ETS2 -- General, wide ranging help: In/Out of game & Modding

I decided to post this guide to address the many questions I always see, everywhere I go in the ETS2 community.

This is to be a WORK-IN-PROGRESS and my intention is to keep this guide updated and expanding or corrected as needed. That said. Like you. I'm here to play the game, not hold your hand. I will always try to help if I can. But, I don't want to spend all my play time answering questions that are answered in dozens of places throughout this game and its associated community.

Negative comments will always be cheerfully ignored. Waste your time elsewhere! I'd rather spend 2 hours helping a true player than 2 seconds dealing with someone who needs more cuddling from his mommy!

Getting Started:

Credentials on my competence:... (This text added just to properly allign Screenshots :)

1 -- Start a profile... Obviously. You'll have no profile at this point. So just select the "open profile" selection bar to the lower left of the login menu.

2 -- Pick your drivers gender and look, select a truck you like (this has nothing to do with any truck you have or will have) its simply whatever you like. Pick a Company name and logo. Again, this has nothing to do with game play and I assume it's there simply to add a little immersion. The Ural pictured above is the ONLY mod I have every found that allows me to use 1 of the 8 available company logos on the door.

3 -- Early access is extremely limited and all you can really do now is pick a quick job. This opens a market screen and will show available jobs all over your available map. You are instantly placed in the cab of the truck for that job.

4 -- Once you do enough jobs the bank will inform you that you can borrow up to 100k and most people immediately borrow the MAX amount and go get the most expensive truck and kit it out all bling and that is a road to Financial ruin. You'll have to pay several thousand a day on the loan and the game will take your cash into the negative. Remember as an Owner/Op. YOU are now responsible for all fuel and repair costs. That 35k job can simply end up costing you money!
(I have had around 22 profiles in this game and not one of them ever borrowed a dime)
Of course, regardless of what you owe. You can always drive a quick job for needed cash.

5 -- One of the very 1st tasks is picking a HQ location. This is your homebase from that moment on and used to accomplish an achievement. This in mind. If you pick Neatherlands. You'll only need to buy 2 garages to get the achievement. If you choose Germany. You'll need to get 22 cities for the same achievement. I chose Germany because I had ETS and GE-DLC together which made Munchen a very central city. Plus Germany was my country of birth.

6 -- Instead of using the bank. I waited till I had about 800k cash on hand.. I expanded the HQ- garage (280k-180 to buy 100 to Upgrade + truck costs say 98k each (This is up to you. If you get the Ural truck I have you can buy only that truck for everyone at 47K+ each and save a ton. But I think that would look silly over time and be confusing. As I said the trucks don't matter anyway) and drivers about 1k-1.5k each.) got 4 of the cheapest trucks I could find and hired the best drivers I could find to drive them all.. Obviously the more recruiting centers you've discovered by this point the wider the range of drivers and talents will be available. The trucks dont matter. So dont bling them to the max. your drivers never actually drive anything anywhere. they randomly picka job they qualify for and when time runs out you get the profit. Remember: They work off your skill so "Long Distance" is the most important skill for them to point out. If they have low long distance you'll see a lot of "Can't find a job". empty fuel costs to you for them to bobtail back to base.

7 -- Anytime your around 1 million euros.. get a garage (or expand a 3 slot to 5) and all the trucks and best drivers you can find. Your looking for the skills I mentioned in the order of importance I showed. Don't worry about leaving a garage or trucks Idle.. Your not charged for idle equipment or property. Your HQ drivers will easily cover any monthly maint costs associated with idle garages ALWAYS EXPAND when you hit the million euro mark.

(My drivers cover all the costs for me to just drive around getting my Explorer achievement and repairing AI caused damage) Many scoff at the Editors Pick (World of Trucks) for those who get it and upload screenshot proof) but realize that it's an achievement that only 1.1% of all drivers in this game have.
Be Advised.. I had to very closely search 32 cities and ALL roadways to get from 99.95% to 100.00% Some map elements are only worth 0.001% or less. And. They can ONLY be seen as grey if your in the city with Sat-Nav at max.. that includes recruiting centers and small truck dealers their Icons will hide them otherwise.

