FF2: Filling in the Suburbs

[krigl]

One final set for today - driving down to Naples in southern Italy from Cassino just below Rome.


We're hauling Used Batteries from PIAC.


It's a coastal trip, but there will be no sea views today.


It really isn't very far in-game from Cassino to Naples.




Naples is a big city, and we're going to leave touring it to the second half of the tour.






Plenty of jobsites around, it seems. Mind you, not all of them are probably active. Maybe it's just scenery.




Nice. But where's our turnoff?


Pozzuoli... pozzolanic materials are named after this famous source of said volcanic material, used by the Romans to great effect as a binder in creating durable and strong concrete, such as was used in the Pantheon in Rome, which has the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world and has been used continuously first as a temple and then as a Catholic church for 2000 years.


OK boomer.
Heyyyy... that's Renzo Piano's Good Volcano shopping mall and leisure centre, the name of which of course refers to nearby Vesuvius.


That's our destination across the road.


Oh, and that's the 'good volcano' itself!




And here they are both together. As I astutely opined on 9th March 2019 on exactly this spot, there's nothing quite like a torrent of molten lava for spoiling an afternoon's shopping, so let's hope Vesuvius is not in a truculent mood right now. I've just got to check out the boutiques before we teleport over to Pescara one last time.


Tesoro Gustoso??!!. What the??!! No, TE Logistica is just before it.. Oof. I thought we were taking the used batteries to a food processing plant for a moment. I was wondering what kind of evil corporate shenanigans were going on there. Imagining the Lidl fake brand Yogurtissimo Italian Style yogurts ''Neapolitan Strawberry'' variety with (mentioned in very very small print with the food colourings) E917 Battery Acid. Of course, Lidl would never do such a thing. Hmm. I wonder what Week it is this week. Haven't been to Lidl for a while. I do enjoy their 'national weeks'. You can come back home with almost anything, from Greek spiral pastries stuffed with salty cheese to Mongolian Clusters cereal.


TE Logistics is a totally kosher place to drop off used batteries, yes indeedy. It just happens to be right next door to TG. No foul play suspected. Never had Lidl's Mongolian Clusters cereal? It's a great way to start your day, I'll tell you.


One last shot from Naples. We'll kick off the second part of the Italy tour in this city in a couple of months, I guess.


Time to start the final journey of Part 1 of the tour - Pescara to Bari.


We're off to IKA Bohag.


Farewell Pescara!


Incredibly, there were no jobs anywhere in Pescara available for Bari, so we hijacked this trailer crammed with 20 tons of Used Packaging.


It's supposed to be going to Ancona and then over the sea to Split, but instead we're taking it to Bari and then over the sea to Durres in Albania.


Someone else can then drive it from Durres to Split, right? It doesn't matter if it's late anyway, it's only Used Packaging, nothing important. They're probably just going to throw it in the trash, or strew it alongside the access road to their local Tesoro Gustosa plant.

It's a long and attractive Autostrada trip down the east coast to Bari, and we'll get cracking on that properly next time.

Cheers!!! Krigl

[krigl]

Today we start our journey down the east coast of Italy from Pescara to Bari, i.e. just like with the trip from Cassino to Naples, we're heading for southern Italy now and getting set up for the second half of the tour.


Something industrial near the Cassino turnoff south of Pescara.




It's a long drive (by my standards) so we stopped off for fuel, food and coffee.


Hmmm... and postcards??


A staff member watched me like a hawk as I searched in vain for a butts in bikinis postcard to send to the lads at the HQ garage back in France. In the end I went with a nice panoramic view over the architectural jewel that is Florence to remind me of my several trips to that fair city. I found one with both of the communications towers in one shot WITH the vineyard too. I'm sure the guys will be envious.




On our way once more, we encounter another fine sea view.


Italy really needs some beaches covered in beach umbrellas, and a couple of tourist towns with restaurants, amusement parks and arcades ice cream stalls, cafes and so on in the coastal areas. Just a couple of places like that. It's how many people know Italy. That and the historic architecture and the football, of course.


This looks like one such town, but it needs just a little more work to make it look more touristy. Beach towels drying on balconies, for example. Those pedal cars that lurch their way around obstructing traffic. 3 wheeled Ape mini-trucks used for deliveries.


