In all the years I've been associated with this community, I have only put forth suggestions for two 'official' additions to the OpenTTD core: rivers (which were added some time ago) and a map capable of supporting temperate, desert and alpine simultaneously. From what I understood, the former was no problem at all to implement, it just had to go through a development process. The latter was deemed to be 'not possible' within the structure of the programming whose intent was to keep the Transport Tycoon universe well within the original universe as it was programmed (then) in assembly language. I won't say the rule is/was, "if we cannot do it in Assembly, we won't do it in C"
I was in no way bothered that the latter was not implemented. But I was sure thrilled to see rivers show up, even if it wasn't myself who got the ball rolling. It's nice when you feel like you get that 15 minutes in a universe this vast.
I have a third suggestion: automobile transportation as an industry between cities. I will outline how I envision this working. Again, this is only a suggestion, it may not be possible, nor may it be practical, and it doesn't have to even happen for me to continue to support this endeavor. But it could add an element to the passenger portion of traffic that might be worth the time and effort. I leave it to the community, the developers, and Owen and Co. to make the determination.
1. The longer a town/city goes unconnected to another (or perhaps to end-product industries as well), the more it affects others at the regional level. Call it the "we're upset at being ignored!" penalty. How the penalty would be implemented? It could be financial, it could be nearby land access, or it could be a negative effect on already-connected cities which grows as you move closer to the unserved area. We could call this the, "don't treat my neighbors like they're trash!" effect.
2. Connecting a town/city to another nearby - even if only a local-local road connection with no connection outward to the players' own networks - reduces the 'negative' effect of being ignored. Outward connections would have a further negative effect. However, the longer these connections remain local-local, the lesser the mitigating effect on the penalties above.
3. In the United States, forward-thinking 'team green' transportation networks (public-use systems based on green energy technologies) are stalled by the multi-generation effect of having a private, reliable, affordable transportation option. We like our privacy, and we don't want to give it up. This is changing, with younger generations in urban areas adapting to the Team Green at far greater rates than previous generations. Leaving a distant town/city to go local-local via automobiles should have a penalty effect that would make bringing standard transportation to their realm 'less effectively embraced' than having nothing and getting something. Create a variable equation that shows less interest in more efficient transportation networks and more interest in connection roads outward. Same effect in the game we see in the real world, especially in the desert southwest (my home).
4. The automobile economy need not be visualized or modeled, but simply statistically generated for the core programming to use when calculating normally as programmed to do in the current stable version. It would essentially run in the background. Animation on the local-local connections would be nice, of course.
The answer to this thread might be, "this is a great opportunity to learn programming and try making it yourself?" You are certainly welcome to suggest that now, and I would not be offended, but it won't happen now or in the future. I am beyond thrilled with what this project has become over the last 15-ish years and would not be one bit disappointed if 'automobile traffic as an industry' never saw the light of day. We needs coders, developers, project managers and IT engineers, but we also need money. I am far better suited to help with the money part of the project, and that is where I have always put my best foot forward.
But sometimes I have an idea...
Thank you,
-AK