Project: Economy and Balancing

[belugas]

I was asking for this within a testing branch, not within the official trunk

Sorry, I might have missed that. Totally.

Then folks who had an interest in trying to figure out a balanced economy could use that testing branch. Heck, it wouldn't really need to be a branch, just a patched, pre-compiled release.

The problems I see with this are multiples.
1) creating a branch means there will be "someone" assigned for the maintenance of it. I doubt any current devs do have any interest in that work.
2) assigning "someone" from the non dev pool (meaning regular patchers-users) actually means giving a certain access to the svn system. Not something to take lightly.
3) anyone can create his own svn server, or even a hg system, which both are free and available. In fact, I know of a few people who are patching based on such a system. I do not see why it has to be officially coming from OpenTTD.
4) I have yet seen anyone who has given an interest in the subject other than "I would like to test it". Meaning: no valuable coder, patcher.
5) a "patched, pre-compiled release" version means there is already a work in progress. Where?

On the matter of desyncs, whilst not particularly relevent given I'm not suggesting it for a "proper" release, surely the game ensures the config settings are the same at present - i.e., pathfinding settings.

I would not come down in details, but... I'd say you have a wrong conception of what a desynch can be caused by.
Further more, people are easy to get confused: just remember the miniIN branch. A release that has potential flaws is not welcomed. At all

So in short, I see nothing new. Sorry.

[quarq]

I have read forum rules, and many threads, and the manual and the concept of the mechanics of the game. (not by far have i read it all, but i have looked up what have felt interesting to change/add/modify). So much of what i will point up have or have not been said. (or is already fixed in someones own "patch")

First off, i love the game, the charm and the somewhat real life feeling it has. I enjoy the immense ways you bit by bit can increase your income, in with what ever you do. Thus making the game an very advanced complex game, but can easily be played for only the charm (sandbox) of the game. Earning money is not that hard (in the hardest mode), but making more money then another player is the real trick. (it looses its charm when you do earn so much that you can practically build any thing you would like)
And yes... you are never idle in this game, there is always something to do

Anyways i have some thoughts/comments about 0.7.0

- I read in the game mechanics that a vehicle that goes 160km/h and moves 5,6 tiles/d makes a tiles distance beeing 686km (calculated with 24h). And that is outrageously strange. In real life it would make most cities (Stockholm e.g.) end up at 1 tile big... not to talk about the factories that are huge buildings stretching from 200*200 miles... =O
* To make it more realistic i have made a tile beeing only 10km wide (without altering the game, but the time). If the time would be altered to make one day (in game) beeing and hour (in game). Would make this up. But yet we have also to change how much a busdriver can drive each day... i have yet to see a busdriver that works 24/7 =/
So here is the 10km tile distance: 160km/h @ 5,6 tiles/h -> 160/5,6 = 29km, and with 8h worktime -> 29 * (8/24) ~ 10km
The bus will in fact drive all the time in game... but the actual velocity is reduced with amount of working hours.
... which leads to next comment...and many others

- One type of road.
* I would suggest to implement three types of roads, intracity roads (max 50km/h), intercityroads (90-110km/h) and "autoban"type of road with no speed limit.

- Passengers / mails. There is currently strange things going on with the passengers... they dont know where they want to go, and can wait several days only to take them the busstop at the very next corner (though it is 686 km away...) You all know the deal with passengers (and mails)
* Divide up the passengers and mail to three categories... intracity, intercity and abroad. Each town/city will generate passengers(mails) at a ratio (intra=0,6 inter=0,3 and abroad=0,1) and they will all get different "Early Delivery Time (EDT), LDT, ICP (Initial Cargo Payment)".
With the use of hours instead of days... this is easily done. Intra city travelers (EDT=0, LDT=2 ICP... and so on. (And abroad travelers will pay much to get abroad, intra pay little and so on... but the ICP is already taken care of... as you get money by the distance you travel your "load" as follows:

