So, I noticed that its really hard to find one solid place to get information on or about this game,

and some of the things in the game. Here is a great video guide for mods Here is a guide that I found helpful when I started Author Maciej "Psycho Mantis" Stepnikowski. This is a pretty through guide of mo re in game things where I describe the more real world side. Please note, I did not make the video. Props to the guy who did. He also has som e good videos of game play. Now, I want to talk about the game, and some of the features in it. The first th ing I want to talk about is the brakes, the air brake simulation option and how air brakes work. This is something I knew before playing the game (my dad was a trucker when I wa s little) because I love big trucks. Compared to a normal car. A normal car's natural brake state with no brake fluid or outside force is "off". That is to say that the brakes on a small car or tru ck are naturally not applied. The brakes on a car work through pressure, when yo u push the pedal (in simple terms) you push fluid though the brake lines and tha t causes the brakes to be "on" or applied. If you have no brake fluid, you have no brakes! In a big truck like we drive in the game, the brakes are very different. The bra kes work off of air pressure. The truck has a air compressor and a air tank. The natural state for a big truck's brakes is "on". That is to say that if you have no air pressure the brakes are fully applied or "on". How air brakes work All trucks have this as a safety system, they are set up that way so that the tr uck will always brake if you loose air pressure so you don't go flying down the highway without anyway to stop. This is important for the people who use "air brake simulation" option. It simul ates the way the air brakes work. When you push the brake pedal (in simple terms ) the air is released out of the system applying the brakes and now you have les s pressure in the air system. The "normal" brakes are called the "service brakes ". So if you push the brakes a lot in a short term of time the compressor can't kee p the air built up and the safety engages until the pressure rises. That should be a simple enough explanation of the brakes, next up is the transmi ssion. Many people (I have seen it on videos too) have no idea what the R is next to th e other option for transmission choices. This means it has a transmission retarder. You can read more here In short what this does is help you slow down without using your service brakes. It appears that all the trucks in the game have a 12 speed (or gear) transmissio n and I also think that they have very similar gear ratios. Now for the "Jake brake" or "engine brake". In simple terms, this turns your engine into a huge air compressor that vents to atmosphere and give you that noise like you see here and here and also slows yo ur truck down. These are important to real world trucks, the most important reason is that brak es work off of friction. All trucks (at least every one I have seen) still use d rum style brakes while lots of cars have switched to disc brakes. Disc brakes are great for normal or smaller trucks and cars, they dissipate heat well and are easy to work on. One reason that big trucks that we drive in the game use drums brakes is simple. Drum brakes have more surface area. More surface area = more braking force, but drum brakes are not the best for venting the heat caused by braking. Jake brakes and the transmission retarder do two very important things for large

