A few questions and observations, mostly about hired drivers.

[Uncle Fester]

Observation. As lvl 36 driver, my only hire options are lvls 2.5, 1.7, and 0.8.
Observ. All three levels available to me are paid very nearly the same wages.

Q: Does anyone of higher personal than level 36 get any hires at higher level than 2.5?
Q: What is the max bank loan amount? At level 36, I have been allowed to borrow $2m.

Any insight would be appreciated, facetious responses will be flagged. Be nice. Thank you all.

[Red Wolf]

you're maxed out on everything

[Uncle Fester]

Originally posted by Red Wolf:

you're maxed out on everything

ok, thanks.

[hackintoshchap]

It has been a long time since I hired any drivers in either ETS 2 or ATS, but I do recall having a number of drivers available with 4 and above ratings.

My main profile levels are somewhere in the hundreds - you stop paying attention after a while. :)

[The Pitts]

The ratings of drivers is set as being a similar level to the player driver at the point a profile is created (under the covers all drivers in existence at the time get added to the driver pool with a randomly generated XP and associated skill pips). The only time you will see drivers with enough XP to have more than two or three skills pips (ignore the ratings, that is an utterly meaningless metric) is when they are added to the game for the first time and then most of them will be added to existing profiles with XP levels closer to that of the player at the time they are added. However, if you start a new profile after those drivers are added then they will get XP and skills at the bottom of the scale again.

Since we haven't had a lot of new drivers in recent times (see https://steamcommunity.com/app/227300/discussions/0/3763355010863409086/ and https://steamcommunity.com/app/270880/discussions/0/3811784078998914654/#c3805028908497692368 for some background on that), you won't find many higher rated drivers. I have been playing my only ATS profile since the start of 2021 and have never hired a driver and I see (in the data, not necessarily available to hire) two drivers at level 23 and ten others spread out between level 13 and level 22.

[Uncle Fester]

Thanks guys, but I was referring to new hire drivers, my older drivers have been gaining exp since hire. I realize now that I didn't make that abundantly clear in op.

[bakerdavid459]

I am at level 375... The most the Bank has ever let me borrow is 1/2 million. Consider yourself lucky!!

[The Pitts]

Originally posted by Uncle Fester:

I was referring to new hire drivers

That was clear enough to me and is what I answered (I have never hired another driver in ATS)

[hackintoshchap]

I replied with reference to new hired drivers too. It was clear that was what you were talking about.

[Duke Leto]

if the bank is loaning you $2M, you are using a (economy?) mod. $500K is the most an un-modded bank will lend you.

Generally, new hires will always have about 1 - 4 skills. I have had a few (~4 hired) in ETS2 that have had more than 4 skill points (out of 140 hired) but it is very random and doesn't happen much.

In ATS, I don't think I have any hired with more than 4 skill points (out of 100 hired).

If you see a recruit with 10-15 skill points, I would recommend hiring them immediately - but you will not see them much. And they are not as beneficial as you would think, quite often the skill points are not in a good distribution and the more skill points a driver has, the longer it takes to level up the important points (at least one in high value, fragile, 2 in just in time and all 6 hazard/adr points.)

[Uncle Fester]

Originally posted by Duke Leto:

if the bank is loaning you $2M, you are using a (economy?) mod. $500K is the most an un-modded bank will lend you.

Generally, new hires will always have about 1 - 4 skills. I have had a few (~4 hired) in ETS2 that have had more than 4 skill points (out of 140 hired) but it is very random and doesn't happen much.

In ATS, I don't think I have any hired with more than 4 skill points (out of 100 hired).

If you see a recruit with 10-15 skill points, I would recommend hiring them immediately - but you will not see them much. And they are not as beneficial as you would think, quite often the skill points are not in a good distribution and the more skill points a driver has, the longer it takes to level up the important points (at least one in high value, fragile, 2 in just in time and all 6 hazard/adr points.)

Yes Duke, I use a "real economy mod", and to update my last quote, the bank just came to me offering me the ablility to borrow up to $3m.

As far as the drivers skills, I was only referring to the starting "rating" of my max seen was a 2.5. The most skill points I think I have seen was 3 maybe 4 skill/level points. I am absolutely positive I have never seen a driver with 10-15 skill points, but then, I am only level 36 myself, with a driver rating of just above 9, but under 10.

Lastly, thanks to everyone who responded to this. I appreciate the information provided by all.

[djmbbandie]

have you explored every single recruiting agency? The gem drivers are very rare but they're there, I remember hiring a 4.0 driver in a previous profile when I was around lvl 30.

[The Pitts]

My earlier post explains exactly how this works and why they are therefore rare. Finding more agencies increases (one for one) the number of drivers you see in the recruitment agency screens but does not affect in any way the ratings of those drivers. If you have created this profile since the last new driver was added by SCS then there will be no higher rated drivers.

[Duke Leto]

Originally posted by Uncle Fester:

Originally posted by Duke Leto:

if the bank is loaning you $2M, you are using a (economy?) mod. $500K is the most an un-modded bank will lend you.

Generally, new hires will always have about 1 - 4 skills. I have had a few (~4 hired) in ETS2 that have had more than 4 skill points (out of 140 hired) but it is very random and doesn't happen much.

In ATS, I don't think I have any hired with more than 4 skill points (out of 100 hired).

If you see a recruit with 10-15 skill points, I would recommend hiring them immediately - but you will not see them much. And they are not as beneficial as you would think, quite often the skill points are not in a good distribution and the more skill points a driver has, the longer it takes to level up the important points (at least one in high value, fragile, 2 in just in time and all 6 hazard/adr points.)

Yes Duke, I use a "real economy mod", and to update my last quote, the bank just came to me offering me the ablility to borrow up to $3m.

As far as the drivers skills, I was only referring to the starting "rating" of my max seen was a 2.5. The most skill points I think I have seen was 3 maybe 4 skill/level points. I am absolutely positive I have never seen a driver with 10-15 skill points, but then, I am only level 36 myself, with a driver rating of just above 9, but under 10.

Lastly, thanks to everyone who responded to this. I appreciate the information provided by all.

I am not sure if "rating" is as important as skills. You can get a 5.0 rating with only 6 skill points if they are all in the same skill. But you will never get a 10.0 rating unless a trucker has all 36 skill points.

Rating is calculated based upon your highest skill point allocation in a skill and your lowest skill point allocation in a skill. You get 5 "rating" points for the highest skill allocation (0.83 point per level) and 5 "rating" points for the lowest skill allocation (0.83 points per level).

So this means that to get a trucker with a higher "rating" you will not only need more skill points, but they will also have to be more clustered (or you have so many that the lowest allocation is at least 1+ points.)

[The Pitts]

Rating is a meaningless metric. Count skill pips and that should tell you a driver's level and thus their underlying XP (although I have seen examples where the skill pips and the XP were not aligned, but only with higher rated drivers added to an existing profile).

[Heli_Professor]

Originally posted by djmbbandie:

have you explored every single recruiting agency? The gem drivers are very rare but they're there, I remember hiring a 4.0 driver in a previous profile when I was around lvl 30.

So are you saying that you're 100% sure than the good drivers are hidden or locked behind discovering certain agency(s) like finding a golden nugget in a bucket of dirt? I've discovered all the agencies in 3 states just now and the pool of drivers hasn't increased anything above 1.7. I'm lvl 40 with a skill rating of 10.0. Best I have ever seen is 2.5 and I don't know why, how, or when they got into the available drivers list. I thought it would refresh after going to "rest" but that doesn't work. It's been 3 IRL days now and my selection of drivers hasn't changed at all.