SPAM vs BSC or one big happy family

[Metalpuritan 160]

Do I have to choose between SPAM and BSC farms or can they co-exist as one big happy family?

 

There are like a million(exaggeration) dependencies for the BSC set all scattered about, I do not so much see that as something that counts against it. I just want to know if they can work together.

 

I rather like the look of both of them.

[Thunderman 30]

Well, if you have read the readme, than it would have said that it doesn't coexist withother. 

If the readme's doesn't mention any set backs between the two then you mostly can assume that they will work nicely together...

 

And sometimes you'll have to do some trial 'n' error on it. 

 

I believe i use all of them and as of yet, i've not noticed any setbacks yet, so i think it's pretty safe to say that they both work well together.

You just have to try it out and see if you can notice any setback...

[Adjiebrotot 94]

you can use both, i think its not a lot of depedencies since the BSC Prop Packs or BSC Texture Packs is a standard packs or i must say "every simcity 4 player should be has it" some mods use BSC Prop/Texture packs in their mods.

[Metalpuritan 160]

So, I got to downloading the BSC farms... What a colossal mess.  It took 2 hours and 53 minutes to download and install of the dependencies, and that includes hunting down the outdated and merged dependencies to verify that either I needed them or they were already included in another pack I either had already or needed.  This is a situation where people's creative rights have gotten a little out of hand.  I know it is taboo to talk about but sometimes it is actually better to just grab all that stuff and cram it into one nicely wrapped package.  Perhaps an author's agreement of sorts, get everyone together and create some sort of agreement to make it even just a little easier on folks?  I mean come on, nearly three hours to download and install one set of farms? ijs

[timmie 988]

Nobody forces you to download the BSC farms. Also, this is not the right place to rant

[Ro-Bo 183]

Instead of combining them into one, what about create a guide to all BSC farms. Maybe there all the outdated/merged dependencies can be sorted out.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

For the most part, if you see a prop pack like BSC BAT Props [NAME] Vol.[n], it will have been merged into BSC Mega Props [NAME] Vol.1. The same applies to any other prop packs that contain the uploader's name (IF they contain it). Not many people have several mega packs, and most Vol.2+ mega packs were made after the idea of prop pack consolidation arose, meaning that most legacy individual packs had already been sorted into the Vol.1 mega pack by the time the second mega pack was compiled. CSX packages are a mystery to me, however.

 

TBH, my enthusiasm for those BSC farms wore off pretty quickly. When they came out, they were nothing short of a revolution. However, if you look at them these days, they contain many BATs that are sub-par by today's standards (and weren't even the absolute best back then, but you had to cope with what was available). The same applies to many of the included fields, which also tend to look pretty "griddy" in many cases. Moreover, I was never fond of the host of different query windows for all those fields.

 

I have gone back to using a handful (8-10 - ok, two handfuls ) different fields and a few ploppable farms - easier to manage and enough variation for both city and region view. I don't need banana plantations next to wheat fields next to a futuristic hydroponic farm.

 

Have you tried playing a week or two with only the SPAM to see if there's enough variation inside for you? As a more recent mod, the SPAM of course has more up-to-date BAT models, and I think it's a lot easier to install. If it's not enough for you, the BSC farms won't run away.

 

Back to the original question, I don't know if the SPAM contains any modification that could interfere with the BSC farms. For example, I know that SPAM farms only feature a building if they are above a certain number of grid tiles. My guess would be that this is tied to the IIDs of the respective SPAM farms and shouldn't affect the BSC farms. The BSC farms and fields, in turn, contain custom occupant goups that serve as counters towards particular rewards. If you add non-BSC farms, these will not count towards said rewards, but I don't see why they wouldn't work (or cause crashes, for that matter).

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Guess I am an old stick in the mud, but I avoid using more than one package for the same thing.  At the moment SPAM is my farm package, and I've been using it for quite a while.  I don't usually make a tile full of farms unless it is a small tile, and even then, not often.

[libellibicus 396]

I ditched all my BSC farms when SPAM was released, because in comparison, the BSC farms looked lower quality. As I haven't had any problems using SPAM, I can't foresee me using the BSC ones ever again.

[Metalpuritan 160]

Guess I am an old stick in the mud, but I avoid using more than one package for the same thing.  At the moment SPAM is my farm package, and I've been using it for quite a while.  I don't usually make a tile full of farms unless it is a small tile, and even then, not often.

Yeah see, I have an 8X8 map I am going to populate from edge to edge, I need farms and after I got done with my very first farm tile I was already bored sick of SPAM, I also had both addons from Paeng installed and it still wasn't enough, endless pastures and tilled fields, they were popping up in handfuls right next to each other and there is only so much you can do to make them different from each other from adding fences and fences of different colors and other eye candy buildings like barns and silos and an occasional residential lot thrown in there to add a bit of realism, after a while I ran out of tricks to add variety.

 

After building a couple more farming communities(whole tile per each) with both BSC and SPAM installed I am rather pleased with the result.  The building variety is what grabs my attention the most, the fields is secondary.  Then I have the added rewards too from the BTE rewards, it's like searching the couch and finding money you did not expect or finding a dollar in the laundry after you wash it.

