Top 10 most desired info/mods

[NetPCDoc 1]

My wish list -

#1!! A more mod-able menu system; ability to add more levels (or buttons) where-ever we want them.

#2!! Bridges that have a height zone - so far above and below transit media reserved - but anything higher or lower than said zone is open for development - including other transit networks/bridges etc. - and with mod-able zone-perameters!

and in no particular order:

Better understanding of current limits - maybe expansion on some of these (limits) - in regards to number of airports, seaports, etc - including a way to mod max-min (values - such as ferry terminals?) per city.

Ability for smaller cities to annex adjoining area and thereby grow into larger cities (examples - 64x64 annex to 128x128 - or maybe to 64x128? 128x128 annex to 256x256 - or maybe 128x192 / 192x192 / 128x256? etc). Possiblity of reversing this - splitting large cities into sub-urbs.

How about multiple water levels - simulate springs into creeks into rivers; maybe with an option for lava in place of water (at least above sea level).

Ability to actually add new custom ordinances - not just modify existing ones.

A Regional BUDGET (or Regional Sandbox) - that allows for regional development of region wide services (such as regional highways - railways - power-grids and maybe water supply/sewage-treatment/garbage-disposal). And then - maybe - a way to link regions?

Tools for developing additional transit network medias - such as bicycle-trails, dirt-paths, gravel-roads, space shuttles, commuter airlines, etc. How about underground -or- in Tunnel intersections. Maybe customizable (more-or-less slope conforming) on-&-off-ramps for highways.

Clearing up details on how to place (and if necessary fix bugs for) transit-on-lots, especially railway switches/bends/corners/etc - for those wanting to customize complete-ploppable working/UDI-enabled rail-yards.

Parameter definitions on Residential / Commercial / Industrial "grown" lots! Make these "grown-parameters" available to mod-ders (for development of properly working growable-lots)!

Good Luck,

-NetPCDoc

No detail is too small to be micromanaged.

[maddogmark25 58]

ooo this isss a greattt oppurtunity well here goes

fix all the bugs with the game thats the most important

new network mod, with new highways (six lane, 12 lane, double decker, 6 lane avenues, real underground highways and roads, DIAGONAL STREETS!! etc), intersections, much better pathfinding, fix the commute times, it shouldnt take my sim more than 2 hours to cross a bridge

DIAGONAL BRIDGES!!!!! (and new bridges too )

maybe you can zone low wealth, med wealth, and hi wealth for res and comm, along with low dense, med dense, and hi dense

make it much easier to use all of pegs waterfront stuff like the ports, etc

make modular airports easier to use

build under bridges

get rid of the fading cars, make them so that they complete their trip

new disasters

new terrain tools

[Romaq 18]

1. Submenus. Jesus on a Harley going down I-5! Submenus!

2. I've seen the Mod for doing above sea level rain and water, but unfortunately it doesn't 'stick' past the save. It would be great if we had access to the loose threads of code, what was intended, and the right to make a .dll on it.

Yeah, I know those two have already been posted, and this thread is three years old, but one could always hope, right?

[Buggi 685]

Okay, I'm going to respond to as many as I can. I'm going to squish a few dreams along the way and height hopes as well. Read this entire post!

Let me first mention what is not going to happen.
- Any regional simulations, the game doesn't have the framework to do it. Imagine your computer trying to manage the traffic of an entire region. The game simulator is set up for cities, and that is how it will stay. This includes a regional budget.

- Any "content" driven requests. "new bridges" for example. Maxis won't be creating content, just the ability for content. Please focus your attention on the ability, not the result.

- @NetPCDoc : regarding the sizes of cities. While interesting, this will not happen. Sorry.