r trucks. They save the "service" brakes from wearing out so fast and, they help take the load off them as well. Many/all truckers use the Jake brake to slow down when co ming off a hill to keep from wearing the service brakes. The service brakes can overheat and become ineffective if overused. I think that covers the basic engine and brakes and ways to slow down. Its important to note that the 4X2 setup has the biggest fuel tanks, and the oth er setups will decrease your fuel capacity as the axles take up the room that yo ur fuel tank did. Now for the engines and trucks in general. Every make of truck has its own lines of engines, Volvo I believe has the most p owerful engine, but unless you are using modded trailer weights (like me) even t he basic engines with 300Hp and 1,200Nm of torque will pull any of the trailers with no issues. Here is the list of truck makes that (if I am not wrong) are from least to most powerful in terms of NM of toque. Least Iveco-Daf-Renault-Majestic-man-scania-volvo. Everything else you can do to a truck is purely for looks and does not affect an ything else. However in the real world a truck is required to have a beacon for oversize or weight loads. As far as I know, adding horns does nothing and the same goes for adding the exh aust pipes. Pipes can not be added to anything other than the 4X2 axle setup. Some trucks have more fuel capacity than others, even with the double axle setup . Iveco has the least fuel capacity at 400 liters, and I am pretty sure that MAN a nd DAF and some others have more capacity with the double axle. You can check th is by visiting the dealer and looking at the trucks. It will have a line for "fu el capacity" and be something like this 400+900 (Iveco.) You loose the 900 liter tank with the double axle setups. If you run out of fuel (I did one time) you can coast and hope to reach a fuel s tation (I got lucky and did.) All the different truck makes have different power bands where they make the mos t torque, this information is shown when you buy the engines and should be shown in truck manager. Some trucks are louder than others (I think its this way in the base game too) b ut I wanted to list this sound mod because its so well done. I will list them fr om the loudest to the quietest. Daf, these are LOUD with the mod. Scania over 2K rpm. The Scania seems to have some sort of cutout with this mod t hat goes wide open at 2K rpm. Volvo then Scania under 2K rpm. Iveco- renault- Man- Majestic. Other stuff that fun or handy to know ETS2 supports head tracking. The xbox 360 wired controller works great! You can turn the need for sleep off in the menu. But by law IRL (at least in the US) all drivers are limited to 11 hours of drive time to prevent fatigue relate d crashes. Weight limits in Europe are much lower than in the US. Here I see 70+ ton (coal mostly) loads as normal.

** Mods I use, use at your own risk** realistic physics mod v7 Makes the trucks more real feeling (not that ive ever d rove one.) Sound mod V7 By iceman Daf is really loud, and the Majestic is really quiet. The others all fall in bet ween that.

all 23 comments ------------------Mike, can you explain how the automatic motor brake in the settings works? as we ll as posssibly the auto retarder. I was under the impression that on most truck s the jake brake was just a switch affair so sensibly you'd turn it on once for the trip. Sure, ill give it a shot. The engine brake in most of the trucks I have been in is a switch, and many driv ers do leave it on most of the time. In fact a lot of drivers around here only u se the clutch to stop and start and leave the engine brake on using that to help change gears. The switches I have seen have been either off or on, or off, low, high. In the game the engine brake is not on a switch and must be manually activated ( by you or the game.) If I am not mistaken (I have yet to use the auto setting fo r the engine brake) the game will use it for you when you use the service brakes . I am not sure if there is anyway in game to set it just to be on or off and leav e it at that. It looks like it must always be manually activated. This might be a true setting for the kind of trucks we see in game. The retarder (I don't have any real world experience with them) in the game look s like its on a switch on the steering column in the trucks seen in game. I did a quick google lookup and found this I figured this out when I had it set to manual. You can watch the switch change position from off to level 1, 2, 3 and I think Scania has 4 and 5. If the engine brake is set to manual the retarder should come on when you use it , or the service brakes. It does for me in the Iveco I was using. In short the engine brake and retarder when set to auto appear to come on when y ou use the service brakes at least, and I think (ill try to confirm tonight) tha t the retarder comes on when you use the engine brake manually. That kinda defeats the point of them if they come on with the service brakes as both of them become less effective the slower you go. ???? If you damage your truck, you can repair it by assigning a hired driver to the t ruck. Wait until that driver has finished a job and drive the truck again. Hey p resto! No damage and a full tank of fuel! Not sure that is something I should add to a guide, but are you sure the home ga rage isn't paying for the repairs in its weekly total? I know it has a repairs a s expense down. Thanks for finding this though. Just had a quick look then, and it has truck maintenance as an expense but I cou ldn't find the repairs. Haven't noticed my funds dropping significantly either.

Do the brakes actually wear out in the game? I've always ran my retarder and exh aust brake on automatic so when I barely tap my brake the jake brake comes on, t hen I can push it further to engage the service brakes. I rarely ever actually h ave to use my service brakes, so I've never been able to tell if the game actual ly has brake wear. Does anyone know? Its under repairs, I think it does account for wear as its a category in the rep air menu. How the game calculates the wearing is unknown to me, if its by millag e, accidents or usage.