We are getting ready for a really exciting week ahead. Many things need to fall into place just right, we are stretched quite thin to pull it all off, but the outlook is positive, so keep your fingers crossed.

First, this Saturday and Sunday, we have the Zolder truck race weekend to attend and to meet our fans from Belgium. At the same time, a second crew is right now in Hannover, Germany, finalizing our booth at the IAA Commercial Vehicles 2018 Expo, which is kicking off next week.

Meanwhile, we are gearing up for a big day on Monday! We have some important releases on our radar, a new video is ready, and we are thinking of doing a Steam key giveaway for a new DLC that's coming up for ETS2. You should definitely pay attention to our social media all through Monday so that you don't miss a chance to participate. Just keep in mind that we typically target giveaways to veteran players with lots of playtime hours under their belt.



Here is a handy list of our communication channels:

• Steam Developer Page
• World of Trucks
• SCS Software blog
• Message Board
• Twitter
• Facebook
• YouTube
• Instagram
• Weibo (new!)
• Youku (new!)

Today, we are bringing you a sampling of various landmarks and recognizable places from the upcoming ETS2 Beyond the Baltic Sea map expansion. Unique landmark models always add a lot to the authenticity and immersion of the experience. They make the locals super happy that it was "their" place that got some love from the developers, they are a proof that we try really hard to capture the spirit of the region.


It is not easy to decide on the list of landmarks; of out maybe tens of thousands of potentially recognizable locations along the planned routes, we have the list pruned to a couple of hundred during the research stage, and then down to a manageable level as the final locations are decided upon. Each such model represents day or sometimes weeks of work, so we need to use them carefully to spice up the game world without overloading the art team.



Like what you see? Let us know, and please don't forget to add the upcoming DLC to your Steam wishlist and follow our developer page!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/925580/Euro_Truck_Simulator_2__Beyond_the_Baltic_Sea/

Raise your eyes to the sky and marvel at the night sky - Euro Truck Simulator2: Space Paint Jobs Pack brings a touch of extra-terrestrial experience to the game. We have created 6 spacy paint jobs to decorate your trucks, plus 2 brand new cool cabin toys...

You have probably noticed that we have slowed down the introduction of new cosmetic items via DLC to our games in recent times, even though a lot of players keep asking us for new decorations. We are trying to strike a new balance with the timing, and new cool stuff is also now coming as rewards for successful participation in the various World of Trucks events.

We have quite a bunch of ideas for topics worth covering in future thematic paintjob packs, but we also enjoy working on input from the fan community, so if you have a great suggestion, we'll be happy to hear it. Then there are the country-based paint sets, we still owe the players in several large fan communities their set of truck paints. We'll need to see what we can do about it, especially as new map expansions are under development ;).

In the previous blog posts covering the development of Euro Truck Simulator 2: Beyond the Baltic Sea (here and here), we have mostly focused on the new industry "prefabs" for industries. Today, we would like to contrast it by looking at calmer and more relaxing sights along the road, like smaller villages and nature of the countryside.

Part of the reason why we chose to extend the gameworld northeast was to increase the variety of the views along the road. We were looking for a change, and the Baltics are definitely very much unlike the previous Italia DLC. There are vast areas crisscrossed by the road network between larger cities, and we do our best to emulate the experience of driving on these roads with the local architecture and small villages.










You will need to navigate many narrow village roads, and a ton of our time was dedicated to the many natural beauties that reign in these less populated areas. We have added, adjusted, and modified many of our plants, shrubs, and tree models to get the perfect mix for the region. We have, for example, added a revised or new version of pines, birches, cherries, aspens, limes, and oaks. There are also brand new representatives of flora like silver spruce, and hogweed.

Two winters ago, as a prize for completing the Christmas Grand Gift Delivery 2016 event, we have rewarded the participants with a time-exclusive content in the form of two pieces of DLC; one for American Truck Simulator and one for Euro Truck Simulator 2.



There was no other way to earn or buy the packs, but as time goes on, we are receiving more and more requests to make our pair of Dragon DLC available for purchase, to make it accessible to new players who have discovered the truck sim phenomenon since then. We have decided to grant this wish, and the two tuning packs are now on Steam Store:

• Euro Truck Simulator 2 - Dragon Truck Design Pack

The content of each pack is unique and can be obtained on its own, but we know that there is quite an overlap of ETS2 and ATS player base, so we felt that many people may appreciate a cheaper way to purchase both DLC at the same time. We have created the Dragon Design Bundle with a nice discount to make it possible, so make sure to check it first if this catches your interest.

Dragon Truck Design Pack Content:



You Are A Dragon Be A Dragon!

Open Beta of Euro Truck Simulator 2 Update 1.32 is now available as a preview of things to come. We will launch the open beta for the upcoming ATS update soon, too, once we are done fixing the first wave of reported problems from this beta.

