Am I bad? Is this for me?

[Grey]

Been playing for about 50 hours. I've figured out how to read the ground, use my winch, try to play to my vehicles' strengths. I really enjoy exploring, repairing infrastructure, how relaxing it can be.

But increasingly things just feel extremely hard if even possible. The trucks are maxed out (for what I can get, including upgrades). I'm still in the later Michigan maps. And they just CAN'T haul the things. For example, there is no way that I can -tell- for any of my trucks to pull this large laden trailer through a muddy patch, and there are no alternative routes, overland or otherwise.

It boggles my mind that people play this on harder difficulties. Making multiple long trips from A to B because my truck is too weak to pull it all at once just feels tedious. Do I have the wrong mindset to the game? Am I doing something wrong? I feel like I'm missing some big secret.

[Yumemirareru]

So, upgrade your trucks. As in, not the truck upgrades. Get entirely new trucks that are upgrades. Stronger vehicles are a thing for a reason.

As to philosophy, I use strong vehicles because, like you, past a certain point I just find the game tedious. But there are people that enjoy trying to get weaker vehicles through situations that might seem difficult to impossible.

It's a (mainly) singleplayer game, though, so play the way you enjoy. I like finishing missions in a reasonable time so I use strong vehicles. Sounds like you'd prefer this too. In order from easiest to hardest to obtain, grab the Azov 6, Azov 7 (only if you've unlocked the suspension upgrade), or Zikz 605R.

You'll need to hop over to Taymyr to buy the Azov 6, which is the most newbie-friendly strong vehicle to obtain, but you can then hop right back to michigan, you don't actually need to play Taymyr.

If you absolutely must stay on Michigan, there's a Pacific P16 on Drummond Island. Despite not having AWD, the P16 has stats on its tires that make it borderline-cheaty and it may help you out.

And feel free to play around in Alaska and Taymyr for a bit and come back to late Michigan later, perhaps when you've unlocked mud tires for example. You don't have to 'finish' Michigan first and if anything, the game seems to expect you to hop around a bit.

And one more general tip - fallen trees are a 'strong' winch point that can haul heavy trucks (until they're driven over and destroyed, but they'll respawn next time you quit the game and then play again). Try using side winch points on your truck and/or trailer to hopefully not destroy them all in one pass.

[PrestonLK]

When one truck isn’t enough to pull it through, grab two.

[Yumemirareru]

Originally posted by Kikwik:

It's ok that you struggle at the beginning if it's your first time, so don't worry too much about it.

Mmh... I see you're struggling for that big trailer at Black River and for contracts right ? But have you explored the other maps already ? You'll find the answer to your problem.

(snip)

Really no need to take the russian trucks in Michigan to succeed.

They said later maps so I figured more island lake and drummond island. They've probably figured out the Black River mudpit (and avoiding it).

And yeah there's not really a need to take russian trucks there but if they're struggling beyond the point where they're enjoying the challenge...

Anyways, good tips overall.

[Vimpster]

There are 2 heavy class trucks found in Michigan. One of them can go through any mud straight away when you find it. The other is not bad when you find it but you can get better tires for it to make it a lot better and in another region you can even get AWD upgrade for it which makes it very strong in mud.

But being good in mud simply means you keep moving and do not get stuck, it does not mean you will move through mud quickly. Mud is meant to slow you down no matter what you take through it.

[Beast of War]

Some mud pools or river crossings with some trucks are just to be avoided, certainly the US mediums that are limited to small width Off Road tires. In that case you have to find another route, even if it is the longer route.

You can often go wide around mud puddles ( knocking over some small trees if need be ) or use the harder ground edges around the mud pool with diff lock on ( this is important on ice road slopes without chained tires as well, with difflock on you only need grip on 1 side and a strip of snow next to the ice road is enough to give you traction )

Besides that the game is full of more or less "hidden" alternative routes. You have to develop a skill finding those and not follow the road at all times. You will often use river banks ( too large boulders is not good though ) and darker blue shiny ice ( which is solid ) to get where you want instead of roads. But also paths on rock surfaces leading up, routes with sparse trees you can go through or knock over if they are the type of tree that can be knocked over ( the small green ones ) and when you look through the surface of water and see rock bedding or plates of rock, you can go through there with most trucks ( if there is heavy current small/light ones maybe can't )

In later maps following the road often becomes impossible, as it is rigged with all kinds of impassable traps. ( mud or underwater hidden roots that hook into your trailers, fallen power line poles under the snow,. flexible fallen trees that hook into your truck but never snap into splinters, side angle sloped roads that will certainly tip you over and so on.. ) In all these cases you just will have to find a way around them and once you do the game will be much easier.

In short : many roads are only to be used if the devs not rigged them with "traps" and if they did, then you know there is some ( off road ) alternative route there to be discovered. That is the way :-))

[Derivat949]

Originally posted by Yumemirareru:

So, upgrade your trucks. As in, not the truck upgrades. Get entirely new trucks that are upgrades. Stronger vehicles are a thing for a reason.

