Transport Economy

COMMUNITY ALPHA (revision 7) - EARLY TESTING BUILD Transport Economy is in community testing. It is not a finished or stable release: expect rough edges and please report what you find. While testing, do not combine it with another economy-overhaul mod (vehicle prices, loans, revenue, subsidies, industry or infrastructure costs), because both would rewrite the same game rules. ACTIVE IN THIS BUILD - Vehicle age depreciation: the purchase price of a vehicle model falls as the model ages (floor: 25% of the original price). Applies to every vehicle type, including modded vehicles that declare an introduction year. Running costs, capacity and speed are untouched. - Task-scaled subsidies: new subsidies are sized to the job (distance, quantity, era) instead of vanilla's flat random amounts. - Subsidy performance bonus: a contract finished well before its deadline can earn one extra reward. - Staged industry decline: industries left without transport service now show warnings and close only after several years of disuse, instead of a random yearly roll. STILL VANILLA IN THIS BUILD Loans, vehicle running costs, passenger and cargo revenue, and infrastructure costs. Works in new games and in existing saves. New rules apply to future gameplay; nothing already in your save is rewritten. THE FULL VISION (not all of it is active yet) Transport Economy is an economy-focused overhaul designed to make building and operating a transportation company feel more deliberate, challenging, and financially connected. Instead of treating vehicle prices, infrastructure, operating expenses, revenue, loans, and economic progression as isolated systems, Transport Economy aims to bring them together into one coherent transportation economy. The mod is being designed around long-term company management across different eras. Costs and financial systems should remain relevant whether a game begins in an early historical period or in a modern era. CORE FOCUS Transport Economy overhauls and balances: - Vehicle purchase prices - Vehicle running costs - Vehicle maintenance - Infrastructure construction costs - Infrastructure upkeep - Roads, tracks, stations, depots, ports, and airports - Passenger transportation revenue - Cargo transportation revenue - Loan amounts, interest rates, repayment periods, and financing - Subsidies and other economic rewards - Era-based economic scaling - Long-term transportation-company progression The objective is not simply to make Transport Fever 3 harder. The objective is to create an economy where investments, operating costs, revenue, financing, and expansion make sense relative to one another. A profitable transportation network should provide room to expand, but major infrastructure projects should still require planning. Loans should provide useful capital without becoming free money. Cargo and passenger operations should both provide viable business opportunities while requiring appropriate investment. As the game progresses through different eras, Transport Economy is intended to keep the financial scale of the transportation industry consistent with the period rather than allowing one static economy to govern an entire century of gameplay. Build the network. Move the people. Move the cargo. Manage the debt. Grow the company. Transport Economy.