CoriBoom Partial Mythbusting - Building Style Tilesets Not Locked Down in the EXE

[mattb325 28,891]

On 2/4/2020 at 5:10 PM, rivit said:

The OG 0000 seems odd - Was this an attempt to kill it or a tpyo? should it have been 1000=(B) Residential I wonder?
Has anyone ever seen this one in-game?

Your version doesn't match the one I have (and yes, I have seen it grow).

It is possible that I picked these up in the BSC board where Jeff basically had his own production line or Barby gave them directly to me (my memory is a bit hazy, it is 15 years ago, after all), but the OGs are different from yours. I've attached a screenshot of highgrove2.

I suspect the version you have contains the error from when Jeff's files were moved over to the LEX. (My version also contains B5C00150, etc, and I haven't altered the file since I installed it).

On 2/4/2020 at 10:03 AM, CorinaMarie said:

(And I have little faith we can do the same with industrial as we have hopes for doing with R and C.)

I also don't believe assigning tilesets is possible because of the way that Industry (Agricultural, Anchor, mech and out) behave, but boy, would I love to be proven wrong. 

 

 

  Edited February 5, 2020 by mattb325  
typo....what is it about this file that makes typos....

[rivit 3,402]

Thanks @mattb325, these things pop up from time to time - this one was found only by virtue of testing my program. File date looks to be 11 Aug 2007 so its pretty vintage.

[CorinaMarie 29,881]

9 hours ago, xxdita said:

Right. Any changes to the RCI developer exemplars would create compatibility issues with CAM, as these are the exemplars that actually enable the extra growth stages. I don't believe that should ever be a factor in the creation and development of any mod, of course.

And, ofc, once/if the new mod is all figured out and working, the corresponding changes can be made to CAM. It's the very same for NKO. Instead of using the mod I've made, CAM users just toggle that option in their copy of the Building Development exemplar.

 

5 hours ago, rivit said:

The OG 0000 seems odd - Was this an attempt to kill it or a tpyo? should it have been 1000=(B) Residential I wonder?

As the others have said, that likely is a typo.

The part I'll add is that it would not prevent growth because it is not one of the Building Style OGs (0x2000 to 0x2003). The OccupantGroups in a Building Exemplar is multipurpose. Besides the growth control, some entries are simply so it can track things by categories for counting them. Or they link to automata generation. (For example, re-enabling Farm.lua (0xFFFA8EF0) and then adding 0x00001912 as an OG to all agricultural building exemplars then allows the automata group Farm_Vehicles to spawn from them for newly grown farms.) Other times the OG simply tells the game how to handle the display like I did for that member who did not want to have the subway station placement change the view (because of the delay it causes) so I used the Bus Stop group instead and that fixed it exactly how they wanted.

When changing an OG in a Building Exemplar, said change will apply only to newly grown (or plopped) buildings. So fixing that 0000 to be 1000 will apply to any grown after the change. The part which can be troublesome is that any which are already grown have the OG information saved in the city data's sub-files. In the case of those 0000 files they will not have recorded the 1000 information, but if they are bulldozed (or replaced by new growth) and the fix is in place then instead of exactly negating the 1000 information it'll subtract it from the already too low total. Ofc, fixing the entry and then growing these in a new city and everything will stay properly balanced.

 

4 hours ago, mattb325 said:

I also don't believe assigning tilesets is possible because of the way that Industry (Agricultural, Anchor, mech and out) behave, but boy, would I love to be proven wrong. 

This is a secondary interest for me after R and C, but I'd love to prove you wrong too.

[xxdita 1,097]

On 2/1/2020 at 7:04 PM, Cyclone Boom said:

Let's say hypothetically it was possible to assign custom tilesets to content from the early days of modding. That would've been all well and good, but it ultimately comes down to personal preference really. The task of educating BATters and lotters to go about this would've added an extra step, needing the OccupantGroups exemplar property editing to assign items to a broad community agreed new set of tilesets. After all, this is a method of categorising lots to assign when they should develop in game. Much like menu ordering or structuring using the DAMN and organising one's Plugins folder, it depends on how each of us wish to go about this.