AXXXX Taking the cargo from A to B will give the most money (speed not included). So by hauling everything you can to A and
XXXXX ship it to B, will yield the most. Not really realistic... as im sure all want the shortest distance to their demands.
XXXXB But not too short. (I infact are easily pleased to have my coffee brewer close at hand. Kitchen will do. But not in another . building and will not be satisfied to have the brewer at my desk either... so my point is. There are some perfect distance
for everything )

- ICP, Initial Cargo Payment... dont know, is this a fixed value all the game through ? I read in a couple of threads about demands.
* If the demand with an own ICP for each city and/or factory for each cargo, that is constantly raising/lowering with the amount loaded there. Then the ICP is the Demand Cargo Payment. This will also make the game more "alive" and each player will have to adapt to the ever changing DCP. (i cant go into in all my ideas here... in fact, im sure there are some people that just wait to have this DCP calculator done ) Just imagine if there are only one source of ironmine and many factories... what will happen to the DCP ? =) It will go boom... and everyone wants a piece of the cookie. And the obvious opposite... many sources of iron and one factory... the price will go down (by the amount of what the factory actualy demands and how much it is supplied above the demand... and also if somone is willing to transport the gods... i mean, why produce, if you cant transport away the gods you make ?)
...which leads to next...

- Workers at the plants/farms/factories/mines ? Why are there only workers at the offshore platforms that needs transportation ? (...ok sure, they have cars).
* It is quite common that large industries have a transportation to and from work. So i would like to see the same thing as for the HQ that can be built... add mail and passengers to all industry buildings as well. Making you would have to supply the industries with all their demands in order for it to grow. And offcourse... you earn money by suppling it as well win, win situation.

- Powerstations seems to supply endlesly amount of electricity... and thus constantly demanding coal
* Instead, the powerstations can only supply an fixed amount of electricity and thus demanding a fixed amount of coal. Which is based on how many powerstations there are and how many buildings (population!?) including industries there are. So with city and industry that grows... thus is the demand for electricity and coal increased, along with the price (DCP) as long as there are an fixed amount of supply with coal ...which also increase accordingly... ...economics... this given example with supply/demand is for everything... even gods. So with increasing population the demand is increasing and with it the DCP... as IRL

- Loans... hardly used when you reach a line where you have a sufficient income. I mean... with hard settings you can only borrow 200k, even though your company is worth 100 times then that.
* Increase the loan... make you be able to borrow up to 25 to 50% of your total company networth. After all loan is not as expensive as you might think with inflation on In fact, tell me a company that doesnt have loaned money ? Its vital to implement this in the game... all up to 2050. I dont think it can be that hard to implement the % of both the inflation and the payment of the loan to fluctuate with the market as well.

- I read some "tip" about doing cheaper canals (knowing i have been doing it myself a lot ). Though if you play versus a human player with "prison rules" that canal can easily be filled up by another player. So remember to buy all the land around it... (can you buy the water tiles ?! Never have played against a human yet... but i have to know my enemy before i meet him ) Anyhow, build a canal... if you have the money for it... you then own canal. Cant be dampered with... just a though.
* But my implementation i would like to have... is a some sort of layer that can be toggled on/off to see which player owns which tile and road. (Which reminds me of bankrupting two known good AI:s, with me building an intercity connecting road... and all went smooth til the AI used my expensive bought road... and i got tired of him using it without paying me any for it. So i turned on the one way sign on "my" road, sold my busses... waited a while til both were gone. Then i bought back my busses and removed the sign =) )
So... my point is. Its vital to know which tiles belongs to me or another AI/human/city (so i know where i should plant those precious tree as well). The "?" button is fine... but not enough. Its better to have a good overlook with a fast button of the tiles ownership. And i saw a "patch" that removed the signs when buying lands... its nice with signs, but not very nice to look at.

