Farm field anchors

[adam forrest 51]

I would like to turn several of simgoober's seasonal farm field lots into farm anchors. Calling for the same field lot to achieve working farms that have no visable anchor building. I'm just not sure how to do this and would appreciate any help. Thanks. 

[xxdita 1,097]

There is no such thing as a Farm Anchor. Growable Farm lots should be designated as Out buildings and must include at least one field variety, or you'll run into other problems. 

[adam forrest 51]

I knew that industry had three types and that anchor buildings were the main ones. Without much modding experience I was just presuming that farm buildings were also anchors.Thanks for the comment and I have managed to create the growables I wanted. While reading a post about creating farms and farm fields, I think. I found that green park has an invisible building, so placed one in SG wheat seasonal field giving a saved as file. Along with the necessary extra examplar to successfully create a growable IR with the pim-x. Then after matching the field lots to its counterpart I used DT blocker IR to test and viola they grew. Here's where I came across some other possible issues though, or at least raises questions for me. In the tests I didn't overlook comparatively how quickly they grow or work compared to maxis farms. The maxis farms grow in between 3-6 months. I didn't take screenshots of these . First Images are the growable field farms invisible building and query. Followed by later down the line in year 51 and then when they finally all grew in year 68. Now that's not a fair test so I made up the remaining fields as growable and tested with these for the extra variety. The final image is all SG field farms and took between 3-9 years to grow (I max sped the maxis and SG fields ea twice). So why the years of growth time difference is it that wildly variable, Somehow i don't think so. Consider that if only pumpkin farms could grow and only 1 field I don't believe it would take 68 years compared to the SG wheat fields. I wonder if this is down to them all being stage 1, only having 1 farm field, something I have not set correctly or simply overlooked. 

Thanks for reading and to anyone who can respond and possibly help,

Adam

The field tile building.

The route query.

Year 51.

Year 68.

SG farms together.

[CorinaMarie 29,578]

Hiya, Adam.

Looks like some nice progress you've made.

For the Maxis farms growing in 3 to 6 months and yours taking several years, I've got a guess for that. Is it possible the game randomly picks a farm to grow and only then checks to see it is blocked and so doesn't build any for that cycle? Eventually tho your lucky number comes up and that's when yours grows? So when not blocking the Maxis farms, they grow as soon as the game selects one of them?

I'm not saying this is what is happening, but it might be a possibility. What if you make a test where you make a duplicate of all the Maxis farms then tweak them each to be yours?

[adam forrest 51]

Thanks for the reply. 

I will try this when I get home, I'm a cleaner at a pharmaceutical company so still have to work during these times.

I noticed a property in growable lots Desc. files called filling degree. I noticed its higher in other farms that grow and wondered what this property does? I have searched Google and looked in the readers manager and found nothing related to it.

I wonder also if adding additional farm field id's of the same instance may increase growing chances. 

As for altering the maxis original farms to be invisible farm field buildings, wouldn't I have to alter simcity1.dat to do this. I'm not sure if i read somewhere you shouldn't alter and save this dat. However I did alter the farm field lots for maxis farms to grow SG fields. Reindexed and saved and those work. I have a backup of the SimCity dats anyway so not too worry myself. I'm just not sure if I should be changing stuff in this dat really. 

My intention is to create a growable field tile building, calling for its matching field for each field out there and possibly upload this as my first mod. The SG, BLS, CSX fields are in packs but not everyone wants tulips growing. I will merge the lot and desc files for tidiness and keep them all separate so individual farm fields may be chosen to grow in city tiles.

I wonder if using maxis farms for my goals here is useful. In regards to my end goal of releasing a mod for just farm fields, I'm not sure I want to be overwriting the original farms.

Adam

  Edited May 6, 2020 by adam forrest  
Grammatical edit of the last sentence. Added a comer.

[CorinaMarie 29,578]

2 hours ago, adam forrest said:

I wonder also if adding additional farm field id's of the same instance may increase growing chances.

If you have given it multiple different Field Lots, then adding additional reps of the one you want would likely increase the chance for that field to grow. If it is already set to your field as a single entry, then I doubt additional reps of the same field would make a difference. I believe it's at the farm building selection stage which is controlling how often yours will grow.

