Post Modding Requests Here

[rsc204 21,806]

The radius will always be shown as a green ring which expands and detracts as you increase and decrease the funding level. If the radius is really large, sometime you won't see it because the ring is technically out of the bounds of your city.

The only thing you can really change is the properties mentioned by Corina above, which will alter this radius.

[Fantozzi 4,067]

@CorinaMarie & @rsc204

Imho - the problem described is something different. If you have two hospitals or schools or police stations - one has a radius of 2000 meter and one has an radius of 500 meters and you set both to zero cost - the radius of the 500 meter lot will be much smaller than the radius of the 2000 meter lot. to my opinion Moses Zal is right - this isn't correct. No matter how big the radius is on standard cost - at zero cost all radius should be the same - close around the lot. So the dynamic of radius change on the 2000-meter-lot should be higher than on the 500-meter-lot - so with more money the radius gets bigger - but one lot having a better coverage with zero costs than the other - this doesn't really make sense.

You can't adjust this on the exemplar - a wider radius on standard cost will always result in a wider radius on zero cost (instead of all lots being the same on zero costs). I'm afraid modding of the games code would be needed to fix this. 

[CorinaMarie 29,576]

9 minutes ago, Fantozzi said:

No matter how big the radius is on standard cost - at zero coast all radius should be the same - close around the lot.

I'll disagree with this basic premise. Let's use real numbers from the game. The Medical Clinic has a radius of 384 and the Large Medical Center has a radius of 800. I believe what this portrays is that the little Sims are willing to travel much further to the larger facility than to the smaller one. (Yes, I know in the game they don't actually go there, but it's the concept being represented.) As such, the zero cost radii should be different between the two.

There are some custom buildings that simply increase the base radius without regard to their size relative to a Maxis equivalent. A sort of a cheat, if you will. So, modifying these exaggerated radii would then allow them to have the same coverage at zero cost as a proportionally similar size Maxis building.

[rsc204 21,806]

It's funny to think of an expanded radius as a cheat, if you ask me, all that does it make them behave more realistically. Pretty much every version of SimCity has fallen into this same trap, not to mention plenty of the clones too. The radius and capacity of civic services is totally abysmal, so to properly service a large city, you end up with hospitals, schools, fire and police stations every few blocks or so. This is utterly unrealistic, in the real world you have a large facility and many smaller ones. I prefer to have a central service building that handles the bulk of the coverage needed, with some smaller facilities dotted around to make up the numbers. Thanks to the way all these services work in SC4, to really give sims a great service, it's better to have more than one of most services. So using hospitals as an example, I'll have one large custom hospital modded to cover an entire large tile. Then some other buildings, often not intended to be medical facilities as doctors/dentists and other such local services. I've a number of modified row houses which are modded this way (as hospitals) to fit into similar style residential areas and expand upon the main hospital.

Of course if you insist on playing the way the game is designed, the only real option is to have far more hospitals than really makes any sense. If you want the radius to behave the same for all, they'll need to be similarly modded, otherwise indeed the way the game itself works would need altering to overcome that limitation.

[Fantozzi 4,067]

29 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

It's funny to think of an expanded radius as a cheat, if you ask me

I agree - more realism would be to have R$ to R$$$ hospitals, the R§ cheap with big radius, the R$$$ expensive with small radius, rejecting R§ patients. Just the simple relation more money = more radius doesn't make up realism.  

[redfox85 659]

27 minutes ago, Fantozzi said:

I agree - more realism would be to have R$ to R$$$ hospitals, the R§ cheap with big radius, the R$$$ expensive with small radius, rejecting R§ patients. Just the simple relation more money = more radius doesn't make up realism.  

 

I live in a R$$$ neighbourhood that has R$$ renters and the local facility facilitates both R$$ & R$$$. When I build my suburbs I only have one of everything, which to me is realistic.

