There is an official manual for this game. It's longer than this guide, but will go over everything in the game. You can find it here.

So you bought this fancy game called Trackmania, and you want to learn how everything works. This guide will help you get started, but experience is the best tutor. Once you understand the basics, go out and find the little things to get better. Before we get started, though, here is a list of what I will be going over. First are the game modes. I will explain:

• Basic Gameplay
  
  
• Solo Campaign
  
  
• Gamemodes
  
  
• Difficulty
  
  
• Medals, Skill Points, and Ladder Points
  
  
• Multiplayer
  
  Next are the environments. In Trackmania United, there are seven different environments, they are:
  
  
• Stadium
  
  
• Island
  
  
• Desert
  
  
• Rally
  
  
• Bay
  
  
• Coast
  
  
• Snow

Trackmania is a very simple game to learn. After all, there are only four buttons to move and two buttons for respawning and restarting.

As you can probably guess, Trackmania is about racing. As such, the goal is to get your vehicle from the start to the finish, although other gamemodes will dictate just how you are supposed to do this. In Trackmania, there are a few basics anyone should know.

• You will always start in the same place. Unlike other racing games, Trackmania forces everyone to start in the same place to enforce skill as the main decider in winning.
  
  
• Cars cannot collide. Due to the perfection racing nature of Trackmania, any bump could ruin a perfectly good run. The lack of collision means that only the true skill of the racers is determined.
  
  
• All cars handle differently. Yes, they all share the same controls, but each has a very distinct feel to themselves. Transitioning to a new car may feel awkward at first.
  
  
• Practice makes perfect! Since Trackmania allows infinite respawns and retrys, all that matters is that you get one truly good run in to get ahead.
  
  
• Respawning is different from restarting. When you respawn, you go to the last checkpoint and continue with whatever time you have. If you restart, you go back to the start and begin fresh. If you respawn before you hit a checkpoint, you will act like you have restarted.
  
  
• There is an in-game currency for Trackmania: Coppers. You can gain coppers through transactions such as sharing your content. You can also gain these on some servers through various means. Doing well in an Official Race will also reward you with Coppers. The easiest way, however, is simply to log on each day. You get 50 coppers every day, more if you have Trackmania Original and/or Sunrise linked to your account.

Within the game are the Solo campaigns. This is where you compete against set times to get medals as well as try to set official times to boost your Skill Points. There are three preset campaigns and a fourth campaign created by you. The campaigns are:

• United
  
  
• Nations
  
  
• Star Track
  
  
• My Campaign

Each contains the Race mode, which is the most basic of the modes.

United

The United Solo Campaign has the most content of all the preset campaigns. Within it are 210 challenges across four different game modes. The United campaign features all seven environments in it.

Nations

The Nations Solo campaign is the campaign from the demo Trackmania Nations Forever. It has 65 challenges. All the challenges are in the Race mode of the Stadium environment.

Star Track

The Star Track campaign features 147 challenges from the community. There are 5 challenges for each environment in the first four difficulties and one black challenge for each, like in the United Race mode.

My Campaign

This is a campaign created by you, the player. Simply add challenges to create it!

In the United campaign there are four distinct gamemodes, each functioning a little differently.

Race
The most basic gamemode. In race, you must get from the start point to an end point after passing all the checkpoints as fast as possible. In each challenge there are four medals to earn, the Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Author medals, each more difficult than the last.







Platform
Like Race, the aim is to get from A to B while passing all checkpoints. Unlike Race, the goal is not to do so as fast as possible. Rather, in this mode, the courses are much harder, so the goal is to complete it while respawning as few times as possible. As such, someone who completes a course in ten seconds with one respawn will be second to someone who completes the course in one hour with no respawns.




Stunt
This mode is just as it sounds. You are given X amount of time to rack up as many stunt points as possible. To get points, just do epic flips and turns in the air. Just remember to get to a finish line, as time spent past the given limit drains your points!








Puzzle

This is an interesting gamemode. You are given a preset course. You must use the ingame editor to complete it using the pieces given to you. After crafting a course you think is the fastest, you must race on it to get the desired time. Most courses require rather unorthodox methods to get the Gold.

In each campaign is a set of flags to mark difficulty. They go, from easiest to hardest, White, Green, Blue, Red, and Black. The first four will have the standard amount of challenges, and the Black challenges will have less, but each Black challenge is extremely difficult. Challenges need to be unlocked based on each difficulty. Unlocking either comes course by course or set by set. In United and Star Track this is course by course, Nations comes in sets of five. To unlock a set, the required medal must be collected from each challenge in the set prior. The first challenge or set of challenges in any of the first four difficulties is always unlocked.

White challenges require a bronze medal to unlock.

Green and Blue challenges require a silver medal to unlock.

Red challenges require a gold medal to unlock.

Only those who have collected a gold medal on ALL prior courses may proceed to the Black challenges.

Trackmania is a competetive game. As such, there are three values given to a player. These are the Medal Count, Skill Points, and Ladder Points. You can never lose value in any of these categories.

Medal Count
As talked about before, each challenge has medals. To obtain these medals, you must beat the time on the course for Race and Puzzle, get equal to or less than the number of respawns for Platform, or meet or surpass the point value for Stunt. Once you do this, medals will be awarded. You can see how you compare to your buddies and the world in medal count.





