TRANSPORT TYCOON SEMI-FAQ
A FAQ for those who need more, more, more information and strategies about Transport Tycoon.

Part 12: Miscellaneous

1. Are there any cheat programs?
2. Can I run TTD without the CD?
3. The scenarios that come with TTD
4. Does TT have any keyboard shortcuts?
5. Difficuly settings
6. Game options
7. TT Mailing List
8. How does the game calculate station ratings?
9. How can I increase my company's performance rating?
10. How do I become "Tycoon of the Century"?

Are there any cheat programs?

Yes, in the last couple of years three programs have emerged which alter TT Deluxe's functionality:

- Josef Drexler's TTDPatch - This program runs on top of TTD and alters the game's behavior on the fly. One could almost consider TTDPatch to be a sequel to TT Deluxe since it applies many different additions and enhancements to the game.

- Dan Mullin's TTD Alter - This program modifies the hardcoded attributes of each of the vehicles. It's possible to build 20,000 MPH trains and turn any aircraft into a helicopter, among other things. TTD Alter runs under Windows (3.1 or 9x).

- Aron Spohr's TTD Cheats - Aron's cheat programs modify the TTD executable, allowing these cheats: (1) build and maintain vehicles at no cost, (2) build any vehicle at any time, regardless of year, and (3) make millions of dollars by bulldozing trees.

In addition to these cheat programs, Chris Becke has published a page with technical details about some of the internals of the game. He is written a small program to decompress saved games into a more hackable format, which opens up the door for future cheat programs.

Can I run TTD without the CD?

Yes! The install program on the CD doesn't copy all of the files to the hard drive. When you run TTD, it has to copy several files from the CD into memory, which can take (on some slow CD-ROM drives) up to thirty seconds. However, if you install TTD manually, it won't require the CD, and it will load much faster. Here's the procedure:

1. Make a directory on your hard drive for TTD. Mine is `C:\GAMES\TT`.
2. Copy all of the files from the CD's `HARDDISK` directory into your TTD directory.
3. Run the `SETUP.EXE` program (from the hard drive) to set up configure your sound card.
4. If you want, you can delete `INSTALL.DAT`, `INSTALL.EXE`, `INSTALL.GIF`, `MPSCOPY.EXE`, and `PKUNJR.COM` off your hard drive.
5. Type `TYCOON` to play TTD.

Disclaimer: This procedure worked for me, but if for some reason your TTD is different, it may not. I am not responsible for any harm you may encounter.

The scenarios that come with TTD

The TTD CD-ROM has several scenarios on it designed by the TT programmers. Most of these are pretty silly, but a few are worth playing. Here are descriptions of each scenario.

Temperate climate

- Scotland
  1950 ~ Largest city: Glasgow, 1,456

  This scenario is based on Scotland, and includes towns such as Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness. Profitable transport services include oil from the oil rigs to Aberdeen Refinery, passengers and mail from Edinburgh to Glasgow, and wood from the forests in the north to sawmills.

- Scotland, 1956
  Saved game ~ November 29, 1956 ~ Largest city: Glasgow, 1,377 ~ $249,612

  This is a saved game played on the Scotland scenario. There are several AI companies, but (as usual) they aren't very profitable. Notice that their train layouts have been designed by humans, not the AI! I'm not sure how well the AI is able to handle these layouts since they aren't the usual no-brainer type. The company that you own hasn't done anything except paying interest on its loan.

- Stepping Stones
  1950 ~ Largest city: Brenfingborough, 1,517

  This map is filled with small islands. Most islands have a town or industry. There are a lot of coal mines, setting up coal transport services can be quite profitable. Also good are passenger services between islands, either with ships or trains. Transporting oil from oil rigs to refineries may also be profitable.

- LinkGame Islands
  1975 ~ Largest city: Fetbridge, 5,690

  This map is dominated by two large landmasses and two small islands. There are four large cities: Fetbridge, Outburg Springs, Gruntown, and Pontbridge. Set up air service between them for a fast profit.

- highlands
  1950 ~ Largest city: Platwood, 308

  The name of this scenario is a little misleading... most of the map is covered with water. One main island and six small islands are the only "highlands" in this map. All the towns are small, so passenger transport is limited. Oil rigs and forests are the best bets for making money.

- bridges
  1950 ~ Largest city: Carham, 1,811

  "bridges" is an appropriate name for this scenario since you'll need bridges to transport anything. A strip of land circles the entire map. Inside is a series of small islands. The best transport services are oil from oil rigs and coal from Fadston to Cunfingbridge.

