mod test no disater testing files

[potorium 17]

as subject

 

if using this please please come back and say if it stopped disasters or not for you.

 

only real way to test if this works or not is for it to break when a disaster happens   no disasters for one person may  just be pure luck

No_disasters.zip

disasters vs project.zip

disaster app.zip

[hcjmonkey 0]

where the MOD into..... ?

[potorium 17]

where the MOD into..... ?

all in C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\SimCity\SimCityUserData\Packages

[SimsTG 5]

Potorium,

 

I am a fan of this MOD, I even did something similar in my game.package.

But I confess that I am concerned about the direction of their changes.

 

The way you're making can bring unpleasant consequences to the whole community modder.

 

MODs are healthy and welcome when they add or fix something in the game.

MODs are not welcome when they give too much unfair advantage to any player.

 

I support the end of disasters unreal as BigLizard, UFO and Zumbies. That would be an improvement in the game. One option for players in favor of realism.

A correction (not a cheat) is always welcome.

 

Can you please make a MOD No Disaster unreal without changing real disasters?

The same with your mods "no pollution" by reducing pollution smoothly, without exaggerating the point of being obvious it is a cheat?

Thank You

[potorium 17]

you are right that some modding could bring an unfair advantage to a competitive game or change the games realism. But simcity is not a competitive game and far from a realistic city sim imo.

 

Paid DLC that changes the base game makes the game a pay to win game. sim city 5 was not marketed as a pay to win game. If the developers release dlc that change the balance for those leaderboards then i see no reason to argue against mods that offer changes to game play. If Maxis want to come on here and tell us to stop producing mods that effect game play because they want only paid DLC to offer those advantages to leaderboards they are welcome too.

 

until then mods that effect game play are for each individual player to decide if they want to change their gameplay by what the mod offers in their use.

 

If a player however feels a mod offers something similar to what they would like but needs changing to meet their wishes, they are more than welcome to request an alternative.

 

And incidentally maxis are more than welcome to restrict leader boards to only those who dont use mods if they so wish.

 

But to restrict modding to a game franchise that has a huge history of modding  because of their lame excuse of  a 'competitive gameplay element' they claim to have added to the game whilst also introducing their own pay to win dlc...

[SimsTG 5]

Good you do not understood me. And surely you do not know what I've done.

I'm the guy that caused more than 100 million dollars in damage to EA / Maxis for creating and distributing the TG Unblock, which makes free and unlock all DLCs from The Sims 3 Store all expansions. There are over 2000 different objects DLCs unlocked. Hundreds of millions of downloads these objects distributed free and unlocked at home for every player of The Sims 3.

 

So, do not want to explain to me what is justice. Do not try to explain how it is wrong, stupid, slutty and exploitation of EA / Maxis to make a game incomplete to sell it piecemeal.

 

We can fight it, yes we can. But the right way. Creating content for free. Mecher in gameplay with very unfair advantage, is to be as stupid as EA.

 

I play SimCity and The Sims since it launched the first version of each. I've seen many cases and many things over the years, and I've done many other things as well. Some stupid things and some not so.

 

The point is: You will focus your precious time to leave the game tedious and childish, too easy and unchallenging, to compensate for their lack of ability to make the challenges it, or will improve it for real?

 

No bla bla bla please. Let's be honest. There are ways to reprime EA / Maxis helping whole community of players. Only lost my time which also is precious, hoping to make him understand.

[potorium 17]

i'm simply trying to figure out what can and can't be changed.

 

I hate playing the current version of the game so having to test the mods myself is painful! Therefore using extremes is far easier to observe with respect to time for both I and others. It also means i can turn off the game and stop cursing such a stupid 'vision' faster

 

if in that process people want to keep using the test mods that means they have stuff like no pollution then so be it. i'm not going to dictate what they can / can't use, and have purposely split up mods that effect pollution/growth to individual density / wealth tiers so people can pick and choose.

