American Truck Simulator (Part 1)

(vehicle not included in picture)

I already wrote at length at the end of 2020 about how we needed laughter to carry through these trying times, though this pandemic. We do need laughter. We also needed pastimes since a lot of public activities were either closed or not recommended. Among them: Traveling. For a few weeks, in the province of Quebec, traveling between regions was prohibited outside of work or cases of utmost necessity. I did not go to any conventions last year, I did not go to the United States either (I do that for a weekend every summer), I don’t think I even travelled outside of my own region for any reason.

I don’t blame anyone for being fed up of staying at home due to the Covid-19 pandemic. I don’t blame anyone for wanting to go places and feeling angry that they can’t.

(I WILL, however, call out the idiots who have travelled to sunny destinations like Florida or Mexico, where safety precautions around the pandemic are lax, during the Holidays and who came back with a disease as a nice little souvenir from their trip, further spreading that damn thing. But I digress.)

Skyrim isn't the most welcoming place to
travel to, but screw it - at least it feels like
going somewhere.

It was a year in which we needed all the escapism we could get, in part to forget about the situation for a few minutes, in part to have… well, some form of escape. Video games, in particular, offered a fantastic outlet for that. It helps that we had a lot of strong releases in 2020, such as Animal Crossing: New Horizons, a game that encourages playing for long lengths of time. And Doom Eternal. But what for those who want to explore virtual lands, while they can’t explore real ones? Well, the open-world genre exists for that purpose. I found myself replaying Skyrim every now and then to just… get the impression that I’m going out to see the sights, however fictional they may be.

Today’s game doesn't describe itself as an open world, but it gave me the same impression that I was going freely to places, something I needed. It’s actually a simulator, but a large part of it involves traveling far and wide across a very large world. That world consists of a few States in the Western side of the USA… Only thing is, you’re not just visiting willy-nilly. You have a job to do.

SCS Software, known for Euro Truck Simulator, released American Tuck Simulator on February 2nd, 2016. It’s almost five years old! The base game only includes California, Nevada and Arizona (a free DLC) as the States you can visit as a trucker, but the studio has since released several DLCs that open your horizons to new locales in (at time of writing this) Colorado, Idaho, Utah, Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, with Wyoming joining them soon.

Don't be surprised, when it comes to delivering
stuff, you won't be great at first.

There isn’t much of a plot: You’re a new truck-driving company. When you start, you’re a self-employed loner and you’ve got pretty much nothing – a cheap garage, no truck, no other employees, barely any money. But will? Oh, you’ve got will to spare. However, not only are your starting resources limited, you’re also fresh on the market, which means you also have no recognition whatsoever. You’ll have to work on that. After naming yourself, selecting your personal photo from a collection of faces (not that it matters, you’re never going to see your own face in the game), your preferred type of truck and your company logo, you can begin. 

Start from nothing, and build a massive trucking empire from there! 

Have You Got Your Truck-Driving License? 

Going 85MpH on a 55MpH road...
isn't smart.

Obviously, before anything, you have to learn to drive a truck. I remember getting a short, tutorial-like delivery at the start in order to give me a first taste of the controls. As you can imagine, trucks are slow. Well, actually, they can reach pretty impressive speeds in the game (I’ve brought one of those babies past 90 MpH – no, I haven’t time-travelled yet). Driving a simulated car in a video game can already be pretty awkward at times; I remember crashing left and right when I first played Grand Theft Auto V. Now, apply this to load-carrying trucks. I never drove a truck in real life, but if my abilities in this simulator are to be believed, I would be a horrendous driver. 

They even took some time to model the
human beings you see on the sidelines!

By the looks of it, the physics are accurate; trucks take a long while to accelerate from 0 MpH, but have more control on their speed once they’re in movement. And of course, due to their sheer size, they also need a fairly wide angle to turn (this also depends on the size of the load you’re carrying). It makes turning at intersections on green lights a bit of an issue, but one you’ll have to grow used to. It comes with the territory. Needless to say, driving your truck without a load attached to it is a lot quicker and pleasant. 

These physics really hammer into you the impression that you’re a Goliath of the road, capable of easily crushing the other cars and taking lives if you’re not careful; but that would be too intense for a sim. You can hit other cars, but there’s never a mention of loss of human life; not even any visible car damage, just a 500$ penalty. Good to know that repairing cars is cheap in this alternate universe. Also note that the physics will change ever so slightly from a truck to the other; eventually you’ll have your own truck, which you’ll grow comfortable driving, but in the meantime you’ll be accepting quick jobs, in which you’ll borrow the trucks and trailers of the companies hiring you. 

Not my favorite way to drive, but it's nice to
shake things up a bit now and then.

Each truck has an accurate dashboard and lots of options; the most interesting one may be the radio, which allows you to listen to music from your computer or web radio, provided you add the songs or links to a folder in the game’s files in your computer. You can also view the driving sections from one of eight POVs, the most prominent ones being #1 (first-person POV from behind the wheel, to give the impression that you’re genuinely driving the truck) and #2 (a chasing camera that follows above the truck – my favorite to play the game, for the record). 

Ah, that's more like it.

How About Them Deliveries? 

Deliveries have to be done everywhere, so you
will see most of the map in one way or another.

As for how a delivery goes – without your own truck, you can only do quick jobs. It also means that you immediately begin at the enterprise's reception point. From there, use your GPS device and drive. Props to the GPS, it works like a real one; you’re always given the shortest path towards your destination. You can even watch the path from 4 different zooms, or use the device to receive messages, check damage on your truck, and see the details of the job you’re doing (most importantly, the hours at which the cargo is expected to arrive). However, you’re allowed to detour and stop by other places on your way, which is often necessary. 

