(Updated 2nd July 2004)
This FAQ is an attempt to cut down on the repetition of questions in the newsgroup. You should read this first before posting a question to Alt.Games.Microprose.Transport-Tyc (AGMTT). We will add any questions posted in AGMTT to here with each person's answer, as well as as many questions we can think of ourselves.
This FAQ will be posted to the AGMTT newsgroup every month, on the first of the month or if a request is made.
4.12
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4.9
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4.5
4.4
4.3
4.2
4.1
4.0
3.4
3.3
3.2
3.1
3.0
2.5
2.4
Older changes have sadly been lost...
The AGMTT Charter gives full details about this newsgroup, what to expect, and a number of other ground rules that anyone who knows their way around Usenet should come to expect, like posting in Plain text only...
The Charter is available at http://www.ebernard.greatxscape.net/charters/alt.games.microprose.transport-tyc.html
There are several versions of Transport Tycoon, and they are adressed like this in this charter:
| TT | Refers to any version of Transport Tycoon generally |
| TTO | The original version of Transport Tycoon, DOS only |
| TTOW | The original version of Transport Tycoon with World Editor and Moon scenery |
| TTD | Any version of Transport Tycoon DeLuxe |
| TTDD | Specifically the DOS version of Transport Tycoon DeLuxe |
| TTDW | Specifically the Windows version of Transport Tycoon DeLuxe, often also referred to as Transport Tycoon DeLuxe DX (but not in this FAQ) |
| patch | Any program that changes TT in some way |
| Patch | The program TTDPatch, created by Josef Drexler and friends, that changes TT in many ways |
Other abbreviations and terms:
| DOS | Microsoft Disk operating System (tm), any version |
| Windows | Microsoft Windows (tm), any version |
| Win95 | Microsoft Windows 95 (tm) |
| Win98 | Microsoft Windows 98 (tm) |
| WinME | Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (tm) |
| Win9x | Microsoft Windows 95, 98 and/or Millennium Edition |
| Win2k | Microsoft Windows 2000 (tm) |
| WinXP | Microsoft Windows XP (tm) |
There is a patch for TTD called (highly imaginatively) TTDPatch, it does tons of cool things to TTD and is by Josef Drexler, with help from several others. The best way to find it is to get it from:
The best part of the Patch (I will distinguish between this Patch and other patches by using capital P for this Patch) is that is constantly being improved and updated. In AGMTT, people discuss issues with TT, and with the Patch, and suggest new features to add. Then Josef Drexler and his collaborators try to implement these. Or they don't, depending on whether they like them...
The Patch not only gets rid of bugs. It doesn't even stop at improving things in TT. It adds lots of new features too. Some highlights (the whole list can be viewed on the Patch's website, http://www.ttdpatch.net):
The beautiful thing of this Patch is that you can choose which feature you want and which you don't like; each feature can individually be switched on or off, by means of a easy-to-understand configuration file. And if even that's too hard, one of the regulars in the newsgroup has made a little program called Ttdpatch Starter that provides a graphical interface for Ttdpatch.
[1] Several people are doing hard work to improve and add to the vehicle graphics. If you want to contribute yourself (e.g., have trains that look like the ones in your country), be sure to contact Josef Drexler or to drop a note in the newsgroup first. You will then get the technical details of how to make your work compatible with TTDpatch.
There are other patches, but none of them comes close to TTDPatch. In fact, none can stand in its shadow. None can hope to kiss the soles of its boots. And did I mention that TTDPatch comes in 10+ localized versions?
For TTO there are a few tips, no cheats but there is a bug:
To do this first you need to start a new game with the settings you want. Then go to the bottom end of the map and click the tunnel option, train or road doesn't matter. Hold down shift as you build it and if it gives you a huge minus number try to build it. The game gets confused and gives you the price of the tunnel.
For TTD there are several cheat add-ons:
The way of avoiding high costs when building on sea is to put many ship depots in the water, all next to each other. Then destroy them all, and press F1. Change to raise terrain, unpause and quickly raise the land before the water floods into it.
