The SCS Sim Trailer and crew are getting ready for the first round of FIA European Truck Racing Championship 2018. Mighty roars of the racing trucks will sound at the famous Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli in Italy from 26th to 27th of May. And we'll be there!



Becoming a part of the roadshow for the 2017 season of the championship was the first experience of such kind for us, but it has proved to be a great opportunity to meet with our fans as well as to introduce our truck sim games to new audiences. We have fallen in love with the unique feeling of such events, the massive crowds, and all the diesel beauties and mighty trucks.

Let's give in to a bit of nostalgia with a short flashback of FIA ETRC 2017 events as seen through our eyes, and a teaser of new things to come!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCmVlsZXH8U

Out first stop will be in Misano, May 26-27. As always, if you plan to stop by, you can look forward to meeting our crew, trying our motion rigs, and perhaps even getting answers to some tough questions. ;)

To celebrate the start of the FIA ETRC 2018 season and our participation on the travelling circus accompanying the race series on eight circuits in eight countries, today we are launching a new cool World of Trucks event!

As you can see in the image below, we did our homework through the winter months, including inviting the iconic Pace Pete to visit SCS Software's office for a little chitchat.



Truck racing motorsport is attracting huge crowds around Europe, with over 400k visitors showing up to see the races during a season. The racing teams need to be very organized and well supplied to last through the season. All in all, a huge amount of various goods and parts must be moved all around the continent for the events to happen! And now you can lend your helping hand, too, at least virtually, by participating in the new event. To celebrate in proper shape, we have added a special trailer to the game for the duration of the event, sporting the marks of the main sponsors and organizers of 2018 FIA ETRC races: Krone Trailers, Goodyear, and FIA ETRC.



If you'd like to participate in the event, please read carefully the detailed info listed below. Everyone who will succeed and pass the event rules will be rewarded with five in-game items in the motifs of racing or decorated with the colors and logos of the main sponsors of this year's championship.

Deliver Racing Components to at least 12 different cities. Only deliveries over 200km are eligible.

• Paint Job with a racing motif - "Slipstream"
• Cabin accessory/toy - "Pace Pete Bobblehead"
• ETRC Window Pennant
• Goodyear Window Pennant
• KRONE Window Pennant

And that's not all! At the conclusion of the event, we'll randomly pick two lucky participants who will each get a very special reward - two tickets of their choice to any one of the upcoming rounds of the FIA ETRC 2018 season. Plus a bit of merch, with ETS2/ATS and ETRC cap as a bonus.




As you probably remember from the previous events, we are taking advantage of Steam's Inventory infrastructure to "drop" the rewards to you. As a consequence, the individual items can be traded or even sold through Steam. Just remember that if you get rid of a particular Inventory item, you will no longer be able to see it in the game's Upgrade Shop and equip your truck with it.

This event will last until the 17th of June, 2018. Have fun, and see you at the races!

As already mentioned in the Euro Truck Simulator 2 Update 1.31 feature list, and no doubt witnessed by most of the players who have updated the game yesterday, the game now contains 8x4 chassis for New Generation Scania trucks.

During review and validation, we have to create and provide quite a lot of videos. We thought it may be a cool tribute to the new vehicle variant if we selected the best bits with dramatic potential, and combined them into a single video for your viewing pleasure. So here we go, Introducing 8x4 chassis for Scania S and R...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9eYWlV5MnY

We are happy to give you official new updates for both our flagship truck sims, at last. Testing of this update wave took us longer than we had hoped, both internal tests and the open beta revealed a lot of areas requiring our attention before we could call the update done.There's quite a lot of new content and functionality for both games there, and we have run into some unexpected problems when things refused to work together.



Thumbs up to everyone who participated in the beta (for both of our games) and sent us his opinion and reported any issues. We would like to express our sincere thanks for all your help, bug reports, and general feedback, they were even more important and helpful than usual. After over a month full of testing, bug fixing, (and sometimes yelling and panicking), we're finally there. Update 1.31 is out for both of our games!