8 -- AI traffic... This nightmare was greatly "improved" (Not fixed) Around the v0.8 upgrade. They were brought from complete Monty Python Imbeciles to just indecisive idiots. They will come to a stop in the high speed passing lane for a car 3 lanes over merging. Rather than sit stupidly in the merging lane AI now often will simply put on its blinker and merge "no sh*ts given" They'll suddenly decide at the last possible second to take an exit and from the center lane cross in front of you, oblivious to you roaring up at 110kph+ in the LEGAL truck lane. Unlike YOU. It seems AI can easily go from 180kph+ to 30kph in less than 50meters. Or drive beside you for 60 seconds and then suddenly put on their blinker and slam into your side and there goes your no damage bonus. (I truely hope Pavel and his crew are working as hard on this as they are on ATS) Standard bug squashing. Kill one bug only to find two hiding behind it. At least zoned out AI can be awakened with a horn or light flash (most times)... More to come

-- WEEK-4 (approx.) -- of my 1st ever GUIDE and use of this Steam feature. I intend to add and correct this quide as needed. And, as I learn to attach stills and videos etc. Realize that I've been out of this game and Steam for over 1 year. It's Almost the start of the 3rd week back. Also I want to play the game not answer endless questions that are covered here. I'll genuinely try to help when I can but do a little research please. The answers are all over this, and many other sites.

Two Main Types of Maps:

NORMAL MAPS :...

The main type is seen above. SCSOFT's, Base and Going East maps. Scotland,the areas of Great Britian. The Northern tip of France to Hungary. PROMODS is covering the Northern areas from Iceland thru Norway, Sweden and Finland and into Estonia. But they also have 4 or so cities in Southern England and 7 or so in North Eastern France and a section of northen Italy extending from around Milano down to Rome. TSM covers all the North African Coast from Casablanca to Cairo With two highways running East-West with Ferry crossings in Gibraltar, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. Just short of the Suez canal. Into most all of Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and Crete Is. and Greece Up through Bosnia and Croatia back into the Romanian and SCS world.

Where ProMods meets SCS the transistion works beautifully and they expand your driving world immensely. TSM also meets with SCS Fairly well but I'm already seeing complaints about TSM v6.xx whatever. Being buggy.

Personally I would rather stick with Promods meticulous attention to detail and accuracy than TSMs seeming desire for volume output over any sense of care taken. If you take sections of their map apart you'll see they have buried a huge stone castle so its roof top can act as pyramids in Egypt. Parking lots are filled with cardboard cutout cars with no tires.

While trying to map a section of French highway. I got funneled into ever narrowing guardrails no wider than my truck and ended up driving off the end of the world.

Edge areas you can see at the proper angles will show that sky scraper only has a face and you almost see 2x4s holding up the back side. That said. I had fun driving TSM when it worked. The drive along the african coast was very beautiful. Along the Greek coast to hungary was also breath taking and treacherous looking at the same time. Many of the highways had very complicated intersections that took several passes in both directions to fully map out (Turn Yellow)

The Bell Ranger chopper and low F-15 fly by are totally natural and don't break emmersion. I have a very nice screenshot on my profile of daytime Hot air baloons beside a section of highway which I forget if it was France or Spain but it was deffinately in TSM country. And at night those 3 ground balloons and I think 1 or 2 airborn ones were illuminated.
The humping dogs and UFO buzzing you are novel at 1st. They soon become as annoying as the Peterbilts dashboard fly. And where TSM and ProMod cities and roads meet. the Turkey feathers fly.. But as soon as I discovered ProMods, I knew I would toss all the cities and countries offered by TSM (And thats a LOT) and run ProMods instead.

