Construction Simulator | Ep. 45 – Building a Service Area Worth Missing Your Exit For
Back to the construction site for another ambitious infrastructure project. If we’re going to build a motorway service area, we may as well make it good enough that people willingly drive past their own junction just to visit.
After a stressful couple of days, this was also supposed to be a peaceful evening. Construction Simulator, heavy machinery, some concrete pouring — nice and relaxing. Naturally, the intro music had barely finished before the cement mixer truck flipped itself in the middle of the road for absolutely no reason. Welcome home.
🏗️ About the Game
Construction Simulator puts us behind the controls of more than 70 machines across two huge maps, tackling everything from excavation and roadworks to cranes, concrete and major building projects.
It can be methodical and strangely relaxing when everything behaves. When the physics decide otherwise, it becomes something entirely different — and after 45 episodes, we know better than to expect the machinery to behave for long.
🚧 Where We Are in the Journey
We’re continuing the transportation campaign and our motorway service-area build. Before this episode, we had already spent around three streams excavating the enormous basement beneath the main building.
Now we’re finally climbing back towards ground level. The basement slab and walls still needed concrete, the surrounding area needed gravel, and all that digging was beginning to turn into something that actually resembled a building site rather than a very expensive hole.
🔥 What Happens in This Episode
The evening began with concrete — or “custard,” as it has inevitably become known around here — although Construction Simulator decided to provide a reminder of its special relationship with physics before we could even properly get started. As the intro music faded out, the cement mixer truck somehow managed to flip itself in the middle of the road for absolutely no reason whatsoever. There was no dramatic collision and no particularly impressive piece of driving involved. It was simply Construction Simulator being Construction Simulator.
Once the truck had remembered which way up it was supposed to be, we returned to the service area and carried on with the basement. We had already spent three streams digging this enormous section out of the ground, so finally being able to fill it with concrete and start working our way back towards ground level felt like genuine progress.
We continued experimenting with the newer method of pouring concrete using the small hopper bucket suspended beneath the larger crane. The bucket should become incredibly useful later in the build, particularly once the structure gets higher and reaching everything with the cement mixer becomes more difficult. Down in the basement, though, it was becoming increasingly obvious that we were creating extra work for ourselves. After a bit more practice with the bucket, we went back to the boom arm on the cement mixer truck, which could still reach most of the areas we needed without too much trouble.
That was the theory, anyway.
While trying to start the concrete pump, I moved through the controls a little too quickly and clicked the button to empty the mixer instead. The concrete we had just brought back to the site promptly disappeared, leaving us with an empty truck and an unscheduled journey back to the supplier. Fortunately, the supply area wasn’t too far away because we were going to become extremely familiar with that road before the evening was over.
Chat was very sympathetic about the whole incident, naturally. vvoornth had already warned against wasting expensive concrete, while thecollector31 supplied the familiar verdict of “Curse you concrete pump.” Officially, of course, no concrete was wasted. Everything was completely intentional and we were simply helping the local concrete economy.
With another load of rare and precious custard secured, the pouring settled into a much more productive rhythm. There were repeated journeys between the supplier and the building site, with each load disappearing surprisingly quickly into the foundations. Back at the service area, the boom arm had to be stretched and repositioned to reach some of the more awkward corners, particularly when the percentage counter insisted there was still a tiny section somewhere that had not received enough concrete.
Eventually, though, we managed to push the pour all the way to 100%. More reinforcement and forms followed, including the sections that would become the ground-floor plates, finally bringing us towards the base level of the building. After spending so long looking down into the excavation, the service area was beginning to feel as though it might actually start growing upwards.
There was still the small question of how many floors the finished building was going to have, which also raised the slightly uncomfortable question of just how much more custard we were eventually going to need. The crane-mounted bucket may yet have its moment once we get higher, but for now there was another material waiting to cause trouble.
Gravel.
Gravel and I have history.
Normally we arrive with one of the big dumper trucks, attempt to spread the load sensibly while driving and somehow create several enormous mountains instead. For years we have tried using dozers to push it around afterwards, usually with limited success, and there is always the strange feeling that half the gravel simply vanishes because we have driven over it.
This time we decided to try something different and brought in a small tracked skid loader. The original gravel coverage was sitting at around 25%, and, against all expectations, the little machine actually helped. By scooping material from the larger piles and redistributing it around the required area, we managed to squeeze roughly another ten percent out of what was already there.
Unfortunately, the skid loader came with caterpillar tracks, and tracked vehicles in Construction Simulator have never been particularly friendly to my fingers. We spent a while working out which controls actually did what, to the point where I was practically taking notes, while trying not to undo the progress we had already made. One scoop could increase the percentage nicely, while another seemed capable of making a percentage point disappear again.
The gravel was soon rechristened “lumpy custard,” continuing the evening’s increasingly questionable construction-site menu. There was no useful little sprinkle setting to distribute it neatly, so it became a matter of scooping, moving, tipping and trying not to drive across the areas we had just finished. At one point the skid loader managed to get itself awkwardly stuck as well, because apparently moving gravel around was not enough of a challenge on its own.