When building railroads, building over farmed land costs A LOT. However, if you first put a tree on the lot you want to build on, and only then build the track, it costs considerably less.
Not really, you can possible bankrupt the enemy by getting all the subsidies and good runs. But this alone won't really bankrupt the enemy.
A trick in TTD is to first get your enemy onto the verge of bankruptcy, then when the option to buy shares come up, buy 75% and leave the window open. Then leave the company to go bankrupt. Once they are bankrupt sell the shares and make £'s!! Or get a game crash :-(. In fact, the game usually crashes when you do this. The Patch 'fixes' this, however, simply by preventing you from even trying it...
You can also simply buy 100% of the adversary company shares and all their stations, vehicles and so on will become yours.
However, you may want to note down the stations and vehicles they have first (especially if they're bad ones!). After buying the company check the Finances dialog - you may have inherited a loan from them.
Or you could use the Patch to take over your adversary and do really unpleasant things to his network before swapping back to your own company again. E.g. remove one (1) tile from a rail line so his trains won't be able to reach their destination any more.
Tons, I'll go through the ones for different types of transport
This is not an obvious trick to do but it is always effective. First build a depot onto the back of the enemy station and buy a train. Leave the train in the depot until the enemy train comes. Then force the train to leave the station. It should hit the other train and blow it up. That is then the end of that rail, and the AI will remove it soon after, but any stations, airports, docks in the nearby area will have their ratings reduced to 0%!
If the enemies train stations have not yet been built then stopping them being built at all is a doddle! All you have to do is when the enemy places the two stations at the places then surround the with diagonal track so they cannot build bridges over it or go round it!
Another way to stop the enemy from building tunnels and bridges it to do what Steven Lalewicz off the NG did:
"On a different topic....
A tip for making life harder for the AI, I discovered, is to build long diagonal train lines. If I had two points I wanted to connect, I always used to do a long horizontal and then vertical rail line. For some reason I thought the trains would not like long diagonal ones. So I tried to see if it did make any difference. I then discovered something quite interesting, your opponents can't build bridges over them and have severe problems connecting two stations if they placed them either side of your line (hee hee hee!)."
There is a problem with diagonal lines, as they can stop cities from growing. Use only in the countryside.
Planes are another hard one to stop. There is no actual way to get rid of the enemy's planes, but there are some ways that nearly always work.
There are rumours that putting hills around airports will cause more plane crashes, but, however realistic this may sound, this is NOT true.
In TTO you can build a rail over the road and destroy it. The computer is too thick to build a new piece of road. Their vehicles will then run at a loss. If there is a depot nearby they will be removed in a year of so. If not, they will wander aimlessly until the end of the game!
Another great cheat is in TTD, build a short train line over the road and stick a depot on the track. Buy a train, the cheapest. So there is a use for them after all! Send that train over the crossing so the lights turn on and stop it. And their trucks stay there forever! Or you could let the train run to and fro endlessly and one by one it'll kill off all the passing trucks.
Also, you could build a more efficient road and connect it to the existing one which shouldn't be too difficult given the state of some of the AI's roads! The trucks then follow it, and what you then do is demolish the road, and trap their vehicles.
This is a hard one to do, as it does not always work. Wait till a boat breaks down and is parked straight on, then try and build a bridge over it, sometimes it will work, sometimes it will be refused. Hard to do.
Or, you could just simply block in its current position by building up a wall of land around it !
A subsidy is when the town council offers you a bonus rate for providing a transport service that they want. For example, if the town wants a passenger service from that town to a neighbouring town, they will advertise in the paper. What you then do, is if you provide that service within 1 year, all fares will be multiplied by a certain factor set in the difficulty settings at the start of the game. E.g. a £10,000 delivery before subsidy would equal £40,000 on a x4 subsidy.
Yes there is. It comes with TTD, and there is also a separate one available.
There is also the add on for TTO. This contains a world editor too.
This problem can happen any time, but less often if you use the Patch and have switched on road vehicle queueing. These jams are caused by a design bug in the road vehicle movement code: a vehicle exiting a station can overlap another vehicle, and then they block one another.
