Post Modding Requests Here

[Kel9509 1,357]

I originally didn't post in this thread because I wasn't' asking for someone else to do a mod for me, but was originally hoping for help on how to mod things myself.  But I think I'm at my limit, so am asking for a mod request.

Can someone help me fix the JBSimbo Smalltown USA Post office?  It doesn't seem to work in "existing" cities, only new cities.  I think it has something to do with the reward condition of being 10 years or older.  It sees my existing older cities as not "new" and doesn't start the clock to count. I think this reward condition is flawed because it's 10 years of game time from the time you originally start the city, because it doesn't "count" the years anymore in existing cities.  

I'd like to make the reward conditional only on population size, if possible.

Thanks for the help.

 

EDIT: Nevermind, I figured it out.  I forgot a closing ")" in the script, when I removed the city age restriction.  Thanks anyway.  Is there a tutorial on reward lots somewhere anyway?

  Edited September 26, 2023 by Kel9509  

[SIM-ple Jack 17,444]

An underwater tree controller for seaweed and flora.

[Kel9509 1,357]

When I need to find a civic building, even if I know where it is, I can't really click on it so well anymore because skyscrapers block civic buildings from view.  The NAM Zone view suppresses skyscrapers from view obviously, but the civic buildings are also hidden and do not appear.    

Is there a way to mod one of the Dataviews to show civic buildings while other buildings are hidden?  I think this ideally would be a mod to the Zone view, to show the civic buildings while the RCI buildings are within their respective zone colors.  If the actual buildings cannot be shown, would it be possible to "zone" the civic buildings so that they're colored in a different color from the Zoned RCI buildings?  Like the civic buildings could be red or something, while residential is green, commercial is blue, industrial is yellow.

I know civic buildings can be highlighted on the dataview map, from this mod here (DataView - Show Non-RCI Only as Power.dat):

Would it be possible to better highlight the civic buildings somehow?

[philforhockey51 4,203]

Is it possible to 'shut off' the demolition animations when bulldozing? It's just unnecessarily slowing things down.

[SIM-ple Jack 17,444]

11 minutes ago, philforhockey51 said:

Is it possible to 'shut off' the demolition animations when bulldozing? It's just unnecessarily slowing things down.

 

[philforhockey51 4,203]

Not for creating roads, I mean for when bulldozing lots etc. and all the dust and debris fly around and the game lags..

[rivit 3,391]

7 hours ago, philforhockey51 said:

Not for creating roads, I mean for when bulldozing lots etc. and all the dust and debris fly around and the game lags..

probably (thinking out loud)  you can suppress it by cutting down the details settings in Preferences. But, keep in mind you turn off quite a few things that are animated or move as you turn that down. If you have shadows on high turn them down to med or low (= off) first as they are the heaviest load of all. 

[philforhockey51 4,203]

I probably should have been more specific with my question, was the wrong time of day to be asking questions.

Without knowing, I believe what happens when you bulldoze a lot is the game needs to reread the dat file to find whatever parts it uses (textures I assume) to then create the debris used in the animation. I've noticed different lots have different demolition animations and I'm assuming that is a choice that can be made when making the bat/lot or based on lot type the game decides which visual is used. Think of how some lots have a dark ringed impact crater looking image displayed once bulldozed others don't. In some cases the building seems to split and collapse. The amount of dust, how long it persists, seems to vary but something must be setting the game to decide how much or how long. If the game needs to reread the dat and then use that data to create the demolition animation, the size of the plugin folder might be creating the lag/delay. The only other delays I have is startup or initial menu button click when the game is going through my 11GB plugins folder, I don't have any issues with shadows or other animations 10 of 12 processors doing their thing on a modern computer. The number of lots selected to be bulldozed also affects the amount of time of the lag and with enough variety in a large bulldoze, say a quarter of a large city tile, it is possible to cause a CTD. For these reasons I think the game rereads the plugins folder. On the other hand think of a different case where this demolition animation doesn't happen, the NAM Eraser, there is no animation the piece just disappears, there is no lag. Not sure how that is achieved. Is it possible to eliminate the demolition animation so clicking bulldoze will just make the items disappear like the NAM eraser does? Somehow telling the game you don't need to reread the plugins and you don't need to create and display the animation.   Hope that clears it up a bit.    

[TG24 355]

Hello, sorry if I interrupt the last thread, but i want that someone could make a suburban type homes, like those from the 1960's thru early 2000's era. THX

[rivit 3,391]

On 1/23/2024 at 3:27 AM, philforhockey51 said:

For these reasons I think the game rereads the plugins folder.

