What trucks do you give Employees?

[Draknar986]

I'm just curious if it matters what trucks employees use. Like, can they only haul lighter loads with a smaller engine, or with fewer tires? Should I be trying to pimp out their rides, or should I just give them bare bones lawnmowers because it doesn't matter?

Thanks so much for the info!

[Knottypine]

I don't think it particularily matters. When I have enough money I'll probably create a fleet of all the same type of truck. As far as upgrading, I wouldn't bother pimping them out. You could probably get away with pretty bare bones.

[Draknar986]

Interesting. I guess I should just work on getting a ton of drivers and put them in the cheapest trucks I can find. Do you ever pass them on the roads? That's the only reason I could see giving them different trucks.

[Knottypine]

No you don't see them on the road. The only thing I could see is providing them with cheaper truckes with decent size engines. I have no idea if there is any difference to how quickly they complete deliveries considering that all trucks can go 90.

*You may or may not see all owned trucks in your garage though, not sure I've never went inside, or know even if you can. In case you wanted your fleet trucks to look a specific way.

[Evilldread]

After reading the forums, I don't think you see your other drivers on the road. Which is a bummer in itself.

[Draknar986]

Ursprungligen skrivet av bulwark5:

... The only thing I could see is providing them with cheaper truckes with decent size engines. ...

Does the engine even make a difference? Do they actually do deliveries faster or anything?

[Knottypine]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Draknar:

Does the engine even make a difference? Do they actually do deliveries faster or anything?

I can't say for sure. Engine and chassis upgrades are the most important for any player driven truck. I doubt the stability of the truck has any bearing for your employees. But the engine (HP/Torque) would increase acceleration on hills, so it could be possible it might speed up deliveries slightly. I'm kinda thinking there is no difference.

The only way to really test this is over time. Give one employee a bare bones truck, and give another an upgraded one. As long as both employees are identical in skill, their average income per mile should be the answer. Sorry I'm not much more help.

[Draknar986]

I think I will try running that experiment. I'll post my results if I get any.

[zbobg]

I think the game picks random jobs for your drivers that are appropriate for their skill levels and DOES NOT take into account their truck or its optional equipment (even the engine power).

My two top drivers were hired together early in the game. One drives a Renault Magnum with its highest power engine in a 4x2 chassis. The other driver drives a Volvo 6x4 with 750HP. Both drivers are now level 6.2 skills.

The Renault driver ALWAYS earns more per week and per mile than the Volvo driver.

The nature of the jobs given also does not seem to take the chassis into account. For example it does not seem necessary to have a 6x4 chassis in order to be given "heavy or oversize" jobs (called "high value" skill in-game), all that is necessary is to have that skill unlocked. This is true for the player as well.

That the truck or equipment level does not matter is repeated more or less by my other drivers (42 drivers currently hired).

Therefore I conclude that the game does not care what truck a hired driver is driving and that none of the truck optional equipment makes any difference whatsoever, even that the engine power makes no difference.

I would have liked that the truck, engine and equipment would have made a difference because that would give the player more motivation to upgrade the truck fleet. Nevertheless, I do upgrade my fleet trucks as there is money available because I want to. Maybe a future patch will include these features.

[Draknar986]

Zbobg, thank you for your input!

I did my own test (although the test group is no where near as strong as yours), and hired 5 drivers of the same profficiency (and about the same skills...no ADR or anything that would really skew the numbers). 2 of them had totally maxed out Valiants with 750hp engines, wheels, you name it. The remaining 3 all had a stock of the cheapest truck I could find, (a DAF...think it has like 300 something hp). The results?

Valiant Price Per Mile after an hour (r/l) time:
Driver 1 - 6.85 $/mi
Driver 2 - 7.70 $/mi

DAF Price Per Mile after an hour (r/l) time:
Driver 3 - 6.87 $/mi
Driver 4 - 6.41 $/mi
Driver 5 - 12.00 $/mi

Conclusion - Granted, while the test didn't have the proper control groups that I would like, nor a hearty number of data points, it seems fairly accurate to say that quality of truck is WORTHLESS when you give it to your employees.

This boils it down to two trains of thought (or trucks of thought, hehe) - A) Give them the cheapest Go-Karts you can find, or B) Give them trucks that YOU want to drive and they just hold on to while you're playing around.

[Draknar986]

After playing for a couple more hours, I wanted to point out some stark differences I'm starting to see, that are counter-intuitive.

All drivers started off with the same skills, with the same training type (I set them for ADR).
As of right now, the two drivers that had the Awesome Trucks improved to a 1.7 rating, while the 3 on the Go-Karts stayed at 0.8. BUT...the ones with the Awesome Trucks are only bringing in $700 per day ($4 per mile), while the 3 Go-Karters are racking up $1000 cash per day ($8 per mile).

So, does this mean the better trucks help rank the employees faster, but then maybe larger repair bills force the profits down? Why don't the devs actually talk about this in a tutorial somewhere? Sheesh.

[Knightingale]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Draknar:

After playing for a couple more hours, I wanted to point out some stark differences I'm starting to see, that are counter-intuitive.

All drivers started off with the same skills, with the same training type (I set them for ADR).
As of right now, the two drivers that had the Awesome Trucks improved to a 1.7 rating, while the 3 on the Go-Karts stayed at 0.8. BUT...the ones with the Awesome Trucks are only bringing in $700 per day ($4 per mile), while the 3 Go-Karters are racking up $1000 cash per day ($8 per mile).

So, does this mean the better trucks help rank the employees faster, but then maybe larger repair bills force the profits down? Why don't the devs actually talk about this in a tutorial somewhere? Sheesh.

A repeat of the process might give us some answers.
Thanks for the results. I might try to run a few of these tests myself once I'm able to.

[Draknar986]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Mason:

A repeat of the process might give us some answers.
Thanks for the results. I might try to run a few of these tests myself once I'm able to.

That would be great! I'm looking forward to seeing your findings!

[Honeymaple]

I remember in GTS that better trucks usually brought in higher profits, but if the driver's skill was low a lot of the money would get wasted on repairs. It seemed that driver skill affected the repair bill, whilst truck quality determined job income. Assuming it's the same in ETS2, I would assume drivers in good trucks will make more money once they improve.

[City Builder]

Since the employees are simulated I give them the Volvo fh16 (base model) as it really doesn't matter what-so-ever in my game. They make me so much money after a reasonably short training period that it wouldn't matter if they were delivering on bicycles. ;) And since the fh16 is my favorite truck in the game well.... That doesn't hurt matters either.

I will only give them a different truck if it's something I feel I might want to swap out with them for a while to give it a run.

[Honeymaple]

I started running my own test and my two employees are making ~ €2.20/km. Not much since I'm making ~ €35.- but I did notice they are gaining skills faster than me. I gave them the cheapest MAN truck and removed the additional mirrors to reduce the cost. They both started with 2 points in High Value Cargo. One also had a point in another skill and he's making slightly less than the other guy.