IMPORTANT: Due to the scope and scale of the major changes to the game, in order to get as much feedback as possible, we are sharing this open beta with the community earlier than usual in the development cycle. There are still minor known issues that we are working on, and there may be even bigger bugs hidden there that we hope you will help us discover. If you think that the risk and possibly frustration with an unstable and unpolished beta is worth it for you, make sure to back up your player profile to have a safe way to come back to 1.31 in case you get tired of testing. Many mods may have got broken due to extensive data format and logic changes. An early open beta gives the mod authors a chance to start making the necessary changes already, but for testing at this moment, you may need to switch most mods off just to get things working.

With the disclaimer out of the way, finally, let's focus on the positives. If you thought 1.31 was big (we did), 1.32 is huge with its truckload of new content!



The first major addition is trailer ownership. A dedicated cross-disciplined team worked on this feature for more than a year, and we believe that the result will be a welcome addition to our games. Now trailers can be bought, tuned, painted and used by both you and your company drivers. So don't be surprised if you don't find a trailer in the garage you left it in. One of your employees might have taken it for a ride - that is if you didn't lock the said trailer to limit it only for yourself.


While working on this feature, the vehicle team also discarded and recreated several of the old box trailers and adjusted the rest for trailer ownership. B-double trailers made it to the game - but their usage is limited only for specific regions. This game update is by far not our final word on trailer ownership, there are still several more classes of trailers that we need to revisit and adjust. It will take us several months of hard work to complete, but we did not want to let you wait for a game update this long.



With trailer ownership and the need to add more "icons" to access new functionality through the game's central "desktop" main menu, we decided to reorganize this central game user interface screen. You will no doubt notice that there are now two larger widgets on the right side of the screen instead of three smaller ones.


UI changes and additions did not stop there. We have created new screens for trailer management and several existing company management screens had to be changed to handle the new feature. While we were at it, we have reviewed how our user interface code works with color gradients in sRGB color space and decided to recalibrate it, improving font clarity and color perception. We hope that these changes and the number of trailer tuning options will please everyone.


The second big news is the start of the rebuilding effort of the old parts of ETS2 game world. It will take us considerable time to overhaul all the areas in need, but the first step has been taken. The road network in northern part of Germany has been torn out and replaced, and all German cities received a facelift. In fact, four German cities have been razed and built again from scratch.

Let's review the catalogue of other additions and changes. The new ETS2 update finally brings Scania 2016 to AI traffic, you will also be transporting them shiny new to truck dealers from the factory in Södertälje. The trucks in AI traffic now feature trailer cables, with the option to turn them off for performance reasons.


Euro Truck Simulator 2 lighting has been readjusted and brought in sync with day/night cycle system in American Truck Simulator. New skyboxes are coming and yet more are planned, to increase the variety of environment and weather.



The programmers have made several changes to code and data related to rendering speed, and we see nice framerate improvements in some scenarios. But your experience may vary, and we are interested in your feedback on any noticeable fps improvement or change.

We continue to reflect some of the changes and events in the real world, and the speed limit in France was dropped to 80 KPH on some roads. And lastly, one of the small wishlist items – automatic parking brake is now disabled by default; so those who like this function need to turn it back on in-game options.



So enjoy all the new additions, but please remember: It's only an open beta, not a stable public version - so you may encounter bugs, instability, and kinks. This time more than ever, due to the sheer size of the update. It's completely okay if you want to wait for the final release. But if you're interested in helping us to move there faster, we'll appreciate all of your feedback on our forum and your bug reports in this section.

If you wish to participate in the open beta, you can find this version in the public_beta branch on Steam. The way to access it is as follows: Steam client → LIBRARY → right click on Euro Truck Simulator 2 → Properties → Betas tab → public_beta → 1.32 public beta. No password required.

• Trailer ownership
  https://steamcommunity.com/games/227300/announcements/detail/1716320785470332066
• Major UI changes (Main menu, Company Management screens, Dealerships, etc.) 
• Job filters redesign
• Some of the old trailers discarded and redesigned
• Scania 2016 added to AI traffic
• B-double type trailers added
• Updated part of Germany map
  https://steamcommunity.com/games/227300/announcements/detail/1671278628863956479
• Lighting improvements (sync with ATS)
• Power/airlines on AI trucks added (optional)
• Rendering speedup
• Option for automatic parking brake - disabled by default
• The speed limit in France dropped to 80 KPH on some roads

• Completely redesigned trailer-cargo logic (cargo data, trailer data, economy, etc.). Most mods will need some work to catch up!

Some hints about an upcoming major new feature of our truck sim games have already been spotted by the fan community, and it's time to finally start talking about it openly. Trailer ownership has been requested for years, and it's coming at last, as a major part of the upcoming 1.32 update both for Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator.



Trailer ownership may not necessarily have the same meaning for everybody, different people may have slightly different ideas of what it should include and how far it should go in depicting reality. In our games with lots of different systems, layered on top of each other, we had to figure out a way to add the feature without breaking the existing gameplay loop which has been very much ok for the majority of the millions of players who tried the game over the years, while bringing enough of a change for people eager for more depth. The core feature set had to be created in a reasonable timeframe so that the bulk of the implementation and testing can fit inside a period between two game updates. In reality, the work has been going on for over a year, employing a big cross-discipline team here, as there is a huge number of changes to gameplay logic and economy, camera work, user interface screens, there are tons of new models, artwork, textures, and paint jobs.