There'd never have been a true one-size-fits-all solution even if this was discovered 15 years ago. The same also applies for anything new which will be developed in the SC4 modding scene through the next 15 years (and beyond). The past cannot be changed, but the present is what duly (and truly) transforms the future.

But what if it can all come together? It seems to me that the only way the game knows that a given hex is meant to be a building style is by adding that hex into the available styles. I know testing so far has been with fairly sequential numbers, but what about trying it with an Occupant Group that's already used to define a certain style? Like B5C00DDE for W2W buildings? Or B5C009E1 for Medieval buildings? 

Sure, it would still require adding such OGs to lots that don't already have them. But that sounds a lot better than starting from scratch. And it still allows for a certain range to be used for personal use, or for possible styles that haven't been mapped out already. 

[CorinaMarie 29,881]

6 minutes ago, xxdita said:

It seems to me that the only way the game knows that a given hex is meant to be a building style is by adding that hex into the available styles.

Yes. The ones added to allow growth of other Tilesets will need to be enabled via the Building Development exemplar.

 

4 minutes ago, xxdita said:

I know testing so far has been with fairly sequential numbers, but what about trying it with an Occupant Group that's already used to define a certain style? Like B5C00DDE for W2W buildings? Or B5C009E1 for Medieval buildings? 

This seems to be confusing Building Styles which control growth with those which are used for tracking. There would be no need to alter any of those specialized tracking OGs.

[xxdita 1,097]

Just now, CorinaMarie said:

Yes. The ones added to allow growth of other Tilesets will need to be enabled via the Building Development exemplar.

 

This seems to be confusing Building Styles which control growth with those which are used for tracking. There would be no need to alter any of those specialized tracking OGs.

No alterations necessary, just repurposing the OGs to multitask. 

[Cyclone Boom 17,031]

There are multiple aspects involved here, and the great thing is it's uncharted territory we've entered.

I think ultimately with potential for integrating new tilesets into custom lots to use in a functional way, it's going to depend on editing along a similar scale of effort as needed to setup DAMN menus. There were at least two notable programs which assisted with that task. One is "SSP Tool" which comes to mind, and then there was the Manager program which I believe came afterwards. I'm not familiar with these myself, but do know they make it much easier for each player to configure their game menus to how they wish. Should this current tilesets project enter that stage, it can then be a case of presenting how this is possible, and explaining all the options for style allocations and such.

So in a similar sort of way to the DAMN tools, hopefully as mentioned (on the prior page) it might be achievable for a dedicated means of editing lots in batch. Then each OG can be assigned for the custom allocation, and the idea could be to have 32 or so in a Building Style Control UI panel which are all ready to be used.

[xxdita 1,097]

1 hour ago, Cyclone Boom said:

There are multiple aspects involved here, and the great thing is it's uncharted territory we've entered.

I think ultimately with potential for integrating new tilesets into custom lots to use in a functional way, it's going to depend on editing along a similar scale of effort as needed to setup DAMN menus. There were at least two notable programs which assisted with that task. One is "SSP Tool" which comes to mind, and then there was the Manager program which I believe came afterwards. I'm not familiar with these myself, but do know they make it much easier for each player to configure their game menus to how they wish. Should this current tilesets project enter that stage, it can then be a case of presenting how this is possible, and explaining all the options for style allocations and such.

So in a similar sort of way to the DAMN tools, hopefully as mentioned (on the prior page) it might be achievable for a dedicated means of editing lots in batch. Then each OG can be assigned for the custom allocation, and the idea could be to have 32 or so in a Building Style Control UI panel which are all ready to be used.

Right. I get all that. But if an Occupant Group that has already been used in easily a couple hundred lots can also function as a Building Style, then there would be at least that much content already compatible with the mod upon its release. With literally no extra work necessary by anyone. The plug & play aspect alone just seems hard to ignore, if it works. 

