As mentioned here (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=9503.msg89152#msg89152): the proposal is simply for factories and attractions to be connected to the road network when starting a new map, just as cities are connected to one another.
Why? Well, it seems odd that a coal mine would be situated in the middle of nowhere without a road connecting to it; and it seems odd that the public transport company would have to build that road later. Same goes for tourist attractions -- if the old castle is that popular you'd expect there to already be an existing road connection.
A related second proposal (slightly less simple) is that factory-fields should be generated after factory-roads have been generated, to ensure that farm-buildings (etc) always have a road connection, no matter how many fields they have. This second idea is detachable from the above.
I could extend the request that a factory or an attraction can have location=waterfront and is built either on the shore, either near a river.
Fabio, user climate water for that ...
For shores it's ok.
But not for rivers.
Location=river could be good (e.g. Hydroelectric dam)
Carl's idea is a very sensible one indeed. As for climate=water, perhaps that could be modified to include rivers...?
Quote from: jamespetts on March 10, 2012, 06:01:19 PM
As for climate=water, perhaps that could be modified to include rivers...?
I would say no.
pak96.comic have a lighthouse that uses this parameter, this will look really strange near a river.
Hmm - perhaps, then, climate=river?
With respect to the original proposal -- I guess it would have to cover factories/attractions which spawn automatically during games, as well as those which are built at map generation. But this should be do-able, I take it...
Personally I don't like the thought of factories being automatically connected. As I would be transporting goods by rail roads would just get in the way (and has already been mentioned, remote factories may not have road connections anyway in real life).
If there are factories lacking a road connection then I suspect they are a very small minority. Having no land-factories connected to the road network is a far bigger oddity than having them all connected and thereby connecting a few remote factories too. And they could still be subject to the "max intercity road length" value, such that a really remote city wouldn't be connected automatically. (If we really wanted to preserve isolation for some kinds of remote factories or attractions then perhaps a parameter -- "no_automatic_road_connection" or similar -- could be added to their .dat files.)
Navigating around existing infrastructure (i.e. public roads) seems to me to be all part of the realistic challenge of building a rail network, rather than an unnecessary inconvenience. It's already part of the challenge of building a passenger network between cities, for instance.
I agree. How can a factory be built if there is no road, rail, or river in the first place? How can they transport the materials to build it?
In my opinion simutrans is about choosing the right method of transport to connect industries and cities. Having industries already connected by road massively skews this in favour of road transport. This already is the case for passengers, but at least for passengers the network factor quickly means that road transport can never cope with demand. This would not be as true for industry however.
I don't think a single road to each factory would bias things in favour of road transport. In many cases it may not be a convenient road for the network, for instance, so it will still be necessary to build your own roads in order to provide a good service. And at any rate, demand levels at many industries still often outweigh the supply constraints of a road network.
Quote from: kierongreen on March 11, 2012, 12:41:06 PM
In my opinion simutrans is about choosing the right method of transport to connect industries and cities. Having industries already connected by road massively skews this in favour of road transport.
Just as in real life ;-) Actually, it does not skew things much in favour of road transport until the middle of the 20th century at the earliest, when viable motor vehicles are introduced, but, thereafter, things really were skewed in favour of road transport, and there is no reason that this should not be simulated.