Now let me go over what has a VERY high chance of happening.
- UI information to add/mod/change/etc the entire game UI.  This includes new menus and sub-menus, etc.
- Ability to add NEW ordinances.
- I want the tank to have more ammo, this is a hard-coded number, I will work on getting this opened up. My personal mission!
- Bug fixes (if you provide me with DETAILS) I asked for a reproducable case to debug, and none was presented. And anyone else who outlined a bug, I need a solid case to debug. A coder, no matter how good, can't look at over 500,000 lines of code and guess where it's coming from. (Crime rate lot size bug????)
- I'll work REALLY hard on new draggable items. Only the information on HOW to do this will be released, I'm not able to work the hours on converting everything to use it.
- Ploppable Res... I'll check... this includes mixed-use lots.

Items that will be considered, but nothing is promised.
- Anything "diagnal" mentioned. If the engine didn't nativly support it, nearly impossible to "patch"
- Building under bridges. This too might turn out to be impossible to overcome.
- Water related requests. Again, the engine didn't support "rivers" or lakes, more of a rendering issue than a game issue, and rendering issues will not happen.
- More underground options. While I agree this would add GREAT happiness the amount of work required to allow it is not realistic. First a new underground "layer" would need to be created, possiblly one for every type of network, and this is just insane. 

Bottom line folks is I'm not trying to crush hopes and dreams, I'm trying to manage expectations. I really need to get you all in the same mind-set to understand the magnitude of the situation. This isn't a "free-for-all" on the engine. EA will not release the entire source. Total bug fixes will have to come from my friend in Maxis, so I need that information ASAP. For the other information, working with EA legal has proven to be... tedius. I'm doing my best to represent this community. I've been around a long time, know the ebb and flow of the people here, and want to offer the community the most I can while keeping in line with their policies.

I feel like a freakin' politician! @_@;;;

[north country dude 207]

Originally posted by: Buggi I can sum up those 10 to these:

New types of Ports

New types of Networks/interchanges

Commute and path information

New Civic Options (ordinances)

Everything else is content related, not source related. Look to modelers or moders for that stuff. I'm talking raw features. Opening up what is now closed.quote>

I want to thank you for all of your hard work and, yes, politiking with Maxis for the opportunity to improve the SC4 and Rush Hour code. I'm sorry that I don't have 200+ posts, but I think that the above quote by you sums up the main points of what many have been suggesting, with the addition of the residential plop problems and the reproducible bug with the NAM.

To sum up the bug and how to reproduce it, I'll have to refer to a post by chocolatmax285 last year,

I think (but I could be wrong) that the crashing problem is caused when you hover a transit enabled lot over a puzzle piece (in this case, the GLR) so I would suggest when placing transit enabled lots (stations, on-road lots and anything with a working driveway or road) just be very careful not to go near puzzle pieces (NAM pieces and GLR tracks).quote>

As for the problem with large lots creating unrealistically large amounts of crime, this may very well be a problem for modders to solve, since it doesn't cause the game to CTD like the previously mentioned problem does.

Again, thank you for all your hard work and politiking.

ncd/Arf

relevant thread for the GLR Transit bug:

https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=24&threadid=70945

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

I am probably in danger of repeating things others have mentioned but here goes:

1. Get rid of the Exception Report and replace it with something an ordinary mortal can read.  No one without the load map can understand these, and no one reads them.

2. Fix the bug that causes a stack overflow on hovering puzzle pieces over TE lots.
3. Upgrade the graphics system to accept newer cards.
4. Fix the obvious goof that coughs up commute time as an excuse for diplapidation.
5. Fix the pathfinder so that the criterion for commute time is route time not distance.
6. Fix the graphics engine path maker for water so ferry routes do not run through other objects.
7. Better textures.
8. Font size option for the visually challenged.
9. One version of the game, world-wide.  Language issues should be selectable on all copies.
10. More quality assurance on a wider range of platforms.
11. Quality programs do not crash or hang.
12. Get rid of the requirement to have the disk in a drive or make it impervious to damage.

[hamsterTK 93]

Thanks for outlining that.

I think these goals are realistic, asking maxis for only a few bits of the source code and not asking for any content from them. I hope that legal department will realize this and by allowing this small request it will meam a huge deal for this game.

