Power Plant options

[danny30 1]

Hi, I am progressing nicely on my city but am getting annoyed with the power situation. So far, I have a population of over 150,000 and already have 3 power plants. I am now being asked to build another one and I am not even half way through my city. I am using coal power plants so far as they have the best output and are most the most cost effective for my city, but as we know they are very high on pollution. The cleaner options are not only more expensive, but they don't produce as much electricity which means I would probably need over 10 by the time I finish my City. 

 

I know that power stations can be built in neighboring cities but would like to avoid this option as I plan to work on those cities next. Is there any way to solve this issue as the number of power plants required is not only expensive and a waste of valuable space, but is also causing high pollution. 

 

Are there any good power plant mods that increase usage or ones that offer alternative power options? Thanks

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

yes.  Get rid of all that dirty coal.  You need these two lots.  The plant itself, and the fuel supply (water).

 

 

 

Between them, these plants pretty much kill off all pollution as well, since the fusion system sucks it all in except for traffic pollution.

 

Radius of effect for the power plant is one large tile.

[danny30 1]

Thanks of the reply Noony Noose. The water mod looks good but I am a bit worried about the second power one as if it explodes it will cause damage permanent damage to the city making it uninhabitable which is a worry. Is there any other safer power mods that you know of?

[nos.17 5,256]

Thanks of the reply Noony Noose. The water mod looks good but I am a bit worried about the second power one as if it explodes it will cause damage permanent damage to the city making it uninhabitable which is a worry. Is there any other safer power mods that you know of?

 

It sounds to me like you want some mega-capacity power plants. Here are some of the more infamous ones I know of on the STEX off the top of my head: out his website for other awesome buildings), , , & the  . I have found a few more I like from some other obscure Japanese sites, which I may be able to find links if you want them.

 

Furthermore, if you have a power plant in mind that you really like but do not like the stats, you can super easily change them using the Reader, modifying the "Power Generated" and/or the monthly cost. Feel free to PM me if you want any more help.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

I've been using that power plant since I made in in 2006.  Never exploded on me, not once, except in the sandbox test when I blew it up.  And yes, it does contaminate the entire tile for 5,000 Sim-years.  Nuclear accidents are not to be winked at.

[.anonyman 28]

That's definitely a top-ten grievance about the original, unmodded SC4. Power plants IRL have much more capacity and aren't simply duplicated every few years. Here's the mod I use:

 

 

From the creator's README file:

 

The power mod will multiply the capacity and monthly costs of all the basic Maxis power plants by 10. Wind power is only multiplied by 5.
This enables large cities to run off of one power plant instead of several, at the same cost. I would advise you to demolish any exsisting power plants before putting the mod in to avoid having any problems. Then rebuild the power plants after re-entering the game. 
 

Building                  New Capacity     New Monthly Cost

Coal Plant           60,000                   2,500

Oil Plant              70,000                   6,000

Gas Plant            30,000                   4,000

Wind Plant            1,000                      250

Nuclear Plant     160,000                30,000

Solar Plant           50,000                10,000

Hydrogen Plant   500,000              100,000

Waste to Energy Plant 50,000         10,000

 

Don't worry, you can use it with existing cities by pausing, demolishing, and rebuilding your power plants. And you can use the funding slider to fit any budget.

[blunder 1,080]

Easiest way to deal with this.

 

1. Download iLive's Reader

2. Open the custom content power plant of your choice.

3. Go to the building exemplar, find the variable Power Generated.

4. Enter the integer of your choice. Click right side 'apply'. Click bottom 'apply'.  Save&exit.

5. Profit.

[danny30 1]

 

 

That's definitely a top-ten grievance about the original, unmodded SC4. Power plants IRL have much more capacity and aren't simply duplicated every few years. Here's the mod I use:

 

 

From the creator's README file:

 

The power mod will multiply the capacity and monthly costs of all the basic Maxis power plants by 10. Wind power is only multiplied by 5.

This enables large cities to run off of one power plant instead of several, at the same cost. I would advise you to demolish any exsisting power plants before putting the mod in to avoid having any problems. Then rebuild the power plants after re-entering the game. 

