We have been working on our new branch system for several months now. Some things have already been teased on Discord or during our Dev-Stream in January, but a summary of the changes and necessary actions is still missing, which is now available here. If you have any questions after this, feel free to contact us via our Discord!
Branches
The biggest change concerns the branches. These have now been merged with the one from Kontor, so there is no longer any coexistence between different locations here. However, since this change is not really automatically convertible, the branches will also have to be purchased again in the new update. During the update day, we will completely reverse the costs for the previous branches, so you will not incur any loss here.
The new branches have expandable parking spaces for trucks and Kontor trailers, as well as maintenance spaces. There is also storage space for spare parts, more about this under "Maintenance".
The truck parking spaces basically work the same way as before: A truck has a parent branch where it is registered. The only change here is that the branch must match the truck, so an ATS truck can no longer be parked in an ETS branch.
The trailer parking spaces play into the Kontor. This is caused by a new (small) parking fee, that will be waived for Kontor trailers that are not parked in a purchased parking space. However, these are only charged as soon as a trailer is parked on this position for at least 24 real-time hours. Kontor trailers should therefore be transferred to their own branches with enough parking spaces after the update.
Two other small changes: In one city can now exist several branches (in different companies). Also, there is now money back when a branch is sold or downsized.
Truck
There are also some changes regarding trucks. Firstly, the design has been completely changed as well and now presents itself a bit more modern.
Functionally, there are the following changes:
- Trucks can now remain unassigned in addition to being assigned to a driver. These are then freely available and can be used by any user of the company.
- Trucks, however, now have a location. This means that they can basically only be used if the task starts in the city where the truck is located. (There are exceptions to this, however, so a subsequent task can also be started in another city within a 1,000 km radius, as long as the truck actually travels the distance to that city.)
- This location can also be changed via the truck management and (depending on the rights assignment) by the "owner" of the truck, but this costs time and money.
- Trucks used in a paused job cannot be used in another job.
- A driver can now be assigned more than one truck per type.
- Damaged trucks no longer yield value when sold.
If the requirements for using a company truck are not met, a rental truck is automatically used (with rights available for this), so that orders can still be started.
The already existing trucks can only be used once new branches have been purchased. The trucks are automatically distributed to these when they are purchased.
Maintenance
The maintenance system for trucks has been completely reworked. Also, there is now a maintenance system for trailers. In addition to newly added random damage types, the display of required maintenance has also been revised.
From now on, maintenance can be performed internally and externally. The former requires maintenance locations, spare parts and correct positioning of the truck/trailer, while the latter costs more time and money.
Spare parts can be purchased at some locations on the map and then have to be transferred to the branch via Kontor order. For this, however, the order can be tendered to other carriers for shipment, so there is no "Kontor constraint" either.
Maintenance jobs can also be planned in advance and get started automatically as soon as all requirements are met. For this purpose, there is a list of planned maintenance with their status (or the information, which prerequisite is not fulfilled) as well as the option to cancel them. Maintenance jobs are only booked as soon as they get started, not directly during planning.
Conclusion
Of course, the changes are very far-reaching. However, with this we hope to depict more realism and thus increase the challenges a bit. However, it is also not necessary to use everything! For example, if someone does not drive consistently, rental trucks can still be used, also the handling of spare parts can be bypassed by using the external maintenance.
Even though the system has been tested for over a month, we will of course accompany the introduction phase of the new functions and look forward to your feedback in order to find and fix problems. This, just like all questions, are welcome in our Discord!
The update is planned for the night from 15.3. to 16.3. There may be some minor downtime, which we will announce separately.
All that remains is to wish you a lot of fun and a safe journey!