I also would like to finally have a huge shared playertown. Every try until now stopped without getting much done.
Well, a Railcraft train network was a crazy idea looking at it now. 30min+ to get from my base to the planned town...
My current idea about is that the town is just a gathering of trading buildings with some buildings for the looks around it.
To get players to use it there must be a benefit from it. So we need something that allows us easier trading and traveling.
I also had some ideas for GTExtras about that but it will take some time until i get there.
1: A Admin Teleporter That others can link up to for cheap long distance teleporting to the town and back.
2: A more flexible and tuned up GT version of the Energy-O-Mart. Maybe a huge admin storage that can be placed into the town. Everyone can sell and buy energy from it. The more energy it has stored, the cheaper it will become. So supply/demant based energy prices. That somehow combined with an fair way of long way energy transfer.
3: A easy way to set up automated trading. Maybe a AE2 trading addon?
4: Once i added research to GTExtras, i will likely add a method that makes research in teams more efficient. Research results will not be player bound anyways, so they can be traded. While unlocking craftings will be quite cheap, mostly tier releated, efficiency and processing speed upgrades will get expensive fast. So a player that specializes on one area will have benefits when trading.