ETS 2 Coaches: Bus Stations Are Coming to Every Map Expansion

Coaches need a network, and Euro Truck Simulator 2’s map was not built with one in mind. SCS Software’s latest Coaches blog explains how bus stations and stops are being worked into the map DLCs, and it sounds like one of the biggest jobs on the whole project.

Covering all of Europe

We already knew from last year’s update that the old station prefabs are being rebuilt. This time the focus is on coverage. Producer Dominik says some DLCs had very few stations or none at all, so the first goal was to cover key cities. That way you can take coach jobs even in a map DLC that is not yet connected to the rest of the road network. After that, the team tried to reach as many capital cities as possible and looked for more places where bus infrastructure could realistically fit.

Old map, new terminals

Expansions such as Italia, Road to the Black Sea and Beyond the Baltic Sea were built long before coaches were planned. A map designer explains that building a station from scratch is ordinary map work, but adding one where nothing was planned is much harder, especially in parts of the map that are close to ten years old. There the team has to work with older assets and techniques so the new pieces do not look out of place.

Space is the other problem. The designer describes it as a puzzle of fitting two hundred metres of road and a large terminal into a spot that originally had room for half of it.

Cities are getting bigger

In some cases SCS went further and expanded cities to include parts of their centres, so stations could sit where they really are. Map designers who own a particular DLC have been building their own stations, with the Coaches team supporting them and making sure the gameplay side works.

QA tester Simon B. adds that the stations bring in plenty of landmarks and scenery, and that his job is to catch the problems before they reach players, from small details to bigger issues.

What it means

Put together with the free map changes SCS confirmed earlier, this means coach stations will reach most of Europe, not just the base map. It also means some cities in older DLCs will look different the next time you drive through them, whether you buy Coaches or not.

Source: SCS Software blog. Images and video: SCS Software.