Transport Fever 3 Subsidies

Transport Fever 3 subsidies are time-limited contracts for providing a specified transport service to an industry or town. Before accepting one, confirm the exact task, completion condition, deadline, acceptance effect, fulfillment reward, and failure penalty shown on its offer. Declining an offer has no penalty, but accepting it commits you to completing the displayed objective before time expires.

The most important rule is that building infrastructure is not always enough. Cargo contracts count completed deliveries, Connect Towns contracts require at least one passenger to make the journey without a transfer, and Transport Workers contracts finish only when enough workers reach the named industry to activate its worker productivity boost. Treat the progress shown on the subsidy card as the authoritative completion check.

Rewards and risks vary by offer. Most subsidies provide money up front or improve a town's reputation when accepted. Fulfillment may award town experience, another payment, or a temporary 2x income effect on eligible lines. Failure reverses the up-front reward and may also impose a fine or reduce town reputation. Never assume that a reward, target, deadline, or penalty seen on one contract applies to another.

Read the offer before accepting

Inspect every field on the subsidy offer before spending money or accepting it. Use this checklist:

1. Identify the named destination. Confirm which industry, town, or pair of towns owns the objective. A nearby alternative does not satisfy a contract directed at a specific destination.
2. Read the required service. Determine whether the offer requests cargo, a town connection, or workers. Similar-looking passenger contracts can have different completion triggers.
3. Record the displayed target. Cargo subsidies specify an amount, while a worker contract is tied to activation of the named industry's worker productivity boost.
4. Check the deadline. Estimate whether the complete service can begin operating early enough to make real progress before the timer ends.
5. Separate the three effects. Note what happens on acceptance, what completion awards, and what failure removes or penalizes.
6. Inspect current progress after acceptance. The subsidy card shows progress toward the active objective and should be checked while the service runs.

The contract's displayed values are offer-specific. Exact payments, delivery quantities, time limits, bonus durations, fines, and reputation effects can differ. Use the current card rather than planning from a number remembered from a previous subsidy.

Match the plan to the subsidy type

The four subsidy types use different completion rules. A line that looks connected on the map can still be incomplete if the required cargo or passengers have not reached the correct destination.

These conditions determine what to inspect when progress appears stuck. They also determine whether existing infrastructure is genuinely useful. A passenger network may help with both town and worker travel, for example, but each subsidy still checks its own stated result.

Complete Supply Industry and Supply Town contracts

Supply Industry

A Supply Industry subsidy concerns an industry that has not yet started production and requests its required cargo. Completion is quantity-based: each requested item delivered to that specific industry advances the target shown on the subsidy card.

Before accepting, identify the requested cargo, its source, the named receiving industry, and every transport leg required to connect them. The important feasibility question is not merely whether both locations can be reached. You need enough time for vehicles to collect the cargo, traverse the route, and complete the requested deliveries before the deadline.

After the contract begins, watch the subsidy card rather than using the amount loaded at the origin as your success measure. Cargo in storage, waiting at a station, or still aboard a vehicle has not necessarily completed the delivery that the contract counts. If the line operates but progress remains unchanged, check that the cargo reaches the named industry and that the delivered type matches the offer.

Supply Town

A Supply Town subsidy requests a specific cargo that satisfies a commercial or industrial district demand. Completion requires the requested quantity to reach buildings in the named town.

This destination rule matters. Moving cargo toward the town is not the same as completing delivery to its buildings. Plan the full route through the final delivery stage, then verify progress on the subsidy card as the cargo reaches its consumers. If cargo accumulates somewhere in the network while the counter remains still, trace the path from source to the town's relevant buildings instead of adding capacity blindly.

For both cargo types, compare the remaining quantity with the remaining contract time. A working line can still miss the deadline if deliveries arrive too slowly. Correct configuration and completed deliveries matter more than the apparent size of the fleet.

Complete a Connect Towns subsidy

A Connect Towns subsidy requires one passenger line to serve both named towns and at least one passenger to travel between them without a transfer. Infrastructure alone does not complete it. A train, bus, ship, or other passenger vehicle moving along an empty line is still only a potential connection.

