Transport tycoon

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Transport Tycoon is a business simulation by Chris Sawyer for the PC and was published in 1994 by MicroProse . The aim of the game is to build a successful transport company. The focus vessels , various road vehicles , aircraft , and above all rail vehicles available.

Gameplay

The player is the manager of a transport company and has to help it flourish. At the beginning of the game, you will find some cities and businesses in the game landscape. The player's perspective of the game landscape is isometric - similar to other games of this time, e.g. B. SimCity 2000 or RollerCoaster Tycoon .

The player can now supply the companies with goods that are needed there or bring goods that are produced there to where they are needed. An example is the transport of coal from the coal mine to the power station. The player is rewarded for this transport and can further expand his company. With the transport to the processing companies, the local production of goods increases. Some companies also process the raw materials and goods into so-called "goods", which can then be delivered to the cities. It is also possible to move passengers and mail between cities.

The game takes place in the period from 1930 to 2030 (Transport Tycoon Deluxe: 1950 to 2050). Over time, other technologies such as the magnetic levitation train will be developed and made available to the player. After the year 2030 there will be no more technological innovations, but you can continue to play indefinitely, but the year number remains at 2030.

Goods and passengers are transported either by land - with road and rail vehicles -, by sea or by air freight . The most efficient way in the game is the overland route with transport by rail vehicles and the use of airplanes. It is possible to build more complex rail systems with signal systems and in this way to optimize the routes of the rail vehicles. You reach the limits of the game relatively quickly here: With an increasing number of trains on the same route, there are very long traffic jams; the delivery times of the goods to the companies are extended. With an even larger number of trains, it can happen that train traffic comes to a complete standstill because there are fewer block sections than trains. The cause of these problems lies in the fact that the landscape - similar to the model railway - is extremely compressed. The track lengths are shorter in relation to the train lengths than in the prototype, which makes an effective, busy route virtually impossible.

It is possible to play against both computer opponents and another human player on the network.

Further development

Transport Tycoon (TT, later also: TTO for Transport Tycoon Original ) was initially a pure DOS game. In 1995 an extension appeared in the form of a "world editor" with which it was possible to create your own maps. The expansion also included a new graphics set, a futuristic Martian landscape with red water, which was missing in the new edition.

Transport Tycoon Deluxe logo

In 1996, Transport Tycoon Deluxe (TTD) appeared, a new edition of the game from 1994, which, in addition to the already integrated editor, contained some detailed changes and additions. Four types of landscape were now available: In addition to the classic landscape from TT (temperate climate), there was also an alpine world, a desert landscape and a toy landscape, each with new economic forms and a new behavior of urban growth. TTD could be played over a computer network, and the game was revised and improved in some details. For example, new signal types for trains and the ability to buy land have been added. Furthermore, it was now possible to buy shares (in 25% packages) from competing companies, which (similar to shares ) could later be sold again at a profit if the company was run successfully or which led to the takeover of the company (with 100% of the company shares). However, this and many other features of TT and TTD were not carried over into the successor game Locomotion .

After TTD initially still ran in a DOS environment, a version for Microsoft Windows appeared a little later . MicroProse then didn't bother with the game. However, an independent Community published to date (2012) regularly unofficial extensions for TTD, so-called " unofficial patches " that expand the original game with additional features, bug repair, lifting restrictions in the original game. In addition to more advanced signal systems and completely new vehicles and graphics, the user guidance has also been significantly improved and, for example, can even be replaced by the Locomotion control elements .

At the end of the 1990s Josef Drexler developed the Transport Tycoon extension TTDPatch , which can be regarded as the predecessor of the TTD clone OpenTTD . With this it was possible to bring extensions, so-called GRFs, into the game. This made it possible, for example, to bring new vehicles, street textures or buildings into play. TTDPatch also brought further improvements.

In July 2013 it was announced that a new version of Transport Tycoon will be released for iOS and Android . Chris Sawyer himself is involved in the development. Beta testing began in August 2013 and the game was released on October 3, 2013 for iOS, Android and Kindle.

Similar games

Locomotion

Locomotion is considered the successor to Transport Tycoon . It was also developed by Chris Sawyer and published by Atari in 2004 . It is built on the same basis as Rollercoaster Tycoon and thus offers much more freedom in building routes and stations. The innovations such as trams and almost unrestricted underground construction are contrasted by many cuts in the details: It is no longer possible to trade in company shares and all opportunities to exert direct, direct influence on competitors and cities have been removed. Because the construction system was also taken over directly from Rollercoaster Tycoon , but was not optimally adapted to a transport game, the construction of the intersection is sometimes very time-consuming and confusing. So you can no longer place track parts freely, but have them built "remotely", as with Rollercoaster Tycoon .

OpenTTD

Start screen of OpenTTD 1.0.0 with game graphics in the background (free OpenGFX graphics set)

In March 2004, OpenTTD , an open source engine, was released, which was created from the disassembled executable original files. OpenTTD is continuously developed and includes the full functionality of the original, the graphic data of which is required to run OpenTTD . Since August 2008, however, the basic graphics can be replaced by free OpenGFX graphics, the original sound files can be omitted and replaced by OpenSFX since October 2008 , so that in principle no files from the original game are required any more. There are also other play elements such as For example, a multiplayer mode over the Internet , the possibility of creating maps up to 64 times the size of the original and significant improvements to the user interface .

OpenTTD is continuously maintained by a large community and is available for the following platforms, among others: Microsoft Windows (95, 98, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 10), Linux , Solaris , BSD (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD), Mac OS X (10.3-10.5)

SimuTrans

Simutrans , a transport and economic simulation with different modes of transport

Individual evidence

  1. http://wiki.openttd.org/TTDPatch/De
  2. Archived copy ( memento of the original from July 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.appblogger.de
  3. http://www.transporttycoon.com/faq
  4. Archived copy ( Memento of the original dated December 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Entry of a corresponding change to the source code @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / hg.openttd.org
  5. Archived copy ( memento of the original from March 2, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Entry of a corresponding change to the source code @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / hg.openttd.org

Web links