Multiplayer Rules

The multiplayer feature of OpenTTD enables you to play against other people from all around the world. In order to have a fun and fair game, there are some simple rules of thumb you must follow.

Contents

Consequences

Each server may have different rules and most of the servers that currently run are not official open TTD servers which means they are not monitored by any open TTD staff members, server operators or administrators. If you run into trouble try contacting the administrator or operator of the server you are playing on.

By not following these guidelines you may, at the least, annoy other players. Players who continue to play unfairly may find themselves warned, their company reset, kicked or even banned from a server by a server operator.

This varies on a per server basis so if and when a server administrator or operator requests you to stop your current activities because they do not follow the server's guidelines, then do so because excessive rule breaking may result in a ban which might prevent you from playing on any of the official and non official OpenTTD servers.

The Centralised authentication feature will allow people breaking any of the established rules to be banned from playing on the server.

Canonical rules

The following rules apply to each of the servers official and non official.

Blocking access

Don't intentionally block access to industries, large areas of the map or areas that another player is building in.

If you find another player is building where you wanted to create tracks or roads of your own, do not try to hinder their build progress, but build around, over or under it. If they have built it in such a way that this is not possible, and changing it would not be unreasonably expensive, you can politely request that they make a modification. Also, massive land buying is considered unwanted on most servers.

Exclusive rights

Buying exclusive transport rights in a town in which you do not have any stakes also counts as blocking access to industries and is also frowned upon.

Vehicle sabotage

Don't deliberately sabotage your opponents' vehicles.

In OpenTTD this amounts to deliberately building level crossings where your opponents are running road vehicles and attempting to destroy them with trains. Aside from being unpleasant it will damage your own ratings if you have stations nearby.

Another way of sabotage is parking road vehicles in roads that are being used by other companies for the sole purpose of blocking their vehicles.

Constructing detours from roads and tramways and then trapping vehicles is also unfair.

Joining a company

Don't cheat to advance yourself within the game.

Joining a company operated by someone else or starting another company to transfer money to your own company is unacceptable behaviour, unless the originally owning player made it clear that he or she is leaving the game, has no intentions to return and offers themselves or their resources to anyone else who wants them.

Bugs

If you discover an exploit which creates wealth, gives an unfair advantage against other players or prevents the normal operation of the game server, report it to the OpenTTD developers so the vulnerability can be closed.
Don't abuse bugs or exploits because this only harms OpenTTD gameplay and destroys the gameplay of other people.

Chat system

When using the chat system avoid the use of inappropriately gruesome or hideous subjects; remarks which are sexually explicit, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive or excessively obscene vulgar language. Also do not discuss the use or practice of any illegal activity or provide links to sites that contain any of the aforementioned. Remember that OpenTTD games are played by people of all ages.

Revenge

Don't take revenge.

If other people buy all land around your stations or cut you off with rails, road or with the buy land tools do not get "revenge" by blocking their stations or any of the above. This makes you one of them and the server administrators or operators may not be able to differentiate between who started it and may decide to warn, kick or ban both you and the other player who originally started it.

Additional unofficial rules

These rules may not apply universally, but certain communities and certain servers agree to obey these rules to make the game more fun for everyone.

Familiarize yourself

Always follow the rules set down by the server owner.

You can sometimes find the rules at a link in the description on the multiplayer server chooser window, the website of the community that operates the server or via periodic in-server automatic broadcasts.

Road spam

A variant of vehicle sabotage is running a vast amount of slow road vehicles that serve no purpose of additional income to the player on routes that other players are actively using in order to deliberately delay their arrival.

Secondary industry stealing

A rule that prohibits "industry stealing" is where one player starts a more competitive route than another. This rule usually does not apply to primary industries which do not require input (or only accept boosters). Hence competing for the same mines, farms, forests, hotels, oil rigs, etc. are allowed.

Taking products from secondary and tertiary industries is only allowed based on a first-come, first-served basis. The late comers must ask for permission from those who are already serving the industry.

Despite the above rule prohibiting blocking of access, you may block access to secondary and tertiary industries that you have claimed for yourself as per above if you don't want to share them.

Primary industry blocking

At most 50% of the space around a primary industry or town may be occupied by a player.

Funded secondary industry stealing

Some communities consider funded secondary industries private property of the founder where competition is prohibited.

Boosted primary industry stealing

Given a choice, it is considered rude to utilize a primary industry that another player is already boosting.

Settlement road networks

Don't fully build out roads just for the growth in other settlements, because this denies other players access to these roads.

City builder and road networks

(This is a house rule of the Reddit OpenTTD community and is in no way endorsing any given script over another)

Cities owned through the City Builder script are considered property of the player. They are free to fully build out the road network to make the city grow faster if they wish. Other players must not connect to such a city at all without permission.

Trees

Only plant trees if it carries an advantage within the game (i.e., you need to enhance your rating within a local authority) or sparsely for decorative purposes. Don't spam a large amount of trees randomly around the map because that increases the map size considerably and slows down the game and increases the bandwidth costs for everyone.

Beaming

Beaming is stretching the footprint of the station by choosing excessive size or by combining multiple stations (possibly by pressing the Ctrl key), some of them unserved.

If you have a major, established presence within a city (multiple served stations offering lots of cargo and a good rating), you may beam passengers and mail to a limited extent if you have a justified need of access by a larger station (e.g., an airport).

The Reddit OpenTTD community add that "beaming is only allowed over short distances (5-10 tiles) depending on the size of the station"

In any other case, don't beam for the sole purpose of increasing the coverage area, decreasing the travel distance or increasing the station/town rating.

Buoys

Buoys should be built at least once every 20 tiles to reduce server load and a bit more densely around complex bends. See Building buoys#finding-a-suitable-location.

Town trimming

Demolishing an excessive amount of buildings around the station of an opponent in order to make it produce less passengers and mail and/or to not accept any is also unfair.

Town destruction

Don't destroy parts of a settlement without a justifiable reason (i.e., to place your stations that you will be serving). Don't destroy a sizable part of the town.

Unused stations

Having a few unused stations is generally not a problem, because it will also penalize your rating at the local authority and costs maintenance. However, leaving a large number of unused infrastructure laying around may by blocking others, for example bus stops within a town may also hamper building construction or placing stations by competitors nearby as well.

Crossings

Rails have priority over streets. Otherwise construction should follow the rule of first-come, first-served.

Chat spam

References

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