SimCity 4 Unification Project

[Simizen 1,087]

So, I'm bringing this up, for a few reasons actually, but, I'm seriously wondering if maybe work on something like this should be done?

First, I've already had an idea for something like this for a while, and been wanting to implement it, but, it's taken a bit of time trying to get many of the ideas together for it, and the key aspects, but, I've got quite a few notes, and if people are actually interested in this, I can open a new thread in the SC4 - Custom Content board.

To add on to this, I've been coming across some rather interesting mods that I think would be great to have unified in the game. There's the big ones: CAM, NAM, SPAM, IRM, AMPS, and even DAMN. But, there's also some smaller ones, such as Paeng's Industrial Facelift mod, and some wonderful Maxis relots and updated lots (such as the Maxis Seasonal Lots).

Of course, it's not just these either. Like, we've now got a couple OpenSC4 projects going, along with various other projects, such as the CAM Revival Project, which are great in my opinion. But, I'm thinking that we need to work on unifying everything. I know it's a lot to ask for, but, we're certainly seeing more players make requests of such things as having SPAM and CAM actually work together (among many other smaller requests). I myself am working on my own little project, which if I can get it done the way I'd like, would simply be a stepping stone to the bigger project that I've got in mind.

And this leaves us with a couple of questions:

• Would it be a good idea to start this unification project?
• and (arguably the more important one) Would people be willing to shift their efforts on the mods they're currently on to help unify everything?

Keep in mind a few things here:

1. As mentioned before, I've got ideas for what can be done, and even how to solve some of the problems that'll likely plague this project
    
2. NAM would very likely be the one exception to this unification project due to it's ongoing work, and of course due to how solid it is. I can't even begin to fathom the kind of work needed to get the NAM to conform to this project (it might be the other way to some extent)
    
3. All work on current and active mods would not be dropped/ignored, but, shifted to work towards unifying everything.

And I'm bringing this up, because I'm beginning to feel as though I don't really have much time to suggest this before we get past a point of major resistance, where most of the work towards these other mods will have been done, and that editing/adjusting/updating them would be more of a hassle, than if we caught it early on and began to guide everything and move it towards a common goal.

And, I know it would be huge and ambitious, but I believe we can actually do it, because we've got so many people interested in the game currently, along with people joining mod teams and reviving older mods.

Any feedback will be greatly appreciated. And, if we really do have the interest in doing this, I can set up a new thread going over the project idea, and going into detail about everything.

[TheMurderousCricket 5,044]

Hi @Ryuu Tenno. Good to hear from you again. 

I'd just like to ask if I understand your proposal correctly - your goal would be to gather all major mods into a single downloadable package, right?

If so, I have to admit I never really had an issue with downloading everything manually in a step-by-step fashion. I can see a merit of such solution though, when we discuss first-timers just joining the community / game or if we wish to release a "master package" for use in SC:O. In the latter case especially, this could prove to be a fantastic, DLC-style, one-size-fits-all pack for the refreshed game.

I believe NAM is a special case indeed as it uses Java installer which other mods simply do not require. It could be done, but then the "master package" would have to be updated every time a new NAM version is released.

One also has to consider the fact that some players may want to have some mods from your list but not others. But this, I think, could be solved by installer (if any) options, or manual "tweakage" in Explorer.

[Ulisse Wolf 4,399]

This is a very active discussion in the SC4Devotion discord server.

Actually this thing is already underway but only on the LEX side. We're creating modpacks with JAVA installers that allow people to install things automatically by sorting out all the various mods that have been developed. Surely the Airports and Seaports are a particular discourse because of their complex modding nature and therefore go to follow the NAM style organization.

For the issue CAM, SPAM, IRM here we enter into a particular discourse as we have too many mods that alter RCI. Whereas SPAM is notoriously famous for unbalancing RCI statistics just to favor farm demand. 

CAM, in addition to containing patches related to RCI, allows to establish a balance of statistics adopted to a system of growth phases extended and balanced

IRM is a mostly aesthetic mod as it improves the quality of industrial lots and separates the various types of industries allowing the player to control the types of industries. 

So you go by reason of logic 

CAM becomes the new RCI standard. SPAM disappears but all grow lots must be modified to make it compatible with CAM. Industrial lots, on the other hand, must be compatible with CAM and IRM. 

NAM is out of the question. NAM is a particular mod that should be left in this way. 