 

Building                  New Capacity     New Monthly Cost

Coal Plant           60,000                   2,500

Oil Plant              70,000                   6,000

Gas Plant            30,000                   4,000

Wind Plant            1,000                      250

Nuclear Plant     160,000                30,000

Solar Plant           50,000                10,000

Hydrogen Plant   500,000              100,000

Waste to Energy Plant 50,000         10,000

 

Don't worry, you can use it with existing cities by pausing, demolishing, and rebuilding your power plants. And you can use the funding slider to fit any budget.

 

Would it also create 10 times more pollution if I were to use the coal power plant option?

 

 

Easiest way to deal with this.

 

1. Download iLive's Reader

2. Open the custom content power plant of your choice.

3. Go to the building exemplar, find the variable Power Generated.

4. Enter the integer of your choice. Click right side 'apply'. Click bottom 'apply'.  Save&exit.

5. Profit.

 

I have never used iLive's reader, would these steps be easy, even for a total novice?

[rsc204 21,866]

"I would advise you to demolish any exsisting power plants before putting the mod in to avoid having any problems. Then rebuild the power plants after re-entering the game."

Don't worry, you can use it with existing cities by pausing, demolishing, and rebuilding your power plants. And you can use the funding slider to fit any budget.

 

I would be careful about removing the old ones with a new mod installed as it can bring about the Sliders Bug, much safer to Pause the game, delete the powerplants and Save - then after placing the new mod in your plugins add the new ones.

[blunder 1,080]

I have never used iLive's reader, would these steps be easy, even for a total novice?

 

It can be done in literally 10 seconds.  I'll whip up a couple screenshots to show you.

 

edit:  here we go.

 

 

When you open a .dat file in Reader, the subfiles are on the left, and the variables within the selected subfile are on the right.  In this case i opened up Drunkapple's power shed.  Every building has two 'exemplar file' in the list of subfiles on the left.  When you single click a file on the left box the right box fills up with the junk inside the subfile.  In this case we want the building exemplar.  Notice the second line on the right side says 'building'.  The other exemplar file is for all the junk that's placed on the lot and looks totally different than this building exemplar.  Once you get the right exemplar file, double click on the "power generated", which brings up this box:

 

 

Enter what value you want the lot to use now, like just a plain 100000.  Do not hit enter.  Hit the 'apply' button on the right to convert your number to hex (which starts with 0x########).  Then hit the bottom 'apply' to save your changes.  This click 'save' on the top toolbar and you're done.  I recommend you do this with a power plant you download off the STEX, because otherwise you have to make changes to the game files and that's not something you should probably be cutting your modding teeth on.

 

Yup it's that easy.  You can do the same thing with your water plants too.  It really is that easy.  A lot of simple things in the game can be adjusted this way when you know what to look for.  Another bonus is that you don't have to go around bulldozing and replopping for the effects to go live in game (you do have to run the simulation for a few days first though).  Of course the downside is if you bork something it will also take effect immediately, so one step at a time.

[monkeywater 910]

danny: try this power plant got the same specs as the coal, but no pollution. 

 

blunder:  awesome guide!  I have a farm I got off a site that when clicked makes the sound of a landfill.  Can you show how to change this in the reader?

[Indiana Joe 1,752]

Easiest way to deal with this.

 

1. Download iLive's Reader

2. Open the custom content power plant of your choice.

3. Go to the building exemplar, find the variable Power Generated.

4. Enter the integer of your choice. Click right side 'apply'. Click bottom 'apply'.  Save&exit.

5. Profit.

 

Ah but you forgot the most important step:  "???"

[blunder 1,080]

blunder:  awesome guide!  I have a farm I got off a site that when clicked makes the sound of a landfill.  Can you show how to change this in the reader?

 

 

lol sure.  if you look at the first pic i posted, in the right there are a number of properties that start with SFX:blablabla.  When you click on them it explains below what each is.  If you open each of those and put in a 0 it will disable that sound property.  So just open your farm .dat in reader and do that, then save. Done.

 

edit: or .sc4lot file, not always a .dat file.

[danny30 1]

 

I have never used iLive's reader, would these steps be easy, even for a total novice?

 

It can be done in literally 10 seconds.  I'll whip up a couple screenshots to show you.

 

edit:  here we go.