Sirens and flashing lights?? Oops, sorrreeeee....




Italy could perhaps do with a few more country roads, but at least the autostrada are not boring - always something different to look at, nice open views, no tree tunnels.






It seems to me that I've been pretty critical of this DLC during the tour. That's probably because I've waited 7 years to tour it, growing more and more frustrated at just how much of Europe is still covered with old and ugly assets while seeing how nicely made ATS is in comparison.


When I saw the screenshots for Italy before it was released, I didn't even have ATS, and France was the only part of ETS2 that looked vaguely modern. I made a few trips in Italy after it came out, and one in 2019, and it still seemed very impressive. I thought then that Italy was the first of SCS's modern ETS2 DLCs.


Today I can see that it's not. It's the last and best of SCS's old-style DLCs.


Don't get me wrong, I love driving here, it's a big improvement over France, which itself was a big improvement over Scandinavia, and of course vanilla. But part of the impressiveness of the Italy DLC is just simply because it's Italy. It's more colourful, more exotic, more interesting than most of France, or Germany, or wherever. SCS produced a lot of custom stuff for the country and captured the look of the place very well. There's a lot of detail and variety and in this way they came very close to today's standards.


But in some ways it falls short. I think the lack of limited access to city centres and the limited amount of monuments, historic buildings and other typical cultural stuff is the worst part. This was already much improved in the Baltic Sea DLC. The current situation in DLCs where you can drive right through small towns and have great views of the centres of big cities as you pass them plus some occasional limited access is far better. I'd still like a bit more, and I think I'm not the only one, as SCS are making some effort to open up areas to trucks where they are normally not allowed, like national parks in the US, some city areas.


Yes, they are normally not allowed, and they shouldn't be flooding through there. But trucks go almost everywhere SOMETIMES. Construction sites need supplies and heavy vehicles, and they are not brought in by rickshaw. Statues and landscaping supplies need delivering. There are supermarkets in city centres. It would help if there were some small rigid trucks available for such deliveries but even without them there are reasons for trucks to go where they normally don't, and SCS - if their focus is on selling maps above all else, which it evidently is - should make it possible to a limited degree. Just visiting industrial zones is boring. I want to feel like I'm at the place I'm pretending to travel to, and not just anywhere.


The other area where the DLC falls down is in the graphical detailing. There are many places where things look 'rough around the edges' compared to later DLCs, starting with the Baltic Sea. It's particularly noticeable with panoramic views in the countryside. The 3D hills look okay with trees on, but there are still raggedy 2D cutouts of hills and flat-looking mountains in evidence and high places where you look down and just don't get the feeling that you are high up and there is a vast area before you. You also have houses which look too obviously like placed boxes and which don't have other stuff around them that makes them look more real, like bins, letterboxes, driveways, gardens. Hard lines between water and land. And so on.


SCS obviously put an immense amount of work into the DLC, though, and it often still looks very good. Particularly impressive for me are the views over cities, where they've managed to conjure up the illusion of a large and complex urban area really well. The scenery is ever-changing, varied, interesting, often beautiful. So I'd definitely classify Italy as SCS's first really GOOD DLC, even if it's old-skool roots are still showing.

Well, that's quite enough reviewing, next time there will just be viewing - as we complete our journey to Bari.
Cheers! Krigl

[krigl]

Completing our journey from Pescara to Bari this time.


Snow? Salt? Talcum Powder? Coke?


Okay, looks like it's coke.


All the people down here be HOPPIN'. Especially with those giant fans blowing all the powder around.


A right glorious trip it is all the way down the east coast from Pesaro.








Napoli will be our first port of call in Part 2 of the tour, and then we'll cross the country to Bari, arriving on the road we're already on, I guess.


The water tower makes a nice landmark.




Exiting for Bari.


Multilevel! Rare here in Europe. This was released the same year as New Mexico with the curvaceous pastel coloured multilevel intersection in Albuquerque that was perhaps unique back then. Now they're two-a-penny in Texas.


New Mexico wasn't enough to get me to buy ATS - Oregon was the state that persuaded me. But looking back at my screenshots from that tour, it is actually a very nice DLC state with quite a unique feel from the architecture and colours. Yep, 2017 was the first really good year for SCS, looking back.