You can find the long and dry list of changes and additions below, but for those of you preferring moving pictures to written words, here is a very nice overview of the major changes in the 1.31 update courtesy of Squirrel's YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D80nTXTgtAA

• Power/air lines between truck and trailer(s) (read more)
• More realistic mirror rendering (head position-based FOV)

• New road through Yosemite added - CA-120 (read more)
• New trailers (bottom dumpers)

• Random road events
• 8x4 Scania R and S truck chassis
• New routes for Special Transport DLC missions (read more)
• Mighty Griffin DLC aftermarket tuning parts for next-gen Scania S & R (read more)

• Job selection screens have new filter and cargo search elements
• Parking brake automatically ON after truck spawn (g_park_brake_init)
• Screenshot name format now based on date and time
• Increased precision trip data (dashboard computer display)
• Fixed torque converter locking
• Fixed damaged predefined trucks in dealers and quick jobs
• Fixed trailer damage reporting
• Fixed HDR interpolation

• UK trailers no longer have a different license plate from the lorry
• Faster gear shifting for new Opticruise transmissions
• Fixed/updated license plates in various countries (Belgian, Norwegian, Polish, Czech)

• New terrain brushes in the map editor
• Dropped support of very old maps (pre ver. 4.38)
• Mirror_data
• A trailer can be registered as standalone or not 
• Variable shift length
• Truck dealer trucks are not in a single file/list anymore, the game reads all files/units in the given directory, making things friendlier for mods to coexist
• Steerable wheel independent on wheel model
• Dropped support for old attributes

Make sure to OPT OUT of beta branches now and your game will be automatically updated on Steam. For the legacy non-Steam edition of ETS2, the update should be ready in a few days. Enjoy!

American Truck Simulator Update 1.31 Open Beta
Euro Truck Simulator 2 Update 1.31 Open Beta

Today we have another confirmation that Something Is Cooking™ in ETS2: Beyond the Baltic Sea. We have shown you several border crossing buildings in a previous post. This time we are going deeper inside the new area.





The scope of the Baltic map expansion is rather extensive. As you can see on the screenshots, additions to our in-game economy reflect the local specifics, so we are creating a wide variety of thematically and visually diverse industry depots. We include common types like farms or sawmills, but also more specialized ones; for example a yacht building company. We hope that you will appreciate the focus on both their appearance and functionality.





Our work on ETS2: Beyond the Baltic Sea DLC continues very well, and while we still have a ton of work to do, we hope that the results will please even the most demanding virtual drivers!





Beyond the Baltic Sea, Border Crossing Prefabs

The latest World of Trucks event has just ended today. We are happy to see so many people participate!



There were 85,000 people who delivered at least one cargo towards the event's goal. Over 31,000 players went through the pains to deliver the required 10 cargos to 10 different countries - having fun, or so we hope. We feel sorry for 459 players who only managed to deliver 9 cargos before the event's deadline.

It should not take a long time before we issue another World of Trucks call for action. The next event we are planning will be related to our participation in FIA ETRC 2018 season events, and the first race in Misano is just around the corner. So refill your tanks, check your diesel beasts and stay tuned! We are working on some really cool event rewards for you...

Update 1.31 for Euro Truck Simulator 2 shares all the new functionality with the same-generation update of ATS, but there are some differences too, and it took us a few more days of internal testing to get it ready for an Open Beta test.



As we have already mentioned when launching ATS 1.31 Open Beta, trailer cables are one of the new shared visible simulation additions. We also have new mirror rendering code, providing more accurate mirrors view, closer to what a real truck driver can see. In addition, there are two main features that ETS2 gets in this update. First, long-awaited random road events finally made it to Europe! There are dozens of them, from the usual minor crashes to the big accidents like burn out vehicles and the emergency landing of small planes. Plus, a small surprise which we kept under the lid till the cable reveal blog post - 8x4 chassis for Next-Gen Scania R and S!



As for smaller changes, 1.31 brings some of the wish list items like a new filter option for job and cargo search, as well as better precision of trip data for dashboard computer. Also when you reload/restart the game or if the gameplay repositions your vehicle to a new place, and you "spawn" in your truck, the parking brake will be automatically set to ON, so that the vehicle may never start moving on its own unintentionally. Besides those additions and a few more fixes, we also updated license plates for various countries. In relation to that, UK trailers are not a standalone vehicle for license plates anymore.



There are also some changes in the tools and mods category. We're currently in the middle of a massive technology change in how our map designers apply textures, materials, and vegetation to road segments. Of course, this will also apply to the mod creators going forward. Historically, we have used a concept of "stamps" with pre-designed patterns to conserve memory and disk space, but we're abandoning this approach, and letting the map designers just "paint" surface properties with a "brush." This will bring more freedom and flexibility to map design; it should make the work more effective when a map designer is in need of a particular terrain feature. For the time being though, it means that map mods will have to be re-touched and re-saved with the new system, so things will need to settle down until everybody catches up. With the cleanup of map import code, we've also dropped support for very old (pre-4.38 format) maps so mods that are no longer maintained (were last saved as of Feb 2017) cannot be loaded in the current version of the game. We hope that this isn't really an issue for any mods in current use.



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. 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 the Euro Truck Simulator 2 → Properties → Betas tab → public_beta → 1.31 public beta. No password required.