AMPS can be merged with utility management mods. This allows us to fix all the patches and mods related to utilities

DAMN is a mod that was born to solve the congestion of sub menus but has never been successful. For me we can exclude DAMN from this logic. Also because there are two OpenSC4 projects that allow us to better manage the UI.

We are currently in a golden opportunity to fix all the problems we have now and do something unified and clean for the community as well.

[TheMurderousCricket 5,044]

10 minutes ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

CAM becomes the new RCI standard. SPAM disappears but all grow lots must be modified to make it compatible with CAM. Industrial lots, on the other hand, must be compatible with CAM and IRM. 

What does it mean for users who do not use CAM at all? Or do you just mean migrating the RCI simulator without the rest of CAM's substance?

[Ulisse Wolf 4,399]

8 minutes ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

What does it mean for users who do not use CAM at all? Or do you just mean migrating the RCI simulator without the rest of CAM's substance?

Migrating RCI changes without the rest of the CAM becomes impossible because you have to redesign RCI Controller from scratch.

For a gamer who only wants the Maxis experience with few changes CAM is still ideal as it already contains the modified Maxis lots and made compatible with the CAM specifications. The problem only occurs if the player uses SPAM. In this case you must first uninstall SPAM and then install CAM.

Originally CAM was supposed to be the only RCI mod but due to communication problems with SimPeg members this situation has arisen where we have two RCI mods. Now that these problems no longer exist, we can proceed to return to the original idea.

[TheMurderousCricket 5,044]

Just now, Ulisse Wolf said:

For a gamer who only wants the Maxis experience with few changes CAM is still ideal as it already contains the modified Maxis lots and made compatible with the CAM specifications. The problem only occurs if the player uses SPAM. In this case you must first uninstall SPAM and then install CAM

Umm... modified lots? Compatibility? 

I'm afraid this might be a challenge to someone like me, who HIMSELF modified several Maxis resources to suit personal taste.

Not only that, I have several CAMpatible BATs which I have specifically modified to grow at levels lower than 9 as otherwise they would never turn up in my game. So if I were to receive a master pack which contains full CAM scope I would either have to redownload or remod all of my existing stuff!

[Simizen 1,087]

4 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

I'd just like to ask if I understand your proposal correctly - your goal would be to gather all major mods into a single downloadable package, right?

Not quite. The idea is to make a set of packages so that people can install modules to expand their game. Or, well, that was the initial idea, simply due to server limitations for both the STEX and the LEX (I didn't want to overload them with giant files).

The goal is to cover the core aspects with the main part, and then, we could add on the extra stuff over time (such as the newer lots). This way the biggest mods that seem to have the most impact, such as CAM, SPAM, IRM, and AMPS could all be folded into a single mod, and they'd be tweaked and updated as needed to help improve them, as well as to get them to play well with each other.

One of the other things about this, is that the ginormous list of dependencies would be dropped in size. Like, BSC has tons, but, this would drop it into a handful of files at worst (single file is preferred but, I'm aware of the server limitations).

2 hours ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

CAM, in addition to containing patches related to RCI, allows to establish a balance of statistics adopted to a system of growth phases extended and balanced

This I agree with, and my view was that CAM would essentially be the focal point. So, everything else (IRM, SPAM, etc) would all be changed to fit into CAM. However, the idea here would be to effectively make a CAM "3.0", as NAM already fixes a couple things that the current iterations of CAM fix, but because NAM is significantly more powerful and more advanced, we could eliminate the need for anything transportation related being fixed/updated by all of the other mods.

2 hours ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

IRM is a mostly aesthetic mod as it improves the quality of industrial lots and separates the various types of industries allowing the player to control the types of industries.

Yeah, that part I was aware of. That's why Paeng's Industrial Facelift was brought up in the initial post, as I realized that someone technically fixed the industrial aspect to some degree. In this instance, following the core file concept, Paeng's fix would be a good place to start, where the textures and such are updated, but we could tweak it to follow the logic that @T Wrecks implemented with the IRM, where I-HT and I-D were separated into the different zone densities.

In this way, we could later add the IRM proper to the game, and the work of sorting industries into their proper spots would already be done, making things a bit easier.

4 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

One also has to consider the fact that some players may want to have some mods from your list but not others. But this, I think, could be solved by installer (if any) options, or manual "tweakage" in Explorer.

