Indiana Joe and the Quest for the Ultimate Plugins Folder

[T Wrecks 10,210]

On 27.9.2018 at 4:01 PM, Indiana Joe said:

You must have managed to post right before or after I added Paeng in there

It was already in there. I didn't mean to add Paeng to the list of suggestions. It's just that I was talking about the other creators exclusively, but wanted to stress that Paeng definitely deserves to be part of your list as much as these guys (although I've never used any of his stuff myself because it's just not my personal taste), and thought that I might as well add fantozzi's lots while I was at it.

Some interesting stuff about water lots and transitions to water mods as well. It's a challenge I had pushed on the back burner, but you remind me... Currently my money is on Xannepan's Poseidon Mod and the included water mod, but the downside is that there are some very interesting canal sets out there. This will be a tricky choice for me!

[Indiana Joe 1,752]

Passed 200 links now, honestly I don't think it's even halfway done.  The list of generic ploppable lots could get very large, I don't want to crowd my menus too much but I want the best of all content available, so I will have to get picky.  It's hard to categorize those.  Once I'm done with the initial list I will continue to edit as I go along and actually build the plugins folder.

 

Weak points still:

• Residential high rises
• Sea/coastline, ferries
• Museums
• Parks (still)

[The British Sausage 5,449]

1 hour ago, Indiana Joe said:

Passed 200 links now, honestly I don't think it's even halfway done.  The list of generic ploppable lots could get very large, I don't want to crowd my menus too much but I want the best of all content available, so I will have to get picky.  It's hard to categorize those.  Once I'm done with the initial list I will continue to edit as I go along and actually build the plugins folder.

 

Weak points still:

• Residential high rises
• Sea/coastline, ferries
• Museums
• Parks (still)

For parks I recommend Paeng's modular parks, the Big Paeng Theory (by Fantozzi) and FrankU's Dutch Parks (https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=3212).

For museums scour every education building uploaded on the BSC LEX.

For harbours I reccommend nbvc's content (the modular container port plus the rip-rap seawalls) and the PEG CDK3 (Pegasus stuff). Possibly Tyberius06's Heretic Seaport Project for extra goodies and links to other stuff (https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=3403).

Lastly for residential high-rises look at Aaron Graham's content (https://community.simtropolis.com/profile/226625-aaron-graham/content/?type=downloads_file) and the Soviet/Commie blocks released by Andreas on the BSC LEX, check out the following:

https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=3302

https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2562

https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2560

That should do it!

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

22 hours ago, The British Sausage said:

For harbours I recommend nbvc's content (the modular container port plus the rip-rap seawalls) and the PEG CDK3 (Pegasus stuff). Possibly Tyberius06's Heretic Seaport

Don't mix seaports unless you know how to reconcile seaport controllers (there can be only one). If in the course of adding seaports you accidentally install multiple controllers, you'll have some ports that won't work. If you did that between sessions on an existing city, you could corrupt it beyond repair or recovery.

This is especially salient for PEG CDK because it does not "play well with others".

[Indiana Joe 1,752]

@The British Sausage  Thanks again my culinary British friend, I don't think I mentioned how much of a fan I am of the URS.  I do have many of those links already.  There tends to be a multitude of more Colonial, New England, or NYC-inspired architecture, though I am finding more BATs from many of the authors I have already listed that come from a more midwestern, southern, or west-coast style.

Someone pointed out that it was difficult to keep track of what parts of the list I have edited and added on to, so I will start mentioning those things in replies as well.  Here's some more non-Nor'eastern U.S. style BATs:

• Darknono35 was mentioned by CB early on, I didn't realize he had so many non-NYBT BATs.  Lots of good stuff from the midwest and other regions.
• Kellydale2003 has some great Canadian BATs that fit right in with the American look.
• Also mentioned by CB was Spa with more Canadian content.
• Scotty222 with all kinds of good mega high rises.
• JaWood with a few quality BATs.
• Oneil_1

Residential and Commercial sections have been updated pretty thoroughly, I think there's enough to work with now.

 

@jeffryfisher  Good point about the seaport controllers.  This is another reason why I'm avoiding the bulk of the CDK content, it covers a wide variety of core files and controllers, and won't play nice with newer mods.

[jaredh 195]

Someone recently got the BSC and PEG seaports to work together with an old process that was done to blend them.  As I recall, there is one magic file that was attached to a forum post that makes it all sing in harmony.

It's a major loss of visual seaport eye candy to walk away from all the PEG stuff.  

