How to Turn Ploppable BATs into Growable Buildings

[+Guest]

Cheers for sharing your knowledge its grately appreciated, i will give your method a go and let you know how i get on, thanks again.

[toroca 162]

Please take note of my edits in Step 4.  I was mistaken on some things...

[wiggle359 0]

Thanks for taking the time for posting this tutorial, I myself will find this very helpfull .

[n74704 21]

step 4 - thats where you lost me.

 

i know you can create growables in the BAT, but once you place the building on a lot in the LE, it no longer is growable.  if you can figure out how to make a growable from the LE, then we'll be in business...

[toroca 162]

----------------

On 2/27/2004 11:52:26 PM n74704 wrote:

step 4 - thats where you lost me.

i know you can create growables in the

BAT

, but once you place the building on a lot in the LE, it no longer is growable.  if you can figure out how to make a growable from the LE, then we'll be in business...

----------------

You have to place the building on an RCI lot in order to be able to have it growable.  If you try to build it on a landmark lot or a civic building lot, you'll never see the thing in the game because those won't grow.  This is why you can't use the ploppable lot that comes with the BAT unless some modder will explain how to convert the lot itself into a growable RCI lot.  That would involve changes in DstGen or the Reader, unless someone can write a program to do it automatically for us.

[szilard 0]

Thanks toroca for the tutorial!
One question:
Do I need to have the Deluxe version, or SC4+RH is enough to do that?
TIA

[AX 1]

Oh thank you a lot Toroca... Since my attempts to convince batters to make a growable version of their buildings failed, I think I ahve no choice. So this tutorial will be very useful to me. But I was wondering about one thing: If I create a lot, let's say 4X4, will this building grow on 4X5, 5X4, 6X6 or whatever lots or I have to make every lot by myself?

 

Thank you a lot again for your help https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/2.gif>https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/1.gif>

 

AX

[Eagalious 2]

Thanks a lot for this tuturial.

Only two questions:

1. If you name it a different name, it wont replace a building already in game right? I had to reinstall the game after I found a lot of my downloads replacing Maxis' buildings.

2. Will this also work for buildings created with the lot editor and without the BAT?

[DuskTrooper 316]

THANK YOU!  Maybe people will stop bothering me about this now!!!!!!!!!

 

[Vatt3 8]

I'm not sure if this really goes with what the tutorial is about, but here it is. How do you make a landmark lot into an RCI ploppable? Or is that even possible. I've been trying to figure this out.

[AX 1]

OK, add these 3 other questions to the other one I've asked earlier:

 

1- What should put in capacity satisfied ? I take for example the Transamerica Pyramid that I tried. There are 2 values : 13088 and 15084... Where should I put the number of jobs?? And the other value stands for what? I've seen on another post a building that had six values... What to do with that?

 

2- In the same idea, I've seen on another post (the same) that there is a value for R$$$, R$$, R$, CO, CS, industry and stuff... Can you light me on this (I don't know if this can be said in english  

 

3- You say that you should place a growable building on a growable lot in order for this to work, but if I take my example of the Transamerica Pyramid (which I think is CO$$), should I place it on a CO$$ lot or it doesn't matter?

 

Thank you again to help people who have difficulties like me! If I have some other questions, I will ask!

 

AX

[6459978. 106]

I followed that all, one thing though. Whenever I make a building RCI in the plugin manager, and then open up an RCI in the LE, I can't replace the existing building with the one I created. Anyone know why?

[Equinox 1,218]

The lot's not big enough.  Some buildings' bases are way larger than they should be, and I haven't figured a way to successfully edit that yet.

[+Guest]

Thanks toroca for posting this! I've converted alot of my downloaded lots into growables, thanks to this post.

This topic needs to be sticky for easy finding.

[toroca 162]

 

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On 2/29/2004 5:14:52 PM AX wrote:

Oh thank you a lot Toroca... Since my attempts to convince batters to make a growable version of their buildings failed, I think I ahve no choice. So this tutorial will be very useful to me. But I was wondering about one thing: If I create a lot, let's say 4X4, will this building grow on 4X5, 5X4, 6X6 or whatever lots or I have to make every lot by myself?

