Advanced Route Planning & Navigation — American Truck Simulator Guide

Learn advanced route planning and navigation techniques in American Truck Simulator. Optimize your routes, manage your fleet, and become a top trucker with our comprehensive guide.

American Truck Simulator is a truck simulator game developed and published by SCS Software. It was announced on 6 September 2013 and released on 2 February 2016. It can be considered a spiritual successor to the 18 Wheels of Steel franchise.

As of 1 February 2024, the Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10 (until version 1803) support for this and ETS2 were removed, and these now only support Windows 10 (from version 1809) and Windows 11, in prep for the new game engine implementation in update 1.54.

On 19 August 2025, it was announced that the game will get official support for consoles, specifically for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. Initially, the console version of the game will not support any mods, but eventually some of the safe and approved mods will be supported via an official mod platform in the later updates, that may be released by Early 2026.

Before you start your career as a ground logistics manager, you will first have to create your profile. You will choose your avatar, your name, your preferred truck, and your company logo. You will then choose your difficulty level (the higher, the more realistic).

Before you start your multi-million dollar logistics company, you will first have to complete quick jobs using provided trucks. You will have to earn at least $100,000 before buying your first truck.

As the player completes jobs and levels up, they will unlock skills. Skills can be used to upgrade fuel efficiency and long distance cargoes as well as unlocking hazardous, fragile, and important deliveries.

Eventually, once you gain enough, you can buy a new garage or upgrade your original, which will allow you to store more trucks. From this point you can hire AI drivers from a recruitment agency and provide each with a truck from a truck dealership to earn even more cash.

A feature that has been unique in American Truck Simulator is that truckers have to choose where to unload the cargo they are hauling when they reach the destination depot, a function that has been introduced later to Euro Truck Simulator 2. A "desired spot" (which gives out more experience points but is harder to park) and a "safe spot" (easier to park but with fewer experience points) are usually available at every depot. Alternatively, the trucker can skip parking with the price of forfeiting all parking experience points.

Although American Truck Simulator currently only features 19 states out of 50 (and it is unlikely that the entire US map will be completed anytime soon), all states are immense and detailed and feature long roads and large cities for players to explore. It takes about three hours in real time to travel from Bellingham, Washington to Brownsville, Texas in game, meaning it will be a very large game once the entire map is completed.

The base game featured the states of California and Nevada on release, with a total of 30 cities (now 31). Arizona was released four months later as a free DLC, adding 15 cities (soon to be 17). The newest DLC, released on the 4th December, 2025, added the state of Louisiana, with 11 new cities.

The scale of the map was 1:35 on release. On the 23rd June, 2016, SCS Software announced that the scale would be changed to 1:20 (1.75x larger), approximately matching the 1:19 scale in Euro Truck Simulator 2. The rescale was implemented in update 1.5 released on the 12th December, 2016. It also included Santa Maria, a completely reworked Oxnard, and countless additions and improvements to the map.

During the 2020 Christmas live stream, SCS Software revealed that, as the oldest state in American Truck Simulator, California would be reworked to reflect current mapping standards. The rework was officially announced on the 7th May, 2021 and was finished on the 28th November, 2024, alongside update 1.53. For more information, see California Dreamin'.

As of the 27th October 2025, SCS announced that the American Truck Simulator is heading to Canada for the first time, with the upcoming British Columbia map expansion.

Unlike Euro Truck Simulator 2, where every city has a garage other than dedicated ones like seaports and nuclear power plant locations, the majority of cities in American Truck Simulator do not feature a garage. The list below shows all cities in each state (USA)/province (Canada) that contain a garage.

Cities with bolded names are capitals of their respective states/provinces.