Abolish way-builder preference for existing ways

[ceeac]

The preference of the way builder for existing ways has been slightly bothering me for a long time, and today it bothered me enough to remove it. This should make way building in general, and especially building long stretches of double track much less frustrating (there are even negative Steam reviews about the old behaviour.

What do you think?

[Roboron]

Good.

[prissi]

I could think of ways to improve this, like try to do a parallel way if there is a way just one tile from start and end position. But otherwise have the old behaviour which is preferred for streets. There, I just click somewhere and then I would rather like to reuse as much of the public infrastructure as possible and not kill hundreds of trees and have extra maintenance to build a slightly shorter parallel route.

There is also the option of making straight ways only, like OptenTTD does.

The proper way to address this imho would be better by an additional weight for existing ways (not setting it to a hardcoded number as it is now). Most costs are already changeable in simuconf.tab.

EDIT: I think such a change (unless the additional parallel way building) is better done after the release. Looking at the code, one could probably start with the wayremover and just check during driving that there is always a connection possible on the outside, i.e. modify the test driver. That way will automatically make sure it is always next to the normal way.

[Roboron]

Since different players have different needs, I would let this as an option for the player, instead of going for a "one solution fits all".

We can show a little window when building a way for the player to pick its preferred "adjustment". Existing ways, straight, ignore existing ways, parallel, etc...

This could be similar of how Cities Skylines let the player chooses the "snap to" setting when building a road.

In any case, I agree this should be done after release.

[Leartin]

We can show a little window when building a way for the player to pick its preferred "adjustment". Existing ways, straight, ignore existing ways, parallel, etc...

I'd like to note hat signals and extensions already have subsettings (distance, rotation) and if anyone wants to add that, those shouldn't be forgotten for consistency.

[prissi]

In old times, I tended to give the answer that simutrans cannot read your mind. However, I think when it detects that both start and end are just one tile away from an existing way owned by the player, switching to a parallel builder seed sensible.

A hidden option may be good for the corner cases. But I think we should try indeed to read the mind as much as we can.

[Isaac Eiland-Hall]

But I think we should try indeed to read the mind as much as we can.

It's like you read my mind.