Once you're familiar with how the vanilla game works, it can be fun to play a long game of OpenTTD, with NewGRFs (mods) making this possible - Or you can even just start early, and set the "Scoring End Year" setting under "World Generation" to whatever you feel like. Using a game script such as "Villages is Villages" (see below) keeps the game world more static and stalls town growth without player intervention, making a long game more feasible than it used to be.

In my current long play OTTD game, I've so far (July 2021) played between 1830 and 1990 in-game using a combo of the NewGRFs shown in the below screenshot - All seems working, and fun, and there's still plenty to do on the large map I made to see me out until 2100, if I choose to get that far.



Scroll down for more details on these NewGRFs, and there are different options available too.

I had an 1830/1850 start in mind when putting the following list of NewGRFs together, though you can start earlier, depending on what set of NewGRFs you use.

Before starting my current game of OTTD, I did some testing with the different NewGRFs first to see how they might behave over the course of an entire longplay or early start game: Starting test games on different dates with the "Vehicles Never Expire" setting both on and off to see what's available, when, and what stays available, building a few experimental networks with Maglevs and VacTrains.

Any of the variations listed below should work, as long as you poke and play around with the NewGRF parameters first, though it's a bit of mix and match, with some inconsistencies depending on what NewGRFs you have running along side each other, but not in a game-breaking way (as far as I've seen).

Boats (Squid Ate FISH/red FISH) stop being released after 2008, and there are no new aircraft beyond the 2040s (with the av8 Aviators set), though the most useful boats and aircraft stay available until 2100. eGRVTS (if used) combined with Hover Vehicles keeps on releasing road vehicles though, as does the VacTrain set which releases its last vehicle in the 2090s - And trains are the main focus of OTTD.

Most aesthetic mods should work with all variations of this combo too, like the ones which add different stations and placeable objects - I won't list all of them here, that'll be up to you, but I will recommend:

* The different OpenGFX packs (though you'll probably want to configure “OpenGFX+ Trains 0.3.0” differently, depending on your main train set! See below)
* Industrial Stations Renewal
* Chips Station Set
* “Useless Tracks” which add planning tracks, good for planning train networks in early game since they cost no maintenance

Firstly, you'll want to choose a game script (“AI/Game Script Settings” in main menu) to stop cities and industries from growing wildly, taking over the map and getting out of hand, especially during extended play.

You can only have one script active at a time. I recommend:

* Villages is Villages - All singing, all dancing. Completely changes the behaviour of OTTD for a long game and is very highly customisable, offering many options! Take at look at its "ReadMe" file to learn how to configure it.

SUGGESTION: Firstly, reduce vehicle running costs by half in their respective NewGRF settings (if used), then try turning on the optional “Economic Setting” in the "Villages" script settings for a harder single player game (new game only), which sees your company income get taxed, and you'll be paying dividends each year, depending on how much money you have - This also affects city growth world-wide, so it actually means something, too.

It'll also stop *you* from growing too quickly as well, forcing you to pace yourself - Which is what you want for a long game! :) Your ability to build and expand will depend entirely on how much income you can make.

That being said, VacTrains in the future are VERY expensive, so I don't yet know how having the economic settings on will affect being able to afford them - Though there is a cap to the dividends, and you have 150+ years to build up your yearly revenue first before they become available. The economic settings can always be tweaked mid-game to make things easier if you need them to be (via Script settings)

* City Controller - Carefully manages cities depending on what's transported to them, like the above “Villages” script does, but with fewer options.

* City Growth Limiter - Simply stops towns and cities growing above a certain size until a percentage of mail and passengers is transported. Not as complex as the above two scripts.

And there are others out there too which behave differently. Take a look.

Industry NewGRFs (choose one, they're not compatible with one another):

There are a few to choose from, they help spice up the gameplay a little.

* FIRS Industry Replacement - Fun, with many different options, and several different basic or complex economies to choose from (through “Set Parameters”). Either of the four versions are great, but obviously Version 4 is newer and a bit more refined than the previous three. All are well documented too, with cargo flow charts - Search for the documentation through the Transport Tycoon forums.

Also look at the “Extreme Industry Set”, a fork of FIRS, but somewhat less well documented.

* ECS - Complicated to set up, but much like FIRS, adds a bunch of new industries, except that The ECS Industry NewGRFs are modular, allowing you to choose how complex you want your gameplay to be. I don't recommend playing with this set while you have the "Economy" settings in the "Villages" script turned on: Making money with this industry set seems to be difficult since production values are initially very low - Primary industries like mines also have a limited amount of resources before they close. Each module has a bunch of parameters/settings to play with, though.