[CorinaMarie 29,881]

7 hours ago, xxdita said:

But if an Occupant Group that has already been used in easily a couple hundred lots can also function as a Building Style, then there would be at least that much content already compatible with the mod upon its release.

The if in that sentence is a key aspect to consider.

We know that Maxis deliberately made the Building Styles in the 0x2000 block and no others use that. It seems more logical to me to continue with the already established foundation than to introduce a new variable by attempting to utilize an OG in a dual fashion. Additionally, all of those custom buildings which have unique OGs for tracking would still have to be edited to remove the default OGs in the range of 0x2000 to 0x2003 so there would be no time savings at all.

The current plan (which CB alluded to) is to set up a total of 32 Growth Styles OGs which means adding 28 new ones. This seems like a good balance between having breathing room for oodles of customization while not getting overwhelmed with too many. In hex that'll mean the groups available will be in the range of 0x2000 to 0x201F.

[xxdita 1,097]

4 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

The if in that sentence is a key aspect to consider.

We know that Maxis deliberately made the Building Styles in the 0x2000 block and no others use that. It seems more logical to me to continue with the already established foundation than to introduce a new variable by attempting to utilize an OG in a dual fashion. Additionally, all of those custom buildings which have unique OGs for tracking would still have to be edited to remove the default OGs in the range of 0x2000 to 0x2003 so there would be no time savings at all.

The current plan (which CB alluded to) is to set up a total of 32 Growth Styles OGs which means adding 28 new ones. This seems like a good balance between having breathing room for oodles of customization while not getting overwhelmed with too many. In hex that'll mean the groups available will be in the range of 0x2000 to 0x201F.

Luckily this if seems easy enough to prove true or false. 

But it occurs to me that this whole concept is introducing new variables to the established foundation. That's the heart of modding, after all, no? 

And yes, existing content using the given OG can be modified to limit the growth to specific tilesets. But with the introduction of new radio buttons only allowing only a given tileset to grow, it wouldn't have to be. Because quite frankly, even with an automated process, which has yet to be configured, it would be easier for the end-user to modify a variable or two in the mod than in hundreds of buildings. 

It also has yet to be shown what sort of file organizational requirements need to be used for such an automated process. Would all files in a single dat be converted? Would there be a toggle switch for those or would they need to be done manually? I think it's too early to know any of that yet, but not too early to think about it. 

Again, that makes the possible Plug & Play backwards compatibility with already available content that much more appealing in my mind. 

And yes, it all depends on that if. 

[mattb325 28,891]

18 hours ago, Cyclone Boom said:

32 or so in a Building Style Control UI panel

Wow. That will be amazing. 

 

9 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Maxis deliberately made the Building Styles in the 0x2000 block

With this fundamental point, it is useful to point out that all existing custom content, and game content, for that matter will still function within the 4 tilesets with or without the mod installed (assuming the aforementioned bugs can all be dealt with) and with or without reference to any custom OGs.

Existing custom content will require the creator to add a Tileset update; of course any user in theory can upload a z_patch that loads after the files if the content creator is no longer active, but that is quite fraught.

Take Simgoobers work for example. Let's say I decide that I want to update all of simgoobers lots and I decide that it should be on 0x201F Tileset. That's all well and good, but the patch I release will require the downloader to have every-single one of Simgoobers lots already installed or they will get a brown box as the patch will be a dat file that contains everything. 

While the proposed tool will be really useful for batch work, much like folder structure organisation is a personal preference, I'm guessing that tileset modification will be something that a user does mostly on their own, to their own plugins, using their own criteria....

[CorinaMarie 29,881]

8 hours ago, xxdita said:

Because quite frankly, even with an automated process, which has yet to be configured, it would be easier for the end-user to modify a variable or two in the mod than in hundreds of buildings. 

The problem is it simply cannot work like that.

