After a fruitful open beta period, we believe that the Mercedes-Benz New Actros truck is ready for release at last. We'd like to thank all beta participants for helping us make this Euro Truck Simulator 2 update as polished as possible!

Further tweaks to the vehicle are still planned (in fact to most other trucks in the game); we'll be adding more tuning options in future updates for example. But you can already have a ton of fun driving the new vehicle in the current form for sure!

Let's do a quick recap of what went into 1.18 Update:

• New truck: Mercedes-Benz New Actros
  
• Mercedes-Benz brand is in the game
  
• Improved vegetation (prefab vegetation distances, rebalanced vegetation LODs, more settings)
  
• DRL for Iveco Hi-Way, Mercedes-Benz New Actros, Volvo FH, DAF XF Euro6
  
• New trailer skins
  
• Updated radios list
  
• Support for weather-based pedestrian spawning, support for multiple animations
  
• Over a thousand minor fixes in world models and in the map

After a fruitful open beta period, we believe that the Mercedes-Benz New Actros truck is ready for release at last. We'd like to thank all beta participants for helping us make this Euro Truck Simulator 2 update as polished as possible!

Further tweaks to the vehicle are still planned (in fact to most other trucks in the game); we'll be adding more tuning options in future updates for example. But you can already have a ton of fun driving the new vehicle in the current form for sure!

Let's do a quick recap of what went into 1.18 Update:

• New truck: Mercedes-Benz New Actros
  
• Mercedes-Benz brand is in the game
  
• Improved vegetation (prefab vegetation distances, rebalanced vegetation LODs, more settings)
  
• DRL for Iveco Hi-Way, Mercedes-Benz New Actros, Volvo FH, DAF XF Euro6
  
• New trailer skins
  
• Updated radios list
  
• Support for weather-based pedestrian spawning, support for multiple animations
  
• Over a thousand minor fixes in world models and in the map

Some of you may have found our very first newsletter in your inbox during the recent week. It's been a bit complicated for us to mail out over 170 thousand e-mails (and that's still only about half of users registered on World of Trucks!), even using Amazon's back-end service, it took several days to go through the long list.



So far we have received mostly compliments from our readers, indicating that there's hunger for such information updates. Some of our fans come here to read our blog, other people mostly stick to Facebook, some prefer Twitter, but it would take a real obsession to follow everything we do on a daily basis. So we believe that the newsletter, covering a broader range of topics and sent out every couple of months, will be a good additional channel to keep in touch with the fanbase, especially with the players who do not play the game or engage in the community so frequently, but still don't want to miss out on new cool things happening that could spark their interest in playing the game again more intensively.

It was not a coincidence that we wanted to get the first newsletter issue out alongside the release of our Euro Truck Simulator 2 Scandinavia expansion, a little bit of additional PR never hurts, but we think that you could appreciate that we focused on slightly different and deeper aspect of its development, as well as provided an overview of other projects that we are cooking for you under SCS Software's roof.

To prevent excessive email bounce rate we opted to send the newsletter only to active World of Trucks users - those who logged in to World of Trucks at least once during the last six months. In case you were among people who missed it, fear not, we are going to store all our future newsletters on our forum, where you have an option to comment or discuss its content.

So here you go:

Comment on our forum here

Read newsletter here

Some of you may have found our very first newsletter in your inbox during the recent week. It's been a bit complicated for us to mail out over 170 thousand e-mails (and that's still only about half of users registered on World of Trucks!), even using Amazon's back-end service, it took several days to go through the long list.



So far we have received mostly compliments from our readers, indicating that there's hunger for such information updates. Some of our fans come here to read our blog, other people mostly stick to Facebook, some prefer Twitter, but it would take a real obsession to follow everything we do on a daily basis. So we believe that the newsletter, covering a broader range of topics and sent out every couple of months, will be a good additional channel to keep in touch with the fanbase, especially with the players who do not play the game or engage in the community so frequently, but still don't want to miss out on new cool things happening that could spark their interest in playing the game again more intensively.