One time, I posted a screenshot of a city using all sorts of mods and BATs on a non simcity site. another forumer responded: " whoah no *effing* way that is really simcity. its cheap now right? i might go buy it, thats freaking amazing...."

[Buggi 685]

@N_O_Body: Dude, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, and 12 are totally impratical and most go against what I posted above you. And 7?

Read my post, then ponder.

[dogscarletnyc 0]

maybe weather? like snow, hail, and rain.

[dedgren 830]

Hobbits...WE NEED HOBBITS!

...

...oh, sorry, thought this was Anduin Valley Revisited...

...nevermind.

[NetPCDoc 1]

Buggi: Thanks for your clarifications (you didn't really squash too many of my dreams),

Buggi: - Bug fixes (if you provide me with DETAILS) I asked for a reproducable case to debug, and none was presented.quote>

Texture "bleed-through" bug: especially noticable with a BRIGHT background3d?.png - usually on transparent Base-Textures - sometimes, on closer zooms, between tiles (at grid lines?) -- the foreground appears to allow an "overlay" like viewing of the background picture(s). A lot of folks report this as giving problems with water lots - as the water "base" texture usually tends to be more transparent. Sometimes caused (and/or corrected) by switching between various underground and aboveground views. I have observed an in-game save (without going to region or exiting-to-desktop) causing this.

NetPCDoc: Clearing up details on how to place (and if necessary fix bugs for) transit-on-lots, especially railway switches/bends/corners/etc - for those wanting to customize complete-ploppable working/UDI-enabled rail-yards.quote>

Clarification:

Definitions on Lot Transit Exemplar 0x00000007 reps - especially optional portions; Definitions on RUL file record types, proper sequencing and optional portions; explicit explanation of (the to now implied) relation between values on Lot Transit Exemplar and RUL file Records. To date - there appears to be undocumented/undisclosed features - a.k.a. bugs - in how one may put various rail transit "pieces" (a.k.a. curves and switches) on lots -- I would really like to see documented disclosure of these features. Others have asked for documented disclosure on Lot-based intersections; and a TE-Lot to TE-Lot placement option.

NetPCDoc: #2!! Bridges that have a height zone - so far above and below transit media reservedquote>

The fact that ground transit can go under elevated transit - gives reason to hope that there is a way to limit the reserve-zones on/under bridges to specific heights; although maybe not as mod-able as I would prefer. Maybe a better approach might be to vary the elevation of elevated transit. Additional thought - ability to mod/create ground-to-elevated transit (road/avenue/highway) clover-leafs (a.k.a. mix-masters)?

NetPCDoc: Tools for developing additional transit network medias - such as bicycle-trails, dirt-paths, gravel-roads, space shuttles, commuter airlines, etc.quote>

Addendum:

On new tranist media (bicycle trails, dirt paths, gravel roads, etc) - definition of exactly WHAT (other than textures, RUL files, SC4Path files) needs to be included to make it work is precisely what I was asking for. Menu placement-options seems to be the biggeset draw back; followed by properties that are added by the transit-drag-engine. Diagonal transit should be a "falling off of a log" easy addition to this.

Nice to have - my take on others ideas - but not critical:

1) an optional way to include undergourd-power-lines in the "water-pipe" underground view; and/or add power feature via "a street light network" to ground transit.

2) an optional (so I can toss this out when it interferes with my subway routes) way to include non-subway transit-tunnels (maybe with mod-able depth) in the subway underground view. Along with techniques for creating down-sloping tunnel entrance/exit (lots?) - along the lines of the El-Rail to Subway lot.

Thanks again - & GOOD LUCK,

-NetPCDoc

No detail is too small to be micromanaged.

[LivingInThePast 364]

1. Seperate tools for Mac users.

2. Better code work to run faster.

3. Knowledge of cancelled expansion packs.

4. Single track railroads.

5. Hot swappable ground textures.

6. Weather.

More soon...