[The British Sausage 5,449]

1 hour ago, Indiana Joe said:

@The British Sausage  Thanks again my culinary British friend, I don't think I mentioned how much of a fan I am of the URS.  I do have many of those links already.  There tends to be a multitude of more Colonial, New England, or NYC-inspired architecture, though I am finding more BATs from many of the authors I have already listed that come from a more midwestern, southern, or west-coast style.

Thanks for that.

I find I've relied very heavily on Colonial, New England and NYC BATs in these past two years, and that's because C.P.'s BATs are so incredibly versatile and useful. Hell if C.P. ever lotted his entire collection of BATs I would be using nothing but C.P.'s buildings for residential and low-rise commercial and industrial areas- it's that good. One thing I've noticed is that Mattb325's lots blend in well with C.P.'s lots as they share similar trees and grass textures...

But anyway, I've recently been trying to branch out with some of Mattb325's new houses and create new housing combos for the suburbs I create.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

On 10/3/2018 at 1:49 PM, jaredh said:

Someone recently got the BSC and PEG seaports to work together with an old process that was done to blend them.  As I recall, there is one magic file that was attached to a forum post that makes it all sing in harmony.

Yes, that was me (deja vu, reprising what I wrote this last week). The thread at SC4D is PEG + BSC Compatible Seaport Controllers.

[Flann 1,709]

On 9/18/2018 at 8:23 AM, T Wrecks said:

I do not use seasonal flora. In fact, I have "de-seasonalised" KOSC's Maxis Mansion Overhaul as well as many other lots.

Is there any possibility you might be able to share this?

[T Wrecks 10,210]

OK, nothing spectacular to post - I just wanted to share that I'm moderately satisfied with my progress. With both small homes and single-tile rowhouses out of the way, I'm currently busy with mid-rise apartment blocks. I started with NY1940 stuff and ended up using pretty much all of @Aaron Graham's NYBT stuff for medium wealth and @Don Miguel's and @tag_one's stuff for low wealth. There won't be that much high-wealth stuff in this department, but that's OK because many of the NYBT residential highrises can be used for high wealth. This means that I'll have high-wealth sims predominantly living in mansions in the suburbs, or in high-rises in the city centre - not necessarily the most unrealistic pattern. Low and medium wealth will share wall-to-wall houses in the not-so-upscale areas.

The recolouring jobs went OK-ish. I did manage to get some of marcszar's residential to be sufficiently in line with Maxis content, but I also had to give up on a few. If anyone has an idea what kind of havoc you need to wreak on the colours of these houses, for example, feel free to share your magic. I managed to get these and these and these, among others, to play halfways nicely with Maxis content.

Now I'll soon move on to the Chicago tileset, which will be populated mainly by @spa's work. Some of these are oversaturated IMO, so I might do some recolouring again, but it should be easier this time because it's a regular gmax render in the first place. I'll also have the opportunity to play around with Maxis night => DarkNite conversion, that should be interesting!

Currently I'm at 13x low wealth and 12x medium wealth apartment blocks, that's pretty balanced.

I also have a new naming scheme for my downloads, which looks pretty much like this, using Aaron's NYBT Bainbridge Row as an example:

• $$ o+oo NYBT Bainbridge Row (Aaron_Graham) [W2W] [SF]

 

The "$$" denotes wealth, in this case medium wealth. The four next characters show the tilesets from Chicago 1890 to Euro Contemporary, with a "o" meaning "doesn't grow" and a "+" meaning "grows". In this case, the building will grow in the NY 1940 tileset only, and I can see so at a glance. Then follows the team, the building name, and the author in parentheses. last there are two optional markers in square brackets, "[W2W]" for wall-to-wall stuff and [SF] for a slope-friendly building.

 

In addition to reaching new levels of anal retention, this allows me to see at a glance how much stuff for which wealth level and tileset I have in my plugins.

[djangelboy 18]

I am loving this topic immensely! 1, because its recent (within last two years ), and 2 its relevant to my current dilemma. I got onto the SC4 bandwagon back in 2009, I never trolled the forums but spent HOURS downloading content from SimPeg, Jeronji, Simgoober, and a whole list more. I build from the mods and add-ons presented to me. I was never very good at doing the BAT thing. With that said, I think the statement that content is starting to taper off and the content that has survived the test of time has been made known. Has anyone considered making a universal texture pack (1 Pack) to reduce the amount of time downloading and installing dependencies? When rebuilding my structure i would hate to have to reinstall the dat files using the installers. as i dont do the BAT things maybe im not aware of what goes into it but it seems like maybe now is the time to develop an installer of verified add-ons. one installer that gives you check boxes of what mods you want to install and installs the dependencies with it. Forgive me if im going off topic here.

