Nichdel

Contents

Challenging Casual Server Setup

I manage a small unpatched server where we try to keep things challenging yet fun. It was difficult for me to find configs and explanations, so I'm posting mine here.

CargoDist

Best Explained Here

FIRS 2 Simple City Builder

We're using the "Temperate Basic" economy. Here's an explanation of FIRS and here's a flowchart for this economy

Simple City Builder's menu doesn't correspond correctly to FIRS 2. However, this is our current setup:

Infrastructure Maintenance & Inflation

Inflation is off to make the game easier to join at any point, and to make longer games more viable.

Property Maintenance is on but at 1/4th (through Base Costs newGRF) default, to make the game more challenging but not too difficult.

Vehicles

Realistic acceleration is on.

Trains

OpenGFX+ Trains, which are basically default, with all but toyland active.

Vacuum Tube Trains for that post-2030 gameplay.

SMITS for a nicer looking maglev track.

Progressive rail which makes it possible to run an engine on the next-level-up track, for easier upgrade. Even works with maglevs on vactracks.

Road Vehicles

eGRVTS

Planes

Av8

Boats

FISH

My "Must-use" Client Settings

There’s some big changes you can make for convenience. First, click and hold on the gear, go to settings, change Category to “Expert”. You may want to look through the options, there’s a fuckton of settings you can change. If something is greyed out, it’s a server-side setting or can’t be changed mid-game.

Password protecting your company: In game, click your guy’s face. Go to password, enter a password. NB: If you select “set default password” every company you make will have the same password by default.

Opening/closing the landscaping menu automatically: Go to settings, search ‘landscape’ and select “Link landscape…” It’ll open whenever you do any construction menus.

Showing reserved train routes (makes understanding signals easier): Go to settings, search ‘path’ and select “show path reservations for tracks.” Now when you look at you tracks the part ‘reserved’ by a train will be a darker color.

Misc. Tips

Things I wish people told me when I started.

See how much something would cost? Shift-click.

How do I delete without the selecting the bulldozer? Crtl-click

How do I see past trees, structures, etc? Press ‘x’ or crtl+ any number for more selective.

Make signals the length of a train line without dragging the whole thing? Crtl+click and drag a portion of it. Will make signals in the direction you dragged until the next intersection.

Manage multiple vehicles doing the same thing? Make a single one and give it the orders you want. Hold control while cloning it to make another vehicle with the same orders. If you held crtl, changing one will change both of them. This is the only way to do this, AFAIK, and there’s no menu to find these synced clones, so remember to group them also.

Make stations bigger without making each bit adjacent? Crl+click while placing a station/stop and it’ll pop up a window to combine it with nearby stations. There are size limits.