They look nice.
But what about the monorail?
Some time ago and probably still on such tracks, rocket trains are tested.
I had an idea for a long time for such a train, which would consist of segments like real space rockets. The first segment in combination with the last one would define the maximum speed, the middle would take up the load and fuel (of a very different types) giving or adding the power.
Tired Wastelanders
It's a good and bad idea at the same time. I like it because Wastelanders can have a return destination and can't be driven between mines. I don't like it because that's what a cargodist should do - the problem is that this one doesn't generate passengers or other specific carogoes in the return direction. I don't know if it will be fixed, if someone will find a way and willingness to do it, but it would certainly be much better than having to rebuild vehicles at both ends of the route for each such connection between the city and the mine. I like to made creative, non-standard combinations, but in such a common arrangement it becomes a bureaucracy. I just don't know if it's really worth going this way.
Mining industry
There is no information on how many Wastelanders were delivered / how many are in the mine and how many are needed for production to increase. Maybe it should be an amount proportional or partially proportional (20 + x) to the production?
I don't know why it says "optional" in the first line on the enterprises window. If it is only information that they can be provided, it seems redundant.
Cities development
What is currently missing is information about what the city needs. I don't know if newGRF can post information in a city window or at least in a storybook, but it would be useful.
I thought about adding a setting for Wasteland in the RWD script, but this is a completely different mechanic that would not fit here. I'm not a fan of scripts because as a player I can't combine the functions of different scripts, but I think for Wasteland creating a dedicated script could be a good solution. This would make it possible or not to determine the level of demand.
What would work very well is the city development mechanics created by TallTyler. It is a mechanism that allows only those parts of the city to develop, to which the relevant goods are delivered. In the case of ITL, these are passengers, and in the case of Wasteland, it could be building materials - where you deliver them, better quality buildings will arise
As for the graphics, I don't know why, but these skyscrapers cause a very marked drop in game speed. In the last game, while I had a maximum speed of x10-15 while looking at anything, after focusing my view on a developed city, the speed dropped to x3-4. No other add-ons cause such big effect. I don't know what is causing this.
Another thing is that while they look good individually, in larger quantities it is definitely worse.
As for the appearance of developed cities, Martian buildings could be an interesting direction. Both those from "OpenGFX + Mars" and "Toyland to Mars". Another interesting variant are the buildings from the amazing screenshots of Otto1988octavius topic (south and east part - I don't know what the set is).
Depending on the direction, these buildings could have a completely different character. From dark or comic (depending on how you look at it), through functional to pure. Perhaps it would be possible to combine several types, and the one that will be created in the city would depend on the type of cargo delivered.
The way cities develop could also be related to industry - the more developed and advanced the better the buildings. Here, some companies could only be funded (perhaps the script could restrict access to them under certain conditions). They would use the same raw materials - everything would be based on a few basic mines and raw materials, but with more and more advanced technology, more and more advanced goods would be obtained - these would allow the construction of these best buildings. Generating the next type of cargo would unlock the possibility of building a more advanced processing facility and maybe another type of vehicles.
Electricity
A few years ago, the New World Disorder script was supposed to recognize electricity supply as one of the elements influencing the development of cities.
There, electricity supplies were to be counted in two or three ways:
1. Physical - by means of transport from power plants to specific enterprises assigned to cities (transformer stations). The candidates were WIRES and Wired, which was under development at the time and hoped for new interesting media to emerge.
2. Area - here supplies of coal or oil to power plants would supply all nearby cities with electricity. The advantage of this solution was to be freedom - player would not have to deal with everything (this is also the basic assumption of the NWD script)
3. Combined - here the electricity supplies to the transformer stations would supply the selected area or cities.
Each power plant or transformer station would be assigned cities. It would then supply them with electricity produced at the plant in a proportion depending on the size of the cities and distance from the plant (lower impact). In a similar way (area), the script counted the production volume, which was and is an element of Industry in it.
Any city of up to 10,000 inhabitants would have electricity by default. Only those that would grow in excess of this value would begin to struggle with the supply shortage. This, in turn, would affect all other elements, causing unemployment to rise, which in turn was closely related to the city's growth rate.
This idea is just an example of a possibility, but it wouldn't necessarily work well here.
- [+] Spoiler Prototype of the script - coded in paint-on
In the case of physical delivery, in order to encourage a player to supply more than one city, power receiving transformers could have limited capacity and a loss depending on the city size. The overproduction of electricity will be wasted - discharged, but no payment will be made.
I think the demand shouldn't be too great so that the player doesn't focus on just one.
Electricity transportation
I like unconventional ideas. Is it unreal? I think a man is still stupid and knows little about what is really possible (and the more he insists that he knows everything, the stupider he is). I would treat this cable as one of those advanced technologies. I would rather dismantle the fence. Though, it's not bad at all. It would be nice for these pipes to look translucent. In them I would see fast or very fast moving, glowing, large "electrons". They would only glow when carrying something. The larger the load, the more it shines. That something could be electricity, of course, but also other cargoes. Maybe this is a teleport? Hmm ... As already, it's rather a hybrid, but it can be interesting anyway. Similar as for the conveyor belts, different pipes could be available. Square tubes perhaps wouldn't be bad either.
Given that the world is being built from rubble, these pipelines probably shouldn't be built right away. Perhaps a good first solution to the electricity problem would be local, not very efficient plants?
When it comes to profit from transporting electricity, it doesn't necessarily have to be directly financial. Electricity could also be supplied to some enterprises (anything at least once a month or a certain amount giving a certain impact). In general, my view of the rates is that the more difficult it is to obtain and transport it, the more it should be paid for. Although also not necessarily literally 1: 1.
View of the Setting window
Since I've already written too much, and also I like to pick on irrelevant things, I'll write a little more about.
Including "Enable" / "Disable" is unnecessary and downright confusing. Everyone does it, but it doesn't make sense. In this form it should write "Enable" in any case.
Currently:
Red means Disable? But when enabling the setting, it still writes disable when it is green.
Green color means Enable? But when disabling the setting, it still says enable when the color is red.
To make it not too simple, the red color here also means Enable...
Switch a few settings randomly and see for yourself if it makes sense (you always have to think about what you just did)
Sometimes the simplest way is for the best - then you don't have to explain any complexities.