Make buildings 'protected'

[Twyster]

If I remember correctly, Simcity 3000 allowed buildings to be made "historic". This effectively made it so that normal growth would not destroy them.

Would it be possible to give an option in the town menu to purchase a building, thus 'protecting' it from being demolished as the town grows? There should also be an option to sell owned buildings back to the town, obviously.

[PikkaBird]

If I remember correctly, Simcity 3000 allowed buildings to be made "historic". This evvectively made it so that normal growth would not destroy them.

The same thing can be done in NewGRF in OpenTTD, but not in gameplay. If you want player-owned "historic" buildings, perhaps newobjects or stations would be the way to go?

[Twyster]

The problem is that I'm hoping to get buildings like hospitals (from TTRS) to stick around, because I often name bus stops and heliports after them. Since they're town-built and not part of a station or NewObject NewGRF, I can't get them to stay in place for very long.

EDIT: I'm not sure how much this would equal in actual programming, but as far as I can see no new GUI graphics would be required. Just put two more options in the town menu, both of which give you the standard "single white square" selector. Then click on a building, and mark it as a NewObject or station tile. But I'm no programmer, so feel free to explain to me what else would have to be done, if anything.

[PikkaBird]

The problem is that I'm hoping to get buildings like hospitals (from TTRS) to stick around, because I often name bus stops and heliports after them. Since they're town-built and not part of a station or NewObject NewGRF, I can't get them to stay in place for very long.

Well, ideally, TTRS hospitals should be protected by TTRS. You don't even need protection callbacks any more, you can simply set a "minimum building life" property.

[Twyster]

Well, I'm not sure if this is supposed to be possible, but when I mentioned TTRS it was because I've managed to get games working where multiple building sets are active at the same time, like with the engine pool. Not only could I not find a "minimum building life" option in TTRS, I couldn't find such an option in any building set I was using.

And it's not just the hospitals, which admittedly seem to be sticking around. I get a gas station (also TTRS), and modify the roads to lead up to the graphically represented "driveway" inside, and two years later I have to remove the roads because the gas station is gone. Or a helipad beside a skyscraper (multiple sets) named for a fictional company's HQ, which inevitably disappears to be replaced by a shorter building from the Canadian Cities set.

[Chris]

Whenever I play a game with TTRS, the cathedral and the hospital are definitely protected, they stay there throughout the whole game. Large skyscrapers do come and go though, perhaps a little too quickly...

[kamnet]

Not only could I not find a "minimum building life" option in TTRS, I couldn't find such an option in any building set I was using.

It's not a user-controlled option, it's a function within the NFO/NML code that set developers can enable.

[Twyster]

Not only could I not find a "minimum building life" option in TTRS, I couldn't find such an option in any building set I was using.

It's not a user-controlled option, it's a function within the NFO/NML code that set developers can enable.

Well then all the more reason for this feature; I can't just go and modify somebody's code, I'd need to learn to program, get permissions from the building set creators, etc.

So why not? Why exactly is this a bad idea? If it's too much work I understand, and I'm willing to be patient if this is doable. I realize the developers do this in their spare time. But I'd at least like to see this on the back-burner.

[kamnet]

Not only could I not find a "minimum building life" option in TTRS, I couldn't find such an option in any building set I was using.

It's not a user-controlled option, it's a function within the NFO/NML code that set developers can enable.

Well then all the more reason for this feature; I can't just go and modify somebody's code, I'd need to learn to program, get permissions from the building set creators, etc.

So why not? Why exactly is this a bad idea? If it's too much work I understand, and I'm willing to be patient if this is doable. I realize the developers do this in their spare time. But I'd at least like to see this on the back-burner.

It's not a bad idea. As an sandbox/eyecandy-style player myself, I'd love to have more control over placing buildings. That is why I like being able to fund and place industries, and then use various station NewGRF and NewObject tiles to build as I please. Unfortunately, neither of those have the same effect as town-placed buildings. However, keep in mind that this is a transportation simulation game, not a town management game in the same lines as, say, SimCity. The focus for the player is building profitable transportation networks and not micro-managing towns. If the devs could make it so that advanced town building in-game could be enabled by the user, that would be nice. I'd even like to see a side game where I can go into an OpenTTD save game, scenario or server and specifically control the town, building of roads, placement of buildings, and issue subsidies. I don't want them to do it, though, if it breaks the backwards compatibility with Transport Tycoon Deluxe or dilutes the excellent game play.