Some of you sharper eyed people out there might say wait. You have NO ProMods areas at all in your map. True. Before I ever got to DL'ing it I decided to Uninstall it from Steam and go back to playing offline only. That was okay untiil an update came for ETS2.. Steam decided it Should AUTOupdate it eventhough it was uninstalled and pop. one unplayable game both from in Steam and offline on my desktop. Hence my not playing for around a year. 1.2xx must have been a full install cause one day, not long ago now. I recieved mail in yahoo saying v1.2.1 was out and about. I decided to finally log into Steam and wow.. ETS2 was running fine.. Then I didn't want to add ProMods till I had the explorer achieve. Now I have to wait till my new Online pay is in place.

(And now Pays in place got my Scandinavia exp'n. And my Track-IR and Triple displays working. still fine tuning but rapidly coming together. :)

Enough about my problems. Supposed to be helping peeps with theirs. But the Moral of that preamble is. Before you uninstall from Steam. turn OFF the autoupdate. Allthough this time it seems a happy accident. Who knows what else it might cause :)

STAND ALONE: The second type of map...
This Ireland map only makes Ireland You actually have to turn off normal maps and type in the name of the map you want to run. Ireland or Romainia and I think Russian roads Are all Stand alone. With this type They use the same graphic engine but have made no effort to run with any sort of compatability as theres no intent to connect anywhere.

Before my crash I was thinking of trying my hand at mapping. I thought Canada can't be that hard.. one or two major cities in each province. One major highway connecting the whole country and for all that land mass.. only 30 million or so people.. Less than the population of New York City. I got the Editor from SCS and extracted the Base.scs file into folders.. then went and watched peeps mapping on youtube. Saw this guy just working on a section of overpass and the associated guardrails and highway spanning, sign holding, latticework and the connection of one road section to the next and the little trails the AI follow and to steal a phrase from TBBT. "Holy crap on a craker!".

I have deffinately found the entrance to the rabbits warren but as yet have been unwilling to venture into the underworld.

ACHIEVEMENT -- " National Company ":

Country_________Garage Count__________Cost to Complete Achievement___
Luxembourg.................[ 1 ]...........................................180,000 E.
Netherlands..................[ 2 ]...........................................360,000 E.
Belgium.........................[ 2 ]...........................................360,000 E.
Italy...............................[ 3 ]...........................................540,000 E
Switzerland...................[ 3 ]...........................................540,000 E
France............................[ 7 ].......................................1,260,000 E
Poland..........................[ 10 ].......................................1,800,000 E
Great Britian.................[ 17 ].......................................3,060,000 E
Germany.......................[ 22 ].......................................3,960,000 E

You might wish to consider this when choosing where to locate your starting HQ. I have NO idea how the extra cities from Scandinavia or ProMods might affect this achievement.
Obviously I have not included all countries but you get the idea.
If you get all trucks and drivers for your HQ. The 5 of you should easily finance all other garage purchases to sit idle. (There are monthly charges for each garage).

How/Where/What do I do?:

SUPER Cargos and the HIT box.....

The Cargo pictured here will have exactly the same Hit Box as any normal trailer in the game. Allowing the huge overhang of this dumper to pass through traffic and guardrails,
toll booths etc. For a looooooong cargo many modders just move the hit box to the very end of the cargo which allows a car to pass between you and your "Attached" trailer. Or the toll booth gate to drop between you and cargo, trapping you.

I'd personally love to see SCSoft truely support this type of cargo movement. Anytime I have seen cargo of this magnitude, it has a hornets nest with it.. Usually 2-radio equiped pilot cars. A fully equiped Mechanics van. Maybe a Pusher or extra pull truck. Perhaps a back-up tractor. At least one RCMP police escort with lights on. And a restriction on hours of travel . With the new ability to replan your route in the map.. it would be a nice challenge trying to plot an optimum route to arrive on time with the least hassle.