 

2 hours ago, adam forrest said:

As for altering the maxis original farms to be invisible farm field buildings, wouldn't I have to alter simcity1.dat to do this.

I agree with not altering the entries in SimCity_1.dat itself.

The method I mentioned was going to be changing the Resource Key (and other properties) in copies of the Maxis Farms. Upon reflection, that's the long way around. A better way is to make overrides using the TGI of the 7 Maxis farms for duplicates of the one you have created.

So, make 7 additional copies (with different file names) of yours which you already have working. Then change the TGI of each to be an override of the Maxis ones. It'll be just the Instance ID (3rd number) which needs changed.

Here's the list:

• 6534284A-A7BDDF17-084D0000 = Alvin's Acres
• 6534284A-A7BDDF17-08520000 = Barthelet Stables
• 6534284A-A7BDDF17-084F0000 = Farhan's Farms
• 6534284A-A7BDDF17-08510000 = Jez Knight Acres
• 6534284A-A7BDDF17-08530000 = Llama Ag
• 6534284A-A7BDDF17-084E0000 = Pedriana's Plants
• 6534284A-A7BDDF17-08500000 = Pumpkin Acres

And, ofc, remove DT's Blockers when testing this.

 

2 hours ago, adam forrest said:

I wonder if using maxis farms for my goals here is useful. In regards to my end goal of releasing a mod for just farm fields, I'm not sure I want to be overwriting the original farms.

That could be included as an option, but my reason for suggesting this was only as a test for the 3-6 months vs several years to grow yours. The idea is to see if it is those 7 blocked Maxis farms that are getting selected internally, but then not growing because of the blockers and so that might be why it takes an extra long time to finally have yours chosen to grow.

[xxdita 1,097]

16 hours ago, adam forrest said:

I noticed a property in growable lots Desc. files called filling degree. I noticed its higher in other farms that grow and wondered what this property does? I have searched Google and looked in the readers manager and found nothing related to it.

The filling degree is just a sign that a building desc was created with PIMX. When used properly, the filling degree should be the approximate percentage of the Occupant Size (LOD) that a model takes up. Filling degree is not a property that the game uses in any way. 

Any time you use a blocker to disable lots from growing, you run the risk of slowing growth. The only way around this is to provide an option for each growth stage. For variety, choose a different field for each stage, if you'd like, this will also help you visually know what's going on. 

[adam forrest 51]

I made stage 2 and 3 version's and they help but I would like to make versions where they override maxis farms.

On 06/05/2020 at 8:31 PM, CorinaMarie said:

So, make 7 additional copies (with different file names) of yours which you already have working. Then change the TGI of each to be an override of the Maxis ones. It'll be just the Instance ID (3rd number) which needs changed.

Do my copies need to be new instances or can they be copy pasted and renamed. I wonder what tgi to alter as well. I tried on both the lot and desc files of renamed copies this way and can't get them to work.

Thanks

Adam

[CorinaMarie 29,578]

6 hours ago, adam forrest said:

Do my copies need to be new instances or can they be copy pasted and renamed. I wonder what tgi to alter as well. I tried on both the lot and desc files of renamed copies this way and can't get them to work.

If you will zip up and send me your original working copies of your farm and lot, I can make the tweaks I've suggested for the test files. I'll write a mini guide (with pictures) using your files to show how you can do it yourself.

[adam forrest 51]

1 hour ago, CorinaMarie said:

If you will zip up and send me your original working copies of your farm and lot, I can make the tweaks I've suggested for the test files. I'll write a mini guide (with pictures) using your files to show how you can do it yourself.

Thanks, here are the 7 I that grow and i wanted to replace maxis farms. These grow and I have copied pasted the desc files to lots. I made stage 1, 2 and 3 but these are just stage 1.

IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Fields.zip

[CorinaMarie 29,578]

First off, here's your lots back as overrides for the 7 Maxis Farms: Adam Forest Farm Lots - Overrides Maxis.zip
(I added MO for Maxis Override to the beginning of each file name.)

Now for the How To. The example will be for your IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Cantaloupe Stage 1_7c3dbdc8.SC4Lot file.

1. Open your file and single click on the the LotConfigurations exemplar:

^ Then find the LotConfigPropertyObjectData line that begins with 0x00000000 and double click it.