[Jasoncw 11,949]

The ability to make new (in no order):

-Menus

-Ordinances

-Transit Networks

-Zones

-Underground Buildings

When I say underground buildings I mean like the subway.  It would be cool to have an actual station underneath.  It would also be cool for having underground malls.  One could even BAT the basement of a building they've made.  In RL, the underground has a life of its own, that doesn't currently exist in SC4.

Being able to make airport zones, or zone specificly for IM or IHT, or for CS or CO. With the ability to make new zones we could even make entirely new types of buildings to grow in these zones. Maybe one new zone we could make would be specificly for the european W2W sets. There's a lot of new possibilities with new zones that I can't even imagine.

Being able to make new transit networks would be really cool. We could finally make our highly desired GLR over roads, or any other kind of network we could think of.

More ordinances would be cool because the ones that came with the game are lame. I just check off the ones I want at the begining and leave them alone. It's barely even a feature. being able to add cool ones would be good.

And, of course menus. The problem with this though, is that old buildings would need to be modded into the new menus. and actually, this has already been done by someone. But maybe if it was easier there could be a simple menu editor in SC4Tool, where the user could look at the menus and click and drag things into different menus and make additional menus, and SC4Tool would automatically edit that property. That would be really cool.

And then something else, that isn't source code, but I'd like all of the art direction that was given to the maxis BATers, and any other behind the scenes stuff that would help us have a better understanding of the game.  If anything it would be interesting to read, and I'm sure that a lot of stuff is still sitting around on some computer at Maxis.

And I'd really like to thank you for taking this initiative.  If you're able to get any code released it would open a lot of doors for custom content.

[tchaos713 5]

@Buggi: The crime problem with lot sizes is a coding bug wherein large lots (I think larger than 6x6) produce an inordinant amount of crime (just plop an airport and take a look at your crime map). Your crime simulator mod helps immensely, but I'd personally like an actual fix in the coding. This is not a fatal error kind of bug, but it is an error in coding (IMHO).

The Transit-enabled lot vs. puzzle piece bug is easily reproducable. Build any transit-enabled lot. Select any puzzle piece (but preferably with the same network). Hover over transit-enabled lot. Watch your city CTD. As N_O_Body said, this is a stack overflow error.

When running the game in 1600x1200, save your city. Upon exit to region, bands of color will be visible along the bottom edge of the thumb for that city.

Hope this clarifies some of what I asked about. If not, please PM.

[Romaq 18]

About 'regional simulations', BSC (or is it CSX?) has regional reference in the menus when you click on them. There appears to be some means to communication some information on a regional basis.

One problem I'm having now is with a Bellingham, Mt. Baker Washington region I'm working on. Unfortunately for me, Point Roberts is approximately 16 km. from any other land, so I have to cross four big-cities of open water. An excellent patch would be one that allows for 'connection points' between widely separated cities. And perhaps you can put in an associated travel time, but the idea is that I could make a tile work like those adjacent city arrow connections. This would do the following:

You can create an 'underwater transit' to connect Point Roberts, WA to Drayton Harbor, accounting for the transit time. Or I could simply make the jump instantaneous, as if Point Roberts were adjacent to Drayton Harbor, but having the option would be a godsend for people who enjoy island region building, particularly those using real-life terrain that doesn't quite meet with SC4 demands.

Another use for these 'transit points' would be for a sci-fi 'interdimensional gateway'. People could 'zap' from one end of a region to another using this 'point-to-point' transit, and the device is only access to the same thing that lets transit cross the boundary of adjacent cities.

And yes, for the love of god get rid of the 'keydisk' requirement. All Maxis does is force honest people to suffer while others can simply use the hacks that make the program THINK the CD is in there.

Two other things: Sandboxing and rerouting. These issues are tied around the same issue. My wife and I have separate copies of SimCity. I'm using CVS to 'share' the region and plugin folder info, but if we could, it would be wonderful to direct SC4 to use a specific directory OTHER than My Documents/User Name for data, such as a network drive.