The Other half:

MODs and trouble shooting:

Most common complaint I see is... I Put my *.SCS into the MOD folder but it doesn't work or they can't find it... 2 things. 1st.. Playing the game on steam and offline use 2 seperate locations for Mod folders. Which is why you can't use profiles on Steam that you use offline without steam. Same for music or Profiles folders. They are NOT shared. Assuming you are running on Steam make sure you putting the MODs into the right folder. I use 4 profiles 2 online and 2 offline. All 4 show in the same loggin screen. Only the 2 profiles I use on Steam will work correctly.

You need to understand how the game uses MODS. You put all the *.scs into 2 seperate dirs. for my 4 profile setup but only see one set. My 2 steam profiles only see/use one set. and my 2 profiles can have completely different mods running but you must remember that ETS will NOT pre-activate a mod just because it's in the folder. If it isn't sure of compatability it will not green light it. You must physically go to the section of the loggin screen and select the right profile and then the MOD Manager. Then double left click on the mod to turn it on or off. if the Mod shows red then the game is telling you its missing from the folder or is causing errors/not compatible with the current version.

Even de-activated, the mods still try to work. You must delete it from the folder to truely turn it off. ETS will remember it was there so you also need to select any red exclamation filenames and delete them. You'll get a warning logging back in with the profile using that MOD. In most cases you just ignore it and load up and go. As long as the scs file did not make changes to your profiles saving architecture everything should run fine. If not. Thats why you backed-up your mod and profile dirs. Right!? -- "ALWAYS backup those two folders before Adding any new mod"

-- Also use the Copy/paste way NOT the drag n' drop method to ensure there's always a backup somewhere in your computer. --

Adding zzz to file names is no longer needed as the mod manager now lets you promote/demote mods as you see fit. For example. you should load all your truck mods before any paint skins.. just promote all trucks and demote all skins

JAZZYCAT Mods are the very best I've found and the most reliably written Mods I have yet to find. He offers single mods and multiple packages. In the solo you might get say.. military cargo to haul. In the package you'll get several *.scs to allow you to turn on and off weather AI will haul that cargo too.. For military pack I shut off the .eng file so only I am hauling it. Then it doesn't look like world world four is about to start. There might also be an scs to use with ProMods map and another to use with TSM maps.. Only use one or the other of these or you'll get errors.

Finally Be aware that I have about 4GB of mods in my game and more than half Are Jazzycat Cargo, trailers, skins, and traffic.. Several thousand vehicles and cargos and skins. All working flawlessly.

That said.. I've been out of game for over a year. My Mods are all pre-2015. I started adding and activating my mods as soon as I got the game going again and started play testing them one by one. The 1st Jazzy file I put in was Russian traffic.. about 40 or so russian vehicles. Little weird to see so many russian police jeeps driving in calais but nice traffic flow :) Then I added one of his cargo packs and all seemed just fine.
My 1st clue that things may be screwy was seeing small trucks driving by with their duals in the air and noses buried in the roadway to the windscreen.
My 2nd clue was all my drivers telling me they couldn't find work and were Bobtailing back to their homebase.
My 3rd clue was when I noticed that ALL jobs in Both markets in EVERY city were gone.
Turning off the mod was all that was needed to reseed the job market. So now I know Those files are NOT compatible with the NEW way SCS handles cargo in v1.2.+

Other mods are somewhat more subtle. The Dark Blue Ural truck you see pictured here is a prime example as it works just fine. Mind with real fuel use active it literally has to stop at every gas station you see and if the distance is too far you WILL run out of gas. If you wanna run this truck ingame. Turn off, real fuel consumption. Those giant mud tires are not available as yet. If I touch that chassis in any way the tires are instantly reset to default tires. And gone. Also I can play around with the roll cage and lights but if I try to change out the bumper the game will crash.