[rsc204 21,806]

1 hour ago, Fantozzi said:

Just the simple relation more money = more radius doesn't make up realism.  

Obviously, but my intent was simply to convey one of my gripes with such games in general, the need for excessive numbers of civic buildings. In the quest for realism there is no limit to the changes one can make. That said, realism for me isn't necessarily making the game work that way, frankly no game ever could, computers just don't have the power to micro-manage everything you see behind the scenes. But if it looks right, I'll settle for that and one thing that certainly doesn't is needing a large hospital every few blocks to keep sims healthy.

[APSMS 1,892]

GIS Thiessen polygons would have been nice, but I've only ever seen that suggested once (rather than coverage radii) and of course the game in question is no longer in development.

[Moses Zal 46]

@Fantozzi @rsc204 @CorinaMarie

Thanks for Fantozzi for making my point clearer as I think my point is missunderstood. 

The main reason I started using custom civic buildings is the disturbing situation of having a (police station, elementary school, high school, and hospital) every few blocks. So I agree with rsc that's not my concern.

My problem is the following: I downloaded a large school and edited its stats by using LEProp. I made it elementary and high school at the same time. Its coverage area radius is 2181. I converted all the numerical values related to the custom school based on the large elementary school and large high school. Lemme talk about the coverage area radius and its cost. I did the following formula 2181*500/820 + 2181*500/680. 500 £ is the 100% local school bus funding of the large high school and large elementary school. 820 is the coverage area radius of LHS and 680 is that of the LES. The annoying situation is that the cost of covering an area of 820 is really low when mathematically speaking it should be more than 1,000 £. 

One may come up with an explanation that makes this realistic. But what I actually care about is that the game has lost a challenge. Budget management had became easier. Because there is no mod to fix that and I don't want managing the budget to become easier, I am simply saving my city and then covering my whole city with LHS and LES for the purpose of knowing how much bus funding it's gonna cost me and then exiting the city without saving and setting the school bus funding of the custom school to the value that I would have paid with the large high school and large elementary school. 

[Fantozzi 4,067]

I personally think the game was designed this way. At the beginning money is the big issue as this is the only one you have at the beginning. There is no pollution, no abbandonment, no traffic. After a while you get happy because you have income - everything gets cheaper - the school coverage, the police coverage etc are more effective. But other problems arise instead like the traffic and pollution. As if the message of the game is: it's not money that makes you happy. So, yes, you loose this challenge but you get others.

If you focus to much on the money you will loose the challenge after a while but me personally, I think that was a pretty nice idear, to have money not the overall challange but there are challenges you can't solve with money but you have to plan your network f.e. to avoid traffic jams - it isn't simply done with spending more money to increase street capacity.

There is the CAM that alters this a little bit and makes the break even a little longer. But one has to see initially it was a game designed also for children to be played and its one of the few games that is intelligent and playable for children.  

I agree - another example could be the jail. The jail is much more expensive than the average police station. But it adds nothing special to the game - also police stations offers cells and the jail has no police cars. So mostly you won't need the jail and won't have high expenses. There should be some very expensive things that also have a needed function for the higher levels of the game - you can't substitute with cheaper things. Basically that is done with the caps-relief buildings.

For the civics - as far as I know it is possible to set fixed monthly costs for each - you can't adjust with the sliders. Like the monuments maintenance costs - you can't adjust with sliders. I think you could add these fix costs also to civics.

I wouldn't hesitate to experiment a little with extreme settings - you can change this always.

There is LE prop by ilive - a tool that makes it very easy to change these values.

 

 

[Haljackey 17,270]

Random question, may not be the best place to post this...

Is there a way to hack the traffic simulator so that both morning and evening commutes are generated at the same time? Would roughly double the automata seen on transport networks.

Or is that an EXE hack?

[rsc204 21,806]

The "24h" automata settings in the NAM should bring about what you are after. But automata are a funny thing and never seem to want to play ball. I've noticed it doesn't really seem to work on my copy, but perhaps worth a try.

