Looking for some retro mods for ETS2

[SimplyTadpole]

Hey, I apologize if this is the wrong place to make such a thread - I really didn't know where I was supposed to put it, since the modding forum is mostly for uploading mods of your own, so I figured I might as well put it in the Off-Topic section.

As the title suggests, I've been wanting to try out some mods centering around making the game more retro or vintage - as in, making it feel like the game itself is set some decades in the past (particularly the 1990s, as the 1980s and earlier would require changing the map itself to portray the Eastern Bloc and such), rather than in the present day. I know this is a rather weird thing to want to add to the game, but I have a bit of a fascination for the aesthetics of vehicles and other technologies from the late 20th century; sometimes, I kinda get bored of cookie-cutter modern-day automobiles, and would like to step into a portal to three decades ago and feel the experience of a time period where vehicles and other machinery we often regard as outdated or rare relics are cutting-edge and commonplace, and where quality-of-life features we take for granted aren't present and must be worked around. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those "X decade is better than nowadays" people (for all its flaws, I'd much rather live in 2020 than, say, 1995, and I'm grateful for said quality-of-life features we have), I just can't help but sometimes wish to experience a little slice of the past for myself from time to time.

As an open-ended sandbox game, I feel like ETS2 would mesh fairly easy with a "past decade simulation" - I like to imagine hopping into the cabin of an old, no-frills Scania or Volvo, utilizing solely a static map for guidance rather than a GPS, and driving to my destination whilst surrounded by equally-old traffic cars doing their daily commute. The issue is, it's obviously impossible to replicate that in the vanilla game, since it's dated to the early 2010s and as such its traffic cars and most playable trucks are from the 21st century, so obviously mods that add replacements would be required. The issue is actually finding such mods in first place. The traffic itself is already kind of a hurdle - I'm only aware of one traffic pack geared at old cars, and while it seems pretty decent, it doesn't have all that much variety - a significant portion of its list are sports cars (meant to be rare), and it doesn't have AI trucks and buses at all. Plus, more pressingly, I highly doubt it'd make the vanilla traffic cars stop spawning. Having cars from the '60s-'80s driving around won't be sufficient for past-decade immersion if they're accompanied by sleek, shiny new automobiles from the 21st century. I tried to look up if there were any mods that make the vanilla traffic cars stop spawning, but I couldn't find anything other than guides on how to make all traffic - vanilla and modded alike - stop spawning.

Then there's the issue of playable old trucks. For starters, there's Sturgeon's Law - just because an old truck mod exists, doesn't mean it's actually decent. It might be overpriced, or cheap enough to the point of being unbalanced. It might be too slow and weak to be worthwhile, or alternatively just too overpowered. Or it might simply be glitchy, or laggy, or incompatible with accessories (cabin or otherwise) from DLC and/or mods (i.e. 50k addons, SiSL's Mega Pack, etc), or have the dreaded "fixed and unchangeable license plate from the creator's country". It's pretty irritating and time-consuming to sift through several of these mods and figure out which ones are worth it and which ones aren't, especially because I might end up somehow missing an obscure favourite of the playerbase, or perhaps end up accidentally downloading a mod from an unsafe website. Combine this with the fact that many truck mods are incompatible with 1.37, and... well, it makes for a very much not-fun experience. And this is without mentioning that the same problem with AI traffic is also present: immersion would be particularly broken if, say, a Quick Job assigns me to one of the more modern trucks. Or if said modern trucks show up in parking spots or just casually driving around.

So, unnecessarily-long rambling aside, I was curious if anyone could recommend me some mods that fulfill what I'm looking for, as well as possibly help pinpoint a solution to the other issues I commented about. Huge thanks in advance!

[Garrington_Levy]

I like the cut of your jib, a retro mode would be incredible! This sounds like it could be part of an alternative game model, like at the main menu it says about which games model you want to play.

I've often wondered about retro mods myself, although never really found any that add that retro feel, be it truck, traffic, cargo and or trailers etc. I'll do some snooping about and post what I find, if anything worth while.