----------------

If you put it on any lot, it will ONLY grow on that lot.  To make it appear with other buildings and automatically use the existing lots, you'd have to add it to a building family, and I haven't delved into that yet.  Besides that, some of these buildings won't properly fit on the existing lots without significant edits.

----------------
On 2/29/2004 5:44:40 PM Eagalious wrote:Thanks a lot for this tuturial.

Only two questions:

1. If you name it a different name, it wont replace a building already in game right?  I had to reinstall the game after I found a lot of my downloads replacing Maxis' buildings.

2. Will this also work for buildings created with the lot editor and without the BAT?
----------------

1. Well, they shouldn't be replacing Maxis buildings anyway, and if they are, you shouldn't need to reinstall to fix it, you just delete the building or modded lots in question...  Either way, I've been using this exact method for a while now and I'm not having any problems with BATs replacing Maxis ones.  Look at the picture of my downtown core in Chapter Six of my Honolulu region, the BATs are appearing right along with the Maxis-Made buildings.

2. As far as I know, no, this only works for BAT created ploppables.

----------------
On 2/29/2004 6:04:26 PM Vatt3 wrote:I'm not sure if this really goes with what the tutorial is about, but here it is. How do you make a landmark lot into an RCI ploppable? Or is that even possible. I've been trying to figure this out.
----------------

Depends what you're really asking.  You CAN'T make a Landmark lot into an RCI one, at least not without instructions from someone more knowledgable than myself.  Supposedly it's possible, but no one who knows how has bothered to explain it in detail to the rest of us yet.  This method is only for the buildings, because I don't know how to change the lots.  If I did, I wouldn't have to make my own new lot for every BAT I download, because I'd be able to simply change the type of the lot that the BAT creator made.

----------------
On 2/29/2004 6:36:22 PM AX wrote:

OK, add these 3 other questions to the other one I've asked earlier:

 

1- What should put in 'capacity satisfied' ? I take for example the Transamerica Pyramid that I tried. There are 2 values : 13088 and 15084... Where should I put the number of jobs?? And the other value stands for what? I've seen on another post a building that had six values... What to do with that?

 

2- In the same idea, I've seen on another post (the same) that there is a value for R$$$, R$$, R$, CO, CS, industry and stuff... Can you light me on this (I don't know if this can be said in english https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/22.gif> https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/2.gif border=0>

 

3- You say that you should place a growable building on a growable lot in order for this to work, but if I take my example of the Transamerica Pyramid (which I think is CO$$), should I place it on a CO$$ lot or it doesn't matter?

 

Thank you again to help people who have difficulties like me! If I have some other questions, I will ask!

 

AX

----------------

1. For Capacity Satisfied, I normally just use whatever the Plugin Manager generates, unless it seems unrealistic or is too high.  In your case it's too high.  The high wealth values (high wealth is the lowest in the list, remember) should NOT be much higher than 7000, or the building will never grow because the game can't utilize enough demand at one time to generate the need for a building that large. The values under capacity satisfied are for each wealth level.  The Keys on the left side represent the building's type and wealth level, and the values on the right are the capacity for that type and wealth level.  Some RCIs only have one key and one value, these are low wealth.  Some have as many as three keys and values, these are high wealth.  When res and com buildings deteriorate to lower wealth levels, they hold more people.  That's what the extra values are for.

2. I don't know what the Keys are for each type of building and each wealth level, but they can be collected easily enough from the Plugin Manager.  Just set a building to be a high wealth residential, and then look at the three keys.  In order from top to bottom, they'll be low, medium, and high wealth res.  Do the same for commercial service.  For office, you'll only get two Keys, because there is no low wealth office.  For industrial, there will be a different one for each kind of industry.  In all, there will be 12 different keys.

3. If you make it a Co$$ in the Plugin Manager, then yes, you need to put it on a Co$$ lot.  The lot type you place it on must match whatever you set the building to be in the Plugin Manager.

Also, keep in mind this method won't work for buildings that won't fit on a 6 by 6 lot or smaller, because you can't create larger lots in the lot editor.

[AX 1]

Thanks a lot Toroca! https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/1.gif>

 

AX

[billou79 5]

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On 3/1/2004 1:37:13 AM toroca wrote:

Also, keep in mind this method won't work for buildings that won't fit on a 6 by 6 lot or smaller, because you can't create larger lots in the lot editor.

