I almost forgot-  thanks JZ for bringing this game to light.  if you hadn't started posting pics and talking about it I'd have just skipped it as another truck sim, but this is beating out Skyrim and AssCreed 3 right now for my playtime.

on a humorous note, I ran into my first railway crossing tonight.  Literally.  I was storming across Poland like the Wehrmacht when I suddenly noticed a pair of gates closing in front of me.  seeing as I was going about 90 KM/H I had no chance to stop-  too bad the dev's made the gates indestructible 

You're welcome 

Wow, I haven't seen any railway crossings yet. It's off to Poland I go!

#20 on the countdown is "Radar Love" by Golden Earring, another excellent choice. To celebrate I put a new paint job on the truck:

#23 is "Ramble On" by Led Zeppelin. Nice choice.

For those still awake and looking to do some relaxing driving in ETS2, EKR Rock Radio (about one third of the way down the internet radio list in the game) is doing the top 25 trucking songs as voted by their listeners. Number 24 is "Drive On" by someone (I didn't catch it). I might stay awake to listen all the way down to number 1... or I may not make it 

That was a great read. I gotta start playing again.

The 1.3 update that let's you switch individual mods in and out of a single profile is a great help.

Finally approaching Torino.


Pulling into the destination. That white box on the ground to the right is where I'm supposed to leave the trailer. Like hell, I'm just going to dump it here.


And the results. I'm hours late but I still net almost thirty-five thousand Euros. God I love my job 

More tunnels.


And more tunnels.
'

See how far back I'm stopping from the boom this time? Not going to make that mistake twice. Oh, I probably will

Gee, I wonder what happens if I hit that puny little barrier boom at the toll gate?


Oh, that's what happens! That puny piece of wood or what ever it is stops my truck cold and I get a lot of damage (

Hey, it's a tunnel!


And more tunnels!


We are getting closer. And it looks like another toll gate up ahead.

Entering Switzerland.


The good news is that I discovered Geneve (I didn't even know it was missing!). The bad news is that thanks to my little fender bender my engine is on the fritz.


I go to the local repair shop. Guess I had more damage than I thought.

We're zipping along now. Gee, there's a truck way up ahead. Is it slowing down?


I guess it was. Oops.


Some lame brain has one of the two lanes closed for construction. Idiots.


That looks dangerous. At least I was able to leapfrog the other traffic.

I slept for sixteen hours . I only had to sleep for eight, but I wanted it to be daytime when I left. And I only had a little trouble getting out of the parking lot.


Finally headed for Geneva (or however you want to spell it)

And I'm starting to get really tired.


And occasionally I doze off. That's not fun when you are doing over a hundred kph on the road.


I'm getting seriously tired. Luckily there's a hotel nearby.

Time to go to Dijon again.


More repairs. Damn, this trucking stuff is expensive.


And I have problems getting out of the repair facility.

I don't think the cab is supposed to tilt like this.


Crap, on my side again.


Things are starting to look funny.

OH NO, MY LEGS ARE MISSING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oops, starting to get a little tired and ran off the road.


Important to keep the pedal down and keep going!

I'm in a bit of a hurry getting out of there, and kind of ride in the left lane a bit.


I've been detoured to Dijon, but per the map I'm not too far off my route to Torino.

I called the French equivalent of AAA and after laughing at me for several minutes they towed me and my trailer to Dijon.


It's going to cost over thirteen thousand Euros to fix my truck.


The truck is fixed, but the trailer is 10% damaged. I wonder how damaged it has to be TO START LEAKING FUEL!!!

Children, let this be a lesson to you. Never look for snacks in the glove box at 131 kph. 130, that's ok. 131, too much.


The guy next to me is being nice and stopping to help. Or maybe pick up all the loose change that fell from the cab.

Notice the orange chevrons blocking the exit over on the right. Although there's a road there, I can't use it. Seems a pity. Note that I'm doing 123 kph, which is, ah, pretty fast. And more than 30 kph over the speed limit for my truck. Suck it!