Such is the life of Modding. BEWARE!! Most Modders are genuinely trying to make something cool for your game. It's the download sites that are giving you grief.. with their stupid DL waits and tiny DL buttons surrounded by big green flashing download Bit Torrent for incredibly fast DL's right away. Burying you in keyloggers and phishing programs and adfly crap. And strangling your DL speed. Honestly.. Some sites run you so slow you can go watch a movie while you wait to complete a simple 20MB DL. :)... Find a site that clearly marks the DL key has almost no waits or BYTE's/per day restrictions and use them exclusively. If you can't find that Mod you desperately want on any other site.. GIVE UP! it's not worth the grief you'll download to get that Kool Truck. Even if it looks like this...

Alternately. Create a demand for it.. This photo above is a RL showtruck but if you like it. Chances are others will too. With demand comes supply. Someone will track it down or create and upload it...

A-Work-in-Progress:..... (This is back burner Plans for the future stuff to follow as I have no idea how to use the SCS editor yet: But.. Till a couple days ago. I never thought i'd write a game review or upload images/screenshots or write a user guide for that matter).

I do have the older editor and did unpack the Base.scs file into their individual folders so getting the newer 1.21 compatible editor going, can't be much more of a hassle.. It's supposed to be easier and have more 3rd party moddablity built into it. Why am I babbling about this.. I was looking at this as my 1st Mod creation.. A Kenworth C500 10x6. I was hoping for feedback on wheather anyone even wants some Tundra running monster to drive ingame?? BE aware.. This thing makes a DAF Crawler look like an ice cream van. It hauls Oil platforms not street trailers. I don't care if it just sits at my garage. I just want it, lol. Better that than the busted container!

Or This C500 variant...
Or this simple beast.....
If the comments are negative I still have a KAMAZ-5460 or a 2015 -FORD-Flatnose I'd like to see in my game. Maybe you would too?... I can always just run them in my game only...
If any one see's these and wants to try 1st. feel free. I have no care who brings them ingame and plenty of other stuff on the back burners if that happens.

General Interest Info:

The web sites on the trailer.. The RC is around the 1:10th to 1:5th mark. It's an exact model of the owners actual Peterbilt. Youtube has a video of him on a chair behind the sleeper pulling it's real life big brother. Without the trailer attached of course...
---
Foden Heavy Truck 150 bhp..____________________MACK Bullnose. Art and functionallity.


WHY?? Just cause I love any chance to look at these old relics ;)

Links to Places I Trust:

SQUIRREL ETS2 -- Group
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/Squirrelets2community

CHECKOUT/SUBSCRIBE to Paul's YouTube Channel. This is what got me hooked on the game. Many more games covered on his channel. (Train Sim, OMSI, Scania Truck sim. New "May contain Nuts" Q&A video series. and much more)

The Addr' is valid but my link info won't work atm. (The site was down till recently)
"www.squirrel-logistics.co.uk"

PROMODS.NET: (They have a "Donate" button but only ask you register and send $1.00 But it's up to you) And the dollar isn't for sign-up its for the fast DL of the map (1-file+DEF) vs 5+DEF files the slow way free. (Why 5 files? because the DL site limits your files to 200MB each) Even Compresssed theres a lot of GIGs in Promods now) MY desire to run this map mod and the love I have for it have not changed. But, dealing with the people involved HAS.. they have been rude to downright insulting. and assuming that we are idiots because we are having problems extracting their archives. I thought they were mature professionals. Seems now they are just a bunch of pimple faced geeks who'd rather insult than help and don't seem to READ any posts just throw cookie cutter responses at you and tell you your in the wrong forum.
I still highly recommend the map mod. If you can get it extracted. if not. your better off to chuck it and go with TSM and its 11+ countries covering Europe all the way to Africa and twin 4k highways from Casablanca to Cairo.. Buggy, lazy programming that extracts properly is much better than being treated like trash by a bunch of Euro-snob kids!!! (They Actually posted a video link response to a "Member" Which was John Cleese talking about stupid people being too stupid to know they were stupid) Very professional and helpful wouldn't you say.
(Just my opinion. Your experience may vary. Da Squirrel Swears by them and I Greatly respect Pauls opinion on anything Mod or games related!)
www.promods.net

MODSAHOLIC: (They Will detect adblockers and ask you to Whitelist them)
http://www.modsaholic.com/archives/category/categories/euro-truck-simulator-2
Not the greatest of selections but you click DL you get what you expect no extra buttons!

