CoriBoom 3rd Beta - Crime and Police Station Fixes for ModPacc Zero

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

Presenting the first completely revised Crime and Police Station Fixes for our upcoming ModPacc Zero.

As discovered by @RippleJet and @rsc204, the existing Crime Doesn't Pay mod by @RalphaelNinja solves only part of the crime problem.

For the complete fix we need both the updates to the Crime Simulator and adjustments to the Police Station, Dispatch Radius (and to a couple of other police station properties) in order to control crime in larger lots.

This new mod includes the exact same revisions of RalphaelNinja's mod (which they specifically state in the ReadMe is not copyrighted, as is true for any exemplar data modifications) along with tweaks to each of the 4 police stations. As explained by Robin, if we simply replace (overwrite) the vanilla stations that will then cause the Phantom Slider bug unless every single station is bulldozed in every single city tile in every singe region one has previously developed.

Until now that is the price we've had to pay to truly solve the crime issue. I've created a new method so we can have the best of both.

For each of the originals (Police Kiosk, Small Police Station, Large Police Station, and the Deluxe Police Station), I've removed the OccupantsGroup 0x00001500 so they will no longer appear in the Police Menu. Then I've given each a new User Visible Name Key with revised LText that adds the word "Vanilla" to their name. This allows bulldozing any of the old stations at our leisure rather than all before adding the new mod. The hover queries of the "Vanilla" police stations appear in a gray color.

Then all 4 are recreated with a new IID and those are the ones which show up in the menu.

Now we have the ability to bulldoze old stations whenever we come across them (or even leave them in any city tile) while also being able to plop the fixed versions. There is no conflict and no Phantom Sliders this way. This allows us to update and/or bulldoze any of them whenever we want all while solving the crime problem by plopping the new versions.

I've also included new Lua code so that every reward instance for the Deluxe Police Station will utilize the fixed version along with the fluff news and MySim comment recognizes the new one too. Additionally, all Missions that can be triggered when the Deluxe Station is part of the criteria, and all Missions who's reward is the Deluxe Station all work with the fixed one.

Any existing stations will show the hover over and names as follows:

And the new versions use the standard name we are all accustomed to seeing:

These Crime and Police Station Fixes are also fully compatible with our FUN mod (that will be another core component of ModPacc Zero which @Cyclone Boom and I are working on).

Ofc, beta testing of this mod is needed before we release it in ModPacc Zero. While I'm certain all will be fine, do back up any city tiles where you test prior to doing so.

Important caveat:

One likely problem will be for anyone who has already overwritten the original vanilla stations, but that'll likely be for peeps who won't need this specific component of ModPacc Zero anyhow. Do be careful if that is the case for you. Otherwise, the new mod solves both the Crime Problem and removes the need to bulldoze all vanilla plops prior to installing the mod.

Do keep in mind the concept of ModPacc Zero is for peeps starting out fresh or who have played, but have not yet installed any custom content.

Attachment:
ModPacc Zero - Crime and Police Station Fixes (Beta v1.0).dat

See new updated beta (and better) releases in our posts below...

• Beta v1.2
  Adds new summary police info, along with further fine-tuning to the game's crime simulation.
   
• Beta v1.3
  Dynamic numeric formats for compatibility between other languages, and misc panel improvements.

 

[Propfam 2,295]

Small step but still a progress.  Keep up!

[Whte_rbt 1,431]

I'm in for testing. Just restarted my plugin folder anyway. As my plugins folder is somewhat 'light' (NAM + Fixes & immortality killer),  I take it I can just swap the original crime doesn't pay mod for this one?

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

Playing completely vanilla (with the exception of this mod and Raise the UI), I've played the Rush Hour Tutorial in Timbuktu, built up a population of 50k, and with enough police coverage, all crimes committed result in arrests. This includes inside larger lots.

( Yes it's a really ugly city. My hazard planning is extremely hap. )

[Whte_rbt 1,431]

I took a slightly different approach, played up to 100K and allowed a few of the large lots to get really bad before dropping a police station next to it. Low and behold, the crime level nosedives within 6 months. It appears all the mods and changes you made to vanilla stations and their replacements had no noticable effect. Nice one.

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

Thanks for testing.

 

3 minutes ago, Whte_rbt said:

It appears all the mods and changes you made to vanilla stations and their replacements had no noticable effect.