- The Islands of the Dead Volcano
  1960 ~ Largest city: Plennton, 4,482

  Craters and small islands dots the map in the scenario. Each crater has a town in it -- but nobody actually lives there. This scenario is difficult because all of the industries are far apart.

- West Country 90201
  1975 ~ Largest city: Cardiff, 4,267

  This scenario is based on the area around where Chris Sawyer lives. See above for details. Profitable transport services include passengers and mail from Cardiff to Bristol, wood from the Coalford area to Stroud Sawmill, and cargo from farms to Twekesbury Factory.

- Devils Island
  1950 ~ Largest city: New Chaddinghatten, 992

  Death marks this scenario -- all of the land forms a huge skull.

Does TT have any keyboard shortcuts?

Yes, indeed! Sick of using the mouse all of the time? These helpful keyboard shortcuts will save you time and strain on your wrists.

`1-4` - Selects 4 types of track orientation when building track (and `1-2` for roads)

`F1-F12`, `SHIFT+F1-SHIFT+F12` - Toolbar items (bug: does not work in Scenario Editor)

`Z` - Zoom and center on the mouse
`C` - Center on the mouse

`Arrows` on game world - Normal scroll
`SHIFT+Arrows` on game world - Turbo scroll
`RIGHT-CLICK+DRAG` on game world - Scroll (at mouse speed)
`LEFT-CLICK+DRAG` on map window - scroll the actual game world
`RIGHT-CLICK+DRAG` on map window - scroll inside the map window

`BACKSPACE` and `DELETE` - Close every window (very useful)
`SPACE` - Dismiss message/newspaper windows (the ones that appear on the status bar)

`ESCAPE` - Return mouse status to normal (when builing track, signals, roads, bulldozing etc...)

`ALT+CTRL+DEL` - Brings up the 'Quit to DOS' window (from anywhere in the game). Does not reboot the machine! ...But why would you want to quit TT?

Difficulty settings

Transport Tycoon has three levels of difficulty, easy, medium, and hard, and a custom option allowing you more control of the difficulty. TT is the only game I know of that lets you change some of the difficulty settings in the middle of the game! The following table lists all the difficulty options, their minimum and maximum values, and the values preset for easy, medium, and hard levels.

Difficulty option | Minimum | Maximum | Easy | Medium | Hard
--- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---
Max no. of competitors | 0 | 7 | 2 | 4 | 7
Competitors start time | Immediately | 9 months | 6 months | 3 months | Immediately
No. of towns | Normal | High | Normal | Normal | High
No. of industries | Normal | High | High | Normal | Normal
Max. Initial Loan | $200,000 | $1,000,000 | $600,000 | $300,000 | $200,000
Interest rate | 2% | 4% | 2% | 3% | 4%
Veh. running costs | Low | High | Low | Medium | Medium
Rival construction speed | Very Slow | Very Fast | Medium | Fast | Fast
Intelligence of competitors | Low | "High" | Low | Medium | "High"
Veh. breakdowns | None | Normal | Reduced | Normal | Normal
Subsidy multiplier | x1.5 | x4 | x3 | x2 | x1.5
Cost of contruction | Low | High | Low | Medium | High
Terrain type | Flat | Mountainous | Flat | Hilly | Mountainous
Quantity of sea/lakes | Low | High | Low | Low | Medium
Economy | Steady | Fluctuating | Steady | Fluctuating | Fluctuating
Train reversing | End of line, and at stations | End of line | End of line, and at stations | End of line | End of line

Game options

Game Options, available under the Tools menu, allows you to change several selections about the game.

Currency - selects what type of money the game uses. The "conversion" rates are Pounds - x1, Dollars - x2, Francs - x10, Deutschmarks - x4, Yen - x20, and Pesetas - x20.

Road vehicles - determines whether the road vehicles travel on the left or right side of the road. You can't change this option once the first road vehicle is built.

Autosave - Determines when TT saves the game to the file 'AUTOSAVE'. Options are never, every 3 months, every 6 months, or every year.

Vehicle Design Names - TTD lets you rename the vehicles. If you hit the save button, the new vehicle names will be saved to `VEHICLE.DAT`. You can load in the names by selecting Custom instead of Default.

Distance - Determines whether to use miles or kilometers for speed and distances. The game appears to use the conversion factor 1 mile = 1.6 kilometers, rounding if necessary.

