Questions about the CAM

[citycowboy 183]

Ok, so a while ago I dropped the CAM and all of its buddies into the plugins folder, and everything was cool for a while, but then I noticed that the Saiwan and Wanchai Towers, etc. started sprouting everywhere, so I removed them, (they're part of bixel's Hong Kong pack) and then got brown boxes growing in their place. So I re-searched my plugins folder and found that under one of the CAM folders theres a readme that says that the Saiwan and Wanchai Towers were a part of the CAM level 9 option or something. So, I thought about pulling the CAM out all day, but then I clicked on the industrial CAMs list, and I noticed that like Replobe or whatever globe factory was a stage 6 CAM industrial, so, my question is, I want the CAM idea (expanding stages of the game), but I don't want the CAM to dictate popping up particular buildings, do I just remove all of the CAM pieces, or what do I do here?

I don't think the CAM is a set of lots but maybe I'm mistaken.

Any help would be appreciated.

(by the way, I leveled and dezoned about twenty wanchai towers in Klatskanee, and I lost 80k sims overnight! Good luck with your economic depression sims!)

[markussaage 762]

Well,

I might be wrong but if you wanna remove certain lots from CAM you'll have to remove both the props and the lots. To make a CAM building work you'll need all the listed file including the dependencies. The CAM Mod itself doesn't contain any lots. Bixel has a few MEGA Prop Packs that are needed for his CAM buildings to grow. If there is only one lot you wanna keep and this is in an MEGA Prop Pack there ist no way to accomplish this... If I am wrong here please correct me...

Kind regards!

 

[citycowboy 183]

I want to keep all the industrial lots but don't want the Hong Kong apartments, namely Saiwan and Wanchai

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Good luck with this.  You might do better dealing with the CAM developers, if any are still around, over at SC4Devotion.

I tried CAM out years ago, didn't like it, and went to regional play instead.  Pincushion cities are not my thing, but everyone to his taste.  Currently I am doing an update of H. Beam Piper's Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen's Aryan Transpacific from the medieval by leaping it into the 20th century with about the same boundaries.  I am trying to keep it fairly rural.

Down Styphon!

  Edited August 17, 2015 by A Nonny Moose  

[rsc204 21,806]

CAM is not a mod for lots in any way, it merely increases the number of building stages for the simulator.

Therefore just as with any other undesirable lot in your game, simply remove the LOT files and they can no longer appear. The other option would perhaps be to modify the lots to stop them spawning so often.

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

CAM's just a way for the game to recognise 7 additional growth stages, 9 to 15, and, get this, at the most minimum requirements, you don't even need anything else installed. Install CAM and you're good to go; it's got a handful of exemplars that end up converting several of the tall landmarks into growable buildings (stage 9+) and does a similar treatment to stage 8 buildings, meaning you already have buildings that already fill in the new growth stages right away.

The only reason you ever want to install CAM-compatible buildings that grow as these growth stages is, well, you want more diversity of content, which is understandable and also achievable with very few dependencies or sometimes no dependencies at all (if not, then at least no super-confusing dependencies).

The only reason you'd get only one building popping up is possibly because that's the only building that corresponds to that growth stage, and that's a problem endemic even to the base SC4 game. The only problem around it is diversity: have more buildings of the same growth stage so that if the game "picks" a building to grow, it's less likely to be same one each time (or zone a different size of zone, maybe smaller, and the game will be "forced" to choose something smaller).

More CAM information can be found here as well: https://simtarkus.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/the-cam-colossus-addon-mod-separating-fact-from-fiction/ https://simtarkus.wordpress.com/2014/01/28/building-up-a-plugins-folder-of-camelots-the-quick-and-legitimate-way/

  Edited August 18, 2015 by Ganaram Inukshuk  

[markussaage 762]

I want to keep all the industrial lots but don't want the Hong Kong apartments, namely Saiwan and Wanchai

Unfortunately bixels MEGA Prop files contain all files, exemplar and models for a the lots. The two named lots are in MEGA Pack 9 und 13. So remove those MEGA Packs out of your plugins folder and you'll never see them again. This is independent from CAM industrial lots. If you you bixels CAMeLots make sure you use the BSC Cleanitol tool to remove the files listed in the cleanitol-file. It is not recommended to use both CAM and non-CAM lots at the same time.

Kind regards!

[rsc204 21,806]

You could edit the files to remove the lot exemplars you don't want using the reader. Otherwise it's possible to create a file that loads after the DAT that stops it from working, much like the mods that stop Maxis content from appearing in-game. I'm guessing it may be undesirable to remove everything in this instance?

[citycowboy 183]

I removed everything (the CAM and its buddies are a large lot) and the game is much better now. Something to keep in mind if anybody else wants to remove the CAM is you will have to rezone all of your industrial lots, because similar to when you add and remove the TWRECKS industrial mod, the roads will show overlap. It causes a very severe recession in your city (not directly because of the plugin removal, but because of the way you have to replace the numbers and the time it takes to grow things) and the bigger the city, the more daunting the task. I had a large tile with a population of 280k and then I removed the CAM. I demolished all of the brown boxes and re-yellow zoned all the industrial zones. I lost 120k residents overnight and that number continued to spiral downwards as I waited for the industrial jobs to come back. It was quite intense. Anyways, thanks to everyone for help with questions I had. I greatly appreciate it.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Generally speaking, whenever I make a sweeping change like that I do a restart.  This is done by making any changes needed to plugins,  dropping all the regions, restarting the game to get a fresh set of default regions, then rebuilding downloaded regions.  It is not a step to be taken lightly, but this is, after all, a game.  One shouldn't become too attached to a heap of 1s and 0s.