Frontier Ranges

Mountain maps worth building railways through.

Frontier Ranges adds a new map type to Transport Fever 3. Every map starts at an ocean coast in a southern corner and climbs inland through a coastal plain, then range after range of mountains, each one taller than the last. Flat valleys between the ranges leave room for towns and industry. Every range has passes for your roads and railways. Three rivers come down out of the mountains to the sea, squeezed into deep gorges where the peaks close in and spreading wide across the plains.

The terrain is built from the game's own mountain shapes, so it looks at home in Transport Fever 3, but it's laid out the way real mountain country is: in ranges, with valleys, passes and rivers that make sense together.

What's on a map

• The coast. The ocean fills the south-west or south-east corner (the seed picks which). Coves, headlands, sandy beaches and a bay where the main river meets the sea. Behind it, a coastal plain of rolling hills: room for your first towns, harbours and a mainline.
• The ranges. Up to three mountain ranges run roughly parallel to the coast, packed from the game's own subarctic and alpine mountain shapes, mixed, turned and resized, so no two peaks look the same. Each range inland is taller than the last; the tallest peaks reach 1,000 to 2,000 m and carry snow.
• The passes. Each range has one or two passes: wider gaps with a saddle a road or railway can climb over. Tunnels are optional.
• The valleys. Flat valley floors about 1.5 km wide lie between the ranges, with a few small rocky knobs. With Highlands on, each valley sits higher than the one before it, so the land climbs inland in steps.
• The rivers. Three rivers cross the map: the main river runs from the far corner down to the bay, and two tributaries join it on the way. A river grows as it gathers water, downstream and at every confluence. Between mountains it runs narrow, deep and rocky; out on the plains it spreads wide and calm, up to about 750 m across near the sea. Every river stays at least 8 m deep, so ships can use them.
• Banks you can bridge. The land beside a river stands well above the water on a steep bank, so a bridge built from the bank clears your ships. Every river also has low floodplain stretches, about 1 km in every 6 km, for harbours, riverside towns and low crossings.
• Forest and the far interior. Spruce and birch forest covers the hills and lower slopes, with rock and scree on the steep ground and snow on the high peaks. When the map has room behind the last range, a dry mesa desert with rock pillars finishes it off.

Getting started

1. Subscribe to Frontier Ranges.
2. Start a New Game. Under Map Settings, pick Frontier Ranges from the climate list and Gigantomaniac as the map size (see Map size below). It has its own climate, so it's listed next to the stock climates, not inside one.
3. Set the sliders (below) and pick a seed. The map preview shows the coast, ranges and rivers before you commit.
4. Make sure Frontier Ranges is enabled in the Mods step, then start the game.

Map size: play it on Gigantomaniac

Frontier Ranges is made for the game's experimental map sizes. Ranges are real mountain ranges with flat valleys between them, and a range that doesn't fit is left out, never squeezed, so the map size decides how many you get:

• Gigantomaniac (28.7 km): the full experience and the size it's built for. Three ranges at Narrow or Normal valley width, two or three with Wide valleys.
• Megalomaniac (24.6 km) and Huge (20.5 km): two ranges.
• Very Large and smaller: one range between the coast and the far interior. It works, but it isn't range after range.

Use the square (1:1) map format: that's what the layout is tuned for.

Turning on the experimental sizes: subscribe to a map-size mod such as Large Map Sizes, or close the game and set experimentalMapFeatures = true in your settings.lua. Huge, Megalomaniac and Gigantomaniac then show in the Map Size list. The game's wiki recommends at least 16 GB of RAM for these sizes.

Sliders (defaults in brackets; every slider has a tooltip with the exact numbers)

• Mountain height [High]: the tallest peaks, about 1,000 m (Low) to 2,000 m (Alpine). The first range is the lowest, the last the tallest.
• Ranges [Three]: two or three ranges, as many as fit on the map size (see Map size).
• Valley width [Normal]: the flat floor between ranges, about 1.2 km (Narrow) to 3 km (Wide).
• Plains relief [Gentle]: how tall the rolling hills on open land are, about 45 m (Flat) to 265 m (Rugged). Valley floors get a quarter of that.
• Forest cover [Normal]: from about 40% to 160% of the normal amount of forest.
• Ocean size [1/8]: how much of the map is sea, from 1/16 to 1/4.
• Gorge steepness [Steep]: how steeply a mountain drops to a river at its foot, grades of about 35% (Gentle) to 85% (Sheer).
• Highlands [Medium]: how much higher each valley sits than the one before, 0 to 400 m. The rivers stay low; the land climbs to each valley's level on rounded banks.
• River banks [Medium]: how high the land beside the rivers stands above the water, about 4 m (Low) to 30 m (Very high).
• River contrast [Medium]: how strongly the land shapes the rivers. None: width and depth follow the water each river carries. Higher settings make rivers between mountains narrower and deeper, and rivers on the plains wider and shallower.

Tips

• Follow the rivers. They cut through the ranges, so they're the natural low route inland. The gorges make for good rail lines along a cliff above the water.
• Use the passes to cross a range without a long tunnel, or tunnel under the saddle for a short one.
• Harbours and low bridges go in the floodplain stretches. Everywhere else the banks are high enough to bridge over shipping.
• Towns grow on flat ground. Expect them on the coastal plain and valley floors, not in the mountains. Wider valleys and lower Plains relief give more room.
• A tamer map: Low mountains, Wide valleys, Highlands None and River banks Low.
• A hard one: Alpine on Gigantomaniac, Narrow valleys, Sheer gorges and Very strong river contrast.

Good to know

• Saves: keep Frontier Ranges enabled for games started on its maps. Updates keep the same ids, so existing saves keep loading.
• Other mods: Frontier Ranges has its own climate. Mods that only register their assets for the stock climates won't show those assets on Frontier Ranges maps. Mods that change vehicles, stations or the economy aren't affected.
• Rivers are at sea level. Transport Fever 3 has a single water level, so every river runs at sea level and keeps a low corridor through the land. There are no rivers or lakes perched up in the high valleys.
• Your other maps are untouched. Frontier Ranges adds a new map type and changes nothing else, not even the stock climates.
• Found a problem? Post the seed, map size and slider settings with a screenshot. The same three always rebuild the same map.
• The gallery images are renders of the generator's terrain; the in-game textures, trees and lighting look different.