Sandboxing is related. I would like to be able to play SimMars, or have my BellBaker region use the Olympic Mod, but have a different region with a desert flavor. Again, having a more simple means to redirect where SC4 sees regions and plugins would be very helpful.

Oh! 'Plugin Folder' status bar. Could we please see what folder is being read? It would be reassuring to see 'something' while SC4 is chugging through that 3G plugins folder.

[Lord Kronos 0]

One thing in addition to everything else mentioned that can be done, I'd like to see how mass transit stations report on their usage. Basicly so that they don't count express traffic, just traffic that actually boards and alights at the said station. At the moment, so as to avoid this situation, you need to build the station, so that there is a one tile gap between it and the main line running through.

This is the current solution, and it is a pain as it takes up additional space that shouldn't be needed

|     * empty tile

|

| \

|   \

| * |

| * |

| * | siding with station attached

| * |

|   /

| /

|

|main line

If through (express) traffic didn't count it would be great. I just don't know if it's doable. This "bug" applies to all forms of mass transportation stations, Rail, Elevated, Monorail, Bus, and I assume Subway as well, though I'm not positive.

Edit:

I'd also like to request if you can look into the possibility if we can make Simcity obey the laws of distance, so that a diagonal transit network is actually shorter than taking 2 straight lines with one corner. I hope that makes sense

regards

LK

[Gary Colligan 0]

Also Menus that neverend, like not having to go back to the top, just keep going

down, when on the last one the next one is back at the top again..

I think a way to do the menus is by dir's

main_menu     [dir]     [would need a limit]

in this you can have any dir name & it would show in the mainmenu of the game

in there you could add more dir names....  like

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

Main_menu  [dir]

>TRANSPORTATION TOOLS  [dir]

                                                      >RAILS & DEPOTS [dir]

                                                                                           >Rail Stations [dir]

                                                                                             [add any station lots]

                                                                                           >Rail Yards [dir]

                                                                                             [add any rail yard lots]

                                                       >AIRPORTS [dir]

                                                         add more dir or lots names

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

[SC4Noobie 5]

New Menus, Sub Menues, Sub Sub menues

The GLR crashing bug - Hover a TE piece over GLR or visa versa and the game closes

(Tools For) New transit networks

Functional Ploppable transit networks

Airport zones

Multi hieght Transport (think (Blank) over (blank) over (blank))

Auto Save

Support for Vista (Smoothly)

Better Overhanging lot support

A fix for the sunken model bug - When you plop a lot that goes beneath ground lvl, the base texture shows up.

No base texture support,

Real draggable diagonal streets that can go up a slope

An addition of a difficulty lvl that was sandbox (a city with unlimited money

Thats all I have now.

[ScottFTL 29]

First and foremost, thanks for your efforts to get this far, Buggi.

I would really like to see a fix for the graphical crashes in the game.  I have used both ATI and NVIDIA graphics cards and have experienced crashes to the desktop when changing the zoom level with both.  I have not been able to isolate any particular steps, but I have a sneaking suspicion that automata and animations for construction, road building, etc make the problem worse.

I have also see the game crash to desktop when scrolling.  It is not just custom content that causes this either.  I have seen both crashes with a straight install with no plugins.  However, custom content does make both problems worse for me.

I doubt this is enough details for you or your contact at Maxis to get far, but I thought I would at least mentions it.  I have found that many people have these same problems, althought it seems some have it worse than others.  I would love SC4 a thousand times more if I didn't have to remember to save before zooming or scrolling or risk losing work.

I also agree with others that the bug with TE network pieces crashing the game should be high on the list.  The bug is very reproducible, so that should be an easier one to track down.

Submenus would be a huge improvement.  Custom content has made many menus a chore to scroll through.