For more simple play,* Improved Town Industries NewGRF mixes up the default industries - It goes hand in hand with * Improved Town Layouts, which seems to be compatible with "Total Town Replacement Set" (but I've not tested this extensively). Certain industries are only available after a certain date, and produce more but generic cargoes that can be swapped between industries to increase production. Most industries also produce and receive passengers (as workers) based on their production. It also adds an optional Waste > Recycling Centre and Nuclear Power cargo chains. Check out its documentation on the Transport Tycoon forums (search for it!).

You can also instead choose a different industry grf that simply adds an extension to the default, such as * Pikka's Basic Industries or * Tal Industries.

Towns:

* Total Town Replacement Set 3.14 - Early Mod - Get the "Early Mod" version, a tweak of the original mod which changes its behaviour for gameplay from the 1700s. It also tweaks the population of some buildings.

* Timberwolf's Roads - Optional comprehensive NewGRF of roads and tramways, with new ones released over time with increased speed limits. You can convert between each road types. This NewGRF alters gameplay. Be sure to view the ReadMe!

Alternatively, use "Country Roads" instead if you want something more simple which leaves unlimited speed town roads untouched (but play with the mod parameters if you want all your vehicles to use the Country Roads dirt tracks).

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More detailed info on Timberwolf's Roads (skip to the next section of this guide if you like):

This mod is quirky and may break towns if not used correctly: Towns don't upgrade their roads over time, and only build new era-appropriate roads as they expand. You can upgrade/convert them yourself manually, but be careful: Towns cannot build on the fastest road types: "A Roads" and "Motorways", so don't convert town roads to them!

You cannot downgrade town-owned roads once converted, unless you demolish them (affecting your hard-earned reputation). However, your own company roads (that you build, and are owned by you) are unaffected and can upgraded or downgraded as you wish.

Concrete Roads (1900) vs Town Roads (1950):

In addition, towns will let you upgrade their roads from:

Unpaved Track (1700s) > Sett Road (25 mph) (1800s) > Concrete Road (30 mph) (1900)

- or -

Unpaved Track (1700s) > Sett Road (25 mph) (1800s) > Town Road (30 mph) (1950)

But they won't let you upgrade their roads from:

Concrete Road (1900) > Town Road (1950, more modern appearance, same speed limit) unless electrified with trolley bus wire.

It's cosmetic only, but may bug you if you use road vehicles, and don't want to wait the 1950s to upgrade "Sett Roads" to "Town Roads".

Using the "Fund Local Road Reconstruction" after 1950 will replace some concrete roads with town roads randomly (while causing traffic disruption), and you can always demolish those ugly concrete roads and replace them with your own roads too if you don't want to wait, but at the cost of your reputation.

You can also upgrade from "Concrete Road" > "B Road (40 MPH)" (unless electrified!), and towns can still build on "B" roads, but "B" roads cannot be electrified for trolley busses (Timberwolf's Road Vehicle Pack).

Also, AI competitors (if you choose to play with them) will not upgrade roads they build, because they aren't programmed to - You'll have to cheat (“CTRL” + “ALT” + “C” on PC) and take control of them to get them to do so.

You can swap this out for what train set you like. Good sets I've experimented with are:

* Timberwolf's UK Trains is a great UK-based set for an early start, with horse-drawn trains in the 1700s, with a wide selection of real-world vehicles until 2020 (when vanilla Maglev becomes available, enabled with “OpenGFX+ Trains”, see below), with accompanying station and track NewGRFs (search for "Timberwolf"). Graphics are high resolution, with trains tilting up and down slopes, and turning smoothly around corners.

Bear in mind that this set has different speed limits for passenger coaches and mail wagons, with many EMU and DMU trains being only able to carry passengers without allowing to attach mail wagons to them - This limits their usefulness for town growth if playing with a limitation script. I get around this by building separate tracks for mail routes alongside passenger ones. The set is fun otherwise. :)

* UK Railway Set (UKRS2) + the Addon set - Classic NewGRF set by Pikkabird. UKRS2 offers a wide selection of trains from 1830. Trains have running sounds and optional real-world colours (which look better than the default company colours!). The set stops releasing vehicles consistently after 2002-ish (the last one being 2016), after vanilla Monorail becomes available (with “OpenGFX+ Trains”).

* Iron Horse 2 – I didn't do this set justice in earlier versions of this guide! It's actually a fun set, based around gameplay rather than copying real-world trains – It could easily be a re-imagined version of the classic OTTD train selection, complimenting the default Monorail and Maglev vehicles, even functioning in a very similar way. It offers a wide selection of vehicles between 1860 and 2028, and you can modify the parameters to simplify the selection if you like.


