Simtropolis x sc4pac: a new way to install plugins

[nos.17 5,256]

Simtropolis Channel Update - June 2025

In the last month or so, content from these authors has been added to the ST channel:

• @SimFox - 18 packages
• @Adrianor - 9 packages
• @Maloskero - 2 packages
• @6459978. - 11 packages
• @Heblem - 48 packages
• @moto.kloss - 18 packages
• @MandelSoft - 35 packages
• @kingofsimcity - 43 packages
• @ILL Tonkso - 15 packages

That brings this May's total to +199 packages. This channel now contains 2446 packages! All content is automatically present - no update required.

Also, shout out to @marcio1977 and @Jasoncw for uploading their new content with sc4pac metadata! :pray:  This content is automatically available for users for sc4pac.
 
Stay tuned for further monthly updates. The public tracker for planned and in-progress additions is here. Please request if you'd like to see something added, but in general, the first goal is to get as many things from Indiana Joe's Quest for the Ultimate Plugins Folder added first.

[Popme 2]

Hey, I just want to ask how the app works. I downloaded a mod that requires certain parts from the recent BSC Common Dependencies Pack. As I said, it only needs specific parts. But during the process, it downloads the entire pack, all 1.7 GB of it. If it only installs what the mod requires, then where does the rest go? It'd be more helpful if I didn’t have to download the whole pack when I only need some parts of it. But at the very least, I don’t want to bloat my already limited storage so please tell me it won't keep the unused files as cache or something.

[smf_16 1,838]

@Popme That's because the BSC Common dependencies are all distributed inside a single zip. sc4pac has no other choice than downloading this entire .zip, but then only extracts the packages it needs from it. It keeps the downloaded zip in its cache though, so if you need other dependencies from it later on, it won't be downloaded again.

You could manually delete the .zip from the cache again to free up disk storage space, but the next time you need a BSC dependency, then it will need to download the entire 1.7GB again. Perhaps @memo can shed some more light on this.

[Tarkus 6,933]

BSC Common Dependencies came into existence when SC4D LEX was forced out of operations (June 2023), and the concept of someone developing a package manager still seemed extremely unlikely at the time.

There's been some talk about eventually reuploading everything separately again in the wake of sc4pac, and possibly making the a la carte files only accessible via sc4pac (as it makes far more sense to steer manual downloaders toward the giant BSC Common Dependencies pack).  However, given how much LEX stuff still needs to make it back to SC4Evermore (issues keep coming to light with the old LEX content, requiring intervention), it's quite low on the priority list.

-Tarkus

 

[Jamesthe1st 26]

Amazing to see this community is still going! I have not been around since about 2012 but I have the itch to play this game again and it is great to see new stuff like this being made.

[Kel9509 1,483]

On 6/7/2025 at 2:27 PM, nos.17 said:

Also, shout out to @marcio1977 and @Jasoncw for uploading their new content with sc4pac metadata! :pray:  This content is automatically available for users for sc4pac.

II would love for my uploads to be compatible with sc4pac (even though I'm a committed manual downloader).  But my uploads are mostly game mods with different options for installation.  I'll need to research how to get those going with sc4pac.

[Kel9509 1,483]

I have a question about the organization of downloads in sc4pac.  Many authors offer buildings that sometimes are coded as a residential lot and then separately as a commercial lot, using the same model file but as different lots.  How will sc4pac organize all of that?  Will it split the residential lot into the 200-residential folder, and the commercial lot into the 300-commercial folder?  And where would the model file go?  Or would it not know how to manage all of that and just have the model file in each of the 200 and 300 folders?

[memo 1,473]

14 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

Many authors offer buildings that sometimes are coded as a residential lot and then separately as a commercial lot, using the same model file but as different lots.  How will sc4pac organize all of that?  Will it split the residential lot into the 200-residential folder, and the commercial lot into the 300-commercial folder?  And where would the model file go?  Or would it not know how to manage all of that and just have the model file in each of the 200 and 300 folders?

@Kel9509 Sc4pac doesn't do any of this automatically. It's all the decision of the person packaging the files.

Using the same model for commercial and residential lots isn't actually all that common. If this occurs, I usually put all the files in the same folder (either 200-residential, or 300-commercial, whichever makes more sense). One such example is mattb325:new-york-w2w-pack-vol01. The subfolders don't really have functional relevance. They exist primarily for discoverability (and secondarily for load order reasons).

