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krigl
Posts: 1024
Joined: 19 Oct 2015 18:46

23 Nov 2018 22:34

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Tallinn - some kind of central square with what looks like a run-down agglomoration of market stalls....
Today the Baltic expansion announcement came out... won't lie, I'm excited for it, but the area is really nice in ProMods too... well worth exploring or visiting one last time before ProMods release an update for the DLC - of course I'm going to wait for that till I buy the DLC. ETS2 without ProMods is like Hogwarts without Hagrid.

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Anyway today we're with Milan in Tallinn, looking for work that will take us into Russia, 'cause a bit of that's getting updated too... the map's out, so now we know the exact area. Not much of Russia, so hopefully the RusMap team won't fall into a black depression and will be able to make use of all the new prefabs and stuff...

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Okay... got the job, it's tractors to Valday. Taking tractors to Russia is like taking coal to Newcastle or tvárůžky to Olomouc (well, Loštice, actually, but yeah) but why not. Just leaving Tallinn here.

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Between Tallinn and Narva.

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A very brief glimpse of the sea. Seems like those islands we visited in the last set aren't included in SCS's Estonia, which is great, really liked those, hopefully they'll be back with the ProMods update. Always good to see interaction betwen land and sea in ETS 2.

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Narva, Estonia, near the border with Russia.

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Approaching the border. I used to think SCS were stupid for constantly updating the game. Why can't they be like other companies and just release a new version, I thought. Or concentrate on ATS and let the modders get on with impoving Europe, they're doing great.

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After France, Italy and ATS my stance has changed from "SCS are killing modding, and so their own game" to "I just don't know what to think". It's surely a tough job being a modder for SCS truck games. You build new lands, and SCS pastes over them in a couple of years. You revamp old lands, and SCS sends a skeleton (but talented) crew to revamp them too... The DLCs have a lot going for them, but still I thank all modders for their persistance and patience, you are awesome!!!

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Now we've reached Russia and RusMap. Pruzhitsy, an unmarked "scenery village", to be precise. The wreck of a Lada (or whatever) reminds me of ATS. I suspect SCS learned about adding this kind of scuzzy character from RusMap. ProMods are great, but no one does dilapidated like RusMap.

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Heading for Luga.

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Luga, with its bridge over the River Luga. This town will be in the expansion, it seems.

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Heading east towards Veliky Novgorod.

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Hope those chickens don't end up "under my wheels".

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Looks like she's been sitting there all day, with a full bucket of redcurrants for sale. Stopped to buy some and chat her up ; )

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Nearing Veliky Novgorod. Great New Town, I suppose would be the translation, a few Russian words are similar to Czech...

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Reached the aforementioned city. 859 years since it was founded. Do you think they carve a new date every year? Eventually the bottom section would get so thin the whole caboodle would come tumbling down...

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Wow.... would like to see this in reality....

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Obligatory sunset shot. Time for the last stretch to Valday.

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Here we are. But not quite there yet - we have to deliver to a remote farm.

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Oh my.... hadn't bargained for this. A really lumpy bumpy track, and it's almost dark.

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Kurňaaaaa..... bumping and bouncing, occasionally getting stuck, gouging the bottom of the cab to hell...

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At least the right wheels are on flat land. The truck is making unpleasant noises. Hope we can at least make the delivery...

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Finally the ground is level again. Coughing and smoking, we limp towards the destination.

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Made it at last. The truck refused to start again once it stopped. The area is so remote mapwise with no other way in or out that I had to have it flown out by helicopter.
As the heli lifted it up, the engine half fell out and just hung there. The locals cut it free and the heli had to come back for it and make a second trip. You'll not get me in
a helicopter, so I was stranded... luckily the farmers had a suggestion and a spare truck sitting around... well, thanks for watching!!