 

2. That'll popup this screen:

^ It's the last (13th rep) we want to change.

3. Remember the list I posted?

On 06/05/2020 at 8:31 PM, CorinaMarie said:

Here's the list:

• 6534284A-A7BDDF17-084D0000 = Alvin's Acres
• 6534284A-A7BDDF17-08520000 = Barthelet Stables
• 6534284A-A7BDDF17-084F0000 = Farhan's Farms
• 6534284A-A7BDDF17-08510000 = Jez Knight Acres
• 6534284A-A7BDDF17-08530000 = Llama Ag
• 6534284A-A7BDDF17-084E0000 = Pedriana's Plants
• 6534284A-A7BDDF17-08500000 = Pumpkin Acres

^ Those numbers are in Type, Group, Instance order. (The TGI.)

Change the 13th rep to the IID of Alvin's Acres:

^ Then click the Apply button on the right side followed by clicking the Apply button on the lower left. What we've done here is tell the Lot itself what Building it's married to.

 

4. Moving to the next exemplar, single click to highlight it. Then click the File Info button.

 

5. That'll popup this screen. Click the Edit button.

 

6. And in the new screen change the Group to the GID of Alvin's Acres and the Instance to the IID of same.

^ Click OK. The prior screen will reappear. Click the upper right X to make it go away.

 

7. The numbers don't change until you single click the exemplar again.

And that's it. Save the file and it's now an override for one of the Maxis farms.

 

For the files in the zip, I simply did a one to one relationship in alphabetical order. So, your Corn will override Barthelet Stables, your Green Peppers will override Farhan's Farms, and so on.

[CorinaMarie 29,578]

4 hours ago, adam forrest said:

I made stage 1, 2 and 3 but these are just stage 1.

I'm sure you already know this, but I'll mention it for anyone else who might use the above method: The seven stage 1 files I did in that zip are the only ones you will want as overrides. The stage 2 and 3 sets must not override Maxis or they'd also override the overrides of your stage 1 set and then you'd only have one set active. If that happened to be the stage 3 that loaded last, you'd have a hell of a time trying to grow farms in a brand new region.

[adam forrest 51]

Thank you it's much appreciated, I will take note and only make 1 stage of each being involved as an MO. I added stage 2-3(not the overrides) of the same 7 and 2, stage 2 grew, so having 7 overrides and using additional fields works. I don't know how it will go with other farms installed, if they will just tend to grow instead of the extra stage 2-3 and make them obsolete. They only grew when I had the blocker in, or now the overrides only and extra stage 2-3. 

Let's say I wanted to grow only 1 field easily in game, to match or extend existing farms. I see it being super useful for matching farms between city tiles regionally as well. Anyway would I need to make 7 different lots of the same field. One for ea maxis farm or can I use 1 lot and 7 different desc in some way to achieve this more simply?

Thanks

[CorinaMarie 29,578]

6 hours ago, adam forrest said:

Let's say I wanted to grow only 1 field easily in game, to match or extend existing farms.

I do the same thing myself, but with the Maxis Farm buildings and then altering which field will grow with them. I'll do a tiny overview of mine first to show the method I use.

I have a set of folders outside of Plugins like this:

 

Then depending on which field I want to grow for city tile edge blending, I copy in one of those folders into a zzzzz____Load Last folder in my Plugins. So, for mine let's say I want to grow only Apple Orchards. I've set it so 6 of the 7 have only the apple orchard listed in the Field Lots. The Llama Ag is blocked since that's a grain elevator and Maxis themselves set it to not grow either fruit tree fields. The contents of that folder are:

 

However, if I want to grow lettuce I have all Farm Buildings set so the single Field Lot is for that crop:

Now, yours will be a little bit different because your anchor lot is also a crop field. You'll want to first make a separate set of Blockers for each and every farm you have. Keep those in a separate Blocker Template folder (outside of Plugins). To make the blockers, change the OccupantGroups to Parks. The two sample images here are for Cantaloupes.

Before:

 

After:

 

And save each one of those with the work Blocker added to the file name.

