australia

[pierre2863]

have you a plan for an australia mod and road trains ?
it miss a lot we need it. we need snow ice and sand too in general. thanks to scs for a great game

[J4CKI3]

I imagine we will get snow in ATS, as SCS once said they want to get the entire North American continent (The US, Canada, Mexico, and maybe some Central American countries) into the game. For Australia, SCS will need to grow a lot before they can keep track of three seperate games. Maybe a standalone map will be modded for ATS, but I wouldn't get my hopes up.

[malorob]

sure guys and think of the extra physics they would need to fix in game for turning a corner.
they already need help i have never seen a truck stay in the shoulder lane and turn that corner with out hitting the curb and that is a B double even a semi has trouble and yet in ets2 you can do it simple no matter how many trailers as they follow each other.
trailers only follow each other in a straight line never around corners.

seen a road train in the NT need 6 lanes to make a turn

doubt they will do australia.

maybe some one can steam workshop for you already seen tasmania.

[Reese]

Australia = Extreme Trucker 1/2

On a better note: Learn to make map mods. I'm sure plenty of people will love you for it when you end up creating an Aussie map mod. Though in ATS, we already have Aussie Doubles as a mod.

[abhi]

It really would be awesone:

Australia wouldn't be that hard to map, since there aren't many cities and it's illegal for trucks to drive off the major routes. Many of the states literally only have two or three highways that trucks are allowed to drive on (unless they get a special permit). And our states are larger than european countries.

Trucks here are allowed to travel 100km/h making it a bit more interesting as cars usually have the same speed limit.

A lot of our highways involve regularly getting stuck behind a slow car and having to wait for a dedicated overtaking zone to pass, if this happens too many times it will blow a tight deadline delivery by forcing you to sleep for the night mid trip when you weren't planning to.

Half our trucks are combinations such as a b-double/etc... roads tend to be a bit wider than other countries especially at intersections to allow this.

Some areas allow triple or quad trailers (road trains).

When a road train reaches a major city, they must park some of their trailers at a roadside stop and bring their trailers onto the city one or two at a time. Drivers can be contracted just to do this short run in and out of the city.

In regional areas some roads are only paved the width of a truck and have dirt strips either side. Cars will pass each other with one wheel on the dirt, but heavy trucks may not have that option (it's too soft, you'd get stuck and have to call for recovery which will take days rather than hours), so they need to radio ahead before entering a narrow section to make sure nobody is coming the other way. If someone is coming, you wait for them. Once you start you keep an ear on your radio and respond if anyone wants to enter from the other way.

Once you get away from the city, there are no overpasses for cross traffic or trains, so having to hit the brakes hard is more common if an idiot driver doesn't realies your load is too heavy to stop quick.

There are a few dirt roads so rough even the toughest truck can be damaged just by driving normally down them (wheel bearing failres, axels snapping, etc). The tanami for example is considered by some as the roughest track in the world... but it's a few thousand kilometres shorter than the alternative which isn't a great road either.

Dust is a major problem on dirtroads - a slow moving truck can have a 5km dust plume behind them and it will be so thick you can only see about 20 metres. Trucks have aftermarket extremely bright lights (typically designed for off road racing at night) so oncoming traffic can see you coming in the dust. Radios are also used to stay abrest of where everyone is.

Finally, in nothern parts of the country you can get half a metre of rain in two days, which will cause flooding and close the highway to cars. But trucks are still allowed to drive through since they can typically cross about half a metre deep water safely. Often you might be driving through deep water for a few kilomteres. (actually they can cross deeper water, but you need to be able to see the raodside marker posts so you know where the road is - can't go any deeper than that).

[Xautos]

If SCS did an Australia based version i would imagine it would cover all of Oceania, from Malaysia to Singapore to Australia and New Zealand and all the islands in between, all 20 countries.

i wouldn't mind delivering cargo from New Zealand, take a boat to Australia, head across to Sydney then make the trip up north to Queensland and around to Darwin or just up to Cairns, take another boat across to New Guinea then cross from Port Moresby then trip across to the Indonesian side of the island to Mantokwari, another boat from there to Sulawesi, Manado. From Manado to Makassar and another boat across to Surabaya on the Java island, another road trip across to the Port of Merak near Cilegon...

so many places to explore and so many different styles of buildings and country side. But Australia itself has a number of different ecological places, from open deserts, to Tropics, to grasslands and rocky lands all the way to temperate climates with a large array of things to see.

Oceania would be pure eye candy for a truck simulator :P.

[Engioc]

Hi, I'm a bit late to this discussion but as a noob to ETS2 I would certainly love to see Australia or Oceania done. To drive a road train, like B-Triple, or A-Triple would be amazing, going through the Aussie outback.

[room217au]

Originally posted by abhi:

since there aren't many cities and it's illegal for trucks to drive off the major routes.

'standard' trucks (prime-mover + 40ft trailer) are allowed pretty much everywhere, except for those streets and roads which have designated weight limits, but you wouldn't/don't need to drive a semi trailer down those streets/roads anyways because it's suburbia. The only excuse you have for doing that, is that you have a delivery in that area and have no other way of reaching that destination. The Roads and Maritime Services Dept (formerly RTA) have documents and maps online about which roads are forbidden for semi trailers.