Use this sequence:

1. Confirm that the line serves both towns named by the offer.
2. Ensure the journey between them does not require the passenger to transfer to another line.
3. Put suitable passenger service into operation.
4. Let passengers actually use the connection.
5. Check the subsidy card for completion after a passenger has traveled between the towns.

If the subsidy does not complete, first distinguish an infrastructure problem from a usage problem. A broken route or missing service prevents travel entirely. A valid line with no qualifying passenger has not yet met the official condition. Do not redesign the whole connection merely because construction is finished but the card has not resolved; verify actual passenger use first.

Any up-front payment or reputation improvement attached to the offer is only the acceptance effect. The listed completion benefits remain conditional on a qualifying passenger making the trip before the deadline.

Numbered passenger stops show the order of one line. This view does not show subsidy progress.

Complete a Transport Workers subsidy

A Transport Workers subsidy asks you to carry passengers from nearby towns to a named industry so that workers increase its production. The contract completes when enough workers have arrived for that industry's worker productivity boost to activate.

One arriving passenger is not the universal completion rule. A first delivery may produce only partial progress. Continue transporting workers until the required boost becomes active and the subsidy card confirms fulfillment.

Plan the service from the industry's perspective:

1. Identify the exact industry named by the contract.
2. Determine which nearby town can feed passengers into the route.
3. Make sure residents can reach the passenger service rather than assuming they will appear at a remote stop automatically.
4. Connect that service to the named industry.
5. Run enough passenger capacity for workers to arrive before the deadline.
6. Watch the subsidy progress and the industry's worker boost instead of stopping after the first arrival.

A service can be operational without yet satisfying the contract. If workers arrive and progress advances only partway, the basic route is functioning; it simply has not activated the required boost yet. If nobody travels, inspect access to the service and the connection to the industry. If workers reach another facility, redirect the plan to the named destination.

Do not copy a worker count from a different industry or a previous offer. The contract's completion condition is activation of the current industry's worker productivity boost, and the active subsidy card shows progress toward it.

Decide whether a subsidy is feasible

Assess feasibility before accepting, because declining is penalty-free while failure after acceptance can be expensive. A useful assessment has four parts.

Existing infrastructure

List which required stations, stops, lines, and vehicles already exist. An offer is easier to justify when much of the service is already operating, but existing infrastructure counts only if it reaches the exact contract destination and supports the requested cargo or passengers.

Time to first qualifying result

Estimate the time until the first delivery that will actually count. Include construction, vehicle deployment, travel to the loading point, loading, the journey, and final delivery. For Connect Towns, allow time for a passenger to use the route. For Transport Workers, allow enough repeated movement to activate the boost rather than budgeting for a single arrival.

Throughput before the deadline

For quantity-based cargo contracts, compare the outstanding target with the amount that can be delivered over the remaining time. Check progress during operation. If the counter rises too slowly, locate the limiting transport leg or configuration error before adding vehicles. More capacity on the wrong route will not advance the contract.

Downside if the plan fails

Treat the displayed acceptance benefit as reversible. The official failure rule removes that up-front reward, and the offer may add a fine or reputation loss. A large immediate payment therefore does not make a risky offer free money. Judge the contract using both the promised completion reward and the full displayed failure effect.

Adjust subsidy difficulty in Free Game

Free Game provides two settings that directly affect subsidies. Subsidies Availability changes how often offers appear. Subsidies Risk changes their difficulty.

Higher Subsidies Risk generally raises cargo delivery targets, shortens deadlines, and reduces up-front payments. That combination gives you less time, more work, and less immediate funding. When increasing this setting, use stricter acceptance criteria: favor offers whose essential infrastructure already exists, verify that the completion trigger is clear, and leave more operational margin between expected completion and the deadline.

These settings do not replace reading the individual offer. Even at a familiar risk level, the displayed task, effects, and deadline remain the terms that govern the active contract.