User avatar
TheNuvolari
Posts: 370
Joined: 14 Apr 2017 09:02
Location: Bács-Kiskun

24 Nov 2018 15:36

Very nice story with pictures! :) My favorites gotta be picture #1, picture #15 and picture #16! :D

krigl
Posts: 1024
Joined: 19 Oct 2015 18:46

26 Nov 2018 22:48

TheNuvolari wrote:
24 Nov 2018 15:36
Very nice story with pictures! :) My favorites gotta be picture #1, picture #15 and picture #16! :D
Thanks a lot, I appreciate it!!

krigl
Posts: 1024
Joined: 19 Oct 2015 18:46

26 Nov 2018 23:17

In Valday with Milan...

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The locals said they needed a truck delivering to Nevel. I was wondering if it was this beauty...

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But no, it was that thing parked in the long grass near the ruin behind the guy who's just seen Monsters Inc. for the first time.

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An ex-military Ural 4320!! It made short work of the bumpy road that destroyed my 105. They wanted it down in Nevel
because of that winch on the front. Apparently a combine harvester had fallen into a mud-filled sinkhole and needed
pulling out.

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But first things first, we had to stop off in Veliky Novgorod for caviar and vodka for the Nevel krew.

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Heading south through lush greenery.

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Passing through Kholm.

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Post hen-night gossip.

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Loco in Velikiye Luki.

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Nevel on the horizon.

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Parked up. Didn't get to see the sinkhole, unfortunately, but they plied me with vodka and caviar-caked blinies.

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After that I couldn't drive, but they had nothing for me anyway, so reeking of fish and vodka I took a bus back to Kholm.

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Stayed the night in a hotel there, and in the morning someone passing through stopped to pick me up.

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Got a cargo from Kholm and then set off for Valka in Latvia, via Porkhov and Pskov.

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We were so busy chatting that we failed to notice the diversion signs. Or maybe there weren't any. Well, in any case we ended up here in a bit of a bind.

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After a spell of cursin' an' reversin' we were on our way once more, past this very grim disaster.

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Is the Russian countryside really littered with ruins like this??

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Porkhov.

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Pskov. This is in the new DLC...

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Eventually we reached the border and entered the Baltic states region.

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One last shot from Smiltene, closing in on Valka/Valga.

Next set will be Valka to Kaliningrad. Thanks for watching!!!

deleted_user_8875
Posts: 359
Joined: 15 Jan 2018 09:18

28 Nov 2018 13:39

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Last edited by deleted_user_8875 on 22 Apr 2020 00:36, edited 1 time in total.
I am sorry.. but I had to go...

krigl
Posts: 1024
Joined: 19 Oct 2015 18:46

28 Nov 2018 21:50

Maxest wrote:
28 Nov 2018 13:39
Always enjoy your stories. :)
P.S. I think 859 was actually the year when the city was founded. It's one of the most old cities in Russia.
Hey, thank you very much!! Good to hear it! Yeah, you're probably right about the date, sounds much more logical! An old city indeed.

krigl
Posts: 1024
Joined: 19 Oct 2015 18:46

28 Nov 2018 23:02

Well, here we are again, this time heading south from Valka/Valga on the Latvian/Estonian border during the last days of the pre-DLC Promods Baltic region. No comedy moments this time sadly, but some great scenery. Oh, and a shocking revelation...

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Leaving Valka.

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Not many people around this early in the morning. Still waiting for the alarm clock to tell them - time to spawn!

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Heading south towards Riga.

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Nicely complex...

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It says Rig, and I'm driving a big rig... wow, my head is spinning from the coincidentiality.

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ProMods can do dilapidated too! Street scene in Riga, Home of the Riga Axioms baseball team.

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West to Liepaja.

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Skrunda, a scenery town on the way to Liepaja. This reminds me. I don't want to break the internets or anything, but I couldn't help noticing on the DLC map
between Tallinn and Narva on the north coast of Estonia there is a small town starting with the letter K.