ETS2PLANET: (They use cookies but meh! Couple clicks you get what you expect. Huge selection of Mods. Many uploads as recent as yesterday.)
http://www.ets2planet.com/

ETS2DOWNLOADS: (These guys have turned into a garbage added site so the link is gone. Too bad, they had a fabulous selection of great mods. Prolly why they turned to the dark side.) These guys now actually have a DL button that fades in and out of view and it's STILL not the correct one to use?!

As far as I know these are all free to use sites. But they do need to pay their bills. Personally I'd have no problem sending any one or all a $20 subscription If only to help them avoid "Pay Pal - Scammers" who donate very generous sums only to CASH BACK a few months later costing the VICTIM Sites $100's to $1000's of dollars in Pay Pal Cash Back Fee's. Seems to me that PAY PAL Is Just encouraging these scammers for the fine revenue it generates! (JMHO!) When I make mention of getting a secure online payment setup. Rest assured that does not include "Pay Pal" they are NOT my Pal and never will be!!!

MOD's Running in my game:

(Authors, when known. Trusted links, above):
All Current Mods are Pre-2015.. They are running fine with ETS2-vers.1.21.1 Issues where noted.

TRAFFIC: (From Lada's & VW Beetles to Bugatti Veyron & Rolls Royce)
Audi Q7 v2.0....By Srele (Seems this car removes all generic ingame cars. Yet doesn't affect mod additions)
Jeep Cherokee....By ??
Renault Kangoo....By ??
Chevy Avalanche....By Jazzycat
Cadillac Escalade....By Jazzycat
Russian Traffic (40 vehicles)...By Jazzycat (Latest version has 69 vehicles in it)
Vehicle TDU....By ?? (Classic Muscle. Supposed to be v1.9 compatible but front/rear lights are red blocks but it does run fine) Scale seems off as well. Like they were simply ported from TestDriveUnderground and made compatible. no scaling Which is too bad.
Ducato Police Van....By ?? (Actually seems to work even better in v1.21. I think Jazzy has 1 of these in pack + police Rovers and Lada's)

TRUCKS: (HGV's Lorries, Semis, Tractors, Rigs)
Kenworth W900....By Dmitry (Working fine for AI. Instant crash if I try to use :( )
Peterbilt T660....By ?? (Same issue as Kenny900)
Peterbilt T389....By Dmitry (Includes Soundfile and Dixie Pride Skin)
Ural 43202....By Konvert Issues with Mods installed on truck but not back in my game.
DAF Crawler....By Mogome (Includes High Lift, Sound mod and Camo)

CARGO: (Flatbeds, Low Boys, Dumpers, Tandems, and anything in or on them)

SKINS: (All those Pretty Pictures, Logos, Colors and Names)
Trailer Camo....By Mogome

TUNNING: (Lights, Camera, Bling)
Mercedes MP4 Interior....By MNWA228 (Overwrites the 1st interior with a black and blue lit Interior.-2015 Mod).

BUSES: (Local, Regional or Touring Coaches)
Bus Traffic Pack....By Jazzycat (Adds around 32 various small to lrg buses. Low spawing rate but running fine.-2015 Mod).

MAPS: (Integrated or Stand Alone)
Euro Truck Simulator-2 Europe v.1.21.1... SCSOFT..Integrated-Game Authors
Euro Truck Simulator-2 Going East... SCSOFT..Integrated-Game Authors
Euro Truck Simulator-2 Scandinavia... SCSOFT..Integrated-Game Authors

OTHERS: (Seasons, Lighting, Physics etc)
Let It Snow.... By Boris Lozac & Dallybor (Ran it for over 3 hours with not the slightest hiccup)
Winter Edition.... By ?? (works fine but seems to empty job markets)
Color Photos of Drivers v1.0.... ?? (Models, Celebrities, DaSquirrelsNuts)
Conductores Mokeados.... By ?? (Mostly B&W Drawings, cartoon characters, Jessica Rabbit, Ren & Stimpy, Bart Simpson. Also models, Stars. NOT compatible with Color photos!!)