-I have read a couple of ideas that have already taken up the maintenance cost of trains/tracks and airplanes/-ports. So it should be better according to those comments
* no comments (just have a check of maintenace costs)

- Bridges
* I would like to have bridges that could have roads, on top of another road and/or track (i imagine this isnt easy to fix ?!) It actually works very good as is... second thought.

Overall... i know this sounds as advanced settings. Which i also think. But the more advanced i have... the more fun it i have. To watch my road/train networth actually is making me money, with all advanced settings on

Offtopic: (When i finally realized how to make grouped orders to my hundred busses... it made the gaming hell of a lot easier to just experience, rather then tracking each and everyone down... and reorder them =/ Though i i must admit... its an antfarm in the big cities. Im still working on how to crack the nut to haul everday passenger somewhere... with most money gained. Sometimes when i zoom out, it sure does sound like its a war going on down there... its like a sound of a machine gun with engines popping )

[Mr. Wednesday]

but for me it seems weird that a powerplant gives you a million for some coal you got from a thousand kilometres away, while they could get it from a closer by powerplant.

You still do not understand, don't you? It's the trip that you are paid for. Not the goods that you are transporting.

He's got a point about what I guess I'd call the power dynamic in the game. In real life, a power plant is not going to get their coal from 1000 km away if they could get it from someplace closer. And where and when they get their coal is also not at the sole discretion of their transport company. In "TTD life", we as the transport company dictate what schedule they get their goods on (if any) and where they're from, and they pay a flat rate irrespective of any competition.

On the other hand, in the absence of any competition (see robber barons), the transport company has a great deal of latitude to set transport rates.

I think the "right" way to deal with it, at least with respect to raw materials consumption, would be to have each industry have an "optimal" monthly consumption. If they're only supplied by one company, then they accept whatever that company provides. However, if they are supplied by multiple companies, then they may pick a "preferred" transport company, which would be influenced both by quality of service (regular deliveries) and by cost of transport.

[meriton]

I am with belugas in that realism does not necessarily add to the game and can in fact detract from it.

So: Why would implementing these changes make the game more fun to play?

[andythenorth]

I think the "right" way to deal with it, at least with respect to raw materials consumption[...snip...]

The right way (if any) could be to leave basic TTD gameplay as it is, and move the problem to newgrf.

- No-one has proposed an economic model that is obviously better than the current one.
- It's unlikely that changes to the economy in trunk would suit all players = arguments going nowhere.
- I don't see any evidence that core developers are interested in changing the economy *at all*. If they're not interested, it's just not going to happen in trunk, even if 'someone' produces an economy patch.

Much of what would be needed is already possible in nfo, which is why Pikka and George can offer interesting alternatives to the default industry gameplay using newgrf. The stuff that can't be done, some isn't possible (ever, or near enough), and the rest largely depends on something like cargodist making it into trunk.

cheers,

Andy

[Moriarty]

The problem with that is that NFO's are evil and 100% user-unfriendly. That in turns means you're severely limiting who can actually create any proposed alterations to the economy.

And yes, no-one has proposed any killer ideas for what might work, but then so far they've all been thought experiments because there's no way for anyone to test them short of altering the code itself and that hasn't happened - it's just as user-unfriendly as requiring an NFO.

Frankly I've given up hope on a re-balance until one a dev or other programmer comes along, it's out reach of anyone else to do anything about because we lack the tools.

[DaleStan]

The problem with that is that NFO's are evil and 100% user-unfriendly.

Any time you want to create and support an alternative format, you're welcome to do so.

Note that "support" includes making it load in OpenTTD. There are at least three possible ways to do this:
1) Modify OpenTTD to read MAGICAL_NEW_HAPPY_FUN_FORMAT.
2) Modify grfcodec to read MAGICAL_NEW_HAPPY_FUN_FORMAT.
3) Write a new program to turn MAGICAL_NEW_HAPPY_FUN_FORMAT into something that grfcodec and/or OpenTTD can read.

[andythenorth]

The problem with that is that NFO's are evil and 100% user-unfriendly.