 

Next, (still outside of Plugins) create these folders:

• z Grow Cantaloupe Only
• z Grow Corn Only
• z Grow Green Peppers Only
• z Grow Potatoes Only
• z Grow Pumpkins Only
• z Grow Tomatoes Only
• z Grow Wheat Only

Then inside each folder you will copy all the blockers you've made except for the fields you do want to grow.

In the following, I've removed the hex number part of the file names for clarity. I've also listed the files that are not blocked as an illustration of which one will grow. You can have the ones to grow in here so it's more intuitive to see which ones are not blocked. (They would just override their counterparts in your other folder.)

Folders/Files:

z Grow Cantaloupe Only
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Cantaloupe Stage 1.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Corn Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Green Peppers Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Potatoes Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Pumpkins Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Tomatoes Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Wheat Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT

  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Cantaloupe Stage 2.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Corn Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Green Peppers Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Potatoes Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Pumpkins Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Tomatoes Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Wheat Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT

  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Cantaloupe Stage 3.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Corn Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Green Peppers Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Potatoes Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Pumpkins Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Tomatoes Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Wheat Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT

z Grow Corn Only
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Cantaloupe Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Corn Stage 1.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Green Peppers Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Potatoes Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Pumpkins Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Tomatoes Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Wheat Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT

  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Cantaloupe Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Corn Stage 2.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Green Peppers Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Potatoes Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Pumpkins Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Tomatoes Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Wheat Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT

  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Cantaloupe Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Corn Stage 3.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Green Peppers Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Potatoes Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Pumpkins Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Tomatoes Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Wheat Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT

z Grow Green Peppers Only
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Cantaloupe Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Corn Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Green Peppers Stage 1.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Potatoes Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Pumpkins Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Tomatoes Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Wheat Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT

  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Cantaloupe Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Corn Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Green Peppers Stage 2.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Potatoes Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Pumpkins Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Tomatoes Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Wheat Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT

  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Cantaloupe Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Corn Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Green Peppers Stage 3.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Potatoes Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Pumpkins Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Tomatoes Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Wheat Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT

z Grow Potatoes Only
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Cantaloupe Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Corn Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Green Peppers Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Potatoes Stage 1.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Pumpkins Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Tomatoes Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Wheat Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT

  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Cantaloupe Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Corn Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Green Peppers Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Potatoes Stage 2.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Pumpkins Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Tomatoes Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Wheat Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT

  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Cantaloupe Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Corn Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Green Peppers Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Potatoes Stage 3.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Pumpkins Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Tomatoes Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Wheat Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT

z Grow Pumpkins Only
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Cantaloupe Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Corn Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Green Peppers Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Potatoes Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Pumpkins Stage 1.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Tomatoes Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Wheat Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT

  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Cantaloupe Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Corn Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Green Peppers Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Potatoes Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Pumpkins Stage 2.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Tomatoes Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Wheat Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT

  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Cantaloupe Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Corn Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Green Peppers Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Potatoes Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Pumpkins Stage 3.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Tomatoes Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Wheat Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT

z Grow Tomatoes Only
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Cantaloupe Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Corn Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Green Peppers Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Potatoes Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Pumpkins Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Tomatoes Stage 1.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Wheat Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT

  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Cantaloupe Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Corn Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Green Peppers Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Potatoes Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Pumpkins Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Tomatoes Stage 2.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Wheat Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT

  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Cantaloupe Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Corn Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Green Peppers Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Potatoes Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Pumpkins Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Tomatoes Stage 3.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Wheat Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT

z Grow Wheat Only
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Cantaloupe Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Corn Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Green Peppers Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Potatoes Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Pumpkins Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Tomatoes Stage 1 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  MO-IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Wheat Stage 1.SC4LOT

  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Cantaloupe Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Corn Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Green Peppers Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Potatoes Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Pumpkins Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Tomatoes Stage 2 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Wheat Stage 2.SC4LOT

  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Cantaloupe Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Corn Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Green Peppers Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Potatoes Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Pumpkins Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Tomatoes Stage 3 - BLOCKER.SC4LOT
  IR$1_1x1_SG Seasonal Wheat Stage 3.SC4LOT

 

Then to use them you will copy in the folder of the field you want to grow. It needs to load after your regular farm field lot files so it can override them. Start the game, zone and grow the fields you need, save, then quit. Next remove the override folder and add in the next field override you need to grow. Repeat the in game process.

It's a lot of work, but it is how I do mine for that perfection of the fields matching up between city tiles.

[adam forrest 51]

12 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

I do the same thing myself, but with the Maxis Farm buildings and then altering which field will grow with them. I'll do a tiny overview of mine first to show the method I use.