Ah, more pretty countryside. And 125 kph.


Up to 131 kph. My, isn't it time for me to check the glove box for some snacks?

Ah, sunshine at last!


Some road construction over there. Glad it's not on my side.


Up ahead on the side of the road is the sign reminding you that your speed is being monitored. I take that as a challenge.

Damn, it's raining and I have to pay tolls.


Well, at least I didn't have to wait long.


Hey, it's starting to look nicer outside!

Starting to look darkly ominous outside.


Damn, it's raining.


This is going to play hell with my pretty screen shots.

A little traffic, not too bad.


Can I make the light? Can I make the light? No....


Finally on the open road.

Arriving at Posped to pick up my trailer.


Backing up gently to get a good hook up.


And we are underway.

[Dick's Dirty Dozen]

And we are now ready for our job. Let's see what I can get leaving from Paris... There you go, a nice hop to Torino with a fuel trailer. What could possibly go wrong?


Let's head out from the dealer. It's a beautiful morning to be hauling fuel!


Sadly, no one to ride along and keep me company.


So I tune in EKR Rock Radio, just in time for Dick's Dirty Dozen. Tonight he is profiling Breaking Benjamin. I like their music.

How did you get all that dosh? Is there a cheat code or something? Or are you skimming off the top of your runs? 

No, someone had uploaded a saved game profile. It was in Russian, so that took some figuring out, but I decided to use it so I could explore all the trucks and accessories without having to put in a couple of dozen hours of grinding. Some might consider that cheating, but I don't have a lot of free time this month.

Since I know that ETS2 amuses Kagath, I though I'd post another AAR of a sort.

I'm in beautiful Paris and it's time to buy a new truck for a new job! Turns out this is the home of a local Renault dealer, so let's see what he's got. Oh, this one looks good:


It's only a 4x2, but I guess I can live with that:


I've added some lights and horns, fancy exhausts and the like, so I'm ready to take it for a spin.

 

finally got around to playing the demo, and liked it enough I bought it off of GMG using a 25% off code.  playing the vanilla game right now and getting used to the feel of the game (with mouse and keyboard, doubt I'm going to get a wheel any time soon). 

I'm using the X360 controller, works pretty good.

random thoughts:

been slowly making my way across Germany, into the Netherlands and hoping to get over to Great Britain soon.  haven't seen any night driving or bad weather yet over the course of about 6 hauls.  I did pay a visit to Kiel, but didn't see my Silent Hunter 5 captain there

Bad weather will happen, but there is a slider to adjust how often it happens. Night driving occurs, well, every night

found a cool station using the radio's built in search button.  it's called Munich Rock Deluxe (or Munich Deluxe Rock, can't remember) and it' been a fairly decent selection so far.

There's a search button? Damn, thanks for posting that

I've only wrecked the truck twice, once when I wasn't paying attention and hit the guard rail head on and another time when I didn't pay attention to the fact they recommended taking this one curve at 40 KM/H.  the whole traffic ticket thing seems kind of odd-  sometimes I can run a red light no problem while other times I'll get dinged.  haven't seen any speeding tickets yet.

Apparently there are speed cameras and red light cameras. The speed checkers are on overhead arms, you'll get used to seeing them. Thank goodness there are no cops, I'm running a mod that turns off the speed limiter and you can really haul butt

love the environment.  at one point I actually stopped the truck in the middle of the highway to watch some farm equipment work in a field.

There's a lot of neat things on the sides of the roads, it's why I prefer to drive during the day.

can't precision park the rig worth shite.

Me either

You know, sometimes traffic can be a pain. I was turning my rig onto an entrance ramp when some bum jumped in front of me. I slightly tapped him.




Being a good guy, I decided to help him by pushing him down the ramp. It didn't go like I hoped.



I rocked in reverse and forward but that just made things worse.



I finally had to get towed and repaired  .

