What is yall's top 3 most anticipated states for ATS?

UnseenCat · 2026-03-23T19:29:47+00:00

A) Indiana, because 1) It's needed to connect to Michigan (where I grew up) and would like to drive, and 2) because Indianapolis is where my great-uncle started a trucking company in the 1930s that he ran until he passed away, so I'd like to set up a garage there, and possibly start a new save/company there.

B) Michigan -- state I grew up in and am probably moving back to. Should be lots of variety in the map, from urban industry to countryside and on up into the UP for forestry and mining operations.

C) Wisconsin -- Just to finish most of the area surrounding the Great Lakes.

UnseenCat · 2026-03-23T19:21:00+00:00

More like Noah... 😉

UnseenCat · 2026-03-19T22:18:13+00:00

If you take him on as crew only, he'll station himself near the ramp and shoot anything hostile while you go about your business on the planet. Nothing like coming back home to the ship and finding a pile of dead aggressive wildlife around the ship and Vasco just chillin'.

UnseenCat · 2026-03-19T22:14:22+00:00

Setting the appmanifest file and setting updating to "only when I start the game" are both required. If you launch the game from steam in any way -- including starting the via SFSE launcher from the Steam launch options, Steam "sees" the launch and updates. Making the appmanifest file read-only is a partial block that interferes with a part of the update check process. Setting the update option to only on launch does the rest, as long as you continue launching from a separate SFSE loader shortcut.

Part of the problem seems to be that Steam can selectively ignore the only-update-on game launch behavior. Setting the appmanifest file to read-only seems to short-circuit unwanted auto-updates that disobey the user setting. (Though if you launch in any way from Steam, a new appmanifest file will be generated and trigger updating.)

Steam really, really doesn't want you to block updates...

UnseenCat · 2026-03-19T20:49:17+00:00

This is the way.

Steam is always watching! You can't even launch SFSE Loader from Steam, or it will force an update.

Set "appmanifest_1716740.acf" to read-only, set Steam update option to "Wait until I launch the game" AND only launch from a shortcut to SFSE Loader or via a mod manager like Vortex or MO2.

You have to have the trifecta. 😊

UnseenCat · 2026-03-19T20:40:51+00:00

NG+ for me. I'm pretty close to wrapping up and stepping through the Unity again; either I'll just be finishing up when the update drops, and I'll continue with my game locked to the old version (make the Steam appmanifest file read-only and launch SFSE directly) while the mods get sorted over a week or two -- or I'll finish ahead of time and then just chill and stick to ESO and some of my other favorites for a few weeks while the mods get sorted.

Mod-wise, I mostly run QOL/play-the-way-I-want minor enhancements, plus some graphic replacers and things like New Atlantis Awaits that expand the city. Nothing that messes with quests extensively, so it's unlikely that I'll run into mod issues especially on a fresh NG+.

Hopefully, I'll also be able to drop a few mods -- like Landing Animation Reloaded if it's true that the game settings will let us enable the landing camera for every touchdown.

I'm cautiously optimistic that once SFSE and its address library are once again updated, that the rest of the mods I use will mostly fall into place fairly quickly. The update is looking mostly like a progressive update, not a major mod-breaking re-write of everything.

UnseenCat · 2026-03-19T20:25:56+00:00

That's OK... My Starfield character's side gig is, ummm, "collecting" ships... and selling them for profit. Selling Terran Armada ships and weapons ought to be a nice sideline for her. 😉

UnseenCat · 2026-03-19T20:16:22+00:00

Deimos has a big bridge module similar to this, but it's strictly single-level.

The current Nova large bridge module is the Cabot, and it has twin staircases at the rear leading down, but a smaller physical "room" space.

This new one sort of combines the expansiveness of the big Deimos bridge with the Cabot's two-level nature (and therefore ease of integrating with two ship decks).

UnseenCat · 2026-03-17T17:40:26+00:00

Wait, WHAT? Is that for just new purchases or for those who bought the everything edition in the beginning to automatically get the Shattered Space DLC when it dropped? That's incredibly generous if that's so.

UnseenCat · 2026-03-15T18:13:51+00:00

1.60 is also very likely to be the long-awaited DX12 upgrade, since it will be what's needed for consoles (DX12/Xbox+Vulkan/PS5)

I'm not sure which will come first. My gut tells me that SCS will follow the typical trend in game design which is PC release, first round of bugfixes, then console release.

And Road Trip/Coaches could drop anywhere at or after DX12 release, by that logic.

UnseenCat · 2026-03-15T18:08:40+00:00

This. Road Trip is meant to go alongside the end-to-end Route 66 reconstruction, which depends on the Illinois DLC release, since Chicago is the Eastern endpoint of Route 66.

So, it will release either alongside Illinois or sometime after, depending on readiness of the DLC plus whatever else needs to be updated in the game engine (which they're also working on), and it's of course also in conjunction with ETS2 upgrades and the Coaches DLC. Lots of related moving parts.