When you reach your destination, you have to park the truck – something that can give you some bonus EXP. At the end of a delivery, on top of the amount of money promised for the delivery, you also get an amount of EXP based on the length of the delivery, how well you performed, etc. This allows you to level up as a driver, upgrade skills, and accept new forms of deliveries. 

You can choose to drop the cargo at a tough delivery point
(high EXP, but takes times and skill), an easy delivery
point (less EXP, but still some), or let the workers there
deal with it themselves.

This route goes all the way from New Mexico
to Oregon (1,935 miles). That's as long as
they can get, but I assume future updates
could lead to rides up to 2,500 miles.

One of the perks you can improve is the length in miles of a delivery. Among the details ignored by the game, your driver doesn’t need to eat or poop, so that’s one less worry; but they can still get exhausted, and will need to stop at a rest area from time to time in order to get eight hours of sleep before you can resume driving. If you don’t, the game will get darker, you’ll get a dozing effect around the screen, it can get dangerous. 

The truck will also need gas, so you’ll have to make a detour from time to time in order to fill up the tank. In quick jobs, your employer will foot the bill, but in all others, you pay for the gas. Oh, and if you’re careless, you might need to stop by a repair shop and repair the truck you’re driving at the moment. Otherwise, it will stop by itself, sometimes in the middle of the road, and you’ll be told off when stopping at weight stations (which you must do every time you’re asked to) if your vehicle is in poor condition. 

Your trucker doesn't need to eat.
In other words, the only one who doesn't need
fuel is the driver.

Also note that once you have your own truck, you can stop Quick Jobs and enter the Freight Market. The differences are that you drive your own truck, you must drive to the reception point and attach the cargo before you leave to deliver it, and pay your own gas, so there’s a bit of profit lost there. Same for Cargo Market, for which you need your own truck and trailer.

Exploration Time 

With a map this big, it would be borderline
impossible to do anything without a GPS.

One of the better aspects of the game is that you can “visit” the most notable towns and cities of the States available within the game. This map is a 1:20 scale of the United States; the original plan from SCS Software was to scale it down to 1:35 due to the sheer size of the country, but it meant cutting out more roads and content and made several features impractical, so it was brought to the same scale as Europe in their previous game, Euro Truck Simulator. Roads and highways exist without any issue. However, barring famous landmarks, most towns/cities are stripped of anything you wouldn’t need as a truck driver. It’s not exactly a world where you’ll see much going on, aside from traffic. The visible NPCs don’t do much, and the cities are borderline ghost towns. It makes sense to do it like this, as the entire focus is on driving the truck (and managing your company), not much else.

Rest stops are worth exploring as well,
if only to mark that you've seen them.

The game keeps track of the percentage of the map you’ve discovered. You’re encouraged to drive every single portion of mile at least once. Sometimes both ways. You can find rest areas, gas stations, truck repair shops and weight stations, but no, that’s not all. Some of the buildings are defined on the map by a question mark. There are two things they can be: A truck dealership or a recruiting agency. Those will be important later. And, y’know… putting all that aside, exploration’s good as well to see all of the sights, landmarks, and notable pieces of land that were recaptured in some way in the game. 

Roadblocks and Other Joys 

Of course, the world replicates the real-life road signals and laws, which you must adapt to while driving your enormous steed. Speed limits, traffic lights, one-ways, and so on. Better pay attention to everything.

May God have mercy on your soul if you
turn at a red light... The worst part? You'll see
others turn right at red lights, but you're not
allowed tp yourself!

If you screw up, you can be ticketed or fined. Yes, cops will know who you are, and will take the money directly from your account. These infractions include, but are not limited to: Running a Stop sign; driving the wrong way; running a red light; driving a damaged vehicle; forgetting to turn your headlights on before 8:30 PM; speeding; and so on. Some infractions are more frequent than others; I’ve had to pay fines more often for running red lights or forgetting my lights than for speeding. Not that I encourage trying illegal things while there are no visible cops around, but sometimes I swear I was ticketed without the shadow of a cop car in sight.

And, similarly to real life, smaller cars don’t seem to realize how difficult it is to maneuver trucks or slow down with trucks. When you’re not the one being an idiot driver, idiot drivers come out of the woodwork. Props to the AI, most cars will behave logically, but every now and then you get the dumb one that decides to drive dangerously. As an example, some of them just don’t know how to merge safely. 

This is the fun roadwork; just pass by it
slowly. The shitty roadwork is the type that
forces you to do a 100 to 300-mile
detour to reach your destination.

Some other issues you can encounter include roadwork, which can slow traffic to a crawl; cars stopped on the side due to mechanical issues, sometimes on slim roads; intersections blocked by police, especially due to accidents, frequently on highways (which means that you have to make a detour in order to continue your delivery – and sometimes, said detours can be freaking long); and roads straight-up blocked entirely. I ran into that last one once, waited ten real-life minutes, and then gave up on that delivery. I still have no idea what happened or if the roadblock would have ever been removed. The worst part is that it happened while I was doing a detour as the original, shorter path was closed due to police. 

However, even if driving can be a pain, it’s usually chill. If you’re careful, it shouldn’t be too much of an issue. But hey, what about the management part of the sim, you may ask? Well, I’m out of time for that, but we’ll talk about it in Part 2.