 

 

When you open a .dat file in Reader, the subfiles are on the left, and the variables within the selected subfile are on the right.  In this case i opened up Drunkapple's power shed.  Every building has two 'exemplar file' in the list of subfiles on the left.  When you single click a file on the left box the right box fills up with the junk inside the subfile.  In this case we want the building exemplar.  Notice the second line on the right side says 'building'.  The other exemplar file is for all the junk that's placed on the lot and looks totally different than this building exemplar.  Once you get the right exemplar file, double click on the "power generated", which brings up this box:

 

 

Enter what value you want the lot to use now, like just a plain 100000.  Do not hit enter.  Hit the 'apply' button on the right to convert your number to hex (which starts with 0x########).  Then hit the bottom 'apply' to save your changes.  This click 'save' on the top toolbar and you're done.  I recommend you do this with a power plant you download off the STEX, because otherwise you have to make changes to the game files and that's not something you should probably be cutting your modding teeth on.

 

Yup it's that easy.  You can do the same thing with your water plants too.  It really is that easy.  A lot of simple things in the game can be adjusted this way when you know what to look for.  Another bonus is that you don't have to go around bulldozing and replopping for the effects to go live in game (you do have to run the simulation for a few days first though).  Of course the downside is if you bork something it will also take effect immediately, so one step at a time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So can this method not be used with the original sc4 powerplants?

[nos.17 5,256]

 

 

I have never used iLive's reader, would these steps be easy, even for a total novice?

 

It can be done in literally 10 seconds.  I'll whip up a couple screenshots to show you.

 

edit:  here we go.

 

...

 

When you open a .dat file in Reader, the subfiles are on the left, and the variables within the selected subfile are on the right.  In this case i opened up Drunkapple's power shed.  Every building has two 'exemplar file' in the list of subfiles on the left.  When you single click a file on the left box the right box fills up with the junk inside the subfile.  In this case we want the building exemplar.  Notice the second line on the right side says 'building'.  The other exemplar file is for all the junk that's placed on the lot and looks totally different than this building exemplar.  Once you get the right exemplar file, double click on the "power generated", which brings up this box:

 

...

 

Enter what value you want the lot to use now, like just a plain 100000.  Do not hit enter.  Hit the 'apply' button on the right to convert your number to hex (which starts with 0x########).  Then hit the bottom 'apply' to save your changes.  This click 'save' on the top toolbar and you're done.  I recommend you do this with a power plant you download off the STEX, because otherwise you have to make changes to the game files and that's not something you should probably be cutting your modding teeth on.

 

Yup it's that easy.  You can do the same thing with your water plants too.  It really is that easy.  A lot of simple things in the game can be adjusted this way when you know what to look for.  Another bonus is that you don't have to go around bulldozing and replopping for the effects to go live in game (you do have to run the simulation for a few days first though).  Of course the downside is if you bork something it will also take effect immediately, so one step at a time.

 

So can this method not be used with the original sc4 powerplants?

 

 

Yes it can. I sent you a pm like you asked with the more specific instructions. You basically do the same thing but with the original exemplar from simcity_1.dat.

 

[danny30 1]

--edit--solved

[T Wrecks 10,210]

OK, so custom power plants, borderline (or outright) cheats as well as editing files have already been covered. I might add that if you use many BATs, it is absolutely possible that (many of) these BATs have power consumption values that are out of whack and cause an excessive amount of consumption, resulting in a virtually unquenchable power demand. Not to discourage any of the fine solutions given above, I just wanted to add that just like you can edit a power plant to generate more energy, you can edit RCI structures to consume less. If you need some orientation to go by, SC4Tool contains a reference list of all in-game buildings together with their game-relevant stats. You can use this list to check against downloaded BATs and see if there's an energy hog among them. Same goes for water consumption as well as all pollution stats, of course.

 

While I agree that Maxis' power plants don't generate a realistic amount of energy, I don't perceive the problem as that unbearable myself because I mod every single RCI item I add to my plugins folder, and I can assure you that in terms of consumption and pollution, I generally need to adjust figures downwards...

[bearcatnat 3]

OK, so custom power plants, borderline (or outright) cheats as well as editing files have already been covered. I might add that if you use many BATs, it is absolutely possible that (many of) these BATs have power consumption values that are out of whack and cause an excessive amount of consumption, resulting in a virtually unquenchable power demand. Not to discourage any of the fine solutions given above, I just wanted to add that just like you can edit a power plant to generate more energy, you can edit RCI structures to consume less. If you need some orientation to go by, SC4Tool contains a reference list of all in-game buildings together with their game-relevant stats. You can use this list to check against downloaded BATs and see if there's an energy hog among them. Same goes for water consumption as well as all pollution stats, of course.

