Colossus farming is great but have one issue.

[Thorx21 7]

This is the most glorious farming mod I've ever come across, credits to all who helped make it work. I play it with CAM 2.1.0

And it does work. However I was thoroughly reading the Colossus farming manual .pdf regarding the installation procedure and there's one line of information I tumble over.

There's the Sunflower dependency by HunD88 where according to the writer of the manual I have to edit the lot file if I want to use the sunflowers with CAM otherwise it supposedly overwrites CAM data. Not sure what the writer of that manual meant with this regarding consequences if undone but it sounds pretty bad if I don't.

The colossus farming manual says this about the sunflower dependency >

Quote

Important 2: The included field lot (file extension 'lot') doesn't work with CAM. It is an override lot that changes CAM data. It must be removed.  In case you use alredy both, this farm field and CAM in your own mods I recommend to replace it with my version of the sunflowers field (see table of farmfield IDs). 

I use both, and I want to.

Further down the manual is the list containing many ID's, including the one for Sunflowers. I need to change the ID to 0xA5F3E522 but I don't know where.
I opened the Sunflower farm fields .lot file with Ilives reader and I'm clueless about what number to change to 0xA5F3E522.  

 

[T Wrecks 10,210]

In the left-hand column of iLive's Reader, you should see a list of files that are inside the .sc4lot file. Typically, you'll have the following files there:

• LD file
• Exemplar file
• PNG file
• DIR file

The exemplar file is what we're after.
[The LD file was used for the Maxis Exchange while it was still online, the PNG file is just a preview image, and the DIR file lists the files and their IIDs for the game to read and index on startup]

1. Once you have located it, select the exemplar file and then click "File Info" in the top toolbar.
2. A window should pop up.
3. Inside that window, click on the Edit button.
4. A new window pops up. On top of it, you'll see a few boxes with the individual byte values, on the bottom a list of the type/group/instance IDs in hexadecimal format. The box at the very bottom is the instance ID (IID) of the lot exemplar. This is what you need to change.
5. Enter the required IID into that box and confirm with OK.
6. Close the windows.
7. In the left-hand column of the Reader, right-click and select "Re-index" from the context menu.
8. If you want to double check, you can click on the DIR file and check the entries: One of them now should have the IID 0xA5F3E522 in the last column.
9. Save and exit.

This should do the trick.

If you notice any inaccuracies or your Reader seems to look different, that's absolutely possible. As the old fossil that I am, I still use Reader 0.9.3. You may use a more recent version, but I do hope the interface hasn't changed that much. In any case, don't hesitate to come back and ask if something is unclear.

[Thorx21 7]

@T Wrecks That was all very clear.

It is done, verified afterwards if the ID's changed accordingly and it did. Thanks for explaining it to me.

I to have version 0.9.3. I have come across multiple arguments while browsing across the web that this version is recommended to use as most that is written based of off it is while using this seemingly older version. I'm not even sure what the newest version is.

Congrats on this wonderful mod by the way 

[T Wrecks 10,210]

You're welcome - glad to hear it worked.

2 hours ago, Thorx21 said:

Congrats on this wonderful mod by the way 

Gee, thank you very much.

[twalsh102 1,601]

@Thorx21,

Just FYI, the latest version of Reader is 1.5.4.  You can actually have both the latest version and 0.9.3 installed at the same time, and use either with no interference from the other.

[Fantozzi 4,069]

On 13.5.2018 at 2:09 PM, Thorx21 said:

There's the Sunflower dependency by HunD88 where according to the writer of the manual I have to edit the lot file if I want to use the sunflowers with CAM otherwise it supposedly overwrites CAM data. Not sure what the writer of that manual meant with this regarding consequences if undone but it sounds pretty bad if I don't.

The problem is - I don't know exactly for what reason CAM overrides all default (maxis) farm fields. But the Sunflower field uses an ID already used by Maxis. So it will override one of the default fields. So basically you have a conflict as CAM and the sunflower field each overriding the same data.

If you create a farm field but no farms, the field won't appear in the game - as only farm fields assigned to a farm can appear. So most probably this was the reason for HunD88 to override a default field ID so the sunflower field could show up in the base game without manual configuration by the user.

I don't think apart from appearing in unwanted places - there is no harm to the game caused by the conflict between the sunflower field and the Colossus Addon Mod.

But with the Colossus Farming Mod there are several custom farms using a sunflower field with the sunflower props by HunD88. So basically, the original solution of overriding a maxis farm field isn't needed anmore - as the mod now solves the initial issue of having no custom farms.

So basically you have a field lot that conflicts with CAM and that is not necessary as Colossus Farming fixes the no-farm problem. At this point it seemed better to drop the original lot file - especially if you use a maxis farm blocker it won't be of any use.

So there is no need to edit the original lot file by HunD88. Included in Colossus Farming is a new, very similar farm field with an individual ID.

You have to edit the farms, the fields-ID list, and ad this new farm field, only if you want the sunflowers appear on other farms of your choice.

 

Otherwise just remove the original lot file by HunD88. The only conseqence of doing so is, the sunflowers won't appear on maxis default farms anymore and sometimes, unwanted, on CAM-farms.  And again: if you use a maxis farm blocker you won't even notice a difference.