simmars-forum-threads Mod Workshop

[AndisArt 2,067]

thats cool paroxysm, well be compiling a list of things to do. modding of BATs I think we're well covered.

we have some car models lying around that want to be ingame replacing cars, then there is the whole Beta 2 bugfixing (see the Beta 2 thread) all those bugs need a fix, thats what I remember at the moment. also you can just have a look around if you see something where you can hepl out just go for it

[TimeMaster 4]

parosysm: Great, go for it!

[JakeMD 107]

You can check off the God Mode Icons

[AndisArt 2,067]

Done.

Replacing of Trees with rock models added. Rock props are ready, if u need them

[JakeMD 107]

Been working on the rock replacement and am having some troubles. I can get one to work, but the rest still show up as green trees.

[AndisArt 2,067]

hm, thx 4 the update. hope u find a solution. Best of luck!

[TimeMaster 4]

Cool, I hope you'll be able to fix that.

Anyway, I way thinking that the rocks have algae or lichens on them, so that they look like they have partially terraformed Mars.

And, when is the Beta 3 release? And the Gamma?

[AndisArt 2,067]

SWAT, I have looked into the rock-replcament as well, but with limited success only.

I posted in the Modd-Forum for help, the file I have so far can be found there.

https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=41&threadid=79176

[bdswim 14]

i've modded the SC4 minimap
the heightmap is reddish brown, not green & brown
water doesn't show up, though
 

SM_MinimapColours.zip

[AndisArt 2,067]

bdswim, that is brilliant!  

excellent addition! 

for me the water does show on the map

could you maybe have a look on changing the colors of the little R-C-I indicator?

It needs to refelct the new zone colors (like in the graph on the right)

[Shoji_sim 9]

I'm pretty happy that everything's going okay. I've also been wondering if the industrial colors should be more orangish. Sort of like this.

[bdswim 14]

Originally posted by myself

... the water doesn't show up ...
 
quote>

Woops, that's not what I meant...

I was actually referring to the ice.
(You know, that very pale texture that appears when
the terrain is lowered as far as possible. I think
that's about 20m.)

But I've fixed that now.

Before:

After (Minimap Only):

The mini-RCI indicator will be a challenge though
I looked through all of the SC4 UI files and some of
the exemplars, and I haven't found anything yet. But it
could be in an LUA or something else.

-BD

SM_MinimapColours2.zip

[AndisArt 2,067]

ahaa...! now I know what u meant

wonderful u were able to fix it!

I'd love to be able to help u with RCI graph but unfortunately I have no idea where to find it. As u mentioned, it will probably not be a UI file because it's not a graphic per se.

best of luck!

[bdswim 14]

I've modded the SC4 procedural foundations.
I made these from some of the textures someone
put on the SimMars Textures forum, I hope they
don't mind.

You'll see the difference when you start the
game, and you don't have to rebuild anything to
see the change. (At least I don't think, this is
how it worked for me.)

They still have the same name in the Lot Editor,
but they look how they sound (e.g. red
brick is red, cream brick is cream, etc. but I
don't think this explanation is necessary.)

EDIT: I've deleted this. Get the new version here.

[AndisArt 2,067]

that is just GREAT! great idea!

I would have a tiny request if I may:

one of the textures would probably look better if it ismore tiled. At the moment it stands out:

I think this texture is present in different colors.

Also, is there any chance you could do something about the ivy foundation popping up?

[bdswim 14]

I've fixed the stretched bricks.
They now look more square. There's 4 bricks per game tile,
not 2 like before.

I've made some retaining walls. Actually, most I recoloured
from existing SC4 retaining walls. The ivy has been replaced
with Bleached Concrete (shows up in LE as bleachedcon), even
though it looks quite dark in game:

Retwall_And_Foundations.zip

[AndisArt 2,067]

Awesome! Thanks for updating them, it's great

[bdswim 14]

How about making tutorials for SimMars? It's just an idea I got. Then, if a person that's new to SC4 gets SimMars, they can play the tutorial. Just a thought. I'm gonna check and see if I can do a simple Getting Started Tutorial. (A medium-sized city, starting with §100,000.) If it works, I'll be able to do all of them.

-BD

[Evillions 552]

I could help. I do often experiment with different buildings I downloaded all-over the simcities websites. Timcravy did BAT a money-cheat lot I think. Anyways, I think that having a section reserved for Simmars is a great idea!

[bdswim 14]

My progress on the tutorials went a little ahead, but then stopped.
I got it so that BaliV Kashi (Valis Kasei... I just couldn't resist being a nerd!!! ) replaces Timbuktu as the default region. The 5 colonies I'm going to try to make tutorials from, if I delete them, when I reset the tutorial cities (changed the message saying Timbuktu), they pop back up. And I shouldn't forget to mention that my city for Tutorial: Making Money is completely done. Just need to measure the coordinates and tweak the corresponding LUA file.

The reason it stopped, the tutorials don't seem to work! If someone can make a tutorial, I'd appreciate if you showed me how.

>> I got Tutorial: Getting Started and Tutorial: Terraforming transformed. (I don't think they work in Valis Kasei yet, but they work with the mods for Valis Kasei disabled.)  I think I'm going to tweak Tutorial: Terraforming a little bit the next time I'm near my computer. (Might be a week or so...)

>> I've updated Tutorial: Terraforming, but I don't have it in Valis Kasei yet.

