Mothballing costs money

[Vladki]

In sthephenson-siemens game I tried to mothball roads at (813,547), as "Raven Express" player, but it costs 187 c/tile. I expected that it would be free of charge.

[RESTRICTED ACCOUNT]

IMO, some cost is necessary because it occupy the land.
In the case of free, it is possible to reserve land in advance and block other players in a first-come-first-served manner. 

[Vladki]

You cannot build mothballed road on empty place. First you build a normal road, and the mothball it. So the cost of land is already paid for

[RESTRICTED ACCOUNT]

Oh, I just knew that there was an icon but I didn't know that this is only for overwriting.   It's interesting. Thank you for the notice. 

However, it will be easier to occupy the land by keeping the monthly expenses free.
So there is no question about charging the cost of dismantling existing equipment.
If it is cheap I will use excess money to occupy land in advance for my future expansion. That's a good deal. 

[Vladki]

The mothballing should be that you do not dismantle the road, but stop any maintenance. It will be immediately degraded, thus unusable. But the land is yours. Of course you can build the cheapest road and immediately mothball to buy land in advance. And in my case it was a road that was used for some time but is not needed any more

[jamespetts]

I suspect that this is a bug - I will look into this when I have a moment.

[Vladki]

Just noticed that this behavior can be observed only on roads. Mothballing rail track or narrow gauge is free.

[jamespetts]

Thank you for the report - I believe that I have now fixed this. I should be grateful if you could re-test with the next nightly build.

[Vladki]

Seems fixed. Thank you