It does this all the time and has a RAM cache to speed this up. Every time you scroll the view the same issue arises as you describe - it will refresh the view with lot/prop data from cache, if necessary from disk. It will keep most recently used stuff in the cache which is normally about 600MB but has been reported up to 3GB, so it can handle a lot.  

I think you're right about all the things it needs to do, but I dont know of a direct mechanism to suppress the destruction anims or even see how they are engineered - for instance there isn't a 'Bulldozer' exemplar like those for various disasters to give a hint as to how they work. This is probably all 'inside the exe' or in the (really obscure) effects in Simcity1.dat.  The NAM eraser on the other hand is relatively easy and its defined to just erase one surface tile of network items and don't fix things afterwards so that why its faster than putting down a road tile. 

[Null 45 3,023]

2 hours ago, rivit said:

This is probably all 'inside the exe' or in the (really obscure) effects in Simcity1.dat.

At least part of it is controlled by the EXE, and it calls the Effects system as part of its processing. The Effect it uses appears to be chosen depending on something related to the occupant being demolished, but I have no idea what criteria it is using.

Before picking the demolition effect it checks to see if the occupant is large enough, and skips the effect for occupants that are too small. It may be possible for a DLL to patch that check and make the game think that all occupants are too small, but I have not attempted that.

[philforhockey51 4,203]

This makes me happy, I feel I was able to better explain myself and it was understood.

I had a feeling it was in the exe but at some point it needs data to make a decision. Maybe that is where it can be redirected.

Does anyone else remember any bulldozing patterns? I think the power lots react the same, getting the 'crater' effect, Simmer2 content also often had the 'crater' effect thinking maybe the size of the lot. That animation where the building splits and collapses seems to only happen with tall enough buildings but I can't remember if lot size is a factor. 

[Null 45 3,023]

2 hours ago, philforhockey51 said:

That animation where the building splits and collapses seems to only happen with tall enough buildings but I can't remember if lot size is a factor.

It uses the occupant bounding box (whatever that is) in the calculation, but I can't tell what it does with that information.

2 hours ago, philforhockey51 said:

I had a feeling it was in the exe but at some point it needs data to make a decision. Maybe that is where it can be redirected.

I have a working implementation for game version 641. It redirects the game's IsOccupantTooSmall method call from the original method to the DLL version, which always returns true. I am finishing up a few things with the code, but it should be on the STEX soon. 

[rivit 3,391]

2 hours ago, Null 45 said:

occupant bounding box

just the outer dimensions of the thing being measured.

Every Building and Prop has a property x 27812810 called Occupant Size   in X,Y,Z

Temporarily making a large building have a small size (or the other way around) in Reader would demonstrate if its the right variable.  

[Null 45 3,023]

@philforhockey51 The plugin is now on the STEX:

 

[philforhockey51 4,203]

Worked exactly as advertised and exactly what I was hoping for Thank you! @Null 45

[philforhockey51 4,203]

On 1/22/2024 at 11:40 AM, TG24 said:

Hello, sorry if I interrupt the last thread, but i want that someone could make a suburban type homes, like those from the 1960's thru early 2000's era. THX

Sorry you didn't get a response sooner wanted to give space for the others to discuss, to note this room is specifically for Mods that affect the game's 'functions'. Your request should be made in the BAT request room. However before making a request there you should really spend the time to go through the STEX page by page looking at all that is available. The types of residential houses you are looking for already exist on the STEX, look under the Residential category and the Building Sets category.

[nic49548 15]

Three requests: A downloadable "Growifier" program or DLL that can be used offline (I am well aware of the website Growifier.com), a request to increase the size of the window on the BuildingPlop/LotPlop cheat UI that has been used on the ExtraCheats.dll from 2006, and a mod that can allow the Rewards menu to remember the last used icon/lot. The image below is an example of the UI window, I'm requesting if it can be made bigger.

[Null 45 3,023]

50 minutes ago, nic49548 said:

A downloadable "Growifier" program or DLL that can be used offline (I am well aware of the website Growifier.com),

That site is using a command line tool: https://www.npmjs.com/package/sc4

51 minutes ago, nic49548 said:

The image below is an example of the UI window, I'm requesting if it can be made bigger.

That windows is created by code in the EXE, so it is very difficult to modify it.