Actually, you can't create larger than 6x6

growable

lots, but larger than 6x6 ploppable lots are possible

[toroca 162]

----------------

On 3/2/2004 9:45:58 AM billou79 wrote:

Actually, you can't create larger than 6x6

growable

lots, but larger than 6x6 ploppable lots are possible

----------------

Uh, yeah, that was kind of implicit since this whole topic is about making BATs that are already ploppable into growables instead.  Nobody cares that they can make a ploppable lot larger than 6 by 6 when they're trying to make a building growable...

[erekose 0]

Hi!
I'm having trouble with Step 3.) Click on the - sign next to Ploppables on the list on the left side.

I can not find this...
In the plugin manager, i have 3 choices on the left : models , descriptors , lots
i can access to models and lots and click on the bat i want to modify, but there is no ploppables anywhere.
In the descriptors section, i can not click on the BAT ; it says : corrupted plug-in. . .

any help would be warmly welcome

[toroca 162]

You've definatly got some kind of problem...  There should be a whole list of ploppable and growable categories.  I'm not sure what to tell you to try to fix it though...  Does anyone else know what might be wrong?

[pdoseven 1]

I have the same problem, i don't have the B.A.T. dowloaded, but i do have the new lot editor and the plugin-manager with the unicode fix. It's really frustrating. It could be that the B.A.T. is required to make it work right-just a thought.
THANKS

[SimGoober 2,364]

I had this problem (no list in the PM) and fixed it, but I forget exactly how.  I had to re-install the lot editor, and BAT.  I believe you should have the most current patch installed BEFORE you install the lot editor to fix this. 

[wbelac 0]

One question...

 

Is it possible to open the Lot Editior 2 times, so that I can copy the design of the original ploppable? (I don't mean highlight everything and drag it to the other one, just so I can see what the old one looked like) Some lots I want to make growable have a lot of props, including custom ones.

 

Thanks for the tutorial,

 

wbelac

[jglei701 8]

Toroca,

I'm having a problem with editing my lots after I use the plug-in manager. The lot I've been working with is JEC's Tio Pepe restaurant. Right now, it's a 3x3 landmark. I'm able to change it to a Cs$$ growable with the plug-in manager, but when I open up the Lot Editor, I can never find the Tio Pepe building itself. In your instructions, you say in step 4 In the list, find the building you are editing. What list are you referring to? Hopefully you can help me out!!

jglei701

[toroca 162]

I've been seeing this question pop up a LOT, mostly here, but also a few other places, so I'm going to answer with the method I've been using. This is obviously only intended for buildings that don't come with a growable version.

Requirements:
SimCity 4 Rush Hour/Deluxe
Maxis Plugin Manager Tool
Maxis Lot Editor Tool
Downloaded BATs

I'm not sure if the Plugin Manager requires the actual BAT to be installed or not, if anyone knows, please tell me and I'll update the requirements. Please note, this method will not work if for some reason you can't use the Plugin Manager.

It is also important to note that any building requiring a lot larger than 6x6 can't be made growable, at least not according to Maxis. If someone here tries to make one larger than 6x6 growable and succeeds, please post here and I will update this notice.

Step 1.) Download BAT building. There are multiple places to do this. Most distribute buildings in Zip Files, so you'll need to unzip the files into the My Documents/SimCity 4/Plugins folder (ONLY this one, the Plugin Manager doesn't read the Program Files plugin folder). The Official SC4 website downloads the files directly into your plugins directory for you though. If the building comes with a readme, be sure to have a look at it, as sometimes there are special circumstances or requirements for downloaded materials.

Step 2.) Open the Plugin Manager. On the list on the left side, the Models Category should already be highlighted. In the list on the right, you'll see any models the Plugin Manager found in the Plugins folder. If there is more than one, select the one you intend to make growable.

Step 3.) Click on the - sign next to Ploppables on the list on the left side. This should close that section and bring the RCI section up into view. Now, click on the model you want to use on the right side, and drag it onto the RCI category you want it to appear in. A new box will pop up, and this lets you edit the properties of the building.

