Interest rate

[Elves]

At the moment the maximum interest rate is 4% which really is a joke. My suggestion is to have more values possible to be set. Playing at 30-40% interest rate might be a challenge and make you think twice before taking a loan. Best regards.

[CompactDstrxion]

I agree, 4% interest is rather low considering this is meant to be the hardest setting. After investigation I don't think you can edit Openttd.cfg to set this higher either.

I think once you have the hang of it OpenTTD is quite an easy game (while being hard to master) and having more realistic loan interest could be a way to add challenge.

[CommanderZ]

I agree, 4% interest is rather low considering this is meant to be the hardest setting. After investigation I don't think you can edit Openttd.cfg to set this higher either.

I think once you have the hang of it OpenTTD is quite an easy game (while being hard to master) and having more realistic loan interest could be a way to add challenge.

You can do a trivial one-number change to the OpenTTD source code to increase the max interes value.

[petert]

Look at the Additional Tax Patch by Bigos. It adds a small tax to increase difficulty. In-fact, that entire thread are patches that increase difficulty.

[CompactDstrxion]

I agree, 4% interest is rather low considering this is meant to be the hardest setting. After investigation I don't think you can edit Openttd.cfg to set this higher either.

I think once you have the hang of it OpenTTD is quite an easy game (while being hard to master) and having more realistic loan interest could be a way to add challenge.

You can do a trivial one-number change to the OpenTTD source code to increase the max interes value.

That's interesting. Probably something that should be done, considering it need not alter the built-in difficulty presets.

[keoz]

You can do a trivial one-number change to the OpenTTD source code to increase the max interes value.

But take care about the fact that a changed interest rate also changes inflation rate (if enabled in the game settings). At least, that's what I understood reading this piece of code in economy.cpp:

Code: Select all

_economy.infl_amount = _settings_game.difficulty.initial_interest;
_economy.infl_amount_pr = max(0, _settings_game.difficulty.initial_interest - 1);

[CommanderZ]

You can do a trivial one-number change to the OpenTTD source code to increase the max interes value.

But take care about the fact that a changed interest rate also changes inflation rate (if enabled in the game settings). At least, that's what I understood reading this piece of code in economy.cpp:

Code: Select all

_economy.infl_amount = _settings_game.difficulty.initial_interest;
_economy.infl_amount_pr = max(0, _settings_game.difficulty.initial_interest - 1);

You would better see trunk/src/table/settings.h, that's where settings and their max and min values are defined.

[medys]

Hi,

are there any news on this idea? Is it doable via newgrf??

It would really be great to be able to set interest rates higher. (up to 20%)
Also I think it would be very nice to have bigger loans. (up to 100 000 000 EUR)

For default game this is not needed, but when using some newgrfs a train costs 3 000 000 and it takes a lot of time to get that money with road vehicles

[Alberth]

are there any news on this idea?

Given the fact there is no post above yours with "hey, I have great news, it has been committed to trunk", you can safely assume there is not.
No post == no news at this forum.

Is it doable via newgrf??

Today, no. But see below.

It would really be great to be able to set interest rates higher. (up to 20%)
Also I think it would be very nice to have bigger loans. (up to 100 000 000 EUR)

I have spoken with our bank manager, and he has some reservations about your ability to come up with 20 000 000 EUR each year. He thinks it would be more wise to give you less loan.

For default game this is not needed, but when using some newgrfs a train costs 3 000 000 and it takes a lot of time to get that money with road vehicles

No doubt the NewGRF author did that on purpose. If OpenTTD would make it then again simple to get so much money, what would be the challenge?


Instead of allowing more loan, or increasing interest, why not change prices and profits instead? Loans cannot be changed by NewGRFs, but prices and profits are fully controllable by NewGRF.
In other words, instead of a loan of 100 000 000 and buy a train of 3 000 000, loan 100 000 to buy a train of 3 000.

[medys]

By the way I managed to accomplish what I wanted thanks to your posts

I made modifications shown below to source code and now I have what I needed. However I think it would be fun to be able to have it in newgrf.

SRC\ECONOMY.CPP

Code: Select all

#include <math.h>

_economy.infl_amount = int(sqrt(_settings_game.difficulty.initial_interest)+0.5);
_economy.infl_amount_pr = max(0, int(sqrt(_settings_game.difficulty.initial_interest)+0.5) - 1);

SRC\TABLE\SETTINGS.H

Code: Select all

SDT_CONDVAR(GameSettings, difficulty.max_loan, SLE_UINT32, 97, SL_MAX_VERSION, 0, NS|CR, 300000, 500000, 10000000, 500000, STR_NULL, DifficultyChange),
SDT_CONDVAR(GameSettings, difficulty.initial_interest, SLE_UINT8, 97, SL_MAX_VERSION, 0, NS, 2, 4, 20, 1, STR_NULL, DifficultyChange),

[medys]

Thanks for a reply Alberth.

I agree.. One way to go is to have cheaper trains and divide everything by 1000 On the other hand the game would give a different taste if it had prices closer to real
Speaking about challange via loan ammount, well right now there is no challenge. Paying max 4% per year everybody can do it But when you have 20 000 000 in debt with 10% interest and some more percent in inflation this gives some motivation not to take loans

I would not argua as much about loan size as about interest and inflation rates. Making it short:
1. 4% is too little and it would not hurt anyone to be able to set this setting higher manualy.
2. Inflation being the same as interest rate is not right as a minimum because bank does not earn anything

[Yexo]

But when you have 20 000 000 in debt with 10% interest and some more percent in inflation this gives some motivation not to take loans

That sounds to me like "Let people take a big loan so they won't loan as much", which in my opinion is a very strange reasoning. In the same way I could say "make sure people get drunk so they can't find there way to the shop to buy alcoholics so they can't get drunk".

If you just want all prices to be some factor higher you can set your own currency with a rate of 1000:1 to the pound.

[medys]

That sounds to me like "Let people take a big loan so they won't loan as much", which in my opinion is a very strange reasoning. In the same way I could say "make sure people get drunk so they can't find there way to the shop to buy alcoholics so they can't get drunk".

If you just want all prices to be some factor higher you can set your own currency with a rate of 1000:1 to the pound.

Somehow you missed the part about interest rate :-/ My point is that loans should cost more...

Another thing that I think would be nice is that everything pays off slower. In original game you can get enough revenue from one flight to pay for 2 airports and a plane...
Don't change the game permanently, just please consider allowing such changes via newgrf or even better difficulty or advanced settings.

[Rubidium]

With a 20% inflation, you'd end up with a total inflation of 1.20**170 ~= 3 * 10**13, so 3 quadrillion % of inflation. Given the money uses a 64 bits integer to represent the amount of money, you'd end up with at most 319 211 "game start" Pounds after 170 years. The 170 years in this case is the maximum amount of years inflation is calculated. In any case, with such an amount of inflation the game really starts to become difficult as all vehicles costing more than that (uninflated) will be impossible to buy.

As such, those huge amounts of interest (and thus inflation) make the game quite unplayable in the long run.

[medys]

And is there a reason that Inflation must be the same as Interest??
As I've seen this is specified in 2 lines in source code :-/ and it could easily be changeable in, lets say, advanced options :-/

As I've said before Inflation == Interest is not reasonable because in such cases banks do not earn anything Inflation should always be less than Interest.