MGB's "Lil Bits"

[rsc204 21,808]

If you've found this thread, it's the new home for all of my Little Bits, which is another way of saying those small mods and patches that don't really have a specific home otherwise.

Notes: 

• This thread is intentionally locked, this is not intended as a place for discussion.
  In case of problems or feedback, please use my Development Thread here. This is to ensure that this thread remains clean and functional, keeping it as easy as possible to find everything.
• All uploads here will be in 7z (7 Zip) format, which is basically like a .zip (compressed) file, but more efficient. 7Zip is open source, free of charge and can be downloaded from here. Other extraction utilities can open these files, including the in-built tool on MacOS. But under Windows, 7z is literally the only such tool you will ever need, I recommend it highly.

I will be updating this thread in the coming days, weeks, months, years, decades (well I know what I'm like), to collate everything I've previously uploaded into one place, please bear with me, thanks .

[rsc204 21,808]

So to kick things off, I've a couple of useful lots that Spawn water automata for those who aren't using the Maxis Seaport, Cruise Ship Terminal or Marina, but still would like to see the ships sailing about their oceans.

• DeepWaterSpawn
  This lot spawns both the Large Cargo ship, otherwise spawned by the Seaport and Cruise Ships, spawned by it's terminal. Note that this needs to be placed in water deep enough for the ships to traverse, or after spawning they will quickly disappear. Also, I can't control through a lot how they move, including the ridiculous '180' turn about they make 'leaving port'. Also, it should be placed two to three tiles from where you want them to 'dock' as part of the animation sequence.
• WatercraftSpawn
  This lot spawns the same boats that the in-game Marina does, including various small watercraft. You can place this in pretty shallow water and pretty much anywhere on the map.

MGB_WatercraftSpawnLots.7z

Both lots are in the Water Transit Menu (at the tippy top), cost nothing, do nothing (except spawn ships) and are completely invisible when placed. They are designed to be placed under water, you won't be able to plop them upon land (I think). The only cost is a $1 bulldoze cost, which I added to make it easier to know where they are, should you want to delete them later:

Here I've switched to the 'Water Pollution' view, in shallow water you can see the tile reasonably easily, but if you drag the bulldozer and hold the mouse, when you see the $1 cost appear, you can be pretty sure you've 'caught' the lot in your net! Note I am using Automata overrides in the screenshot from Fanta.

[rsc204 21,808]

Someone brought up one of my old annoyances, problems with police effectiveness for larger lots. I came across the information here:

Quote

All new police stations made with the "X" Tool will have strength properties that increase, the larger the station is.
If you are playing for realism, I'd recommend to use these instead of those by Maxis.

from here: https://wiki.sc4devotion.com/index.php?title=Tutorial:Crime_Bug

Aha, I think, so if I just run the original Police Buildings Exemplars through PIM-X, we'll have a better working more effective Police Department. So I did just that and a little brief experimenting with it. Bear in mind I've been using the Crime Doesn't Pay mod almost since I started playing SC4. So these results are based on that being present too. But with just some very minor adjustments to properties, we can see very encouraging results.

Here's a quick overview of the actual changes this patch makes:

Old values in Black, new in Orange.

Here is a city before adding the PIM-X patched Police Stations, that's the Kiosk, Small and Large stations and Deluxe Precinct included with the game:

I'm sure this is familiar to many players, I've invested a lot in Police stations, but that simply isn't enough to fight crime . Note that the airport (top right) is especially a problem, although plenty of larger lots like the Seaport and some large 6x6 Industrials are also affected. Around 5 years later with these patched stations installed, things are much nicer:

The data is also borne out by the number of crimes committed and criminals apprehended:

Note the left is a 50-year graph, whereas the right is only 10. But this is a pretty stable slowly-built city without population fluctuations for a long time. After just 5 years, crime rates are lower than they've been for over 50 years. But look at the Crimes to Arrests ratio, it's much more likely our Police will now catch those criminals. This contributes to lower overall crime, since less criminals are at large due to our improved Arrest record. If only crime was this easy to tackle in real life!

Of course this is not a super-duper accurate test or anything, but it's one of those things I'm not looking to get too deep into. As such, I'm happy to leave a copy of the patched Maxis Police stations as an attachment here though for those that would like it.