To clarify, are you saying there was no adverse affect on vanilla stations whilst the revised ones did the job as expected?

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

Crime and Police Station Fixes - Beta v1.2  (for  ModPacc Zero )
With New Data Summary Panel

Update Info

After extensive testing of the v1.0 beta (and a non-released v1.1) we've made the following changes:

• Remove the Police Strikes so any funding level can be used
• Increased the maximum radius because one can now lower funding to cover however much area makes sense
• Prevent the constant Jailbreaks (when using a Jail, ofc)
• Added a Citywide Data Summery Panel to the Police Station Query UI

Note: If you've gotten here directly, it's a good idea to read our main v1.0 post which covers the core mechanics of our fixes package.

 

Here's the new Query UI. The first is showing 38% funding and the second shows 74%:

   

^ There's about 8 years running time between the 1st and 2nd pics.

 

Since the Police Stations will no longer go on strike it gives them way more flexibility.

For example, I can start with a small town, set the funding way low, and have coverage for just what I need:

 

Then in the future when the town grows I can set it to 100% funding and cover much more area:

 

Testing Requested

It would be beneficial if y'all would put this mod thru its paces and give us some feedback.

 

Attachment:
ModPacc Zero - Crime and Police Station Fixes (Beta v1.2).dat

See new updated beta (and better) release in our post...

• Beta v1.3
  Dynamic numeric formats for compatibility between other languages, and misc panel improvements.

 

Thanks!

-Cori & CB

  Edited October 18, 2021 by Cyclone Boom  
Update for our v1.3 release.

[rsc204 21,857]

Just a thought, but do your replacements work with the keyboard shortcuts to build police stations? I would have thought having new IDs that would no longer work. More of a something you should mention rather than a big deal, I mean who’s actually using them for such? As a prolific user of shortcuts, that never extended to such plops for me.

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

7 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Just a thought, but do your replacements work with the keyboard shortcuts to build police stations?

That never even occurred to us to check as we don't use the keyboard shortcuts.

The answer atm is: No, these do not. The shortcuts pull up the Maxis versions.

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

I've researched this and yes, I can make the shortcut keys put the new MZ versions on the cursor.

However, it must be a direct replacement of the corresponding Maxis KEYCFG file entry. Creating a separate IID for it doesn't work. This will mean when we change the shortcut codes for the various MZ mods, it'll be all or nothing so it'd be a dependency for the full MZ package, but an optional one.

[AtkinsSJ_ 7]

On 24/09/2021 at 6:21 AM, CorinaMarie said:

Here's the new Query UI. The first is showing 38% funding and the second shows 74%:

   

This is looking really good! Being able to control funding more carefully will be very handy. I did notice a typo in the above screenshots though: "Effiecncy Change vs Prior Year"

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

2 hours ago, AtkinsSJ_ said:

I did notice a typo

Thanks! I've edited the correction into the current v1.21 (which has a couple other minor tweaks too).

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

Crime and Police Station Fixes - Beta v1.3  (for  ModPacc Zero )
With New Proper Number Formatting For All Supported Languages
And other enhancements!

Update Info

Based on observations from our friendly ST members we've made the following changes:

• Fixed the tpyo of "efficiency" as noticed by @AtkinsSJ_.
• Fixed the goofy numbers when using other languages as noticed by @TheMurderousCricket with regard to the City Halls panel.
• CB updated the panel with a nice separator bar and added the MZ logo and version number.

Note: If you've gotten here directly, it's a good idea to read our main v1.0 post which covers the core mechanics of our fixes package.

 

Sample Data Panels

When starting the game, the data panel will now dynamically update between three formats which covers all possibilities of numeric display.

( Note: The lower portion of the panel contains our additions and they are in English only tho translations can be made by anyone interested.) The next three pics are in the same city tile and I made it a high crime area such that the Crimes per Capita has enough digits so the various numeric formats can be seen in full. ( That's why there's only one measly Police Kiosk. )

Here are the sample data panels in the three formats:
(Left refers to the position of the minus sign, which is the same on all.)
 