We had to decide on what is essential and concentrate on this core. In the upcoming update, there are still some elements left where we see an opportunity to go deeper eventually. Some trailer classes have not been refurbished yet so that they have not been made available for trailer ownership, this will have to wait for a future update, too. We are hopeful that the new feature will be accepted positively especially by the hardcore part of the truck sim players, as we have created not just a fully-fledged equivalent to the existing truck upgrade shop, but there's so much more included.



A new, separate configuration section in the form of trailer upgrade shop will let you build, configure, tune and paint your owned trailers. You can choose from multiple chassis, trailer types, and paint jobs and you’ll be able to tune your trailer with many different parts, of course, the wheels are customizable as well. Company paint jobs available in ETS2 will offer the right options for your new trailer to fit into your company's visual style. From now on your AI drivers are able to choose fitting trailers from your trailer pool and use them!



In a nutshell, we have refrigerated, insulated, curtain siders and dry cargo trailers for both games coming in the update as ready to be owned. Moreover, ETS2 will host moving floor trailer variants. For European trailer configuration, you can choose from single, double or also the newly available b-double. American Truck Simulator will host 28, 45, 48 or 53 feet trailer versions in double, triple or even Rocky Mountain double configurations - these will be based on the geographic location of your garage to comply with the law in each US state. Flatbeds will be available for both ETS2 and ATS. Addition to ATS trailers are also flatbeds with a rolling tarp system (equivalent to European curtain sider). You can see there will be many trailer lengths and types combinations to haul cargoes of all sizes. We added one more fitting feature: ADR (HAZMAT) cargoes will „spawn“ appropriate warning sign on your trailer.



The new addition of trailer ownership logically means big changes to the in-game economy. It will be much more cargo-focused, but Quick jobs and Freight market will stay around as simpler and satisfying options to get into the game. A whole new Cargo Market screen will let you search for deliveries on your own trailer. Yes, we had to create a LOT of new cargo visualizations for this new feature.

We will show you more of trailer ownership before 1.32 is out, and it's also going to be battle-tested as a part of the upcoming Open Beta, so the wait should not be overly long. We hope you’ll be just as excited for its release as we are!

After countless requests from our Euro Truck Simulator 2 Dutch fan community, finally, we are releasing a new Dutch Paint Jobs Pack DLC today.

Taking a look at the calendar, we found a day which may not be a national holiday in the Netherlands, but still, it is undisputedly an important day in the history of the country. For those of you interested in the times of the Renaissance, on July 26th, 1581 the Netherlands declared its independence in the Act of Abjuration. From now on, this day will also be marked in history as the day of release of the Dutch Paint Job Pack!

Here we are with a recap of the most recent SCS On the Road trip plus an invitation to a new show happening in just a few days!

Our crew has just arrived from the 4th round of the FIA ETRC 2018 season held at Slovakia Ring. Even though it was a very hot weekend, the visitors there were really interested in our work and hundreds of people came to try our 4D Motions seats.



We had a great time and we'd like to send a virtual high-five to all who came to spend some time with us. A big thank you goes also to our helping hands - Czech Youtube/Twitch streamer Synecek11 of Gamekeepers_cz channel, and Viliam and Alex who reached us via email http://mailto:ontheroad@scssoft.com. If you'd like to become a "roadie" for one of our upcoming future events (list at the image below) too, give it a try and send us an email. You may also want to check out our recent post here.





The 4th round at Slovakia Ring was the last race weekend before a 5-week summer break in the FIA ETRC season. But that doesn't mean that we'll not be meeting our fans for such a long time.



We're packing our things as we write this, loading our SCS Sim Trailer with some merch gifts for the most dedicated fans, and very soon we'll be leaving Prague again. The destination is set to Master Truck Opole 2018 in Poland. Kudos to the team of http://imgn.pro/ who helped us a lot with making our participation at this event easier.

We know that our Polish fan community is huge. We hope that you'll be there with us too to witness all that this famous event has to offer. Come and visit the area of Lotnisko Opole-Polska Nowa Wieś from 20th to 22nd of July, 2018 and spend some time with us. We're looking forward to meeting you!

In a couple of days, our SCS On the Road crew will pack again and set the compass to a new destination - the Slovakiaring - for the 4th round of the FIA ETRC truck racing championship. We can't wait to meet with all our local fans there. See you all in the Fan Village, just like usual!

Let us whet your appetite with a short photo report from the previous race at the Nürburgring circuit in Germany. It was a very busy long weekend for our team there. Three days full of trucking, with crowds of people interested in our games. We met a lot of fantastic fans and we'd like to say thank you to all who had come to visit us.










Our motion seat rigs are proving so attractive that Krone Trailers wanted an extra motion seat for their booth at Nürburgring, playing a custom version of our game with an advanced look at their trailers included. It was a pilot project, but we really like the idea that in the future the manufacturers of trucks and equipment would be keen to use our games as a demo platform for their products at public events. It would definitely raise the awareness and profile of our games even higher.

We had a really cordial meeting with Jessica Lynn and her band. Stay tuned as more info about our future cooperation is coming. It was a hectic weekend but we loved every single second of each one of those days!




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