NFO is neither evil nor unfriendly. It *is* occasionally brain-sapping. It *can* be hard to read. It is *frustrating* to learn. It *can* be fun to write.

Frankly I've given up hope on a re-balance until one a dev or other programmer comes along.

I haven't asked the question directly myself, but judging by the forums and irc, I don't think any of the current devs who *could* modify the economic model *would* do so. It appears to be of zero interest to them as a problem right now. Their right, their decision.

There are several people who *are* interested in playing with the economic model and *aren't* deluded, stupid or just plain bat crazy. *At least four* of those people are very competent newgrf authors, comfortable with complex nfo. We all have different ideas which would offer players options to suit their taste.

As grf authors, we could probably make interesting use of all and any increased nfo features for control over the economy. However it's hard to specify exactly what those would be. In my view, until cargodist/cargodest, or something similar hits trunk, it may not be worth pursuing further.

Meanwhile the FIRS set makes progress. That will transform industry gameplay quite a bit, even if the fundamental economic gameplay is the same.

cheers,

Andy

[smallfly]

This thread is fantastic! What a rich source of ideas! I will integrate many in P1.

[ngsupb]

Hi!

Could someone please make a post about the status on the new economy?
Is it being worked? Anything that we can expect in the near future?

[Yexo]

Is it being worked? Anything that we can expect in the near future?

No and no. As far as I know all the progress is in this thread, and most of it is also very old.

[2457]

I could imagine a contract system.
Say.. coal mine X says it needs Y amount of coal from a nearby coal mine.

then player gets to bid on transport price.
Naturally, this means competition.
If you fail to manage the required amount of coal, you will not get payed, and your reputation will be lower.
So, if you can not handle the demand, you will be kicked out of contract, and the thing will get issued over again.

that would mean no more of those pesky 2000 billion km long lines that pay a million bux for coal, that could be obtained from a closer source.

it would force the players to make efficient networks, also would force them to expand a network, and utilise it as much as possible. As reputation would be important factor, a player would focus to gain contracts at towns where he/she allready has some. Since that means some basic infrastructure, so lower investment for a contract. This does allso mean a player must maintain X cargo capacity for each contract. would make a hell lot of fun, would make it empires competition. After all, we all love to build some magnificent and extreemly good stations, junctions, and so on.
I could imagine if you have a good reputation with a town you get issued some closed contracts (means it is not offered to anyone else)

This would be my economic balancer.

[scrooch]

First of all, since this is my first post I'd like to thank the developers and community for this great game ^^ I too like to express my opinion which probably has already been expressed by someone else in the previous 13 pages. My point is related to the extraordinary profits on unnecessarily long routes.

Profit Margin, Competition and Simplicity are the 3 absolute keys in my solution. Imagine a long coal - plant route with a profit margin of 500%. Now, if I build a coal station next to the power plant, I want to be able to manually the set a profit margin percentage. An info screen tells the other line has 500% profit margin, I can set the nearby line to 480%. If there is sufficient AI or online players competing for delivering at the same plant, using a Profit Margin system solves all problems! My competitor delivers long distance for 50.000. My own line, short distance, I manually set to deliver for 49.000. It's up to the competitor to dive under this IF HE IS POSSIBLE to do so in a profitable manner.

The long distance will then lower profit margin, and the short distance will follow. In the end short distance will win because they have less cost and thus can maintain a better profit margin compared to the long line. Then you can also have train/trucks compete on short distance.

Profit Margins: This is a new but easy to understand concept which has to be introduced to the game. An option to set selling price (or profit margin) of a delivery has to be added.
Competition & Simplicity: The economy problem is tackled by only 1 extra option (one tickbox) that is easily understood. Implementing this for the AI is doable. If the AI sees an extraordinary high profit margin on a line of a competitor, he should build an alternative route to the end-point.

[Yexo]

Welcome to the forums scrooch.