With that said, your best option for sculpting towns is in the scenario editor. With it you can control town growth and placement of roads, and also add NewObjects and industries where you wish. You still don't get control of individually-placed town buildings. You can even do this with games you're already playing. Simply save your game, then change the extension from .sav to .scn, and it's now magically a scenario. Edit, save, then rename the file from .scn to .sav again.

As for modifying somebody else's NewGRF set, you can do this as long as you keep those files to yourself, or arrange with the author to release them or share it back to the developer. Modifying somebody else's work and then releasing without their permission is typically frowned upon, particularly if the author is active here.

I too find that one of the downsides of running TTRS is that buildings appear and disappear way too fast, in particular the prison, stadium, hospital and water towers. It's not sensitive to the various daylength factor patches either, so even if you have your game slowed down to a crawl, buildings can disappear within a month. You might want to bring up your concerns in the TTRS thread. There are a couple of other sets which were pre-TTRS which may behave somewhat better in this regard. Zimmlock's prison was also released as a separate NewGRF, and I run it now so that those prisons, when built, stay put.

[PikkaBird]

Why exactly is this a bad idea?

It's a bad idea because it's adding an extremely minor feature to a game that's already confusingly bloated with minor features. It's also a bad idea because a conflicting method to protect buildings already exists in newgrf, and adding a player-control feature will result in either a) newgrfs not working as intended (if player-control overrides newgrf), or b) players complaining that the feature doesn't work (if newgrf overrides player-control).

[Twyster]

Why exactly is this a bad idea?

It's a bad idea because it's adding an extremely minor feature to a game that's already confusingly bloated with minor features. It's also a bad idea because a conflicting method to protect buildings already exists in newgrf, and adding a player-control feature will result in either a) newgrfs not working as intended (if player-control overrides newgrf), or b) players complaining that the feature doesn't work (if newgrf overrides player-control).

So if I suggest something too minor it's not worth it, but if I suggest something like underground rail construction or car ferries it's too hard to implement. No wonder people founded simuscape over trivial things like custom bridge heads.

You may think I'm new here, but I used to go by another name on these forums years ago, and left for personal reasons. At the time this community was a good place. I returned thinking it was still that way, but I can see that's no longer the case.

Fine, it's a bad idea. But either implement the small suggestions or implement the big ones; Make up your minds. You can't just say this game is complete and only do minor bug fixes and translation corrections.

[FLHerne]

It's also a bad idea because a conflicting method to protect buildings already exists in newgrf

I don't see how it's really a 'conflicting' feature: If either the newgrf or the player (or both) 'locks' the building, it can't be deleted. Is it plausible for a townset to rely on being able to overwrite all buildings? I know your TaI set does odd stuff with temporary buildings, but surely it wouldn't actually break if a player was to lock one?

[Chris]

Why exactly is this a bad idea?

It's a bad idea because it's adding an extremely minor feature to a game that's already confusingly bloated with minor features. It's also a bad idea because a conflicting method to protect buildings already exists in newgrf, and adding a player-control feature will result in either a) newgrfs not working as intended (if player-control overrides newgrf), or b) players complaining that the feature doesn't work (if newgrf overrides player-control).

So if I suggest something too minor it's not worth it, but if I suggest something like underground rail construction or car ferries it's too hard to implement. No wonder people founded simuscape over trivial things like custom bridge heads.

You may think I'm new here, but I used to go by another name on these forums years ago, and left for personal reasons. At the time this community was a good place. I returned thinking it was still that way, but I can see that's no longer the case.

Fine, it's a bad idea. But either implement the small suggestions or implement the big ones; Make up your minds. You can't just say this game is complete and only do minor bug fixes and translation corrections.

A very minor feature that would require a lot of work probably won't be worth it. A very big feature that would require a humongous amount of work also probably won't be worth it. It is the features that add fun to the gameplay whilst not requiring a huge amount of work that are most likely to be created as a patch and then possibly eventually be included in trunk. This is why a feature which would add sculpting of towns to a transport game (and hence not a main gameplay feature to most people), requiring a lot of work is unlikely to be added into the game.

Furthermore given that the feature that you're requesting can already be implemented via newgrfs, there really is no need to add such a feature to the game, as Pikka says it would interfere one way or the other, resulting in an undesirable, buggy game. Perhaps you should take your suggestion to the TTRS thread and see if anybody is willing to modify the code to stop hospitals etc. from disappearing too quickly.