GIMMICKS REMOVED: ( Just to drive, in-game, ok. To haul Cargo. (sigh!!!)
Sprinter Van.... ?? DAF dealer overwrite. Small van can be used to haul 40' trailers (( WHY!? ))
H2-Humvee.... ?? SAME AS above. Can be Dealer bought. but also shows in AI traffic. Sorta fun to drive around but if you do try cargo. The trailer does NOT articulate!

Be aware that all mentioned trucks were being driven by 1 or more AI driver hires. When I 1st came back these drivers had "UNAVAILABLE" for their truck info but still ran contracts. As I added each mod and checked results. They would be reissued to the Drivers using them with ALL MODS on them. These Tunning Mods have NOT yet been put back in my game. Probably why they crash if I try to use!? The T387 works because it basically only used mods that its *.scs file provided.

WARNING!!!.. Some Authors like Jazzycat are very prolific. Jazzy has literally 1000's of quality vehicles, Skins and cargos. Both in single release and Package/Volume Format: Take the time to read descriptions when available. It will save you MUCH time wasted getting the same things over and over. Or the wrong thing such as a mod meant to work with TSM while your running Promods.

Tips, Tricks, Advisories!:

(TIP: TRAINING.. Once you have drivers fairly high in Longhaul, ADR, High value. Set them to balanced and forget them) Also keep a casual eye on them if your Modding. As things like that Sprinter Van incident can totally reset them to scratch.

(TIP: MAPPING.. Your 1st few Quick jobs. This is an excellent time to map for the achievement. I wasn't the least bit concerned with ontime delivery and simply dropped the trailer in town and discovered all of the town I could see. WARNING!!!!... the game will transport your trailer if you get too far away from it. Don't drop it on the side of the highway to go map a quarry. You'll come back to see it sitting at the far side of a farmers field and no way to recover it. Seriously! happened to me)

(TIP: USING QUICK JOBS.. Again Quick jobs are great for mapping areas. And once your "Long Distance" skill is maxed you'll mostly only see 400km + jobs. Whereas, you can still get "quick Jobs" that are picked up and delivered in the same town.

(TIP: FOR FAST CASH.. If you have say 10-20 drivers out on duty for you.. The game will allow you to sleep 3 consecutive turns in one parking spot. This will see all drivers within a 24 hour window cash in with you. Several may level up in the process and you suddenly have a few 100k to use for that truck or garage upgrade/purchase. Then you go on cooldown and I'm not sure if its Milage or time but you'll be able to repeat this by the time you hit the next city. Obviously, the more drivers you have running rigs for you, the larger the sudden influx of cash you'll have to play with..
Along with this you can also use teleporting beween owned Garages. The farther apart the better. I just made Around 30 million euros teleporting and it costs nothing. You may consider this cheating but its just how the game calculates distance. and what you generate from all your garages in that time frame.

(TIP: STUCK IN TRAFFIC.. Many times you'll find yourself buried in a seemingly endless stream of cars that the game just keeps puking out. They won't let you in. and they just stay backed-up behind that intersection light. Perhaps an accident or frozen AI. or even that you've clipped one and gotten hopelessly stuck on a vehicle you've hit.
Don't call recovery.. And Deffinately don't go bulldozing through them and lose that no damage bonus. Racking up a fine and repair costs to boot. Just log out and back into the game and ALL cars have despawned and you can easily move on before the game starts to puke more spawns to your proximity.
You will ALWAYS start the game with ZERO spawns around you.. use that anytime you get overwhealmed by any traffic situation. But most ANY spawn will head in your direction. So know where you wanna go or what you want to do before getting back in the fray.