Now, if you look at the map of Estonia there are a lot bigger places than this one nearby. Rakvere, for example. In fact, you have to zoom in really close to find the place, and the bay that bears its name.
Why on earth did SCS choose this place? Well....I have my suspicions. I'm not Czech but I live in the Czech Republic and can tell you that this word beginning with K is in Czech
a slang word for a certain part of the female anatomy, a word I dare not write, for it is equivalent in offensiveness to the C-word in English, and indeed sounds rather like it.

I can just imagine the developers falling out of their chairs laughing when someone found it and proposed adding it to the game, and then going Yeah, let's do it... high fives all round,
followed by plenty of chuckling from the mappers as the weeks went by.... "K______ discovered! ha ha ha ho ho ho man it's killing me...." - shaking with mirth, dev spills coffee across keyboard...

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Liepaja... still in Latvia.

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Now on the way to Klaipeda in Lithuania.

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Airfield just north of Klaipeda. Wait a minute. Is that... a Tamil inscription on my truck??? Here? Okay...

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Klaipeda town.

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I've been watching some videos from the new DLC. It looks great, especially compared to the original game, of course. But a little bit sterile.
Not like this - this has character. I do hope ProMods will be able to bring back some of their work from this region, it is really nice. Make the scenery look a bit more lived in.

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The ferry at Klaipeda takes just 15 minutes to hop over to a narrow spit of land which is half Lithuanian, half Russian. You can see the other side from here,
which is unusual in ETS2 as normally there is just a stretch of water and then nothing.

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And here we are on the other side, on the spit of land, looking back at Klaipeda's docks and the ferry that took us over. How cool is that?

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Driving south towards Kaliningrad, wooden cottages and behind them a glimpse of a huge vessel. Epic!

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Still on the spit.

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Last place in Lithuania, a scenery town on the spit with a marina.

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The Lithuanian / Russian border.

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Entering Zelenogradsk - this is ProMods doing Russia, not RusMap, and it looks like they did their best to show their mapping colleagues just how good they could make it. The whole Kaliningrad region is fantastic, really well done.

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The main city of Kaliningrad itself.

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We continued heading south - got to deliver to Gdansk in Poland...This is the very extensive border post between Kaliningrad and Poland.

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Poland lies in the background... time to end this post. The next set will feature more from Kalinigrad, the Baltic States, and Rusmap too. Nearly done in this area now, but not quite.

Thanks for watching!

krigl
Posts: 1024
Joined: 19 Oct 2015 18:46

08 Dec 2018 22:31

Ahoj there again, back after a busy week or so. Here's a penultimate set from Promods and Rusmap's take on the Baltic region.

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Just after leaving Zelenogradsk in the Kaliningrad region. Destination Shlisselburg just north of St Petersburg by Lake Ladoga.

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Chernyakhovsk.

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Ulyanovo

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Picturesque countryside north of Ulyanovo on the way to Neman. (I think... my ability to read Cyrillic isn't great).

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Sovetsk, border town with Lithuania.

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Crossing the Memel River from Sovetsk to Panemune, Lithuania.

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Taurage, Lithuania.

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Open Lithuanian countryside between Taurage and Panevezys.The big difference between Promods and the new Baltic DLC is really visible here.

Promods = really well made, pretty landscapes, carefully placed settlements mainly composed of assets from existing DLCs and the vanilla game (so it seems to me) but situated so that every location has its own character, lots of nice villages. I thought it would be dull here but I was wrong, it's been great doing jobs in the Baltic region!!

Baltic DLC = everywhere there is grass, brown earth and lots of conifers, with a lot of grey and beige buildings. Like in real life. I can understand why some people feel disappointed and are posting that they went for a refund. But that is seriously what the area looks like, in general. Have to say that I've seen a lot of videos - Daggerwin's is particularly good with all the timelapse stuff - and the region is growing on me. You can see a lot of effort went into recreating the correct look. Some people say it looks like vanilla. Sorry, but no. The vegetation and urban landscapes are a far cry from 2012 - muliti-layered and complex, and the custom buildings are great. There's also picturesque stuff in there. The area can't be as immediately attractive as Italy or France, but to me it looks like a worthy addition to the list of quality DLCs SCS have been turning out recently. I've already bought it, but am waiting for Promods integration... and Christmas, of course... before I try it out. I hope this will be a really valuable set of assets for the promods and rusmap people. And it would be great to drive HCT trailers from Helsinki to Utsjoki!!