Alright, I guess we've reached Bari.








Great. Now to find the port. We're going to save touring Bari for the second part of the Italy tour, but as we've already done the Ancona - Split thing, it might be nice to finish off with Bari - Durres. Even though it's going to be dark when we get there.


Cheers!! Krigl

[krigl]

Finishing off Part 1 of the Italia tour this time. Travelling through Bari to the port and over to Durres in Albania.


Stand aside, O iconic Italian Cypresses, hijacked trailer of Used Packaging coming through.


Here's Bari, upgraded by SCS in time for the Western Balkans to come out. Heyyy... what are those? Are those local historic buildings I see underlining the true Italian atmosphere on the skyline? Mummy, I'm scared.


I live for details like this.


The question is, can I find the ship without getting lost?




No thanks, I'm going to cancel the job as soon as I've taken the last screenshot anyhow.




Hey SCS, how about freezing Nordic Horizons and bringing us Bella Italia 2 instead? I'll pay the same money, ProMods will get a couple more years of glory with the full E6 now modelled... a win-win.


NH is going to be fantastic though... and the PM additions using the new assets will make it even more awesome. Still, would love to have Italia 2 at this level of quality and detail.


Alright, time to take our leave of Italy for now.










All aboard!!




A 9-hour trip as the sun sinks below the horizon, and we're 420 euros poorer, driving off the ferry into Durres in Albania.


Elaborate formalities await.


So, we're done in this main thread for a while. Time to head back to the MidAmerica thread, where I shall be touring Oklahoma.


Ordinarily I'd make a rashly optimistic promise to be back in the Main Thread in 3 weeks, or something, but the summer holidays are almost here, and I'm going to be away quite a lot. I might get Oklahoma done by the end of July, but if I don't, it will be more like the end of August before I start the 2nd part of the Italy tour.




Yep, the holidays beckon, and I wish all those who are allergic to ATS screenshots a very happy summer. To those who like looking at my stuff from across the pond - see you in Oklahoma in the Other Thread, tomorrow, I hope.
Cheers!! Krigl

[krigl]

Hey there - back again in my Main Thread to start Part 2 of the Italy tour, featuring southern Italy, Sicily, Sardinia and also ProMods Malta.
Arkansas has now been announced, so I'm probably just going to do the southern Italy bit before touring the new ATS DLC back in the other thread.


We're kicking off in Naples, perhaps the most famous city of the south.


It's a big place and there's plenty to see.






Stopping to pick up some petrol from N.


Needed to make a call, and someone was in the telephone box. Spent about 10 minutes queueing in the hot sun - so frustrating.


Tennis courts. Do the locals just not feel the heat?


This weekend I witnessed something special: the heat death of the universe.


I stood upon a blasted plain, my breath frosting in what was left of the air, watching as the stars winked out one by one as the aeons passed me by.


Whole galaxies faded into nothingness, their billions of planets cooling into lifeless balls.


Thousands of civilisations, separated by the vast and lonely gulf of space, were snuffed out while still unaware that they were not alone in the universe.


And then finally Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 was reinstalled with all its many many updates and I got a bit of flying in.


I bought MFS2020 a few years ago, but it only stayed on my hard drive for a couple of months because I ran out of space and I needed to install RDR2. Now I've got a new 4TB drive. Let's see how long it takes to fill that...


But Krigl, flightsim is such a disgusting time and money sink. Isn't it going to affect your pace of touring? Please let it not be so.


Fear not. It's just a side job. While I've loved planes ever since I was a kid, I find it really hard to get my head round the complexities of flying them properly in the sim, and just taking off in whatever and flying around a bit and looking at the scenery is fun for a while, but quickly palls.


I've tried to learn to fly IFR seriously 3 times already, and each time I've given up. Flight simming properly involves so much preparation pre-flight, so much Big Thinkin' during the flight, and long periods of doing nothing or staring at the inside of a cloud.


What I particularly like about trucksim is that you are constantly in contact with the environment, which is all around you and passing you by rapidly. In flightsim you're up in the air, most of the time, with 360 degrees of freedom and your surroundings a very pretty but slow moving expanse of wallpaper.