If only I could do that in RL traffic, sigh! :)

(TIP: HIRING.. Never have Drivers without a truck to drive.. you'll simply pay their salary for a few days and they'll complain and then suddenly quit one day. Any driver that quits or you fire will have their skills reset and you'll have to retrain them if rehired)

ADVISORY: DRIVERS... Apparently theres a limit of about 228 Drivers. So Once you hit that point you'll not see anymore drivers in the recruiting centers. (Taking a closer look it seems there is NOT so much a limit as a supply problem) "Color Photos" Mod gives you about 230 drivers including the one you pick for yourself. Also. Each driver profile you have removes a driver from this pool. So the 3 other profiles I use are NOT available for my main drivers game.
If you keep adding maps and cities, your never gonna get your "Property Magnate" achievement.
(Have a Garage in Every City in the game). To that, there is no limit to the number of empty properties you can maintain. "That I am aware of" And any driver can be transferred to and from any garage. Consider OTHER achievements in doing that such as "Garage Productivity" as transferring your best driver elsewhere will drop that garages productivity greatly.
[ So, many of you may already know that SCS has restructured and added a whole new world of recruiting centers to find. I assume to address the fact that you can have around 500 driver slots but there were only about 230 drivers in any given recruitable driver mod. This has killed my profile as it does NOT support the driver MOD I was using and probably any driver mods will most likely make your profile die ]

One of my mods added a lot of cartoon style (Simpsons, Ren&Stimpy Mickey Mouse etc.
Another added Models, celebrities etc. Either of these worked fine but NOT with each other and not at all with the new driver save structure.

Addendum: I have been informed that I don't know what I'm talking about in this regard?.. All I know is I have ALL cities, ALL garages available, ALL 5 slot large status. and do NOT have the achievement. Yes I have 7 cities with no garage but search as hard as I might I can find no garage ANYwhere that I missed?
One possible explanation has come up. I have had two seperate garage mods previously installed. Neither is compatible with the other but either might have altered the save files enough to make them non-countable by the achievement short of selling and re-buying each garage. I may not be able to get that one. (Joys of modding: Beware!)

ADVISORY: OVERWRITING DEALER TRUCKS.. Trying to add the "Sprinter Van". Back into my game at current state saw several of my Drivers have their Regular DAF truck replaced with this overwrite. As soon as any NPC takes a contract with this as Pull truck the game will crash. Remember that ANY vehicle Overwriting the dealership trucks can endup as a Quick or Freight market job. Random crashes are usually from these contracts getting randomly picked by AI.

This section added to make room in other sections :) Seems I have a LOT to say for someone who had NO IDEA what he'd say when he started this guide! ;)

[ash.bob110]

i'd like to see emergency service trasnport (ambulances and fire engines and police cars)
I'd like to see accidents from other trucks and cars where divertions are made and road closes like rush hour sessions and that.
aslo i think that when your on the motor way on your truck there arn't like many signs like you see in real like ( tireness can kill, keep your distance and them overhead customizable ones) i'd like to see billboards advertising companies
and one day i hope for there to be a mod so you can get out your truck and walk
maybe these are just some mods i'd like to see and i would subscribe too

[jimmy mack]

thanks

[Draagas]

sounds good on the surface but downgrading a c500 just gives you w900

[Hanns Starski]

I would also like to see Kenworth C500 in a mod, but definitely with different chassis avaiable so it would also be able to (sort of) haul a trailer. (Would be great in Promods Iceland or on Tasmania Australia Map)

Thought yoou might like this too
http://forum.scssoft.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=170356&sid=aaf8d037f49837bd8b6ee624e1c2f8e3

[Draagas]

Your Most welcome!

[AyleidRuin]

Thank you so much for the guide Draagas A lot of great Tips

[Bill Clungus]

WOW!

[DarthSwede]

Thanks for this!

[Draagas]

Np.

[Sunshine Speeder]

Thanks for reply.