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Transport Inc. Review

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Transport Inc. is a new strategy management game that places you in the role of CEO of a new transportation corporation. It has a laid-back art style and a chill theme with minimal complexity. This is one of the easiest tycoon style games for new management gamers to start with. For those who have experience in this genre, Transport Inc. is one of the games you pick up to just have a chill time at. This review will go over some of pros and cons of Transport Inc and will also highlight the unique features that other games typically miss out on.

Overall, this game is perfect for anyone new to the management tycoon genre because of its easy to start gameplay and the casual theme. You can fully control how fast you want to expand and the game offers various settings to allow you to stay ahead of your competitors while going at your own pace. There is also a reasonable amount of depth if you want to try your hand at micromanaging all of the individual vehicle routes for maximum efficiency. You can either pay no attention to the overall profits as long as you are positive, or you can dedicate more time to figuring out exactly how to maximize your growth. This style of game is appealing for new and old players alike – but experienced players may find the total features slightly lacking in depth.

Best Features

Strikes

Transport Inc has a system where you have to manage how much you pay your employees or they end up going on strike. There isn’t too much depth to this since you really only have a slider that dictates total pay, but the feature itself is great to make things more realistic. As the company expands and time goes on, it is natural for your workers to want more money. This system forces you to consider which vehicles and transportation routes are worth keeping late game. You may have to spend some time digging around the “Routes” menu to figure out which buses can be better allocated elsewhere. Increasing pay pre-maturely also leads to less profits that could be dedicated to expanding your company. However, leaving the pay increase too late could lead to a costly strike that you have to pay a bribe to end. This in itself can set you back – but adequate monitoring will allow you stay ahead of the game.

Country License System

To expand your corporation into other countries (or states), you have to purchase a operating license. Large countries and states will require more money to purchase the license – it can go from $60,000 to even $200,000. This feature adds an interesting strategic component to the game where the player has to consider whether or not the license is worth the investment. Instead of $60,000 going towards more vehicles and routes in your existing territory, will the new territory provide more profitable opportunities? To answer this question, you can check out our beginner’s guide for tips on when to expand. You will have to manage your funds to ensure that you have enough cash remaining to actually take advantage of the new territory while still being ambitious enough to seek out these new opportunities in the first place.

Manager System

Transport Inc. allows you to hire managers that can automate when your buses, trains, and planes are sent off to depots for repair. This prevents the player from being crushed by the huge amount of micromanaging that could occur late game once you have dozens of vehicles all over the map. However, this manager system does come with a cost. The initial cost to hiring a bus manager is $25,000, and buying a depot is another $25,000. At the start of the game $50,000 can go a long way to increasing your profits and growth. The player will essentially have to decide at what point the automation is worth the investment cost. Again, this feature adds to the realism of what the cost of a corporation may look like. Larger companies will need to spend more on management employees to ensure that everything runs smoothly. Likewise, the train and plane managers cost a lot more and purchasing enough depots for all of the vehicles will be another few hundred thousand dollars. Check out Tip #2 in our beginner’s guide for more information on when it is best to hire managers.

Bank Loans and Interest

Like with most business tycoon games, Transport Inc. has a system for taking out loans to invest into your business. One of the biggest differences is that this game is absolutely merciless when it comes to interest rates. Any new players reading this: be very, very mindful of the interest and think extremely carefully about whether or not you actually come out ahead. If you take out a 18% loan without thinking, it can put you back several months just paying off the interest. Make sure that the new route you are investing in will generate enough revenue to actually make the venture worth it. Likewise, a well-thought out loan can definitely boost your company growth by a ton. The bank loan feature in this game is very simple, but also captures the essence of what players need to consider in taking out loans. General rule of thumb that we advise is to avoid any interest rates of over 12% since it becomes much harder to make a good return on.

Chill Music and Satisfying Money Notification

The overall vibe from Transport Inc. is very relaxed and minimizes any stress that you may encounter. Music does a great job of giving you a good atmosphere to just chill out in and enjoy the game. It definitely fits the upbeat, satisfying tone of the game. Likewise, seeing the money go up in your account is also strangely satisfying. Whenever your vehicle reaches a city, you see the passengers or cargo unload and you get a nice green popup in your screen that tells you how much you just made. Overall the developers did a great job in making this game a satisfying experience.

