True Trucker Economy (Built, Not Given)

⚠ IMPORTANT – PLEASE READ BEFORE INSTALLING

This mod completely redesigns the game’s banking system, including loan amounts, repayment periods and long-term financial progression.

Do NOT install this mod on a profile with an active bank loan.

Existing vanilla loan data is intentionally incompatible with this banking system and may cause the game to crash when opening the bank menu.

Before activating this mod:

Repay all active bank loans.
Save your game.
Activate the mod.

Starting a new profile is always the safest option.

BEFORE YOU DOWNLOAD

Please understand what this mod is designed to be.

This is not a “get rich faster” economy, nor is it intended for players who expect to own multiple garages after only a few dozen hours of gameplay.

Building a successful trucking company takes time.

A lot of time.

Based on extensive testing, reaching your first fully operational garage with five trucks and five drivers may realistically require 400 to 600 hours of gameplay, depending on your driving habits, financial decisions and business strategy.

Every financial decision matters.

Every purchase has consequences.

Every loan must eventually be repaid.

Every expansion should be carefully planned.

Taking the maximum loan available is not always the smartest decision. A larger loan can accelerate your company’s growth, but it can also become a serious financial burden if your business is unable to generate enough revenue to support the daily repayments.

Large loans are designed to support an active trucking business, not a passive income strategy. Expecting hired drivers alone to repay a multi-million-dollar loan is likely to end in financial trouble. During the early stages of your company, your own driving performance, cargo selection and financial decisions remain essential.

The location of your first garage can determine the future of your company.

A cheaper garage is not always the better investment. A strong freight market can generate stable long-term income, while a poor location may struggle to cover operating costs and loan repayments.

Research the freight market before investing.

Not every freight contract is equally profitable. When your company carries significant debt, choosing high-value cargo becomes part of your business strategy. Lower-paying cargoes may keep your trucks moving, but they may not generate enough profit to support an aggressive expansion.

Growth becomes faster only after you establish a stable and profitable business.

The first garage is, by far, the hardest milestone.

Everything that comes after is the reward for making good decisions.

This mod rewards planning, patience and disciplined business management.

Poor financial choices can have long-term consequences, while smart investments and careful expansion will gradually transform a small trucking operation into a successful transportation company.

If your goal is to become a millionaire in a few evenings, this mod is probably not for you.

If your goal is to experience what it feels like to build a trucking company from almost nothing—where every truck, every employee, every garage and every dollar has been earned through patience, planning and hard work…
Welcome aboard.

Realistic Economy Overhaul

This project is not a simple economy mod.

It is a complete redesign of the American Truck Simulator economy, created after nearly two years of research, testing, and continuous refinement. Every change has been made with one objective in mind: to make the freight market behave as realistically and logically as possible while preserving enjoyable gameplay.

Unlike traditional economy mods that simply increase or decrease freight payments, this project rebuilds the economic structure of ATS from the ground up.

Main Features
Complete rebalance of freight prices across the entire game.
Reworked cargo generation probabilities.
Revised cargo distances to better match the nature of each commodity.
Realistic cargo values based on their actual market value.
Improved distribution logic to reduce unrealistic cargo loops.
Better industry-to-industry cargo flow.
More believable freight market behavior throughout the map.
Carefully balanced progression for both company drivers and owner-operators.

One of the primary goals of this project is to make cargo movement feel logical.

For example, after delivering packaged food to a supermarket or retail destination, you should not immediately find another load of the exact same packaged food waiting to leave that location. Freight generation has been redesigned to create a more believable logistics network whenever possible, while naturally allowing exceptions for ports, airports, warehouses, distribution centers, and major industrial facilities.

New Cargoes

This mod also expands the ATS freight market by introducing 35 cargoes originally found in Euro Truck Simulator 2, fully integrated into the American economy.

Some examples include:

Chicken Meat
Flowers
Apples
Oranges
and many more.

These cargoes have been individually integrated into suitable industries and supply chains instead of simply being copied into the game.

Built Through Testing, Not Guesswork

Almost every value included in this project has been tested inside the game.

Many changes required observing the freight market over several in-game days—or even weeks—to evaluate how the economy reacted before making further adjustments.

Numerous cargoes were individually reviewed to eliminate unrealistic payouts, incorrect distances, or illogical availability.

This project represents hundreds of hours dedicated to observation, experimentation, balancing, and refinement.

Philosophy

The goal has never been to make players rich or poor.

The goal is to create an economy that feels believable.

Every delivery should make sense.
Every cargo should have a logical value.
Every industry should produce and receive goods that fit its purpose.

The intention is for the player to feel like they are operating within a living freight network rather than a random job generator.

Compatibility

This mod is designed for players who want a more immersive and realistic trucking experience.

It does not aim to increase difficulty for its own sake; instead, it focuses on creating a freight market that behaves more like a real transportation economy.

Thank you to everyone who downloads, tests, and enjoys this project.

I hope it makes your ATS experience as immersive as it has been rewarding to create.

Design Philosophy

This project is built around one simple principle:

Every financial decision should matter.

In the vanilla game, it is relatively easy to become a millionaire in a short period of time. Garages quickly become passive money-printing machines, AI drivers generate unrealistically high profits, bank loans carry very little risk, and expanding your company often requires little planning.

This mod completely changes that experience.

AI driver profits have been extensively rebalanced to more realistic levels.

Garage income has been drastically reduced to reflect believable operating profits instead of functioning as effortless sources of passive income.

Bank loans have been redesigned so that borrowing money becomes an important financial commitment rather than a shortcut to rapid expansion.

Garage prices have also been significantly increased—up to ten times their original value—making each purchase a long-term investment instead of an impulse decision.

Choosing where to expand your company is now a strategic decision.

Buying an expensive garage in a city with a weak freight market may leave your business struggling to generate enough income to cover loan payments, employee wages, and operating expenses. Poor planning can easily push your company into financial trouble.

Success is no longer measured by how quickly you can purchase every garage on the map.

Instead, success comes from making smart investments, selecting profitable locations, managing debt responsibly, and growing your company at a sustainable pace.

The objective is not to make the game artificially difficult.

The objective is to make every achievement feel earned.

Final Notes

This project will never truly be “finished.”

The trucking industry is constantly changing, and so is this mod.

Fuel prices rise and fall.

Exchange rates change.

Market conditions evolve.

Every major American Truck Simulator update—and especially every new DLC—introduces new cargoes, industries, companies, and economic relationships that deserve to be properly integrated into the freight market.

As the game continues to grow, so will this project.

There may also still be details waiting to be discovered: cargoes with values that slipped through the balancing process, industries that can be further refined, freight routes that could become even more logical, or new opportunities to improve the overall economic simulation.

That is the nature of a project built on continuous observation and refinement.

This is not a mod that receives random updates.

Every release is the result of careful analysis, real gameplay testing, and countless adjustments made with one goal in mind: creating the most believable and rewarding trucking economy possible.

As long as American Truck Simulator continues to evolve, this project will evolve with it.

Thank you for downloading it, for supporting its development, and for being part of this journey.

If you notice any cargo with unrealistic pricing, please let me know by posting in this thread. Please note that this mod only supports cargoes from the base game and the 35 cargoes imported from ETS2.

See you on the road.

Credits:
Luc25