Fields and catchment areas

[jamespetts]

It would be helpful if an industry could be counted as being within the catchment area of a station/stop if one of its fields is within the catchment area, rather than having to have the base building within the catchment area. This would allow industries to have a much larger number of fields, and allow farms, in particular, to be more realistic. It would also be more intuitive: it is hard for a player to work out why the middle building needs to be connected rather than anywhere in the industry, and would get even more confusing if "fields" are used by pakset authors for warehouses, outbuildings, etc., that look indistinguishable from the main factory itself...

[The Hood]

Support

[micslu]

I like this suggestion too.
It should make artists' job easier too.

[prissi]

Then one player could delete field until another player is no longer connected.

[gauthier]

I support also for electricity lines, for example I built one of the new solar stations, impossible to connect it since the central building of the station is surrounded by fields ...

[jamespetts]

Then one player could delete field until another player is no longer connected.

Two possible solutions:

(1) prevent players deleting the last field that connects another player's station;

(2) make it such that, when a stop is connected to a factory by a field, it remains so connected even if the fields are removed, provided that the factory itself is still there.

These measures are both preferable to the current state of affairs.

[rsdworker]

i am not sure if its bug or its intended

i was trying to connect the power lines to grain farm but upon trying it its refuses to place the substation on edges of farm saying there substations must be next to farm but grain farm has field around farm - so if farm is on hill - you could put substation below next to farmhouse but if farm on flat ground means its not possible to place the substation but if farmhouse has no field either on one of sides then substation can be placed but if farmhouse has all field around the sides - its would be impossible to put substation at that farm

screenshot attached -
green shows i can attach substation to farm - while red circle is not able have substation attached due the building is surrounded by fields which impossible to remove one field

i am using British pack with experiential 10.10

[Carl]

I think this may be a symptom of a more general bug regarding industrial fields which is not even specific to Experimental, let alone to pak128.Britain. It would be nice if both substations and station coverage would count fields as part of the factory itself for their purposes.

[rsdworker]

I think this may be a symptom of a more general bug regarding industrial fields which is not even specific to Experimental, let alone to pak128.Britain. It would be nice if both substations and station coverage would count fields as part of the factory itself for their purposes.

station coverage is not problem - when grain farm is powered - its works but only substation is issue - i am not sure if its affected in both - standard and experiential

[kierongreen]

Station coverage and transformers are intended to only connect to main industry building, not fields. Thus this is not a bug report as such but a change in feature request.

Fields should be able to be removed as long as there is more than the minimum number remaining to allow connections, have you tried this?

[rsdworker]

Station coverage and transformers are intended to only connect to main industry building, not fields. Thus this is not a bug report as such but a change in feature request.

Fields should be able to be removed as long as there is more than the minimum number remaining to allow connections, have you tried this?

yeah i did tried that to remove one field but its refuses it - if you see screenshot above - one farm on edge of hill which can have substation but the flat land farm can't have substation

[kierongreen]

Count suggests that there is 28 fields present, so you should be able to remove some (minimum number is 20 for most farms in pak128.Britain, unless experimental has different numbers). If not there maybe a bug with that?

[Carl]

However, this means that a new farm -- which has exactly the minimum number of fields -- cannot be connected to the electricity network, since no farms can be removed.

[rsdworker]

Count suggests that there is 28 fields present, so you should be able to remove some (minimum number is 20 for most farms in pak128.Britain, unless experimental has different numbers). If not there maybe a bug with that?

i will check

[kierongreen]

However, this means that a new farm -- which has exactly the minimum number of fields -- cannot be connected to the electricity network, since no farms can be removed.

Correct, and pak authors should ensure that there are not too many fields to prevent station connections also (so for 2 station coverage setting minimum number to more than 15 for a 1x1 industry would not be recommended, 10 would be better probably!)

[jamespetts]

Carl is entirely correct - moving this to the extension requests board. I don't think that it is sensible to require a very low number of fields, as that restricts the area that might be taken by a farm, and, in any event, does not assist with electrical connectivity.

[rsdworker]

Carl is entirely correct - moving this to the extension requests board. I don't think that it is sensible to require a very low number of fields, as that restricts the area that might be taken by a farm, and, in any event, does not assist with electrical connectivity.

well jamespotts - i am not sure if its bug OR its was just feature because other simllar farms which can have substation on edge of fields - the cow farm is one of them regardless on terrain

[prissi]

But the same problem as with transformes applies also for stations. If there are too many fields required, it could be very easily impossible to connect a station fo the farmhouse.

[isidoro]

To me, it makes sense the present behavior.  One must give electricity to the main building.  At the beginning it may not be possible because the farm has a low number of fields and cannot destroy one next to the building.  You only have to transport goods, make the industry develop one more field and build the transformer (the electricity comes when you have used for some time the basic industry).

Another solution is that these industries appear with min. number of fields+1 to allow the player to destroy just one to place the transformer...

[Carl]

Another solution is that these industries appear with min. number of fields+1 to allow the player to destroy just one to place the transformer...

I like this idea; though perhaps make it minimum+5, or +10, or some random number in a range, to allow for higher minimum field values.


The conflict here is as follows:

On one hand, large field numbers are desirable -- pakset authors want to make the countryside vibrant and varied, and fields are more or less the only way to guarantee that lots of similar objects appear next to each other. (Ground_obj are spread out evenly, so farm-fields would look strange if coded that way.) And of course real-life countryside is often dominated by very large contiguous farms rather than large open spaces of grass, so it's natural to want to have lots of fields attached to every farm.

But on the other hand, large farms are difficult to connect to transport or power networks, since these networks require a connection to the main building which is obstructed by the fields -- and if fields always spawn at their minimum values then this will be impossible.


I agree that allowing connections to outer fields is odd and seems wrong. So the best two options for reconciling this conflict seem to be:


(a) always have fields spawn with more than minimum fields (as isidoro suggested)

(b) make maps spawn with road-connections to land factory buildings as well as cities, and generate these roads after factories but before fields. This would mean that each farm building would always be next to a road. (This is part of a broader extension request I've been meaning to submit for a while -- that land attractions and factories should, like cities, be connected to roads on map generation. I'll post this separately to avoid going off-topic here.)

[jamespetts]

I also think that there is much to be said for the idea of farms spawning with more than the minimum number of feilds - but perhaps, instead of a fixed number of additional fields, a proportion (say, 150% of the minimum number) so that very large farms can be accommodated more readily. There would be much utility in having much of the countryside dominated by large farms.

[Fabio]

I propose this:  a new field relocate tool. Click on a field then click on an empty tile next to another existing field (or main building). The field is moved on the new tile.

[prissi]

One could certainly add a new filed_range parameter for the initial number of fields.

[Carl]

That sounds like a good solution.

[jamespetts]

Yes, Prissi's idea seems sensible - as long as farms don't sometimes end up with the minimum number on generation causing this problem once again.

[rsdworker]

sounds good idea because its will completely fix the problem