Austria - Should I even be here?

[Chalax]

Hello, it's been a few years since I played this game until recently. I bought the new DLC because NEW. I love the game, however I feel like Austria is a difficult map to traverse through with a kinda stock Loadstar and Royal BM17. Should I go back to the non-DLC maps before tackling this one? Or should I just cope? lol

[Prim3]

Personally i rushed all maps and just got all the trucks and upgrades first. then had fun with whatever.

[Beast of War]

A lot of spots in the Austria map can be taxing on Off Road tires ( do not even attempt it on All Terrain tires...) and relative small wheeled US medium or light trucks. The BM does not have Diff Locks so it must be obvious why it fails in the most difficult spots. A fully AWD and diff lock upgraded and suspension lifted Fleetstar, MC 9500* and White Western ( all from the base game ) would do a lot better.

* The AWD upgrade of that one lies in Lake Kovd ( Kola Peninsula ) across the ice. With it is is at least as good off road as any US medium old or modern.

You have a few options :

- Avoid these spots and take another route ( this will take a lot more time )
- Use the farm tractors you get with that DLC to tow the trucks through the worst muck
- Get ( specific ) trucks from previous maps first.

The base game gives you the P16, Twin steer in Michigan and the C 745 in Alaska. You can ingame buy the P12 as well for Cr. These are 4 big wheel heavy truck vehicles that can drive ( or tow ) through any mud or snow. In Alaska you will find the ANK millitary truck that is not stopped by any mud or snow. You can Buy the International Paystar 5070 for Cr that can mount full size mud tires. In Tamyr you will find the Tayga 6436 that also can mount full size mud tires. In tamyr there is also the TUZ 420 Tartarin...once you are spoiled by that "scout" you will never use a car based scout out of laziness :-))

I did what Prim did : when replaying in Mode+ i first went through all ( DLC ) maps to fetch all vehicles and their upgrades. Then you will have a huge toolkit to select the best ( or most enjoyable ) tool for the job. But you really don't ever need more then the base game ( 3 sets of maps and all the vehicles in it ) gives you. So i guess it pays off to at least play through that or get the vehicles and the upgrades out of there.

[SlowClick]

In answer to to OP - it looks like you've jumped straight into Austria from Michigan, and so, no, you should not be there. IMHO the best way to play this game is to do the maps in order, because the get generally more difficult from map to map, and as you progress you collect better and better trucks and access to better upgrades.

Yes, you can do what others have suggested - skip around and collect trucks and upgrades, but my guess is that they have played to game through before and know where stuff is - or looked in Maprunner to see where they are. But for me that's a bit like doing a crossword puzzle while looking at the answers.

[Arri Shi]

Michigan, Alaska and Tamyr, in addition to being places where you can get levels easily, all have a lot of base upgrades for most trucks, namely gearboxes and engine sets. I advise not getting *super* involved in the DLC maps until you either know exactly what you're doing or have unlocked UODs, though if ya wanna grab one of the Earthroamers it will make scouting a lot easier. Though if you want to finish Austria with the Royal and the Loadstar, you'll need the following:

-Top engines for both vehicles (The 2100 and 2700)
-Suspension upgrades (More important on the Loadstar, optional for Royal)
-Highrange and Freeway gearboxes (Trust me on this, the difs Loadstar can take advantage of the extra power while the slip dif of the royal benefits from wheel spin)
-Proper UODs for each (I like the second version with the aggressive treads, as they have better codes for muds but the Royal can also work with the third variant as it's tall enough to stand through the ground)

[Rragar]

Originally posted by Chalax:

Hello, it's been a few years since I played this game until recently. I bought the new DLC because NEW. I love the game, however I feel like Austria is a difficult map to traverse through with a kinda stock Loadstar and Royal BM17. Should I go back to the non-DLC maps before tackling this one? Or should I just cope? lol

I actually have used the Royal BM17 a lot there (and with all-terrain tires). I've never used the Loadstar there but I have a lot of experience with that one. Throw in a suspension raise for both trucks and you'll be fine IF you know how to operate both vehicles, and provided you are doing proper terrain navigation. I don't know how experienced you are in this regard, and if you're not experienced in it, it can get confusing or more challenging than you might like.

The trick is not to do the stupid thing that most players do (where instead of navigating the terrain with care, they ignore that and instead try to brute force it with a truck that IRL nobody would have available or nobody would use for that, so that they don't have to use their heads). But to pull that off, you need to know how to read the map and you need to know how to determine how bad something is or what type of challenge it is, by observation alone. You'll also want to know which tires to pick for which activities, and you'll want to get a feel for the performance of specific trucks in different types of terrain when they are loaded with a specific cargo mass (so you know how much is too much for a specific truck in a specific terrain).

I jumped into Kola (which I consider more challenging than Austria) when I was new and had to manage with a CK1500 with all-terrain tires. I don't recommend it, I did struggle a lot because I didn't have experience, but it's not impossible to manage. It's just going to feel like a crash course.

