Industries and cargo in Transport Fever 3

Transport Fever 3 turns cargo into something with a clock attached. Every cargo type has a delivery window, and missing it costs you the goodwill of the city at the other end.

Delivery windows by cargo type

The clock starts when you collect

This is the detail that changes how you plan. Production does not start the timer. Cargo waits in the factory's own storage without spoiling. The countdown begins the moment your vehicle picks it up, and stops when it is delivered.

A long line with a slow turnaround is more dangerous than a short one. Once the load is on board, the clock is running.

Warehouses buy you time

Goods stored in a warehouse get an extended delivery date. That gives you a buffer to move bulk cargo in stages and still hit the deadline, which is the main reason to build one.

Passengers work differently

Passengers do not have a cargo timer. They build an expected itinerary, including transfers, and judge the real trip against it. The measurement starts when they reach the first station on their route.

A passenger travelling from one town to a shop in another might plan a bus, a train and a short walk. If the bus connection swallows the slack, the rating drops even though every leg ran.

Maintenance feeds into this

Vehicles do not break down. Poorly maintained ones raise their noise and pollution output and lose top speed. Put those vehicles near a city and its growth suffers, which is one more way the cargo system and the city system are wired together.

Over 30 industries, up to 12 end products per town

The studio expanded the industry count to more than 30. A single settlement can demand up to 12 different end products, and the mix depends on the environment you are playing in. Building an agricultural economy in the tropics and heavy mining in a desert ask for completely different networks.

Early settlements start with a couple of basic goods and their demands grow with population. That scaling is deliberate: it moves you from simple deliveries into multi-stage production, the studio's own example being books.

Industry grows where it makes sense

• Industry opens new facilities in response to demand rather than on a fixed timer
• The more you use a raw material supplier, the larger that supplier becomes
• Industries spawn in suitable biomes: quarries in mountains, oil refineries near water
• Each industry tree has branches that only appear in certain climate zones
• Planning badly can block an industry's expansion before you notice

Warehouses are logistics hubs, not sheds

A warehouse stores and distributes resources from several sites at once. You can specialise one for liquids, bulk materials, finished goods or flatbed components, or leave it as general storage when you need flexibility.

Trucks can also complete their routes directly inside an industry, which is quick to set up and slow to run. That trade-off is what makes a warehouse worth the land: cargo waits there instead of clogging the factory.

Station modules change throughput

Modules are not only for passenger stations. A dedicated bulk material module at a truck stop turns deliveries around much faster, at the cost of extra land and additional pollution. Pair it with vehicles built for bulk cargo and the gain compounds.

Pushing an industry past its normal ceiling

At some point one raw material supplier stops keeping up. Rather than immediately connecting a second supplier, you can supply the existing industry with additional workers or specialist products such as machine parts, which lifts production above its normal capacity.

Subsidy contracts pay you while you build, and turn into a penalty if you fail them. The studio's own description of the mechanic is risk versus reward.

Offshore industry

Offshore production was added, which gives you a reason to build a fleet of ships and, if you like, to move cargo by helicopter instead. The studio's own comment on the helicopter route was that it would look cool and they had no idea whether it would be efficient.

FAQ

Sources: Squirrel hands-on report, Official First Look: Industries and Cargo, Official First Look: Highlights. Transport Fever 3 is a trademark of its respective owners.