Sunday, December 27, 2015

What’s Tatra???

Tatra is a czech manufacturer (Hello SCS!!!!) of trucks and formerly cars.
Being one of the oldest car/truck manufacturers in the world, Tatra originate from two companies with german names (as they were on the territory of the Austria-Hungarian Empire at the time) founded in 1923 in Prag (again, helloooo SCS!). If I was in charge at SCS, I would have included the Jamal from day one, since it would have been a smart strategic move for the ETS/GTS/ETS2 buyers throughout the east.

“The Tatra Phoenix is a heavy truck. It evolved from a collaboration between Tatra Trucks and DAF Trucks, which began in August 2011.

DAF Trucks supplies for the Phoenix engines and cabins to Tatra. The central tube frame with axles and frames is produced by Tatra, the transmission supplied by ZF Friedrichshafen.
The Tatra Phoenix was launched in September, 2011.
In addition to the Euro V model of 2011, the Tatra Phoenix is availlable with Euro VI engines since 2014.”
Translation by myself from German Wikipedia – no such article in the english one. In cars, their specialty were pretty decently motorised luxury limos for upperclass people and dignitairies throughout the East and the Soviet union. Their last model featured a 203 hp engine and a top speed of 230 km/h.

In trucks, they produced a broad variety for both militairy and civil use. The latest heavy duty trucks are the JAMALs, in several different variants. They actually look very cool!
Heavy Tatras were also used in the former GDR (East Germany) where own products would not suffice. Some selected Airports had huge Fire fighters imported from Tatra, exeeding the water capacity of their GDR counterpoarts (IFA, Wartburg) considerably. Many of them still perform their duties to this day.

If you know about truck sports, you are certainly aware that Tatra still is a big name in Truck Trial (a competition where trucks have to pass through impossible terrain through tiny doors marked by two sticks. It’s about precision, power and skill; it’s not a race). 20 year old Tatras still can outmanouver a heavily tuned Actros with twice the power; there are several teams on international contests being very successful with Tatra vehicles.

Want a demo?

Tatra can also look back on a proud history of winners, both trucks and cars, at the famous Paris-Dakar rallye. Some of them are on display in the technical museum in Kopřivnice.

2. The Mod

Now that we know about the background, we understand that the DAF-Cabs and DAF-Engines in this mod are no lazyness, but accurate; in case of the cabs at least an approximation to reality. 510 hp for this truck at max are also accurate. To the two guys complaining about weak engines, I can only say, you guys drive too much Scanias and Volvos 😉 You are spoiled by their power. Your standard DAFs use the very same PACCARD engines….

Looking at the overall mod, I would guess this is a Version one point zero. It might even be the work who just started modding. One of those reasons would be sufficient to explain why this truck comes with few tuning options. But maybe the author just liked it that way. After all, he did provide several different tandem trailers which look pretty decent. I don’t think it took him just one hour to do it.
The only real flaws I can find are the not working fanfares, as already mentioned by LoneWolf, and the missing icons for some of the tandem trailers in the job menu.
The game log’s evaluation on this mod reads :
“Incorrect rear wheel definition for /vehicle/truck/tatra/truck.pmd”
I haven’t noticed any ill effect though.
I would love to see an ADDITIONAL brand new cab, as the present one looks like being in service for quite some time. Intentionally, I guess.
In the tractor version, you can see the author had made provisions for individually coloring the cab, but either he forgot to finish it or failed on it, anyway, it doesn’t work. I hope he’ll get the hang of it later.
I would also love to see a container like back for the Tandem. It simply looks more neutral when you tow other stuff.
All in all, I think this is a good BEGINNING. I’m looking forward to see this truck evolve further. Along with a Jamal, if possible 😉

Credits: jazzycat, 50Keda, Vlasta, HomerS
Compatibility: ETS2 1.22.x and 1.21.x
Review: Johannes König

Screenshots:

Tatra Phoenix tatra-phoenix-2 tatra-phoenix-1

How to install mod for ETS 2:

  1. Download this mod.
  2. Extract it!
  3. Paste the .scs file(s) into your My Documents/Euro Truck Simulator 2/mod folder.
  4. Run game ~> Mod Manager ~> Enable mod.
  5. Enjoy!

Download Tatra Phoenix for ETS 2:

Source: Tatra Phoenix v3.0

Copy from: http://ets2downloads.com/trucks/tatra-phoenix

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to RSS Feed Follow me on Twitter!