[CorinaMarie 29,892]

27 minutes ago, djangelboy said:

Has anyone considered making a universal texture pack (1 Pack) to reduce the amount of time downloading and installing dependencies?

See Sharing Plugins Folders - Discussion topic. It's about time we revisit that concept with the idea of creating a complete package like @Indiana Joe is setting up here or like @Scribosilyn has created previously. It might be that a single post could list all the linkys for everything and then the complete package (ready to use) could be a download for a small donation to Simtropolis. Peeps willing to click everything would get it free from the list and peeps wanting to help the site survive would also save hours of installation time.

But, let's keep discussion about this part over in that other thread so we don't side track this one.

[SomeWhoIsOne 6]

Just wanted to say, thanks a bunch for putting together this list! I'm somewhat new to SimCity 4 and I don't think I would have ever found most of these mods without it. It really makes a big difference when you put them all together . So anyway, I really appreciate your effort and the time it must have taken; it's already been a huge help!

[dieMaus 0]

Hello,

usually I'm a quiet reader of the topics, but this time I wanna ask a question. Dont wonder, I'm a casual SC4 player and normally just throwing all kind of random stuff in my plugin folder. Also I have no single clue about modding or related stuff in SC4.

This topic is really really great, as it works as a somehow curated list of great content from the awesome community where I can dive deeper on some creators to add more things I like and still maintain a somehow coherent look.

What I wonder however, as I'm just reading and looking through your residential selection, is that it seems that you create a personal "mod" from all the mentioned  Lots. So in the end you have one single selection of Lots from all the mentioned packs of your choice (also selected and sorted in "groups", like the mentioned tilesets?)

If I now just take some of the linked content and play with it, do I get ALL the new lots at the same time or do some of them effect the same thing and the "last" one wins? (For example, I only get the R$$$ that are loaded last?).

I would really like to achieve  some control of the style of my various "cities", so e.g. in the rural areas only the "rural" lots growing, if that makes any sense for you (english is not my first language :D) Is there any easy way to achieve something like that without the need of modding myself as you seem to do?

[Indiana Joe 1,752]

@dieMaus  Hello and welcome back to the forum!    There are a lot of pinned 📌 Topics to read, at the top of each forum section, that can help you get back on your feet with modding.  To answer your question directly and as succinctly as I can, Residential lots will not override each other.  Each Lot occupies a specific subset of residential.  There are 3 wealth subsets and 8 building stages.  So there are a total of 24 "groups", but there can be an unlimited amount of custom buildings in each group.  So no matter how many you download, you should see all of them, if you have met the right conditions for them to grow.  Hope that helps 

@SomeWhoIsOne  Thanks for the kind words and I am glad I could help, I hope this helps future players in the same way.

 

Speaking of helping, this thread was really a great idea, because writing down my own ramblings has helped me pick right back up where I left off, since it's been a few months (whoops ).  Time to make sure you're all following the thread again, my intention is it's gonna pick back up.

You'll notice that the latest edits to the guide are now going to be marked in red for easy finding.  Nothing much to look at if you keep up with the exchanges these days, I just put some new Mattb325 civics up, as he's been BATing up a storm. 

And finally, while mentioning civic buildings, stay tuned to this station for an imminent reveal of a little project I'm undertaking for those 

 

Matt

  Edited February 7, 2019 by Indiana Joe  

[The British Sausage 5,449]

27 minutes ago, Indiana Joe said:

You'll notice that the latest edits to the guide are now going to be marked in red for easy finding.  Nothing much to look at if you keep up with the exchanges these days, I just put some new Mattb325 civics up, as he's been BATing up a storm. 

And finally, while mentioning civic buildings, stay tuned to this station for an imminent reveal of a little project I'm undertaking for those 

 

Matt

Hmm... Are you hinting at relots?

[CorinaMarie 29,892]

4 hours ago, dieMaus said:

I would really like to achieve  some control of the style of my various "cities", so e.g. in the rural areas only the "rural" lots growing, if that makes any sense for you (english is not my first language :D) Is there any easy way to achieve something like that without the need of modding myself as you seem to do?

It makes perfect sense to me.

Without the modding it yourself part that will make it extremely tedious in the game when using custom content because nearly all of those buildings are able to grow in all four tile sets. This is by default when creating them using Lot Editor or PIM-X. So, you'd have to let things grow, bulldoze any which do not fit your theme, and mark historical each one that you want to stay.

In order to have the most painless control while in the game it does require editing each growable building exemplar in the custom content you download. More specifically, the OccupantGroups which controls which tile set a given building is allowed to grow in.

So, using Reader you remove the tile set entries for the sets you do not want it to grown in. For something with a rural theme you could remove the three non Chicago entries. Then in game set your Buildings Control to Chicago only. If used along with NKO you'd then have the most ease of use while in the game.