Can you customize your character? Need more mullet/serial killer looks.

Nope, you can only pick from eight or twelve portraits. Darn.

Here's another one of those interesting mods.

Realistic Physics Mod v1.7 Update for ETS2 v1.3

I have tried this in the newly patched version of ETS2 and it really does seem to make the truck feel more "real". The mod is available on two versions, one version removes the 90 kph limiter (woo-hoo!) 

Note that when you try to download the mod file, in Firefox (at least) it appears as a weird page full of text. You just do a "Save Page as..." and use .scs as the extension, then drop in your mods folder as usual.

By the way, the new 1.3 update to ETS2 allows you to select individual mods in each profile you have.

The latest patch (version 1.3) has been released. Not sure if this has been released to Steam yet as I'm not home right now; maybe someone can check on that. The pertinent details are below. Be sure to pay attention to the mention of backing up your Profiles!

Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Euro Truck Simulator 2 - update 1.3
At last, we are releasing a new update to ETS2! Lots of fixes and improvements, and a new patch application which should hopefully make the updating procedure a lot smoother.

It may be a good idea for you to back-up your player profile (look for it in Documents > Euro Truck Simulator 2), especially if you are using mods which may have compatibility problems with this update. This way you would have a fall-back option to temporarily revert to a previous version in case of problems.

Steam edition of the game will be updated later today, please have patience with us, this patch is applicable to all retail as well as digital editions of the game except for the Steam build.

Find the update here.

What's new in this update:

    official licenses from Iveco and Volvo
    ability to change the company name, logo or preferred brand
    retarder (automatic or manual)
    per-profile mod selection (can be overridden using -force_mods command line parameter)
    support local currencies of each country in the game
    gearbox accessory selection
    new online radio stations (now up to 190 stations)
    physics takes into account different weights for trailers and cargos
    Renault Premium upgrades
    Renault Magnum side-skirts are now an optional upgrade
    hired driver log
    hired drivers more likely to find suitable cargo on the way back
    re-hired driver issue fixed
    ferry fee is not charged to player for quick jobs
    UK distances in GPS fixed
    fixed memory leak when playing mp3 files using radio
    improved handling of corrupted save files
    improved resiliency to some types of corruptions caused by mod removal
    fixed cabin blur during rain
    over 200 map changes and fixes
    several German roads thoroughly tweaked and prettyfied
    bump causing damage on German A3 fixed
    powerline columns in the middle of the road removed
    gas station in Bremen
    AI curves fixing on some prefabs
    increased vertex buffer sizes to improve game stability with more detailed vehicle models
    Product Key verification step added, only genuine keys in good standing accepted as of version 1.3+

Any new bugs to report? Please report them on forum.scssoft.com.

Just reinstalled it.  How in the world do you change resolution?  I have a 2560x1440 monitor and it looks pretty bad.

My monitor is 1920x1200 and it looks, well, like the screen shots. However, that's with the GWX3 mod and the mod may be what's making the game look ok, at least to me. I didn't play with any resolution settings when I did my installations.

I got rid of my starforce laden copy of the game, but keep forgetting to pick it up on steam again.  Have you played Silent Hunter IV?  Is that better or worse than this game?

It's been years since I played it, but I remember that SH4 was as good as SH3, except that in the vast distances of the Pacific it seemed to take forever to get to places. However, I'm playing SH3 with the Grey Wolves expansion, which is pretty awesome and significantly better than vanilla SH3. 

For those who might be wondering, I installed the latest Grey Wolves GWX3 Gold mod over a new Silent Hunter 3 installation downloaded from Steam. I didn't need to do any tweaks or adjustments. And <cross fingers> I haven't had any crashes at all.

That review made it sound really awful.

I don't think it's a 3/10 game, more like a 6/10. It has a somewhat interesting business mode that is let down by a bad interface. I shouldn't have to search the map over and over to find certain buildings each time. The relationship between functions of certain buildings is briefly mentioned but instead should be more thoroughly presented. And so on and so forth. There are some good things in there, but it really lacks the flavor after a while. You just keep setting up businesses till you reach the critical point, after which the money just rolls in and you have little interest in doing anything else other than sitting back and waiting.

