Twinkling Green Dots. What are they?

[Busta -CASE- 140]

Hello, fellow SC4 players, I need to know what these green little twinkling dots are. I'm not sure, I thought they were radiation or something malign cause in one occasion, after poppling a park lot, these dots appeared and my stats plummeted and everything nearby became dilapidated. In this case, just before taking this snap, I plopped that Goober park, and the dots appeared (sorry, I tried several snaps, this one was the best, you could barely see them marked by the reds). Please, can someone tell me what they are, I saved after plopping, just in case. Thanks in advance.

[Cyclone Boom 17,031]

Hi b9117w,

Yes, those green dots are indeed an indication of radiation being present.

Does the Radiation data view itself show any contamination in the area where they're visible? It might be possible this is caused by properties which a custom lot has, and then it produces the green dots without there being an actual radiation source. It does seem likely how it's caused by the Goober park since you say they appeared after plopping it, which may well emit radiation given it caused local desirability to diminish. Should bulldozing it make the area return to normal, that will prove the culprit.

[Busta -CASE- 140]

27 minutes ago, Cyclone Boom said:

Hi b9117w,

Yes, those green dots are indeed an indication of radiation being present.

Does the Radiation data view itself show any contamination in the area where they're visible? It might be possible this is caused by properties which a custom lot has, and then it produces the green dots without there being an actual radiation source. It does seem likely how it's caused by the Goober park since you say they appeared after plopping it, which may well emit radiation given it caused local desirability to diminish. Should bulldozing it make the area return to normal, that will prove the culprit.

Thank you, @Cyclone Boom, I will bulldoze it and see if the dots go away. And no, no radiation appears in my map, maybe because I paused the game too quick after the dots showed up, since I already had that experience but didn't know what it was. Too bad if this is that Goober park's fault, it's a nice one 

[Cyclone Boom 17,031]

41 minutes ago, b9117w said:

Too bad if this is that Goober park's fault, it's a nice one 

Good news.

I've tracked down the Goober Water file and confirmed the issue. What the lot has is a negative radiation effect over a 30 tile radius. Even though there was no actual radiation produced from this, the game shows the green dots because the magnitude of the effect trigger that regardless.

I didn't download the dependencies to preview it in game, but here were the properties seen in the LEProp tool:

As selected we can see how it had -2 as the radiation strength, and so it reduced by this over the 30 tiles.

What I've done is edit this to zero so it no longer happens. For the sake of continuity, I also updated the menu description text also. See the STEX file entry to download the updated file, and this is another case where fixing an item in good faith is useful to the community, since the author wouldn't have intended this to happen.

Before plopping the new one and saving the tile, just make sure to bulldoze the existing lot firstly.

[SIM-ple Jack 17,450]

I irradiated a city with a power plant explosion, about 20 regions ago, and I still get these, even before plopping anything. Case in point-

Nothing in this tile yet except RHW, simple grass lots and MMP's. Would like to get rid of them, but I've learned to live with them.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

9 hours ago, Cyclone Boom said:

What I've done is edit this to zero so it no longer happens.

But if one has a minor radiation source (such as the med research lab), then having such a park could be useful. Can anyone think of a way to prevent negative rad level from displaying rad spots?

I'm sure glad that negative trash, air pollution and water pollution don't produce their visual effects; my cities would become unplayable 

[Busta -CASE- 140]

1 hour ago, SIM-ple Jack said:

I irradiated a city with a power plant explosion, about 20 regions ago, and I still get these, even before plopping anything. Case in point-

Nothing in this tile yet except RHW, simple grass lots and MMP's. Would like to get rid of them, but I've learned to live with them.

Wow, you have your own exclusion zone 

9 hours ago, Cyclone Boom said:

Good news.

I've tracked down the Goober Water file and confirmed the issue. What the lot has is a negative radiation effect over a 30 tile radius. Even though there was no actual radiation produced from this, the game shows the green dots because the magnitude of the effect trigger that regardless.

I didn't download the dependencies to preview it in game, but here were the properties seen in the LEProp tool:

As selected we can see how it had -2 as the radiation strength, and so it reduced by this over the 30 tiles.

What I've done is edit this to zero so it no longer happens. For the sake of continuity, I also updated the menu description text also. See the STEX file entry to download the updated file, and this is another case where fixing an item in good faith is useful to the community, since the author wouldn't have intended this to happen.

Before plopping the new one and saving the tile, just make sure to bulldoze the existing lot firstly.

Roger that, @Cyclone Boom, it's great to know that this beautiful lot has been saved so everyone can enjoy it   thanks again for your wonderful assistance 

[Busta -CASE- 140]

5 minutes ago, jeffryfisher said:

But if one has a minor radiation source (such as the med research lab), then having such a park could be useful. Can anyone think of a way to prevent negative rad level from displaying rad spots?

