How Expeditions is different (answers for those curious)

[Rragar]

Posting after 28 hours of gameplay. Completed the tutorial zone, did a couple of missions in the desert of Arizona, and most of them at the Carpathian mountains. Have a blast with it if it is your cup of tea. Don't get it if it's not.


What to expect:

- Reconnaissance and scouting are the core and focus of the experience.
- Increased terrain navigation difficulty across the board: missions and tasks always require exploring and figuring how to get into hard-to-reach places.
- Multiplayer will be added in the upcoming months and the option is already there.
- "Hard mode" Snowrunner options enforced (everything is paid, resources are key assets that should not be wasted).
- Offroad tire options unlocked from the start.
- Enhanced ambience: higher fidelity terrain visuals, more variation in vegetation (overall more detailed terrain design), improved and more varied music, lots of little details such as ancient ruins or natural landmarks.
- FULL offroad everywhere (not a single road or trail).
- Extra physics features: stiff [raised] vs softer [crawler] suspensions, tire pressure for shifting traction and height/center of gravity, reworked traction values for tires and surfaces.
- Consumable Tools with limited uses (jacks for solo un-flipping of vehicles, anchors for the winch)
- Navigation tools: binoculars, drones, and vehicle-mounted scanners/detectors for measuring water depth or finding upgrades/resources.
- Finances factors (supplies, tools and specialists must be bought, found/salvaged and stored, or hired before each expedition) and base camp upgrades (so far, I've found them interesting but non-essential).
- Passive bonuses/enhancements that can be bought before each expedition (some are useful for general purpose, others are extremely useful situationally).
- More freedom in vehicle configuration: additional options for damage-bracing, new modules, supply racks (you get to pick what goes into each of your supply storage racks and how much of it).
- Vehicle upgrades listed as expedition rewards and can be viewed prior to launching expedition / specific upgrade location clues provided in the vehicle upgrade interface.
- Looks better than Snowrunner and runs better than Snowrunner.
- Noticeably few launch bugs: I've only been inconvenienced by a crash caused by using a drone at max range with a certain range bonus (workaround is to reduce range before releasing drone control) and by a glitched workshop vehicle module that eats away your money when you attempt to buy it (don't buy the module until it's fixed, it's non-essential anyway). There's also issues for a few photographer tasks with target objects not registering (could be a bug) or sometimes being less obvious than they could be. There's more known issues but nothing else has troubled me.




What not to expect:

- That it replaces Snowrunner (each game is designed to provide a different experience).
- That it is a Snowrunner DLC. It's not. Some of the mechanics are the same, but the overall experience is quite different and there's much in the way of brand-new content.
- That you'll enjoy yourself if you don't want to think about what you're doing or if you lack patience.
- That you'll be successful if you're a reckless and inattentive driver.
- Using trailers (I've not seen one yet or an option to use one, and where you're asked to go it would usually be a bad idea).
- Using heavy-duty or highway class trucks. If it's too big or can't be fitted for very serious offroad, it's not here.
- Linear upgrades (there's more good reasons to retrofit some upgrades depending on the task).
- A large variety of trucks (there's currently only a handful, and as is you can use the free tutorial trucks for all activities [but all of them are top-notch picks]).
- Hood ornaments are gone, same for air horn ornaments (the audible functionality is still present for all trucks, mind you), parking light replacements and cosmetic air conditioner modules. Exhaust pipe options aren't available for every truck, including some trucks that featured them in Snowrunner.
- Moving big cargoes (biggest stuff there is can be fitted in a sideboard pickup bed).
- Moving fast (it's not a rally game and you're likely to damage your vehicle if you do it).
- Easy "hold your hand" contracts like delivering pre-loaded steel beams to the nearby farm (everything will require that you get well out of your comfort zone for terrain navigation, and stay out of it for the duration).
- Inconsequential waste of resources (things wasted will always cost you and there's no easy "repair and replenish everything for free when recalling to the garage").

[Dracojinn]

great, exploration was kinda my favorite part of these games, shame to see big trucks unavailable but i'll check it out

[Nite69]

no roads and no easy repair when going to garages is enough for me to not want to buy it

good thread thanks for the info

[Rragar]

Originally posted by Dracojinn:

great, exploration was kinda my favorite part of these games, shame to see big trucks unavailable but i'll check it out

The biggest truck you can use that I've seen, is a Tatra. You also can use the Step 310E, ANK, Bandit, and some new funny model with I think 2 front steering axles and one rear axle. But you'll really be doing work with scout-size trucks most of the time. You'll be using an Actaeon or Warthog to carry most payloads, and lightweight scouts for everything else that doesn't call for the use of a seismic vibrator or for twice the payload or module carry capacity.