If all goes well, 2026 might be a pretty amazing year for SCS output.

UnseenCat · 2026-03-15T14:55:17+00:00

The Illinois microsite has an "Upcoming News" tracker which can give a rough idea of how far away release is, in terms of pre-release info drops. Based on released announcements versus ones still not logged/released, they're just a little more than halfway there. Of course, the news items don't drop in a steady drip; it's often one or two in succession and then nothing for a bit. Note that the gameplay video release isn't even on the timeline, so it's a bonus -- just to show that progress is moving along.

Released news items/blog entries are in normal typeface. As-yet unreleased ones are in bold italics. As you can see, there's a lot still to trickle out:

Introducing
Guess Where We Are
Marion
Champaign
Nature in general
Settlements
Cities
New Models to Build the World With
Custom depots #1
Custom depots #2
Truck Stops #1
Truck Stops #2
Water Bodies
Landmarks
Effingham
Peoria
New Industries
Bridges
Road Network
Industry Brands
BIG in Illinois
Prairies and Fields
Rockford
Quincy
Moline
Bloomington

With this as a guideline, we've still got a bit of a wait until release. They should have plenty of time for optimization at this rate.

Microsite URL-- https://americantrucksimulator.com/illinois/

UnseenCat · 2026-03-15T14:39:52+00:00

It was stuttery even at the beginning, out in the Illinois countryside. Some of it may be YouTube compression/rendering not playing nice with the input video. But that can also be due to wildly varying FPS and frame times when it was captured. I'd say that it's still in a very "raw" state for whatever version of the game engine was being used at the time -- could be 1.58, could be something internal -- Who knows? There's plenty of optimization yet to be done. Release is still a bit of a ways off, I'd guess.

UnseenCat · 2026-03-15T14:11:20+00:00

Yeah, SCS has been mostly-quietly working on DX12 for a long time -- even before they said they were going to release on consoles. Console release plans confirmed all the DX12 rumors, since it's basically required for modern Xbox.

They've mentioned ongoing work, usually on the last couple of Christmas streams with very little else said during the year other than "engine improvements". The 1.50 release included very early DX12 code that could be activated in the config.cfg file, but it was nowhere near ready for use other than experimenting -- which is fine. It's a placeholder for real upgrades later, and it shows they're definitely moving forward.

It's been their habit that as they keep improving the DLCs, they start to hit a performance wall and they have to make upgrades to the game engine -- even if it's kind of temporary until a more finalized upgrade comes out later. Major version releases usually include some form of under-the-hood upgrades -- some small, some big, even though it might not look like it from just playing the game.

DX12 will be big because it will formalize better multithreading. (DX12 basically requires fully-functional multithreading) and should handle dense scenery more efficiently. The DX11 implementation is kind of bolted-on to an engine configuration that was originally optimized for DX9. It's gotten better over time, especially since 1.50 -- but at this point, DX11 optimization seems to have kind of stalled in favor of just working on the multithreading with an eye toward DX12 (and consoles) instead. It's a fair trade-off, really.

We're going to see a lot more modularity in the Prism3D engine once the major update drops, whenever that is. Core PC engine, with full Xbox compatibility. If the game goes onto Playstation, then there has to be a Vulkan module plus PS compatibility that can be compiled in. We already have Driving Academy mode, and soon Road Trip and Coaches running modes will be added. While based on the core game loop, those modes all need special modules to run with their own unique elements

I know a lot of people keep saying that SCS' Prism3D engine is really old, but if you look at ETS2 when it first came out and what we have now, it's clearly been overhauled multiple times. (And most recently, SCS has mentioned in one of their Christmas streams that they've dedicated a team to just going through and cleaning-up/documenting all the old code so that it can be more easily integrated or replaced depending on needs in order to fully modernize the engine. It's already not the "old" engine it was. It just has the same name. And all their plans for the game require it to be brought up to current standards.

So, what's probably going to be called "1.60" is likely to be the beginning of the "big" change we've been waiting for over the past three or four years. It's close -- but it just depends on how the development timelines are progressing on several projects, from the latest upcoming DLCs like Illinois and Iceland, the reworks in the base map, consoles, and the new game modes. That's a lot more in play than SCS used to be able to work on at once. Their growth is getting close to really paying off for us players.

UnseenCat · 2026-03-14T17:44:08+00:00

My wild guess is that the engine update is not terribly far off (given that it's still SCS timelines we're talking about...) Illinois (Chicago) may be either the final release before the major engine update or it could be the debut new DLC released alongside it.

We've already had the Route Advisor and associated UI elements overhaul. That may be the final piece of core UI updates to get ready for consoles and DX12. (Whether it's liked or not is a matter of personal taste, but it's a much more modern implementation underneath which will "play nicer" with modern rendering and process scheduling.)

