Problem with growing certain buildings

[Slashback 136]

Hi Simtropolis!

I hope your playing is going well.

I have played SC4 for years and especially love Ferox' W2W Buildings when building European cities. The only problem is that I have a hard time making them grow. They only grow at certain times and at quite low frequencies - a problem that occurs in all densities, with all desirability levels etc.. 

Have any of you experienced a similar problem and maybe even solved it? Maybe through adjusting certain properties in iLives Reader?

I look forward to hearing about your experiences if you have any.

Thank you in advance!

 

/Slashback

[Fantozzi 4,067]

Some hints you may find here:

and here:

 

 

[rsc204 21,808]

I find that a lot of content was simply modded so differently, that unlike the Maxis defaults, they are not well balanced together. It's a PITA, but running everything through PIM-X can help to better balance them.

Another common problem, if you've Maxis Blockers, if you don't have at least one item for every wealth/density/growth stage, often there are pauses where new content won't build until demand for the next one you do have appears. This also extends to lot sizes, since only the sizes you've zoned can grow too. For example, if you have no 2x2 CS$$ Stage 5 buildings, but that's where the simulator is at in terms of development, nothing will happen until the simulator looks for something else. You need a lot of custom content and a mammoth effort to ensure you can block all Maxis buildings without affecting your game.

[Fantozzi 4,067]

5 hours ago, rsc204 said:

For example, if you have no 2x2 CS$$ Stage 5 buildings, but that's what where the simulator is at in terms of development, nothing will happen until the simulator looks for something else. You need a lot of custom content and a mammoth effort to ensure you can block all Maxis buildings without affecting your game.

So true.

And if you have a single one - it will grow a hundred times. Some years I spent with downloading buildings and a a certain point I realized some grew like weed ohters I never saw.

One could say there is a 'small coridor'  the values of occupant size, growing stage and capacity satisfied have to fit to make a building grow and PIMX does this work.

There is one exception. Occupant size (WxH,xD) defines the volume that can be occupied by sims. And depending on growing stage this can be less ore more dense.

Now there's a problam even PIMX may fail. The occupant size isn_t the volume of the building model but the volume of the LOD.

F. e. on some lots the building is a small empty modell and the building itself is a big prop. If the LOD (occupant size) for the small 'building fake' isn't adjusted manually, PIMX may calculate 3 or 4 occupants for a bulding looking as it should have 100 or 200. Also the other case is possible - the LOD may have choosen much to big for a small building. That's when even PIMX fails - as the LOD is the base on which it calculates capacity (as the game will do).

Well, this summer I started to go through all my residentials. And so far my impression is that's a point modders didn't pay much attention for. Those buildings growing like weed had a much lesser capacity regarding their occupant size than PIMX would calculate regarding the growing stage. And the problem is - you need only two or three of those buildings amongst 200 and they will literally block others from beeing chosen by the algorithm. So to make some buildings grow preferred will lead to make others on the same stage grow rarely - and to get this in balance ... well, like this: "mammoth efford". So at the end it's wise to listen to @rsc204. To manipulate the values can lead to nothing else than inbalance. The relation between occupant size and capacitiy and growing stage should be very close between all buildings to have them growing in a balanced way.

So it's right - you should always let PIMX do the calculation. It's even possible to adjust these values slightly (which will affect growing frequency to my experience if capacity is slightly corrected down). But this is where inbalanced grow starts.

 

[EDIT]

It's somewhat like an ecosystem. You try to help one animal to survive and ten other animals will suffer instead.

[metasmurf 705]

I've started making my own blockers to gain control.

 

[rsc204 21,808]

20 hours ago, metasmurf said:

I've started making my own blockers to gain control.

Not wishing to be negative or anything. But wouldn't it be easier to simply remove the lots you didn't want growing?

Or are you moving the blockers in and out of the Plugins folder to control them better? If so, wouldn't using the tilesets be more effective, since you could turn them on/off on the fly?

[metasmurf 705]

1 hour ago, rsc204 said:

Not wishing to be negative or anything. But wouldn't it be easier to simply remove the lots you didn't want growing?

Or are you moving the blockers in and out of the Plugins folder to control them better? If so, wouldn't using the tilesets be more effective, since you could turn them on/off on the fly?

Yeah I'm mixing SPAM farms with Maxis farms fields with modified textures.  I could remove them sure, but it didn't take that long to make them anyway. Another benefit is that I can control the size of what lot grows to for example avoid bigger non-SF farm lots destroying slopes. Farms don't have tilesets mate

[rsc204 21,808]

2 hours ago, metasmurf said:

Farms don't have tilesets mate

Can't say I ever felt the need to mess with farms, but that's good to know I suppose.

[Slashback 136]

On ‎11‎-‎10‎-‎2016 at 0:09 AM, Fantozzi said:

Some hints you may find here:

and here:

 

 

Fantozzi, you made my day. The threads look helpful - a big thank you for helping me!