Hey everyone. Today I uploaded another mod update to Steam.

I spent quite some time researching the economic aspects of truck driving online and experimenting with my Excel spreadsheets to provide a mathematical basis for the adjustments to the game's economy. I think I've found a pretty decent approach by now.

I update the fuel prices at regular intervals. This creates what are essentially variable fuel costs in the game economy. Logically, fuel costs deviate from a (hopefully well-researched) reference value for fuel costs. This results in a kind of "inflation factor."

Since many economic relationships correlate directly or indirectly with energy prices, I thought this would give the overall operating costs of the truck fleet a certain degree of variability. I also determined (hopefully well-researched) reference values ​​for the operating costs. The "inflation factor" also makes the other operating costs variable.

This is certainly not perfect, as latencies are not reflected in the dependencies. If fuel becomes expensive "now," maintenance also becomes more expensive "now." Supply chains, warehousing, and mixed pricing usually balance out such minor price fluctuations. However, if energy prices rise in the long term, other operating costs will also rise in the long term. That's the idea behind the mechanism.

Now, when I update the fuel prices in my Excel spreadsheet, the fuel, maintenance, and insurance costs of the employed drivers are automatically recalculated. The productivity plans are also recalculated. This allows me to adjust the settings in the mod files very quickly and easily, always resulting in a result that has a solid mathematical basis.

When I get around to it (assuming I can find the appropriate settings), I will soon also modify the maintenance costs of my own truck (or your truck) with the "inflation factor." Then, for example, a tire repair will cost "this much" today and "that much" in a month. I think that would be pretty cool. But let's wait and see.

In addition to the whole economic aspect, I've also made adjustments to the experience point system. Parking now gives fewer experience points. The reason for this is, on the one hand, that level 5 should be reached a little later at the start of your career. On the other hand, you don't really need these additional experience points, since in reality, no one pays you more just because you parked a truck somewhere...

I hope you like the new features as much as I do. Please let me know if anything seems wrong.

Change log:
* recalculated employed drivers maintenance costs
* micro adjustment of long-distance bonus rewards
* reduced level-bases bonus rewards vom 5 to 2.5 permill/level
* recalculated garage productivity plans
* set abandoned job fine to estimated players daily productivity
* reduced parking bonus experience points vom 15/40/90 to 5/25/75 for single trailer
* reduced parking bonus experience points vom 25/150/270 to 10/50/150 for double trailers
* fuel prices updated
* damage warning changed vom 25% to 40%

< previous version v1.3(1.54)