The thing is, because of the pure wilderness bit, getting around can get significantly more complicated by using bigger trucks. You'll really suffer from the decreased breakover angle, and while mud isn't as "evil" as in Snowrunner for the most part, that is largely determined by your vehicle's mass. I was able to get a lightweight scout with thin all-terrain tires across mud relatively fast. Then I tried that with a much heavier Loadstar with UOD offroad tires and it would just sink and slow down to a crawl.

[FafnirChaos]

I can still see that it has a few bugs - you mentioned that the mud being evil which I kinda laughed about as I just went through a small muddy area with the Don and was wondering why I was getting stuck till this massive rock popped out of nowhere and flew behind the truck.

[EyeXombie]

Expeditions is just frustrating and not user friendly. The Ui/map system is horrible. The mission system is just as bad. The game fails to give you certain information about what you're suppose to be doing. wait a year before you buy it. Its in a rough state right now.

[FafnirChaos]

Originally posted by EyeXombie:

Expeditions is just frustrating and not user friendly. The Ui/map system is horrible. The mission system is just as bad. The game fails to give you certain information about what you're suppose to be doing. wait a year before you buy it. Its in a rough state right now.

The game is fine, your just bad at playing it.

Edit: Sorry, not sorry very definition of Skill Issue.

[d.]

>- A large variety of trucks (there's currently only a handful, and as is you can use the free tutorial trucks for all activities [but all of them are top-notch picks]).

What I find weird is that there's an achievement for purchasing 20 vehicles, I don't think I've purchased but about 2-3 in SnowRunner.

[Rragar]

Originally posted by d.:

>- A large variety of trucks (there's currently only a handful, and as is you can use the free tutorial trucks for all activities [but all of them are top-notch picks]).

What I find weird is that there's an achievement for purchasing 20 vehicles, I don't think I've purchased but about 2-3 in SnowRunner.

I haven't had a look at the achievements personally. Even though we don't have 20 separate models, you can have separate "copies" of each and maybe that would count towards the achievement. Either that, or maybe that achievement was intended with the continued development plans in mind.

[Nite69]

Originally posted by d.:

>- A large variety of trucks (there's currently only a handful, and as is you can use the free tutorial trucks for all activities [but all of them are top-notch picks]).

What I find weird is that there's an achievement for purchasing 20 vehicles, I don't think I've purchased but about 2-3 in SnowRunner.

this is the full vehicle list here and it only has 19, with more shown inthe game files not added yet so nobody can do that achievement yet

https://spintires.fandom.com/wiki/Expeditions#Vehicles

[Rragar]

Originally posted by FafnirChaos:

I can still see that it has a few bugs - you mentioned that the mud being evil which I kinda laughed about as I just went through a small muddy area with the Don and was wondering why I was getting stuck till this massive rock popped out of nowhere and flew behind the truck.

I found a new one. One of my truck's wheels glitched into a rock, which caused the truck to get stuck and then get the hell ragdolled out of it and massive engine damage dealt as the front end smashed against the rocks repeatedly (thankfully, I had hired the mechanic that provides the armor bonus, so that soaked the damage). This one was inherited from Snowrunner.

Then again, I've had that happen 4 times in 1500 hours of Snowrunner, so it's probably not a big deal unless the trigger factors have changed.

[FafnirChaos]

Originally posted by Rragar:

Originally posted by FafnirChaos:

I can still see that it has a few bugs - you mentioned that the mud being evil which I kinda laughed about as I just went through a small muddy area with the Don and was wondering why I was getting stuck till this massive rock popped out of nowhere and flew behind the truck.

I found a new one. One of my truck's wheels glitched into a rock, which caused the truck to get stuck and then get the hell ragdolled out of it and massive engine damage dealt as the front end smashed against the rocks repeatedly (thankfully, I had hired the mechanic that provides the armor bonus, so that soaked the damage). This one was inherited from Snowrunner.

Then again, I've had that happen 4 times in 1500 hours of Snowrunner, so it's probably not a big deal unless the trigger factors have changed.

I had a fun one with a spring loaded cannon powered sign - I was driving in Alaska just crossed that broken glacier river pass the gas station in the P16 - was coming up to make my turn - ran into the little sign to make it - and then boom - the truck went flying half way back across the river destroying the engine - and the sign decided to leave the planet.