MGB_Maxis Police Station Fix.7z

!!! VERY IMPORTANT NOTICE !!!
It's such a simple mod, there really shouldn't be any cause for alarm in using it. The biggest problem is since it alters the radius of the original lots, you will run into the Phantom Slider Bug, if you install the mod in cities with existing Police stations placed.

On 29/01/2013 at 1:15 AM, paeng said:

All civic buildings (anything with a slider - schools, hospitals, police, fire, power etc.) will trigger the Phantom Slider Bug if you either uninstall an existing lot or modd the capacity or monthly costs of an existing lot without demolishing all instances of it first, because in the save file the percentual setting for the slider will never match the actual funding.

To fix this, you must bulldoze all lots of that type (e.g. if it is a power plant, bulldoze all power plants)... either all that you plopped after you modded something, or if you don't remember what you plopped when, radically destroy them all (which is probably better anyway).

Then save, exit and re-enter. Let the simulation run for a few game-months before re-plopping the lots!

In this case it means following the following procedure:

• Open each city and delete all Maxis Police Stations, not forgetting to save - best done after pausing the game
• Only afterwards is it safe to install the included patch
• Now you can return to your old cities and plop the newly modified ones

Note that to uninstall this patch, you must repeat the procedure of deleting all Police Stations before removing the mod from Plugins.

I guess make sure to run any custom Police lots through PIM-X too if you have them. Just don't forget the Phantom Slider Bug issue applies for such modifications too.

I will provide overrides here for any custom Police lots I personally edit, to start with here's one for PEG's OWW2 Cop Dock:

zPEG-OWW2_CopDock_PSFix.dat

Don't forget, you must remove previous instances BEFORE you install this patch, to prevent problems.

[rsc204 21,808]

Warning: Dependency HELL incoming!!!

I needed to fill some 5x7 and 7x5 gaps and so I created these lots, which I showed off recently. Today I had the bright idea, well people seemed to like them, perhaps I'd share the lots! Well, that was stupid, no less than 18 dependencies are required to make use of the six lots, which is only really two but each can show one of three different models, originally from an NDEX download (by DuskTrooper), whoops didn't add that, make that 19 .

But, if you REALLY want them, then you can download them here:

MGB_5x7ResLots.7z

Note of those deps, 10 are basically Girafe's flora, so the equivalent of one CP MegaPack if you think about it. If like me, you love his work, you'll have these anyhow, 1 is the buildings themselves, can't do anything about that, the rest is pretty common fare so you probably have them:

• BSC MEGA Props - Gascooker Vol01
• JENXPARIS_Tweaked_PorkieProps-Vol1
• LBT Mega Prop Pack v.01
• Nams PROPS PACK Vol 2
• Was_NL_Props_Vol01
• PEG_MTP_SUPER_TEXTURES_PACK
• Vortexture 2 - Grass and Dirt v2

I've even included a Cleanitol file to help ensure you've got everything (including links for those things you don't).

Remove the file NDEX_DT_OakendellLofts_W-$$_GROW.SC4Lot from the NDEX set, if you don't want to use the original lots/items from NDEX in addition to my re-lots.

One 'dependency' is mine too (included), so we're back to 18 again . Note too, the Phonebox and Postbox shown are overrides from my setup, you'll see the normal UK props from Gascooker instead.

[rsc204 21,808]

After it was brought up here, I've been working on Mike's excellent 2 and 8 Level Modular Garages:

2-Level Garages
8-Level Garages

I particularly like Mike's work, because his EU Automata replacement is the only such mod out there that I know of, (except perhaps the Japanese equivalent by Jim). What this means in practise is that when using his other releases, the cars upon them will match with those actually driving around your cities. I really wish something like this were possible with the high quality cars by SHK, Girafe or AGC (and others). I get that making actual 3D models for SC4 is a lot more difficult than simply making BATs, especially with the restrictions on Poly Counts, but it never looks right when you see beautiful cars parked on lots, with such inferior automata driving beside them, nya! Anyway, I highly encourage everyone to check out the rest of Mike's releases, they are all great.

Anyhow, as I'm sure most people know, I'm a picky sod that wants everything a certain way, as such I've made a lot of changes to this set which I'm releasing here for others to make use of.

