Question on building repetition

[Prophet42 1,500]

Hopefully just a quick question.  I have noticed that with some of the buildings downloaded from the STEX/LEX, that they tend develop quite prolifically.  Is there a way to modify the building files to reduce the number of occurences that the building appears in a city?  If so, what parameter controls the building occurence and which file is it located in?

[infamousjbe 592]

Reducing the amount of tiles sets it's assigned too might help a bit.

[Metalpuritan 160]

Can you give more details?  Is the building "growing like weeds"  like you have a building that will grow like 20-30 of them all next to each other?  If that is the case, it is because of the capacity satisfied is set for that building too high.  Say you have a demand for 2000 low wealth commercial services.  When the game looks at all the buildings available to it, it will choose the fastest easiest way to satisfy the demand, so if you have custom content building that will fulfill the demand better than any other building you have, it will grow most often.

 

Fortunately for you there is a remedy for this.  Actually there are a couple ways to fix it.  They all require other programs however, the solutions I know of anyway.  I suggest using either the "Ilive's reader" or the SC4PIM(SC4Plugin Manager)(not the maxis one).

 

Using the plugin manager, link https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2260(you will need to be logged into the LEX to see the download link) you just load the file folder that contains the custom content you want to alter and change it's capacity satisfied number to be more in line with everything else, say, if all the maxis buildings hold 28 workers, you want to set the capacity of that particular building to 28 that way it will compete with the maxis building but not cancel them out entirely.

 

The ilive's readee, link  is slightly more complicated, but still just as good and effective, the ilive's reader can do much more than set capacities though, so I suggest you get this anyway and if you don;t use it for this application you keep it for when you do need it, I need it pretty often, and I am definitely not a custom content creator(I am trying but failing miserably at the moment).

 

With ilive's reader, most things are done in hexadecimal, infamousjbe above there(hi btw and thanks again for that, it is a life saver) got me hip to a site to help with hexadecimal conversions the link http://www.mathsisfun.com/binary-decimal-hexadecimal-converter.html

 

So once you have checked that out, all you got to do is edit the hex values under the "capacity satisfied", you will see 2 to 6 values there, it is every other one that is for the capacities

 

so for example

 

0x00001010 <== low wealth residential(when dilapidated)

0x00000030 <== 48 residents

0x00001020 <== medium wealth residential

0x00000018 <== 24 residents

 

The second and fourth lines are the ones you need to alter.  Once you have altered the proper numbers and with values that you feel are correct for you then you click the apply button ont he right, then the apply button at the bottom(it is important to do BOTH)(that is what I was told anyway, and I never questioned it, it works and I have no reason to question it thus.)

 

Once that is done, you need to save the file, just click save and then exit and load your game, destroy existing buildings and watch them NOT grow like weeds anymore.

 

If you just a simple repetition problem of course and it is not buildings growing like weeds then do what infamousjbe said and just change tile sets.

 

Sorry I went to great lengths here, but your query was unclear.  One thing is for sure, we answered your question one way or another.

 

Good luck!

[infamousjbe 592]

(hi btw and thanks again for that, it is a life saver) 

Hello & your welcome. Yes, the Reader can quickly become an intricate part of your SC4 experience.

 

I was the same way when Magneto turned me onto the Reader. It's rather incredible that you're allowed the ability to alter about 90% of the game to your own liking. 

 

 

 

Reducing the amount of tiles sets it's assigned too might help a bit.

Guess I shouldn't have been so vague with my response and went into a bit more detail like Metalpuritan did. Should never have assumed that the OP was already proficient with the Reader....   duh...    sorry about that.

 

So you'll also need the Reader to accomplish the advice I original gave with a follow up how-to.

 

 

 

With the Reader, you might actually get to the point that you'll inspect most of the downloaded content to make sure it's not completely out of line with the default SC4 content. Which in turn creates the issue you're posting here about. 

[Prophet42 1,500]

Thanks for the help infamousjbe and metalpuritan. I appreciate the advice.  Just to give you an example of what I mean, metalpuritan, sometimes I will have a building like the Sojot building grow 6 times in a row.  I bulldoze 5 of them,  and 4 more will pop up.  I have to use 'historical' a lot to keep the variaty of buildings in my cities high. 

 

 I just downloaded the ilive reader a couple of days ago but haven't had much of a chance to use it yet.  I definitely will look into using the Reader to modify the capacities of the most prolific buildings.  Thanks again for the help.

[Mister Giggles 310]

PIMX, or the X-Tool, is a superior option to 'eying' it for capacities. The problem with merely altering the capacities is not just the fact they'll still often by grossly out of line with what Maxis (maybe, kinda, sorta) intended. There are matters of water and power usage, air and water pollution, garbage production...

 

What PIMX does is generate balanced figures for everything based on the size of the building. It's not much harder to use than iLives, either, as long as you're not afraid of reading the manual.