While your idea is simple to understand, I have several questions that are not answered by your post:

1. Where to set the profit margin? Globally, per source industry, per target industry or per group of shared vehicles?
2. If globally/per source industry, how would the cargo be divided if multiple companies have a station near that industry?
3. If per target industry, that means having a slightly more expensive road line to transport excess cargo next to a cheaper train line wouldn't work if I want to have different profit for both. Any ideas on that?
4. I've raised this question in several topics about setting prices for transport and never gotten a good answer: If a new player joins an running multiplayer game, an existing player can easily force the new player out by competing with him and setting his prices so that he looses money. He's established so it doesn't matter if he loses some money, but the new player will go bankrupt. Can you think of any solution to this?
5. I fear this is becoming way too much micromanagement, again, any thoughts?

I'm not against the idea of settings fares, I just think there are currently way too many problems I haven't seen any solution for.

[scrooch]

Hi Yexo, let me try to address the issues you mentioned:

1. You set the margin (or absolute income) somewhere in the Per (group of shared) vehicle dialog. Because then, if you share orders, profit margin will be adjusted for all vehicles on the same route.

2. If delivered at the same price, the plant shouldn't favor any supplier. When player X delivers an amount for 100, while player Y delivers for 120 the plant could accept 100% of X deliveries and only 80% of Y. When it's 100 - 140, the ratio could be automatically be adjusted to 100% - 60% and so on. The 80% and 60% can be achieved by sending a train back with 20% cargo, take a longer time to load or unload.

3. Can you clarify what you mean with Target industry? Is it a term to refer to all coal-mines/factories (i.e.) combined? .. Even then, could you maybe rephrase the question? (sry!!).

4. Well this is how Neelie Kroes solved this issue for the European market. Put a limits/max on how low/high you can go for each line (vehicle). Take the costs of transport + x% profit markup. (x=10% of cost of transport for example). Selling under cost-price should not be allowed.

5. I don't like micromanagement either. You could even fully automate it where the AI adjusts profit margins for you. It will give you a warning when margins become low and then you can decide what you want to do (upgrade to more effective vehicles, shorten distance etc). A problem is that when there are 2 AI compete for lowest price, the profits will dive to the bottom in an instant. AI could be set to evaluate profit margin only once every 6 to 12 months for example. When configured right this will then slowly reduce profits for all competing parties at the plant over time.

As extra point I'd like to ask if this would add extra fun and competition to online playing? I think maybe it would!
If needed I could explain more in detail on how the prices / ratios / margins should be set, but well, first I'd like to be sure there is enough animo of course

[Yexo]

Sorry about the confusion from my terminology. With "source industry" I ment all producing industries like coal mines. With "target industry" I ment all accepting industries like the power plant. of course some industries can be both, but for each cargo they normally have only one role.

2. If delivered at the same price, the plant shouldn't favor any supplier. When player X delivers an amount for 100, while player Y delivers for 120 the plant could accept 100% of X deliveries and only 80% of Y. When it's 100 - 140, the ratio could be automatically be adjusted to 100% - 60% and so on. The 80% and 60% can be achieved by sending a train back with 20% cargo, take a longer time to load or unload.

Currently a power plant for example accepts unlimited ore (without any newgrfs at least), are you proposing here to change that too? And my original question was ment at source industries, ie how is the coal distributed between different industries. Also how is this going to work with a vehicle that transport multiple cargo? Would it be possible to set a different profit margin per cargo? What if it transports coal from A to B, then coal from C to D, then returns to A. Would it be possible to set a different rate for the A->B transport and the C->D transport?

3. Can you clarify what you mean with Target industry? Is it a term to refer to all coal-mines/factories (i.e.) combined? .. Even then, could you maybe rephrase the question? (sry!!).

3) no longer applies as you answered 1) differently.

4. Well this is how Neelie Kroes solved this issue for the European market. Put a limits/max on how low/high you can go for each line (vehicle). Take the costs of transport + x% profit markup. (x=10% of cost of transport for example).