Try them all out and see which one takes your fancy (though you may want to reduce Timberwolf's and UKRS2's running costs by half in the parameters, especially if you've turned on the economy settings in the "Villages" script. Up to you). It's also worth having a look at "NUTS Unrealistic Train Set", which focuses on gameplay, similar to Iron Horse 2, but offers trains from 1920 to 2099.

*OpenGFX+ Trains 0.3.0 - Used for keeping vanilla Monorail and Maglev enabled alongside other sets, while also enabling them to carry new goods from FIRS or other new industries.

You can swap this out for another Monolev set, but there aren't many to choose from, and none are on par with the OTTD originals in terms of gameplay in my opinion, though you may not agree - Depends if you treat OTTD as a game or as a train set. :) Modded maglevs tend to be slower than ordinary rail or only carry few cargoes, leaving an upgrade "gap" to while waiting for VacTrains to appear. Trains are the meat of OTTD after all.

Be sure to play with the "OpenGRX+ Trains" parameters. You may want to:

• Turn off default rail vehicles, unless you want them to appear alongside the other main train set you use - Default trains can haul modded wagons (may be glitchy with UKRS2)
  
• Turn off Monorails if playing with Timberwolf's UK Trains Pack, unless you want to upgrade from it early in 2008, since the "X2001" monorail outperforms everything - Timberwolf's last train is 2019, and the newest vanilla maglev is 2020. But you should keep monorail enabled if playing with UKRS2 or Iron Horse 2.
  
• Change purchase and/or running costs to make them comparable with the other sets (makes game harder or easier, your choice)

Alternatively, you can use the "Old Wagons New Cargos" NewGRF for this purpose (originally listed here) - But it's slightly buggy if used alongside other sets, and doesn't work nearly as well.

* Vactrain Set + "Vactrain Companion" NewGRF – New but very expensive trains until the 2090s! If not used with other bridge replacement mods, the companion mod gives a faster endgame Tubular Silicon Bridge.

The Vactrain works alongside the vanilla Maglevs and runs on the same track - You can even make VacTrains haul default TTD Maglev Wagons if built in a Maglev depot and attached to a VacTrain track, but that seems kinda exploity and odd. MagLev locomotives have higher horsepower than early VacTrains though.

Perhaps it'll give you more gameplay choices if you get that far, I dunno. :P

* eGRVTS v2.0 - Comprehensive collection of vehicles between 1700 and the 2070s.

* Timberwolf's Road Vehicles 3 can be used alongside eGRVTS if you want, for an even greater selection of vehicles! Or choose between them. The Timberwolf set stops offering vehicles before eGRVTS, though.

* Hover Vehicles - Released during the 2080s, these seem fun! Speed limits still apply to them if using Timberwolf's Road Set, but they will run at full speed on Motorways.

Remember that you can manually hide vehicles in the list of available vehicles if your list gets too long, and sort them via the menu buttons.

* av8 Aviators Aircraft Set - Better aircraft than vanilla, but they stop being released after the 2040s, and to my knowledge there aren't any sets which offer planes beyond then.

The blimps can prove incredibly useful for small scale point-to-point cargo connections over land, like distributing light amounts of Farm or Engineering supplies if playing with the FIRS industry set, though airport and heliport maintenance can get expensive if you're using the "economic setting" in the "Villages" script.

* Sailing Ships 0.62 - Gives old ships from 1700 onwards.

* Squid Ate FISH - A better variety of ships over the vanilla ones.

* redFISH – A fork of the above NewGRF, giving FISH's ships much higher cargo capacity. You can even use it alongside the original Squid Ate FISH, but obviously you get some duplicate vehicles with different stats - It may be useful to have smaller ships with lower running costs available alongside the higher capacity duplicates which also cost a lot more to run.

Regardless, the FISH sets stop offering new ships after 2008, with the last large cargo ships coming in during the 1970s - They stay available forever, though. There aren't yet any NewGRFs (to my knowledge) which offer futuristic ships – A shame, since building train bridges over long stretches of water is expensive! Plus some industry NewGRFs have water-based industries which can really only be served by ships.

AN IDEA FOR MODDERS: You've got hover buses and lorries in the 2080s. You could have seacraft that hovers above the waves using force fields, and goes fast enough to rival planes! Reduced speed on canals, though.

(maybe I'll make this if I can be bothered to learn how...)


Have fun! Feel free to suggest other combos of NewGRFs in the comments too, or variations of this NewGRF list.