So, the interesting part about this, is that the modular aspect to the mod would solve quite a few of these problems. Basically, we'd start off with some core files, which would simplify things, and then from there, players can add onto their game like they normally would, but now the other lots/mods would be following the rules we set in this project. It'd work a bit like CAM, where you've got the core files, and you don't technically need the others for it to work, but, due to it's bare bones nature, you'd likely be wanting more mods (likely just lots), and then you can add them quickly and easily.

Couple this with the improved dependencies, and you'd have considerably fewer issues with players having missing props as a result.

This all said, if we did go the larger mod route, then having an installer with it, and supplying options would certainly be an interesting thing to work with. Though, I feel this would really only work if we opted to limit this more to the extra lots that people like to get, than to the core part of the game.

3 hours ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

CAM becomes the new RCI standard. SPAM disappears but all grow lots must be modified to make it compatible with CAM. Industrial lots, on the other hand, must be compatible with CAM and IRM.

Yes, this would actually be the case for this project. CAM would be our focus, and then we'd put work into pulling SPAM and IRM into CAM and unifying them into something more solid. CAM and SPAM are pretty good for what they are, but, SPAM very much has inherent issues that have been turning me away from it, and it sucks too, cause I think it was pretty good for dealing with the farms. I certainly don't agree with the logic they applied, being that they added new workers for each tile. The problem with this is that it's a weird programming issue with the game (not a bug per se, but, a requirement for it to work), as the devs had to add a hidden worker to each tile, for it all to show up in the game properly, since farms aren't ploppable. So, they've got an occupancy entry that's filled out, but, the actual job entry isn't filled out for it.

As for the IRM, thankfully we don't have to put too much work into it (if any at all), as we've got a CAM-patible version. So, we could easily just use the CAM version as the focus for the rest of the IRM stuff (W2W, any fillers, and other IRM lots that were added over time). And of course we'd have to bring Paeng's fix up to date with the CAM-ified IRM.

3 hours ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

AMPS can be merged with utility management mods. This allows us to fix all the patches and mods related to utilities

Yeah, and we can work out more appropriate core files/aspects to allow the game to run without needing to rely on an excessive amount of extra mods to get the utilities to work properly. AMPS is incredible imo, and I'd love for it to continue on, but, it's difficult to figure out how to really go on with it, when we don't technically have all the information we need to have it go on. I don't want to rip it from @RobertaME, but, at the same time I don't really want to leave it alone in it's current state, where there's not many people using it.

And of course, everyone's got their favorite utility to complain about, and I think this is where we could massively improve on the garbage system, as I'm pretty sure it's keeping stuff from SC3K, and not been properly updated to fit that of SC4. Though, in my latest play through, this idea seems a bit off, which makes me think they had planned for something with it, but just never completed it, leaving us with these interesting issues concerning the trash build up.

3 hours ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

DAMN is a mod that was born to solve the congestion of sub menus but has never been successful. For me we can exclude DAMN from this logic. Also because there are two OpenSC4 projects that allow us to better manage the UI.

Now this one gets rather interesting to deal with. You're right, in that with the OpenSC4 projects in the works, we can finally address the menu issues with the lots causing endless scrolling, but, at the same time, it's actually quite possible that we can fix it even in the current version of SC4. Unfortunately, I'm not exactly sure where the information is to do this, so I don't know if it'll work; but I did realize that we could improve things considerably, by adding new "lots" (someone's added folders/labels to their menus) that when clicked, would simply open either the news window, or the advisor dialog and then you could navigate through a more refined menu there. There's already enough triggers and such in the game that implies that this is functional on some level, so, I'm sure we could actually get this work really well (if it can work of course). And in theory, this could also eliminate the need for the menu management lots.

That said, if we're able to sort out the endless menu scrolling, then I don't see a reason to fold DAMN into this. Though, my experience has been that the DAMN Manager is considerably better overall. Unfortunately, as mentioned in the AMPS development thread here, DAMN ends up overriding some of the locked lots, allowing people to bypass the unlocking requirements. I'm not even sure how to fix that, nor do I know what would happen if we went my route of adding in new menu items (like that of the NAM icon) that would open up the news window for exploring the lots.

Still, having some kind of menu improvement would be nice, but, I know that's going to take some time and effort to get through.

2 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

I'm afraid this might be a challenge to someone like me, who HIMSELF modified several Maxis resources to suit personal taste.

