I ran a map as a test to see if the behavior from the 7000x2000 map repeated itself and it does: industry does not seem to obey the restriction in "max_factory_spacing_percentage" (set to 33 default) when connecting to other industries.
(http://www.ssgholdings.ca/simutrans/images/cross-connect-2.png)
This results in some very long connections. It seems random, I've had connections just a few tiles away and ones as far as this example and even farther.
This was on a 4000x500 map with 80 industries and 10 cities.
I didn't think about saving the map until after I closed the game. :P
Apparently, I have a super-short connection in the save I am playing that can literally have goods delivered from the factory to the shop by hauling them on hand ???
The code for this appears to be unchanged from Standard (and it is not immediately apparent to me precisely how this works). Can anyone confirm whether this works in Standard?
Interesting. I didn't realize this parameter was available in Standard as well. I didn't see it in the simuconf for pak64 or pak128. Will add and test later.
Any progress on testing this in Standard, anyone?
AFAICT the max_factory_spacing_xx parameters only limit how far away a new supplier will be built from a newly built consumer. If the new consumer finds an existing supplier on the map, it will link regardless of distance. There are no parameters to control min/max linking distance. IMHO there should be...
My apologies, I had tested this at the time but forgot to provide an update.
I tested this with Standard and it didn't seem to have any effect either. I didn't even know this parameter was available in Standard, I hadn't seen it used in any of the pak config files.
If it is as TurfIt suggests, then this parameter would be of limited effect/usefulness.
In light of the above, this topic seems more appropriate in the Standard extension requests forum, to which I have now moved it.