Great Campaign (Tutorial)

This game does a great job of creating a tutorial that draws the player in piece by piece. The campaign starts off with just the basic bus routes and slowly adds more and more features until you are expected to just run the company successfully. I can see how starting this game in freemode with just a few tooltips can be extremely confusing. This approach does a great job of keeping the player engaged. You don’t have to worry about not being able to pick up on the different aspects of the game as long as you finished the campaign.

Natural Disasters and Sabotaging Competitors

There are a variety of complications that spice up this game. You could meet a natural disaster that shuts down all of your routes to a city, or you could experience a boost to income from holiday trips. Anything can happen to both you and your competitors and forces you to stay on your toes. The sabotage system in this game also adds a light level of strategy where you can do things that effectively put you ahead of your opponents. It is not necessarily overpowered, but it definitely does give you an advantage. This feature is enough to give the game that competitive edge, but not overwhelming to the point where it becomes more of a fighting game.

Negatives

Vehicles automatically run even when empty

There is no option at the moment to stop the vehicle from running the route if it is empty (due to ticket prices being too high). This results in an empty vehicle running all the way to its destination and costing you fuel while generating no income. There should be a default option that allows you to stop this from happening. This is especially annoying for new players who don’t have a good sense of ticket prices yet. You could leave things as the default and vehicle could just run with no delay – resulting in a player being set back a ton due to lost income. See Tip #3 on our guide for how to manage this issue.

Star system is poorly designed and provides little feedback to the player

It is a good idea to have some sort of feature that dictates required vehicle quality and how that can affect ticket prices – especially when taking into account the size of the city and needs of the customers. However, the current implementation is faulty in that the user really has no clear idea of how the train stars match up to what the route needs. The general idea of larger cities requiring more stars makes sense – but there needs to be more feedback for the player to use. At the moment, the best way to avoid this issue is to micromanage and change up the ticket prices through multiple trips to find out the best price. However, there should be a system that allows you to copy over the same prices for similar routes once you have discovered one that works. It is very tiresome having to do the same thing over and over again for each and every single route.

Needs a cleaner route interface and an option to adjust ticket price on that menu

Currently you have to go back and forth between the routes menu and the actual train where you can change the ticket price. This adds needless clicking and should be improved so that the player can easily see which routes need some micromanaging. The UI is also a little confusing since it isn’t very clear which number is the trip profit and which one is monthly. A hover-over tooltip would be a great fix and allows the player to see more information about their vehicles.

No option for partial loan repayment

Transport Inc. does not allow you to repay your loan partially. You either have to repay the whole thing, or you just have to get hit with the full interest. Not entirely sure if this is an intended function, but either way it is very frustrating to not be able to chip away at loans. There should definitely be an option to slowly work at it instead of having to do a large save-up of cash. One current fix for this is to take out another loan with smaller interest to make up for the difference you are missing and repaying the loan that way. This can be considered as a way to “refinance” loans to a better interest rate. See Tip #6 on our guide to overcome this issue.

FPS drop late game

Depending on your set-up, you could completely avoid lag altogether. However, I started experiencing some FPS drops as soon as I got more than 40-50 vehicles running (using a budget gaming laptop with 1050 Ti and i5-8300H with 16gb RAM). Keep this in mind if you have a rig that has worse specs. However, Steam reviews seem to suggest that this game runs very well even on older PCs. You may have to tinker with the options a little bit to minimize any stuttering you may experience.

Conclusion

Overall, Transport Inc is a great buy for around $10 and is easily worth the money. It scratches that business management itch very well and includes several features that every good tycoon game should have. However, there are a few gameplay and UI issues that have to be fixed before this game can really shine. I would definitely recommend you pick it up if you like building businesses or if you are new to the tycoon genre altogether. If you are a more experienced player, I would recommend waiting for a sale or until these issues are fixed.

Thank you all for reading and please check out our Transport Inc Tips and Guide for how to get started in the game. Also follow us on Twitter to stay up to date with our guides and reviews! 🙂

Guides

Transport Inc. Tips and Guide

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Transport Inc. is a management tycoon game that places you in the role of CEO of a large transportation corporation. It is your job to develop a profitable transport system that consists of buses, trains, and planes. You have to determine the most profitable routes – accounting for variables such as demand for comfort, length of trip, travelling speed, and even what your opponents are doing. Overall, Transport Inc. is a game that fits right into the business building niche and is a fresh look at casual management gaming. For more information check out our Transport Inc Review.