And this is why I have concerns about this project. I want the project to improve everyone's lives regarding playing the game, and downloading mods. But, one of my biggest concerns is that of people who may have already gone through such an extensive amount of work, that they might not even be interested in having this project go anywhere. And I absolutely don't blame those who have gone through all this work and not wanting to have to redo it specifically to enjoy the mod. It's just a weird balance thing to have to deal with is all.

5 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

I believe NAM is a special case indeed as it uses Java installer which other mods simply do not require. It could be done, but then the "master package" would have to be updated every time a new NAM version is released.

 

4 hours ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

NAM is out of the question. NAM is a particular mod that should be left in this way.

I absolutely agree with these. NAM's very much a special case, and of course utilizing it's own installer, causes this mod to sit separate from the rest of this project. Mostly. Part of the idea here would essentially be dumping everything related to traffic into the NAM. Unfortunately this might not be all that great an idea, but, since the NAM team already has so much on their hands to contend with. I certainly think that the bug fixes that would be associated with the traffic would be doable, such as the Farm Desirability Mod as they can adjust it as needed to allow both the traffic and the zones to work properly.

==============================================================================================================

To add to all of this, part of the project is trying to collect many of the minor tweaks/updates that people have done over time. We've got such things as the City Hall Upgrades mods (one got it to actually upgrade, whereas another made them ploppable); a good handful of relots, as really, many of the default lots are just poorly/badly designed; and some population and job adjustment mods, which help to correct the number of Sims in various buildings. These are all still very important, and imo, much needed for the game to be a bit better balanced (which itself, may result in fixing other weird issues/bugs in the game).

I've also got a mod of my own that I've been trying to work on, which is meant to rework some of the civic buildings, to have better service coverage and capacities. And, to a degree, it would work a bit like Roberta's AMPS mod, in which it simply changes the default Maxis lots, but, is open to utilizing custom lots to help expand on it. I'll likely be starting a thread on this one soon over in the Custom Content area.

To help expand on what was meant for this project, I have ideas on how to keep everything together, by having many of the mods/lots meet some form of requirements list. This would prevent issues with both the project and other mods, so that people won't necessarily be having issues with incompatibilities (CAM + SPAM for example). And of course, if something comes up that could change the mod, we could work out if we'd like to keep the old idea, or use the newer one (ex: CAM modifies the growth stages and caps it at 15 for res + com, but someone figures out a way to add in a 16th one, or maybe has a lot that would push the limits).

But, in conjunction with the rules, we'd also have a "stamp of approval" on many of the lots/mods that are implemented to let everyone know that it's officially compatible with the work we're doing, so that players know that they've got a good quality mod. This doen't mean that the lots without the seal are bad, but, it would certainly alert players to the possibility of any incompatibility issues that may arise.

And I'm sorry for the super long post (as it is I have to head into work so won't be able to properly reply again until after I get back home), I just wanted to make sure the key stuff was addressed. Do let me know if y'all are confused with anything I've said so far so that I can correct it.

[TheMurderousCricket 5,044]

2 hours ago, Ryuu Tenno said:

The goal is to cover the core aspects with the main part, and then, we could add on the extra stuff over time (such as the newer lots). This way the biggest mods that seem to have the most impact, such as CAM, SPAM, IRM, and AMPS could all be folded into a single mod, and they'd be tweaked and updated as needed to help improve them, as well as to get them to play well with each other.

I see. Now I understand correctly.  This will naturally require considerable cross-check and "alignment" of all variables and changes that all of these mods involve. Including dependencies for mods discussed into the actual package / installer would be a tremendous improvement. As long as the authors' don't mind, these would simply become fixtures of the entire package rather than "dependencies" per se. 

2 hours ago, Ryuu Tenno said:

That's why Paeng's Industrial Facelift was brought up in the initial post, as I realized that someone technically fixed the industrial aspect to some degree. In this instance, following the core file concept, Paeng's fix would be a good place to start, where the textures and such are updated, but we could tweak it to follow the logic that @T Wrecks implemented with the IRM, where I-HT and I-D were separated into the different zone densities.

Unfortunately, this mod involves the same controversy as the one I mentioned before, because this resources may turn players' cities upside down when applied by default... As far as I remember, PIF can only be used in new city tiles and it is highly discouraged to use it in any established cities. So releasing a Master Package that has PIF as a mandatory mod may lead to a sizeable catastrophe...