'b-doubles' (prime-mover+A trailer+B trailer) travel in, through and around almost every city/town in the country. Supermarket deliveries, for example, can involve a b-double unhitching the B trailer somewhere appropriate, driving to the supermarket, reversing to the dock and a set of slip-rails extend backwards to the dock. The truck is unloaded and the sliprails retreat. The driver goes back to the trailer he dropped off, unhitches the A trailer, hitches the B trailer and repeats the dock delivery. After re-assembling the trailer set, the truck returns to the depot, or another supermarket and the whole process begins again. One driver does all of this.

'b-triples' (prime-mover+A-trailer+A-trailer+B-trailer) 'AAB' trailer sets aren't allowed east of the Dubbo Hub (at least in NSW) but there have been some trials in the last 6mths involving triples getting closer to the coast. The Ford Motor Company used to have a b-triple as its spare parts delivery system to all parts of Victoria. It was quite a sight seeing that thing pull out of the Broadmeadow plant and onto the Hume :D

'road trains' (prime-mover+40ft trailer+40ft trailer) are a different hitch system to a b-double or triple. Road trains are essentially Rocky Mountain Doubles and they use the same drawbar hitch system. G-e-n-e-r-a-l-l-y speaking most road trains are a simple two trailer set. These are VERY common on the road between Port Augusta and Perth. In fact, in the dozen or so times times I've done Sydney-Perth (last time was 2014) there were few single trucks. Road trains can carry more freight than a b-double and are very useful for farm machinery, minig machinery bits and pieces, as well as odd-shaped freight like ploughs and stuff. Road trains are also not allowed east of the Hub.

'longer trucks' are essentially just road trains with more trailers. Travelling between Adelaide and Darwin is the most common place that most folks would see these monsters. BP and Shell
have a couple of these 5-trailer behemoths each. I know one of the Shell tankers is a tri-drive Mack Titan II, 1000hp and upwards of 150tons. Watch yer cogs ;)

Originally posted by abhi:

Many of the states literally only have two or three highways that trucks are allowed to drive on (unless they get a special permit).

Any grossly oversize heavy vehicle requires a permit. Oversize can be width only, length only, or weight only.. or a combination of all three. Some are so big they can only travel at night.
I remember seeing a massive lathe transported from Adelaide to Newcastle (maybe 1500km) and it took 14 days. The enormous lowboy had two prime-movers up front and one at the rear and the engine, brakes and electrics were all connected and the driver of the front-most truck had control over all three.

Originally posted by abhi:

And our states are larger than european countries.

The United Kingdom fits into Queensland 11 times.
New South Wales, our third-smallest state, is bigger in area than Texas and Louisianna combined.
Western Australia is very near the same size as one-third of the entire continental United States.

Originally posted by abhi:

[..] blow a tight deadline delivery by forcing you to sleep for the night mid trip when you weren't planning to.

It's easier now because of the introduction of BFM (Basic Fatigue Management and AFM (Advanced Fatigue Management) in the last 10 years. Its's been a while since I stopped steering trucks as a job, but I seem to recall BFM allows for 14hrs drive time in a 24hr period, and AFM allows the driver 16hrs in a 24hr period.
This was introduced because Adelaide to Norseman is 16hrs. Having that extra 4hrs up your sleeve shortened the Sydney-Perth run by a whole day.

Originally posted by abhi:

Some areas allow triple or quad trailers (road trains).

Servicing the minig quadrant of Western Australia out of places like Geraldton, Port Hedland etc have up to 9 trailers AND they drive on the edge of town :D
WA has some rather relaxed laws ;)
It was only in the last 10yrs or so that the use of logbooks for vehicles over 13ton GVM was actually enforced. Back in the day we'd cross the border at Eucla, toss the 'book in the sleeper and continue.
Straya. We ain't muckin' around.

Originally posted by abhi:

When a road train reaches a major city, they must park some of their trailers at a roadside stop and bring their trailers onto the city one or two at a time.

There are no 'major' cities where the road trains go. In fact, they must break the trailer set outside of every town. But these towns are on the road train routes anyway. Heavy vehicles often must take the 'heavy vehicle bypass' (it's signed VERY prominently, believe me) that skirts slightly around the town and rejoin the highway on the other side of town. Along this by-pass is usually where the road train assembly yards are.

Originally posted by abhi:

The tanami for example is considered by some as the roughest track in the world... but it's a few thousand kilometres shorter than the alternative which isn't a great road either.

ahhh.. The Tanami Road. 1000+km from Alice Springs to Halls Ck basically. There are no towns along that road. At all. It's literally a dirt track and not really a road in any real sense of the word. Sometimes used by 4WD but only the MOST foolhardy truck driver would take his semi along that "road". You break out there and you in a world of hurt. And it's desert.
There are BIG signs at each end CLEARLY explaining what you're up against. Take extra water, extra fuel, etc. The Tanami Road is not a recognised freight route.
IF, you were to take the Tanami road as a short cut, it would in real terms MAYBE save you 500km.. but using the highways makes more sense because they're all paved and most have been gradually upgraded over the last 20yrs.

Originally posted by abhi:

a slow moving truck can have a 5km dust plume behind them and it will be so thick you can only see about 20 metres.

Pretty rare though, to be honest. Ain't no slow-moving trucks in the red interior ;)
It's a strange thing to see a set of truck headlights appear in the distance when you're both doing 110kmh and it takes 10 mins before you pass each other.
Out on the Nullabor Plain there's a section of the Eyre Highway known as the "90 Mile Straight". 147km of dead straight road.

Just some musings from an old truck driver who's driven all over this country many times.