It was not a coincidence that we wanted to get the first newsletter issue out alongside the release of our Euro Truck Simulator 2 Scandinavia expansion, a little bit of additional PR never hurts, but we think that you could appreciate that we focused on slightly different and deeper aspect of its development, as well as provided an overview of other projects that we are cooking for you under SCS Software's roof.

To prevent excessive email bounce rate we opted to send the newsletter only to active World of Trucks users - those who logged in to World of Trucks at least once during the last six months. In case you were among people who missed it, fear not, we are going to store all our future newsletters on our forum, where you have an option to comment or discuss its content.

So here you go:

Comment on our forum here

Read newsletter here

We are happy to announce the availability of Open Beta build of 1.18 Update for Euro Truck Simulator 2. You can find it in a "branch" on Steam. (Steam client -> LIBRARY -> right click Euro Truck Simulator 2 -> Properties -> Betas tab -> public beta - 1.18 public beta).

The main star of this game update will be the introduction of a new truck: Mercedes-Benz New Actros.

We are very excited about obtaining this truck manufacturer license, with Mercedes-Benz trucks becoming a part of the ETS2 universe, now all "Magnificent Seven" European truck manufacturers are finally in the game.

The 1.18 Update also brings several additional bug fixes based on reports since the release of 1.17 update and Scandinavia expansion:

• new truck - Mercedes-Benz New Actros
  
• Mercedes-Benz brand is in the game
  
• Improved vegetation (prefab vegetation distances, rebalanced vegetation LODs, more settings)
  
• DRL for Iveco Hi-Way, Mercedes-Benz New Actros, Volvo FH, DAF XF Euro6
  
• new trailer skins
  
• new radios
  
• support for weather-based pedestrian spawning, support for multiple animations
  
• modellab – drawing of bounding volumes, support for opening models from mods
  
• over thousand minor fixes in models and in the map
  
• known issue: New Actross sfx still needs rebalancing

This is a beta, there may be issues, after all that's why the beta is here to have many eyes looking at it and find any problems so that they can be fixed. Please use our forum to report your findings.

We are happy to announce the availability of Open Beta build of 1.18 Update for Euro Truck Simulator 2. You can find it in a "branch" on Steam. (Steam client -> LIBRARY -> right click Euro Truck Simulator 2 -> Properties -> Betas tab -> public beta - 1.18 public beta).

The main star of this game update will be the introduction of a new truck: Mercedes-Benz New Actros.

We are very excited about obtaining this truck manufacturer license, with Mercedes-Benz trucks becoming a part of the ETS2 universe, now all "Magnificent Seven" European truck manufacturers are finally in the game.

The 1.18 Update also brings several additional bug fixes based on reports since the release of 1.17 update and Scandinavia expansion:

• new truck - Mercedes-Benz New Actros
  
• Mercedes-Benz brand is in the game
  
• Improved vegetation (prefab vegetation distances, rebalanced vegetation LODs, more settings)
  
• DRL for Iveco Hi-Way, Mercedes-Benz New Actros, Volvo FH, DAF XF Euro6
  
• new trailer skins
  
• new radios
  
• support for weather-based pedestrian spawning, support for multiple animations
  
• modellab – drawing of bounding volumes, support for opening models from mods
  
• over thousand minor fixes in models and in the map
  
• known issue: New Actross sfx still needs rebalancing

This is a beta, there may be issues, after all that's why the beta is here to have many eyes looking at it and find any problems so that they can be fixed. Please use our forum to report your findings.

Today we'd like to announce release of the second iteration of SCS Blender Tools.



The highlight of today's release is the support for exporting semi-trailer models from Blender to Euro Truck simulator 2. This new functionality should add to the growing roster of already supported models.