Simuscape was not found over custom bridge heads. SAC preferred to develop her grfs in a more closed environment, so that she could get comments from other grf developers first and then post screens in more public threads to get suggestions from everybody else. Other newgrf authors also prefer this approach, hence some have chosen to continue development of their newgrfs at Simuscape rather than on these forums.

I would like to think that this community is still friendly, I find there are many new people who start adding to the game and are given support by other members. Pikka wasn't being rude or unfriendly, just giving reasons as to why the suggestion was considered 'bad'. These are obviously opinions on the suggestion and don't form any sort of personal attack on you.

The devs add the best features, not the small ones or the big ones.

[Twyster]

A very minor feature that would require a lot of work probably won't be worth it. A very big feature that would require a humongous amount of work also probably won't be worth it. It is the features that add fun to the gameplay whilst not requiring a huge amount of work that are most likely to be created as a patch and then possibly eventually be included in trunk. This is why a feature which would add sculpting of towns to a transport game (and hence not a main gameplay feature to most people), requiring a lot of work is unlikely to be added into the game.

Furthermore given that the feature that you're requesting can already be implemented via newgrfs, there really is no need to add such a feature to the game, as Pikka says it would interfere one way or the other, resulting in an undesirable, buggy game. Perhaps you should take your suggestion to the TTRS thread and see if anybody is willing to modify the code to stop hospitals etc. from disappearing too quickly.

Simuscape was not found over custom bridge heads. SAC preferred to develop her grfs in a more closed environment, so that she could get comments from other grf developers first and then post screens in more public threads to get suggestions from everybody else. Other newgrf authors also prefer this approach, hence some have chosen to continue development of their newgrfs at Simuscape rather than on these forums.

I would like to think that this community is still friendly, I find there are many new people who start adding to the game and are given support by other members. Pikka wasn't being rude or unfriendly, just giving reasons as to why the suggestion was considered 'bad'. These are obviously opinions on the suggestion and don't form any sort of personal attack on you.

The devs add the best features, not the small ones or the big ones.

I apologize, I was much too harsh. It's just that features that fit into the category of "add fun to the gameplay whilst not requiring a huge amount of work" are becoming scarcer as time goes on. It's not that there aren't fun and easy features, but that the features left to implement are less fun and/or less easy than their predecessors because the best ideas have all been implemented, and the devs don't seem to notice that fact, instead refusing to do anything but patch bugs, fix translation mistakes, and add the occasional "cream of the crop" suggestion.

I'll try asking around on the TTRS topic, but as I said I'm using multiple building sets; most annoyingly, skyscrapers from the Japan building set and Canadian Cities disappear as often as the TTRS ones.

[FLHerne]

It's just that features that fit into the category of "add fun to the gameplay whilst not requiring a huge amount of work" are becoming scarcer as time goes on. It's not that there aren't fun and easy features, but that the features left to implement are less fun and/or less easy than their predecessors because the best ideas have all been implemented, and the devs don't seem to notice that fact, instead refusing to do anything but patch bugs, fix translation mistakes, and add the occasional "cream of the crop" suggestion.

Looking at the development forums and commit log, it seems CargoDist is finally inching toward trunk.
If that ever gets in, it'll probably be the most major, game-enhancing feature in years. There's even a patchset being developed for a new map-array that would allow custom bridgeheads and signals-in-tunnels, so if anything I'd say the devs are working on more 'big' stuff than in the recent past.
@developers: Thanks!

[Twyster]

It's just that features that fit into the category of "add fun to the gameplay whilst not requiring a huge amount of work" are becoming scarcer as time goes on. It's not that there aren't fun and easy features, but that the features left to implement are less fun and/or less easy than their predecessors because the best ideas have all been implemented, and the devs don't seem to notice that fact, instead refusing to do anything but patch bugs, fix translation mistakes, and add the occasional "cream of the crop" suggestion.

Looking at the development forums and commit log, it seems CargoDist is finally inching toward trunk.
If that ever gets in, it'll probably be the most major, game-enhancing feature in years. There's even a patchset being developed for a new map-array that would allow custom bridgeheads and signals-in-tunnels, so if anything I'd say the devs are working on more 'big' stuff than in the recent past.
@developers: Thanks!

That's very reassuring! I guess I just didn't notice that progress; it wasn't even hinted at in the change logs of trunk. Thanks for the heads up.

EDIT: Seeing as this topic is no longer needed, can somebody please lock it?