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Kaunas.

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Evening in Jekabpils, Latvia.

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We've reached Russia. This downtrodden building is on the route to Pskov, along a road which also appears in the the DLC, I guess.

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Passing Pskov.

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Passing Pskov II.

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Now moving north towards Luga.

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Yeah... looks great, but again I suspect Rusmap isn't entirely realistic about the area. In the DLC this will be no doubt more green grass, white flowers, conifers...

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Nearing Luga. A unicorn farm. These are still only yearlings.

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Gorgeous landscape!! Luckily the DLC only took a small bite out of Rusmap. The fantasy shall live on...

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Cool Russian architecture south of St Petersburg.

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Pulkovo airport.

One last set to go... off to build levels in ATS... have a great weekend!

krigl
Posts: 1024
Joined: 19 Oct 2015 18:46

13 Dec 2018 23:19

Ahoj again, Milan here for one last set of shots from the ProMods Baltic region and a bit of RusMap.

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Saint Petersburg

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Shlisselburg, on the River Neva by Lake Ladoga, kind of North East of St Petersburg.

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New cab in Vyborg. I'm taking it back to Slovakia. Got to get back to organize the office Christmas party.

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Crossing the border bridge in Narva.

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Estonian coastal scene.

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Military base near Tartu, Estonia.

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Tartu.

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Disused border crossing - heading south into Latvia.

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Factory in Latvia.

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Onion?

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Get out of my swamp!

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Jekabpils scene.

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South to Daugavpils.

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Here's Daugavpils.

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Daugavpils centre. It's great ProMods bother to put centres in cities, unlike in many cases SCS. Truckers don't go to city centres? Well, there are a lot of shops and historic factories in city centres. How do the goods get there? On bicycles? Horses? Some centres ban trucks but many do not. City centres are a waste of space? No. Why release different regions with different vegetation, monuments and sights when all that is important is to have factories and jobs? It's just about money-saving, I suspect. I play ETS2 in order to relax and "travel". I care about having city centres, and I'm sure I'm not alone...

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Heading south through Lithuania to Poland. Well, time to put this set to bed. I'll be back in a couple of months to visit the region again, hopefully. Next set: ATS - the Big Push for pre-critical mass, and level 20.

Čau!!

krigl
Posts: 1024
Joined: 19 Oct 2015 18:46

17 Dec 2018 23:02

American Interlude II

Hi there... Dan's back with a new set from ATS - Nevada and a more or less banal tale of one man's Big Push to get ATS into Sandbox mode, how he Fell From Grace, dusted himself off and sauntered happily on.

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My new employee Jack persuaded me to get him a new type T680 Kenworth. Said we should get with the times. Well, he's a good man so I bought him one.
Here he is in Las Vegans hauling cars. We've been hauling a lot of cars due to their high reward per km - all part of the Big Push to drag myself up from 14th to 20th level so as to get
access to all the cab types + reach Pre-Critical Mass. Not sure about his choice of paint job, but it's cheerful at least.

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Once more through the North Nevada desert. Got to make enough cash to put a garage in Portland and another in Albuquerque. By then the drivers should be making way more than my loan repayments.

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Tractors can pay well too. Critical mass is what I call the well-known, blissful stage when whatever you do, your employees make more than you can spend. Freedom! To drive what you want, tuned and decorated how you want, from and to where you want.

