Professional Guide: Adding Custom Internet Radio to ATS

You must have at least one radio station entry generated by the game to create the necessary configuration file. If you do not see live_streams.sii' in your 'Documents/American Truck Simulator' folder:

• Launch the game.
  
• Open the Radio menu in-game.
  
• This forces the system to generate the configuration file.

The file 'live_streams.sii' uses a specific array-based structure. You must follow this format precisely:

Important: The index [x] must be unique and sequential. Failure to increment this number (e.g., using [51] twice) will cause the game to ignore the entry. Do not for get to update this with number of radio station in the live_streams.sii file. always start at [o] Example

• Supported Streams: Only direct MP3 streams function reliably. If the link leads to an HTML landing page (like a web player), it will not work.
  
• Verification: Use a media player like VLC to test the URL. If it does not play in VLC, it will not play in the game.
  
• Encoding: Ensure the stream bitrates match the game’s internal preferences; 128kbps is the industry standard for stable playback.

Example of a radio stream

Add the following line to the end of the 'stream_data' list in 'live_streams.sii':

• Encoding Issues: If your file is not saving as UTF-8, the game may struggle to read the characters in the station name. Use Notepad++ to ensure character encoding is set to UTF-8.
  
• Index Conflicts: Check the last index number in your existing list to ensure your new entry follows the sequence correctly.
  
• UI Refresh: Don't click the button to update the list from the internet, it will erase your stations and replace them.

To type the | symbol, known as the pipe or vertical bar:

• On standard US/UK QWERTY keyboards: Hold the Shift key and press the Backslash (\) key.
  
• Location: The backslash key is typically located directly above the Enter key.

In the context of the live_streams.sii file you are editing, this character serves as a delimiter—a technical separator that tells the game engine exactly where one piece of data ends and the next begins. Ensure you use this specific character, as substituting it with another symbol (like a forward slash or a hyphen) will cause the game to fail to parse the radio station's metadata.