I’m Building a Full Phone System for ETS2 — and I’m Shocked by How Good It Already is (Patreon)

While working on the next TBX Mechanical Failures update, I started experimenting with another idea on the side.

And I genuinely didn’t expect it to turn out this good.

I’m currently working on a completely new project — a fully simulated smartphone system inside ETS2.

Not a phone accessory sitting somewhere in the cabin.

Not another static menu.

I mean an actual phone that appears over the game, similar to how phones work in games like GTA, but with a much deeper system behind it.

The idea is that your driver would finally feel like an actual person with a life outside of deliveries.

You could have contacts such as your family, daughter, friends, boss, company contacts or other drivers, and they could actually interact with you while you’re on the road.

Imagine this:

Your daughter messages you asking if you’ll be home tomorrow.

You tell her yes.

Later, something goes wrong during the delivery, you lose time, maybe your truck breaks down through TBX Mechanical Failures, and suddenly your boss starts messaging you because the delivery is late.

And later your daughter can still remember what you promised earlier.

That’s the kind of system I want to build.

📱 THE PHONE ITSELF

The phone will appear directly over the game as an interactive interface.

You open it with a key, it slides onto the screen, and you can use different apps while ETS2 continues running in the background.

I want it to look like a modern smartphone rather than another typical game overlay.

The current plan includes things like:

• ContactsCreate and manage different people and relationships.

• MessagesFull conversations with characters that can have their own personality and history.

• CallsIncoming and outgoing calls, missed calls and eventually much more.

• MailCompany messages, delivery information and private emails.

• Simulated social mediaApps inspired by things like TikTok or Instagram, but completely fictional and built specifically for the mod.

• Driver appsThings designed specifically around the life of a truck driver.

And yes…

🤖 AI IS PART OF THE PLAN

One of the things I’m experimenting with is using AI together with predefined systems and scenarios.

I don’t want characters to simply send one of 500 random messages.

I want them to have a reason to contact you.

If your delivery is late, your boss could react to it.

If you promised somebody something earlier, they could remember it later.

Different contacts could have different personalities, relationships and ways of talking.

The goal is for situations to feel connected instead of completely random.

Sometimes nothing would happen for a long time.

Other times you might be dealing with messages, work problems and a delivery at the same time.NOTICE before u say ahhh another ai mod, this is propably impossible to do with no ai and i dont mean use ai to create a phone but ai needs to be attached to the mod if u want to get random messages,and actual answers for what you write to them ;)

🔧 AND THIS STARTED BETWEEN TBX UPDATES…

The funny part is that this wasn’t even supposed to become a huge project right now.

I started working on it between development sessions for the next TBX Mechanical Failures update just to test whether the idea was even possible.

But after seeing the first results, I’m genuinely shocked by how good it already feels.

It’s still very experimental and there is a LOT left to build, so nothing here should be treated as final yet.

But if I manage to build this the way I currently imagine it…

this could become one of the biggest projects I’ve made for ETS2.

More soon. 👀📱

TruckSim Customs — Created by OverDriveSim.