Splitting the files into multiple packages, such as

1. models (a custom dependency package in 100-props-textures)
2. residentials lots
3. commercial lots

is possible as well, but this is rather intended for cases where it's likely that users don't install all three packages. This gives them the option to install just 1+2 or 1+3. For the mattb325:new-york-w2w-pack-vol01 package, there's no need to separate out the residential lots. This pattern is used frequently for relots though:

1. models (e.g. blam:zaxbys-model)
2. original lots (e.g. blam:zaxbys)
3. third-party relots (e.g. b62:sears-grand)

This avoids duplicating the same models for multiple lots, and also prevents the relots from depending on the original lots (the growth of which players wouldn't be able to control).

 

On 7/13/2025 at 7:29 PM, smf_16 said:

You could manually delete the .zip from the cache again to free up disk storage space, but the next time you need a BSC dependency, then it will need to download the entire 1.7GB again. Perhaps @memo can shed some more light on this.

It's exactly like you explained. The 1.7 GB file will be stored indefinitely in the download cache folder at:

coursier/https/www.sc4evermore.com/index.php/downloads%3Ftask%3Ddownload.send%26id%3D3%3Asc4d-LEX-legacy-bsc-common-dependencies-pack

@Popme You can safely delete it, but it will be redownloaded if you install anything that depends on a BSC dependency you haven't installed yet. Caching the file is the only thing that makes sense, in my opinion. The size of the file is not really in my hand. If you were to install all the BSC dependencies manually, you'd likely end up with 2+ GB of dependencies in your plugins, so you wouldn't save much space even if you deleted the .zip file.

[nos.17 5,256]

On 7/15/2025 at 10:08 AM, Kel9509 said:

II would love for my uploads to be compatible with sc4pac (even though I'm a committed manual downloader).  But my uploads are mostly game mods with different options for installation.  I'll need to research how to get those going with sc4pac.

Kel, there's some fairly detailed instructions here. Since your mods contain user options, you'll need to write some of your own variants (see about midway through that article). It can get a little complicated, so I created a tool to help out with writing the yaml: https://yamleditorforsc4pac.net/. I'll also be happy to help out with this if you'd like too.

[Kel9509 1,483]

1 hour ago, nos.17 said:

Kel, there's some fairly detailed instructions here. Since your mods contain user options, you'll need to write some of your own variants (see about midway through that article). It can get a little complicated, so I created a tool to help out with writing the yaml: https://yamleditorforsc4pac.net/. I'll also be happy to help out with this if you'd like too.

Thank you, that is greatly appreciated.  I'll try it myself first and reach out if I have any issues.  Hope to begin working on this in the next week or so.

[nos.17 5,256]

Simtropolis Channel Update - August 2025

In the last two months or so, content from these authors has been added to the ST channel:

• @Pegasus - 67 packages, many of which have recently been Project-ZIP'd
• @airman15 - 70 packages
  • Plus 11 other packages by misc authors with other automata and transport related content
• @Bones1 - 5 packages
• @Null 45 - 18 DLL mods, courtesy of @Ulisse Wolf
• @AndisArt - 8 packages

That brings this July's total to +179 packages. This channel now contains 2624 packages! All content is automatically present - no update required.
 
Stay tuned for further monthly updates. The public tracker for planned and in-progress additions is here. Please request if you'd like to see something added, but in general, the first goal is to get as many things from Indiana Joe's Quest for the Ultimate Plugins Folder added first.

[nos.17 5,256]

I've decided I'll stop with the monthly updates and instead announce ad hoc as things are released. That way I can go into a little more detail about what is added.

39 new packages have just been added, primarily featuring content by @Simcitler, but also with content by @sheep and @TheQuiltedLlama.

  Edited October 2, 2025 by nos.17  
fix images

[nos.17 5,256]

13 new packages from @benno2005 have been added, featuring their very nice parks and some transit stations. (#255)

And 51 packages by @mikeseith, featuring a number of car dealership lots and tons of automata. (#256)

  Edited October 2, 2025 by nos.17  
fix images

[nos.17 5,256]

Back from a very nice vacation, I've merged in 55 packages by @Ferox (#259)

And 16 packages by @anubis89 (#258)

[outdatedSIM 4]

Hello. One instruction is not entirely clear to me, example:

"into the root directory of your Plugins folder [...]" - I did, and the game intro showed still despite me having set the intro to "false".