[Kel9509 1,357]

1 hour ago, Null 45 said:

That site is using a command line tool: https://www.npmjs.com/package/sc4

I'm not registered with a free account on that site.  Is that why I cannot see a way to download the growifier?  For the life of me, I couldn't figure it out.

[Null 45 3,023]

56 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

Is that why I cannot see a way to download the growifier?  For the life of me, I couldn't figure it out.

The NPM site is a package manager, you cannot download from it directly. The installation and usage instructions are listed in the package description, a summary is below:

1. Install node.js.
2. Open a command prompt and type npm install -g sc4, this will install the package as a sc4 command that can be used from a command prompt.
3. Open a command prompt in the Region folder you wish to modify and type sc4 growify "City - City name.sc4", then press enter.

[fugosushi 41]

@Null 45 

A DLL hack that adds the sorely missing bulldoze hotkey that was in SC3000:

the ability to hold down the ALT key and turn whatever tool you are using into the bulldoze tool temporarily

[SIM-ple Jack 17,444]

2 hours ago, fugosushi said:

@Null 45 

A mod that enables the retention of the scrolling position of a lot in LotPlop and/or a mod that uses a re-titling of lot in BuildingPlop. Currently, I have about 500 files that come up as Park in BP.

[Null 45 3,023]

13 hours ago, fugosushi said:

the ability to hold down the ALT key and turn whatever tool you are using into the bulldoze tool temporarily

That may be possible to implement, but it sounds complicated.

11 hours ago, SIM-ple Jack said:

A mod that enables the retention of the scrolling position of a lot in LotPlop and/or a mod that uses a re-titling of lot in BuildingPlop. Currently, I have about 500 files that come up as Park in BP.

Both the lot plop and building plop dialogs are hard coded in the EXE, so they would be extremely difficult to modify.

You can change the name shown in the building plop UI by editing the ExemplarName property (0x00000020) in the building's exemplar. A few examples of the name format Maxis used would be:

1. Construction3x6x4_PortoPotty_03040000
2. CV44x44_CityCollege_031C
3. CS$$$28x28_4ChiSims4thAve_0523

This appears to break down to: <Building/Prop category><Lot/Prop size>_<Name>_<Exemplar IID>.

[Peter_One 1]

Now that using large resolutions is the norm, would it be possible to somehow mod the GUI to be bigger?

I see that people have changed the color and moved it in the past? How was this done?

What is stopping just an enlargement ? Shouldn't new .dll usage make it possible to change the graphic for GUI?

Trying to play on 1440p is painful right now..

[Null 45 3,023]

4 hours ago, Peter_One said:

How was this done?

That was done by overriding and editing the game's UI files.

4 hours ago, Peter_One said:

Shouldn't new .dll usage make it possible to change the graphic for GUI?

No, a DLL would not be able to resize the UI.

[Peter_One 1]

16 minutes ago, Null 45 said:

That was done by overriding and editing the game's UI files.

No, a DLL would not be able to resize the UI.

I see. Thank you for your reply.

If I would make some larger graphics for the UI, then it could be done? Just make them and replace? I could probably whip some up if that is all that's needed. I was reading something about how somebody figured out changing fonts, so the font size seems like it could be changed to correspond to the new graphics made for the ui?

Of course something tells me if it was all this simple, it would have been done by now..

[rsc204 21,807]

This issue comes up more and more often, especially now DX Wrappers have removed the previous limitations on resolutions we can play in.

Ultimately it should be possible to create a new, larger version of the UI PNG files that will appear bigger on high resolution screens. However that isn’t as simple as replacing PNG files, you’d need to modify the UI files to match. Then the biggest problem, icons (those in the menus) are 44px squared, you’d need to introduce a method to upscale these somehow to a larger size otherwise all the other changes won’t really be very useful. 

[antsel 841]

Would it be possible to make the elevation for contour lines editable? They're currently at 128m apart which isn't very useful. I know there was discussion about it years ago and it was determined it was not possible, but I was hoping with the new advances in modding it might be possible now. 

An old 2017 thread on the topic.

Thanks! 

[Hopkins Viorel 0]

Is it possible to add some ramdomness to the RCI simulation within the game? As far as I know, the way this system is handled is pretty deterministic and based entirely on the actions of the player. What if some random variations, positive or negative, were applied together with the player's influence to make the game a little less predictable? Maybe a sucession of negative effetcs on Industrial-Dirt could convince the player to lower its taxes for the moment, and such. I don't know how interesting this is gameplay-wise, nor do I know if is it even possible... but I would like to throw this idea around anyway just to see your opinions