Better Minimap

An overview map of your whole savegame in a small window. See where you are, spot every resource at a glance and jump anywhere with one click.

Open it with the map button in the top-left corner of the screen.

Features

• Your map: the terrain, water and towns of your save, with every industry shown by the icon of what it produces. Point at an icon to see the industry's name.
• Towns by size: town markers are colored by population compared with the biggest town on the map: most towns stay near white, the biggest cities turn gold, orange and red. Towns you don't serve yet (no line, no cargo delivered) stay white and faded, so new opportunities stand out.
• Roads, rails and towns: tick Net to draw your streets, highways (in amber), railway tracks and town buildings onto the map. It keeps itself up to date as you build or bulldoze, redraws only what changed, and costs nothing while switched off.
• Stations: tick Stn to mark airports, train stations and harbors on the map with the game's own train, plane and ship icons, on their own or together with Net. Your big hubs are easy to find on a large map. Choose which kinds show in the mod settings.
• High visibility: with Net on, tick Viz for bright, opaque colors (yellow streets, red highways, magenta tracks, orange towns) that stand out on any terrain. A mod setting picks whether games without a saved Viz state start with it on.
• Industry filter: with Ind on, tick Filter to open the filter window. Search by industry or cargo (try "grain"), see every industry type on the map with its input and output cargos and how many there are, and tick the types you want. Show all clears it. The filter stays active when you close the window.
• Shift+click to spotlight: hold Shift and click a resource to spotlight it: only its type stays on the map. Shift+click again to show all. Holding Shift while pointing at an icon fades the other types as a preview. Station icons work the same way: Shift+click a train station, airport or harbor to show only that kind.
• Camera box: shows where the camera is looking and follows it as you pan and zoom, with an arrow that points the way the camera faces.
• Click to jump: click anywhere on the map to move the camera there.
• Your map sizes: the button in the header steps through up to four sizes (small, medium and large by default), each set in the mod settings. Pin the window to keep it open while you play.
• Only the controls you use: hide any of the Ind, Filter, Net, Viz and Stn checkboxes in the mod settings.
• Remembers its position, size, pin, the Ind, Net, Viz and Stn toggles and the industry filter, also after loading a save. A pinned minimap opens again by itself.
• The map updates on its own when the terrain, towns or industries change.

Settings

• Top bar button (default Icon): the button that opens the minimap. Icon: a map icon on a dark tile, like the game's data layers button. Text: the word "Map".
• Map sizes (default 3): how many sizes the size button steps through. With 1 the map has one fixed size and no size button.
• Map size 1 to 4 (default 200, 380, 560 and 800): the long side of the map in UI pixels for each size, from 160 to 800. The sizes are sorted smallest first.
• Size button (default Magnifier): a magnifying glass that steps to the next size, or a row of numbered buttons, one per size (1 being the smallest), to jump straight to any size.
• Map toggles (default Header icons): the Ind, Filter, Net, Viz and Stn toggles as small icon buttons in the minimap's title bar, or as labeled checkboxes under the map.
• View direction arrow (default On): the arrow in the camera box.
• Camera box color (default Teal): the color of the camera box and its arrow: Teal, Yellow, White, Orange, Magenta or Red.
• Show industry / filter / network / high visibility / stations checkbox (default On): Off removes that checkbox and what it shows from the window. Without Ind there is no Filter either, and without Net no Viz; without Filter, a saved industry filter and Shift+click still work.
• High-visibility network colors (default Off): the Viz checkbox's starting state in a game that has no Viz state saved yet, and the network colors whenever the Viz checkbox is hidden.
• Town colors by population (default On): colors the town markers by population and fades the towns you don't serve yet. Off: the game's own white town markers.
• Stations: train stations / airports / harbors (default On): which kinds of station Stn shows. With all three Off there is no Stn checkbox.
• Debug: performance log (default Off): writes timing lines to the game's log file every 30 s. Only for tracking down slowdowns.

Settings can be changed whenever you start or load a game.

Notes

• Reads the game state only and never changes your save. Safe to add to or remove from an existing game.
• The remembered window settings are stored in the savegame, so each game keeps its own. Save the game to keep changes.

More from square

Most popular

Lines and passengers

Industry and supply

Roads and building

Screenshots and camera

Interface

Testing tools

Towns & Streets: Texas · California · Pennsylvania · New York · Florida · Alaska · Washington · Arizona · Oregon · Minnesota · Colorado · Hawaii · New Mexico

Changelog

Revision 18 (2026-10-28)

• New: highways have their own color on the Net layer: amber, and red with Viz on.

Revision 17 (2026-10-27)

• New: Shift+click a train station, airport or harbor to show only that kind of station; Shift+click again to show all. Holding Shift while pointing at a station fades the other kinds.
• New: setting "Camera box color" (Teal, Yellow, White, Orange, Magenta or Red) for the camera box and its arrow.
• Changed: the camera box is teal by default (was yellow), with a thinner outline.
• Fixed: the camera box stays on top of the icons after switching a layer on.

Revision 16 (2026-10-24)

• New: town markers are colored by population compared with the biggest town on the map: most towns stay near white, the biggest cities turn gold, orange and red. Towns you don't serve yet (no line, no cargo delivered) stay white and faded, so new opportunities stand out. Setting "Town colors by population" (On by default); Off brings back the game's own white markers.
• Changed: roads and tracks stay sharp and unbroken at small map sizes, and switching sizes is instant.
• Changed: the network layer uses much less memory.
• Changed: the size button comes first in the title bar, the Stn toggle shows a plane icon, and the title bar toggles are round like the pin.