As to philosophy, I use strong vehicles because, like you, past a certain point I just find the game tedious. But there are people that enjoy trying to get weaker vehicles through situations that might seem difficult to impossible.

It's a (mainly) singleplayer game, though, so play the way you enjoy. I like finishing missions in a reasonable time so I use strong vehicles. Sounds like you'd prefer this too. In order from easiest to hardest to obtain, grab the Azov 6, Azov 7 (only if you've unlocked the suspension upgrade), or Zikz 605R.

You'll need to hop over to Taymyr to buy the Azov 6, which is the most newbie-friendly strong vehicle to obtain, but you can then hop right back to michigan, you don't actually need to play Taymyr.

If you absolutely must stay on Michigan, there's a Pacific P16 on Drummond Island. Despite not having AWD, the P16 has stats on its tires that make it borderline-cheaty and it may help you out.

And feel free to play around in Alaska and Taymyr for a bit and come back to late Michigan later, perhaps when you've unlocked mud tires for example. You don't have to 'finish' Michigan first and if anything, the game seems to expect you to hop around a bit.

And one more general tip - fallen trees are a 'strong' winch point that can haul heavy trucks (until they're driven over and destroyed, but they'll respawn next time you quit the game and then play again). Try using side winch points on your truck and/or trailer to hopefully not destroy them all in one pass.

If you're willing to spend real money the Zikz 612H "Mastodon" DLC truck is about as good as the Zikz 605R and you get it instantly if you buy the DLC

[luZk]

If you dont have all upgrades then the free P16 you find in the last michigan map is the best truck for clearning that mud patch with stock free trucks. Another way of clearing this is buying the ANK civilian. The latter requires some planning with fuel dumps tho.

https://www.maprunner.info/vehicles/pacific-p16
https://www.maprunner.info/vehicles/ank-mk38-civilian

Good luck!

[Yumemirareru]

Originally posted by Derivat949:

If you're willing to spend real money the Zikz 612H "Mastodon" DLC truck is about as good as the Zikz 605R and you get it instantly if you buy the DLC

Didn't really want to go down the road of 'buy a DLC to solve the problem'. Really if they aren't comfortable with the P16, the Azov 6 should be more than enough for any of the 3 non-DLC/starter regions and then some.

[zombygunner]

ill just pull out the old wallet slap it into 4 low and have no issues right? the trucks do not handle anything like this in real life not even close but its the only mud game so here we are

[Derivat949]

Originally posted by Yumemirareru:

Originally posted by Derivat949:

If you're willing to spend real money the Zikz 612H "Mastodon" DLC truck is about as good as the Zikz 605R and you get it instantly if you buy the DLC

Didn't really want to go down the road of 'buy a DLC to solve the problem'. Really if they aren't comfortable with the P16, the Azov 6 should be more than enough for any of the 3 non-DLC/starter regions and then some.

Fair enough and also true, but if he enjoys the game enough to play 50 hours even though he's struggling that could justify a $4 DLC purchase even if it literally is paying to win.

[zombygunner]

im stuck on the bridge mission to hard for me. im stuck in mud that my pickup truck could cross but not my other truck its not real at all

[luZk]

You dont need to buy any dlc at all, you have plenty of ingame options for doing this with ingame trucks as I posted above.

Hell if you took the time to scout and collect all the upgrades for the fleetstar that can be found around michigan you can do it with that truck, given you buy the best tires.

[Beast of War]

This game teaches you to not follow ( obvious ) roads whenever these become too much of a struggle to pass.

The sooner OP learns to find the many alternative ( off road ) routes the more enjoyment he will get out of later and more difficult maps.

Most of you know even lake Kovd and Imandra are easy if you know how to avoid the "traps" of which most are placed on roads. Often you are better off staying away from roads whenever possible. The purpose of that is to force you to do something different then follow roads...Learn to read the map and look for open terrain between rocks and trees....not rarely there are already truck tire trails there....

Yeah you can buy the Mastodont DLC and just steamroll over most "traps" on roads, it does that really well, it is even very wide too so it won't tip over on roads that are tilted and setup to tip you over....

But are you then still playing the game as it was meant to be ? Did you learn anything from that ?

And for OP : on hard setting the mud/snow/ice and so on does not get any harder or is different at all. Most of the "hard" comes from unsuitable tires, fuel that now cost money and you have to fetch and repair costs and so forth...

[zombygunner]

every place or option leads you to getting stuck so then you reset drive another half hour to do the right path then you get stuck again reset another half hour although its part of the game it sucks it takes so long to get any place and the missions require you to know what kind of flatbed or whatever to use and by the time you find out your travelling back to garage back to the trailor location then back to the mission lol madness lol but what did i expect from a video game funny part is i cant stop playing or thinking about it lol maybe im crazy?

[Strangle McDangle]

The "Real Life Mod" significantly smooths down some of the rough edges in the game IMO. It makes trucks faster, traction better in general, but also makes cargo way heavier. In the end, it does make the game easier, but it's not trivial, and I find it makes it way less frustrating and way more fun.

https://mod.io/g/snowrunner/m/real-life-mod