Hi Mr Ben, I work for a truck driving school in Commerce City, CO. We have a really nice trucking simulator on campus that we use to train our students in scenarios that would be unsafe to put them in real life.
We are really excited about the upcoming sequel to Euro Truck Simulator 2, called American Truck Simulator. We have seen lots of interesting diy sims but anytime you see a video or blog post the builder never really shows or explains how they made it. There currently does not exist any type of controllers for these types of games that are trucking style, example being big wheel with feedback system, truck pedals including the style of clutch, and a shifter that you can you can shift through up to 18 gears if needed.
You would definitely win the internet if you could come up with a solution to this problem. We would be implementing and building several of these at our school especially to teach simple shifting techniques as well as mountain driving, etc.
I have included some research as well as any extra data to help you on your mission if you choose to accept. haha
- the new game itself - American Truck Simulator on Steam
- The Euro version of the game - Save 80% on Euro Truck Simulator 2 on Steam
- two guys that have made a diy sim but don't really share the knowledge
- https://youtu.be/uK9sFngAbXc
- https://youtu.be/z5FzCAonZtE
- two options for the shifter, used in the diy sims above
- ThrustMaster TH8 shifter
- Logitech G27 shifter
- ideas / options for the wheel
- there are no companies that produce feedback wheels for trucking, but there are some great steering wheels for car racing games such as the Logitech G27. There are, however, steering wheel systems that you can change the steering wheel on like the Thrustmaster T300 racing wheel servo base(http://www.thrustmaster.com/en_UK/products/t300-racing-wheel-servo-base) that could be used with a custom wheel. Just need to create an adapter to make it work.
- Pedals
- The pedals would be the hardest part actually because the clutches on semi trucks work a bit differently. Also, there are many more gears to go through as well but that part can and has been solved - see my shifter notes above. Back to the clutch though. When shifting a big rig through the gears, you aren't supposed to push the clutch all the way in because that will activate a part of the clutch system called a clutch brake which is used to stop the clutch from spinning when the truck is stopped in order to get it into 1st gear. You also do what's called double-clutching(see video links below). So, ideally, if the sim software could detect if the clutch is only a little depressed vs fully depressed to activate a clutch brake then great. If the software only detects if a clutch was pushed in or not, then the only focus would be just getting the movement and experience as close to pushing in a real truck clutch and not a tiny pedal like they have for racing games - example here - http://www.thrustmaster.com/en_UK/products/t3pa-pro-add
- Here some of our videos on how to shift in a big rig that we teach with our current sim.
- Micro Lesson The Clutch Brake - https://youtu.be/31ECLgAtVa0
- Shifting by RPM-Micro Lesson - https://youtu.be/taDhrFqJH50
- Micro Lesson-The Rhythm of Shifting - https://youtu.be/xqAoDuI4yZo
- Learn to Double Clutch with a Balloon-Micro lesson - https://youtu.be/bV-2MnpyEZE
- other
- in case you would like to collaborate with some fellow hardware sim hackers you could get in touch with the dudes over at Inside Sim Racing(https://www.youtube.com/user/simracingtonight) I bet they would love to get in on something like this but I don't think they have the electronics and 3D knowledge that you do. Might make for a perfect storm. If anything, you can watch a couple of their custom builds for some great ideas. They have never done anything on trucking sims though.
Anyways, we would be more than willing to fund some of the costs involved with acquiring the components needed to get this thing going. Thanks for your time and consideration.
Ray James - CDL College