It would be nice if it would be possible to install addons globally.
At the moment addons are only searched in ~/simutrans/addons, but searching programdir/addons (or if enabled workdir/addons) would be very nice.
This would allow to install addons one time and then all users can use them. Also if you package simutrans for e.g. linux distributions this would be useful.
It seems that this was already planed because in the source code (simmain.cc) I found this comment:
// load with private addons (now in addons/pak-name either in simutrans main dir or in userdir)
Regards,
susnux
I think the comment refers to how Simutrans operates when running as a single directory installation. That is when each user has their own separate Simutrans installation. In that case, everything is in the Simutrans main directory.
While this would be easy to add, what is the advantage?
As he said, addons for multiple user accounts.
I think I have suggested earlier that the opposite be possible as well: having per-user pak sets. That seems more useful, as Simutrans players all seem to have different tastes and would not like an administrator to make choices for them. However, even installing a pak set into their user directory might be too complex for a lot of users. (Simutrans is also slightly violating Windows guidelines as it is by putting every per-user file in My Documents.)