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North of Reno. Jack begged for an upgrade from the plain day cab, and he got it. Hard work should be rewarded, right? Pre-critical mass is the point where critical mass becomes attainable and it's up to you how fast you want to reach it. Your employees aren't making enough money naturally to allow you to play in sandbox mode, but you can use the garage exploit to get the money you need any time you want. Then it's up to you how fast you buy more garages and trucks. Sounds familiar?

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Approaching Reno. Getting to Pre-Critical mass turned out to be a real pain. Done it too many times after losing nice fat profiles. I get up at 5:30 am every weekday IRL and work 2 jobs, finishing at 10 pm many nights, and also working at weekends. Then I have to do 18 hour hauls in ATS to build XP and money.... it was starting to feel more like a 3rd job, and less like fun.

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Reno - very nice!!

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Reno. Was watching some youtube trucking videos during my lunch break when I saw one linked to an experience boosting cheat. With at least 3 more gruelling long hauls ahead of me to get from Level 18 to Level 20 - boy was I tempted.

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Arriving in Reno. After giving it a lot of thought I caved in. I gave in to sin.

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Still Reno... Sin is about right for Nevada, home to countless casinos and legalised prostitution, though the latter is not in Reno and Vegas - just gambling there.

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Reno centre. A bus on a stick?? O-kay...

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Reno gives Vegas a run for its money. Knowing the cheat boosts your XP gain significantly I just took a short job, hoping to make enough to break 20th; a couple more above that wouldn't be a problem, though.

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West of Reno and close to our destination. Well, when the job was done my level shot up from 18 to 34 - "Eighteen Wheels of Skill". Felt like 18 heels of shill. Such a boss title, and "unearned". But... on the other hand... no more restrictions, which was what I was aiming for anyhow. And it's not like I haven't already built up 4 profiles in ETS2 honestly, 3 of which were destroyed due to updates when getting the Scandinavia DLC/migrating to Steam when getting the France DLC/an automatic Steam update before I got hip to the jive and put ETS2 in permanent beta mode and stopped buying garages outside the base map area and stopped giving all my employees cool modded trucks. My son's profile was also destroyed by the automatic steam update, and he hasn't played ETS2 since. Well, whatever, really. Deleted the cheat and moved on. Got the 2 garages too while doing those long trips. Used the garage exploit to pay off most of the loan. Awesome. Now we're really in business.... time for a celebration!!

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Alllllriiiiight!!! ATS Special Transport DLC. And this big boy, which I picked up at Walmart in Primm.

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Leaving Primm at the break of day.

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Heading through Vegas in style. Honey I'm home, and look what I got at Walmart! But wait... there is no honey at home... ah well.

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Got the full aero-cab thingy too, and a nifty paint job. Yeah, I borrowed it from Jack.

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Doesn't look half bad!

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North of Vegas.

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Anti-eviction protest in Mazany Creek.

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While this desperate drama was playing out, we just sailed blithely past, wrapped up in our own awesomeness.

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Delivering to a firm (Walmart again??) in Ely.

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Didn't want Jenny to feel left out either, so I tarted her up with the full Aero stuff. Here we are picking up a cistern full of gasoline in Winniemucca.

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Winniemucca. Not much to look at, but an interesting change from ETS2. Started with Nevada because it's arguably the "worst" state in ATS. It's the oldest, along with California, but Cali has more landscape variety, and the sea. Nevada is all desert and run down towns, though Reno and Las Vegas are pretty stunning. I think both the original states got a bit of a makeover when SCS improved the scale. They had to add new stuff, and I bet they used the same tech as for Arizona, equivalent to France DLC level of quality I guess. It's pretty decent really, Nevada, but I imagine things can only get better with the next states we'll be visiting.

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Looks most impressive with the aero cab.

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What's with all the fuss about owned trailers? We've owned ours for years.

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Another part of Reno - just passing through.

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Final destination is just beyond Carson City. Hope you've enjoyed the shots! Next time we'll be expanding into northern Arizona, with mod versions of the T900 and the T680...

Cheers!



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