Maxis Lot Removal

[newyorkrunaway1 110]

Before I begin, there are mods out there to remove all maxis lots, i know this already. That is not what I am trying to acomplish here.

Anyways....


What  am trying to do is remove certain lots themselves from the game. I am trying to remove the 3x2 and 4x2 R$$$ mansion lots from the game. I can not seem to find these anywhere in the SimCity_1.dat file.

I have looked and looked and looked. All I can find is a way to remove the building as a whole from the game, not the individual lots that I find un-appealing. I want to keep the buildings themselves because i use the larger mansion lots (4x4, 4x6, etc). I just want these particualr ones gone.

Please provide your input into any way I can remove these.

Thanks!

[newyorkrunaway1 110]

any input mod gurus?

[RippleJet 36]

The in-game R$$$ mansions aren't set to grow on 4×2 lots.

They do grow on 3×2 and 2×3 lots of stage 4 though.

I assume you know how to use iLive's Reader, so step-by-step:

1. Start Reader

2. Expand the tag Simcity DAT in Reader and click on simcity_1.dat (do not Fill the list)

3. Click Analyser (button on top)

4. Click Tree (button on top)

5. Click Search (button on top, which will list all exemplar files)

6. Click the + to the left of Residential $$$

7. Click the + to the left of Lots

8. Locate the lots called R$$$4_2×3 and R$$$4_3×2

9. Select a lot and click the Lot button on top to see if this is one of the lots you want to block.

10. Right-click on each lot you want to block and select Sync. with file ?

11. Close the Exemplar Analyser

12. Copy all visible exemplar files (note, you are still working within simcity_1.dat, so do not save yet)

13. Expand the tag Loaded DAT and select the blank.dat file (or create a new blank file)

14. Paste all copied exemplar files into this blank file and save it

15. Change the Growth Stage property of all included lots from 0x04 to 0xFF

16. Save your mod and place it into your plugins folder.

Every lot that is included in your mod and has the growth stage set to 0xFF will not grow in the game.

Note that the buildings on the lots are building families. The R$$$ mansions are contained in families 0x1000002A, 0x1000002B and 0x1000002C, as shown by the property LotConfigPropertyFamily in each lot. The building shown in the Lot preview only shows one of the buildings included in each family. However, each family usually contains at least four buildings, one for each building style.

[Silur 3,297]

Hi, RippleJet ...

Excellent work !!!

May be this tutorial theme install in Omnibus ?

My problems with Maxis - Maxis's props ...

Can I delete this from Lot Editor Props ???

Thank you ...

[newyorkrunaway1 110]

then why do the maxis mansion lots grow in 4x2 lots ingame then?

[RippleJet 36]

Originally posted by: Silur My problems with Maxis - Maxis's props ...

Can I delete this from Lot Editor Props ???

quote>

The simplest way would probably be to temporarily remove the SimCity_1.dat file while using Lot Editor. Note however that this would also remove Maxis textures and buildings!

It would also be possible to remove all props from the SimCity_1.dat file, but that might be rather dangerous. Before even thinking about it, please make sure you backup your existing SimCity_1.dat file.

Warning! Do not blame me if you screw up your SimCity_1.dat file.

If you are not certain what you are doing, please don't do anything!

After backuping your SimCity_1.dat file, make a copy of it and rename it into eg. SimCity_1_NoProps.dat.

Open this newly created file in Reader and follow this step-by-step:

1. Click Filters (button on top)

2. Click Uncheck all

3. Select Exemplars

4. Click Refresh and close the Filters window

5. Click the column heading Group above the list of exemplar files

6. Browse down among the exemplars till you find those with Group ID c977c536 (Exemplar Type = Props)

7. Highlight all these exemplars (c977c536) and right-click among them

8. Select Remove File (click Yes if asked for confirmation)

9. Right-click among the exemplar files again and select ReIndex

10. Right-click among the exemplar files yet again and select Rebuild Directory file

11. Save the file

Whenever lotting you would replace the SimCity_1.dat file with the one created above. Make sure you never have both of them available at the same time, and also remember to switch back into the saved SimCity_1.dat file you have safely put away, when you've completed the lotting.

Wouanagaine's "X" Tool (which will replace both the Maxis PIM and LE) will make it simple to exclude Maxis content while lotting, but in that case you would have to wait till the tool is available.

[RippleJet 36]

Originally posted by: newyorkrunaway1 then why do the maxis mansion lots grow in 4x2 lots ingame then?quote>

In that case you have probably downloaded something from STEX that places them on 4×2 lots

[Silur 3,297]

Hi, RippleJet

Lot Editor not work without SimCity_1 dat ?

Is this true or may be only for me ? 

Thank you ...

[RippleJet 36]

The Lot Editor is using some PNG files which are located in SimCity_1.dat.

Thus, if you remove SimCity_1.dat while lotting, LE will get quite a strange appearance.

Removing the props from SimCity_1.dat as described above does work though

[Andreas Roth 604]

Originally posted by: newyorkrunaway1 then why do the maxis mansion lots grow in 4x2 lots ingame then?quote>

I haven't checked this, so I can't verify your observation, but the game heavily relies on parent cohorts and building families. This means that one particular lot can display a variety of buildings, and that an entire group of buildings is able to use the same stats. When creating the building database for SC4Tool, I noticed that the entire R-$ buildings are fed by a total amount of 12 parent cohort files, for instance. About the same number of buildings is probably able to use a particular lot, so maybe there aren't any 3x2 and 4x2 R-$$$ "mansion lots" in the game, but (as RippleJet said) custom lots that show other buildings, apart from the mansions, because they're both in the same building family (the NDEX McMansions come into my mind, for instance). As I said, this is only an assumption, but I wanted to show how the game works regarding this issue.