If you can give a good formula for the cost of transport given a list of vehicles, I'm sure many AI authors would be very thankful, at least I would. The cost of transport depends on so many variables that it's not feasible to give a good value to it until you've actually build the route.

5. I don't like micromanagement either. You could even fully automate it where the AI adjusts profit margins for you. It will give you a warning when margins become low and then you can decide what you want to do (upgrade to more effective vehicles, shorten distance etc). A problem is that when there are 2 AI compete for lowest price, the profits will dive to the bottom in an instant. AI could be set to evaluate profit margin only once every 6 to 12 months for example. When configured right this will then slowly reduce profits for all competing parties at the plant over time.

Why should we add this feature if the human player doesn't normally notice it?

[scrooch]

Currently a power plant for example accepts unlimited ore (without any newgrfs at least), are you proposing here to change that too?

Easiest seems to me to create a 'punishment' for being expensive by slower unloading at the specific plant by a factor Z. The bigger the fares gap between competitor X and Y, the bigger the value for Z. (accounting for volume of course)

Would it be possible to set a different rate for the A->B transport and the C->D transport?

I think this would be a requirement, also a different rate per cargo would be needed.

If you can give a good formula for the cost of transport given a list of vehicles, I'm sure many AI authors would be very thankful, at least I would.

Yes yes, this is certainly an interesting topic. Could you refer me to discussions related to this topic on the forum? For sake of simplicity, I'd only take the variable costs of the trip itself. I don't know if I see it right, but it looks like Running Costs (top right of details of a vehicle screen) are solely the variable costs, suiting perfectly for this case. The most simple formula imaginable is a x b x c = d. a=vehicle type b= distance fee c = duration = d variable costs of fare.
Keep in mind that for simplicity sake investment costs, amortization, maintenance are kept out of the picture here and I'm not advising to include these.

The cost of transport depends on so many variables that it's not feasible to give a good value to it until you've actually build the route.

Well these ideas only are only meant to create a limited level of competition only. You can see how high the fares are that the competitor receives at delivery. Based on that you have to use your own professional judgment if building a competing line would give a sufficient return on investment Also the formula mentioned in earlier quote can be kept in mind.

Why should we add this feature if the human player doesn't normally notice it?

Because it creates a punishment for ineffective routes. When you are the first one who build the ineffective route, your investment will have paid back quickly with huge rewards. As soon as someone else starts to compete on the same target these huge rewards will slowly decline for both players. Where in the beginning your fares were 100.000, after 10 years they have fallen to 10.000 due to competition.
The idea here is to eliminate unrealistic fares on ineffective lines. This measure stimulates you to build lines where no competition exists and there is a high ROI. But you already will know that these fares will lower as soon as a competitor shows up at the same target.

[ostlandr]

Here's an idea. Not sure if this belongs in the CargoDist thread or here, but here goes:

