Negative Radiation Trees (and what happens when you delete one)

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

Trying to be clever while editing some fruit trees a few months ago, I set each one to emit  -1 radiation. That way (I thought), I could plant some around any advanced disease research center to negate its radiation. These trees (lemons etc) also sometimes grow naturally as farm fields.

Well as luck would have it, one of my residential areas expanded into some farms, so I bulldozed and dezoned some orchards to make way for a new subdivision. What happened next took me by surprise: My city suddenly acquired 500 radiation, and the new residential lots are in a 12x12 area of crimson-appeal where even R$ refuse to live. I don't understand why the trees would spill radiation when cut down, but I guess that's the way the game works.

Now I need some way to clean up the mess without creating yet another thing I can never delete. So rather than another lot, I'm wondering if we can design an ordinance that would clean up some amount of radiation in its city until it's gone, and then I can repeal the ordinance after the radiation is gone. Is that possible?

Is there any other way to mop up radiation without leaving behind another time-bomb?

[11241036 5,115]

The reason why you are suddenly having radiation all over your city is one of the many SC4 quirks: The game doesn't save stats of any object, be it props or lots, along with the lot, it just saves that at a specific location, pollution, for instance, is raised/reduced by a certain value. But it can't go below zero with pollution, so the effect of your trees falls flat. Now, when removing a tree like this, the game doesn't second-guess what happened when plopping them, it just adds +1 radiation back. Which will leave you with a lot of radiation.

Thus, as a general rule, never go overboard with effects such as removing pollution or raising Mayor rating. This can backfire in an epic way when removing a lot giving such benefits.

There are two ways to fix this:

1. Plop back your trees until all radiation vanishes. Save and exit.
2. Modify these trees to not modify radiation at all. Do not change the IID!
3. Go back into your city and remove all of these trees. Since the trees now have 0 radiation, the game will now remove 0 radiation. After this, save again.

Also, as for radiation, this mod allows you to remove it via cheat:

There's a version of the advanced research center without radiation available on the STEX. But, for the same reason I pointed out, remove the old one before installing this mod, then place the modified one.

 

[TheMurderousCricket 5,117]

I think the ordinance could work but you will have to exchange the radiation cleanup bill for another, already existing ordinance.

We had an ordinance-related discussion when the trash management was on the agenda. Back then, Cori said that the number of ordinances is fixed... So you need to replace one for another. You can't have more of them than the default number.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

Aha... I was willing to pay for my cleanup, but since I view this spill as a bug* rather than a feature, I'll use the cheat to remove it.

If someone kindly replaces the anti-nuke ordinance with a radiation clean-up ordinance in the future, then I'll pay for that as needed.

*I call it a bug because it seems illogical to me. The tree (or any other lot) that cleans at some rate should delete without spilling. I mean, if I delete a water treatment plant, does it make sense to dump water pollution all around its former location? No, it should reduce water pollution toward zero while it's there and I am paying to operate it, and then it should delete gracefully. Parks are different; their appeal doesn't pile up over time to some limit. They simply exist until they don't, so their aura needs to be removed when they're removed. Thank goodness we have "cheats" to correct for "features" we don't like 

[rsc204 21,868]

You are making the incorrect assumption that removing the trees is the cause of the Radiation. What is actually going on is that their presence was suppressing it. Once removed, that no longer happens, so logically the radiation is no longer suppressed and returns. How is that a bug?

[Propfam 2,311]

17 hours ago, jeffryfisher said:

*I call it a bug because it seems illogical to me. The tree (or any other lot) that cleans at some rate should delete without spilling. I mean, if I delete a water treatment plant, does it make sense to dump water pollution all around its former location? No, it should reduce water pollution toward zero while it's there and I am paying to operate it, and then it should delete gracefully. Parks are different; their appeal doesn't pile up over time to some limit. They simply exist until they don't, so their aura needs to be removed when they're removed. Thank goodness we have "cheats" to correct for "features" we don't like 

Reminds me of SC13. There is a pollution scrubber in the game. But, when you bulldoze the instances of it, the game warns you that the pollution will be pumped out onto the ground again. If yes, you're just pumping out the pollution onto the ground.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

23 hours ago, rsc204 said:

You are making the incorrect assumption that removing the trees is the cause of the Radiation. What is actually going on is that their presence was suppressing it. Once removed, that no longer happens, so logically the radiation is no longer suppressed and returns. How is that a bug?

It's a bug because there's no source of radiation to be suppressed. This is a city (small town ~16000 pop) where the farm field grew randomly along a quiet, clean edge. When I bulldozed (dezoned) a few Ag cells to make room for encroaching residential (low-density) development, 25 radiation per cell spontaneously appeared out of nothing.

I do have exactly one Disease Research Center in one city (100k+ pop) in my region, but that city is not involved in my recent troubles. My problem involved only farms, low-density res, and roads.

[rsc204 21,868]

1 hour ago, jeffryfisher said:

It's a bug because there's no source of radiation to be suppressed.

Fair enough. I had made the mistake of thinking this occurred when such a building did exist.