Every one of those hundreds of buildings will have, at a minimum, one of the original 4 Building Style OGs already set or they wouldn't grow in a game now. To make them grow only under a new tileset (whether that's one of the new logically sequenced ones or a specific custom tracking one) those original references will have to be removed from every single one of those buildings.

Let's say we have hundreds of existing custom content buildings (showing only the relevant OGs) like this:

Building 1, OGs: 0x00002003, 0xB5C00DDE
Building 2, OGs: 0x00002003, 0xB5C00DDE
Building 3, OGs: 0x00002003, 0xB5C00DDE
.
.
.
Building 487, OGs: 0x00002003, 0xB5C00DDE

If the new mod says 0xB5C00DDE can be considered as Building Style OG, that does not prevent it from also growing when the Euro (0x2003) tileset is active. It would be even more problematic if those custom buildings used more than one original tileset (such as all 4) which the majority of CC has. Without removing 1, 2, 3 or 4 of the original tileset OGs those buildings cannot be limited to just 0xB5C00DDE even if 0xB5C00DDE is deemed to now be a viable tileset OG.

Add to that the very likely possibility that Maxis specifically looks first at the 000020 part of the current sets (similar to how bit masks are used elsewhere) and that is what tells the game it is a Building Style. So, the new mod will use 0x2000 to 0x201F for the greatest chance of success. Full stop. I will not consider any other option which does not have the 20 part in that exact position with the 4 preceding zeroes.

[xxdita 1,097]

1 minute ago, CorinaMarie said:

The problem is it simply cannot work like that.

Every one of those hundreds of buildings will have, at a minimum, one of the original 4 Building Style OGs already set or they wouldn't grow in a game now. To make them grow only under a new tileset (whether that's one of the new logically sequenced ones or a specific custom tracking one) those original references will have to be removed from every single one of those buildings.

Yes. All currently available growable content, whether Maxis or custom, will continue to grow on the currently available tilesets until someone modifies them to do otherwise. Can't argue with that. 

But some buildings may actually still fit into a couple of those vanilla tilesets, even if they can go into another as well. Ultimately, that's for the end-users to decide, right? 

Any input offered has only been intended to help explore possibilities. Thinking out loud, really. What you do with it from there is up to you. The last thing I want to do is sidetrack development. 

[xxdita 1,097]

10 hours ago, mattb325 said:

Wow. That will be amazing. 

 

With this fundamental point, it is useful to point out that all existing custom content, and game content, for that matter will still function within the 4 tilesets with or without the mod installed (assuming the aforementioned bugs can all be dealt with) and with or without reference to any custom OGs.

Existing custom content will require the creator to add a Tileset update; of course any user in theory can upload a z_patch that loads after the files if the content creator is no longer active, but that is quite fraught.

Take Simgoobers work for example. Let's say I decide that I want to update all of simgoobers lots and I decide that it should be on 0x201F Tileset. That's all well and good, but the patch I release will require the downloader to have every-single one of Simgoobers lots already installed or they will get a brown box as the patch will be a dat file that contains everything. 

While the proposed tool will be really useful for batch work, much like folder structure organisation is a personal preference, I'm guessing that tileset modification will be something that a user does mostly on their own, to their own plugins, using their own criteria....

Ah, Gooberville... 

Goobers. Goobers everywhere!

[CorinaMarie 29,881]

On 2/1/2020 at 11:33 PM, mattb325 said:

If I am reading this correctly, does that mean if, say, a city has (or had) the Chicago T/S selected and then you also select, say, 0x2005 that it won't recognise it, nor will it recognise an existing city's Tilesets, but works fine on a new tile?

Major update compared to my prior answer to this. I can now edit an existing City Tile Save File and alter or add Tilesets for those to grow.

For this test I'm using a modified version of your Modern Low Wealth Terraces such that they are set to OG 0x2008 only. I also tweaked them to be Stage 1, lower Capacity Satisfied, and a couple other things. (This was so I could grow several of them immediately in a brand new tile.)