So far as I know this can be done with simply the automata properties alone however.

[Haljackey 17,270]

1 hour ago, rsc204 said:

The "24h" automata settings in the NAM should bring about what you are after. But automata are a funny thing and never seem to want to play ball. I've noticed it doesn't really seem to work on my copy, but perhaps worth a try.

So far as I know this can be done with simply the automata properties alone however.

For me the 24h and radical 24h automata from the NAM still only shows morning commutes. This means there is a lot of 'one way' traffic on road networks as sims are just going from home to work.

What I'm asking is to have the traffic simulator simultaneously show automata for both morning (home to work) and evening (work to home) commutes at once. That way a lot more traffic will display in the game.

[Moses Zal 46]

@Fantozzi

I know I am deviating out of the topic to a different one which is not related to the thread anymore. But managing the traffic is a real pain. If it wasn't for the traffic simulator configuration tool, I would have quit this game.

The original game offers you no reliable solutions for the challenges this game creates. Let's talk about managing traffic. You can't solve a problem without information and data. The info related to the traffic in the game are not clear. I mean what does street capacity exactly means. Is it the number of cars the street can contain per tile? per 10 tiles? In the real world, drivers always search for the least congested road. In the game, that doesn't happen often.  I am not sure what maxis was thinking when they gave a time limit for people to reach their jobs or else they will become unemployed. And since they decided to include this challenge, they should have provide the players with tools to deal with this challenge such that: how much this unemployed sim is gonna take time to reach his job to know how far are we from the time limit to plan accordingly. Moreover, shouldn't a sim try another way of transportation before deciding to stay at home because he couldn't get to his job within the time limit by driving his car. I am not saying I want a completely realistic game as the real work of building and managing a city is boring. But when someone doesn't provide a game based on realism, the alternative rules should be clear. 

The reason I am bringing this up is that I don't consider managing the traffic a real challenge as we can head to the TSCT and change some values if we had enough from maxis flawed system. If I want to define a real challenge I would say: a range of problems that can occur within a certain category that can be observed through information and data which you can use to compose the best solution from a range of tools available to you. Maxis traffic system gave us traffic problems, but neither data nor tools. NAM gave us tools but no data because providing a way to collect data requires editing the game itself not just modding it. Because the data element is missing, I can't call traffic a real challenge and thus I need the TSCT to get rid of this "incomplete and frustrating" fake challenge

[Fantozzi 4,067]

Do you know what would make Major Fantozzi proud? Really proud? If his city would get the olympics - if they would come to his city. But is there a olympic village reward lot?

No, there isn't. So ... no olympic games for Major Fantozzi.

Isn't this sad?

Shouldn't this be changed?

Sniff.

 

[redfox85 659]

@Fantozzi There was the  simlympics many years ago where they would invite bids from city, select a host and then run the games. Eventually interest died and so did the games. If you searched the STEX for Simlympics you might find some stuff.

[redfox85 659]

I would like to request a mod/tool that converts growables to ploppables. PIM-x has the reverse... but nothing I know of can do this.  I have 110+ industrial lots I want to convert....

[Handyman 765]

On 9/17/2017 at 4:22 PM, Haljackey said:

What I'm asking is to have the traffic simulator simultaneously show automata for both morning (home to work) and evening (work to home) commutes at once. That way a lot more traffic will display in the game.

Not sure if you can combine the commutes, but I have been able to increase the number of pedestrians by making adjustments in my  'Automata Tuning Override.dat'. You could possibly accomplish the same for vehicles. An unmodified one is attached if you need it.

AutomataTuningOverride.dat

[paddy0174 58]

On 5.11.2017 at 7:47 PM, redfox85 said:

I would like to request a mod/tool that converts growables to ploppables. PIM-x has the reverse... but nothing I know of can do this.  I have 110+ industrial lots I want to convert....