I'm sure glad that negative trash, air pollution and water pollution don't produce their visual effects; my cities would become unplayable 

I think it really could be useful, but I, personally, can't stand those green dots, just like I can't stand abandonment or no jobs signs, but that's me, others can live with them so someone should give it a try with that -2. 

[SIM-ple Jack 17,450]

22 minutes ago, b9117w said:

just like I can't stand abandonment or no jobs signs

There's one for power and water zots too.

[Cyclone Boom 17,031]

5 hours ago, jeffryfisher said:

But if one has a minor radiation source (such as the med research lab), then having such a park could be useful.

That would certainly be an option. Although personally if wishing to neutralise the effects of radiation, I'd rather mod the source to no longer emit.

I see you reacted Confused  to my post, and so I'll just try to clarify that the reason for fixing it was to help @b9117w who didn't want the green dots. Also I suspect since the park wasn't specifically labelled as a "radiation remover" type lot (unlike this one), others might be wondering why this happened for them too.

 

5 hours ago, jeffryfisher said:

Can anyone think of a way to prevent negative rad level from displaying rad spots?

Yes, I believe it would be possible to nullify the green dots via Effect Dir editing, which is an area of modding Cori and I have been exploring.

The tricky thing is how to allow the effect for positive radiation only, and then have it ignored for the negative level. I'm confident the dots could be suppressed by copying in a specially crafted mod file into Plugins to prevent it entirely, but there might also be a way to set it depending on the magnitude threshold. Maybe even ways to control the vividness of the effect with how bright they appear, based on how much radiation there is.

 

5 hours ago, b9117w said:

I can't stand abandonment or no jobs signs, but that's me ...

In addition to what @SIM-ple Jack posted above, you might be interested in this little mod Cori made.

This prevents any of the zots from appearing at all.

[CorinaMarie 29,894]

About hiding the zots: The mods which do that can be great for getting pretty pictures, but they can seriously inhibit the ability to diagnose troubles which might arise while growing a city. Just be aware that hiding the zots removes a significant portion of the feedback from the simulation.

Ofc, as long as peeps understand what they are getting into they are fine to use.

[Busta -CASE- 140]

1 hour ago, Cyclone Boom said:

In addition to what @SIM-ple Jack posted above, you might be interested in this little mod Cori made.

This prevents any of the zots from appearing at all.

 

29 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

About hiding the zots: The mods which do that can be great for getting pretty pictures, but they can seriously inhibit the ability to diagnose troubles which might arise while growing a city. Just be aware that hiding the zots removes a significant portion of the feedback from the simulation.

Ofc, as long as peeps understand what they are getting into they are fine to use.

Yes, I tried the mod to remove the zots but I still got the abandonment haha got really blind. So the best I could do was to give them more jobs to pick with the plopables, and indeed, the pics are pretty  thanks @SIM-ple Jack @CorinaMarie @Cyclone Boom for your recommendations 

[SIM-ple Jack 17,450]

1 hour ago, b9117w said:

 

Yes, I tried the mod to remove the zots but I still got the abandonment haha got really blind. So the best I could do was to give them more jobs to pick with the plopables, and indeed, the pics are pretty  thanks @SIM-ple Jack @CorinaMarie @Cyclone Boom for your recommendations 

The mod I mentioned also provides in-home jobs at various levels. Cori's masks the zots but does not solve the problems of not enough jobs/transportation to work.  It does work, I use it all the time. It's like being in a pandemic. I still can't find the No Zots mod for power/water/trash yet. I'm sure it's being hidden by a clever name, but those mods work completely without power lines, plumbing, etc.

[dmn 134]

On 11/21/2020 at 12:57 PM, b9117w said:

Wow, you have your own exclusion zone 

Roger that, @Cyclone Boom, it's great to know that this beautiful lot has been saved so everyone can enjoy it   thanks again for your wonderful assistance 

 

On 11/21/2020 at 1:44 AM, b9117w said:

Hello, fellow SC4 players, I need to know what these green little twinkling dots are. I'm not sure, I thought they were radiation or something malign cause in one occasion, after poppling a park lot, these dots appeared and my stats plummeted and everything nearby became dilapidated. In this case, just before taking this snap, I plopped that Goober park, and the dots appeared (sorry, I tried several snaps, this one was the best, you could barely see them marked by the reds). Please, can someone tell me what they are, I saved after plopping, just in case. Thanks in advance.

I wish In had known this before I blew up my entire city. Frustrating.

[SIM-ple Jack 17,450]

4 hours ago, dmn said:

 

I wish In had known this before I blew up my entire city. Frustrating.

This might not be your problem as described in this thread. Refer to the "Ask a Quick Question" a few pages back. It discusses a faulty lot in this pack

which had an excessive radiation radius. If you don't use these, it might be something modded in a similar way. Mind you, you can't retro-fix this problem in a tile that already has the speckles, but all future tiles will be clean.