Here's what I tweaked:

 

And here they are grown in a newly created city tile:

 

Next I went to my largest population (82,368 Sims) tile and set the Building Style to 0x2003 (Euro-Contemporary) and saved. (This so it's easier to find in the hex data.)

 

Now comes the exciting part. I directly hex edited the relevant part in the city tile's save file to turn off 0x2003 and replace the available tileset to grow with 0x2008. When loading the game it now shows none of the default 4 tilesets enabled. The 0x2008 is enabled, but even with CB's tweak to the UI it won't show there.

 

I zoned medium density in the middle of a crop field:

 

And ran some time:

 

So, the next thing I'd like to test is the same direct edit to a City Tile Save File from someone who has a massive city using oodles of custom content and/or a bunch of MMPs.

@mattb325, you'd be an ideal candidate if you are willing. I can send you my tweaked version of your Terraces via PM along with the updated Building Development Simulator file and then I'd need you to send me a city save file which I would edit and send back for you to test. Ofc, you'd want to be certain to keep an unaltered backup copy of your city.

This is, ofc, proof of concept testing because having to edit the city file to change to any of the 28 new tilesets would be a PITA. Additionally, with a few more buildings tweaked to be in various places of the new range of 0x2004 thru 0x201F, I also want to test enabling two or more tilesets in existing cities. But, one thing at a time for now.

[mattb325 28,891]

Nice work! 

7 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

if you are willing

I'm in. It's Friday here, so I have the next couple of days to guinea-pig out one of my cities. (All my cities are basically just tests anyway) 

[CorinaMarie 29,881]

2 minutes ago, mattb325 said:

I'm in.

Yay!

Ok, next question. Do you use CAM? If so, we need to find which is the corresponding file with the Building Development Simulator and that one is what I should edit if so.

[mattb325 28,891]

No CAM in these test cities.

In the region I'm thinking of sacrificing (its just a big hodge podge to test heaps of different things out in as many possible likely scenarios), it will have NAM + dusktroopers tileset thing that pushes all maxis content to the houston tileset (that one is part of all my test regions), a radical ordinance demand mod and simmasters various fixes (simmasters fixes are part of all my test cities)

[CorinaMarie 29,881]

Sounds good. I have simmaster's fix and extra cheats DLLs installed during my testing. Any and all other plugins you use will be fine to have. The more the merrier. The only one will be if you have your original of the Terraces then my tweaked one to 0x2008 needs to replace or override it.

Edit: Oh, and if you have any Blockers we want to remove those. The test is to see that the tweaked 0x2008 is the only thing that grows (as well as that I don't completely bork your city).

[mattb325 28,891]

We should be good to go as I generally don't block anything with test cities

[CorinaMarie 29,881]

So, prolly the next step is for you to chose which city. Ideally, enable the Euro tileset only and save it. Then send me a linky to it via PM. You can use the free part of WeTransfer.com if you don't have other online storage options.

Then, I'll edit the relevant part of the city file to turn off Euro and turn on 0x2008. I'll send that back along with the BDS file and the tweak of your Terraces.

[Cyclone Boom 17,031]

This is a new wonderland of opportunities you've discovered, Alice Cori! 

The ability to edit existing saved tiles using Reader really is a notable breakthrough.

For many years, I too believed how editing the data directly would be infeasible due the checksum being an integral part of the saved game structure. But following on from what we'd tested last evening on small scale, it's great to see this now implemented into an existing developed tile.

To have the terraced houses from @mattb325 built all in a row there looks fantastic! How a custom tileset can be grown using the method, and it's a perfect case in point where having a distinct tileset per item might be desirable in a practical use. So say if wanting modern terraces to grow in any given location, one can enable the custom tileset by swapping in the modified Building Development Simulator (BDS) file, and then performing the edit for the values in the saved file, from where that allows it to develop in game. From our testing too, we found how the grown buildings were fully functional with occupancy and didn't abandon.

It'll be interesting to see how the method fares with more custom content populated tiles, but the early indications suggest all will be fine too.