2 hours ago, Ryuu Tenno said:

And this is why I have concerns about this project. I want the project to improve everyone's lives regarding playing the game, and downloading mods. But, one of my biggest concerns is that of people who may have already gone through such an extensive amount of work, that they might not even be interested in having this project go anywhere. And I absolutely don't blame those who have gone through all this work and not wanting to have to redo it specifically to enjoy the mod. It's just a weird balance thing to have to deal with is all.

It really depends on how much one intends to "force" certain items and mods on the players. If you absolutely want to use CAM as a base for the Master Package, then this might be a problem and anyone who spent a good time on adjusting their files will pass... The next question would be - what happens to custom content? Should all of it be updated as well to be "Master Package CAMpatible" status? And this is serious because there are lots of very old growables (Dusktrooper's for example) that work perfectly in the current state of the game (I am currently working my way through commercial oldies.). It is an interesting question whether they will survive being thrust into an entirely different architecture...

But again, it depends on how "aggressive" the Master Package is intended to be. Personally, I prefer to nurture the little historic gems that I keep discovering on long-forgotten pages of STEX categories. But that's just me.

2 hours ago, Ryuu Tenno said:

I absolutely agree with these. NAM's very much a special case, and of course utilizing it's own installer, causes this mod to sit separate from the rest of this project. Mostly. Part of the idea here would essentially be dumping everything related to traffic into the NAM.

On the other hand you need to remember that NAM was built in such a way as to not add unnecessary burden upon users, nor require any external resources. In this sense, NAM is probably a mod of least concern when it comes to the "unification theory" you suggest, because it works smoothly as a stand-alone resource and does not have any options that conflict with other modifications (or at least not very often).

[Simizen 1,087]

6 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

Unfortunately, this mod involves the same controversy as the one I mentioned before, because this resources may turn players' cities upside down when applied by default... As far as I remember, PIF can only be used in new city tiles and it is highly discouraged to use it in any established cities. So releasing a Master Package that has PIF as a mandatory mod may lead to a sizeable catastrophe...

So this part's kinda interesting, cause the files (and experimentation) seem to say otherwise. But, in essence, both the IRM and PIF have the same fundamental issue, which is that for them to properly function, you'd have to clean off the industrial zones, then install the mod, then run the city again to let them rebuild. Granted, there could very well be something I'm missing from this, as my tests weren't extensive by any means, and I may have also overlooked stuff in the PIF's readme; so I don't doubt that there could still be some rather interesting problems.

Of course, the idea behind much of this would be to go through and tweak a bunch of lots. In the case of PIF, it seems to be utilizing default lots, textures, and dependencies that come from a vanilla game, so it would be possible to run through each again, doing some comparisons, and checking if we'd want to go the same route as PIF for each lot. Granted this is a lot, so we'd have to work something out to speed it up to ensure that it's at a decent level of quality.

6 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

On the other hand you need to remember that NAM was built in such a way as to not add unnecessary burden upon users, nor require any external resources. In this sense, NAM is probably a mod of least concern when it comes to the "unification theory" you suggest, because it works smoothly as a stand-alone resource and does not have any options that conflict with other modifications (or at least not very often).

That is true. My real concern with it at that point, was dumping extra work onto the NAM team for fixing a variety of other bugs when they've already got tons of work on their hands. As it is, I can very easily overwhelm them with a nearly endless list of ideas for the mod and I do my best to not add to it more than I need to.

 

And, now for the fun part, lol.

6 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

The next question would be - what happens to custom content?

In all honesty the untouched chunk of mods, would inevitably come down to lots. Many are already CAM-patible; IRM has it's compatible variant; SPAM is technically already compatible, but, it would need a massive amount of work done to get it to behave with CAM rather than to screw with the job count; AMPS already works with CAM and SPAM out the gate, due to being a utilities mod, rather than a demand mod.

I think the biggest issue with mods, would effectively be the ploppable lots. Unfortunately, a good chunk of those are rather specific in nature, and many would need to be updated to fit. Now, to be fair, many of the updates actually wouldn't be all that bad. The project is meant to improve on many of the civic structures as well, so we'd end up with things like an increased radius on many of the lots. Some may end up with a renaming, but, we could also potentially by-pass that in much the same way Roberta did with AMPS. She managed to figure out a way to keep much of the original information from those lots, without completely overriding their functionality. Though, this may have been on a case-by-case basis, and may also be the same way in which we'd have to deal with it in regards to this project.