I prefer the approach of making only certain pieces of modular sets provide positive effects, rather than every one. Likewise you might *think* each piece is a functional Parking Lot, but in-game it just doesn't work that way, in fact Parking is rarely used by Sims just generally. With all this in mind, I've made the following tweaks to the original sets:

• I've removed the TE and Parking functions from all but the Entrance Pieces. Each entrance now provides for 5,000 or 20,000 capacity (2 / 8 level), you can of course use multiple entrances if you want more capacity from the whole facility. I've also 'improved' the TE settings to modern standards, but don't expect miracles since Sims generally don't use Car Parks without the 'Park and Ride' option from the TSCT switched on.
  Note, this really isn't for everybody and is a drastic change in how the game functions, so I'm not saying you should rush out to switch that on, I don't use it myself and the one time I tried it, I found it wasn't for me very quickly.
• In a similar vein, the Landmark effects will be limited to a small number of special pieces, as will costs/utility usage and such related things.
  So far as I can tell, this all comes from the original 'template' used to create these files, at their core they act like the Open Paved or Open Grass tiles from the Parks menu, I'm not sure how intentional this even was?
• Park effects have been completely removed.
  I asked myself, why should a car park have a positive effect on Residential demand?, who wants to live next to a concrete eyesore like that? Whereas the Landmark effect has a positive effect on Commercial, which actually makes some sense. Having a large car park nearby shops (CS), may actually help to attract more shoppers. Therefore I think this is a change that makes sense.
• Removed the demand cap increases and replaced them instead with additional demand for CS. I didn't want to extend that to CO, since I didn't feel a car park would benefit offices as directly as retail.
• Since these are car parks (and everyone's Parks menus are overflowing), I've moved the core set to the Misc. Transit Menu instead, plus re-ordered them a little.
• Fixed the one icon that wasn't matching (yeah, I'm that kinda person).
• Altered the Police Kiosk, I've renamed it 'Parking Security' too, because who's ever heard of a Police Station in a Car Park. That said, it is a useful feature to have as part of the set, so I just gave it some mild tweaks so it sits somewhere between the Maxis Kiosk and Small Police Station in terms of it's effectiveness, with a larger radius to keep it in line with the intended function around Airports.
  !!! VERY IMPORTANT !!! - As with the Police Station Fix above, you can NOT use this override, until all prior instances of the original Police Station from this pack are removed from your cities. But given the overall modifications here, that's a good idea more generally too if using this update.
• Altered the Bus Stop, mainly just modded to conform to more modern TE standards.
  Optionally, an RTMT replacement version, which alternately uses the Bus Shelter and Bus Sign Props from your RTMT setup, (v3.6 or later compatible), instead of the default prop.
• Otherwise just a bunch of little tweaks that aren't really worth getting into in detail.

So yeah, right now these are pretty comprehensively overhauled, since I can't directly re-release any of the models, all the Lot Changes are overrides for now. Since both these releases were originally condensed into a single DAT for the lots and Props, my recommendation would be to DAT Pack them into the original DAT, replacing the originals with my altered versions. To do this, ensure my files are ordered AFTER the original DAT in the folder you are Packing. Alternatively, you can just load my files after the originals and they will work just as well.

MGB_MS Multi-Level Parking Refresh.7z

If you don't want the RTMT-Styled BusStop, simply leave the file zOpt_8 Level BusStop_RTMT.dat out of your Plugins. You must keep the file MGB_ModularParkingResource.dat, it contains a new UI for most of the lots. I don't usually use custom UIs, but I hate that all these re-used the Parking Garage one, so I wanted something more suitable that didn't really exist, so I made one. However I re-used Maxis resources, so it's very lightweight, I don't go in for custom UIs and other things that add no function whatsoever generally.

[rsc204 21,808]

Another of those I need something to better fit moments...

Here is a 5x3 Water Treatment Plant, slightly less effective than the main Maxis one, but useful when you don't have the space for the full size lot.