There's still lots to test and determine precisely how the format is structured, but early indications is there is an element of consistency to the file entry with how the data is defined. The good thing also is new lots could be edited by adding the OG and then placing them in one's Plugins folder.

How using the hex editing mode allows the identified values to be edited, and it's opening up a brand new field of content customisation. It adds a whole extra dimension for what's doable with at least residential and commercial development. And the great thing too is even if the Building Style Control isn't currently feasible to be fully functional, all indication now validates that new tilesets in SC4 are very much a viable option.

Of course, ideally if @simmaster07 could work some magic and get the toggles working too, that'd save the need for any editing of city files in doing it manually. The same for a dedicated program for batch OG editing. But even still, there is a degree of simplicity in the method, and it saves needing to add Maxis RCI blockers or moving items in and out of one's Plugins folder. Sure this will be an advanced option like menu structuring is, but the same can be said about learning intricate NAM interchanges. There is a learning curve for tools which provide an abundance of flexibility, allowing aspects to be tailored specifically to our own personal play styles.

Presenting the options available will be a focus in educating the community about what can be done. This will be all the groundwork established for what can be built upon as the method also. So say if it did become possible for the toggles to be switched over in game, that would simplify the process even further.

One thing is certain, Cori has made another impossible something become a possible reality.

Testing is still needed to check for added variables, but it's looking like the myth is well and truly busted.

[xxdita 1,097]

I've done a bit of testing on my own, which may help further bust a myth or two. 

All custom occupant groups can be used as a R/C tileset of their own. So that no longer remains an if. In fact, I'm quite certain that most any hex added to the Available Building Styles property could serve as a tileset. Though with the same caveat of not being able to easily alter the available building styles once a city is established. I haven't dug into the save file editing end of that, but that's advanced level stuff that seems untouchable for many players. That said, this is an advanced level mod anyway. Hopefully the coders out there can work on automating things, so that it can be more easily adopted. 

I would recommend avoiding Maxis OGs, as the game already does have established purposes for those, so it will try to do both, which could lead to complications. For instance, using the 0x1006 Park OG as an example. Adding this OG to building styles won't automatically let your parks grow, but I do think the game will try to place growable lots into your probably already cluttered Parks Menu, which it won't be able to for a growable lot. At best, this slows down opening your Parks Menu; at worst, who knows. If you use any of the OGs that spawn fauna or automata as your tileset, then every lot grown will do exactly that. Airports and Seaports are problematic enough as is. Using these OGs would likely result in CTDs and lost cities. The stated design for this mod avoids those issues anyway, but there's always somebody that pokes around into such things eventually. 

Custom Occupant Groups have absolutely no meaning to the game, until we define that meaning through mods. All values in the Occupant Groups property of a building desc are part of that lot's save game info. The best way to view this info in-game is via a custom query. SimGoober has such a query for farms & fields, I believe deadwoods has one for parks, and I'm sure you've all seen what NAM station queries can do. I know I'm leaving a few out, but the point is that the only reason more Maxis OGs aren't visible to us is simply because no one has made a custom query to do so yet. In fact, I have no reason to believe that a query could not be made to give you the precise location on a map for any given value used in the Occupant Groups property. That's actually something I'd like to explore a bit actually. 

All of this is of course outside the scope of what @CorinaMarie and @Cyclone Boom are trying to do here at this time, which is enough a task to take on as it is. So please don't let any of this sidetrack you two. I'm not involved in the creation of your mod, so I have time to get ahead of some of the possible ramifications of this mod that should not even be a part of the development concerns anyway. 

Like @mattb325 mentioned the possibility of patch sets that can help start the process of defining certain new tilesets. Such a file may present more serious issues behind the scenes. I'd rather avoid the possible equivalent of a DOS attack on SC4D from such a file on the LEX to make use of the dependency tracker, given its current state. But manual links would be fine, regardless of where such a file is uploaded. 

I do have a couple thoughts that may be helpful for the actual development here though. 

@CorinaMarie, have you had any luck starting a city with a full tileset controller, saving, then using a more limited controller? That seems to cause problems for me. 

