Trading in trucks and upgrading the fleet.

[Lord-Knight Fandragon]

Sooo, With the new Gen 2 680 in and my game having like 700,000 dollars, I was gunna go and update my AI fleet drivers to the new Gen 2 from their bog standard day cabs. I was wondering how does that work? I see the trade in button in the dealership, but is that only pertaining to the truck im driving?

In order to trade in all the trucks I would have to assign myself to each of my driver's trucks and do the trade in option?

[MagnusA]

Sounds like it is easier to simply sell their trucks and buy them these Gen 2 680.

[[ BBS ] Bootleg]

The trade-in functions only works for the vehicle you're currently driving. So yeah, you would have to swap out every vehicle one by one to get this done.

NOTE: it won't make a difference what so ever for your hired drivers about what vehicle they drive. Daycab, sleepers, small engine, big engine, short stubby chassis or extended long-haul chassis, it won't change a thing how they go about their business.

[candyman2135]

You can upgrade not trade in all your trucks w/o driving them changing cabs/ motors , etc I did it tooo mine.

[michaelrecomes]

LOL. I did that yesterday. Not that it really matters or that they appreciate it but I sold off the trucks for my best drivers and got the new T680s.

[_KC76_]

Originally posted by APEX Bootleg:

NOTE: it won't make a difference what so ever for your hired drivers about what vehicle they drive. Daycab, sleepers, small engine, big engine, short stubby chassis or extended long-haul chassis, it won't change a thing how they go about their business.

In my experience, this is not exactly Correct.

"Customizations" like accessories, wheels/tires and "chrome", make very little difference, something like less-than 1%, but the actual Truck Chassis, and Drive-train do seem to make a difference, in my experience.

I have found the most profitable drivers are the ones with mid-range Horsepower engines (low HP made less money, high HP did not increase profits), 10 Spd. Transmissions, and 4x6 Chassis. Cab Style made no difference between Day cab and Sleeper cab.

[Sandhill]

Originally posted by _KC76_:

but the actual Truck Chassis, and Drive-train do seem to make a difference, in my experience.

Not so much, that has been well researched and well documented. You CAN get a very small ( a few percent) improvement in hired driver income by upgrading from the cheapest new truck to the most expensive, for practical purposes you will never get back the money you invest in upgrades. For increased income it is much better to simply spend the money to equip more drivers with more trucks in more garages.
It is your game and the goal is to have fun, though, and for RP purposes or as a money sink if you have all you want, have fun

[_KC76_]

Originally posted by Sandhill:

Originally posted by _KC76_:

but the actual Truck Chassis, and Drive-train do seem to make a difference, in my experience.

Not so much, that has been well researched and well documented. You CAN get a very small ( a few percent) improvement in hired driver income by upgrading from the cheapest new truck ...

Thank you for confirming what I wrote, even tho you tried to disprove it:
Accessories = less-than 1% increase
Better Chassis/Engine = +3% increase (roughly figured)

My reply was to THIS statement:

Originally posted by APEX Bootleg:

NOTE: it won't make a difference what so ever for your hired drivers about what vehicle they drive. Daycab, sleepers, small engine, big engine, short stubby chassis or extended long-haul chassis, it won't change a thing how they go about their business.

Which you confirm, has been researched, and proven, that better chassis, and mid-range engines DO, in fact "make a difference, what so ever".

No one else was discussing over-all economics, or cost-benefit analysis .. only if the truck itself affects Driver performance, to-which, the answer is yes, the truck makes a very small difference in Hired Driver performance.

[Sandhill]

Originally posted by _KC76_:

No one else was discussing over-all economics, or cost-benefit analysis .. only if the truck itself affects Driver performance, to-which, the answer is yes, the truck makes a very small difference in Hired Driver performance.

I guess I just judge hired "driver performance" by income, it never occurred to me that there would be any other metric... my point was just that the improvement is insignificant enough to not really be relevant.

[_KC76_]

Originally posted by Sandhill:

Originally posted by _KC76_:

No one else was discussing over-all economics, or cost-benefit analysis .. only if the truck itself affects Driver performance, to-which, the answer is yes, the truck makes a very small difference in Hired Driver performance.

:lunar2019smilingpig: I guess I just judge hired "driver performance" by income, it never occurred to me that there would be any other metric... my point was just that the improvement is insignificant enough to not really be relevant.

I do not mean to pick on you, but you provide a perfect example of how these topics get convoluted. You used the word "income", where I think you meant to use the word "profit".
-As we discussed, better trucks do affect "income" in a positive, and as you pointed out, the "profit" of such increased "income" does NOT outweigh the "expense" of the upgraded truck.

I do not like being pedantic, as it makes me look quite the arse, but words (and their meanings) are important when communicating solely by text.

[Lord-Knight Fandragon]

Originally posted by Sandhill:

Originally posted by _KC76_:

No one else was discussing over-all economics, or cost-benefit analysis .. only if the truck itself affects Driver performance, to-which, the answer is yes, the truck makes a very small difference in Hired Driver performance.

:lunar2019smilingpig: I guess I just judge hired "driver performance" by income, it never occurred to me that there would be any other metric... my point was just that the improvement is insignificant enough to not really be relevant.

Doesnt the income you see in the driver log only apply to the short few trips it shows when you click on driver log? As in it goes up and down as your drivers do different trips over time.

[_KC76_]

Originally posted by Lord-Knight Fandragon:

Originally posted by Sandhill:

:lunar2019smilingpig: I guess I just judge hired "driver performance" by income, it never occurred to me that there would be any other metric... my point was just that the improvement is insignificant enough to not really be relevant.

Doesnt the income you see in the driver log only apply to the short few trips it shows when you click on driver log? As in it goes up and down as your drivers do different trips over time.

I'm not sure I understand what you are asking specifically, but yes Driver Logs are short-term-ish. If you look on your Garage manager screen, you get a better picture of long-term performance of all the drivers in that particular garage, but less so of individual drivers long-term performance.. unless you keep to one driver per garage.

[Lord-Knight Fandragon]

Originally posted by _KC76_:

Originally posted by Lord-Knight Fandragon:

Doesnt the income you see in the driver log only apply to the short few trips it shows when you click on driver log? As in it goes up and down as your drivers do different trips over time.

I'm not sure I understand what you are asking specifically, but yes Driver Logs are short-term-ish. If you look on your Garage manager screen, you get a better picture of long-term performance of all the drivers in that particular garage, but less so of individual drivers long-term performance.. unless you keep to one driver per garage.

What I mean is your driver performance will appear to be bad one week and good the next. Like this driver I have now.....he has like 74 entries in his log but right now hes showing as only making $2.10 per mile.......no way hes been that bad over his whole career.

[The Pitts]

Which is why when we were analysing this behaviour (in ETS2) I used thousands of saved game data files to give me a picture of the hired drivers' performance over many in game weeks before it became apparent that

• some drivers did earn more than 'expected'
  
• the slot_truck_efficiency value in the driver_ai units in the saved game file drove that improvement
  
• there was a bug in the handling of that attribute which meant that giving a driver a brand new truck with improved parts was not good enough, you had to upgrade the truck afterwards (just adding a light to a light bar would be good enough)
  
• the slot_truck_efficiency (when working) was based on the level associated with each part, with some parts being an order of magnitude more important than others

For the gory details, see this guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2782878952