 

This region is going to have multiple millions of sims, I am hesitant to bring an actual number, but it is going to be a high population and I refuse to make a skyscraper pin cushion for the entire thing, to make it look "pretty"(in my opinion) I am going to have to have a billion(exaggeration) farms.  By the way, does SPAM go all the way to stage 7?  I do not think it does.  I am definitely going to be maxing the CAM stages out with this region.  I think in just 3 tiles I have already reached stage 4 agriculture.

 

Luckily for me this map very much centered around a river system, I am using the CP/jeronij riparian forest which is suited well for low lying areas next to water, this set of trees actually over hangs into the farm field lots to take the edge off of them, they are kinda square and blocky looking.

 

I guess I could plop some farms or whatever, but that just feels like cheating.  The only buildings I plop are rewards, and that commercial area mixed in with my suburban residential areas, like a Kroger grocery store and a commercial business shopping center(thanks to Simgoober), to create that suburban feel as getting specific lots, especially the ones that look proper in that suburban setting to grow like that is next to impossible and lastly, I will plop eye candy lots.

 

I am not going for total realism here, I want my sims to live happy lives and "approve" of me.  At the same time, I also want my tiles to have a lively, vibrant and diverse look to them....Then at the same time as all that, I also want the game to be fun for me, I have a job in real life, I don't need this to become a job too, this is what I do to escape reality, not make make reality more complicated.

 

I did download all the necessary items I needed to make the BSC farms work, it took a long time and really did feel like a job.  That kind of stuff is what I am trying to avoid, hours of research and more research followed by downloading (seeming)endless files...It just feels like work to go through all that and that is precisely what I want to avoid.  Fortunately, for the future, I will not have to go through all that again, not unless both of my hard drives die at once and are unrecoverable(extremely unlikely).  I just had to bite the bullet once for this.  I am just glad that I like the end result, or else it would have been all for waste.

 

So in summary, they do work together, they do not work as one, but they can and do coexist.

 

Thank you for all your inputs!

 

A side note, I went and checked out Wrokingman's(WMN)site and man, they got some great lots that compliment any rural/farming community/tile,a whole slew of freight stations, I was looking for a rural rail terminus, been looking for a long time, I found one there among many other desireable lots, they are ploppable though, the occupants numbers are low though so in my eye they are more like eye candy than anything and that is what I use them for, that and power transfers, like I will place one lot on one side of a bridge and then another at the other to carry the power across a body of water.

 

So much more I could say here but I guess that is for another thread and another day.  I really could go on and on...

[SilverCyric 130]

I used to run BSC, BLS, and CAM farms with the SPAM, there were two factors that led me to SPAM exclusive, first, yeah it's a giant mess, so many dependencies, but they just didn't seem to blend well together, like a snow mod and a desert mod, while both are barren, they vary greatly after that. I liked the SPAM selection, but the big seller was what diagonal fields I could make. I do just about anything and everything to get away from saw tooth patterns.

You can add the buildings, just don't add the fields, I think they're separate files...I just can't remember right now without looking through and old Plugins backup

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

One more thing you might want is SimGoober's Ditch set.  It extends the demand for farms, and provides nifty irrigation ditches.  Couldn't find it on the STEX, so I'd try the LEX.

[libellibicus 396]

I agree with Nonny. Simgoobers Irrigation Ditches are an absolute must IMO.

[Metalpuritan 160]

Yeah, got the ditches already...part of my now 2.15 gig plugins folder, I got a lot of very fun stuff.  When i take screen shots of my game, I am hard pressed to find anything that is not modded in some way shape or form....well, there is the unhide button in the lower left hand corner, I still haven't modded that out.....yet.

 

Basically this plugin folder is this regions master plugin folder, I want to fill this region up using just this one plugins folder, I don;t want to do any switching or nothing, I just want to play.  I keep coming across useful stuff though.  I might download a bunch of stuff but not all of it makes it to my master plugins folder.  That is also why I am still here on the Simtropolis website and not gone forever playing, I also take my breaks here.

 

My next logical step is making my own content, either for personal use or to share.  So far though, I am having a hard time comprehending simple tasks like changing what tileset a lot grows on.  I want to be able to control that, but ilive's reader seems so complex with terminology I for some reason cannot identify with and absorb as knowledge and the tutorials for some reason are over my head.  This all comes back to work though.  Going through all that just seems like so much work and I already have too much of that in my life, perhaps that thought is what keeps me from being able to become an author myself... Like a mental block.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

One of the satisfying things about making your own lots is exactly that: personal satisfaction.  Making a new lot, whether with the Lot Editor or the BAT as starting points is always interesting if you are at all creative.  The real test of the pudding is the testing.  You should never post anything on an exchange that hasn't been tested to destruction by you and maybe some friends.

 

Start with the Lot Editor.  It is a rather comprehensive readme to study, and I am sure there are still some helpful files in the Omnibus.  You should also join the builders forum for contact with other builders.

[libellibicus 396]

Agreed.  The Builders Forum is the place to be for all things BAT/Lot.  There are also many helpful members, more than willing to help and advise.

[Metalpuritan 160]

I am reading through the iLive reader and have been all day.  

 

I would feel bad if I went to that forum and posted a question "How do I lower the occupancy of a particular building I have downloaded?"  That just seems like it would be so elementary.  To me it would be like asking why I have brown boxes in game in the general chat.forum.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The only dumb question is the one that doesn't get asked.  Go ahead, and don't be shy.  The Reader is very difficult and obscure until you have used it for a while.