Developer snapshot 2026-07-28

Preview snapshot for players who want the newest features before the next stable release. Expect rough edges; your save files stay compatible whenever possible, but back them up first.

Changes since the previous snapshot

Added

• A warning before every steep grade. Any climb or descent of three percent or more that runs for at least three quarters of a mile is now called out before you reach it, with how steep it is, how far it runs, and -- going down -- what to do about it before it starts. In a manual that is picking your gear and setting the engine brake; in an automatic it is setting the engine brake and braking down to speed, which is what puts the transmission in a lower gear for you. Short dips stay quiet, so on a mountain route you hear the hills that matter and nothing else. Terse speech does not get these announcements at all -- press G whenever you want the grade instead. The advisory is there so you can decide before the hill starts: when in doubt, take manual control of the speed rather than leaving it to cruise.
• G speaks the grade. Press G while driving for the slope under the wheels, how much further it runs, whether the truck is holding it or losing ground -- and the next steep grade ahead with how far off it is. It answers "why is my speed building" without waiting for anything to be announced.

Fixed

• Adaptive cruise no longer runs away down a hill. Cruise could only ever add throttle, so on a downgrade it simply came off the fuel and let gravity carry the truck -- fifteen miles per hour or more over your set speed, with nothing said about it, and a speeding fine at the bottom. It now reaches for the engine brake when the truck starts to gain on a descent and snubs the service brakes when the engine brake is not enough, holding your set speed on grades as steep as eight percent. It hands the engine brake back when the hill ends, and never touches the switch when you set it yourself. Climbing, cruise now answers a hill as the wheels reach it instead of taking ten seconds to work up to full throttle. Cruise is still an assistant, not a driver: on a steep or long grade, when in doubt, take manual control of the speed. Braking hands the truck straight back to you.
• Cruise tells you when a grade has beaten it. If the truck is running well past your set speed down a hill, or has lost a lot of it climbing, cruise says so once, names the speed you are actually doing, and tells you to brake or gear down -- or just to brake, if you are driving an automatic. Before this it drifted in silence. It waits until the grade has genuinely won and stayed won, so a gear change or a stretch of nearly level road never sets it off. Treat it as your cue to take over: when in doubt, brake rather than waiting to see whether cruise recovers the speed.
• Automatic speed control now slows in time for heavy traffic zones. The same early braking that construction zones already received now applies to heavy traffic zones. When the advance warning sounds, adaptive cruise begins easing down to the posted limit and hands off to the speed keeper at the zone boundary, so the transition is smooth and you enter at the right speed. Contributed by wleicht (@wleicht) in PR #127.