I know, nearly half a year... You can plop every building with the extra cheats dll and a command. Look here for the dl

and for more info this list (try "BuildingPlop" or "LotPlop")

https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=9419.msg288622#msg288622

[nycsc4 5,250]

I could use a little help here.  I'm in the process of re-lotting this bus station and I'd like to use it with the Avenue GLR so I don't have to tunnel the GLR under it.  Texturing is done and after experimenting with the SC4Tool, I still can't quite figure out how to get both to work.  I'd also like to know if there is a way to get the avenue median props out of there.

Thanks so much!

1,000th post!

[Trakt0rdeck 8]

Good evening, Simtropolis. 

I am looking for a tree controller that would suit in Mediterranean climates. One that combines palm trees, sub-tropical/tropical flora together with deciduous trees and possibly even pines/cypress trees at higher altitudes. Preferably evergreen, as I do not like the transitions of seasonal flora.

I did find a tutorial on how to create/edit tree controllers, but I feel like it would be a little too much for me to handle myself. Below are some links for the tutorial and some examples of the flora I'm looking for.

Thank you in advance.

Tutorial: How to make/edit a tree controller

Trees: There are some good quality ones in LBT Mega Prop Pack vol.01 and MMP Mod for BSC MEGA PropPack - CP Vol2 (v1.0) 

[matias93 7,535]

Did you check this one? It's a bit old, but really good, flexible and easy to use:

CPT Italia Tree Controller (LEX)

[Yarahi 1,816]

Also HBS Tropical Flora Mod

[Trakt0rdeck 8]

4 hours ago, matias93 said:

Did you check this one? It's a bit old, but really good, flexible and easy to use:

CPT Italia Tree Controller (LEX)

 

2 hours ago, Yarahi said:

Also HBS Tropical Flora Mod

Thank you for your suggestions. I think I'll try CPT Italia Tree Controller and att a few complementary trees manually in game.

[Tyberius06 12,184]

On 2018. 05. 26. at 5:09 AM, nycsc4 said:

I could use a little help here.  I'm in the process of re-lotting this bus station and I'd like to use it with the Avenue GLR so I don't have to tunnel the GLR under it.  Texturing is done and after experimenting with the SC4Tool, I still can't quite figure out how to get both to work.  I'd also like to know if there is a way to get the avenue median props out of there.

Hi!

I haven't seen this topic before. I don't know if you managed to solve your problem on this lot. What I saw on other TIA stations that the paths were drawing with OWR tool insted of AVE, so you can mod each direction with OWR in the SC4 Tool, and the AVE median won't appear. However I'm not sure about the station Tram/GLR-UDI (in game driving) capability. I recomend that you should relot a related RTMT station keeping the original paths for the GLR/El-Rail.

But maybe @rsc204 can help you more, because he has more knowledge about RTMT stations... 

- Tyberius

[rsc204 21,806]

Pathing for non-standard networks such as TiA requires advanced TEing techniques including custom paths. I can't point you to a tutorial, since I don't know of one. A similar thing was discussed on this thread, although relating to a normal GLR station, so not everything is relevant in this case. But there is some useful information I'd recommend reading.

To begin, I'd recommend using the values from one of the existing RTMT stations, the AveGLR_Bus2 stop is probably your best bet, as a template. You should check all the values mentioned below and make screenshots/notes or you can switch between lots in SC4 Tool, but that's a bit clunky. 

You should begin with your lot by adding the B or OWR network as the base paths/TE to your lot (see Rep15 below, this will need further tweaking). Then you need to switch to the Expert mode to adapt the TEing for each tile. Thankfully it looks like Photobucket forgot to kill all my linked images!,  so this is the window you get when right clicking a TE tile and selecting "Edit Reps - Expert" in SC4 Tool:

There are three parts for each tile you need to correctly set to make this work. The simplest of these is assigning a path for TiA, by setting Rep16 (Red) to 0x58400100. This will link to a path that exists for TiA in the NAM, by far the simplest method of doing this.

