Proposal: adjacency bonus

[Wolf01]

While watching a video on youtube I had this strange idea: what about if OpenTTD had some adjacency bonus mechanic?
Just to add some strategy.
Based on what will come out of this discussion we might draft the specs and see if and how is possible to implement this.

There could be a lot of different ways and specs to be implemented, just some of my thoughts:

Addons: build something once attached to a station to boost the properties (catchement radius, loading speed)
Entity scores: different type of scores eg. pollution, noise
Airports already have a noise score which affect the local authority, statues in cities improve station ratings.
Roads could have a pollution score which affects farms production (farm could check the roadtype pollution score on nearby tiles, same as catchement radius)
Industries could have noise and pollution scores too...
Special newobjects: placeable once in a specific area (local authority?), give boosts like the statue, but outside cities (or in cities too)
Landmarks/landscape: near a river, near a lake, near a rocky area, near a forest?

Also something which boosts a property of X could give a malus to a property of Y (or even boost one property and nerf another one of the same entity)

What do you think?

[JGR]

Addons: build something once attached to a station to boost the properties (catchement radius, loading speed)

I'd suggest that things like station rating and cargo storage behaviour would also be good candidates for this.

There are loads of station sets which add a huge variety of non-track tiles such as coal heaps, storage tanks, freight yards, parking areas, waiting rooms, ticket offices, etc.
However none of these have any gameplay impact other than marginally increasing the catchment area by virtue of using up a tile.

Currently a single bus stop has the same cargo storage capacity/decay and rating properties as a maximum-size airport + train station complex, etc.
A way to address that in NewGRF would seem like it would be nice.
(I've got a setting which scales the cargo storage and rating tolerance by the station size, but this does not distinguish between station tile types and so offers no means of station tile type differentiation).

Special newobjects: placeable once in a specific area (local authority?), give boosts like the statue, but outside cities (or in cities too)

Similarly, new objects are currently only really useful for eye candy.

Entity scores: different type of scores eg. pollution, noise
Airports already have a noise score which affect the local authority, statues in cities improve station ratings.
Roads could have a pollution score which affects farms production (farm could check the roadtype pollution score on nearby tiles, same as catchement radius)
Industries could have noise and pollution scores too...

Given how many players struggle with local authorities and rely on hacks like tree-planting to get anything done, I don't think that mechanisms which penalise player construction would go down very well.
It is a construction game after all.

Landmarks/landscape: near a river, near a lake, near a rocky area, near a forest?

What would these do?

[andythenorth]

I've been thinking about similar ideas for FIRS, inspired by e.g. electricity production in BSPI grf viewtopic.php?f=67&t=84735

Examples:

• supplying a power station could boost production at other nearby industries
• delivering vehicles to a town could increase production at a nearby scrap yard

In the current spec the implementation would be via town storage.

It would be fragile (but not impossible) to make it work across multiple grfs.

The current possibilities would be limited to what the grf spec can do. House sets might be able to work with these ideas (in quite limited ways).

A bit related (because it implies more control over station ratings), we could allow vehicles to affect station rating via grf spec, so that authors could vary from the current 'fast new vehicles = high ratings' mechanic.

[Wahazar]

I also raised idea of bonuses from special station buildings (to make game more similar to classic Railroad Tycoon, where you were able to improve your station - for example restaurant or hotel protect from pax waiting cargo penalty, while refrigerated storage act similar for refrigerated cargo, etc).
But I had no catchy name for it, 'adjacency bonus' sound nice.

[odisseus]

I've got a setting which scales the cargo storage and rating tolerance by the station size

While this might sound realistic, it would provide a perverse incentive in the game. The players would try to make their stations large and bloated, rather than small and efficient.

I suggest a change to the opposite effect, perhaps as an optional difficulty setting: a station's maintenance costs should grow non-linearly with its catchment area. This will punish those players who build excessive platforms, and also those who use station walking instead of transfer services. It will also make cargo teleporting or "beaming" a little less profitable.

[Wolf01]

So if I understood, this could even be done with grfs only?

[andythenorth]

So if I understood, this could even be done with grfs only?

Limited proof-of-concept can be done, Borg proved it in BSPI.

It can't influence much, and relies on grfs designed for co-operation.

But might be a good test.

[wallyweb]

Adjacency sounds good but proximity might be better. The closer the booster to its target the greater the effect.

By the way, NewObjects has several variables that reference offsets and nearby tiles.
I'm surprised that this hasn't been used more often to give more purpose to the object.

[Wahazar]

I suggest a change to the opposite effect, perhaps as an optional difficulty setting: a station's maintenance costs should grow non-linearly with its catchment area. This will punish those players who build excessive platforms, and also those who use station walking instead of transfer services. ...

Nice idea, however troublesome to implement in current state of state of openttd source.
But instead of increased maintenance (which may be switched off), I propose before-mentioned modifier of rating tolerance on waiting cargo:
any catchment area which exceeds limit of station_tiles*catchment_radius*2 would decrease tolerance for amount of waiting cargo (faster decrease of rating).
Thus single bus station will tolerate less amount of waiting passengers than long station or large airport - which is logical and expected feature.

[odisseus]

This will indeed penalize station walking, but the perverse incentive to build bloated stations will still be there.

On the other hand, I like the idea of non-track tiles that increase the tolerance for waiting cargo. For example, a single bus stop could hold hundreds of passengers without dropping the rating if there were a hotel attached to it. That hotel should, of course, be expensive in build costs and in maintenance.

[Wahazar]

Wait, I just discovered following settings in JGRPP:

Code: Select all

Station cargo capacity and rating tolerance depend on station size

- seems similar to above idea of making stations consists of large amount of tiles more tolerant for waiting cargo (at least money spent on eye-candy non-track tiles is no more wasted

[Wolf01]

For example, a single bus stop could hold hundreds of passengers without dropping the rating if there were a hotel attached to it. That hotel should, of course, be expensive in build costs and in maintenance.

Exactly! The base game should already account for station ratings to limit the overcapacity, but doesn't seem to work
Enlarging the station should extend the capacity, station maintenance cost should be exponential to number of tiles like your suggestion.

Adding some fixtures should just amplify these behaviours (both in positive and negative way) and the player must build just what he needs.