It seems this is the same reason I am making these for full control in a way, I hope. As for that, I know it may be different and maybe more work to setup but I wanted it to be more interchangeable. For example I already have second thoughts about the pumpkin fields and saw there may be fields with livestock props, I want these for sure if they look good. So I imagine that if I wanted maybe any SG field for example to be used would it be better to make them as 7 folders. 1 each for a maxis farm override set of 24 fields in each(there are 24 SG fields and hence growables I made). This way I make it one way and can have interchangeability as well as essentially being able to block others? I imagine you could with them made this way choose all 7 as wheat this way. I am not sure if I should make it like that, if that would be best.

Thanks

  Edited May 15, 2020 by adam forrest  
Just making more sense out it haha

[CorinaMarie 29,578]

3 hours ago, adam forrest said:

I already have second thoughts about the pumpkin fields ...

You can have more than 7 types of farms. Make any additional ones in the same way you made the first 7 where they are not overrides for the Maxis farms. So, after you decide on any 7 essential ones you will always want, make those have one set which does override Maxis. The rest can stand on their own.

 

3 hours ago, adam forrest said:

So I imagine that if I wanted maybe any SG field for example to be used would it be better to make them as 7 folders. 1 each for a maxis farm override set of 24 fields in each(there are 24 SG fields and hence growables I made). This way I make it one way and can have interchangeability as well as essentially being able to block others?

You could certainly try it that way and see what happens. I'm concerned tho if the overridden separate farms are then overridden by the same farm and those are grown, what will happen when you take those files out and now the game sees your original overrides of the Maxis Farms? Will there be a disparity for the Field Lot written to the save game data vs that of the building exemplar? You'll simply need to test in a sandbox region and see if that'll work.

[adam forrest 51]

Thanks, I got around to making 6 more each off of the original field lot with a park for wheat. I renamed the wheat already made by adding Pumpkins as it was growing as pumpkin acres. The other 6 are MOLlama, MOAlvin's etc. Tested in game and they grow.

Considering what you wrote I grew only half, saved and exited. Removed the MO's and tested. I got growth of maxis buildings but had no trouble deleting the buildings and the farms carried on fine. Albeit lacking a clickable lot in game. Here's some screenshots.

[adam forrest 51]

Thank you for the help thus far, I have put together and tested all the growables I made for the mod now. I have put this together now.

Within the optional extras is where I have the first thing i cant figure out. I have made 2 dats named zFlagsChange and z1workertiles. These make the farm fields appear at all zoom levels and match maxis farms for workers. Putting 1 worker in each farm field tile like maxis farms. For added Maxisism I like to call it. Likewise I modded my slope mods so networks cost the same as the original game but anyway I digress. I have an issue with the flags change and can't seem to find the melon props in the farm fields dat. The LD claims it needs melony's melons however it doesn't. The melon props are in actually in BSC MEGA PROPS - SG Vol 1. I cannot find the melon props elsewhere I don't think. These examplars set the flags appearance at 1f though so should appear at all zooms. I managed to make all others appear at all zooms just not melons for some reason. I will clearly state that players able to change the properties themselves in the reader do so if they can to avoid unnecessary copies. These will be primarily for those not using the reader.

The second thing I would like to add maybe the original game fields. However in the lot editor I cannot save as the original farm field's to create new instance's like I did the SG fields. I am not sure how I go about making these. Although not necessary and not seasonal they also require no extra dependencies so I don't see why I couldn't add them if I knew how.

Thanks again

[CorinaMarie 29,578]

3 hours ago, adam forrest said:

I have an issue with the flags change and can't seem to find the melon props in the farm fields dat.

Quick answer: They are in the SG_FarmFields.Dat file (the one you sent to me for the initial testing). As you've already mentioned, the AppearanceZoomsFlag needs set to 0x0000001F for them to appear in all zoom levels.

Here's a before pic with them still at 1E. (That's zoom 1 and then I scaled the image size up to 200%.)

