Landmark Removal

[infamousjbe 593]

Kind of two questions regarding SC4 landmarks to help de-clutter the menu.

First, when installing certain BATs/Lots, some come with LM ploppables that I would rather not have. Some DL's will specifically state Plop/LM and Grow, which makes it easy to remove the LM version. Now other DL's do not differentiate between the two... How do I know which one is the LM version to be removed??

(Just guessing it would be one of the "lot" files? Isn't the ".model", ".SC4Desc"& ".bat" files essential for the plugin to work?)

Second, is there a way to remove the SC LMs I don't/won't use and would rather not be in the LM menu in-game?

[Magneto 316]

Look closely at the name of the .sc4lot  + .sc4desc files. If the file name begins by LM or Plop then it's a landmark or ploppable, you can delete it. If it begins with R/C/I followed by $/$$/$$$ followed by a number (growth stage) then it's probably a growable

 

Whenever  file names aren't ringing a bell, or that they are are merged in a .dat, your best examination tool is ilive's reader (get it )

The program is pretty straightforward to use, here's a breakdown on how to do it:

 

1. Open the file

2. Click "filters", "uncheck all", then check "Exemplars", then hit "refresh"

3. You should now see entries named exemplars  on the left pane.

4. To find the good exemplar, you'll have to click on them. This will make appear informations on the right pane.The one you're looking for is the building exemplar.

 

It should look close to this

 

 

 

Some properties may differ a bit though, but essentially this is it.

Once you located the buildings  exemplar, look after the property OccupantGroups. You'll see "Landmark" if it's one. If it's agrowable, it will be somewhat  similar to the example above.

You can also look at other properties that hints you this a plop/LM: Item Icon and Item order for example are specific to ploppable buildings.

 

For your second question, I think there's a mod that does that, but not totally sure. If I can find the link I'll let you know.

 

Anyway, I recommend you get familiar with reader as it will tremendously help you to tweak the game to your likings, such as removing icons from the menu

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Ain't we got fun!  I am glad to see there are still some keeners playing this game.  It is good to have people who want to delve around in the gory details with the reader.  I am just a little too jaded to bother.

[infamousjbe 593]

Have to say I was a bit reluctant to dive into yet another program to further "enhance" my SC4 experience. Since returning to SC4, think I've spent more time catching up on as much as possible (like chewing stale jerky) rather than just actually playing the game. Without keeping up with the last 10 yrs of content, it's overwhelming. Certainly can't complain that whenever I feel I need a particular "something", I can usually find exactly what IT IS that's needed to bring the room together.

But I went ahead and installed ilive, and have to say, for what I need to use it for, it'll do the trick in tracking down those pesky useless LM. Thank you again Magneto. That's 2for2 you've helped my issue. Be careful or I'll end up knocking on your door anytime I have an issue.

 

Ain't we got fun!  I am glad to see there are still some keeners playing this game.  It is good to have people who want to delve around in the gory details with the reader.  I am just a little too jaded to bother.

I'm on the exact opposite of that stick. I'm still trying to chew and swallow everything I've had to do so far just to get SC4 all patched up with all the fixes. Don't get me started on DEPENDENCIES..... After bout a months time, it's finally feeling like I've done some progress on the fetching of this and that. Now it seems like I might need just one or two odd 'depens' for the larger DLCs.

EDIT: Kind of last minute related question. Some content seems to create an icon in both the LM menu and other sub-menus. ie. Parks Menu, or Bus Network menu. Is there a way of just having one icon in one sub-menu and not creating double icon clutter?

[Magneto 316]

Sure it's possible, and it just happens you already did half the way to accomplish that task

 

So open any file you suspect to be adding icons with your new favorite program, and locate the building exemplar. Watch those properties:

 

 

 

-Item Name: the name that is displayed in your game menu

-Item description: the description displayed in your game menu

-Item icon references the png file used as icon

-Item order: property that governs the position in the menu. The value can vary on a range from -10000 to + 10000 iirc,. By default, it's set at 0 just like every Maxis content. A negative value will make the icon appear before Maxis stuff (on top of the menu), a positive value will obviously do the opposite. In case 2 items are tied with the same item order, the item costing the less § in game will pass on top. If still tied, the lot size will be the the tiebreaker. The value must be entered in hexadecimal

-OccupantGroups: defines in which category the building belongs, as well as where it appears in your menu: rail, civics, parks, etc

 

The property occupantgroups must be observed carefully: this is where most likely you'll have to remove some values which defines the category where the building appears. To determine which lines you'll need to remove, this list will probably be useful: link.