The Plugin Manager will generate numbers of its own for these properties, but you can change them if you wish. Click on the values to edit them. Some will allow you to edit them in the main window, some will require you to click on the gray box that appears on the right side, opening a new edit window.

Please note, I will compare many of these values to Hurt Enterprise Headquarters, which is the largest high wealth Commercial Office building in the game in terms of height, and its the second largest in terms of jobs. I will abbreviate it HEH to save me having to type it over and over.

Building Value - Unimportant. I leave it alone.
Bulldoze Cost - Unimportant, but you can change it if you wish.
Capacity Satisfied - One of the most important values. This is where you set how many people live or work in the building. In the Editor box, you should see two lists, Keys and Values. Keys represent the building type and wealth levels, values are the actual capacity numbers. You only want to edit the Values. They can be changed to pretty much anything, but there are some general things to keep in mind. Firstly, the BOTTOM value is for the building's highest wealth. So if you dragged the model into Co$$$ then the bottom number is high wealth capacity. If you dragged it into R$$ then it is medium wealth capacity. Each value above the bottom one is for the next lowest wealth level. Keep in mind that the Maxis-created buildings in the game all hold more people at lower wealth levels. One final thing to remember is that if you set this value much above 7000, you'll never see the building in the game because the game can only use demand up to 6000 at one time, and it will have trouble getting buildings larger than that to grow.
Construction Time - Unimportant, but you might want to change it. The number represents the number of game days it takes for the build to appear. HEH takes 238 days.
Exemplar Name - This one is VERY important! Whatever name you enter here is what you will see in the game when you query the building! It seems to me that most of the BATters aren't aware of this, because I have seem some ridiculous things come up for queries!
Flammability - Somewhat important. The Plugin Manager ususally generates something realistic here, but you may want to replace it anyway. Lower numbers mean less danger of fire. Keep in mind that skyscrapers are usually much less of a fire hazard than a house or industrial building.
MaxFireStage - When a building catches fire, this determines how many stages the fire goes through before the building is destroyed. Most skyscrapers should have a Stage of 4 or 5, while smaller buildings should have less.
Pollution at Center - This one is important, and I usually edit it because the Plugin Manager seems to generate much higher numbers here than it really should be. HEH generates only 19 air and water pollution, and only 6 garbage. I have yet to see the PM generate numbers anywhere near that low for any building I've edited. In the Edit Window, from top to bottom, the numbers represent Air pollution, water pollution, garbage produced, and radiation pollution. Be warned, if you add radiation to an RCI building, it will probably cause its own abandonment! One additional note, I usually edit these values on most buildings I download, whether they're already growable or not. Most BATters seem to accept the default values, which are often more pollutive than a Gas Power Plant! On this one, keep in mind that residential buildings tend to produce more garbage, and industrial is more power-hungry.
Pollution Radii - This is of course how far the pollution produced spreads in tiles. The order is the same for these values, air water garbage radiation. Garbage should stay zero, and air and water shouldn't be high. HEH only has 7 and 8 for its radii.
Power Consumed - This one is usually about right, although you may want to increase it if it's a building that would have a lot of exterior lighting or would otherwise be power hungry. HEH uses 277.
Water Consumed - This one is usually somewhat too high. HEH uses 2961, so compare to that.
Worth - Relatively unimportant. this is how much the building is worth if destroyed by a disaster.

Once you've edited any of these properties as you see fit, click OK at the bottom of the screen. You should get a message telling you Plugin Saved Successfully. This creates a new Desc file for the building you've been editing.

Step 4.) Close the Plugin Manager and open the Lot Editor.  You'll either need to create your own lot, or edit an existing one.  It's probably easiest to find an existing lot similar to what you want, and edit that.  Make sure you make the lot large enough.  In the list, find the building you've been editing.  Usually it will be at or near the bottom of the list.  Place it on the lot and make any edits that may be needed.  Once done, save your lot with a new name.  Close the Lot Editor.

 

MAJOR EDIT - After some tinkering and some reading here and at SCC, it appears I was in error in assuming that if a BAT came with a custom lot, you could simply place the building on that lot and it would work.  Apparently the building's class is also defined by the lot it can appear on, and if they're being released only on ploppable lots, you'll have to create your own growable lot with the Lot Editor.    If anyone knows how to change a landmark lot into an RCI lot, please let me know...

