Prevent unused fields from disappearing

[zifox]

Anybody would be interested in an option to keep far fields from disappearing ? I like the the variation in colors they bring, it would be very nice on large maps to keep them, even if they do not evolve anymore.

Good or bad idea ?

[jfs]

In the past, when farms closed they did not delete their fields with them. Someone decided that was a bad thing, and made each field remember which farm it belongs to, so when a farm closes it removes all its fields too.
You're essentially asking for undoing that.

What might be more interesting would be if the fields needed "refresh" from the farm industry, and if a field does not get refreshed in time it starts growing wild and eventually disappears into the natural landscape.

[zifox]

I can't remember exactly the behavior we had in the beginning (I think the crops kept growing/rotating/being refreshed), a "realistic" way of doing thing would be to freeze the tile in its current state. An unmanned field doesn't disappear, crops keep growing / dying year after year until other plants take their place.

I'll need to take a look at the graphics and the code, i'm wondering if we could apply the growing mechanism of the trees to the fields. I'd be very interested to see what it could generate, even utter chaos.

[Auge]

Hello

my opinion:

In the past, when farms closed they did not delete their fields with them. Someone decided that was a bad thing, and made each field remember which farm it belongs to, so when a farm closes it removes all its fields too.

While the farm fields bring more variety to the landscape they are also an indicator for the farm industry. With the proposed change the farm tiles would lose this function what could lead to confusion of some players.

Tschö, Auge

[zifox]

While the farm fields bring more variety to the landscape they are also an indicator for the farm industry. With the proposed change the farm tiles would lose this function what could lead to confusion of some players.

Tschö, Auge

What do you mean exactly ?

[odisseus]

When viewing the map at the smallest scale, it is easy to spot farms by large areas of fields that surrounds them. This is quite convenient when planning a long-distance route. A slightly less careful player could face a bitter surprise, if he were to find out that a promising cluster of field patches doesn't contain any actual farms.

[Eddi]

An unmanned field doesn't disappear, crops keep growing / dying year after year until other plants take their place.

in what world does that happen? if you don't bring out seeds, if you don't remove the weeds, if you don't spread fertilizer on a field, lots of things grow there, but no crops...

[Emperor Jake]

I made the Field Spawner GRF for exactly this purpose

[Auge]

Hello

While the farm fields bring more variety to the landscape they are also an indicator for the farm industry. With the proposed change the farm tiles would lose this function what could lead to confusion of some players.

What do you mean exactly ?

What odisseus said with the constraint, that this "feature" IMHO isn't limited to outzoomed views but is also valid for any zoom level. When I scroll over the map and a farm field comes into the game window (in whatever zoom level), I expect to be in the near of a farm industry without a doubt.

So this is not only a question of a nice looking game world with more variety in its landscape but also a question of the game mechanics. When I see farm fields, I expect a farm industry. When I see tiles of any other industry, I expect, that this is (or is at least in the immediate vicinity of) one of those industries. I a aware some object sets, that add industry tiles one can place freely on the map. One can use them or not (I do occasionally). And you yourself speaks about an option but on the other hand your initial question sounds for me like bringing this into the program code. And that sounds wrong to me (not, that I have to decide anything here).

Beside of that, if you open this can of worms for farm fields, it's possible that someone will ask for spreading of tiles from industry XYZ within a short time.

I think, this is a task, a NewGRF can perform satisfactorily. Emperor Jake linked to a corresponding, nice looking NewGRF above this entry.

Tschö, Auge

[zifox]

I made the Field Spawner GRF for exactly this purpose

Great ! I will download it.
Will it keep existing fields from an existing scenario that are not linked to an farm ?

[zifox]

it's possible that someone will ask for spreading of tiles from industry XYZ within a short time.

Well... actually... i already did.

I understand the various points raised, it's indeed not a good ideas to change the base mechanics around fields. I'll try the newGRF mentionned by Emperor Jake.

[odisseus]

An unmanned field doesn't disappear, crops keep growing / dying year after year until other plants take their place.

in what world does that happen? if you don't bring out seeds, if you don't remove the weeds, if you don't spread fertilizer on a field, lots of things grow there, but no crops...

It is a fact that a field doesn't revert back into wilderness the moment the farm goes out of business. Whether the crop would grow by itself next year, depends on the type of crop and the climate; but even after the field completely overgrows with weeds, features such as hedges, fences and in some cases even furrows, can remain visible for a long time.

I made the Field Spawner GRF for exactly this purpose

That's a nice add-on, but it's not exactly what the OP asked for. The fields created by your dummy industry would be either active and maintained, or they would disappear immediately if the industry disappears for any reason.

So this is not only a question of a nice looking game world with more variety in its landscape but also a question of the game mechanics. When I see farm fields, I expect a farm industry. When I see tiles of any other industry, I expect, that this is (or is at least in the immediate vicinity of) one of those industries.

Now, I wouldn't be so extreme about that matter. The fields aren't actually industry tiles, and they aren't a necessary feature of the farm industry — no more than a clearing in the forest is a necessary feature of the tropical sawmill.

I agree that active fields without a farm would look confusing, but it would be nice if the fields would persist in some kind of decayed state. For example, the tilled tiles could be slowly replaced with grass tiles, and maybe overgrown with trees. The hedges and fences could persist indefinitely, until the tile is terraformed or built over.

[Emperor Jake]

"Exactly" was the wrong word I agree. It won't keep fields from disappearing when an industry is removed, but it is, as mentioned, an easy way to keep the variation in colours on a big map. They are unobtrusive and won't close down on their own so they will stay active.

[ebla71]

Personally, I don't like the fields at all and would prefer for the farm industries to only show the buildings themself. In particular on small or very crowed maps, the fields tend to overlap with cities and when your main aim is visually pleasant map, it is simply annoying.

Is there a general option to completely switch the fields off?

I vaguely recall that in some NewGRFs there were some agricultural industries like fruit plantation which did not show the fields while the more traditional farms did ...

[Eddi]

that's simple, you just have to make an industry newgrf which replaces the standard farm with one that doesn't plant fields...

should be like 3 lines

[ebla71]

that's simple, you just have to make an industry newgrf which replaces the standard farm with one that doesn't plant fields...

should be like 3 lines

So that means this behaviour is entirely controlled by the NewGRF and cannot be modified by some central switch?

Sorry, but I'm not a programmer ...

[jfs]

Each industry type has a flag that controls whether it will spawn fields around itself or not.

It would technically be possible to make a game setting that just makes it so no new industries place fields, regardless of what they ask for, but one of the stated project goals (see the contributing guide) is that if something can be solved by making or using an add-on, in the form of NewGRF or GS or AI, then we will not accept a patch that makes it a game setting.

[zifox]

I made the Field Spawner GRF for exactly this purpose

I've tested your GRF and quickly saw two limitations, i'm not sure what we can do about it:
- it's a new "industry" meaning you can only have one per city, you can't massively spawn them
- it generates passengers, and the stupid AI are coming to get them.

[Emperor Jake]

I've tested your GRF and quickly saw two limitations, i'm not sure what we can do about it:
- it's a new "industry" meaning you can only have one per city, you can't massively spawn them
- it generates passengers, and the stupid AI are coming to get them.

Good points, I always play with "multiple similar industries per town" enabled so I didn't think of that. Also I was thinking of getting rid of the passenger generation so I'll do that in the next version

[Argus]

What if it generated a small amount of crops instead of passengers?
You bring people in, they pick their crops and take them home