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specification or identity of Simutrans which you can not change

Started by rapidliner, August 31, 2017, 04:48:18 AM

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rapidliner

for programme developers:

What do you consider "specification or identity of Simutrans which you can not change or compromise"?

Leartin

This is a very good question!

I think a first overview is to check out "Denied Extension Requests - Will never happen". Ironically, half of the section "too much work" is already crossed out, so in regards to this question, gameplay- and complexity reasons are more interesting.


I think for Standard, it's important not to change the core gameplay, which is to use vehicles to connect A to B. Stock Market would be only about finances, it would be pretty much it's own game playable in a finances window, which either is so dominant it takes away from the core gameplay (because people have to pay attention to it even if they don't want to) or would be insignificant, so why bother having it? That does not mean the simulation of the financial aspect cannot be altered. As long as the core stays as easy as "buy stuff that costs less than it would earn you in the long run", the system in the background may change - probably without people realizing it unless they really enjoy accounting.
You could also say every addition needs to somehow connect to the core gameplay, or at least map generation. There are many things that don't affect gameplay, but just look good. Or sound good - having the sound system play several sounds at a time would not affect gameplay, but enhance the expierience otherwise.
The Limit to this would be complexity and the amount of resources needed. If a patch enhances the gameplay, but requires a brand new gaming pc in order to play a medium map, it does not matter how awesome it is to play that medium map on a brand new gaming pc - it would still be denied for Standard.

Turning Simutrans into a city simulator is a good example to look at, here. If you could implement all the variables of the original Sim City and have an AI play with them for Simutrans' city generation, you could technically enhance the Simutrans core gameplay. This would probably not be refused due to gameplay reasons, and rather because it requires more resources than seems acceptable for minor feature in a transportation game. That the game would be playable as city builder if the player took the role of the AI would be a side effect and not really an issue, however, most likely that would end up as a fork of which not all elements are put into Standard, and not everything transportation-related would be put into the fork, while trying to have as high pakset compatibility with both as possible. That's speculation, of course.

DrSuperGood

In my mind it is as simple as not removing transportation elements from the game. It could have city builder elements added to it, land scraping and environmental elements, shop and industry management tools, a total graphic move to 3D, MMO support, etc but as long as you still can focus on transporting stuff it is still Simutrans.