And for @Cyclone Boom, you mentioned DAMN. Isn't that handled via the Advisors panel? Could tilesets be toggled in such a manner as well? 

[CorinaMarie 29,881]

3 hours ago, xxdita said:

All custom occupant groups can be used as a R/C tileset of their own. So that no longer remains an if.

Cool. That's good to know. Ofc, I'm staying with the 0x2000 to 0x201F range as it seems the most logical to me.

 

3 hours ago, xxdita said:

@CorinaMarie, have you had any luck starting a city with a full tileset controller, saving, then using a more limited controller? That seems to cause problems for me. 

Yes I have, but with the caveat that when reducing the number in the BDS it also needs the available sets listed in the city tile data changed accordingly.

When you create a new city tile, all sets that are listed in the BDS at that moment are recorded in the city save data as active. It's fine to have more in the controller than the city knows about (like if it was create with a smaller set in the BDS). It will not update the save data to add more by itself even if later adding more to the BDS. The opposite doesn't work tho. Any which are listed in the save data must be in the controller. So, this mod (with my ability) will be completely usable for the advanced gamer, but not practical for everyone unless the Tilesets can be made toggleable via DLL modding.

I do plan to write up the complete How To for the hex editing of the save file and how it relates to the BDS entries. Said hex editing is 3-fold. One variable is a simple calculation where it's 4 times the number of listed active tilesets within the save data plus 35 (and in hex, ofc). Another is the number of active tilesets as a simple hex number. Then there is the list of the actual tileset IDs as DWords (4 bytes per). Additionally, they have to be in ascending order for the non-default ones. The different order I'd seen before is that the 4 Maxis tilesets can shuffle around based on how you toggle them on and off. So, starting a city with those 4 enabled and they grown in sequence. Toggle one off then back on and it goes to the end of the list. This doesn't happen for the custom ones tho as they aren't recognized by toggling.

[xxdita 1,097]

Would toggling be possible with a LUA instead of a dll? 

[CorinaMarie 29,881]

1 minute ago, xxdita said:

Would toggling be possible with a LUA instead of a dll? 

If there is a function with a passable parameter, yes, possibly. However, I'm quite familiar with all the Lua scripts and there isn't anything defined for that. Ofc, it could simply be not listed so I don't know about it, but it seems unlikely that Maxis would've even made it a Lua option since they already have it coded in the .exe.

So, that's not a definitive answer, but prolly accurate.

[xxdita 1,097]

You're probably right. The issue has to be that just like custom OGs, the game just has no defined purpose for the new buttons. dll's are out of my paygrade though. 

[RobertLM78 1,598]

I was thinking how nice it would be to know what the current tileset was - perhaps display it on the news ticker.  

 

[mattb325 28,891]

It seems like getting the game to recognise the radio buttons as working and effective is certainly something for simmaster07 and his dll knowledge.

Otherwise (and again, this is well beyond anything that I can mod...my skills are at best basic-intermediate) perhaps another line of thought could be using the effectdir entries, which is similar to the stuff that xannepan did with the weather mods and the NAM hole/diggers and raisers that disappear after plopping.

So for instance, you plop a 1x1 lot from a menu and that triggers the x2008 (etc) tileset; when you demolish that lot, the x2008 tileset is turned off. All the while, the in game tilesets (Euro/Houston/NY/Chicago) are still ticking away in the background.

Just thinking out loud.....

[RobertLM78 1,598]

16 minutes ago, mattb325 said:

So for instance, you plop a 1x1 lot from a menu and that triggers the x2008 (etc) tileset; when you demolish that lot, the x2008 tileset is turned off. All the while, the in game tilesets (Euro/Houston/NY/Chicago) are still ticking away in the background.

That could certainly work.... though it seems theoretically any new tileset could be added to the existing "Tileset Menu" eliminating the need for any specialized lots..... but if the menu doesn't pan out then certainly a lot to trigger the custom tileset would be perfect....