Skill Points
Within each challenge is the option to "Retry Official." When you do this and complete the challenge, you will be awarded Skill Points based on how good you do. The first official attempt is free, and further attempts are ten coppers each. Beating the medals in Official mode will award you coppers based on which medals you beat, and you will be awarded these medals if you had not been already.




Ladder Points
These are awarded when competing online. Based on your position at the end of a round and the skill of your opponents determines how many Ladder Points you gain.

This is the place where you can race against friends, foes, and random passerbys. Unless you are racing competitively in tournaments or events, you will probably be racing in the Time Attack mode. This mode gives you X amount of time, generally five minutes, to complete the course as fast as possible. At the end of the alotted time, the game ends and the winners are displayed. This is also the point where Ladder Points are awarded.

Moving on from the gameplay basics, now we head into the more specific environments.

Stadium
First up is the Stadium environment. It features a large stadium with an open center, like a really big football field. This center is where the courses are. The vehicle used in this environment is similar to a formula one car mixed with a buggy. This environment features the most basic car and is generally considered the most popular environment. This is the environment showcased in the Nations demo.

The Stadium car is fast and grips well at any given time. Turning gets much harder at high speeds.


Island
The Island environment features vacation style hotels, airports, rocket launch facilities, and industrial ports. It features a sports car.

The Island car handles like an upgraded version of standard cars. It accelerates faster, has a higher top speed, and turns much better than any of the other cars. Once it gets going it will slide when turned, but turns nicely.




Desert
The Desert environment features a vast uninhabited Highway 66 style road system, complete with rusted signs and oil rig themed pieces. It features a small, compact car.

The Desert car is light and handles well, but it is a little top heavy and may tip over or slide if turned too hard.





Rally
The Rally environment features a medievalesque, European environment. This environment has dirt roads and castle walls, complete with small village houses and gates that serve as jumps. It features an offroad rally car.

The Rally car has a decent top speed but turns extremely sharp, which might help or hinder you.





Bay
The Bay environment features a portside city area with Golden Gate style bridges, docks, and cargo containers. It features a SUV.

The Bay car turns nicely when it isn't sliding, but once it starts to slide it's much harder to control.







Coast
The Coast environment features a European, rundown coastal town with a grand prix course. The Coast car is a nice looking car that vaguely resembles something from a spy movie.

The Coast car is probably the hardest to learn. Unlike the other cars, this one is much more difficult to control, leaving the challenge not in conquering the course but the car. It is based on inertia, meaning once it gets going one way it wants to keep going in that direction. Therefore, it is slow to accelerate and brake, and turning is something requiring practice. A helpful tip from the internet: when you want to turn, do not accelerate or brake when you initiate the turn. As long as you keep the car from sliding, you can keep it on the road.

Snow
The Snow environment features a Japanese mountain area with wooden scaffolding and a nice, compact jeep.

The Snow car handles extra well. It pretty much never loses it's grip, and turns sharp.

Here is a list of tips and tricks I have compiled to help anyone reading this. Please note that, while many of these tips are facts, many of these are also personal opinion that may not help and can even hinder you depending on how you play. Find the tips and tricks that work for you!

• Turning in most cars boils down to two styles: sliding or not sliding. The way a car handles when sliding differs greatly from just turning, and knowing the difference will help greatly.
  
  
• Knowing your car is the greatest path to victory. As you play, don't just learn the course, but the car as well.
  
  
• Activating the opponents for each course can let you see things that will help you be faster. After all, if they are beating you they know something you don't.
  
  
• The Stadium environment is probably the easiest to learn, and Coast is probably the hardest.
  
  
• It is always a good idea to scout out the whole track on any gamemode. Even if you have a terrible score, it's good to know what lies ahead on your next run.
  
  
• If you get frustrated by a track, you can always try a different one.
  
  
• The Author Medal opponent is hidden until you unlock a Black track. This does not, however, mean that the Author Medal cannot be obtained before unlocking a Black track.
  
  
• Do not worry about your time in a platform course. If you take a couple seconds to prepare for the upcoming challenge, you are more likely to succeed.
  
  
• You will probably want to have some experience with all of the environments in Race before tackling Platform, Stunt, or Puzzle.

Thank you for reading my guide! I hope it helped you understand the game a bit more. Please leave a comment on anything, whether you liked it or not, whether you found a grammatical or factual error, if you have some tips on making my guides better, or even if you just want to say "Hi!" Feel free to rate as well, and once again thanks for reading my guide.

-= Changelog =-

4/14/2016

• Based on a comment, changed the medal requirements to be more accurate (Thanks, Owen - bobtilt49!).

8/24/2015

• Fixed some grammatical errors.
  
• Changed all incorrect instances of "Ralley" to the correct "Rally."
  
• Confirmed that White challenges need to be unlocked. Assuming bronze medal since it feels unreasonable to make them unlockable by simply completing the previous map(s) without some sort of medal. I could still use some confirmation from someone else, though, as I am unwilling to make an entirely new account just to get this little information.

7/22/2015

• Realized there's an actual guide to this game. Added a link to it.
  
• Added a changelog, if for some reason I ever change anything again.

8/1/2014

• Made the guide available to the public.