>> I've made a mod for SimMars that replaces the thumbnails for empty cities with SimMars ones, so you don't have to see grass in an empty region. (Hopefully no one else did this...)

I uploaded this onto the SimMars Exchange if you want it.

-BD

[Blazerhawk 162]

I have an idea that I would like some feedback on, mainly because it is a little radical. The idea is this, if or when a colony is established on Mars they would be sending the best people of available, am I right? The fact that SC4s simulator has EQ and HQ bases set at 20, 40, 60 (R$,R$$,R$$$ respectively) annoys me as it is unrealistic. The average IQ in almost any nation with the potential to colonize Mars is closer to 100. Given that these people would also have to be in good health before embarking on such a journey the HQ's assigned seem rather low. What I am proposing is a mod that would a) mitigate the EQ/HQ differences based on wealth, b) mitigate the penalty of putting in new zones, and c) make the game more realistic by setting EQ/HQ defaults to something like 95, 100, 105. Do you think this is a good idea?

[timcravey 168]

I'm not sure I agree philosophically or historically with the notion that the best and brightest go to the colonies. In the history of the United States, it was rarely the aristocrats who came to the frontier. More often, early colonists consisted of the expendable, labor-class and debtors deported to preserve the illusion of financial stability in the Old World. Criminals and orphaned children made up a large part of the first wave of colonization. Granted, the first settlements will be made up of mostly scientists since they will be studying the new planet and devising new ways of surviving there; but the actual population explosion will likely be average people. No nation, no matter how proud or competitive, could allow their educated class to leave en masse as this would cripple the home country. As time goes by most of the 'new' colonists will actually be native-born Martians and will, because of a lack of infrastructure, probably be less well educated than their Terran counterparts. A more legitimate argument for raising the EQ might be that the advances in technology are making sophisticated educational alternatives more widely accessible. If this were accounted for though the EQ ought to rise consistently over time even without the building of educational institutions in the city since the actual 'school' could be located at a great distance, even as far away as Earth, or might have no physical infrastructure at all being in effect a virtual campus. It seems this would effectively eliminate any use the EQ might have had and diminishes the challenge of the game. I already have the problem of my Sims becoming too rich, too fast; at which point they refuse to live or work in the most interesting neighborhoods in the city.

I am not sure how advances in medicine will affect the general health of future generations but I imagine it will be greatly improved, although it remains to be seen whether this is a wealth-dependent change. I personally think the Hospital ought not to show up on the city's budget at all since it is a private business whereas clinics may or may not be publicly funded. It really ought to be a Reward with HQ effects. I have such a hospital lot (from LBT) that I use in my regular game; maybe we could make one for Mars.

As for mitigating the differences between income classes, I don't think those differences are going away any time soon and you might as well eliminate all class distinctions if you are going to make them so nearly the same as to be insignificant. Perhaps we should redefine what $ stands for.

[JakeMD 107]

Hey Tim, I did some work on those textures you sent me, here is what one of them look like.

There is a tilling issue, but I think the texture you found looks great!

[timcravey 168]

Looks interesting. Try shooting it on a more rugged terrain so we can see the rock distribution and green by altitude. The highest elevations ought to be darker red, with no green. The lowest ought to be dark brown and gravelly. I would replace the water at this phase, still at a lower than normal altitude but liquid.

Here's a suggestion:

I could send you this actual terrain as a practice render region. It's the middle Kasei Valley.

[JakeMD 107]

Ah, I just installed one texture at that moment to test it out.. i'll make a more comprehensive beta texture later tonight or tomorrow, and work on the texture tiling a bit more.

What did you want the water to look like? I will probably place it at an altitude of say, 30? 20? Or maybe 55. the default there is 255.

[bdswim 14]

Think the Blowout disaster will never exist? Think again!

I've tweaked around with the flame and smoke textures, so that there is no such thing as a flame in the game (can't be any flames in the Martian air, anyway) and so that the colour of the smoke is more like the fog that would appear on an airplane that has a blowout. It doesn't look exactly like it, but it's much better than the black smoke. Besides, there'd be stuff like dust that would slightly modify the colour and opacity of the plumes.

The sparks, red reflection and the fireball I don't think can be changed. Oh well, the sparks could be an anti-decompression system. (Maybe the non-toxic sealing foam that comes from the sprayers are reddish yellow?) The red reflection on the ground could be some sort of decompression warning system. The fireball that you see when the building is destroyed by the blowout could be a sudden flash-fire that happens when electrical wires are sliced off and spark, propane & oxygen pipes are ruptured (a bad combination, oxygen and flammable substances don't agree), etc. and dies as fast as it starts because it's choked by the sudden loss of oxygen to the Martian atmosphere.

The blowout can also spread, because of debris flying from the building. However, even though it can spread further, it doesn't spread as fast as fire does.

Also, since watering doesn't have anything to do with blowouts, I did that and I also made it so that abandoned buildings are 3 times as likely to have a blowout.

(I don't think anyone else was working on it, so that's why I did it.)

-BD

[AndisArt 2,067]

OMG! OMG! OMG!

bdswim's modding finesse is back!!

yeah

[AndisArt 2,067]

I wonder if it is possible to change the loading picture....

I was looking for the file in the sc4.dats but couldnt locate.......

[JakeMD 107]

Andisart - That is the splash screen that is coded into the EXE and can't be changed.

[Ledah2445 6]

Does this disaster is downloaded separately or integrated