 

Once you determined the value(s) causing the icon to appear in a category you don't want, you'll have to check if there are sub-categories tied to the main category (ie passenger rail with rail, toll booth with misc transit, etc) and delete all values from the main category and from the subcategories.

 

This is done by right-clicking on the Occupantgroups property, choose "edit property"

A window will pop, displaying all values:

 

 

 

Either highlight the rows containing  the values to delete and press remove, or delete it from the bottom box, it's up to you. Be careful each value is separated as a comma. Once done press Apply (1) then press Apply (2) to exit the window.

 

Last step before saving: right-click anywhere on the right pane and select "Reindex LotConfig", or the changes won't be effective and in-game oddities may occur.

 

 

Thank you again Magneto. That's 2for2 you've helped my issue. Be careful or I'll end up knocking on your door anytime I have an issue.

 

 

No problem, and happy menu-streamlining!

[infamousjbe 593]

I believe if it was just a single lot, I would be able to follow your procedure, but unfortunately the two culprits in question are the SFBT Diagonal Fillers, and the RTMT 3.6 lots. What I guess are these lots are plopped to create the icons in the menu to unlock more choices for each respectively? I haven't used them in-game cause I keep forgetting that I have to actually plop a lot to be able to have at the options that become available. In this case, both have a list of files and not sure how to handle this case.

[Magneto 316]

Oh yeah, MML lots. Well I don't think the how-to would be much different, excepted the quantity of exemplars entries as you mentioned. If you have trouble I'll look into the files.

 

Do you play with the RTMT in asian-themed cities by any chance?

[infamousjbe 593]

It's only the two that are left now so it's not a huge deal, but I suppose if you got bored enough and wanted to look through those files, be my guest. Certainly wouldn't stop ya.

As far as Asian designs go, can't say I do. Born and raised in New England USA, so my designs are always based on what I know from around me. Any particular reason you ask?

[Magneto 316]

Bored? Certainly not. But I can understand your concern about that, I like my menus organized and as light as possible.It will take less than 2 min. to do, no big deal.

 

Attach the MML files to this post if you wish (you might have to zip them). Also let me know which item position you want to keep/remove

 

 

As far as Asian designs go, can't say I do. Born and raised in New England USA, so my designs are always based on what I know from around me. Any particular reason you ask?

 

Thought you did, probably because you asked for the japanese mod the other day... Nvm

[infamousjbe 593]

Attach the MML files to this post if you wish (you might have to zip them). Also let me know which item position you want to keep/remove

 

 

Since you mentioned the MML file, I went ahead and edited the one for the RTMT and it's no longer in two menus. 

 

Now I'm finding there isn't a MML file associated with the SFBT Diagonal Fillers. When I open the individual files, their occ group is set to both menus. Do I need to edit each individual .Lot file associated with the SFBTDF's to remove the icon from the either of the menus? 

 

How do the SFBTDFs work without an MML file as appose to the RTMT that used a MML file?

 

EDIT: I was indeed looking for a Mod created by a JPN batter specifically for the telephone poles. You can't go anywhere in New England without Power Lines running every which way. Paeng's last CJ post was the first time I've seen a power line street mod. I probably wouldn't have rested till I tracked it down, knowing that they were available out there somewhere. Again, thanks for that. Hope you got to see the pic with the new mod update. Posted it in that "Can't Find It" thread.

[Magneto 316]

The SFBT lots also have a MML file, but it's stored in another directory... Look after the folder named "zz BSC MML mod" in your plugins, it should be there.

 

 

Hope you got to see the pic with the new mod update. Posted it in that "Can't Find It" thread

 

 

Yes I saw it, glad you got it to work! 

[infamousjbe 593]

So did a double check on my plug-ins folder and found the bugger. By default, I dl/install all content to an external folder before placing anything into the /doc/../plug-in folder.  Guess even with the change in directory for the actual lots, the installer still installs the MML file in the plug-ins folder, so didn't notice it there. Thanks again for the heads up.

