[patch] trees growth reduced

[Gedemon]

just a small patch to reduce the trees growing rate with 4 settings (normal, slow, very slow, extremly slow)

I've made it because I doesn't like how the map became a huge forest in long games, but on the other way I didn't want to totally stop tree growth...

[HackaLittleBit]

nIce Gedemon

The tree growth also bothers me with openttd.
If you don't mind I would like to make some suggestions to include in your patch.
1. Option to limit tree growth to lets say 80% ( 0 - 100% )of the map heigth.
2. Function to seed randomly trees. (just called once a while but when new game is created looped a couple of times)
3 Option to allow new tree growth only next to exsisting trees ( grow forrest )
4 Option to define which kind of tree grows on what hight level.

All this for getting a more "REALISTIC" (Sorry Belugas) sort of forrest growth

Hope I don't ask for too much

HackaLittleBit

[JacobD88]

...I didn't want to totally stop tree growth...

Truly wonderful patch, wanted this for sometime, however it would be nice if there was an option to disable tree growth totally as well as the options you have already implemented, that way users get a choice depending on the game they want to play

For example, sometimes i want to play a game that changes slowly, your patch and slow town growth allow this

Other times however i want to create a "static" game, stuck in one time zone, and the disabling of tree growth as well as the selectable time period functionality of TTRS would be great for this

[Dante123]

could this patch be updated ? =)

[Gremnon]

It doesn't have too many issues. Aside from one issue in the language files for English, I applied it into my patchpack quite cleanly. You're welcome to use it, as it's included.

I'll check again with a more recent trunk than the one GPP uses though, and see if it's any different. If not, it shouldn't be that hard to fix the parts that fail, you just need a text editor, a few minutes, and to know which hunks failed to apply correctly.

[Dante123]

if i remember correct, it was only giving a error at saveload cpp or something like that.
but i don't know very sure about that.

but i dont know anything about programming so have no clue what to fix or change.

[pavel1269]

Here you go.

[Dante123]

thanx again

[HackaLittleBit]

disabling of tree growth as well as the selectable time period functionality of TTRS would be great for this

You got it in r18522

thx RB

[petert]

disabling of tree growth as well as the selectable time period functionality of TTRS would be great for this

You got it in r18522

thx RB

Is that what that was? Was that based off of your patch?

[Eddi]

no, it's something entirely different. this patch modifies the rate at which trees grow. the trunk patch prevents trees spreading to tiles which do not have at least one tree. [makes trees eventually die out]

[Terkhen]

Update to trunk.

[pavel1269]

Update

[Gigigonzalez]

Is it possible to totally eliminate growth AND death of trees? Like it literally doesnt change at all. Would be a nice option to have as well.

[Eddi]

Tree handling happens in two places:

OnTick_Trees handles the random placement of trees on the map. This can be influenced by a setting.

TileLoop_Trees handles the growth of trees to their mature state, spreading into neighbouring tiles and killing trees which have been around for a while. This can currently not be influenced and is probably what you want. It would be fairly trivial to remove this function, which would freeze all trees. but that planted trees will not grow is probably not desired.

[Gigigonzalez]

Ah right.


i just thought it would be interesting to keep map size more under control in multiplayer. like

[Wahazar]

i just thought it would be interesting to keep map size more under control in multiplayer. like

I found a method to keep trees growth limited, without use of special patch, newgrf only.

Instead of forest, use lumber mills, with non-zero in-game probability.

Of course, wood payment rate should be same as in case of forests (or even lower), if lumber mills pop up for free.
I already tested this with my Manpower Industry newgrf (payment not fixed yet) and found, that it works pretty well - lumber mills are eating all trees and die, next lumber mill appear randomly and is eating another trees - a kind of homoeostasis between forest density and lumber mills is formed.

The 2048x2048 map with initial size ~1.4 MB, without lumber mills, growth up to 5.5 MB, covered mostly by trees:

McT, 13 kwi 2050.png

trees without random lumber mills

(246.94 KiB) Downloaded 2 times

It is really a harassment for multiplayer, even with max_download_time increased - I cannot download time endlessly.

Now, with lumber mills, map size stabilise at 2.8MB level, and it can be downloaded even trough weak ADSL link.

If one industry/town setting is on, nice features would be observed - low trees density in populated area and extensive woodlands in sparsely populated areas:

McTest6, 3 lip 2050.png

tree growth controlled by random lumber mills

(179.59 KiB) Downloaded 2 times

After 132 fame years, forest are exactly where are supposed to be: east/northern "land of lakes and marshmallows" and south mountains.

There is small issue - in some languages "sawmill" and "lumber mill" translates to the same word.
To avoid such disambiguation, probably different industry with different graphics is needed,
which works like lumber mill but appear during game.
I don't know English terminology: logging place? forest felling?
I mean something like:

(image from melbournecatchments.org)

[Supercheese]

I think it can be translated as "lumber camp" or "logging camp" without any confusion.

[Gigigonzalez]

Meh, interesting but still doesn't really solve the trade off between having no trees at all or having a sh*tload of them after 25/50 years and nothing in between. Its a killer for multi player games. Either 2-4MB maps with no trees, or 10+MB maps with trees. (lzma:2)

Imo there needs to be a toggle to literally freeze trees from being destroyed or planted at all, so a map would be the same side from start to end (Except for user made stuff and towns etc ofc that always increases map size a bit)

Same goes for the 'garbage' tiles or 'dirt' tiles Im not sure what to call them, simply have a toggle to disable them because 1. they aint pretty, 2. again they increase map size without reason (imho)

Just my 2 cents,

[keoz]

Imo there needs to be a toggle to literally freeze trees from being destroyed or planted at all, so a map would be the same side from start to end (Except for user made stuff and towns etc ofc that always increases map size a bit)

Nah. Freezing isn't the solution. Having a finer tree growth algorithm is. And actually, I'm sure it shouldn't be so hard to do it (but somebody should dig into the code). There should just be a better balancing between trees death and birth. It could use a mechanism similar to that used for industries, where there is a max industries limit, and new industries pop up only if this limit isn't reached. Trees could do the same.