This guide will go over some of the best tips to get started in building your own transport conglomerate!

Tip #1: Start with multiple buses instead of trains

It is tempting to take out a big loan at the start of the game and buy the license to use trains. Unfortunately, this usually leaves you with very little cash flow and extremely slow growth. Start off with multiple small buses that run between small cities to maximize growth and minimize need to reduce ticket price.

This method is also great to min-max your early game profit since you can pin-point exactly how much transportation is needed to satisfy all of the routes from a city. If you are a new player, this method gets you used to the idea of which buses are the best for which types of cities.

Tip #2: Use a manager once you have 7-8 buses

A bus manager currently costs $25,000 to start using and needs $25,000 to set up the first depot. For a brand new playthrough, $50,000 is a hefty chunk of cash that is much better used to build more buses. It is usually manageable to manually select which buses to repair if you only have around 8-9 buses running.

Also consider the fact that your buses will take quite some time before they really need to be repaired. There is no need to even build the depot until the buses are partly damaged – much less purchasing an office for the manager. The micromanagement of repairs does not become problematic until you have 10-12 buses running in various locations.

Use the cash you currently have to invest in the best possible opportunity in front of you – more buses!

Tip #3: Micromanage ticket prices for new routes

Until you are extremely comfortable with knowing what prices work with which types of buses between which cities, definitely micromanage the ticket price for the first few trips. This is one of the best ways to improve your profitability. Whenever you buy a new bus, estimate what a good price is by comparing the number of stars to the size of cities it is moving between. Typically anything lower than 2 stars should have a lower ticket price if even one of the destinations is larger than a small city. Make sure to do this for both the regular passenger and the high-paying passengers.

If you do not usually like micromanaging prices, consider how much of an impact even 1-2 dollars makes on overall profitability. The price of the ticket is per passenger per 100km – once you mutliply that out by the dozens of passengers you have, it becomes a significant number. This is especially important when you purchase large vehicles that transport a large number of people or goods – remember that each dollar is multiplied multiple times!

Tip #4: Use appropriate buses for the large cities

It is much more profitable to actually use the right buses to transport people between large cities. These routes typically require a higher star rating and a faster speed. If you try to use a low-tier bus that travels slowly, you will end up having to reduce ticket price so much that you could even come close to losing money per trip. You have to either choose the right bus or choose a different route for your investment to make sense.

In the opposite situation, if you choose to use a fancy bus between small cities, make sure you increase the price substantially to account for the cost of the bus. It is okay to use a more comfortable bus in these situations, but they are honestly better used in large cities since the possible profit is higher.

Tip #5: Take out loans in Week 1 and avoid interest above 12%

It might not seem like a big difference, but the extra 3 weeks could potentially save you a ton of money by avoiding interest. If you take out the loan right after the month starts, this gives you the full month to start making money before your first payment. In comparison, taking your loan out in Week 4 means you immediately have to pay back part of the loan with interest.

Keep in mind that this tip depends on your ability to pay off the loan early. If you don’t plan to do so, then you can ignore this tip. I do recommend paying it off early though, since many of the loans are in the range of around 15% – which adds up substantially over time.

The 12% number is just an estimate I use to avoid massive interest rates that take forever to pay off. The usual return on interest will be higher than that 12% as long as you micromanage the ticket price as mentioned above. Feel free to experiment around, but this general rule of thumb has helped me avoid bad loans.

Tip #6: Take out lower interest loans to pay off old loans

This is a function that essentially re-finances your bank loans. Your company will end up paying much less in interest if you constantly monitor for the best possible interest rate.

Keep in mind that in Transport Inc. there is no function to partially pay back a loan. If you plan to take out a new loan to pay off the old one, make absolutely sure that you can loan enough to actually pay it off.

Another tip is to take out the largest loan for a max duration if the interest rate is at 8%. This extra cash will definitely help you a ton in ramping up your bus routes and the max duration means you can definitely pay off the loan early and minimize interest.

Tip #7: Do not blindly acquire competitors

Unfortunately, not all of the competitors are smart about placing depots and repair sites. After acquiring a competitor, I quickly found out that their buses don’t always have access to a depot nearby and it has resulted in a ton of broken routes. If you are interested in acquiring a competitor, please try to aim for the one that is near to you. This way the buses can always route to your original depots if need be.

