Is It Possible to Create Network from Scratch?

[Propfam 2,286]

Hello everyone,

I'll ask you with 2 question. Can we create network from scratch now or in the future? If available, will it included in the NAM?

I hope you make solutions to above questions (especially first question). I'm not arrogant or have the knowledge. I know this is difficult. But, starter pieces system has some minuses, like must place the starter piece.

Thank you.

[matias93 7,535]

Up to what I've learnt, it is completely impossible to create another network. The game exe is closed and only admits the networks that came with the game. The RHW was on the game since the beggining, even if not functioning, but was there, as a hiddden 'dirt road'. Such hidden network was the only one there, and it's now extensively used. 

[rsc204 21,806]

It really depends on your definition of new networks. Sure as @matias93 points out you can't add a completely new network, but must override an existing one. But, I'd still argue that a new SAM mod is a new network, even if it uses the Street network as it's base and requires a starter to instigate it.

To create such a network requires making the starter, creating the textures/models and the coding in RUL to make it work.

[Propfam 2,286]

Why we don't explore the SimCity DATs? Maybe, on those files the network definition can be found. Currently, I'm running a new installation of Linux and I don't Reader. If you've Reader, research and don't forget to post it on separate topic.

Thanks. 

[rsc204 21,806]

Already been done. There is no way around this limitation sans creating a plugin DLL that alters the game's .exe. Which whilst great in theory has never actually been done. Cracking this would take someone with extraordinary talent and the time to devote to such a task.

Since placing a starter is so easy, it almost begs the question, why bother doing all that work?

[Propfam 2,286]

Yes, the piece is simple to start. But, in some cases like curving RHW-6S is difficult. Making a new network is a solution. But, this isn't available for now. The main focus is tidying the menu, though. Yes, more features = more difficult nav. But, we can solve this by always auditing the menu addition and tidying.

Thanks.

[Tarkus 6,932]

To add to what my colleague rsc204 has noted, the numbered SimCity DATs have been explored pretty heavily since 2004, when modding tools that could read them became prevalent (in fact, for some time, it used to be standard practice to run a patcher to add/change files in SimCity_1.dat just to install some mods).  If you look at some of the last pages of the SC4 Modding - Open Discussion board here, as well as the SC4 Devotion Wiki, you'll find many of the file format decoding discoveries and early things that made the present-day modding culture possible. 

SimCity_2 through SimCity_5 (as well as EP1.dat) consist of nothing but textures (almost entirely for buildings, though a few transit network textures are scattered here and there).  All the accessible files that allow the game to run (plus more textures) are in SimCity_1.dat.

While there are still a handful of small, unresolved mysteries floating around SimCity_1.dat, and a few unknown/unused/unfinished properties for which the SC4 modding community has discovered stubs, most of what's in there is very well understood, and is the basis for what we've done for the past 13 or so years. 

If there were some hidden stubs for transit networks beyond the "DirtRoad"/present-day RHW network, they would have been found well before now.  From what we've found from how the game addresses transit networks, there are 13 networks in the game:

• Road
• Rail
• (Elevated) Highway
• Street
• Water Pipe
• Powerline
• Avenue
• Subway
• Elevated Rail
• Monorail
• One-Way Road
• DirtRoad (RHW)
• Ground Highway

This fact can be verified using the "PlaceNetwork" cheat, which was first described by qurlix in 2006.  Using IDs 0 through 12 will produce networks (particularly using the form PlaceNetwork n 0 1 6 1, where n is the network ID number, which will allow proper placement of dual-tile networks).  It stops working with 13, however.  The numbers also coincide with the array indices for the traffic simulator, and for the network codes for transit-enabled (TE) lots.

We have some access to the placement parameters for all the networks--12 of the 13 through RUL files.  The lone exception, Powerline, is handled via the Network INI file (which, prior to the release of the Rush Hour Expansion and SC4 Deluxe, used to house the content of the RUL files), though there are some other properties of these networks that are hardcoded, and not accessible. 

By known, conventional modding means, there are no known ways to add true new networks.  If anyone is wondering if DLL files would potentially present a solution, that's an unknown at present.  My guess is that it would be possible, but likely very difficult.  Not being a DLL modder, all I can offer is conjecture. 

The advantages of "true" networks over starter pieces would be that basic functionality could be handled by new INRUL files and RUL1 sections, rather than massive chains of RUL2 overrides, and you could potentially define these networks' characteristics separately in the Traffic Simulator.  However, such a dramatic change would throw a big wrench into quite a number of existing features, based on override technology.  And if you're trying to shrink the menus, using "true" networks will likely expand the required menu footprint substantially, as you can't hide a network away in a TAB Loop. 

At present, there's 40 starter pieces under the RHW Starters button.  If you convert each one of those starters into a "true" network, there's 40 new buttons.  All the FLEX work that we've been doing to shrink the menus would also face a bit of an identity crisis as well, since, on the RHW side, you're dealing with 41 base networks (adding in the base RHW-2) instead of just 1.  If we ever add networks beyond the four-tile span for a dual carriageway, or dust off the canceled RHW-12S or 10C--all options that have been discussed--that's more buttons. 

Based on the formatting of the PlaceNetwork cheat, I would hazard a guess that the network ID code is allocated as an 8-bit unsigned integer, which would cap out at 255 (FF in hexadecimal).   Believe it or not, we'd probably come pretty close to hitting that mark, if we were to convert all the override networks and puzzle setups to "true" networks, and then started taking on all the requests that had been previously shot down to the hardcoded limitations.

Even if someone manages to work some DLL menu management magic, that's still a heck of a lot of buttons to wrangle.

-Tarkus

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

13 hours ago, Tarkus said:

there are 13 networks in the game:

I find it very interesting that elevated highway and ground highway are two separate networks. I can envision a mod that collapses the two and then appropriates the left-over one to become something completely different (e.g. a canals network). Likewise El-rail and rail.

13 hours ago, Tarkus said:

At present, there's 40 starter pieces under the RHW Starters button.  If you convert each one of those starters into a "true" network, there's 40 new buttons.

Aw, don' do that. Tha's a non-starter (so to speak). Rather, we would (I think) allocate one "real" network to each RUL set. Interestingly, I think almost all RHW would fall under one RUL set, but a new set might be created for over/under -passes (where automobile freeway nets cross). Likewise rails crossing at separated levels, regardless of type.

I'd look at it this way: If I'd give a cell a different capacity, speed or slope rules, then I'd make it a different network. After that, I'd work out the transitions. I may be uninformed, but based on seeing RHW at many different heights relative to grade, I don't think that "elevated" should distinguish one network from another.

If I'm even halfway onto something, then there's a radical NAM mod out there for the taking. But, given my track record on these things, I'm probably just ignorant. At least I'll learn something when the experts tell me what's impossible.