 

However if someone wants to rebalanced pollution emissions properly and realistically, now we know they do not cause rollback then feel free to, and release it on stex

 

likewise with density growth development - its super fast because it was an extreme that's quick, and easy to identify and use for testing it(and also helps me test other changes on new build cities which was its original purpose)

 

i could have released a disaster test mod that only turned of the 3 you mention, but testing if it stopped disasters would have taken longer as the less i turned off means less observable results (or lack of in this case and again helps testing of other mods without the inconvenience of natural disasters)

 

all my test mods are ripped from the script package and should be fairly easy for others to check what needs changing to release balanced mods on stex.

I guess i could and should leave notes on exactly what property id's need changing and any limitations/rules i found regarding them,  so others can change them easier,

 

i havn't done much these last few days but if i do continue testing fire for example, i will again take the changes to the extreme and release as a test. if that stops all self igniting fires for all RCI then so be it. Its not meant to make the game easier or more unrealistic but to test a concept. if that concept is possible, hopefully someone will take it and rebalanced the mod so it offer a challenge without fires becoming as tedious as they currently can do.

[potorium 17]

btw i do agree that the 3 disasters you mention should be the only 3 removed from the game, with maybe the fallout from nuclear meltdown being fixable within an enjoyable 'game relevant' timescale.

 

However, i personally have no interest in releasing stex mods as i have no interest in ensuring they stay current each time the developers patch the game (im lazy and get bored far to easily for that !)

 

So, anyone reading this, please do take whats discovered in the mod discussion threads and release game play mods based on those findings. Thats why my test mods are here and not on stex.

[SimsTG 5]

I get it.

It would be interesting Oppie and other monsters Modders, leave more tips about how the strings was extracted and compiled into a single object.

 

My biggest difficulty is finding the right scripts and compile.

 

But you inspired me to pick on you guys until I learn. I have a huge list of improvements that I want to do.

[ProcsKalone 294]

Hey for strings I believe this bit of help I got from Oppie may be relevant

 

 

Hey,

 

The tableID and stringID refer specifically to JSON files in the locale files. The table ID is always the instance ID for the file, and the stringID points to the specific string in this JSON file. The instance ID's of the JSON files are usually an encoding of their original file names. In SimCityPak, you can use the 'FNV calculator' under the Tools menu to calculate the hex ID for any corresponding string - although I guess you could make up any hex id if you're creating your own JSON file.

 

Hopefully this is helpful to you.

 

Regards,

 

oppie

- All strings are located C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\SimCity\SimCityData\Locale\en-us\Data.packagage . Filter by instance ID using the table id you get from the textprop, and this will get you the json. The json will then have the instance id that belongs to the textprop.

[Buggi 684]

The first mods we released for SC4 were _extreme_ mods. And they are still very popular today. I remember when I released my set of ordinance mods that one would consider extreme the reaction was positive, heck I STILL get messages regarding that mod after 10 years!

 

People want to play the game their way, you can pick and choose which mods you play to play it your way. That is the heart of the franchise. If I want to play a city where the super high tech industry doesn't pollute like a smelter, that is my choice. I do this because these high tech factories shouldn't be polluting so much IMHO so the mod basically sets this right. Felgard's road mod is SUPERB at ensuring service vehicles move around the city in a decent fashion. And proc's mods are a godsend when it comes to breaking out of the box and overcoming stupid module limits. If I want a computer manufacturer to have 10 modules then so be it, I still have to PAY for those.

[Buggi 684]

Oh, yeah, and in playing a map in DevTest just now I had a nuke plant go boom out of the blue. No reason, safe worker levels and everything. Just randomly decided to explode.

 

I have a screenshot, but am too depressed to post it. It was the one flat map in...er.. wait I can't say anything about that.

[potorium 17]

not sure if this mod even stops that happening.meltdown is in the file but related to a timer constant rather than a boolean switch, i think anyway

[potorium 17]

shameless bump,

 

anyone fancy writing a full blown 3rd party disaster switch app. is just one file, so having a simple ui and changing the corresponding files bytes depending on each of the disasters toggle should be fairly easy for a coder ?

 

started an app if anyone wants to tidy it up, test the byte changes etc

  Edited August 1, 2013 by potorium  

[Ixath 0]

I haven't had any disasters since installing this mod.

 

Some people might disagree, but I think it's amazing. I play the game to have fun.. not to live in fear of a stupid godzilla chasing after my garbage dump.

 

Thank you for making this available.