MGB_5x3_SmallWaterPurificationPlant.7z

No deps, just add the lot and you'll have an additional option in the Water Menu. Honestly, PIM-X did the stats and there is no data that clearly tells me exactly what volume this removes of water pollution. Two properties handle that and for the sake of comparisons, here's how that looks:

	Pollution Radii	Pollution at outer edge of Circle
Small Water Treatment	48	0xFFFFFF60 (-160)
Regular Water Treatment	62	0xFFFFFF2E (-210)

If you can make sense of that, well you are smarter than I. But it works, it's less expensive and less effective than the original, but still very usable, I needed it for a specific spot where I simply couldn't put a full-size plant near enough to fix the water pollution there. So it's here in case you too want an additional option. It's lazy and un-lotted for the most part, I may update it after adding some details, I may not. Left here very much as is.

[rsc204 21,808]

I've updated the Dexter UK BusStop set from the STEX today, with the following changes:

• Switched the method of altering the style of the lots. Instead of installing special lots for US/EU RHD/LHD options, now there is one unified set.
  Now the style is controlled by the textures installed, which requires using the included textures instead, see Install Instructions.
• Updated the US, EU and Street textures so they are now correctly symmetrical and match the newer NAM texture sets.
• Updated the Transit Switches and increased the capacities to modern standards.
• Added TSEC values which were previously not present.
• Removed the unnecessary Blank Models used on the lots.

So they look better, function pretty much the same as RTMT or NAM stations and have a smaller footprint (install size). Please ensure you read the INSTALL INSTRUCTIONS.txt included in the download, to ensure you will have a functioning setup as intended.

MGB_DEXUKBusStops.7z

I do plan to make a further update in future to switch the BusShelter and BusSign's to my own newer UK-Style models, but for now I wanted to get the basic update out there.

[rsc204 21,808]

Introducing my Light Project (MGB-LP), where I intend to re-lot some common packages that are too bright when used with USL/LRM, due to overlapping lightcones.

To start, I'm actually adding lights to Paeng's Bikepaths, where none were previously present:

Notice: Built from these changes, @philforhockey51 has created a further revised version with seasonal trees and with 4 new Bikepath styles to choose between. Of course my version will remain here, but you might want to check out Phil's excellent relots, which also adds diagonal pieces and is IMO the definitive version of the Bikepaths now.

These changes cover the original Bikepaths, in addition to three addons, two by Paeng, the SSDP and Extenders, plus 3 bonus lots I created for my own personal use. All of these lots (except one) have been given USL/LRM lightcones, plus I also changed the hedges to Girafe's Seasonal ones.

MGB-LP_PaengBikepaths.7z

Dependencies (in addition to those for the original set):

• USL or LRM (only the LightCones are needed):

  • From the USL download:
    Lights_LightCones.dat

  • From the LRM download:
    LightCones_MaxisNite.dat
                    or
    LightCones_DarkNite.dat

  • Girafe's Seasonal Hedges from this package.
    NOTE: ONLY the file Girfe Seasonal Hedges.dat is required from this download.

As you can see, they look great at night (using Mashty's Night Mod) and have been carefully designed so they don't leak light places where bright spots might occur.

The Functional Bus Stop has been updated to more modern standards, with a larger capacity and correct TSEC/switches, it's Mac Compatible.

Optionally, you can also change the Bus Stop so it takes on the style of your RTMT install. In other words, it will use the same BusShelter/BusSign and TimeTable props as your other RTMT lots (requires RTMT v3.6 or later):

Please read the included Readme, it'll explain how to install everything you want from the included files.

[rsc204 21,808]

Anyone remember I converted a T21 mod from Moonlight from SAM9 (original) to SAM10, so you can use it with the updated NAM version of his SAM streets?

Well @moonlinght got back to me recently and gave his permission to release this mod, so it's now available here:

MGB-ML_SAM 10 Japanese Street Mod.7z

Inside the download is a Readme with links to the required dependencies and a Cleanitol file to verify you have everything.

[rsc204 21,808]

Pegaus' Ploppable Boats

Here is a series of four lots I created, each for a different type of boat using Prop Families so one of 2 to 6 random boats will appear when placing them.

 

They only require one dependency to use:

PED-CDK3_Rec-Boats_RESOURCE_101.DAT
Note: the relevant files have since been packed into the newer PEG-CDK3_SUPER_PAK_RESOURCE.dat
This can be found either in this package or available stand-alone)

You can find all four lots in your Seaport Menu, they will plop on water or land and have no costs or effects. Note the original props were offset, this can make plopping them exactly a little harder than usual. But if something isn't how you want it, simply delete and re-plop the lot until you are happy.

