Transport Fever 3 Beginner Guide
Play the first few campaign missions before a free game: they introduce the major systems one at a time. When you do start a free game, take a loan, connect two neighbouring towns by bus, and run one short cargo chain into a town that asks for it. Growth, not cash, is what ranks your company up.
Pick where to start
The main menu offers the campaign, a quickstart tutorial, the free game and the map editor. In a free game you choose a start year from 1900 to 2020 in ten-year steps, a climate, a map size and a difficulty, and every part of the difficulty can be tuned with sliders. Starting in 1900 puts horse-drawn wagons and early steam in the depot; later start years open with faster vehicles.
The climate matters more than it looks. It decides which industries exist, and so which of the ten end products can ever be made on that map. Check the climate zones page before you commit a long save.
Your first hour, step by step
- 1
Take a loan
A new game starts with an empty bank account. Open the Loans tab of the finance window and pick one of the four offers. They differ in size, term and interest, and you can hold up to four at once. Interest is charged monthly, so repay as soon as the cash allows. - 2
Connect two neighbouring towns by bus
Place several stops in each town, build a road depot, create the line in the line manager and assign two or three buses to it. - 3
Run one short cargo chain
Look at a town's demands next to its name. Vegetables from a crop farm or fish from the fishing grounds go straight to the commercial district, with no factory in between. The chain finder shows every short chain on your climate. - 4
Accept a subsidy when one appears
Most pay money up front or improve a town's reputation. Missing the deadline reverses the reward and can add a fine, so only take the ones your network can already reach. - 5
Watch the town, not the bank balance
Every delivered passenger and cargo item earns the town experience. Keep its ratings green and it levels up; your company rank rises with the map's total population. The town growth page lists every level.
Seven early mistakes, and the fix for each
| Mistake | What to do instead |
|---|---|
| Buying a vehicle and waiting for it to move | Vehicles have no route when bought. Create a line in the line manager, then assign the vehicle to it. |
| One bus stop per town | Every stop has a limited catchment. Add several stops, or a small line inside each town, so the whole town can reach you. |
| Short trains | A train without enough wagons is likely to lose money. Fill it out before blaming the route. |
| A fast locomotive on slow wagons | Pick a locomotive and wagons with similar top speeds for cost-effective running. |
| Flattening hills for a straight line | Terraforming is expensive and, like felling trees, hurts the reputation of nearby towns. Follow the contour lines or a river instead. |
| Ignoring the town window | Its six ratings decide how fast the town grows. The lowest one is the one to fix. |
| Skipping maintenance buildings | Vehicles only get maintained when they pass near a depot or maintenance building; without it they slow down and get louder and dirtier. |
Loading is slower than in Transport Fever 2
Loading and unloading take much longer than in earlier games, one of several changes listed on the Transport Fever 3 vs 2 page, so station design is now part of running a profitable line. Specialized loading platforms and specialized warehouses speed it up for one cargo group at a higher upkeep. Vehicles differ in loading speed too, which the buy menu's compare mode shows next to speed and capacity. The line planner shows how loading time changes the number of vehicles a line needs.
Two construction shortcuts
Hold C while building to switch off snapping for precise placement, and hold Shift when upgrading a street to change it one segment at a time. Build bridges over rivers high enough for ships to pass, and avoid tight curves, which cap the speed of everything that uses them.