[blacksugar419 74]

I only found this through google search inquiring how to organise my plugins folder, because its starting to get messy and confusing. I think I need visual references because im not understanding much of what I am reading. However, the main reason for commenting was because of all the links to content on here! I am having a field day. Thank you Matt/Indiana Joe and everyone else for contributing to this thread.

[Indiana Joe 1,752]

I still update this from time to time.  Maybe one day I'll actually start building the folder.    Check out the sections in red for stuff added this year.

Matt

[kschmidt 6,223]

2 hours ago, Indiana Joe said:

I still update this from time to time.  Maybe one day I'll actually start building the folder.    Check out the sections in red for stuff added this year.

Matt

Quest for the most perfect plugins folder ! First I point you at the posibility of using User Dir folder in the startup line of the game shortcut; Recomentd to copy the original shortcut and addd these parameter  to the new shortcut  Using this parameter you can create as many plugins folders as you like "C:\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Apps\SimCity 4.exe" -CPUcount:1 -intro:off -w  -UserDir:"F:\SC4 Bripizza\" where this case is a  dir SC4 Brpizza on the F:\ drive ! Second look at what style you like th have Newyork, Chicago, Europe, Houston. Mentioned sets are great for each installation User Dir , keeping them seperated will enhance the plugins directory little more as you have all organized this way. Last some core files you may need to install or copy for each different instalation User Dir, but for most that´s a little sacrifies. This way you can sustomize your instalations, anyting you ever you like without any compromize, hope this will help !

Kschmidt

[SIM-ple Jack 17,450]

I've already got my ultimate plug-in folder. It's almost empty. Except for basic stuff like civic, utilities, mmp's, roads. I keep everything else in another folder marked The Vault. Since I've re-named almost all my files with descriptive names and eliminated user names, I can find everything in an instant. I go in and assemble everything I need for a particular region. Almost like a smörgåsbord. And game loads and menu searches are a breeze now. 

[Max4k 727]

That SimCity 4 Extra Cheats Plugin, has anyone figured out what all those Unknown features do or updated list ?

[Cyclone Boom 17,031]

2 minutes ago, Max4k said:

That SimCity 4 Extra Cheats Plugin, has anyone figured out what all those Unknown features do or updated list ?

The most comprehensive reference I know of the cheat commands is this guide:
 

 

[rob_mtl 435]

Hey I'm going to bump this thread for a fairly relevant question. Someone pointed out to me on Twitch recently that the Ninja boulevard and kiosk stations that ship with the NAM create traffic problems because of their parking capacity, which I have found to be true. Can someone recommend some good subway stations with bus access that don't have parking capacity?

It would also be nice to have some train/bus/subway stations with no parking  for inner city transfer points (think Harlem 125th street Metro North station in NY, for example).

I do find parking tends to create very... strange travel patterns.

 

In terms of the "perfect" plugins folder: For transit, I like to have at least one station that fits every real-world situation (terminus, transfer points, inner city, suburban, etc), hence the above question!

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

3 hours ago, rob_mtl said:

Can someone recommend some good subway stations with bus access that don't have parking capacity?

RTMT mod.

[rsc204 21,866]

5 hours ago, rob_mtl said:

I do find parking tends to create very... strange travel patterns.

All it should do is give sims the option of switching from car to one of the transit types through the lot. That might mean they get out and walk, or use an actual form of transport, but there is no preference to do this. A sim really needs to either want to use Mass Transit or otherwise it's simply the quickest route to where they are going.

[rob_mtl 435]

23 hours ago, jeffryfisher said:

RTMT mod.

Good suggestion. Somehow I didn't think of that!

[deezedgod 177]

@Indiana Joe, what a great post! I've been building a new plugin folder just having gotten back into the game, and this being the first time downloading anything in almost a decade, this has been invaluable.

I've been going through the same thought process building a new plugins folder. As annoying as it is to redownload hundreds of buildings, it's helped me to be a lot more organized and mindful this time around instead of downloading everything and anything.

Here's my process for how I decide what goes in and what doesn't.

