Right, somehow I didn't copy it there.

Oh, didn't know it is accessible from wiki)

I'd put a link somewhere but couldn't think of any good place. And our top menu is quite big already. Guess at some point I'll sit and think how to structure all this stuff along with other things that I have in mind.

Mb I'll just do "misc" section for now.

This one looks better that regular double spiral. But it's probably because of late branching, square spiral does even better with it.

UPD I added benchmarking to town emulator (b key) and it looks like curly layout is still better than square with late branching for about 300 pop on average.

However, it's clear that just random town size fluctuations on 500 cycles are like +-2k (up to 5k) so all this corner stuff is pretty negligible.

Hello,

It always bugged me that towns can't build houses on road turns (on diagonal tile). So that space is usually wasted, which means you can't use too many turns and still have effective layout.

So I did a patch that fixes it, but now I have some doubts proposing it to OpenTTD devs, since things are starting to get a little bit crazy (and ofc even if I propose it doesn't mean it will be included, but, I think, it has good chance). There is no big balance change since even as corner itself has 3 house spots roads that go from it are bound to share one tile so it's still 2 house spots per road tile on average. But it makes possible to arrange roads in a way that puts them further from center and in a more circular shape so it can potentially get better houses.

I added option to town emulator that allows houses on turns (under "more options") so you can check how it works. So far I came up with these two layouts: 1, 2, but they don't seem to beat regular spirals (which also benefit from this change).

So for now I think it's a good change. It allows more variety in town layout and adds some challenge to town design as you can curl roads a bit but you still need to fit stations and stuff somewhere. But let me know what you think of this.

Hello,

I updated my town emulator and moved it to CityMania. It now can save layouts on website and has a bunch of new options.

Loading layouts from strings (old format) still works but is hidden (press l key) and may be removed in future so if you have any move them to website.

Also created a separate topic about "allow houses in turn corners" experimental option.

P.S. Definitely check road symmetry in "more options" before building any symmetric layout.

UPD Added experimental benchmark tool (b key). Allows to emulate growth of many towns and see population and houses distribution.

ciasniper wrote:

Where did the 30K CB server 2010 startyear go.... i loved doing that one.... and can i have the password of the test sever? its also a CB..., right?

30k was replaced by new CB servers #3, #4. They all have 3 goals: 5k, 10k and 30k and server doesn't restart or anything when goal is reached, so you can complete them one by one with single company (and town).

Password for test server is "test" but it runs same new CB by default. However if you really want you can probably use !restart command to select old 30k GS CB. Not sure why would you though.

Ok, so I did something ^^ It's not exactly as we discussed here, but a good first step I guess, so we'll see how it goes.

In short, moved quest servers to #10 and #11, goal ones to #1 and #2, new multigoal cb to #3, #4. Also shut down GS CB servers as that mode is replaced by new CB.

Also, turns out, I forgot to answer Saber here (replied in irc, but mb someone else is interested). I don't think GS as a good platform for game modification. It's very limited in ways it can influence gameplay and its game awareness, also has some technical issues. Many of our unique features are not possible to do with just GS. For example, you can't prevent other company from destroying buildings in your town with GS, only can ban them afterwards. And at the pace OpenTTD development is currently going I don't see any of it changing in this century :p

Also I have no intention of learning Squirrel (GS language), I'd rather spend time on something useful. Like new CB I made in last few months (much C++ such wow).

I set up 30k goal on server #0 with new CB mod to test it and practice before event.

Thanks for your report! We changed mail server recently, turns out some settings needed to be adjusted.

I sent you new confirmation email, please check if you received it now.

Somehow I never did actually update the rules. Done now. Also added "no rating pushing" to both rules 1 and 2. Looks a bit weird, but will do for now. I have a feeling this isn't the last adjustment of rules anyway :)

P.S. Updated !rules output as well (may not get to all servers immediately).

Yeah, I'm rewriting all scoring and goals code so small stuff like that can break, I'll fix everything once I'm done.

New feature for long-running games. Unserviced primary industries production will now be kept within initial range, so map won't be affected by time too much. Most important ofc is that industries won't be drying out anymore. But there shouldn't be lucky over-producing industries either. It will also rebuild secondary industries immediately after closure.

Cash goals (15m and 1bil) were suffering the most so they are first ones to use new feature (ofc only on test server for now).

Actually no, didn't notice that, so thanks for reporting) It will require a client update to fix though (1-2 weeks). Fast change buttons use server ip and we just changed it yesterday.

It seems I found a way to allow destroying objects and industries in claimed town radius. Also this trick may allow me to do more cool stuff in future. But for now I enabled it on test server (classic cb modes only), please test it well. It involves enabling magic bulldozer cheat so can be really disastrous if I forgot some checks xD

As of now only drawback I know is that dynamiting area fails entirely if it contains industry or object (normally it clears whatever it can). But there is no easy cure for that so I think it's fine trade-off.

We played 3h cb with 5-6 people with only 50 terra and lot of being used for town there.

Oh well, I guess I should stop being lazy and ignoring this topic xD

I'd say we need to divide servers in two categories: for pro's and, well, not-so-pro's xD Because usually requirements for those condradict each other. For example, the reason why town growth area isn't limited on GS servers is because it requires a newgrf (at least untill my patch for FS#6381 gets accepted) and servers with newgrfs are less attractive for new players. That said it's more of a guideline, not strict separation, so there are three categories actually:

• "Newbie" servers. Focusing on attracting new people, easier to join and play. But sacrificing some competitiveness and gameplay mechanics that aren't just possible to do. So these servers will have no grf, fixed goals (15m cash, 30k cb, etc), mb multiple goals when I finally implement them.
• "Pro" servers. Focusing on gameplay and competitiveness. Obviously grfs, fixed game length (1h, 3h, 6h, etc.). Also mb I'll eventually do smth for ingame-type competition game modes (like events), not just highscore-type as we have now.
• Mixed-type servers. Quest server have grfs but aren't exactly "pro" ones. Also eyecandy grfs don't fit "pro" servers imo, if someone has CPU cycles to spare he can add them statically xD Also FIRS or ECS probably falls in this category too. Btw, while FIRS quests are possible and even there are some already (but disabled for some reason), I don't want to do them just yet as I plan to rework whole underlying goal mechanics eventually.

As for server ordering I think they shoud go from "newbie" to "pro". Meaning smth like cash goals first, nogrf(aka GS) cb next, then quest, firs cb and ending with classic 3h cb.

Some timetabled servers may be better if we'll have more players (and we plan to grow eventually, right? ;) Rigth now I think #6 is the only one with timetable, but idk, don't see any particular reason to switch it just yet. Mb I do if I use s4 for 1 bil (3 cb 3h servers are too much atm imo).

For game length settings I did't get what you ask for. There is game_length_years already, what else do you want?

Server 0 has a lot of available game modes, probably somebody just restarted it to smth else. But 1bil didn't go anywhere, you should be able to restart it back without any trouble.

As for terra, 100 is a lot imo, you're probably just wasting it.

Ok, should be much better now. [Diff here] (didn't update binaries, will go with next release).

Hi! Unfortunately that's not the right way to fix it, what you did is just make it look better with big fonts and worse with small ones.

To cover all fonts it should take font and icon heights into account, like NetworkClientListWindow (or TooltipsExtraWindow) does. Also I think I may fix it myself since I've already spent time looking into it and you're not the first one trying to patch it)

For long goals I first wanted to do per-company introduction of new vehicles, but it turned out to be impossible, so nothing holding it anymore.

Also I have some ideas for GS servers and mb some other but won't be implementing them any soon, so, I guess, will stick with what we have for now.