Format CDL   (Comma Decimal Left)

• 0x01 US English
• 0x0E Japanese
• 0x0F Korean
• 0x11 Chinese (Simplified)
• 0x12 Chinese (Traditional)
• 0x13 UK English
• 0x15 Thai

This one uses a Comma for the group separator and a Dot for the decimal point:

 

---

Format DCL   (Dot Comma Left)

• 0x02 French
• 0x03 German
• 0x04 Italian
• 0x05 Spanish
• 0x06 Swedish
• 0x08 Dutch
• 0x09 Danish
• 0x0A Portuguese

This one uses a Dot for the group separator and a Comma for the decimal point:

 

---

Format SCL   (Space Comma Left)

• 0x07 Finnish
• 0x14 Polish
• 0x16 Norwegian

And last, but not least, this one uses Space for the group separator and a Comma for the decimal point:

 

Better Crime Control

As before (starting in beta version 1.2), the crime control is significantly superior.

^ Ofc, this is prolly a tiny population compared to what some peeps create, but it is the largest I've ever grown.

 

Testing Requested

It would be beneficial if y'all would put this mod thru its paces and give us some feedback.

Remember, as mentioned in the first post, if you have custom content which overrides the Maxis Police Stations, you won't want or need to use this mod. They will not be compatible with each other.

For a fresh plugins or one where you do not have any overrides for the Maxis Police Stations, this will allow you use this MZ version without any need to bulldoze the old stations before plopping the new ones. And the old vanilla ones can be bulldozed at your leisure.

Just make sure to remove our previous v1.2 file from your Plugins. (And if you haven't tested our prior versions be sure to also read the initial post and after as they explain all the parts which have not changed, but are also in this new v1.3.)

 

The Download File:
MZ Crime and Police Station Fixes (Beta v1.3).dat

 

Thanks!

-Cori & CB

[Zeratai 84]

I have some questions regarding mod compatibility. I use 

 and this 

 

For what I understand, I can use Maxis renewal mod with no problems, but I'm not sure if any radius mod would work with this and with your FUN mod.

I also don't understand if all of my civic buildings would need to be bulldoze prior installing both your mods

 

[rsc204 21,857]

The short answer is that any Police Station modifications from either mod are not compatible with this one.

Any mod which also alters the same buildings as this one will not be cross-compatible. Frankly that's a non-issue, because it doesn't make sense to have two differently modded sets of say Police Stations. You need to decide which mod offers the functionality/changes you prefer to use. The way SC4 works is that modifications can't be combined from multiple sources, rather the last version of such loaded will be the set of Properties used by the game.

So if a mod is altering the Buildings Exemplar (Properties), you can't combine changes from multiple mods for the same building. However, if a mod is only altering the LotConfigurations Exemplar (Lot File) and doesn't alter the Properties, you can use such an override in conjunction with updated Properties from another download. However, since the Police Stations in this thread use unique IDs, you won't be able to use lots from the Maxis Renewal, unless you re-ID their LotConfigurations files to those IDs used by this mod.

Ultimately if you don't use a unique ID, many Properties a modder might change will require users to remove all pre-existing versions of the lots they are seeking to update with new Properties. Otherwise you can end up with a bunch of mismatched properties between the mod and the save file, this is really best avoided as it's tricky to fix things once these errors start. That's why these Police Stations were given new, unique IDs, with a mechanism to keep the existing files so users wouldn't have to worry about rebuilding everything.

[Turnstyled 539]

Thank you for this explanation, @rsc204. Now that I'm getting back into SimCity 4, I've been keeping in mind the explanation that you and Cori gave me a while back that "there are no cascading mod effects" and that "what is loaded last is what is used by the game."  At the time, I was obsessing over getting a perfect game-changing mod configuration and it wasn't something that I was going to be able to keep up for long. I will be removing More Realistic Radius from my configuration because I would prefer to use Crime and Police Station Fixes.

[trar 336]

Apologies for the bump, but I had been using Maxis Renewal too and I was wondering if anyone would re-ID the LotConfigurations files of its police stations to the IDs used by this mod, as rsc204 said it was possible. This is a great fix mod that I'm definitely going to use from now on, but I also love Maxis Renewal because it brings most of the game's vanilla lots to the custom mod standard of today.

Maybe it's easy to do in PIM-X, but I'm not sure as I've never actually used it before.

[rsc204 21,857]

It's a bit trickier since you must change the IDs of the LotConfig Exemplars, but also the ID of the Building(s Exemplar) which it links too.

MaxisPolice_Relot_MZ.dat

This file MUST load after the MZ Crime and Police Station Fixes or you'll see the original lots. Otherwise they will replace those from that package with the Maxis Renewal lots, but this file will not affect the vanilla police stations appearance.

