Transport Fever 3: Shortcuts and Tools That Save Time

Here’s how to use key shortcuts and settings menus to build faster in Transport Fever 3.

Transport Fever 3 hides many of its time-savers in menus and key combos. This guide gathers them by area, starting with map setup and ending with performance. Controls here use mouse and keyboard on PC.

Unlock Bigger Maps in Transport Fever 3

When you create a map, open Mods to switch on your DLCs or Sandbox mode. The Mod Hub also offers vehicle skins, buildings and quality-of-life mods.

Map sizes stop at Very Large by default. To go past that, open Settings, then Advanced, and click Open User Data Folder.

Close the game, open settings.lua in a text editor, and change experimentalMapFeatures = false to true. Keep the comma at the end of the line, save, and relaunch.

The size list then adds Huge, Megalomaniac and Gigantomaniac. The same flag reportedly changes some economy settings in saves, so keep a backup.

Fund Your First Lines

Subsidies sit behind the purple icons at the top of the screen. Rewards can include level progress in a town or double income for five years, and a worker subsidy for one farm paid 9 million in one run.

If you borrow, check the yearly payment as well as the rate, since the lowest rate can carry almost the same payment as an 11% loan.

Build Lines Faster in the Line Manager

Once a line exists, send vehicles straight to whichever line you have selected in the Line Manager, with no searching through a list.

The depot still has one use. Its Send to Line option lets you choose where vehicles join the route and spread them out evenly.

The list icon in the top right of the vehicle shop switches to a table that lines models up side by side. When you replace a vehicle, the Compare button sets the new model next to the current one.

To change a route, select the line and press Move Stop, then drag the stop to its new place. Hold Shift to add a stop or waypoint, and move waypoints with the same button.

Under Terminals for a stop, set one platform as Preferred and mark the rest as alternatives or Don’t Use. This helps at cargo stations with heavy traffic, or when a route arrives from the wrong side.

A new cargo line can end up loading cargo you never asked for. Delete its stations, click the first one and one more, and set only the cargo you want. Stops you add later keep that setting.

The load you set at a stop is what the vehicle carries when it leaves. To drop part of a full load, set a lower share, for example 50% to unload half there.

Rename lines as the list grows. One button recolors the line and the one beside it recolors the vehicles, so check which you’re pressing.

Use Debug Tools in Transport Fever 3

Press AltGr (the right Alt key) and D to open the Debug Tools in Transport Fever 3. The game marks them as experimental, so save first. If the shortcut does nothing, switch on Debug Mode under Settings, then Advanced.

Toggle the ruler to measure distances. On the Simulation/Threads tab, raise Debug speed above 4 to run faster than 4x, at a cost to performance.

The Asset Manipulator lets you move and change any asset. The debug overlays also show bottlenecks in your towns.

Road Tools That Fix Traffic

In the road menu’s tools, the Lane Manager sets which lanes go where. The same panel decides whether a crossing gets signals, and the signal menu lets you edit or add phases.

Use the Lock tool on roads your buses and trams depend on, and the AI can’t change them. The Alley tool cuts vehicle noise and pollution but lowers top speed.

To stop houses going up along a road, pick any country road in the street menu and use Replace on it. The AI doesn’t build houses along country roads, so lock the road afterward to keep it that way.

Hold Shift for Precision Mode when the game snaps to the wrong object, or press C to switch Snapping off. On a one-way highway, click Replace and hold Ctrl to flip the segment’s direction.

A bus stopped in the road blocks the cars behind it. Add a small crossing just in front of the stop and another just behind it. That cuts the stretch into its own piece.

Replace that piece with a street that has more lanes, then remove the two crossings. Check the connections with the line tool and fix the route, and through traffic can use the middle lanes.

Tracks are hard to join to underground stations. In the street menu, scroll past the smallest roads to Tram Tracks. With a top speed of 100 km/h, they snap in with much less trouble.

Build Through Hills for Less in Transport Fever 3

Keep Follow Terrain on when you build across hills in Transport Fever 3. On one stretch, a road with it on cost about 150,000, while switching it off built a tunnel for about half a million.

Turn on the terrain view while you build, and trace its contour lines with your road or track.

Run More Trains on One Track

When double track costs too much, build sidings. Double one stretch at two to four times the length of your longest train.

Add a one-way signal at each end, each facing the direction trains travel on that side. More than one train can then share the line.

Keep Performance and Costs in Check

Towns in Transport Fever 3 can grow past 12,000 people, and performance drops as the population climbs. In one run, around 40,000 people across the map was the point where the frame rate began to slip.

If your PC isn’t new, pick one map size down, or build a custom map with three or four towns. A map of 40 or 50 towns at 12,000 each will slow almost any PC.

To remove the white background layer, open Settings, then Advanced, and change Enable Background Contrast Layer. You can turn it off for the Module Builder and Lane Manager, for the Line Manager, or for both, though the Line Manager gets a little harder to read.

Build to current demand. Making a station a little bigger for the future can double its yearly cost, for example from about 70,000 to about 140,000, with no extra income.

Skip specialized platforms where cargo already arrives in time, since they load every other cargo more slowly. Grain arriving at 39% of its delivery time doesn’t need one, and horse carts get no bonus from them anyway.

Cut Pollution and Car Traffic

Cleaning Plants remove pollution when you supply them with machines. They add some noise, but they’re worth building.

Every few ranks, you unlock a one-time option to greenify an industry and cut its pollution.

Marketing campaigns push a town toward public transport and run on a five-year cooldown. Start one whenever it’s ready, and pair it with underground trains and other public transport to pull cars off the roads.

Prospecting searches a town’s area for a new resource, and an industry appears when it finds one. It takes a while, so start early.

What to Do Next

Back up your saves before you edit settings.lua. Lock the roads your bus and tram lines use before the town grows around them. Rename lines while there are only a few. Pick a map size your PC can carry into the late game.

Learn the Line Manager shortcuts and road tools early, and size your map to your PC before the network grows.

FAQ

Q. How do I get map sizes bigger than Very Large in Transport Fever 3?

A. Set experimentalMapFeatures to true in settings.lua while the game is closed, then relaunch.

Q. Can I make the game run faster than 4x?

A. Yes, by raising Debug speed on the Simulation/Threads tab of the Debug Tools, though performance takes a hit.

Q. How do I stop the AI from building houses on my roads in Transport Fever 3?

A. Replace the road with a country road and lock it so the AI can’t switch it back.

Q. Why does my new cargo line load cargo I didn’t pick?

A. New lines can grab every cargo type at their stops. Delete the stops, rebuild from two stations with only your cargo set, and later stops follow that setting.

Also check out our Review of the game and other guides below:

• Transport Fever 3 Review
• Transport Fever 3: Beginner Guide to Get Started