Can stage requirements be changed?

[tchntm43 0]

Hi, this is my first post on the forums. I've been playing vanilla SC4 for a year or so, and just recently found out that the game can be modded and BATed. Since I have experience with modding other games (Diablo, Civ, and others), and I used to love to make graphics for Simcity 2000 back in the day, I think I am really going to enjoy this.

I wanted to ask a question right off the bat. Is it possible to change the population requirements for each of the building stages? The thing is, I come from a small city (about 39,000 people). The tallest buildings in town are around 10 floors each (and there are only 4 or 5 that big). Yet in SC4, you can get one or two of the really big ones (40+ floors!) by the time you hit that population. It just doesn't fit right with me. I would like to scale the requirements way up so that stage 8 requires a regional population of a million, with other stages being scaled between.

On another subject, what is the highest amount of jobs I can give a building where I can reasonably expect it to be able to appear in a large city? I ask because I read the comments for a building posted in the STEX that offered over 21,000 Co$$$, but only as a ploppable, as the description claimed that it would be impossible to get as a growable.

Thanks.

-Justin Smith

[tchntm43 0]

Okay, I figured out how to alter the population requirements for the different stages by dissecting someone else's modd. But I have two more questions...

How do I change which stage a building belongs to? I was looking at the information for individual buildings while altering the jobs provided by Industry, and I couldn't find anything that put the building in a specific stage.

Also, are stage requirements defined by city population or region population? I was pretty sure it was regional, but the description in ilive's reader for the stage requirements says as a function of city population, so now I'm not sure.

[digger313 47]

for your first question........Ilive has a program thats called LEDprop.....with it you can change what stage you can set a building at.

for your second question it's 'city pop.'

[tchntm43 0]

I downloaded ilive's LEProp program (the one on this site), and loaded up the dat file I made containing all of the R$ buildings in the game (which I have already altered population capacities for). But I can't figure out where it allows me to change a building's stage. There are 8 buttons on the right, none of which seem to lead to anything resembling stage data (it's mostly stuff for turning buildings into schools or other civic functions). The other stuff on the screen has to do with Plop Cost, Bulldoze cost, etc, and Pollution and flammability. Are you sure this is the right program?

[tchntm43 0]

I went back to using just ilive and found where growth stage is mentioned. Turns out it is defined in the lots, not in the buildings, which is where I was looking before. Seems like an odd way to go about it, though I guess it means you could put a building on a 2x2 lot and give it a higher growth stage than if it were on a 4x4 lot.

New question, then, now that I found it. Basically, I don't like the way Maxis has the buildings divided up amongst the different growth stages. I think they spend too many stages just downgrading the lot size for a building that the change from stage 7 to stage 8 is rather abrupt. I would like to delete/edit/add lots to fix this. My understanding of the Lot Editor (which I don't have yet because I don't have Rush Hour yet) is that it only works for user-created buildings (I could be wrong about this, though). Is there a way to do this in ilive? One thing I want to do is have Co$$ only go up to stage 7, by setting the stage 8 percent to never go above 0,and lowering all Co$$ stage 8 to be stage 7.

[Tropod 144]

Try having a look through the  Stage< Buildings Possible  thread as it may provide you with some useful information. It may not be exactly the same thing you're after, but the aspects involved (i.e. the files & properties) are the same/similar.

Using the Reader, you can do just about anything (almost) with the game really, as it accesses files in a more raw form. I would suggest downloading the  Reader Beginners Guide  for an intro into using it. The LotEditor is only capable of modifying Lots, nothing more.