So you want to be a transport tycoon

Recently I've been playing Simutrans.

Simutrans is a sandbox game where you build a transportation network to deliver goods and passengers to their destinations.It's immensely satisfying to watch the money roll in as the customers' requests are fulfilled.

For the uninitiated, the game interface can be confusing. The quickest way to get started is to experiment, as the official documentation seems to be unavailable at this time of writing. Apart from the in-game help (press F1), here are some quick tips:

1. To build a bus network, start by placing bus stops at strategic locations in the city. The orange grid appearing around the bus stop when you try to place them indicates the catchment area, i.e. passengers from this area will gather at this bus stop. Then, build a bus depot (at a dead end), buy a bus, and configure a line for it to follow by clicking "Create New Line". Place the "Halt" sign at bus stops where you want the bus to pick up passengers. Finally, click "Start" to see the bus leave the depot.
2. Passengers and goods have a destination. If they cannot find a route (via lines) to their destination, they will not use your transport at all! If you already have two lines PointA-PointB and PointB-PointC, then PointA-PointC is considered connected. In other words, when more destinations are accessible, the line will be able to deliver more passengers/goods (more profitable!).
3. A line can be served by more than one convoy (vehicle). This is useful, for example, when the volume is high; by assigning more convoys, the capacity of the line is increased. A vehicle can also serve a customized schedule (click the vehicle and click Schedule).
4. Place a stop adjacent to an existing stop to increase its capacity (does not count as a new stop). I'm not sure if this increases the catchment area as well.
5. Generally speaking, delivering goods is much more profitable than delivering passengers.
6. Things can be renamed. (Explore the interface to find out how!)

Once you get used to the default pakset (pak64) and need more fun, get more paksets here. A pakset is basically a ruleset, e.g. how much vehicles cost, maximum speed, what roadsigns are available, etc. Actually, a number of settings can be changed when you start a new game (click "Settings"), including the starting gold.

Happy playing!