Building Properties

[Baldy's Boss]

Do all building NewGRFs work off a code-specified set of building properties or are designers able to create types that go beyond the parameters of default sets?
(Besides my noted belief that stadium size should track town population I'm wondering if really tall buildings can have really large populations).

[Alberth]

The easiest to read page is https://newgrf-specs.tt-wiki.net/wiki/NML:Houses
Understanding everything isn't really needed, but it gives a good impression of what things you can configure in a house.

"code" is in 'house callbacks', small pieces of code that get called on certain events, and then typically given an answer what to do or what to draw.

[Baldy's Boss]

Got it,there are a set number of types and a population limit of 255.

[adf88]

In case of multi-tile buildings only the most norther tile can have population, other tiles must have 0 population. Max population of a tile is 255 inhabitants, this amount results in generating about 16 passengers every 256 ticks. Passenger generation can be further increased by using "Custom cargo production (2E)" callback. It can be defined on any house tile (not only the northern one) and allows to increase passengers generated out a single tile up to 255*256 every 256 ticks.

Mail generation is similar except of that there is no "only the northern tile" rule, each house tile is like a separate house.

Further reading here and here.

there are a set number of types

Actually no. NewGRFs can define entirely new house types. They can also replace or disable any chosen type from the default set.

[Baldy's Boss]

In any event you can't change the size of a stadium to match the size of a town,and you can't further expand a company headquarters once the company is hundreds of times the size it takes to reach the current top size headquarters.

[Eddi]

In any event you can't change the size of a stadium

why would you even need that? a football field is the same size no matter whether you're in a tiny village or a huge city. the only thing that changes is the audience seats, and you don't necessarily need to adjust the footprint of the stadium for that, you can just make it more fancy looking. and you can do that with NewGRFs easily.

if you seriously want larger sports complexes you need to code them as industries instead of houses.

once the company is hundreds of times the size it takes to reach the current top size headquarters.

the size of your company doesn't actually matter for how your headquarter looks, it's based on your performance rating. also, the headquarter isn't actually a "house" in the technical sense of the word.

[Baldy's Boss]

In any event you can't change the size of a stadium

why would you even need that? a football field is the same size no matter whether you're in a tiny village or a huge city. the only thing that changes is the audience seats, and you don't necessarily need to adjust the footprint of the stadium for that, you can just make it more fancy looking. and you can do that with NewGRFs easily.

if you seriously want larger sports complexes you need to code them as industries instead of houses.

once the company is hundreds of times the size it takes to reach the current top size headquarters.

the size of your company doesn't actually matter for how your headquarter looks, it's based on your performance rating. also, the headquarter isn't actually a "house" in the technical sense of the word.

The number of spectator seats should affect the visible size of the stadium and should depend on town population.
Companies of vastly different sizes can achieve top performance ratings...the HQ ought to keep growing if the company does (and perhaps take on a disused look if the company is in decline).

[adf88]

In any event you can't change the size of a stadium to match the size of a town

I don't know what you mean exactly but NewGRFs can behave like that - they can give an impression of larger/smaller stadiums. The graphics may look differently or even change dynamically. Also it doesn't have to be a 2x2 tile building, other sizes (1x1, 1x2 and 2x1) are permitted too. There can be many different stadiums in a set.