Here's is the full list of changes in the new version of SCS Blender Tools:

• New and better visualization of SCS materials based on Blender nodes system
  
• "Look" system implementation (The "look" is our internal name for what people usually call "skins")
  
• Lamp Tools - lamp material preview and helper tool for positioning UV mappings
  
• Wrap Tool - vertex colors wrapping
  
• Collision Locators support

Other improvements like:

• SCS Project Base path can be changed in import screen too
  
• SCS Root Object is better visualized to make it clearly visible how it is positioned and which axis points where
  
• Vertex Colors range adopted to pipeline (0.5 is neutral; what is more will be brighter in game; what is less will be darker in game)
  
• Added export success info if there are no errors or warnings during export

SCS Blender Tools are still undergoing focused development, as new features are going to be added, and we hope that the package will find increasing adoption in the mod making community.

To help you get up to speed easier, we are releasing a new SCS Blender Tools tutorial in three parts. It is the beginning of a planned future series on SCS Blender Tools. The voice you will hear in the videos is SCS Software's SCS Blender Tools guru and an avid mod maker 50keda.

This tutorial's goal is to lead you through the full export pipeline using SCS Blender Tools. As a study case, we used fairly sophisticated model of truck wheels as an example. We hope that you will enjoy it, and please let us know which kind of topics you would like us to cover in future tutorials.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Heli83gYwXg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdINDBniZm0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OI18txNNdc

You can download the latest version of SCS Blender Tools on its GitHub download page and try to get further help using the following links:


Wiki is probably the most important place for SCS Blender Tools knowledge base. There you will find the steps you need to take to begin using the tools. You can also find the download links for SCS Blender Tools. And there is even all the source code of the tools, right in the open, which could be quite interesting for the coders out there:

https://github.com/SCSSoftware/BlenderTools/wiki


We have created a special forum branch, dedicated exclusively to the SCS Blender Tools. If you feel you found a bug in the tools, or want to ask something about them, or share your knowledge with the other people just getting started - this is the place to be. We will be monitoring the forums and hopefully providing some guidance, but again, we do not expect to be able to respond to everybody and to every cry for help.

http://forum.scssoft.com/viewforum.php?f=159


In case you forget all the links above you can always start with the modding section of the Euro Truck Simulator 2 web page. The links there should guide you not just to SCS Blender Tools but also to all modding guidelines paramount for successful mod creation.

http://www.eurotrucksimulator2.com/mod_tools.php

We encourage you to import and check all the models on your own. Now all you need to start is a bit of knowledge of Blender!

Today we'd like to announce release of the second iteration of SCS Blender Tools.



The highlight of today's release is the support for exporting semi-trailer models from Blender to Euro Truck simulator 2. This new functionality should add to the growing roster of already supported models.

Here's is the full list of changes in the new version of SCS Blender Tools:

• New and better visualization of SCS materials based on Blender nodes system
  
• "Look" system implementation (The "look" is our internal name for what people usually call "skins")
  
• Lamp Tools - lamp material preview and helper tool for positioning UV mappings
  
• Wrap Tool - vertex colors wrapping
  
• Collision Locators support

Other improvements like:

• SCS Project Base path can be changed in import screen too
  
• SCS Root Object is better visualized to make it clearly visible how it is positioned and which axis points where
  
• Vertex Colors range adopted to pipeline (0.5 is neutral; what is more will be brighter in game; what is less will be darker in game)
  
• Added export success info if there are no errors or warnings during export

SCS Blender Tools are still undergoing focused development, as new features are going to be added, and we hope that the package will find increasing adoption in the mod making community.

To help you get up to speed easier, we are releasing a new SCS Blender Tools tutorial in three parts. It is the beginning of a planned future series on SCS Blender Tools. The voice you will hear in the videos is SCS Software's SCS Blender Tools guru and an avid mod maker 50keda.

