You can make money by robbing and destroying public roads

[Ranran(retired)]

Hello. Unfortunately if I find a new fatal issue I have to report it. (´・ω・｀)

This allows cheats because of some overlapping issues. Public roads outside the city will be owned by the player upon upgrade. For example, even though it is a road laid for a farm, the fact that it has been upgraded gives the player the right to destroy it. On the other hand, the player is obliged to bear the maintenance cost.

Issue #1 Most of intercity roads on the bridgewater server are not public roads and are owned by someone(player). The player who first upgrades the road wins that right and maintenance responsibility. If its owner does not upgrade, the road will not be upgraded. Such low quality roads can be maintained to obstruct public road transportation. Therefore, if you need a road suitable for the times, you may have to lay a new road yourself. Because the owner was only forced to maintain the road by renewing the road in the past, renewing it might not benefit the owner. It can't be destroyed, even if it's owned by the player, without a diversionary road. Players may end up taking public work forever due to the mistake of upgrading it. As far as I can see on the bridgewater server, many people were enthusiastic about railways. But before the railroad era was the era of carriages and ships. Then most players abandoned roads.

Even if the player updates the city road, it will not be owned by the player. Players own it when they update an undestructible public role road outside the city. I wonder if this behavior is correct. This is one of the reasons for giving players the opportunity to cheat.

Issue #2 The cost of getting that right from a public road is too low. Upgrade costs are very cheap. You obtain the road right as just pay its cheap cost. You can get a lot of money by destroying it immediately. However, it may be necessary to provide an alternative road for destruction. You need to identify and update roads that can be destroyed. The road leading to the factory/attraction is almost destructible. You can easily take it for money. Keep in mind that you must upgrade and steal it before you destroy it, rather than destroy it directly.

[jamespetts]

Thank you for your report. However, I have not been able to reproduce any conditions in which it is possible to make a net gain by destroying a public right of way. Taking on the responsibility of a public right of way by upgrading it involves, as you point out, a long term irreversible commitment. This is intended. I do not understand the suggestion that players can destroy or prevent the development of roads in this way; I do not believe that roads owned by players are treated differently to unowned roads in this respect. If you have identified a reproduction case for them being treated differently, please let me know.

As to getting money by destroying roads after diversion, since a diversion will require more tiles than the road to be diverted and will itself become a public right of way, it is difficult to see how it is possible to make money with this even though land costs are not taken into account when upgrading public rights of way (this is the quid pro quo for the long-term maintenance liability). Can you elaborate?

[freddyhayward]

I think Ranran was referring to unowned roads that are not public rights of way, which can readily be destroyed. Additionally, the owner of an upgraded public right of way can create diversions that are shorter than the original road, then remove the longer original section, gaining more in the sale of land than was spent on the shorter section.
Personally, I think it would be better if players did not assume ownership of roads upon upgrading them. The main benefit of upgrading roads is usually to run heavier vehicles over them, and ownership is often inconvenient for the new owner and other players. Aside from maintenance upkeep, I have found that much of the communication on the server is asking other players to modify or add stops to these upgraded roads. By the time Ranran left the server, he had accumulated about a dozen of these kinds of requests.

[jamespetts]

All the roads linking industries and towns are public rights of way on creation, so the unowned roads that are not public rights of way would be confined to those formerly owned by now liquidated players. Do people think that it would be better overall if players had to pay for the land value of roads when upgrading them?

As to players not taking ownership when upgrading, this would have the effect that players would be able to upgrade the road to a type with a higher maintenance cost and yet not pay for the maintenance themselves, which would be an exploit.

[freddyhayward]

All the roads linking industries and towns are public rights of way on creation, so the unowned roads that are not public rights of way would be confined to those formerly owned by now liquidated players. Do people think that it would be better overall if players had to pay for the land value of roads when upgrading them?

If they did assume ownership of them, then yes, however:

As to players not taking ownership when upgrading, this would have the effect that players would be able to upgrade the road to a type with a higher maintenance cost and yet not pay for the maintenance themselves, which would be an exploit.

I don't see how this is an exploit, if we consider maintenance to be the responsibility of whichever body was responsible for the original road. If it was, then we might consider any usage of an existing unowned road without paying its maintenance cost to be an exploit.
Two additional points about not assuming ownership:
1. the player would still have to pay the upgrade cost.
2. the player would not receive any tolls from private cars using the upgraded road.

[jamespetts]

Thank you for your feedback on this.

I have modified the code such that players pay the land value when upgrading a previously unowned road. This avoids the exploit originally reported.

It does not make sense for players to be able to upgrade somebody else's road and make that somebody else pay for the maintenance of that upgraded road in perpetuity without that somebody else having any say in the matter; the only way in which it makes sense for players to be able to upgrade public rights of way is by them buying outright the land on which they are located and then upgrading them at their own cost. Since landowners who have public rights of way running over their own land traditionally had to maintain these ways from their own money, this has been preserved in the code. Without such a system, the economics of turnpike trust era roads would be fundamentally broken in the game.