Let's start with the simple coal mine - power plant chain. Have the amount (money) that an industry will pay per ton of a cargo be dependent on how well it is being supplied. So, we have a brand-new power plant. It starts out at a default value (say $50 per ton) that it will pay for delivery of coal. Since the "price" isn't part of OTTD, we can ignore that, and continue to make the cargo "free" at the source. The power plant demands say 1,000 tons of coal per month to start. So long as the supply is between say 250 tons and 750 tons per month, the payment will stay at $50/ton. Below 250 t/month, the price increases, creating an incentive to supply that industry. Above 750 t/month, the price drops. So, as stated the power plant starts out paying a fairly generous amount, in order to get a supply. If it's under-supplied, it will increase the payment in order to attract the cargo from longer and longer distances. However, if somebody starts supplying it with more coal, the price will drop accordingly.
This will lead to competition without the bother of setting rates; if company A can supply all the coal the power plant needs and do so more cheaply, they can out-compete company B, who will eventually start losing money on their higher-cost route. So instead of an economic "tycoon" type war fought with balance sheets and ledgers, it's a competition to see who can supply the most cargo to the industry at the lowest cost per unit.
Also related to this is having industries "grow" when well supplied; when they are getting plenty of raw materials at a low cost per unit, they expand and demand goes up. So the power plant that was demanding 1,000 t/month may start demanding 1,250. That can in turn affect their supply vs. demand, and raise the price they are offering if they are now under-supplied.
Conversely, under-served industries should contract (reduce their demand) until they eventually go out of business or until their supply of raw materials matches their production capacity.
I understand that a new transport company joining a server will be at a disadvantage when the other players have million$. If the players choose to spend their resources trying to squash the upstart company, they can. But the upstart company can look for opportunities the big companies have overlooked; under-served industries, towns without passenger & mail service, etc. And perhaps the big companies are running obsolete equipment rather than upgrade, to max out profits. Then the "upstart" company can start competing by buying more efficient equipment and pinching every penny to get their o/r (operating ratio) as high as they can. Now the big companies will have to make capital investments in order to compete. And gee, maybe it will turn out that there just isn't enough room on the map (or in a corner of the map) for two transport companies, let alone three or four. At some point the least efficient company will have to "pull the plug" on their services in a saturated region, since they are losing money there.

[Dimme]

4. I've raised this question in several topics about setting prices for transport and never gotten a good answer: If a new player joins an running multiplayer game, an existing player can easily force the new player out by competing with him and setting his prices so that he looses money. He's established so it doesn't matter if he loses some money, but the new player will go bankrupt. Can you think of any solution to this?

5. I fear this is becoming way too much micromanagement, again, any thoughts?

I think you have succeded in finding the two major issues here. In reality, point 4 is governed by competition authorities, and rules both vary and can be complex. I think point 5 may provide part of the solution: a new company can e.g. open some airports, but only buy some few aircraft. Then they can micromanage these in such a way that they avoid competition, while the large company has enough to do already. The same tactic can be applied with ships, and to some extent RVs, and I would guess skilled players could find a challenge in entering games late and compete against large companies. This clearly is much more difficult with trains that demand a lot of expensive infrastructure.

They could also hunt susidies.

A possibility is to set a minimum price independently of whether the company earns money or not. A minimum of e.g. 50% will allow several companies on some routes, but only one on others (where 50% is not profitable), depending heavily on newgrfs. (I don't really favor this way of doing it, as you would need to reduce more fares to lower the total level on the network significantly).

Another option is to somehow give smaller companies a bonus. One could think of a regional bonus where a company gets at least half the cargo in the area where it has its headquarter. Or an exclusive service right, that gives exclusive rights for, say, three years to the company that first serves an industry. It is not difficult to come up with bonuses that favors smaller companies. Which ones will give the best game dynamics is more difficult to guess though.

When it comes to micromanagement, this is all optional, the price level should be set to 100% initially anyway. If I set up a large network, and someone competes with me, I would reduce the fare on some of the backbone stretches, or the ones where competition is fierce, not all of them. Price structures would then be complicated, as all stretches between start and target should be included (assuming cargodist here, note that I do not think it is possible to do this in a good way without cargodist (which I have said before in another thread)).

...

In many ways similar to what has been discussed above, and I like the idea. Especially the distinction made by setting the price to zero at producing industry is interesting. I disagree with som details in the way you suggest factories should change prices when they grow though, as it may destroy the dynamics: factories reduce the price due to much supplied cargo, and then they expand and increase the price again. I would rather have a system where price level and supply is e.g. simply inversely proportional to each other. If the supply is doubled, the payment is halved and vice versa. Cargodist should then maximise profits automagically, which is perhaps not trivial...

The resulting dynamics in the two different suggestions (price percentage per route or price on goods) are very different: when the price is on the supplied goods, the smart thing would be to connect close industries together, while when the price level is on the route, longer routes and large networks should be favoured like today.

regards
Dimme

[Wasila]

From what I can see Celestar is no longer an active dev? Which means that this project is dead too?

Thanks,
Wasila