Second you need to set the correct Rep3 (Blue) value on the compass, using either E/W or N/S directions, depending on the orientation of your lot. Note that one side will be the reverse of the other, because these are single-direction paths on each side. If you've made your lot in the same orientation as the RTMT one, this will be much simpler.

The third and hardest part is probably getting working values for Rep15, which dictate the exit/entry parts of the each tile. These will not be the same as the RTMT lot, because your lot is not 2x2 in size. How to determine the right values, well that's really complex to explain, I'll do my best. So when you add the OWR paths, you can select N/S/E/W directions for the pathing, usually shown as arrows (as in the example above), which indicate the route through the lot. But, if you look in the screenshot, the texture on the right shows the value 02 for W/E and 0 for N/S. What has happened here is that when the path is rotated in Rep3, the entry/exit settings need also to be rotated to match. So in order for N/S pathing, we actually set W/E with a rotated path. This gets much more complex when you start to look at the RTMT station, where use of single-direction paths, along with special TEing that avoids the PP CTD problem has been added. See how on the left and right of the lot, the Entry/Exit values are different? For a larger lot such as yours, it's going to take some trial and error to set things up. As such, I'd consider simplifying for now and just setting TE through the entire lot. Ensuring the paths are rotated 180 degrees on the correct side. If you get this far, I can help you more, but frankly we're in unknown territory at this point.

Lastly, I'd simply copy these three properties from the RTMT lot and use them to replace the existing properties, to ensure it functions optimally:

• Transit Switch Point
• Transit Switch Entry Cost
• Transit Switch Traffic Capacity

If you do this in Reader, rather than SC4 Tools, it becomes much quicker. Don't forget, saving in SC4 Tool will mess with the Rep count of the last two of these properties. So best to do this step after you've got the rest working.

[Spamoidutout 124]

Hi, guys!

 

Question, is there a mod somewhere that puts the game in pause when you open a city?

[Tyberius06 12,184]

1 hour ago, Spamoidutout said:

Hi, guys!

 

Question, is there a mod somewhere that puts the game in pause when you open a city?

Hi!

Well if you pause the game in a city tile and than save it, it will keep it in paused state when you reopen that city again. But I'm not sure if there is any mod for doing this automatically for you.

- Tyberius

[Spamoidutout 124]

3 hours ago, Tyberius06 said:

Hi!

Well if you pause the game in a city tile and than save it, it will keep it in paused state when you reopen that city again. But I'm not sure if there is any mod for doing this automatically for you.

- Tyberius

Yes I know that a city opens as you saved it, but you don't always exit on pause... and also new empty cities are not paused when you start.

Well if such a mod doesn't exist, maybe someone could create one  (if it's not too much work. It's not a big problem, just a small thing I find annoying).

[Lucario Boricua 7,027]

Hi!  In preparation for an upcoming city journal I'm looking for some custom Mayor Mode Props, these are themed on the 8th Pokémon movie: Lucario and the Mystery of Mew.  Here are images of what I need, if needed, I have two books with concept art and screenshots of the movie, I can provide additional reference material as necessary. Thanks in advance!

 

Time flowers, at about the stature of a sim (person) animation (around 3 meters tall):

Source: GameFreak, Bulbapedia https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/File:Time_Flower.jpg

 

Magical crystal formations (assorted sizes from 2 to 5 meters tall):

(Source: https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/exterior/landscape/magic-crystals )

Requested colors, in decreasing priority order: cyan, green, pink, orange

Should any similar MMPs exist for this object and someone can link to them, they're extremely appreciated!

 

Sir Aaron's staff (the pole with the metal rings and gem, about 4 meters long and delivered as a plaza):

Source: GameFreak, Bulbapedia https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/File:Sir_Aaron_art.png

Source: GameFreak, Bulbapedia https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/File:Sir_Aaron_Lucario_painting.png