Why did we stop developing ETS2 and ATS studio?

Every couple of days, I get comments that ETS2 & ATS Studio was way better than Mods Studio 2, that MS2 does not work, and that I should update the old applications to support the current game version.

First of, I'm glad people think that old ETS2 & ATS Studio were awesome. They really were. I also think user interface looked way better than it does now. So... why did I decide to dump them and start completely from scratch?

E2S was made in a time when only ETS2 existed - in October 2013. There was no ATS, and also the game was not updated as often as it is now. Only a couple of DLCs existed... At that time, I also had way less development experience. All of that combined meant that the code behind the app was very rigid and oriented towards a specific task. It was convoluted, and it really was s PITA to update. I struggled for years to keep it updated and in line with ETS2 (and later on, with ATS). At one point, the game changes were so big, that it became impossible to update the apps. On top of that, the user interface elements that we used to design the app became obsolete as well, and it was time to pull the plug.

At this point, I can't even properly load the old source code in my Visual Studio. This effectively means that I cannot update the old apps - even if I wanted.

I also understand that Mods Studio 2 can annoy you at times. There's bugs, some features are missing, some things are different from what they were in the old apps... I'll do my best to fix bugs and develop missing features. But for some things, you'll have to put a little bit of effort and get used to the new way of doing things. I release MS2 updates almost on a monthly basis now. Things will improve - that's a prommise!

Join our Discord, we're always help with any MS2 issues you might have!

I hope you understand now why MS2 replaced the good ol' ETS2 and ATS studio.

Blast from the past: First ETS2 Studio Versions

This is a first in a series of blog posts that's going to bring you up-to-speed on the current developments of Mods Studio project. Let's begin by taking a stroll trough our old releases...

The first publicly available version was numbered v.0.3. and it was released on October 6th, 2013.

Main Window

Main window

Main window of the app was a MDI form with only a couple of options: File, Tools and About. I'm still a fan of old-school MDI windows, and still think this was probably the best design that we ever had.

Tools menu

Pictured is the tools menu. The initial version (0.3) had only the first two options, but we added more and more with each release.

Tools

SCS Archive Extractor

SCS archive extractor was just a simple user interface that used SCS Software's own extractor command line tool to do the work.

Tobj File Editor

Before E2S, most modding tutorials required use of Hex editors to edit the TOBJ files. Not to mention, the method of padding file and similar practices of the time...

Workshop Icon Generator

Simple tool to create workshop icons, as many mods missed them back in the day. Later, the tool was expanded with and "overlay" option and the "default icon" template.

SCS Color Calculator

A simple two-way tool to convert between SCS and RGB color spaces.

Main tools (Mod projects)

This was the bread and butter of E2S: Standalone trailers tool and Truck Skin tool. Initial version had only the trailers tool and only 2 trailers at that. That's actually why I made E2S: I was not happy with 'replacement' trailer skins as I believe mods should add content and not replace it. On the other hand, making standalone trailers was a painstaking process.

Two main project options (v.0.4)

Two main types of projects in v.0.4 - the idea was to add more with each release. Unfortunately, when we created a brand "new" UI (around v.0.5.0.6, I think) - we limited ourselves to these two + variable editor. In retrospect, a bad move.

Trailer tool: Trailer type selection

Trailer tool: Skin selection

Trailer tool: Cargo editor

Trailer tool: Cargo selection

Trailer tool offered stock SCS trailer types, and a list of standard SCS companies to deliver cargo from/to. Skins were DDS in the first version, but soon we offered option to use PNG, as many of our users didn't have tools to edit DDS images. Later versions had options to edit the list of trailers, companies...

Truck skin tool - truck selection

Truck skin tool - skin image selection

Truck skin tool - properties

Truck skin tool - workshop icon

Truck skin tool offered all SCS trucks and 50keda's 2009 Scania R, the most popular mod truck of the time. (Later, we added option to add mod trucks). All of the tools featured validation (Right side of the window), that showed the user what they are missing for a working mod. I still am proud of the design and functionality of our first ETS2 Studio.

Tech

First E2S was built using Visual Studio and was coded in C#. All of the UI was done in Windows Forms, and as the title says - it was Windows only. We used some external libraries to convert PNG to DDS, zip/unzip files and such. Also, we used SCS Software's own tools (extractor), and some base files for the trailers.

Next post will deal with the Mods Studio version that most of you know and have used for a long time, and after that, we'll get into the under the hood things of the upcoming Mods Studio 2.0.

So, folks, stay tuned!