Special Transport DLC Pilot Car question..?

[Blitzkrieg Wulf]

I recently just purchased a lot of DLC for ETS2, and a friend was generous enough to gift me Italia DLC so I could play on a complete map. I've been happy with all of the DLC... except the special transport.

Most of my frustration stems from the pilot cars, and their lack of consistency. I don't mind that the speed limit is artificially lowered to 35 mph/ 60 kph, that makes sense... but when the pilot cars hammer the brakes for no apparent reason and slow from 60 kph to 30-35 kph before a tunnel that is obviously large enough for the cargo, it can be frustrating because their action seems nonsensical. If you don't run into the pilot car, all of a sudden you are searching for which gear to drop into, and start accelerating back up to the speed limit.

Other frustrations include the lead pilot car slowing onto freeway/expressway on-ramps that are uphill, crawling along at maybe 20 kph, saying, "waiting for rear pilot car" (And, this is for like 30-60 seconds...)... Again, nonsensical that a small, zippy van can't quickly catch up to a truck that's probably grossing 100 tons and only doing 30 mph... instead making the truck that had momentum up the ramp come to a crawl.

Other times they zoom off, doing almost 70 kph at times (Not to warn traffic).

No, I'm not trying to play grand theft auto with a 100 ton truck. At the same time, I just want logical Ai behavior. Are there any workshop mods that can change the pilot cars actions (forcing them to actually do the speed limit), or are they all pre-scripted and unchangeable?

Should also probably be noted that I've only done perhaps a half dozen special transport loads on 2-3 of the routes, so I'm not sure if it's route-specific or general.

[Briannospam]

Front escort stops if rear escort comes too far behind.
That situation typically happens when you get from a normal road to a motorway where you get to the end of the driveway ... Here you sometimes have to wait a bit for the rear escort to come up behind the trailer.

[Prism]

they literally stop in the middle of the highway for no real reason, and im the one blamed for it

[Briannospam]

Автор сообщения: Prism

they literally stop in the middle of the highway for no real reason, and im the one blamed for it

Yes, if you do not make room for the ais not to get past you, it is your own fault when the ais get caught between the rear escort and you.

When changing lanes, there must be no ais between you and the rear escort, as the front escort will only change lanes when there are no ais between you and the rear escort.

Try following me on one of my Special Transport videos, and notice how I make room for the ai to get past me, e.g. this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeEwuYsh9GM&t=478s

[Blitzkrieg Wulf]

Автор сообщения: Briannospam

Автор сообщения: Prism

they literally stop in the middle of the highway for no real reason, and im the one blamed for it

Yes, if you do not make room for the ais not to get past you, it is your own fault when the ais get caught between the rear escort and you.

When changing lanes, there must be no ais between you and the rear escort, as the front escort will only change lanes when there are no ais between you and the rear escort.

Try following me on one of my Special Transport videos, and notice how I make room for the ai to get past me, e.g. this one:

I think what is grinding our gears is the obvious lack of forethought/robustness of the Ai on behalf of SCS. (Program cars not to sit between rear pilot and the load? Program the rear pilot car to simply catch up? I've been passed by Ai fast enough to make me feel like I'm standing still).

The notion that, "You let another Ai get between you and your rear transport, so the first transport stands on the brakes makes total sense" is something I can't get behind. This is the approach of, "The caboose driving the train". No. If I'm driving around weighing 80t+, and I'm expected to drive the truck AND drive for both of my pilot cars too...? Ha. Sorry.

Unless you're going to third-person one load after another, there are many oversized loads that make it challenging to even see the rear car behind unless you're waggling back and forth trying to warm your tires up like they do in racing.

The bottom line is that the pilot cars are flawed and feel highly incomplete for a DLC that cost money. Nowhere in the real world does it happen on a regular basis where 1-2 cars get between the rear pilot and the load, and the einstein in the front pilot car stands on the brakes with both feet. In ETS? All the time.

[Briannospam]

Автор сообщения: Blitzkrieg Wulf

The bottom line is that the pilot cars are flawed and feel highly incomplete for a DLC that cost money. Nowhere in the real world does it happen on a regular basis where 1-2 cars get between the rear pilot and the load, and the einstein in the front pilot car stands on the brakes with both feet. In ETS? All the time.

So why is this happening to you ... but not to me?
Aha, now I know: Of course it's me who does something wrong when the ai's do not get in between my trailer and the rear escort car

[Pinda 🥜]

I have that problem mostly on normal roads (single lane), for example on the route Stavanger/Oslo. And without AI cars, I disabled traffic in the developer console. Should have mentioned that earlier.

[Blitzkrieg Wulf]

Автор сообщения: Briannospam

So why is this happening to you ... but not to me?
Aha, now I know: Of course it's me who does something wrong when the ai's do not get in between my trailer and the rear escort car

I stopped playing ST missions after I got the achievement and called it a day. Since getting said achievement, I've periodically looked at the news for Ai hotfixes and mods to fix this behavior, but have never found any. I have not looked exhaustively, for all I know there is one currently that wasn't there previously or didn't come up when I last searched.

All I'm saying is:
1) I paid money for it
2) My impression is that the content does not seem to be as complete as what I would expect coming from a company such as SCS (Don't get this twisted: I like SCS. They have a good game here, this is just one of the aspects that I personally feel they have half-assed.).
3) I've since refused to consume said content because it seemed with high consistency to cause frustration, and have not seen any patchnotes for the escort Ai.
4) Given the opportunity, I would not be re-purchasing this specific content a second time.

The rest of the game is great. The mods are great, the community is great. I'm not trying to beat SCS over the head with a bat as a whole. This is a specific nitpick that has a very limited scope.

[Briannospam]

Then I would suggest that you might try to give ST another chance.
- It may be that there have been improvements since you tried them?
However, if you are using Promods, be aware that ST associated with Promods often causes problems.