In TTD, you can press the reverse buttons on the vehicles, or try sending them to depots, and sometimes (not always) the congestion frees. If you don't do anything, the congestion will sort itself out by itself eventually (after 20 days or so of gametime), but you'll loose a lot of money while waiting.
In TTO, you can only wait...but I have been told you can press skip.
You're using a totally outdated version of the Patch. Download the newest from http://www.ttdpatch.net.
We recently had a debate on this, and Josef Drexler, our resident expert, reliably informs us with a very long answer!...
This gives the maximum value attainable, the actual rating will grow or decay to that value in a certain amount of time.
Maximum: 271.5, or 106% for people. 334.5, or131% for highly intelligent (yeah, right!) computers
[1] That's how they are calculated internally
[2] Units: passengers, bags, tons or 100 litres
[3] Or 255km/h, whichever is lower
[4] Age: current year - year built (changes Jan 1) of the last carriage with that particular type of cargo
The AI gets higher ratings usually, as it has the extra addition, as is mentioned earlier.
No.
I think the reason is, TTD is really not a Windows program, but only has a sort of shell around it that interfaces with Windows. Inside, it's not a Windows program at all. Therefor you cannot do Windows-things with it, like changing screen resolution.
In fact, everything in the game is hard-coded to act on a 640x480 screen resolution, and even if you managed to raise it, you would have to change a bazillion places around to make any use of the new resolution. If it even is possible.
In TTO, you'll have to use an outside program. But in TTD, in the question mark menu, there is an option to take a screenshot, or a giant screenshot. The latter takes up lots of space though. And make sure, if you play under plain DOS, to fire up a write-back disk cache program (like Smartdrv) first, or your giant screenshot will takes ages. The file is stored in your game directory as a PCX.
In TTD, there is a bug with the screenshot procedure, so a normal screenshot doesn't do anything at all and a giant screenshot produces an all black picture. TTDpatch tries to address this issue, but that doesn't work in all cases.
A frequent complaint when playing Transport Tycoon or Transport Tycoon DeLuxe under Windows95 or Windows98 is that there is a problem with the sound, most often that sound effects don't work.
There are four common problems, two with the Windows-version of the game, and two for the DOS-version.
If you have the Windows-version, try:
If you experience trouble with the DOS-version, try:
If you're using the DOS version of TTD, the sound settings in Windows, those set by AUTOEXEC.BAT and those set by Transport Tycoon's INSTALL.EXE must be the same. In addition, TT only appears to work with certain sound settings. The fussy figures are those for input / output range, IRQ and primary DMA.
The first thing to do is to check your Windows settings. From "My Computer" open the Control Panel, select System and then Device Manager. Scroll down to Sound, Video and Game Controllers, where your sound card should have an entry, hopefully a SoundBlaster emulation. Click on Properties, and then Resources in the new pop up box. Look at the settings for the Interrupt Request, Direct Memory Access (if there's more than one, the first figure), and Input/Output Range (the first figure). If these are set at IRQ5, A220, DMA1, you have a standard set up, and you should have no problems. It might be an idea to uncheck the "Use automatic Settings" box and enter the values manually to ensure Windows can't change them. If you have other figures, your first step should be to see if standard settings can be accepted.
Uncheck the "Use Automatic Settings" Box, and enter the values above manually. Check the "Conflicting Device List". If this shows no conflicts, skip the next paragraph.
If the address of A220 has a conflict, the best idea will be to force the device using it to use another value. The procedure is much the same, but if you need help, just ask. If IRQ5 has a conflict, try IRQ10, which is known to work correctly with TT. IRQ7 also works for TT, but is almost always allocated to LPT1 (your printer port). IRQ2, although listed as an option for TT, does not appear to work. If DMA1 has a conflict, try DMA3.
Make a note of the Windows settings you have settled on. Using your favourite text editor (Notepad or EDIT.COM, for example), call up your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, found in the root directory of C:. This should have a line such as:
SET BLASTER=A220 I10 D1 H5 P300 E620 T6
The first three figures are the important ones. Make sure the figure following A is the primary address set in Windows (hopefully 220), I is the IRQ and D the DMA. If they are different, edit the file to make them agree with the settings you have just forced in Windows. It is a good idea to edit your AUTOEXEC.DOS file to make it agree too, although this will only affect working in MS-DOS mode.