 

Seems the more I scratch, the more there is to find. Pulled this game out of the "donation" box ready to be donated just on a whim due to the hype of SimCity2013. Didn't think it would even work with Win7 being such an old game. Long story short, here we are now. At first ya think you're just installing to mess around in some down time, did not expect to be diving so deep into a "video game".. lol

 

The street mod actually didn't go perfect the first time round. Though at first it looked fine for the pic, some Sim months later, as the season turned, ended up with a row of boxes down all my streets. A dep' I assumed I had already, which obviously wasn't true, had to be dl'ed to the plug-ins folder, now everything is right as rain. I have a weird fascination with power lines, I believe stems from a graffiti background. Was in absolute heaven during a visit to the Hoover Dam #PowerLinePorn 

[Mr Saturn64 742]

Or what you could do is go into the folder where all of your BATs are, and than just right click delete.

[infamousjbe 593]

Or what you could do is go into the folder where all of your BATs are, and than just right click delete.

 

Not quite sure what you are referring too with your post? It's a bit vague for me to understand.

 

I'm not trying to remove the content from SC4, cause I still want it to grow. This thread was more for cleaning up the menu, than just deleting content. which I've been able to do with iLive and some help from the the community.

 

The SC4 default LMs are not as easy as just deleting anything since they are buried in the SC4-1.dat file. There are so many files in each .dat, that it would take too long to sift through it all just to delete a few SC4 LMs.. I'll just suck it up.

[Wiimeiser 452]

There's something to move all the default parks to the bottom. Maybe something similar could be done with the default landmarks?

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

it is a lot of work with the reader but you could move the menu position to the bottom for each one.  Let the game sort out any conflicts.  Then if you do a general reinstall without preserving things, you get to do it all again.

[infamousjbe 593]

I wouldn't have much of an issue with reassigning their placement in the LM menu, if there was way to know exactly which .dat file they reside in, and a way of quickly pulling up the appropriate files to edit, without having to scan through all the files in each .dat.

 

Any idea if there was ever a thread created with such info as to which .dat file the default Maxis LM's reside? 

[Magneto 316]

I guess those can be found in the simcity1.dat that's in your SC4 Deluxe directory. A word of warning though: before any attempt at modifying this file, it is strongly advised you make a backup. Better be on the safe side.

 

Also it would be probably better to copy the building exemplars from the dat and paste them in a new file, and modify those exemplars instead of the exemplars from the simcity1.dat. So in the unlikely case you want  your icons back, it is still possible

 

That said, I found a mod in my menu that remove the icons properties of a bunch of Maxis stuff...I cleaned it up so that only the Landmarks icons are removed.

 

That should solve your menu clutter issues

[T Wrecks 10,210]

You could also take all the building exemplar files of Maxis landmarks from the Simcity1.dat and copy them into a new file. Then you'd change the "Item Order" property to a higher value. This will push the items in question further down in the menu. The new file (with the altered item order) will later reside in your plugins folder, and its content will override the Maxis landmark exemplars from the game's core files, pushing the landmarks to the bottom of the menu.

 

EDIT

 

In general, items are sorted into the menu by their "Item Order", i.e. an item with item order 5 will appear below an item with item order 4, etc. If they share one and the same item order number, they will be listed by plop cost. If plop cost is identical, too, I guess the item ID (the hexadecimal code) will determine the order.

[infamousjbe 593]

That said, I found a mod in my menu that remove the icons properties of a bunch of Maxis stuff...I cleaned it up so that only the Landmarks icons are removed.

 

That should solve your menu clutter issues

Once again, a thanks goes to you Magneto for the help.

 

Finally had a chance to drop it in the Plugins folder to test out. At first it looked like everything was perfect, but just noticed that it actually drops a few LM's into the "Parks" menu. 

 

Lots in case:

Opera House

Tourist Trap

City Zoo

Minor & Major League Stadium.

 

Unless I'm just crazy and didn't notice them there until just now, which is totally feasible.

 

For some reason, the icon for the SFBT Diagonal Fillers disappeared. Not saying it was related to you .dat though. I've re-edited and re-installed the SFBTDFs again, along with your plugin, and that issue seems to be remedied. That's why I think it's probably not related specifically to yours.