The tactical combat has some good features, but has too many bells and whistles that are of little use. Also the AI is pretty good at times, seeking cover and flanking, then does something dumb like running up right into the middle of my guys to beat on one of them, which gets him killed as soon as it's the turn of my guys. And there is such a disparity in weapons. For instance, I was getting the short end of several battles because my three guys only had revolvers. I got a chance to add one more guy, and I selected a guy with a rifle. So in my next battle I set up the rifle guy to shoot the baddies while my other three guys hung back. Sure, it's good tactics, but why wouldn't I just equip everyone with rifles? Because that's something that comes as a perk later on. It's frustrating.

Probably the most frustrating thing about the game is that you can see where they went wrong. The decision to make the campaign be a series of strung together missions on different district maps means that whatever happened on the previous maps makes no difference except that you bring along the same guys in your gang from map to map. There's no sense of building an empire. Also, there are no competing gangs, other than scripted events. You don't feel like you are competing against an AI opponent, just the game system. This works ok in some games, like Tropico, but in a gangster game you just feel like you are going through the mechanics.

I do have to qualify the above to say that those opinions are based on playing four of the fifteen (or twenty?) missions of the game. Maybe it gets better, but I'm not seeing it right now.

Also, THERE'S NO DAMN MANUAL!

maybe it'll be up soon.  GOG is advertising a manual as part of the game extras.

The shame is that I posted earlier on Kalypso's own Omerta forum about the lack of a manual and no one official has said boo about it.

[there is no manual]

I got this through Steam earlier today. It is my sad duty to tell you that it isn't worth full price . It might not even be worth half off .

Assuming you were interested enough to play the demo, you can look at my comments above since the full game's first mission is exactly the demo. Further observations are as follows:

- No manual. Nada. None. This isn't Call of Duty, there are aspects of the game that do have to be explained. More on that below. There isn't even a hotkey list. There is in-game help, but that only pertains to character traits, perks and other items that are involved in tactical combat.

- From PC Gamer: "A combination of distinctive weapons, solid AI, plausible friendly-fire risks, and interesting damage twists (concussion, panic, blood loss... ) mean Omerta can hold its head up in the company of XCOM, Jagged Alliance and Silent Storm.". No it can't. I have played those three games, sir, and you are no Jack... oops, sorry, I meant Omerta's tactical combat doesn't hold a candle to those. Oh, it has a lot of bells and whistles, but they don't really do much for the tactical game.

- The main gameplay comes on the district level map. That's the one showing all the buildings. Unfortunately there is no way to keep track of which types of buidlings are on the map except to move your viewpoint around the map looking for them. And even once you find a particular building you are looking for, say the residence of a deputy, any time after that you want to go back to it to activate one of it's actions, you have to search for it on the map again. The mini-map doesn't help except to show there is some kind of building there.

- Another irritation. There are Joints and Premises. You buy those to set up your own warehouses, safe houses, businesses, etc. Except that each one of those businesses requires either a joint or a premises, but can't be built on the other type. And since there is no manual, you sometimes buy the wrong type and don't know it till you try to set up an establishment and find out it was the other type you should have bought.

I could go on, but it's just more of the same. I've played three missions, which means I've completed three district maps. I think there are 15 or 20 of them. I'll keep slogging through the game, but I'm not optimistic anything is going to get much better. Maybe if I HAD A DAMN MANUAL I'd know what was coming up...

Oh my, we have taken damage...


And we have flooding in the after compartments.


And now the flooding is critical! 


Tragically, it's too late for any heroic measures. We all drown. Very sad


And this is how my careers winds up.


Thanks for following this AAR! I'll post another one sometime.

And another half hour goes by. They are certainly persistent.


Especially this guy.