Save all files, close all windows and reboot. Now start the TT INSTALL.EXE, and enter the same values as you have put in Windows System and AUTOEXEC.BAT. All being well, you can now enjoy Transport Tycoon in all its noisy glory!
If despite all this you still fail, you can try setting the Transport Tycoon sound with TRANSTYC.EXE, an alternative sound configuration utility to INSTALL.EXE, downloadable as http://www.btinternet.com/~lfdreams/tycoon/ttyc_snd.zip.
Good luck, and enjoy the game.
Who knows! We all suspected from the beginning anyway that there was something fundamentally wrong in its creation. But never fear, as there are other TT sequels in development. Ask on the NG if you are interested, and someone will reel off a nice list of links for you to peruse at your leisure.
This explanation from Josef Drexler:
It's a series of conditions you must meet, with each condition giving a certain number of points out of the 1000 possible points:
| Max. points | Requirement |
|---|---|
| 400 | 40,000 units of cargo delivered in the last four quarters |
| 100 | 120 trains[1] |
| 100 | 80 station parts, each bus stop, station, etc. counts extra |
| 100 | 10,000[2] minimum profit of all trains at least 2 years old |
| 100 | 100,000 maximum quarterly operating profit in last 3 years |
| 50 | 50,000 minimum quarterly operating profit in last 3 years (i.e. the quarter with the *least* profit must be > 50,000) |
| 50 | 8 different types of cargo delivered in last quarter |
| 50 | 10 million cash |
| 50 | <250,000 loan (ie. zero loan=50 pts, 250k loan=0 pts) |
[1] All money values are given in/have to be converted to British Pounds
[2] For brevity, I say trains when I really mean either trains, planes, ships or road vehicles
If you only have, say, half of the requirement, you'll only get half of the points, it's roughly proportional (except for the rounding). If you have a negative value, you get zero points. So, you work out what you have and add all points you get, and that's your performance rating."
(again from Josef Drexler)
To improve your rating, you could
No, is the short answer.
But fortunately, with the Patch you can get the Windows version of Transport Tycoon Deluxe (not the DOS version, and not the original Transport Tycoon) to run under Win2000 or WinXP.
The DOS version (I repeat this since very few people seem to understand this first hand) will not, I repeat not, run under Win2000 or WinXP. And no, neither will TTO, in any version. Not even if you try VMWare. It's been tried, and failed, because VMWare doesn't include VESA support, which the game needs.
Update your version of the patch to any version higher than 1.9.1 alpha 30, and it'll work as a breeze. If you don't have that version, or if you're a little wary of alpha versions, and rather wait for the definitive version 1.9.1, you can try any of the solutions below:
In WinXP, make a shortcut to Ttdpatchw.exe. Rightclick on it, and in the Properties dialog, select Windows 95 Compatibility Mode. Now you can get the game to run full screen. Unfortunately, this doesn't work on all machines, nobody really knows why.
Win2K doesn't normally have the compatibility mode tab. There is an alternative way of getting compatibility mode in Win2K, by using apcompat.exe. Make a shortcut to ttdpatchw.exe and edit it in this way:
C:\WINNT\system32\APCOMPAT.EXE -v 5 -x"C:\Games\TTD\TTDLX\ttdpatchw.exe"
Of course, you have to adapt the paths to apcompat.exe and ttdpatchw.exe to reflect the situation on your system. DONOT forget the "" and copy the spaces (and not-spaces) EXACTLY as given!
Also, set the option "Start in" to:
C:\games\TTD\TTDLX\
(or whatever the correct path to your game folder is) and set it to run in a normal window. (Sounds daft but works).
An interesting point is that it doesn't seem to make any difference whether you have the compatibility mode set or not, as having apcompat in the path overrides it anyway. Thus, it's probably best if you leave it unset, or at least try both settings if it doesn't work at first.
