Limit town size

[coffeeorpins]

Just wondering, couldn't see this elsewhere in the forums...

Would it be possible to have an option in the town window in OTTD to limit the town's population - for example, dictating that a town could grow no bigger than xpeople. Or perhaps specifying town boundaries on the map.

I can see a couple of advantages...
-keeping smaller towns and villages from becoming huge cities: I don't like how in lots of games you end up with a map containing just a load of cities
-stopping big cities from eating up smaller neighbouring towns, or destroying your carefully made scenario landscape!
-also, this could help stop small stations that you haven't room to expand getting too busy (I know someone else has suggested making a passenger limit function, which is a good idea)

Sorry if this has been mentioned before...

[LKRaider]

Would be a good update to add for the scenario making part.
Even more control should be allowed for people making scenarios (defining goals and limiting avaiable tools and options, like has been suggested before, for example).

[shampie]

for scenario editing okay I would agree finding that a good idea.
for ingame? dont think that will relate to 'Transport tycoon' anymore really would it? Businesses can have big influences on smaller towns (if only 1 or 2 'bigger' companies are there) but less influence on bigger towns and therefor give you less control perhaps??

[coffeeorpins]

for scenario editing okay I would agree finding that a good idea.
for ingame? dont think that will relate to 'Transport tycoon' anymore really would it? Businesses can have big influences on smaller towns (if only 1 or 2 'bigger' companies are there) but less influence on bigger towns and therefor give you less control perhaps??

Making that part of the scenario editor, yes, I think that's more sensible than in-game - and the game would surely be more of a challenge if some small towns and commuter villages didn't grow so quickly and extensively as they do. I mean, how can a bus route between a few villages turn them into large towns, as it does in the game? The feature I mentioned earlier; in the scenario editor where you could decide town boundaries yourself (which they then couldn't exceed?) could make passenger routes more of a realistic challenge: that of ferrying smaller groups of passengers into the larger towns and cities.

[Susan]

It isn`t good idea. I like big cities. But...
- There grow too fast
- They could grow only if there are industries nearby. (industry give job, job give money, money give new house. simple)

[Purno]

-stopping big cities from eating up smaller neighbouring towns, or destroying your carefully made scenario landscape!

Well, OTTD has bigmaps, so you can build cities with a greated distances between each other.

Anyways, what about a simple toggle button "stop town from growing" in the Local Authority window, whenever in Single Player mode?

On the other hand, I would like an "expand" button too, like in the editor. Small towns sometimes are too small, or I want more buildings around my station.

[Dextro]

-stopping big cities from eating up smaller neighbouring towns, or destroying your carefully made scenario landscape!

Well, OTTD has bigmaps, so you can build cities with a greated distances between each other.

Anyways, what about a simple toggle button "stop town from growing" in the Local Authority window, whenever in Single Player mode?

On the other hand, I would like an "expand" button too, like in the editor. Small towns sometimes are too small, or I want more buildings around my station.

Those options would fit well in a TRUE sandbox mode together with no money worries...

I still stand for a classic sandbox mode...

[mkxx]

@Purno - "expand button": This is unreal. Did you ever seen the village with 20 new houses built per one night in real life? ;)

[Purno]

@Purno - "expand button": This is unreal. Did you ever seen the village with 20 new houses built per one night in real life?

Since when is a computer game equal to real life?

It's just a sort of sandbox mode, I would like it.

[coffeeorpins]

Just to sum up a couple of ideas then:

The game probably does need to be made a little more challenging; as at the minute, providing a transport/cargo service to a town will make it grow exponentionally, allowing lines to become too lucrative. Obviously, large towns should become cities, and cities and towns do grow - but not at the same rate, and certainly not to the same size. I imagine coding a whole new system for town growth would be a nightmare though, so I thought a limiter, as LKRaider suggested, in the scenario editor would allow you to make things more difficult yourself.

I only say this as though a sandbox mode is a good idea, I thought this might do quite the opposite, and make things harder?

Also - this is linked to a message I posted in the 'problems' folder - what if when TTD started up the game, it dotted some little groups of houses (unowned by town councils) about the place. Attaching services to these, bus routes or whatever, would allow a) running rural-style passenger networks and b) new towns to appear during the game, as perhaps these could become standalone towns once they had grown a little?

[DaleStan]

@Purno - "expand button": This is unreal. Did you ever seen the village with 20 new houses built per one night in real life?

Yes. ... Well, not quite, but I'd say the Las Vegas (Nevada, US) metropolitan area gains an average of at least one house per day. (And that may well be low an order of magnitude.)

[bobingabout]

a limit town size button, aswell as many other new features to the scenario editor would be a great idea. for example, the ability to create companies and build as if you were that company, so you can create cenarios such as scottland and megarail. i also like the ability to add optional mission objectives other than(aswell as) "Survive to year 2051"(but survive to %endyear% and if set in the scenario editor, it should be unchaingable by the player. also, any setting in the game should be setable per "Mission" in the scenario editor, if unset its the players choice. anything unset in the editor means its set by the player, or ignored, so, sandbox scenario maps are still possable.), but thats another descusion.