Whatever changes, fixes or new abilities that come out of this will be wonderful.  Even if there are limitations, I am happy to see Maxis discussing this with you.

[CycleDogg 130]

Well, this will be great if you can pull off even just a few of the things on your list.

Here's some more:

Bugs

1. Lots with overlay textures but no base texture show a "black hole" where the terrain texture should be, after going to underground view and then back to aboveground view.

2. For ploppable lots, such as park lots, if the lot is set to zero wealth (i.e. wealth="none"), the game shows the medium wealth sidewalk when it's plopped next to the road. It would make more sense if it showed the farm/garbage sidewalk next to zero wealth parks, or no sidewalk at all. This would allow rural fences, forest lots, ditches, etc, to be plopped next to the road without the sidewalk showing up.

Info that would be helpful:

1. What purpose does the LotconfigPropertyFamily Property serve (it's in lot exemplars for growable lots).

2. What do each of the 14 reps for the kSC4FloraParametersProperty do? (flora exemplar)

3. What purpose does the kSC4FloraFamilyProperty serve? (flora exemplar)

4. Is it possible to add a new, secondary demand without screwing up the game? For example, I'd like to add a ranch demand that could be triggered by plopping a certain building, such as a land office. After plopping the land office, the ranch demand would be high, so most of the farms that grew from then on would be ranches (until the land office was bulldozed). I made a prototype that worked this way a while back, but it had some problems and it royally screwed up someone's region when they were testing it. If I could learn more about the RCI and Developer settings for demand somehow, I might be able to get that prototype working correctly.

Misc Wish List

1. More menus and/or submenus

2. Ploppable residential lots.

3. Draggable pedestrian/bike trails

4. New building styles (not the actual buildings, just the ability to add new styles)

[Mulefisk 15]

Just thought of another one here..

Customizable bus lines With this in the game, sims would stop using buses as if they were cars.

[dogscarletnyc 0]

maybe... new... I have to say it...LMs

[Bongoswimp 14]

Please read Buggis posts. There will be NO new content like Landmarks.

Thanks for the outlining Buggi. If only two or three of these things can be done, it would make the game much more attractive again.

[dedgren 830]

In all seriousness, Buggi, here's a list I started during a "City Life?  Phooey!" rant on another topic a while ago

I would prioritize this feature below the top ten things that EA/Maxis should do first.  I'll elaborate on that list at a later date, but some of those "must-dos" are road/rail under "game bridges, above sea-level "game" lakes, rivers and streams, a transport network editor (would allow user creation of custom highway, road and other network pieces), an "in-game" (i.e.: always immediately available) terrain elevation tool that would allow a grid square to be raised and lowered in fine (1 or 2 meter) increments, a transit network "smooth grade" tool, and so on.quote>

I'd add to that today the following five further things:

6)  A straightforward means of creating "game" bridges over dry land that does not require use of the "rain tool."

7)  A "start and end" degree of control over the control over the placement and path of tunnels.

  (echoing others)  Single line rail.

9)  The ability to build ground and elevated highways one side at a time independent of the other.

10)  Conversion of the ANT into a true rural gravel/dirt road tool.

There's more, but you asked for 10.

Thanks ever so much for your efforts here.  You are probably making a place for yourself among the true "heroes" of the game by doing this.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Originally posted by: Buggi @N_O_Body: Dude, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, and 12 are totally impratical and most go against what I posted above you. And 7?

Read my post, then ponder.quote>

Buggi,

    I did read your post, but I put in my wish list.  I have run too many software projects where imagination was lacking, or somebody said "you didn't ask".  One thing I didn't get from your writing, maybe I was too excited?, was who is going to do this work?