Many of the graphical mods would, of course, be left untouched, due to the fact that they're not affecting gameplay in the same way as many of the other mods do.

7 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

If you absolutely want to use CAM as a base for the Master Package, then this might be a problem and anyone who spent a good time on adjusting their files will pass...

So, in theory, there wouldn't actually be that many mods to alter to fit into CAM. The biggest thing for CAM is the lots. So, anything that would need adjusting would simply be lots that don't currently conform to CAM. And, this seems to generally be about Stage 5 and less easily enough; but, Stages 6 and 7 may need some minor adjustments (if any), and Stage 8 lots would be the biggest ones to be modifying due to the fact that many are likely stage 8 by default and not set up to work with CAM from the start; and this will likely be our focus as a result.

I mean, the biggest problem with the mod, ironically won't be CAM, but, more the aspects that we're adding into it in the first place. CAM gives our demand system a wonderful boost by increasing the number of stages (and even giving us options to choose the scale in which to grow on), but there's other things that need addressing too. As mentioned before, the services would end up getting an overhaul, though, thankfully much of that is meant to be uniform for everyone's sanity (ex: the fire landing strip would cover the entirety of the largest city tile); and then there's the job and population mods that would be used.

These would be interesting because we'd have to go through and ensure everything's set up properly. In CAM, they already set up appropriate amounts (it's been a while since I messed around with it, and never fully out to skyscrapers so can't say with certain this is the case, just that it mentions in the manual that it is appropriate numbers), but then we've also got NR's Realistic Resident Mod, which lowers the low density residential lots to a more reasonable number of people (which it so far does with the tests I've done). @rob_mtl has even had to rely on such things as the Industrial Quadrupler and Residential Halver mods just to get his cities to act more reasonable in nature, though he wasn't using CAM in his runs.

Now, one other thing to address, and it just occurred to me while typing all this, is that if you're referring to the people who have already tweaked the settings in their game, then I certainly don't doubt that they'd pass on this mod. While it's meant for everyone to use and enjoy it, not everyone will due to various reasons, and those that tweaked the game to their liking on that kind of level likely won't be using this, which is unfortunate, but understandable.

The key focus with my concern about this project isn't really those who tweaked everything in their game to their standards, but more with those who have made significant projects prior to this. As I mentioned before, we've got the CAM Revival Project on-going right now. One thing that would be helpful here is if we could get them to make it compatible with this project from the start, so that they're not struggling later to adjust after they've already made significant improvements into their mod. Obviously, if we were to grab the original teams for some of these, they wouldn't hardly agree with this (I seriously doubt the SimPeg team would be all that happy that this project would be nerfing all their hard work just to fold it into CAM); granted, sentiments are considerably different now and everyone's got a bit more of a unified focus as a result.

7 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

I prefer to nurture the little historic gems that I keep discovering on long-forgotten pages of STEX categories. But that's just me.

And this I absolutely understand. I'm all for keeping the older stuff around, cause while the project would essentially override many of these older mods, it's meant to have it's own version, and be set up in such a way that it doesn't just outright remove the older ones. Now, anyone attempting to use this mod would have to give up a list of mods that they use due to compatibility issues, but if there are people interested in the older methods, then they can stick with it, and not have to worry that they've lost all the old files that were originally published.

I do know that there's some SPAM only players, as they feel that CAM doesn't work for them, and I'm glad they've found something they love. So, of course, if this mod's set up, they may very well ignore it, simply because of the CAM aspect alone (or even many of the other changes), and they'd need to stick with whatever their current setup is. This is where keeping the older files and such around will be quite helpful, simply because I know not everyone wants the same thing.

Theoretically, this mod would end up creating a universal experience of sorts for many players, as now they'd have access to more compatible mods all at once and not have to struggle trying to piece everything together just to get past the loading screen or an errant CTD.

8 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

Should all of it be updated as well to be "Master Package CAMpatible" status? And this is serious because there are lots of very old growables (Dusktrooper's for example) that work perfectly in the current state of the game (I am currently working my way through commercial oldies.). It is an interesting question whether they will survive being thrust into an entirely different architecture...