 

Now, look in the Plugins folder.  You should see two Desc files (unless you store ALL of your downloaded files in this folder, in which case there may be more than two).  The OLDER one you will want to delete, because it was the one that came with the BAT building and is no longer used.  The same with the lot files.  There should be two, and you only want to keep your new one.

Now, you can either leave the remaining files (there should be three, a model file, a Desc file, and a Lot file) in the main folder, or you can create a subfolder for each building.  That's what I've done, as it eliminates some confusion by keeping that folder from filling up with a lot of similarly named files.

 

That's all!  *hopes I didn't leave something out*  *LOL*

[newyorkrunaway1 110]

This is the first time I am seeing this!!! I am going to try this out and let you know if it works for me. I have been making a lot of growable buildings with very limited success, only 2 out of 10 worked. This would help out so much if it works. Thanks for letting us in on your method!!!

[MayorAce 0]

You do know it is possible to make a growables without opening an existing Residential, Commercial, or Industrial Lot...  The Building or Foundation so to speak defines what type of Zone, Name, ect, and What this Lot does.  You will have to replace the building with the Building you created with Plugin Manager in LE.

Example:

After creating your BAT Model, open up your Plugin Manager.

Select the folder Models, drag and drop the BAT Model from there to your Foundations.

Then select the folder Models again, drag and drop the BAT Model from there to any of the RCI folders, such as R$, or R$$ and so on.

After you set the values Troc explained earlier, click the Advanced tab, then select the drop down list next to Building foundation.  Select from the list your Foundation you just created.

Open up LOT editor, open any of the lots you wish to edit.  Replace the building with the building you just created.  Make sure your LOT size is big enough to hold the building.

Next, after editing it, save as, and name it what ever you feel.

Now open up iLive Reader, open the SC4Desc file you created with the plugin Manager, make sure all the values are exactly what you want, the values are the same ones you set when you created it in Plugin Manager.

Now do the same, but this time open the SC4Lot version of it.

Make sure your values in LD files, and Exmplar files match perfectly.

Now below I will explain some values you need or can change, or need to add if not existant. Also explaining what values = to.

Growth Stage

0x01 Stage 1
0x02 Stage 2
0x03 Stage 3
0x04 Stage 4
0x05 Stage 5
0x06 Stage 6
0x07 Stage 7
0x08 Stage 8

LotConfigPropertyZoneTypes

0x01 Light Density
0x02 Medium Density
0x03 High Density

LotConfigPropertyWealthTypes

0x01 Low Wealth
0x02 Medium Wealth
0x03 High Wealth

LotConfigPropertyPurposeTypes

0x01 Residential
0x02 Commercial
0x03 Industrial

(Correct me if I am wrong on this one above!)

Now on your LD file, make sure they match everything.

Version = LotConfigPropertyVersion

Compatability = Ignore this...

Wealth =  MUST MATCH THE WEALTH SIGN!!!!  IE if Low wealth, then $, if medium then $$ and so on!

Zone = RCI  what ever your Lot is, if Residential, then R, COmmercial then C, if Industrial then I

Stage Lot = Growth Stage

Click aplly once they match! Then save!

If you get an error about > 255!!! Ignore that!!  It works perfect in game!

[Otoole 0]

Date: 3/12/2004 11:15:23 AM Author: erekose Hi! I'm having trouble with Step 3.) Click on the - sign next to 'Ploppables' on the list on the left side. I can not find this... In the plugin manager, i have 3 choices on the left : 'models' , 'descriptors' , 'lots' i can access to models and lots and click on the bat i want to modify, but there is no 'ploppables' anywhere. In the 'descriptors' section, i can not click on the BAT ; it says : 'corrupted plug-in'. . . any help would be warmly welcome

quote>

 

The solution to this problem is to make sure that the Plug In Manager is placed in the correct folder.  It belongs in \Program Files\Maxis\SimCity 4\Apps.

 

When I downloaded the Plug In Manager with Unicode fix, it didn't automatically install in that folder and I had the same issue as the previous poster described.  It was frustrating not to be able to find an answer as to what the problem was.  As soon as the Plug In Manager was moved into the correct folder, it worked just as it was supposed to.