CoriBoom 1st Beta - Opera House Fix for ModPacc Zero

[CorinaMarie 29,856]

Comprehensive Opera House Bug Fix (for ModPacc Zero)

 

While the name of the first person to discover the game breaking bug with the Opera House reward has been lost in the sands of time, we do know @toroca created the Opera House Fix mod back in March of 2004. However, that mod alone is insufficient if your city tile's population passes (roughly) the one million mark and, ofc, not using their mod means the trouble can start around 50k population. There are caveats to when the problem occurs (or re-occurs) based on the age demographics, but just know if you are going to create very densely populated cities and use the Opera House, you will need an enhanced version.

That's where we come in. (CB and me.)

We have strong feelings about what a truly good fix should encompass. It must not require one to bulldoze every single occurrence of the building in every single city tile in every single region where it's been plopped. That's super tedious and it's way too easy to forget one. The penalty for failing this onerous pre-mod-install bulldozing is the Phantom Slider Bug.

Our ModPacc Zero Opera House Fix does not require any bulldozing.

Now because the method we're using to create the new mod was unknown in ye olden dayes, there has to be two versions to cover everyone. The one with "Override Vanilla" in its name is for anyone who has ever plopped an Opera House without using Toroca's mod or who are building their plugins from the ground up to play new regions. Ofc, knowing a multitude of peeps have been using Toroca's mod for ages, we've made one that can be used in that case as well. Hence the need for two versions.

So, let's get started with determining which version of the Opera Houses you might have already in place in your cities. You can search for OperaHouse.dat within your plugins, but this won't help if you have renamed the file or DatPacked your plugins. The other method is to simply ask the building.

A vanilla Opera House will look like this for the hover over and query:

 

Whereas the Toroca version will look like this:

^ Note how the names are identical. This is because Toroca's version keeps the Opera House name the same.

Once you know which you have, you then install our enhanced ModPacc Zero Opera House Fix. If you need the Toroca version then, ideally, remove OperaHouse.dat from your plugins. If that's not possible, no worries. Just be sure the MZ version loads after the one you have either buried in plugins, renamed to something else, or DatPacked.

Now you can load a city which has an Opera House and continue playing with the assurance that if there are more patrons than it can handle, there will be a strike to let you know.

^ We can only use the generic school warning so we'll prolly update the message accordingly at a later time.

 

Let's look at the MZ version now.

Assuming you already have an Opera House plopped, it will appear grayed out in the Education Menu. I placed it there since it gives an EQ boost and that just makes way more sense to me than in the Parks menu. Also, I don't display it in the Rewards Menu since that's adding clutter we don't need. We have retained the same increase from 1,200 patrons to 25,000 patrons as Toroca's original mod.

Here's how it looks in the menu when there is already an Opera House placed:

 

Then because 25,000 will only handle up to about a million Sims, we've taken @BartonThinks's idea to have a pressure relief auxiliary building, but instead of changing to the different stats of a museum, CB lotted one and set it as the same class as the Opera House. It uses only Maxis content so there are no dependencies.

The new Maxis Cultural Theater is in the Education Menu below the Opera House:

^ Note: It shows available because this mod checks for an Opera House whether that's Vanilla, Toroca's, or our new MZ versions.

 

Now, there's no way we can determine whether an existing Opera House is Vanilla or Toroca's so this part is based on each person installing the correct MZ mod. With our mod installed, the Vanilla Opera House will disappear from menus and it'll now look like this in the game:

 

And Toroca's will look like this:

 

It's not necessary to bulldoze the old one unless it's being overwhelmed and goes on strike. At this point you can bulldoze it and immediately plop the new one. The MZ version will be the only one in the Education menu. Or, you can plop as many Maxis Cultural Theaters as you like and handle the overage that way.

Edit: To clarify, if a Vanilla Opera House is overwhelmed and goes on strike you can either bulldoze it and plop the new MZ version or plop the Maxis Cultural Theater(s) and adjust their sliders to handle the overflow. If it's a Tororca's that goes on strike you can adjust its slider. Only if there isn't enough capacity (like in a city with a million or more Sims) would you need to use the auxiliary Theater. Ofc, for either Opera House you can safely bulldoze the Vanilla one or Toroca's and then plop the MZ version. (Just be sure you have the correct MZ file in your plugins.)

 

If you've never plopped an Opera House, when the criteria is met, it'll appear in the menu like this:

 

The Maxis Cultural Theater will not be available until you've plopped the Opera House (and run a wee bit of time).

 

This is the ModPacc Zero version. Notice it also shows the Apples Grade on the hover over.

 

After plopping the Opera House and running some time, the advisor will inform you of the auxiliary building:

 

You can accept right then or decline and wait till later to plop it. Once you do plop the Maxis Cultural Theater, it'll look like this:

 

Additionally, the Opera House (and any Maxis Cultural Theaters) will show up in the Master Education Budget.

Here we're showing one plop using Toroca's mod, but with MZ overriding:

 

Ofc, we are looking for peeps to put this thru its paces and give us feedback on how it works. As a beta version be sure you have a complete backup of any cities prior to testing, and it's best to not save them for later play after plopping just in case we need to make any updates.

The most important part is to use the correct version. If you have plopped any with Toroca's mod installed then use the one for that. Otherwise, use the Vanilla Override one.

The Files:

ModPacc Zero - Opera House Fixes - Override Vanilla (Beta v1).dat

ModPacc Zero - Opera House Fixes - Override Toroca's (Beta v1).dat

-Cori & CB

[RobertLM78 1,598]

Cool....!  I'll try to check this out ASAP

[memo 1,469]

There is a small change I would like to propose. I believe we can change the implementation such that distinguishing between the "Vanilla Override" and the "Toroca Override" is not necessary.

The file attached to this post is compatible with both the Vanilla and the Toroca opera house.

If you have built Toroca's opera house, keep Toroca's original mod in your plugins folder, along with this new file. Loading order does not matter. It is safe to bulldoze Toroca's opera house with this file installed.

(If you remove Toroca's mod from your plugins without bulldozing all Toroca opera houses before, you will trigger the Phantom Slider Bug, so just keep it in your plugins. It is not necessary to bulldoze anything. Though, based on my testing, in case of the opera house, the Phantom Slider Bug seems to be fixable by rebuilding the opera house.)

So what have I changed?

Toroca's original mod modifies the original Building Exemplar. The MZ version of the opera house fix instead includes copies of the Building Exemplar and Lot Exemplar with new IIDs and modifies the original Building Exemplar in order to remove it from the menus.

I have deleted the original Building Exemplar and instead included the original Lot Exemplar – with all properties deleted, so that the Lot no longer appears in the menus. This avoids any conflict with Toroca's original mod.

There is a chance of a minor visual glitch: If you build a Lot on flat terrain without foundations and then remove the Lot Exemplar, then foundations will not appear anymore when you alter the surrounding terrain. This is easily fixed by rebuilding the opera house.
Does anyone know whether removing a ploppable Lot Exemplar from your plugins has any other negative consequences?

modpacc-zero-opera-house-fixes-beta-v1.1-compatible-with-both.zip