The jukebox supplied an appropriate soundtrack to the struggle when asmith501 selected “Pour Some Cheese on Me,” which immediately earned a “Time to mute” from vvoornth. Between custard, lumpy custard, cheese and an earlier discussion involving chocolate, the motorway service area was beginning to sound considerably more edible than most construction projects.
Chat had plenty happening away from the building site too. Happy_cat_lady successfully completed a Pokémon contract against a Meditite armed with a spell book, which immediately raised the question of whether the book was supposed to be used for casting spells or simply hitting the Pokémon with it. “Throw the book” seemed like a perfectly reasonable third option. Gary later attempted his own contract against an Electrode using a boxing glove on a spring, although that particular encounter was considerably less successful.
Back on the gravel, persistence eventually won. Another dumper load gave us enough material to keep spreading without worrying quite so much about every missing scoop. The progress climbed through the 70s, reached 90%, and eventually hit the magical 100%.
Naturally, finishing the gravel did not mean we were finished with the gravel.
The next job was compacting everything, and vvoornth confirmed that the soil compactor was the machine we needed. It was immediately renamed the “soil jiggler,” and we headed back to the depot to collect it. That should have been a straightforward drive, but we once again managed to miss the same troublesome junction that has caught us out several times over the past few weeks.
Taking the wrong route also brought us towards a section where the road effectively disappears because the bridge has not been built yet. Ordinary traffic was not really the problem, though. The true danger remained Construction Simulator’s immortal roadside signs, one of which managed to catch the vehicle badly enough that we started contemplating the dreaded death loop.
Somewhere amongst all of this, chat also launched a Hunger Games round. Dr Ravenholm was eliminated, vvoornth emerged victorious, and asmith501’s suggestion that the winner should receive the moustaches somehow developed into threats involving facial hair and haircuts. vvoornth’s response was emphatic: “NO ONE touches my hair!” By that stage, the journey to collect a soil compactor had become considerably more complicated than the job description suggested.
We eventually got the soil jiggler back to the service area and switched things over to daylight so we could actually see what we were doing. “Jigification” commenced, with the compactor rumbling across the gravel and sounding remarkably like an old tumble dryer from the 1990s. Compared with spreading the gravel, this part was almost relaxing. The percentage climbed steadily through the job until the final section was compacted and the parking area around the building was finally complete.
That brought us straight back to the structure itself. More large reinforcement pieces and materials had to be positioned for the next stage, and once they were in place it became obvious what was coming next: more custard. There was still some concrete left in the pump, so rather than waste it we used the remaining load on the new section, getting the next foundation stage to around 15% before the supply ran out.
By then, after all the tracked skid-loader controls and repeated machinery manoeuvring, my fingers were genuinely sore and it felt like a sensible place to stop. The service area itself is still a long way from finished, but this was a substantial step forward. We completed major sections of the basement concrete, brought the structure up towards ground-floor level, spread the gravel around the surrounding area, compacted it, and started preparing the next reinforced section for yet another round of concrete.
For an evening chosen because we wanted something a little more peaceful, it had still managed to include a mysteriously flipped cement mixer, an accidentally emptied concrete tank, rebellious gravel, a soil jiggler, a near death loop involving an immortal road sign, Pokémon battles and a Hunger Games dispute over moustaches.
So, yes. A nice, relaxing night on Construction Simulator.
🎬 Watch the Episode
If you want to see the unexplained truck flip, the accidental concrete disappearance, the gravel battle and the birth of the soil jiggler for yourself, you can watch the full episode on YouTube.
You can also follow the whole build through the Construction Simulator playlist, and visit Dr Ravenholm on YouTube for more gameplay. If you enjoy the chaos, leave a like, drop your favourite moment in the comments and subscribe so you don’t miss the next stage.
🔴 Join the Adventure Live
The service area will continue next week, and livestreams are where the plans, mistakes and community chaos happen before they become episodes.
Join us live on Twitch or over on YouTube. At the end of this particular shift, we packed up the machinery and raided into OurChickenLife, sending the community onwards together for the rest of the evening.
🌐 Community & Links
The construction crew doesn’t disappear when the engines stop. There are plenty of places to stay connected between streams.
Around the campfire: Join the conversation on Discord.
Across the network: Find me on TikTok, Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook, Threads and X.
Soundtrack for the journey: My music is available on Spotify and Apple Music.
Support the madness: Visit the Fourthwall shop, Teespring, or leave a tip through Streamlabs.
Beyond the stream: Explore the Business Centre, download the brochure, learn more about me or visit the blog.
🌙 Until Next Time
The basement is behind us, the gravel has finally surrendered, and the service area is beginning to rise. Next week we return to Construction Simulator for more building, more concrete and almost certainly another machine determined to ignore the laws of physics.
Until then, thank you very much for watching — and have a lovely day.
— Dr Ravenholm
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