That's a known problem with the MIDI music on Windows2000/XP. Get the DXMCI files from www.ttdpatch.com/src/ and put them in your TTD folder. Then it should be fixed. Another (easier) solution would be to turn off the music. (Remember to use the 'stop' button, not just turn it down.)
Out of the box, TTD only speaks four languages: English, German, French and Spanish. However, if you go to http://www.csucsposta.hu/csaboka/ttdtrans.htm, you will find:
Yes, you may play TTO via null-modem serial link (2 players).
The World Editor allows you to play via modem.
If you are playing the DOS version, a DOS IPX driver is required. I don't think it's needed for serial or modem play.
Yes, you may play via null-modem, modem, IPX or TCP/IP network.
For IPX, you may use either Novell IPX with LSL or Windows 95 IPX compatible protocol.
For TCP/IP, a standard Windows driver will do. However, it is rather unstable. It must be said though, that TCP/IP games are only available with the Windows version of the game that comes with the Tycoon Collection.
Note that if you're using the Patch, not all options / features of the Patch work. Notably the options that require you to use the CTRL-key won't work in multi-player mode.
We don't believe you can play multiplayer games over the net with TTD, however, there was talk of a TCP/IP protocol emulator called Kali that uses the IPX protocol to simulate a TCP/IP one. Whether it works or not, we don't know. To get Kali we believe you have to pay.
The Win95 version of TTD claims to also do TCP/IP. Since it uses DirectPlay, it should work. The only problem is that it can crash at any time if a network error makes the computers not be in sync.
If you set up a VPN connection (Win2k and WinXP Professional) it's pretty easy to start a network game, and it seems to be stable enough.
I suppose this is due to a game synchronization problem. When this happens, both computers hang at the same time.
To limit data loss, you should use frequent AutoSave.
The local authority, are those that run and expand the city. They have their own opinions, and can make your stay a hard time!
The influence boundary is the radius from the city in which activities such as add campaigns, and exclusive transport rights will operate. If the station is not in the authority that you are advertising or buying exclusive rights in, then the station will not be affected.
It is not possible to figure out the exact places of these boundaries, except for the planting / removing trees issue discussed in section 2.3.5.
For more details, see http://joesbox.cjb.net/lists/ttdpatch/200211/msg00124.html and the follow-ups, especially http://joesbox.cjb.net/lists/ttdpatch/200211/msg00142.html.
Town councils or local authorities may stop you from building when your ratings inside the city council local authority window go on or below Poor. They stop you, basically because they are biased. If you have a low rating, they think that any new stations will also have the same. They will refuse to let you build.
If your rating is Mediocre or lower, the council will also refuse you the right to blow up things.
There are many options in the local authority window. All of them affect gameplay one way or another: -
The only regular way is to plant as many trees as possible within the influence area. This will often be enough.
You can find out where the boundary of the town's influence is with the query tool: click on a tile and the tool will tell you which city it belongs to.
If planting trees doesn't work (enough), hard luck. You'll have to try and use existing stations.
But there is another option: if you use the Patch, you can use the option to bribe the local authority (it's with the other options named in the paragraph above). It costs a ridiculous sum of money, AND you run the risk of getting caught, but it WILL get your ratings up.
Yes. One way to make it easily grow is to fund new buildings. The other ways which take longer include:
A competition is when a group of people get together, and all play the same game of TT, usually a scenario, and all use the same rules. One person or a group of people act as the hosts, and they host the site on which league tables, and saved games may be downloaded. The winner is the one with the highest, or a combination of the highest, factors that were decided at the start of the competition. There used to be regular competitions on several websites and even on this group, but I haven't spotted any recently.
It is always best to check if there has only been one recently on this newsgroup. If there has, then post about one, mentioning that you will not host it for a while, so that you ensure that no one else can take your idea. If there hasn't then the process begins:
Please try and keep your web site updated. People don't like it if there is a week delay in updating the league table ;-)
An add-on for TTO, is the world editor. This is difficult to get your hands on... You could try http://www.jungle.com. Typically, it is called tt_addon.zip or something like that.