[freedo50 1]

firtsly let me just say how great this work is buggi, if you can help fix even a few of these problems the game will become so much greater and more fun. ok heres my ten:

1: terrain texture paintbrush

2: more water levels

3: ability to create new zones either in-game or with an out-of-game editor

4: new draggable networks

5: new menus/submenus - basing it on plugins folder structure would be cool

6: ability to connect cities via tunnels/bridges

7: a new network that does the job that the big dig style lots allow - ie complex underground networks

8: support for multiple road textures mods/water mods/terrain textures etc within one city and a smooth transition between them

9: diagnol jagged edges completely fixed

10: moddable/editable terrain tools (i.e. allowing square tools, adding new styles, a perfectly level leveller! etc.)

[Barbarossa 51]

Off the top of my head, I would LOVE to see something that will actually reflect civic/transport builidngs on the Zoning Map. Why on earth do they show up as plain ol' land? I wanna see my bus stops, subways, libraries, etc! The zoning menu is crucial!!!!!!

Also, and this is unlikely, but I would love to see the Keyboard Shortcuts for the default options... IE, something that says 'Q' is low density, 'W' is medium density, etc. It was stupid not to include this info... I do not want to refer to the manual everytime I want to use a shortcut.

Barbarossa

[Buggi 685]

Excellent so far guys!

I agree with the zoneing map... looking at "education" should NOT hide the education buildings!

To those who've mentioned a single rail line... wouldn't this be mostly a artistic content thing? One thing that won't happen is the conversion of SimCity to Transport Tycoon.

Can someone post a screenshot of the texture bugs? Pictures are so worth 1200 words. And is the TE-crash bug strictly confined to GLR? I personally don't use GLR in my game. This bug might be as simple as a missing resource in the system that we simply don't know to include.

I'm going to rely on the content masters of SimTrop to fulfill the end-result of what people want. I'll work hard on compilling and releasing information and plugins to make something work, I won't have time to change the content myself.

[jeronij 13]

OK, This time I´ll first say THANKS Buggi for giving this community such an oportunity to enchance this (put your favourite adjective here) game. It is also very very nice and thankful that someone in Maxis ( even more when he/she acts as himself and not as a Maxis representative) hears this community, probably one ( if not the one) of the strongest and more active related to a 3 y.o. game. So also a BIG THANKS goes to this person, whomever he/she is for his help.

Another BIG THANKS will come after each bug fix / new info / new option that this opportunity will us provide   

Just reading your list, I am so excited that there is a chance to solve the first six items !!!. I am not sure about the last four though. Do you mean that they will be studied, but there are no good perspectives to see it solved ?¿, or maybe you do mean that they wont even be considered?¿

If it is the second option, then there are still four items to be added. Is this OK ?¿ (I hope so because I have some ideas for them  !!!)

Now I´ll try to apport some info related to your fourth point which is one of the ones that more interests me.

1) The "black hole" texture bug has been clearly explained by Cycledogg and NetPCDoc some posts ago, it is easily reproducable, and I think it can be easily understood.  (Look at the end of this post for some explainig pics)

2) The "jagged edges" bug happens with the terrain invisible geometry on the diagonal tiles. I hope those pics explain it better:

 

When you make diagonal trenches, in one direction the game makes perfect diagonal tiles, so you can add textured lots. This technique is used by most of the walls sets in the STEX ( not the BATted ones). But in the other direction, the tiles are not geometrically diagonal. They only "look like"diagonal. If you place a lot on the top of one of those tiles, it usually gets sunken inside the terrain. you can see this bug in this thread and in this one  .  You must reach a determinated height to make the game engine turn them into real diagonal tiles, so the textures dont have the ugly effect seen on the left pictures, specially the upper one. But even so, the props dissapear

We discoverd a way to partially fix this modding some properties, but this technique is not perfect and it has some drawbacks that make it not very useful, specially for landscapers like me, and most of the CJers... The mod can be found here.

Another explanation can be seen in those pics:

here is a picture of your walls on a good diagonal direction, notice how the bushes stay on the ground and the fencing is nice and proper:

now here is the problem, if the diagonal is going in the other direction the fencing gets all mixed up and the bushes are floating in the air.  this is not very good for a CJ.  I have the jagged edges mod and cycle doggs terrain installed.  what could cause this and is there a fix?

