Vanilla vs promod

[CrusaderKiller]

Hello community. This game is like crack - try it once, and you’re hooked.
I really enjoy playing and I’m not much into mods. Vanilla is fine but I’ve seen many things about the map expansion in promods. My main concern is whether I should wait because I want the DLC that coming about the Black Sea. I have all the other map DLCs. What’s y’all’s opinion of playing vanilla vs essential mods, and any recommended that won’t break my current save. Should I wait until the Black Sea releases and Promod catches up?

I have a monster PC (i7, gtx1080, 32g RAM) so it will run it. But I hear load times are bad.

Thanks all. Oh, any serious multiplayers?

[metpei]

Keep your vanilla profile clean, you may want to test game beta versions without mods crashing and casually just drive with it!
Make new profile for PM and keep it. It's nice to second start from zero, but you can make super fast profile lv30+ with money and xp mods. I use these quick lv30 profiles for testing truck mods and maps, when you are done you can keep it if it's good condition or delete it just to make sure.
Edit: if you aren't in beta, you can start with PM, there is huge map to fill...
When 1.36 comes out, you need to use temporary 1.35 for incompatible mods in beta tab.
It's usually 1-3 weeks when PM is updated, so not very long, but if you don't want to wait, drive with your vanilla profile while waiting?!

[Underscore_101_3]

With a lot of map mods the load times can be longer the first time a map mod is added in the manager, but after that loading times should be normalish, but any time you make changes later to that profile it will take a bit longer the first time.

You'll hear different opinions about Promods and other map mods, i think Promods and some other map mods are adding to the vanilla game, i would not play the game anymore, or at least not as much without them.
On the other hand there are standalone maps, often in a more realistic scale up to 1:1 that may require you to have one or more DLC's, but you won't play on the vanilla map then, they just use assets from them.

At this point, should you still want to get Promods, or other maps i'd advise you to wait till it's updated to 1.36 and working with Road to the Black Sea, the Promods free download is a hassle to get, the paid server (1 euro or something) is worth it, but pay now and a few weeks later is a ..... well that's up to you :-)

[TwinShadow]

I stopped using Promods a long time ago for varying reasons, but the main one is that the default map is pretty sufficient for what it is now.

One of the things about Promods is that you will occasionally run into bugs like falling through the map or traffic disappearing. You can report those on their forum and in time, they should get fixed, but even with a more higher-end PC, you are no doubt still going to experience frame dips in certain areas. I don't know if the current version still does this, but in parts of Germany is (or was) the worst for frame dips in Promods because of the amount of stuff being rendered on screen.

Due to the game still not taking full advantage of multi-core CPU and is still largely a single-threaded game, this shows more on certain CPU's than others. (higher single-core speed would mean a slightly less of a dip in performance)

If you want to use it, by all means, just make a separate profile for it. I'd also just wait for the patch to drop before getting it. Support for the DLC will take longer anyway from what I have seen, but I'm not really well-versed with it anymore after it stopped being useful to me.

[Nimir-Raj]

Invisible walls were the reason I left Promods. Remember back around 1.92 when Germany was a no go zone... yeah that's when I gave up and made a new profile. Promods put me off all map mods.

These days or more due to being a tester, it's just not convenient to run a map mod that will break every closed beta.

But definitely start a new profile if you plan to try ANY map mod because if you ever change your mind you will be inundated with permanent log errors.

[CrusaderKiller]

Ive head both sides now and I appreciate all comments. For now, I will stick with vanilla b/c I really enjoy it, and still have a vast amount left as well as the Black Sea coming.

[NiceGuy]

What bothers me is that you can not use "world of trucks" online contracts with promods

[Underscore_101_3]

You can still make a 2nd profile and see what it (and maybe other map mods) is about for yourself.
You can make a different profile for any mod you want to try for that matter,...

I agree with what Mohegan13 says, but in recent updates for Promods i've not encountered invisible wall problems so far.
Generally speaking, there are few to none map mods without errors, personally i don't really mind, i'm not stuck on having a profile for years, i just like exploring the scenery.

I also agree that the more recent map dlc's make other maps less interesting, but especially the older parts of the map, mainly UK, NL, BE and D a bit since Germany has had a few updates, benefit from Promods.

[gfc1963]

I have always used PM since it came out as it adds so much to the game. More cities and roads. As others have said the first time a profile loads up can take some time depending on what you have in the profile. I have loads of map mods and PM plus all the dlc's and the first time it took 20 mins to load!! Now it loads up in less then 5! But if you're happy with the vanilla game then rock on!

[CrusaderKiller]

Bottom line is, it’s a fantastic addition to my steam library that will net hundreds of hours I hope. Thanks all for your suggestions and advice. The one thing I do scratch me head over is no Effie Tower in vanilla?

[TwinShadow]

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think in theory, one couldn't see the Eifle Tower anyway on the routes through Paris anyway. Or, if it is there, I wouldn't know right off the top of my head.

[Underscore_101_3]

The eiffel tower in day time is not the problem, the eiffel tower at night when the lights are on IS, the lights are copyrighted, so images of it can't be used commercially without permission.