Need some help with building properties.

[Gurning_Chimp 398]

I recently downloaded the Baltimore rowhouses to act as a nice looking low density house, but found it only spawns on medium density residential squares. Rather than waste my time making every house that spawns historical and bulldozing any non Baltimore rowhouses that spawn, I would like to know if there's a way to get it to spawn on low density squares?

 

Please note I am a total idiot regarding making mods.

[rsc204 21,808]

You can adjust the density groups a building conforms to in a number of ways, the property you need to change is LotConfigPropertyZoneTypes. You can edit this in a number of ways, SC4Tools comes to mind as the easiest for beginners, since it has a nice simple GUI.

[Von F. 29]

Yep, but SC4Tool is also very prone to crash... Alternative method, open the lot with reader and modify the value under LotConfigPropertyZoneTypes property.

0x01 = low density Res.

0x02 = med. density Res.

Make necessary changes and then right-click to bring context menu and choose Reindex Lot Config. Then save.

[Gurning_Chimp 398]

Cool. Thanks guys! Looks like I may have some downloading to do, does anyone have a link to either one?

[rsc204 21,808]

Yep, but SC4Tool is also very prone to crash...

Well it's a darn sight easier than the reader for most people with no experience of modding IMHO. As for prone to crashes, I've never experienced any problems with it, although I mostly only use the TE Tool and Texture Scanner these days. A lot of the time Windows incorrectly reports the program as "not responding" when it is simply busy, just be patient and watch it come back to life. This is Microsoft's fix for people accidently force-quitting programs that are busy, but appear to be have locked up, many programs suffer the same fate when they are just processing something.

Links here: SC4 Tools / iLives Reader 1.5.3b - https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=10417.msg492419#msg492419.

[Gurning_Chimp 398]

OK, iLives Reader won't even install on my machine as the file it wants to install already has a newer version on here that it won't accept, so forget that. SC4 tools does indeed crash a lot.

[rsc204 21,808]

What version of Windows are you using, a patch was released for Win7 here, you also need to set the compatibility mode and everything should be fine. If you are using Windows 8 onwards I've no idea if it works frankly, although if It works with 7 then technically it should.

If an installer wants to install a file, but a newer one already exists, that should not halt the install process. Typically Windows is built in such a way that you should only ever need one copy of a given "dependency", usually DLL or Dynamic Linked Libraries but there are other types too. Windows keeps a track of what is installed, plus what is using it, ensuring the last uninstalled program that uses a given dependency will also remove it. Whilst making sure that files needed for other applications to work are not removed when uninstalling others that also use it.

The error is just to inform you of this, typically if a newer version of the file exists, it should still work with any programs designed for the older versions.

Using Win 7 64-bit here and thus far there is not a single SC4 program or application that I use (and I use a lot) that has any problems working. That said, many of them do require a bit of effort to get going, usually it's best to check the specific support threads for a given application, since others more than likely would have experienced problems too.

  Edited June 23, 2015 by rsc204  

[Gurning_Chimp 398]

Either way, it was only the setup. I found the reader itself and am now confused at how this bloody thing works! Damn you SC4Tools, why you no work? 

 

EDIT: After a bit of click and hope, I think I may have done it.

  Edited June 23, 2015 by Gurning_Chimp  
Update

[rsc204 21,808]

Yeah the reader is not the simplest tool if you don't know what you are looking at, but this should help you:

You need to open either the SC4Lot or DAT file for whichever building you are wanting to change (all instances must be changed if multiple versions exist).

The left side of the reader shows all the files contained in the file you opened, when you highlight one, the right side will populate with it's properties. You are looking for Exemplar Entries or a Lot Exemplar.

Lot Exemplars will all show LotConfigurations where I've circled in red when the exemplar (left) is selected. Once you're sure you've the correct lot selected (easier if there is only one Lot Exemplar in the file), edit the property LotConfigPropertyZoneTypes, circled in yellow above. As per the first instructions, 0x01 is Low Wealth, 0x02 is Medium and 0x03 is High. Enter these values where I've put the blue circle, if using more than one separate them with a comma. Click Set then Apply (in that order) to save the settings, now save the file you are working with (best practise, save a duplicate in case something goes wrong) and you can test the results.

[Gurning_Chimp 398]

On 23/06/2015 at 4:06 AM, rsc204 said:

Yeah the reader is not the simplest tool if you don't know what you are looking at, but this should help you:

You need to open either the SC4Lot or DAT file for whichever building you are wanting to change (all instances must be changed if multiple versions exist).

The left side of the reader shows all the files contained in the file you opened, when you highlight one, the right side will populate with it's properties. You are looking for Exemplar Entries or a Lot Exemplar.

Lot Exemplars will all show LotConfigurations where I've circled in red when the exemplar (left) is selected. Once you're sure you've the correct lot selected (easier if there is only one Lot Exemplar in the file), edit the property LotConfigPropertyZoneTypes, circled in yellow above. As per the first instructions, 0x01 is Low Wealth, 0x02 is Medium and 0x03 is High. Enter these values where I've put the blue circle, if using more than one separate them with a comma. Click Set then Apply (in that order) to save the settings, now save the file you are working with (best practise, save a duplicate in case something goes wrong) and you can test the results.

 

Yep, that sounds like what I did, just booting up SC4 now to test.

 

EDIT: Nah, they still didn't pop up. Trying a couple of other things.

EDIT EDIT: Got it sorted! Thanks guys for being so patient and helpful!