[trar 336]

7 hours ago, rsc204 said:

It's a bit trickier since you must change the IDs of the LotConfig Exemplars, but also the ID of the Building(s Exemplar) which it links too.

MaxisPolice_Relot_MZ.dat

This file MUST load after the MZ Crime and Police Station Fixes or you'll see the original lots. Otherwise they will replace those from that package with the Maxis Renewal lots, but this file will not affect the vanilla police stations appearance.

Oh awesome, thank you.

[Simizen 1,100]

sorry for bumping a semi-old topic, but was wondering about a couple things:

- curious about the status of the mod in general (like what the latest version of it is and such)

- and wondering if this police station fix logic can also be applied to all other Maxis default lots?

all the information's been scattered around the site and the discords, so, hard to track what's going on with some of these ideas now

note: I'm not trying to rush the project or anything, just trying to make sure I know what the latest version is and such

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

10 minutes ago, Simizen said:

- curious about the status of the mod in general (like what the latest version of it is and such)

The latest version will be the one above attached to this post. There are some language translations, but I don't recall if they are included or not. I'm almost certain we never did get them all. CB did give permission for CAM to use our mod so it'll prolly be there too and they may have tweaked it. Can't say for sure tho.

 

11 minutes ago, Simizen said:

- and wondering if this police station fix logic can also be applied to all other Maxis default lots?

The concept is perfect for all other Maxis lots. I believe CAM started using my concept to also prevent the phantom slider bugs, but I don't recall if they linked to any of my work nor if they reworked the Lua to point to the replacement buildings or not.

 

15 minutes ago, Simizen said:

hard to track what's going on with some of these ideas now

There is some info in this post CB made. (This is the same thread you might find an updated version.)

 

16 minutes ago, Simizen said:

note: I'm not trying to rush the project or anything,

No worries. It simply stagnated when needing all the language translations. I tend to be quite driven if there are concepts to figure out, but once it's down to the grunt work, I lose interest. (Then RL stuff happened and I went missing for a couple of years and now I rarely get enough time in any one stretch to concentrate on a big project.)

[Simizen 1,100]

ah, thank you!!

Given how DLL mods and such are going, I'm actually wondering if maybe it's possible to set this up to run with an `ini` file, where players can turn on/off the optional features. Like, I'm seeing that the link to CB's post shows a line for "deactivating the doorbell ring", and while I don't mind hearing the doorbell, and others would rather it be turned off, it makes me wonder if there would be a way to turn it on/off. Would be neat I think.

but, idk how you and @Cyclone Boom are with DLL modding or anything similar to get that part done.

But, been working on some notes and such for a list of mods, which was why I was wondering about this mod, cause i'd love to direct people to it at some point, but wanted to make sure I at least had the most up to date version of it

And as soon as I can remember the other questions I wanted to ask, I'll post them,

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

2 minutes ago, Simizen said:

i'd love to direct people to it at some point, but wanted to make sure I at least had the most up to date version of it

Other than language support, I believe it's as done as it'll ever get. We put it out as beta to get testing feedback and that was minimal so we just have to assume all we created is correct.

One of the best features, IMO, is the variable funding levels allowed without causing a strike.

[Null 45 3,086]

2 hours ago, Simizen said:

Given how DLL mods and such are going, I'm actually wondering if maybe it's possible to set this up to run with an `ini` file, where players can turn on/off the optional features.

Other than the handful of DBPF ini entries that Maxis used in the base game, ini files are exclusive to DLL plugins.

2 hours ago, Simizen said:

Like, I'm seeing that the link to CB's post shows a line for "deactivating the doorbell ring", and while I don't mind hearing the doorbell, and others would rather it be turned off, it makes me wonder if there would be a way to turn it on/off. Would be neat I think.

My Query Tool UI Extensions DLL already includes this as an option in its ini file, when enabled it turns off all query dialog sounds.

[Simizen 1,100]

5 minutes ago, Null 45 said:

ini files are exclusive to DLL plugins.

ah, okay, wasn't sure if they were DLL only. I was thinking they could work with other types, but I might be confusing it with something else. Thank you for the clarification!

6 minutes ago, Null 45 said:

My Query Tool UI Extensions DLL already includes this as an option in its ini file, when enabled it turns off all query dialog sounds.

oh, neat! I think I have the mod, but I haven't installed it yet, so, I'll definitely have to check that out sometime then