 

And after changing to 1F:

 

So, the first thing I did to track this down was peek at the prop in LE to find the IID:

 

Then when I could not find that in any of the .Dat files, @Cyclone Boom explained that's the Family number. Which can be seen in LE if selecting to Add Family:

And from that we learn the names of the 3 individual props. (There's more than one so they can be seasonal.) The exemplars you are looking for are:

• 6534284A-AD4BA465-EF332CC7 = SG_FarmField_Cantaloupe01
• 6534284A-AD4BA465-EF332CCD = SG_FarmField_Cantaloupe02
• 6534284A-AD4BA465-AF332CD2 = SG_FarmField_Cantaloupe03

And those are where you will set the zoom flags.

 

Now, you might see that family name listed properly as above or it might show as unnamed. If it is unnamed, then you'll want @T Wrecks's Maxis Prop Names and Query Fix mod. That then has a Cohort to give that specific family a name which LE will understand:

 

And then back to the SG_FarmFields.Dat file, here's one of the 3 props. The blue highlight in the right pane is showing the zoom flag already updated. The circled line is showing how this one prop is part of the family:

 

4 hours ago, adam forrest said:

The second thing I would like to add maybe the original game fields. However in the lot editor I cannot save as the original farm field's to create new instance's like I did the SG fields.

LE is sometimes persnickety about what it will and won't allow.

Is the plan to allow the Maxis fields to also grow on the custom farms you've made? Or to re-allow them to grow in their entirety as separate, additional options? If the former, I suspect you would just need to add their IIDs to the Field Lots property. If the latter, then you could use your original non Maxis Overrides of yours and this would let the Maxis ones grow when they felt like it.

[adam forrest 51]

I changed each one of the SG_farmfields.dat. I added all of them including cantaloupes. There are so many props are separate from that farmfields.dat. beans, corn, flowers,greens,rice, tulips and wheat but no melons. I added farm fields ones to patch and created dat. Then copy and pasted in the extra props that were needed for all zooms. Some already are 1f. Here are the 24 1-3 and extras to see yourself if you like. Melons actually don't appear without SG MEGA PROPS Vol 1 I found. They are set to be 1f however melons don't show.

Stage's 1-3.zip

[CorinaMarie 29,578]

I see where I went wrong in my post above. I only had the 7 original fields from you and the cantaloupes were the only one I could imagine to be the melons you were referring to.

I've now peeked at the props with melon in their name and I do see 11 different props for them. I also see they are all set to 1F for the zoom flag. So, are they not showing at all? Or are they showing on some zooms, but not all zooms?

[adam forrest 51]

They don't appear on the last zoom although they have that property set to 1f already in both possible instance of where the props are from what I can see. They appear in other zooms but require BSC MEGA PROPS - SG Vol 1 or melonysmelons.DAT from SG. I have not tested the latter but imagine either works as the examplars LD for melons in SG_FarmFields.DAT calls for that and not SG_FarmFields.DAT. The examplars in both are set to 1F but basically don't appear in the last zoom yeah.

[CorinaMarie 29,578]

3 hours ago, adam forrest said:

They don't appear on the last zoom although they have that property set to 1f already in both possible instance of where the props are from what I can see.

Now that I have the actual melons lots installed and it is the same for me with no props at zoom 1.

CB and I have tracked it down to the 30000, 30020, & 30030 S3D files appearing to be empty. Zooming in a million times and there appears to be just an empty black area. So, while the prop itself is allowed to show at all zoom levels by the 1F setting, it disappears at zoom 1 because there is nothing for the FSH textures to be applied to.

Copying over the closest equivalent S3Ds from the Cantaloupe props and changing their GIDs to match I was able to get color at zoom 1 when I had Melon Vines grown:

^ It's the field on the right.

Then running some time and it changes to this:

However, the East and West rotation has a lot more of the plowed dirt showing thru:

^ It's the bottom field in this rotation.

So, all in all, I suspect using another model file instead of the one it expects makes things go goofy.

Another option would be to change the zoom 1 FSH of the Plowed Dirt base texture to something greener. This would, however, apply to everywhere that texture is used and it would not change with the seasons. So it could look like this all the time at zoom 1:

 

[adam forrest 51]

Interesting, after some thought I have decided maybe I will just leave it be then. It's only that one field the zoom change dat wont effect. May as well delete the melons from the dat, reindex and save. I have spent enough time making and testing them all. What it is a total of 240 growables. To finish it I will add one more folder and add screenshots of all the fields for ease of choosing and referencing which field is what.

Thanks for all the help it's appreciated

Adam