Revision 15 (2026-10-24)

• New: a medium map size between small and large.
• New: settings "Map sizes" (1 to 4, default 3) and "Map size 1" to "Map size 4" (160 to 800 UI pixels, defaults 200, 380, 560 and 800) choose how many sizes there are and how big each one is.
• New: setting "Size button" (default Magnifier): the magnifier steps to the next size; Numbers shows a small button per size, so any size is one click away.
• New: the Ind, Filter, Net, Viz and Stn toggles are now small icon buttons in the minimap's title bar. The setting "Map toggles" brings back the checkboxes under the map.
• Changed: the magnifier button is now the same size as the pin.
• Fixed: long tooltips (industry filter, high visibility) are broken into short lines.

Revision 14 (2026-10-22)

• New: the Stn checkbox marks airports, train stations and harbors on the minimap with the game's own train, plane and ship icons, on the plain map or together with Net. Three settings, "Stations: train stations", "Stations: airports" and "Stations: harbors" (On by default), choose which kinds it shows. Thanks for the suggestion!
• New: settings to hide the checkboxes you don't use: "Show industry checkbox", "Show filter checkbox", "Show network checkbox", "Show high visibility checkbox" and "Show stations checkbox" (all On by default).
• New: setting "High-visibility network colors" (Off by default): the Viz checkbox's starting state in games that have no Viz state saved yet, and the network colors when the Viz checkbox is hidden.

Revision 13 (2026-10-21)

• Fixed: with the minimap pinned, the cab, follow and free camera views no longer fill the game's log file with thousands of lines. The minimap now simply waits while those views hide it.
• New setting "Debug log" (Off by default): the minimap's detailed notes on map builds, the camera box and the network layer are only written to the game's log file when it is On.

Revision 12 (2026-10-20)

• Changed: the remembered window settings (position, size, pin, the Ind, Net and Viz toggles and the industry filter) are now stored in the savegame instead of the game settings, so each game keeps its own. Settings remembered by earlier revisions start fresh once.
• Fixed for PlayStation 5: the minimap window no longer risks crashing the UI where the console's game lacks the ESC key handling the PC version has.

Revision 11 (2026-10-17)

• Fixed: a minimap window moved close to the top of the screen now opens where you left it, not lower down.

Revision 10 (2026-10-13)

• The top bar button now has the same spacing as the game's data layers button and other mods' buttons, so a row of buttons looks even.

Revision 9 (2026-10-12)

• The game's data layer windows (Infrastructure, Traffic and the others) now open below the top-left button row instead of under its buttons.
• Changed: the "Top bar button" setting now defaults to the map icon, which now stays pressed while the minimap is shown, like the game's data layers button.
• Fixed for PlayStation 5: the minimap and industry filter windows no longer crash the UI when they open. A window option the platform doesn't support (such as the close button) is left out instead.

Revision 8 (2026-10-10)

• Fixed: fewer stylesheet rules (33 → 22), so large mod sets no longer hit the game's load crash (the game crashes on load when mods add too many style rules).

Revision 7 (2026-10-10)

• New: the minimap also works in the map editor. It redraws when you generate terrain or towns, add industries or resize the map.

Revision 6 (2026-10-10)

• New: translations into Russian, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Japanese, Korean and Chinese (Simplified and Traditional). The mod follows the game's language setting.
• The control row under the map sizes itself to the length of the translated labels and moves controls to a second row when they don't fit. The hints in the filter window wrap instead of being cut off.
• Fixed: long industry names in the filter list (common in Russian and German) are shortened with "..." instead of running into the cargo icons. Point at a shortened name to see it in full.

Revision 5 (2026-10-10)

• New: the Net toggle draws streets, railway tracks and town buildings onto the map and keeps them up to date. Off by default.
• New: the network is built in small steps spread over many frames and drawn as separate strips, so only the parts of the map that changed are redrawn. Building or bulldozing doesn't make the game stutter, and switching Net off and on again shows the map instantly.
• New: the Viz (high visibility) toggle, shown while Net is on, draws the network in bright, opaque colors. Switching it is instant and doesn't read the map again.
• New: industry filter. Hold Shift over an industry icon to dim the other types, Shift+click to show only that type, Shift+click again to show all.
• New: the Filter box (shown while Ind is on) opens a filter window: search by industry or cargo name, a checkbox per industry type with its cargo icons and count, and Show all. The filter is remembered.
• New: mod setting "Top bar button" to show the minimap button as the word "Map" (default) or as a map icon.
• Changed: the S/L size button is now a magnifier icon in the window header, and the header no longer shows a "Map" title.
• Changed: the view direction arrow is now a slim white triangle.
• New: an optional performance log for troubleshooting (mod setting "Debug: performance log", Off by default).

Revision 4 (2026-10-07)

• Changed: no longer warns when removed from a save; it is safe to remove at any time.

Revision 3 (2026-10-07)

• New: the minimap remembers its position, size, pin and industry toggle after you load a save or restart the game.
• New: a minimap that was pinned and open opens again by itself after a load.
• Changed: the small size (S) is smaller.
• Changed: the size button now switches between small and large only; medium is gone.

Revision 2 (2026-10-07)

• New: an arrow in the camera box that points where the camera is looking.
• New: the arrow can be switched off in the mod settings ("View direction arrow").

Revision 1 (2026-10-07)

• First release.