[Beast of War]

Originally posted by Rragar:

The trick is not to do the stupid thing that most players do (where instead of navigating the terrain with care, they ignore that and instead try to brute force it with a truck that IRL nobody would have available or nobody would use for that, so that they don't have to use their heads). .

But in my opinion the open diff AWD have in common that they are best driven in A when going through muck. That could qualify as being driven in a "brute" way :-))

Where reducing wheel speed ( L or L- ) seems to work for all diff locked trucks to regain traction if that is lost, it really seems to work opposite for open diff AWD's and get them stuck.

I do not like the BM much ( high center of gravity, stiff suspension so prone to bounce AND lack of diff lock ) but i can make it work in any map. It is just more of a challenge then most other trucks but i guess for it's era it is pretty powerful.

The other open diff AWD like the Navistar and 47X NF 1430 have less negative qualities, but do requiire to be driven in A where it gets soft. All of them are high power trucks that seem to propel themselves through muck with brute force as they don't have any other means.

[Alahenena]

mods exist for a reason

[BurakZG]

I actually don't understand why they handicaped Royal BM17, not giving it diff lock. What is the reason behind? It just doesn't make any sense.

[TRUCK]

Originally posted by BurakZG:

I actually don't understand why they handicaped Royal BM17, not giving it diff lock. What is the reason behind? It just doesn't make any sense.

Balance, and its not "handicapped".

[Shellbie]

The real question is, are you having fun?

[Rragar]

Originally posted by Alahenena:

mods exist for a reason

The reason: giving people a cheat mode with 10x vanilla traction coefficients and 10x vanilla game engine torque, so that those people can then play devil's advocate for themselves and say that "they're not cheating because they're doing single player"?

[Rragar]

Originally posted by Beast of War:

But in my opinion the open diff AWD have in common that they are best driven in A when going through muck. That could qualify as being driven in a "brute" way :-))

Where reducing wheel speed ( L or L- ) seems to work for all diff locked trucks to regain traction if that is lost, it really seems to work opposite for open diff AWD's and get them stuck.

No arguments there. It is indeed a dirtier way of going about it. Less efficient and it causes more road damage. Although I have run into various spots (rare ones) where L actually helped with an open diff. That's likely only an occurrence with high power to weight ratio trucks, though.

Originally posted by Beast of War:

I do not like the BM much ( high center of gravity, stiff suspension so prone to bounce AND lack of diff lock ) but i can make it work in any map. It is just more of a challenge then most other trucks but i guess for it's era it is pretty powerful.

I suspect they made the front suspension as stiff as the rear (no idea why), and that's what causes this behavior. I also am under the impression that this could qualify as a front-heavy truck if not for the chassis length and overall mass distribution (perhaps all of this contributes to the jumpy behavior?) I toggle off AWD to lessen it when I go through a spot where it starts getting jumpy.

[BigVern]

I have been doing Austria for a few days now and find it is utterly frustrating. Firstly, yes the custom buildings are nice but it still doesn't really look like the region it represents and the roads and terrain are just the same style as seen in all the other maps. The lone wanderer restoring a devastated region might have worked for the OG game, but to have an utterly deserted area with broken roads and bridges, most of which can't be repaired, seems utterly alien for a civilised, organised country like Austria.

Even more annoying is the hindrance the obstacles place on just doing simple tasks. It takes nearly 20 minutes to drive from the garage to the nearest transit point to the other map. A "simple" mission to fill a swimming pool requires me to drag a water tanker across to the second map. Arriving in Foothills, first thing I find is a truck blocking the road which needs moving. Ditch the tanker and hook up the truck, to find a rockslide blocking the main road. Have to spend nearly an hour going round what could barely be called dirt tracks which even the mighty Zikz struggles with to gather the materials, then back chain the missions to pick up the water tanker. But by that point even with the reserves, the Zikz is out of fuel, no diesel in Foothills unless I bring it myself so recover to garage and set off again with a service trailer to set up a maintenance post. Finally now picked up the water tanker and facing another 40 minutes to negotiate a frustrating circuit of dirt roads, because there's no useable bridges.

[Rragar]

Originally posted by BigVern:

Even more annoying is the hindrance the obstacles place on just doing simple tasks. It takes nearly 20 minutes to drive from the garage to the nearest transit point to the other map.

[...]

But by that point even with the reserves, the Zikz is out of fuel, no diesel in Foothills unless I bring it myself so recover to garage and set off again with a service trailer to set up a maintenance post. Finally now picked up the water tanker and facing another 40 minutes to negotiate a frustrating circuit of dirt roads, because there's no useable bridges.

You would have done this in less than half the time if you had used a civilian truck with toggle AWD, toggle difflocks and all-terrain tires, instead of a military truck for mud.

If you had picked a highway class truck with a highway gearbox or any other civilian highway or heavy duty truck with a supply rack, you also wouldn't have run out of fuel. They burn a lot less fuel than the Zikz.

[BigVern]

I will try that Rragar, thanks.