You are very correct about this being a serious issue, because I agree with your sentiment here. Forcing and updating everything to match that of a single mod will be rather interesting (not to mention challenging) to do. That said, the community's already gone through an interesting and colorful history, and now, we're at a point where we could sharpen our focus into a razor's edge, or go back through what we had before. And this is where it gets tricky, because I'd love for this to be unified, and give everyone a (relatively) universal experience. Unfortunately, this also clashes quite a bit with the fact that I'd love for people to also be able to just use whatever mods they want.

Sadly, the options become limited rather quickly once the project's implemented. But, it being modular may be the best middle ground that we'll have for it. Especially, since the core part of the mod is meant to stand on it's own. This would then allow others to throw in what they'd like, though, the biggest limitations concerning this would logically be CAM and SPAM, with IRM and AMPS after.

 

In all honesty, I could go into way more detail with this to help explain it, but, it's difficult trying to convey everything here, and I could go on for a long time doing it even. As it is, if I start that modding thread, there'd be an incredibly long post, if not a few, just to go over things. I've been writing down notes for what all I want to be done in the project, just the biggest issue for me is isolating the key parts that need to be done for it all to work. Which thankfully I can pull some of it from here, cause my notes weren't all that well organized, even though I've had to reorganize them a few times now.

[nos.17 5,112]

@Ryuu Tenno have you by chance read through the Sharing Plugins Folders - Discussion thread, including the three pinned posts? I see a lot of parallels between what you're proposing and what has been discussed there. I think the discussion should (for now) be centered on how can we provide quick, easy to download packs that players (especially new ones) can painlessly get a bunch of content to play with. Incidentally, the BSC Common Dependencies Pack is a huge step in the right direction!

Honestly, before we start with CAM/IRM/SPAM/Paeng/etc. which will be very complex, the best first place to start is @Cyclone Boom's and @CorinaMarie's MODPACC ZERO, which combines 30+ essential bug fixes into one package. I've been around here for 10+ years, and I know I only have probably half of those fixes installed. Because it's play-style/preference agnostic, its something we'd be able to recommend to every player to start with. I'm unsure what the progress is since the last post about it, but if you want to start on a tangible and relatively well defined project, that's how I'd start.

 

[Simizen 1,087]

8 hours ago, nos.17 said:

Honestly, before we start with CAM/IRM/SPAM/Paeng/etc. which will be very complex, the best first place to start is @Cyclone Boom's and @CorinaMarie's MODPACC ZERO, which combines 30+ essential bug fixes into one package

Actually, yeah, my original idea was for something like the ModPacc Zero and that's where my initial ideas for it kinda started. But, due to their work on that project already, I just moved over to the next part, lol. But, basically, it would incorporate that, but, there's is technically still separate, as what they're doing is very much needed, and shouldn't be limited to my idea here.

Technically the easiest part would be to work through the core part of the game, and just short of the CAM/SPAM/IRM thing, that can be done rather quickly. The part that'll take time is merging those 3 (and related) mods to fix the other issues.

But, yeah, I'll check out that other thread to see how things are going. If work over there is going well, then it might actually improve things considerably, as one of the concerns I had brought up at one point (elsewhere, and icr if it was this site, or in the discords or what), where many of the mods that were done would be grouped together by person (ex: Simmer2's contents being lumped together in one or a small handful of packs), to help speed up the process so that people aren't sitting here trying to follow the dependency list logic. I've still got a couple mods/lots that don't show up properly due to missing dependencies, but, idk what those are, just that they're missing.

[Golan0 277]

It's not just CAM/SPAM that needs update. Airport and seaport controllers are decade old. 

I updated airport controller for my personal się, and someday, when I find free time, I willa publish it.

[Ulisse Wolf 4,399]

1 hour ago, Golan0 said:

It's not just CAM/SPAM that needs update. Airport and seaport controllers are decade old. 

I updated airport controller for my personal się, and someday, when I find free time, I willa publish it.

Airport and Seaport controller are already under review but it takes some time. Due to their complicated nature, a NAM-style solution is being thought of to avoid problems and CTDs.

[Simizen 1,087]

The interesting part behind this, is that we may need to consider a NAM-style solution for this project over all.

I mean, granted, some stuff will be fairly easy to deal with cause they're not a major part (terrain mods for example); and there's tons of stuff going on with different parts of the game, that I"m sure we could effectively have several "threads" (borrowing from PC terminology, lol) in which each group (thread) would work on a different part. Like, having a utilities mod getting worked on can occur simultaneously to that of civics, and to that of transportation, etc.