 

While I agree that Maxis' power plants don't generate a realistic amount of energy, I don't perceive the problem as that unbearable myself because I mod every single RCI item I add to my plugins folder, and I can assure you that in terms of consumption and pollution, I generally need to adjust figures downwards...

 

Good tips about RCI consumption! I haven't even got to adding in BAT's in my game yet. I'm having fun with the RHW and Real Railroad. I will keep this tip in mind.

[MushyMushy 3,618]

This mod has a handy feature in it that allows you (in the form of an ordinance) to drop your power (and water/garbage) consumptions to 5%, so you can run sizable cities on a single power plant (or a few "power shacks" as I call them, those little 1x1 or 1x2 power lots people make). It is, however, notable that this mod also comes with a lot of other ordinances that you may or may not like/use. They range from removing all crime/fires to hugely boosting certain demands.

This is actually the way I personally do my cities' power (among other things).

 

I give you... the radical ordinance mod (RalphaelNinja):

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Good tips about RCI consumption! I haven't even got to adding in BAT's in my game yet. I'm having fun with the RHW and Real Railroad. I will keep this tip in mind.

You're welcome. I might add that more recent BATs are generally better. Many people use the "PIM-X" tool to have stats calculated automatically for their buildings. Unless occupant numbers aren't grossly under/overestimated in the first place, the values that PIM-X produces tend to be pretty OK. The description of a download will often contain a line saying something like "stats determined by PIM-X". Awareness of this problem has also grown over the years, so the overall quality has improved.

 

There is not THE one and only correct value, anyway. Typically, you have some leeway. For example, whether a skyscraper generates 4 or 5 tonnes of garbage will not be of concern. However, particularly older BATs sometimes have stats that deviate from the "OK corridor" by a factor of tens or hundreds, and that is a problem.

 

<shameless self-plug>Aeons ago I made It may still be helpful as a basic reference and a starter pack if you download a lot of old stuff that had been released in the years before.</shameless self-plug>

 

I generally recommend being careful and going slowly when adding BATs, though. These days, we can afford the luxury of being picky - one more reason not to go out on a headless download spree.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

On cautious downloading, I couldn't agree more. 

 

After playing since the game came out, I have only 1.1GB of Plugins and of that 291.6 MB is the NAM (no RHW, GLR, RRW). 

 

Generally I only pick up what I will use, but things do accumulate.  I have a personal goal of keeping this under 1GB, so I see I have to spend some time compressing more BATs that I have yet to shrink.  I use Files2DAT and you don't gain very much for each, but overall there is a slight gain.

[bearcatnat 3]

Yeah, I'm trying to be cautious, too. Mostly I've downloaded buildings/landmarks for Paris, my favorite city in the world! 

 

What are these 1x1 or 1x2 "power shacks that Mushy Mushy mentioned? My city of 35,000 is about 125 sim years sold, and I've already replaced 2 of 3 natural gas plants.

[MushyMushy 3,618]

They're basically my nickname for really tiny power generation lots. Coupled with either the mod I mentioned or the technique explained in the posts above that modifies the output of a power lot, you can run a city on pretty much a handful/one of these little buildings.

 

Here's one set I use:

 

Included (among other things) are 2 power lots, which are 1x1 and 1x2, and produce 500MW and 1500MW, respectively.

If you have the mod I mentioned with the specific ordinance activated, you can power a sizable population on one or 2 of these lots. The thing I like about these lots is that they let you plant trees ALL over them, which can render the building (which is small already) invisible.

[crishy 57]

I strongly recommend the radical ordinance mod, as suggested by MushyMushy, which allows you to run your cities using one single water pump and a couple of wind turbines, and also reduces your garbage to zero. These are the first things I activate on before I actually build anything.

 

Not exactly realistic but the simulation itself is awfully far from realistic as well so it is all good.

 

If you are using the vanilla game and do not want to "cheat" through custom plants or mods then just wait until you can build hydrogen plants.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Actually, I find the Radical Ordinance Mod too radical.  I prefer my old BAT power and water lots.  Usually one power lot will do and often only one water lot, but sometimes two on a large tile with heavy population.

[RLS0812 11]

If no one has mentioned it yet - you can "privitise" your power and water for a fee every month.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

If no one has mentioned it yet - you can "privitise" your power and water for a fee every month.

Capitalism at work.