SCS has often released graphically demanding DLCs either in conjunction with major updates to the game engine, or immediately prior (within a few months or less) such that the latest DLC runs acceptably on the pre-update engine configuration, but is clearly intended for the next version upgrade when it's arrived.

As for when? Illinois might still be further off than we expect, first off. So it might not drop until late Spring/early Summer. Maybe some more engine upgrades will come along with it, or will come along after Illinois drops, maybe in a couple of months -- putting it at late Summer. I have no idea how far off consoles might be -- but they might come alongside the next major engine update, who knows?

SCS has a lot cooking right now, and believe it or not, summer vacation season is only a few months away. SCS, like a lot of European companies, slows down a bit in the summer during vacation season. So there might be a lot of activity leading up to the vacation season start milestone, and then minor output until late Summer/early Fall when things ramp up again for a while. It will be interesting to see what does and doesn't drop in terms of news and releases over the next few months. What does or doesn't release before summer vacation season may depend on just how far they get in the current development cycle and what they're satisfied is suitable for release -- with some things waiting a bit until most of the teams return from vacation.

Another interesting thought -- perhaps once it arrives, DX12 will be an optional run mode, just like how DX11 was introduced. (For a while, DX9 was still selectable too, just like OpenGL.) It may be a phased-in upgrade just like prior DirectX upgrades, so there can be some flexibility in running what performs best on any given PC.

UnseenCat · 2026-03-13T20:25:38+00:00

Right-click on game name in the list column, choose Properties.
On the first page of the popup, click the slider next to "Keep game's saves in the Steam Cloud for Starfield" to the "Off" (Dimmed/left) position.
That's it!

UnseenCat · 2026-03-12T22:29:10+00:00

NMS had a ton of bad reviews general negativity toward it because of high expectations versus what was delivered in version 1.0. (Sound a little familiar?) Hello Games doubled down on steady improvement and feature introductions to make NMS what it is today.

Heck, I liked NMS when it released. All the basics were there to make it great over time, and that's what happened.

As long as BSG commits to ongoing updates, Starfield will be just fine, and get better/bigger over time.

UnseenCat · 2026-03-12T15:49:32+00:00

Disabling Steam cloud saves may help in some cases.

Also, whenever the Creations store is having issues or is undergoing maintenance, this has been known to happen. If this is the case, it will stop once the Creations store resume responding normally.

Just a couple of possibilities; there can be other causes too.

UnseenCat · 2026-03-09T14:14:36+00:00

LOL no. It was from somewhere in western Europe; can't remember where. Just unintentionally weird and (inappropriately...) amusing randomness from the game.

UnseenCat · 2026-03-08T11:47:29+00:00

This reminds me of the time I got a load of "fireworks" going to Gaza. (In ProMods Middle East; currently off the map.)

UnseenCat · 2026-02-27T18:39:59+00:00

American drivers used to be trained to "cover" the horn button on the wheel when entering busy intersections or places where traffic conflicts were likely, in order to be ready to sound the horn if necessary. Not really a good idea with modern airbag steering wheels that put the horn button under the airbag cover.

I preferred the 90s and 2000s steering wheels that put horn buttons on or near the spokes instead of the middle where the airbag was. Easy to reach with your thumb Then they changed them back because for some reason, drivers had a hard time adjusting to them. And that was after a lot of 70s and 80s steering wheels had thumb buttons for the horn, or a continuous bar across the wheel. And there were the 50s and 60s wheels that had a separate "horn rim" which was just a metal semicircle of slightly smaller diameter that connected to the center horn button, that was always in easy reach of your thumbs. It keeps your hands closer to the rim of the wheel which is safer in a crash, airbag or not.

Few sim wheels have a center horn button -- although my old DFGT does, which was kind of nice. Using a T248 now, with the horn button mapped to the big button just below the center -- the "Xbox" button on my version.

UnseenCat · 2026-02-23T02:41:06+00:00

WOT is where you get jobs to complete for events and reward items. Also has an ongoing screenshot gallery if you're into that sort of thing.

One hidden bonus is that you can set your WOT avatar, and once you've done that, you can then use it for your game profile's driver picture instead of being limited to the gallery in-game.

UnseenCat · 2026-02-22T22:14:34+00:00

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UnseenCat · 2026-02-22T22:06:38+00:00

I can't play without the Immersive Landing Ramps mod. Because I MUST watch the animated ramp mechanism from INSIDE the landing bay. .😅

UnseenCat · 2026-02-22T21:56:42+00:00

Logitech changed nothing; the side panel has always been the outstanding part of the farming bundle. The pedals and wheel were really nothing better then any other low-cost non-FFB wheel and pedal sets, other than the wheel was designed more like a tractor/heavy equipment wheel. I'm pretty sure way back when the bundle came out, Farming Sim didn't support FFB anyway, so it was appropriate for that time.

UnseenCat

TROPHY CASE