TTD does not have any official add-ons, but it does have a number of patches available for it. The Patch that is mentioned in several places in this FAQ is, however, by far the best, most comprehensive and the only one you need to be aware of. Get it, and I do mean get it, at http://www.ttdpatch.net. Be sure to read the documentation that goes with it.
Summer of 2004, an official sequel is released called Locomotion. At this point of time, it's too early to say if it's any good.
For some time, a 3D TT was being developed. We frequently discussed 3DTT on the NG, with us having one of the creators, Peter Dobrovka, present. However, he and his software company split up, and a nasty divorce it was.
A transport simulation freeware game is also in development. SimuTrans isdiscussed on AGMTT, and we also have the author of SimuTrans with us too. This is still very much in development, although it can already be played, and quite enjoyable too. However, the developer would be the first to say it's far from completion. For more info, screenshots and downloading is available at http://www.simutrans.cjb.net.
Some TT enthusiasts are working on an open source version of Transport Tycoon.
Yes, but only if you use TTDpatch (from http://www.ttdpatch.net), and even then, it's still under development. You'll have to download the latest alpha version of the Patch (at http://www.ttdpatch.net/src), filename latest.zip for TTDD or latestw.zip for TTDW); also you need some new graphics files, which are partly available at the same address, partly at Michael Blunck's site, http://www.patagonia.de.vu/ttd.
In other words, you'll have to hassle around a bit, but it'll provide you with some stunning new vehicles, mostly designed by Michael Blunck.
Michael is still working on more (as are some other people) but at the moment you can already enjoy beautiful new ships (which make using ships much more useful too, by the way), two complete new train sets (one specificalle designed for arctic climates, and one general set), and a collection of road vehicles.
Don't forget Traffic Giant, aka Verkehrsgigant: http://www.trafficgiant.com or (for German speakers): http://www.verkehrsgigant.de.
A newer version of this game is Transport Giant: http://www.transportgiant.com
or even Mobility: http://www.mobility-online.de.
and the different versions of Railroad Tycoon: http://www.railroadtycoon2.com.
There are several websites with links, sounds, screenshots, scenarios, patches, competitions, strategy guides, halls of fame, and all that sort of things. Too many to mention, actually, so do a google search.
I'd just like to mention a few though, since they are maintained by AGMTT regulars, and their work is discussed regularly on the newsgroup:
Most importantly, the site of the Patch (you MUST download this): http://www.ttdpatch.net (Additional material for the patch can be found at Michael Blunck's site: http://www.patagonia.de.vu/ttd.)
If you need any information on the Patch, look at the guide resources at http://wiki.ttdpatch.net
Owen Rudge's site, which includes several excellent add-ons (notably the Transport Tycoon Savegame Manager and TTDAlter): http://www.owenrudge.net/TT.
Another site that's full of saved games, scenarios and utilities is The Ultimate Transport Tycoon Game Repository, and can be found at: http://www.gamearchive.uk.tt. This also allows you to rate and comment on games, and has a set of forums.
More forums can be found on TT on http://www.tt-forums.net/.
More websites:
What used to be this newsgroup's official site, http://www.ttworld.cjb.net, is not the official site any more. It still exists though, but chances are that you won't be able to find it, due to some weird referral behaviour. Some browsers won't let you view the site, some will. So try it, though what's on it, I don't know (my browser falls in the former group).
If you're into chatting, you can get help or just conversation about TT on the channel #tycoon on irc.QuakeNet.org (http://www.quakenet.org).
Credit must also go to the regular members of AGMTT, who will have contributed in some form or another.
Jan Willem van Dormolen, Paul Wright, Eddie Bernard and AGMTT.
Copyright © 1999-2001 [TTO, TTD and Microprose]. All rights reserved.
This FAQ may be posted to any newsgroup, FTP or web site, as long as it is posted unaltered and in its entirety.
This FAQ may not be distributed for financial gain [unless you wanna pay me!!!]
FAQ corrections, additions, comments etc are all welcome. Please post them to the newsgroup or where I can receive and review them, or they can be e-mailed direct to me at jw.van.dormolen@hccnet.nl, and your complaint will be dealt with quickly ;-)
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/ End of FAQ