Town names - Lets you determine the random names of towns when a new game world is created. Options are English, French, German, American, Latin-American, and Silly. English or American is the default for the temperate and arctic climates, Latin-American is the default for the tropical climate, and Silly is used for "Toyland."

TT Mailing List

The purpose of the TT Mailing List is to allow players to discuss hints, news, rumors, strategies, and anything else TT-related in an unmoderated forum.

To join, simply input your email address and press Subscribe.

You can also subscribe by sending a blank email to tycoon-subscribe@makelist.com. The email address of the list is tycoon@egroups.com. You can find an archive of previous messages at http://www.egroups.com/list/tycoon.

How does the game calculate station ratings?

Josef "TTDPatch" Drexler sent in details on the formula that TT uses to the ratings of each cargo type waiting at a station. This rating is based on a 255 point scale and is made up of these components:

1. Number of days since the last carrier picked up this type of cargo, based on this chart:

   Points | Days elapsed for all carriers except ships | Days elapsed for ships
   --- | --- | ---
   130 | Less than 3 days | Less than 12 days
   95 | Less than 6 days | Less than 24 days
   50 | Less than 12 days | Less than 48 days
   25 | Less than 21 days | Less than 84 days
   0 | 21 days or longer | 84 days or longer

   Notice that ships receive extra leniency -- they can take four times as long as other transport types and still receive the same number of points. This is a subtle incentive to use ships, especially hovercraft, since they often have higher ratings and thus more cargo waiting for them at the docks.

2. Amount of cargo waiting at the station:

   Points | Units
   --- | ---
   130 | Less than 100 units
   120 | Less than 300 units
   100 | Less than 600 units
   90 | Less than 1,000 units
   55 | Less than 1,500 units
   0 | 1,500 units or more

   For liquid cargoes (oil, water, etc.) one "unit" is equal to 100 liters.

3. Maximum speed of last carrier picking up this cargo (i.e. how modern is it?). This is calculated by: `Points = 0.25 * (LastSpeed - 85 km/h)`. Or, in chart form:

   Points | Maximum speed
   --- | ---
   43 | 255 km/h or faster
   25 | Faster than 185 km/h
   0 | 85 km/h or slower

   Speeds above 255 km/h don't count any more than 255 km/h.

4. Age of the last carrier:

   Points | Age at the end of the current year
   --- | ---
   33 | Newer than 1 year
   20 | Newer than 2 years
   10 | Newer than 3 years
   0 | 3 or more years old

   In the case of trains, the age of the last wagon is used instead of the engine. This provides a nice way to boost your ratings: frequently replace the last wagon while letting the rest of the train age gracefully.

5. Statue in nearest town. Receive a 26 point bonus if your company paid to erect a statue in the city center of the corresponding Local Authority. (So yes, statues are good for something!)

6. Computer player bonus. Companies managed by the Artificial Intelligence receive additional points based on their "intelligence" level as configured in the difficulty settings:

   Points | Intelligence level
   --- | ---
   63 | "High"
   31 | Medium
   0 | Low

   The computer really does cheat...

Finally, to calculate the rating, the game adds up the points from each component and then takes the percentage out of 255. So, if you have 255 or more points, you get a rating of 100%; 127 points gets your 50%, and so on.

Funding an advertising campaign in the nearest town provides a temporary boost to station ratings. However, after some time (six months?), the ratings will slowly converge to where they should be.

Station ratings always change slowly but steadily. Even if there's a sudden boost in performance, the rating will only slowly rise to the value given by the above formula. The opposite is true as well; if you stop servicing a station it might take a few months for the passengers to realize they aren't going anywhere. However, if one your vehicles is involved in a fatal crash, then the ratings in all nearby station could instantly plummet to zero.

Why worry about this?

The rating is used to determine how much cargo is shipped to your stations. Passengers, for instance, would rather avoid going to a station with a crappy performance record, knowing that they might have to wait months, years, or longer for a train to arrive. In cases where multiple stations are competing for the same cargo, then the station with the highest rating (even if the difference is only 1 point) will receive the lion's share. This becomes particularly important when the AI (with its inflated ratings) builds a competing station and suddenly all of your business evaporates.

In the real world, a passenger who keeps experiencing delays in departure might give up, demand a refund for their ticket, and storm off. The same is true in TT; if your station rating drops below 50% then some of your waiting cargo will start to disappear. And if the rating continues to drop, there just might not be much cargo left when your carrier finally arrives.

How can I increase my company's performance rating?

(Much of this information was sent in by Josef Drexler.)