This tutorial's goal is to lead you through the full export pipeline using SCS Blender Tools. As a study case, we used fairly sophisticated model of truck wheels as an example. We hope that you will enjoy it, and please let us know which kind of topics you would like us to cover in future tutorials.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Heli83gYwXg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdINDBniZm0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OI18txNNdc

You can download the latest version of SCS Blender Tools on its GitHub download page and try to get further help using the following links:


Wiki is probably the most important place for SCS Blender Tools knowledge base. There you will find the steps you need to take to begin using the tools. You can also find the download links for SCS Blender Tools. And there is even all the source code of the tools, right in the open, which could be quite interesting for the coders out there:

https://github.com/SCSSoftware/BlenderTools/wiki


We have created a special forum branch, dedicated exclusively to the SCS Blender Tools. If you feel you found a bug in the tools, or want to ask something about them, or share your knowledge with the other people just getting started - this is the place to be. We will be monitoring the forums and hopefully providing some guidance, but again, we do not expect to be able to respond to everybody and to every cry for help.

http://forum.scssoft.com/viewforum.php?f=159


In case you forget all the links above you can always start with the modding section of the Euro Truck Simulator 2 web page. The links there should guide you not just to SCS Blender Tools but also to all modding guidelines paramount for successful mod creation.

http://www.eurotrucksimulator2.com/mod_tools.php

We encourage you to import and check all the models on your own. Now all you need to start is a bit of knowledge of Blender!

The release of the much-anticipated Scandinavia map expansion DLC for Euro Truck Simulator 2 is finally here.

The activation keys in retail box editions of the game sold across Europe should start working right now, and your game should automatically update to the DLC content to be compatible with latest game version just after installation.

The launch date for digital portals is May 7 as well, so you will start to see the game appearing now as well on many 3rd party distribution sites.

We are of course offering the game for sale directly ourselves through our two official channels:

1. You can buy the expansion from ETS2 Scandinavia Steam page.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/304212/

To make you decide fast and buy the game during its first week on sale (it would be nice to place high on the sales chart after the release also to remind the gaming press that yes the truck sim genre is relevant), we have decided to sweeten the deal for the early buyers: Purchase the Steam version now and get a bonus Viking Legends Paintjobs DLC for free.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL8th6LVBts

2. Alternatively, if you want to avoid installing the game through Steam, we are still offering the Scandinavia expansion through our legacy activation system on the official Euro Truck Simulator 2 website.

The release of Scandinavia DLC is a great opportunity to increase the pool of available country-specific paint job DLCs for the game. We are happy to announce immediate availability of Danish Paint Jobs Pack, Norwegian Paint Jobs Pack, and Swedish Paint Jobs Pack DLCs.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/347210/



http://store.steampowered.com/app/347190/



http://store.steampowered.com/app/347211/

The release of the much-anticipated Scandinavia map expansion DLC for Euro Truck Simulator 2 is finally here.

The activation keys in retail box editions of the game sold across Europe should start working right now, and your game should automatically update to the DLC content to be compatible with latest game version just after installation.

The launch date for digital portals is May 7 as well, so you will start to see the game appearing now as well on many 3rd party distribution sites.

We are of course offering the game for sale directly ourselves through our two official channels:

1. You can buy the expansion from ETS2 Scandinavia Steam page.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/304212/

To make you decide fast and buy the game during its first week on sale (it would be nice to place high on the sales chart after the release also to remind the gaming press that yes the truck sim genre is relevant), we have decided to sweeten the deal for the early buyers: Purchase the Steam version now and get a bonus Viking Legends Paintjobs DLC for free.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL8th6LVBts

2. Alternatively, if you want to avoid installing the game through Steam, we are still offering the Scandinavia expansion through our legacy activation system on the official Euro Truck Simulator 2 website.

The release of Scandinavia DLC is a great opportunity to increase the pool of available country-specific paint job DLCs for the game. We are happy to announce immediate availability of Danish Paint Jobs Pack, Norwegian Paint Jobs Pack, and Swedish Paint Jobs Pack DLCs.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/347210/



http://store.steampowered.com/app/347190/



http://store.steampowered.com/app/347211/