MAIN FEATURES:

• Power/air lines between truck and trailer(s)
• Improved mirror rendering (head position-based FOV, properly curved mirrors)
• Random road events
• 8x4 Scania R and S truck chassis
• New routes for Special Transport DLC missions (read more)
• Mighty Griffin DLC aftermarket tuning parts for next-gen Scania S & R (read more)

MINOR CHANGES:

• Job selection screens have new filter and cargo search elements.
• UK trailers are not a standalone vehicle for license plates anymore[/*]
• Parking brake automatically ON after truck spawn (g_park_brake_init)
• Screenshot name format now based on date and time
• Increased precision trip data (dashboard computer display)
• Faster gear shifting for new opticruise transmissions
• Fixed/updated LP in various countries (Belgian, Norway, Polish, Czech)
• Fixed torque converter locking
• Fixed damaged predefined trucks in dealers and quick jobs
• Fixed trailer damage reporting
• Fixed HDR interpolation

TOOLS/ MOD:

• New terrain brushes in the map editor
• Dropped support of the old maps (pre 4.38, due to brushes)
• Mirror_data
• A trailer could be registered as standalone or not
• Variable shift length
• Truck dealer trucks are not on the list anymore, the game reads all units in given directory 
• Steerable wheel independent on wheel model 
• Dropped support for old attributes

Last December's add-on release for Euro Truck Simulator 2 - the Special Transport DLC - has been accepted very positively in the fan community. As you may remember, a comparable game expansion is also in the works for American Truck Simulator, but meanwhile, the team behind Special Transport still keeps on tweaking and improving their creation.

We are happy to reveal that along with the upcoming ETS2 1.31 Update, the Special Transport DLC will also be updated with new jobs. There are new routes added to the core map, and several new routes will also be accessible for owners of other map DLCs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwrIDaQPZ6A

This is not our last take on Special Transport, you can count on further tweaks and improvements down the road!

Beyond the Baltic Sea, the new DLC for Euro Truck Simulator 2 that we are working on now, will be one of the largest and most complex expansion regions. The area we plan to cover is vast, and it involves parts of five different countries. This is an additional challenge for us with all the various regional differences, like road signs, or the local industries.


Particular focus is also required for country borders. The border crossings between the EU and Russia are a new phenomenon in our games, as there is much stricter regime there than within EU. Customs checks are taking place on both sides of the border line and they may take a long time to spend in a queue, which may turn out to be clashing with our desire for fluid gameplay.

In our effort for maximum realism in the world, we are building new prefabs to represent the unique architecture of these border crossing hubs. It's not just the buildings of crossings themselves, we also want to improve the fidelity with some still-functional as well as no-more-functional installations from the Soviet era which can be found along the roads near the borders.


Let us show you a little gallery of screenshots including examples of the prefabs that our team is building for the various border crossings for Beyond the Baltic Sea...










Beyond the Baltic Sea

Beyond the Baltic Sea, the new DLC for Euro Truck Simulator 2 that we are working on now, will be one of the largest and most complex expansion regions. The area we plan to cover is vast, and it involves parts of five different countries. This is an additional challenge for us with all the various regional differences, like road signs, or the local industries.


Particular focus is also required for country borders. The border crossings between the EU and Russia are a new phenomenon in our games, as there is much stricter regime there than within EU. Customs checks are taking place on both sides of the border line and they may take a long time to spend in a queue, which may turn out to be clashing with our desire for fluid gameplay.

In our effort for maximum realism in the world, we are building new prefabs to represent the unique architecture of these border crossing hubs. It's not just the buildings of crossings themselves, we also want to improve the fidelity with some still-functional as well as no-more-functional installations from the Soviet era which can be found along the roads near the borders.


Let us show you a little gallery of screenshots including examples of the prefabs that our team is building for the various border crossings for Beyond the Baltic Sea...










Beyond the Baltic Sea

On this special day, we'd like to unveil one more cool improvement for our games. It's an experimental next-next-gen approach to engineering truck sounds that you would be a fool to overlook. As it is truly groundbreaking and still experimental, we did not see it prudent to put it into the standard games yet, instead, we have made it available via mods for both games. We are really curious to learn what you will think about them! (or those among you daring to install the mods anyway)

We proudly present „REAL TRUCK SOUNDS MOD by April v 1.4“!

All of the sounds were recorded by very passionate individuals with great care to make sure they receive a healthy dose of special human touch. Only a handful vehicles have got the special treatment so far. Depending on your feedback, we may be able to add more by about April 1, 2019. You can find the list of vehicles with the improved sounds in the respective mod descriptions. You can look up the mods on Steam Workshop:

Euro Truck Simulator 2 April 1.4. Update:

• ETS2 Truck Sound Improvement (April 2018)