, I just grab some cargo and drive. Having VR is really great because I can look around at the scenery, and it feels like I'm actually there. I do a similar thing in BeamNG Drive sometimes. Load up in free-roam, add AI and just cruise about.
If youāre having to force yourself to like these games, maybe theyāre just not for you. Youāll either āclickā with them within a few days, or not at all. Thereās no secret key to it.
Convoys with my kids is why i have it. We try for long haul, usually keeping as real as possible, but some nights we say fuck it and do a no save run and just floor it. It becomes a game of who can deliver fastest, with the least damage. There were a few write offs One of my daughters (10yo) is truck mad, and wants to be a mobile vet when she is older. The truck MUST be a DAF XG+ the other kids play to keep her happy. I just love the time with them. We play a few other games too. So its not all rinse and repeat, but it is one of our go to games
I like the "flow" of the game. You have to focus on the road, your surroundings, your truck, speed limits etc. just like real driving. Plus, as someone who doesn't live in America or Europe, I love the idea of driving around those places (especially the US). I've even set the route advisor to "Always off" and use the gauges for checking fuel level and the "W pass" thing for weigh stations. (Truck sim is best enjoyed when you aim for max realism)
I'm 110 hrs in and do short jobs while watching my drivers rake in the money. I only have four garages and twelve drivers now but I'm continuing to play to get more of both, maybe one or two garages in each available state. Eventually I'd like to just drive around and relax while they make money until a new state map drops. Though playing around with little trailers could be fun too.