Alternatively, spend some time after the acquisition to ensure that depots are well-built in their area of the map and that all of their buses are under your manager.

These mergers have the potential to skyrocket your profits since you are essentially adding a ton of buses to your arsenal. Just keep in mind that you may have to spend quite a bit of time micromanaging the ticket prices and new routes to ensure that they are profitable for you.

Tip #8: Click on existing cities to explore which area to unlock next

You can see potential routes when you click on your existing cities. This helps you determine which area has the most demand for your transportation. Typically I like to choose the area that has high demand in cities that are connected to your existing area through railroads. Later on in the game, the railroad system is a great way to supply transportation and investigating the potential of the area ensures you are planning for the future.

This tip is also to prevent you from being mislead by other factors like total number of available cities. More cities might not always be more profitable if they don’t have as many routes to connect to your original hub. More cities also means it is more expensive to license – be sure that this is the right investment before purchasing.

Tip #9: Diversify transportation methods and products moved

Transportation Inc. has mechanics like disasters, holidays, and road closures that can have a huge impact on your transportation empire. Diversifying beyond just buses ensures that you have other sources of revenue in case road closures hit your current routes hard.

Likewise, the product that you move (regular population, high-paying population, goods) will also be affected by a variety of game mechanics. Having a good diversity ensures that you will have as many opportunities to benefit from events as possible, while also ensuring that disasters do not wipe out your entire profit.

Tip #10: Remember to develop small routes late game

It is very easy to be tempted to save up a ton of cash to buy a $3 million plane late game. However, all that time that you spent on waiting for money could have been used to develop a lot more of the smaller routes. These routes individually may not have as much of an impact on your profitability, but developing $3 million worth of them definitely will.

Once you consistently get around $200,000 to $300,000, make a mental note to slow yourself down and re-evaluate all of your current cities. Building a small route to transport 50 people between two cities might not sound like a lot, but every single bit of profit counts.

Also keep in mind that there are very few large routes that are actually available – the vast majority of opportunities are still medium sized routes that only move around 80-90 people at once. Don’t lose sight of all of these opportunities and you will be able to reach expensive vehicles even sooner.

Tip #11: Avoid overfilling routes

Just because the route says there are 100 people needing transportation does not mean that you should place two 50-person buses on that route. It takes time for the population regenerate and placing two buses on this route will just result in wait unnecessary wait times.

Maximize your profit by approximating how quickly the demand replenishes and add/subtract buses to ensure they do not wait at all at either end.

Tip #12: Damage expensive competitor vehicles and close their roads

Once you are consistently making a few hundred thousand dollars a month, take the time to analyze your opponents and identify which routes are most commonly used. Transport Inc. allows you to use nefarious methods to gain an advantage. The most potent of these is the ability to close roads. When used properly, you can very literally put a stop to your competitor’s entire empire. Sure there are a few small routes here and there, but I have found that a lot of the routes your opponents use actually end up overlapping at certain sections.

Likewise, damaging their most expensive vehicle will not only force them to pay for repairs, but will also delay their profits. This slows down their growth and allows your own company to gain the advantage. Destroying enemy vehicles is usually a more expensive option, but you almost always end up coming out ahead once you take into account their lost profits.

Tip #13: Complete the Story Mode

Many players I know like to skip tutorials in management games, but I heavily recommend you all finish the Story mode for Transport Inc. It is actually a very well thought-out tutorial that keeps you intrigued the entire way. The missions are approached in a step-wise manner that slowly adds more features as you move forward. By the time you get to the end, you will have learned how to play the game to its fullest degree.

The pacing of the story is also great since it lets you take time to complete the mission, but also adds a slight pressure since you have competitors that you have to beat. It also locks some features initially so that you do not get overwhelmed and fall into early traps.

One final benefit about the Story Mode is that it places you in different parts of the world with different cities and settings. This gives you a chance to develop skills in analyzing where to expand, instead of just doing the same thing over and over again.

Conclusion

Transport Inc is a fantastic business management game that really scratches that Tycoon itch. It is a great combination of casual gameplay and opportunities for micromanagement. I hope that this guide has been of some help in giving you a smoother start to the game.

Thank you very much for reading and please comment below if you have any questions or feedback! Check out our Transport Inc Review to see if this game is for you.

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