So yeah, I don't envisage flightsim will take me away from ETS2 and ATS, especially as my mission to tour everything is not yet complete and won't be for another 4 years or so. My posting frequency may go down a bit occasionally, though.


Stopped by at my garage for a wash and brush up.


Heading to the container port to pick up some cargo - destination Bari.










That's it for today - off to Bari next time.
Cheers! Krigl

[krigl]

Today we put spectacular Naples behind us and make a trip across the 'ankle' of the 'foot' of Italy to Bari.


It's still quite early in Napoli, and it's already baking hot.


This location has a really great vibe. Naples is the only functioning port (aside from one right at the 'toe' opposite Sicily) on the west coast of Italy, with ferry options to Sardinia, Corsica and Barcelona in Spain, maybe Marseilles too, and as such was probably updated by SCS after the initial release. Could be a great starting city for a company initially based in the south of Europe.


Not only does it have easy access to France, Spain and the three big islands nearby, but there's also the most exotic part of Italy all around, and Bari is not too far away, with access to Albania and probably soon Greece, with the rest of the Balkans beyond. Captain Obvious recommends.






Alongside flight simulator, two other games are clamouring for my attention right now.


No Man's Sky has a new fishing update and expedition. Initially sceptical, I tried it out and find it pretty fun. Widens the 'wide and shallow' gameplay still further, at least. I just wish you could actually see all the 'fish' in the water.


And then there's Star Trucker, which I haven't bought, but which has you flying through space delivering cargoes in something that looks like an American rig.


It has some kind of progression, some difficulty, some interesting elements, and I find it surprisingly tempting, but I'm not going to buy it because either it will be mediocre and I will waste my money, or it will be decent and will seriously compete for my time with trucksim. Can't have that.


Incidentally, there was actually a 90s sci-fi film called Space Truckers which also featured a spaceship that looked quite like a US rig, I was surprised to find when misremembering the name of the game and trying to look it up right now. The Deep Purple song confuses the issue. That's got to be in the game, right? Come on.... come on.... come on.... let's go space truckin'...


Getting out of Naples now, not sure what we picked up. Killer robots, maybe.


What is THAT they're towing?


Crossing the mountainous spine of lower Italy.






Later the landscape turns into farmland.






Great views all the way to Bari.




Could this be a lelux mod addition? Maybe.




Shall we? Nah. Started the trip late due to fishing in NMS, needed to go to bed. Coffee usually doesn't stop me falling asleep, but often I then wake up at 4pm needing the loo, and then just lie in bed trying to sleep and waiting for the alarm to ring.




We've reached the intersection with that water tower on it - time to head to the right and join that coastal road we took not long ago from Pescara to Bari. We'll complete the trip next time.
Cheers! Krigl

[krigl]

This time we revisit Bari and then make our way south to a city on the south coast - the very 'sole' of the 'foot' of Italy - Taranto.


Completing our journey from Naples to Bari.




Bari is another important southern city and an active port - we took a boat from here to Albania last time we were in town.


It's not as complexly realised as Naples in the DLC though.


Still, it's got a fair amount to it, and that great semi-tropical Italian vibe. We'll check out a bit more of it now - we're heading for the northwest zone, where Bari Airport lies.




Return of the Evil Doctor.


Here's the airport now.


There are no planes flying around, but it's still a nice jobsite.




Passing through the airport zone.




We're going to spend the night at the port - there's a yacht waiting for us to take it to Taranto in the morning.


I'm going to do some sightseeing on foot, get an ice cream and have a rest.


View of Bari the next morning.


Shackling ourselves up to that yacht.


Ready to go. There's a southern-ish part of Bari we've yet to visit, but we won't be back to the centre.






Goodbye Bari, then. Taranto isn't far.




All the way to the south coast.


And we've reached Taranto. That must be part of the famous steelworks - the largest in Europe. In-game it's an ACC.


That's another part of the enormous plant. I remember a beautiful night view of this place from the blog back in the day. I might have to get one of my own.


Alright! We'll deliver the yacht to Taranto's marina next time, and then have a gander at the sights of this industrial town.
Cheers! Krigl