• I'm being very nationalistic with my plugins folder. Right now I'm only downloading buildings that wouldn't seem out of place in midwestern America, and London, HK, and Mexican architecture, while fantastic just look completely out of place. (Yes, I have made this mistake in the past.)
• I'm skipping over a lot of older BATs. Not to discount any of their work, but some older BATs by veterans like @Cobb32118 and @SimGoober are not as detailed as a lot of the newer BATs we've been spoiled with, and some older buildings have very plain lots. Some great work has been done by creators like @kingofsimcity and @T Wrecks to bring to life a lot of old BATs with new lots that make a huge difference. Other ones I tend to skip though--I haven't downloaded much uploaded before 2010 lately.
• Instead of scrolling through SC4D categories I tend to just download everything from creators that I really like. @mattb325, @Jasoncw, @Simmer2, and others have so many great BATs, and downloading BATs only from a priviliged few gives your cities a more consistent look and quality than bringing in too many cooks.
• I'm downloading a lot less in total. A very subjective way to do it is to only download buildings that really wow me. If it's something I could take or leave, I'll usually leave it. Besides slowing down the game and cluttering up menus, too much variety can make a city look like an incoherent mesh of styles.

A few thoughts on essential mods as well.

• NAM, of course. I'm thinking of removing a few features, though. For example, I never use the HSR, and unfortunately, trams are exceedingly rare in midwestern USA, so I might leave out the GLR. Less is better when it comes to scrolling through menus.
• By far the most essential mods to me are a terrain mod, a water mod, a streetside mod, and a tree controller. I couldn't even bring myself to play the game before I had all these installed. Excuse my language, but the default Maxis for all these is butt-ugly.
• The Less Abandonment Mod is what I've always wanted. Dealing with high-wealth appearing and abandoning moments later was one of my biggest peeves with the game.
• I haven't tried this yet, but I'm going to be using Cori's NKO. I hate that all low-wealth disappears the moment you add a school, and once you download some better BATs for them, I quite enjoy building slums. The Less Abandonment Mod works, but it still doesn't completely solve R$$$ or CO$$$ appearing when you're not ready for it.
• IRM and Industry Quardrupler. I tried the Industry Doubler, but I felt the doubled pollution was too unrealistic. Instead of making it more realistic, it just made me scratch my head why a few small factories were turning my small town into a dystopian nightmare of pollution. Plus, the various industrial BATs I didn't download weren't congruent with the Industry Doubler's stats for the default industry, so I'm going to be switching to the Quadrupler and T Wreck's lots with Quadrupler-level jobs.
• SPAM, of course. I like farms.

With these mods, I think the game is playable now. With game-modifying mods, I'm trying to avoid "cheaty"-type mods as much as possible. I feel like the Industry Quadrupler does more for realism than it does to game the system, which is why I'm keeping it and like mods.

Having done all this and creating a couple of small cities, I'm very happy with the results so far!

[Indiana Joe 1,752]

@deezedgod  You haven't been around in a little while but I wanted to put out there that your post is the sort of philosophical plugins rambling that I appreciate and originally set out to do here.

 

Meanwhile I have made actual progress in assembling and testing parts of the Ultimate Folder^TM.

T-Wrecks has done such a beautiful job with the IRM.  I am mixing the base mod with some select Wall-to-Wall IRM downloads.  Even without plopping any fillers, just the growable results look fantastic.  Don't look if you don't like gritty, American, raw industrial production!

Spoiler

 

The SPAM has been interesting.  I thought that there was some more variety in the original mod, or at least more expansion packs for it.  If your farms are huge then I guess it doesn't get too repetitive.  Perhaps I will look more into Fantozzi's set, which has some very cool large-scale farming operations, and is fully SPAM-patible.

Another interesting dynamic of SPAM I had forgotten about is that it completely removes pollution from agriculture.  The water pollution brought an interesting dynamic to it, and is still quite realistic with farming practices today even though things are getting greener and greener.

 

Lastly, this is what I've settled on (for now) with my environment.  Featuring:

• LowKee's Appalachian terrain
• Gobias's HD St Lucia beaches and HD Caribbean water
• Vortext's Ærden tree controller (evergreen!)

 

Just gorgeous stuff by these talented creators.

 

-Matt

[Indiana Joe 1,752]

Alright I've jumped off the deep end.  I want to customize every single tile set, for the ultimate amount of control.

Here's the beginning of an outline for low density, with Maxis examples.  For much of this density, the setting is what really matters more to me than the architecture, since I want it all to look North American anyway.

 

And then I have a spreadsheet for custom content links, based on what might fit where.

 

...which you can view here.

 

But oh, if only it were so easy.  You browse the exchanges, you find an awesome BAT...and it just doesn't fall into your categories neatly.  Not to mention how unbalanced the available variety is:

• Low wealth: severely lacking.  Mostly falls into the low-density "rural" category. R$ small-medium density is needed.  I may need to re-assign some existing BATs.
• Medium wealth: hugely over-saturated.  Very difficult to split up.
• High wealth: Not as much variety as medium wealth, but perfectly acceptable since there should be much less R$$$ in a well-balanced city and region.