MGB_PEG Boats.7z

After plopping these lots or when re-opening a tile with them plopped, you should enter one of the Data Views such as fire hazard, health, water pollution or air pollution and then return to the normal view. This is necessary to avoid graphical artefacts and can't really be avoided when using lots on water like this.

[rsc204 21,808]

MGB Trees

As per this post on my Dev Thread, I did make a couple trees a few years back. Just moving those here to tidy things up a bit

First is this Pepper Tree:

The second is a fully seasonal Acacia Tree:

Both Seasonal and Evergreen variants of these are attached to this post:

MGB Trees.7z

Included for each tree are an MMP and Props for the included trees to use in the LE. You can use both Seasonal and Evergreen together, as the MMPs and Props have unique IDs. Note the Seasonal versions include the Evergreen Prop. But no seasonal models/props are included with the Evergreen versions.

[rsc204 21,808]

GLR Stuff

As per this post from my Dev thread, I created a special GLR station lot which sits inside the small 90 degree WRC for the NAM Streets:

NAM with GLR selected is required to use the station, which you can find in the Misc. Transport menu. Using my AutoMagically™ certified technology, this lot will adapt to fit custom Sidewalks, Grasses, GLR Style and Street Mods. It only shows these mods because I am using SWN, TGN and Rivit's Urban TSR Streets, by default the Maxis Sidewalks/Streets appear instead.

Download the station here:

MGB_Station - GLR 90 Street.7z

Today's special offer, download the station, get a GLR (Ortho) Buffer Stop 1x1 Lot free as well (optional file included in download):

Simply Plop the station with the correct orientation into a normal 90° street curve as shown:

Then drag the diagonal GLR through the station to connect things up, better still you can also use it with the WRC Diverter curves too:

Which provides excellent access to the station, since Pedestrians can cross the curves to/from the station as part of their commute.

[rsc204 21,808]

Pesky Steam Engine fix:

If like me, you want to replace the Maxis Steam trains (and frankly, why wouldn't you), it's possible that despite installing the correct replacements, the Steam Train still appears sometimes. Recently I found that a new, unique additional Steam train is added if you have the Maxis DLC for the Air Force Base reward.

z_Block_Maxis_SteamTrain_AirForceBase.dat

Stick this file somewhere it loads after the Maxis Air Force Base files and this engine will not bother you again.

[rsc204 21,808]

RTMT (unofficial) MultiModal Roadside Stop:

As requested by @Girafarig, I've taken a U-Rail Roadside stop intended for Rail/Bus/Subway and added all valid transit types, allowing this useful little 1x1 stop to serve pretty much any adjacent transit network.

Specifically it was intended to allow for sims to transfer to the Tram FLUPs/Underground Trams, but should work for pretty much any network.

RTMT_Lots_MultiModal_Roadside.7z

Not an official RTMT release, just based on an unreleased lot from RTMT 4, it does require RTMT 3.6 to use or you'll get brown boxes.

[rsc204 21,808]

Draggable Pedmalls using the Legacy Pedmall Textures

Since the new draggable Pedmalls are using a new ID scheme for the textures, any mods you may have had that overrode the textures upon them won't work with them. Mods including my TGN and SWN for example, therefore rather than pointlessly overriding the overrides and duplicating things, I've created the following patch:

DragPedmallsLegacyTex.7z

Drop this into Plugins so it loads after the Network Addon Mod folder, for example in my z____MGB Mods folder if you use TGN/SWN, otherwise create a folder zLoadAfterNAM and stick it there.

One small bonus, the base sidewalk has had it's texture rotated 90°, which causes no harm for the Maxis defaults and others which tile on on four edges. But if you have a sidewalk like Paeng's Sandstone (as shown above), it will make the pattern of bricks match up with other zoning more often. Since there isn't any drawback, I figured this was the better way.

Note the patch covers all the original Pedmall styles:

• Concrete (Sidewalk)
• Open Paved
• Grass
• Red Brick
• Sandstone
• Cobblestone

So any existing texture overrides you had for the Puzzle Piece Pedmalls will now work with the new ones. Likewise the two new styles, Retrowave and Industrial have NOT been included, since they never existed to begin with.