TT ranks each player and AI company on a 1,000 point scale. These points are assigned based on whether each company has met certain objectives. Most of the objectives are proportional: if you fully meet it, then you get the maximum number of points; if you only complete half of the objective, you get 50% of the points, etc. The objectives and the number of points possible for each one are listed below:

Max. points | Objective
--- | ---
400 | 40,000 units of cargo delivered during the span of the last four quarters. This objective is worth 40% of your total rating, so it's important to meet this one if you want a high score. To increase your delivered cargo, you'll need more services, faster vehicles, and more efficient layouts. It would also be nice if several industries increased their production, but unfortunately you have little control over that.
100 | 120 vehicles in operation Since TT will only let you build a maximum of 80 trains (unless you apply TTDPatch), this objective requires you to diversify the services you build. Hint: As far as TT is concerned, one road vehicle is equivalent to one Concorde, even if one is much, much cheaper to build.
100 | 80 station parts Here, a "part" refers to each bus stop, airport, platform, etc., even if several are combined into one station. Indeed, since the number of stations you can have is limited (especially if you have many competitors), you will need to combine multiple services at some of them.
100 | £10,000 minimum profit for all vehicles more than 2 years old This objective is somewhat flawed, because: If you don't have any vehicles older than 2 years old, then you get the 100 points by default. It doesn't take inflation into consideration. Early in the game, it might be difficult for all of your vehicles to earn £10,000 per year. But as time goes on, £10,000 is worth much easier to make because it isn't worth as much. You probably don't want all of your vehicles to earn a profit. You might intend some services to be intermediate "piglet" lines that supply cargo to other vehicles which then take them to their final destination. Road vehicles often don't turn a very big profit, at least not early in the game.
100 | £100,000 minimum operating profit for at least one quarter out of the last 12
50 | £50,000 minimum operating profit for all of the last 12 quarters
50 | 8 different types of cargo delivered during the last quarter This is trickier to achieve than you might think. You have to transport -- and successfully deliver -- eight different cargo types during the past quarter.
50 | £10 million cash on hand
50 | £250,000 maximum loan So, if you are borrowing £250,000 or more, you won't get any points for this. Otherwise, if you have a smaller loan, or don't have any debt, then you get all 50 points.

Note: All of the above monetary figures are in British pounds. You'll have to convert to your preferred currency (i.e. double those amounts for US dollars).

And now, to actually answer the question...

With the above information in mind, here are some hints for maximizing your performace rating (and thus increasing your final score when you reach 2050):

- Many of the objectives involve a fixed amount of money. With inflation, those amounts become easier to attain since they are worth less. Therefore, it might actually be to your benefit to increase the inflation level in the game's difficulty settings. Of course, this might make the game harder in other ways (especially near 2050 when it might cost a million dollars to plant a few trees), so be careful.
- If you can afford it, build lots of vehicles and stations, even if you don't intend to use them. TT will award you the points for having 120 vehicles and 80 station parts even if some of them aren't active.
- Pay back your loans as soon as possible (or at least pay back all but £250,000). This does have the odd side effect of decreasing your net worth (since you have less cash on hand), but if you're making enough profits then this will be temporary.
- Don't let your unprofitable vehicles age more than two years. Sometimes it's strategically useful to have services that don't make any money -- but just make sure they don't eat into your performace rating.
- Avoid any expensive purchases (i.e. building a statue, funding a new industry, bulldozing an entire mountain, etc.) until after you have accumulated £10 million. The sooner your bank account reaches this amount, the sooner your performance rating increases by 50 points.

How do I become "Tycoon of the Century"?

(This information submitted by Josef Drexler)

This chart shows the performance rating necessary to achieve each title in the High Score table when you reach the year 2050:

Performance Rating | Title
--- | ---
0 to 319 | Businessman
320 to 447 | Entrepreneur
448 to 575 | Industrialist
576 to 703 | Capitalist
704 to 831 | Magnate
832 to 959 | Mogul
960 to 1000 | Tycoon of the Century

This chart shows the performance rating necessary to achieve each title on the in-game Company League Table:

Performance Rating | Title
--- | ---
0 to 127 | Engineer
128 to 255 | Traffic Manager
256 to 383 | Transport Coordinator
384 to 511 | Route Supervisor
512 to 639 | Director
640 to 767 | Chief Executive
768 to 895 | Chairman
896 to 959 | President
960 to 1000 | Tycoon

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This page was last updated on March 11, 2001.