 

I hope this information is enough to set this as a reproducable bug, and will be helpfull to  find the origin of the problem, and a solution to it. 

3) The "sidewalks bug". Finally (for now....) Cycleddog mentioned another "bug" which hopefully can have an easy solution, and this is the one related to the sidewalks and the lot´s wealth when set to none. It is really annoying to see sidewalks in the middle of nowhere ( a mountanous / hilly terrain crossed by a road for instance) just because you plopped a woods lot or a wall lot touching the road. We have also tried making an specific texture for the 0x0F lot types (plopable lots like parks ) when we made some dirty roads mod, but it did not help to avoid the sidewalks. Also the idea of making the rural sidewalk show instead any of the urban ones would be a good solution.

I can understand the reason because the sidewalks show always when something is ploped near it. In fact the game is called Sim City. But the game has also evolved probably much more that the designers could imagine, and more and more people wants to build nice rural landscapes, or even virgin territories, without a single house, but full of custom content, like plop trees, plop water, walls, canals, etc etc...I really hope that this can be considered a bug, and you / Maxis can give it an opportunity to be solved.

4) The "shoreline bug". Unfortunately it is not possible to place a single 1X1 lot on a shore tile, understanding a shore tile like those ones that are half land - half water. It does not matter which land/water tile combination you try in the Lot Editor. No 1x1 lot can be placed.  You can use 1x2 lots, with one tile set as land or as water, but this uses exactly the double space that is really needed, making the construction of stuff for shorelines, like all the seawalls sets, and the CDK series, and many more, a real pain and cuts the detailing of the seaside areas because all this unnecesarily wasted space.  It would be really a miracle if this could be solved !!!!! 

Well, being able to solve those four bugs, would give the game a complete new potential and life for another three years  !!!

Thanks again for this opportunity. I´ll keep an eye in this thread.....

EDIT

So, Buggi, we were writing at the same time.. you requested some pics explaining the texture bug, so I made some quick ones, which I hope help to understand the problem.

1) You place a lot which has a "transparent" ( in fact it is not a transparent one, but it is an unexistent one or an overlay texture(alphamap)) texture. In this case the transparent tile is inside the water.

2. First everything looks OK.

3. But as soon as you save the game, you can start seeing the effects of the bug. The water gets somehow "broken".

4. Lets see this in "all its glory"   . A nice "walled" section...

5. Again after saving... This time we can see the "famous black hole"

6. And another perspective....

If I am not wrong, the straight lots do have a transparent texture ( call to an unexistent texture) and the diagonal one has one tile with overlay texture and without base texture , and another without base texture. In all cases the lots call missing textures. If you completely remove the base  texture somehow, (Reader),the bug does not seem to happen.   

The actual solution to this problem is to change to zone view and then back to normal view, which can take up to five minutes to happen in a middle size city almost developed.... Five minutes looking at the zone view is undescriptable unless you live it   !!! 

The same happens on land, when you use unexistent (not removed) textures or overlay texures without base textures.

I hope this helps you to understand the problem.

[wouanagaine 86]

My list apart from what you already know :

1 ) submenu

2 ) possibility of defining new tileset

3 ) submenu

4 ) possibility of defining new tileset

5 ) submenu

6 ) possibility of defining new tileset

7 ) submenu

8 ) possibility of defining new tileset

9 ) submenu

10 ) possibility of defining new tileset

about the texture bug

here a repro picture:

This is with Shadow_Assassin cylceway. His lots do not have a base texture ( and that is a good thing ), unfortunatly if you go to underwater mode ( to lay down water pipe for example ) than come back to normal mode, the above will happen. The only way to get a proper view is to go to zone mode, then renable everything as cycledogg explained

I hope it will help you to reproduce it. This will be a great fix, as I really enjoy no base texture lots because they better match the different terrain mod we have

Take care and thanks for providing us such a wonderfull gift