For instance I added the -intro:off parameter to my desktop shortcut however, game intro doesn't show. This makes me suspect, that the INIs have to go to the Profile root folder, not Plugins root folder.

Or another possibility: I have it all in my Documents\SimCity 4\Plugins instead of game's installation directory. Maybe that is the issue? Any advise appreciated, cheers!

EDIT: I tested with the INIs inside root Profile folder, same story. EnableIntroVideo=false in SC4GraphicsOptions.ini does not disable the game intro as well. When I still had my game modded manually it worked.

EDIT 2: it did not work in games's install folder Plugins, now it started to read the settings off the Profile's 150 folder directly instead of main Plugins folder as advised in the SC4PAC message. So is there a lack of clarity in the SC4PAC message that should say "move the file" instead of "copy the file"?

How can I make the plugins actually work with the manager?

  Edited October 8, 2025 by outdatedSIM  
further findings, narrowed down, text presentation update

[TiepiNL 182]

1 hour ago, outdatedSIM said:

Hello. One instruction is not entirely clear to me, example:

"into the root directory of your Plugins folder [...]" - I did, and the game intro showed still despite me having set the intro to "false".

For instance I added the -intro:off parameter to my desktop shortcut however, game intro doesn't show. This makes me suspect, that the INIs have to go to the Profile root folder, not Plugins root folder.

Or another possibility: I have it all in my Documents\SimCity 4\Plugins instead of game's installation directory. Maybe that is the issue? Any advise appreciated, cheers!

EDIT: I tested with the INIs inside root Profile folder, same story. EnableIntroVideo=false in SC4GraphicsOptions.ini does not disable the game intro as well. When I still had my game modded manually it worked.

EDIT 2: it did not work in games's install folder Plugins, now it started to read the settings off the Profile's 150 folder directly instead of main Plugins folder as advised in the SC4PAC message. So is there a lack of clarity in the SC4PAC message that should say "move the file" instead of "copy the file"?

How can I make the plugins actually work with the manager?

Your SC4GraphicsOptions.ini should be in the Plugins folder root, just like the dll itself. Can you provide a copy of your ini?

[outdatedSIM 4]

1 hour ago, TiepiNL said:

Your SC4GraphicsOptions.ini should be in the Plugins folder root, just like the dll itself. Can you provide a copy of your ini?

Hi, I tried this as well. It currently is too. But the quesion is: should it be deleted from the mod folder 

My Documents\SimCity 4\Plugins\MAIN\150-mods\null-45.sc4-graphics-options.1.3.1.sc4pac\

?

For now it is in both places, as the other INIs of other mods, as that is how I understand the SC4PAC instruction: to copy it, perdiod.

INI file attached. It does currently not change to fullscreen, unless I put "-f" in the desktop shortcut. Same goes for no-intro, it's not working. It does set the resolution however. No log file is being created. 

 

SC4GraphicsOptions.ini

[memo 1,473]

There's a very explicit example in the Troubleshooting section regarding what to do with the .ini file. Does that answer your question? Whether to copy or to move – this makes no difference. The file in the original location has no effect. Personally, I prefer copying as it allows for comparing your modified copy of the .ini file to the original one, or to restore the original if necessary.

[outdatedSIM 4]

3 minutes ago, memo said:

There's a very explicit example in the Troubleshooting section regarding what to do with the .ini file. Does that answer your question? Whether to copy or to move – this makes no difference. The file in the original location has no effect. Personally, I prefer copying as it allows for comparing your modified copy of the .ini file to the original one, or to restore the original if necessary.

Thank you for helping out. I was searching for documentation like this, yet I did not find any on my own. I will go through it as it will probably answer many more questions.

 

 

 

[outdatedSIM 4]

Hello, I am yet to find an answer to the question, where should I actually place my Profile folder? Should it be in Documets\Sim Cuty 4\Plugins, game installation directory \Plugins, somewhere else, or does not matter?

[nos.17 5,256]

On 10/8/2025 at 5:56 PM, outdatedSIM said:

Hello, I am yet to find an answer to the question, where should I actually place my Profile folder? Should it be in Documets\Sim Cuty 4\Plugins, game installation directory \Plugins, somewhere else, or does not matter?

You're correct in that it doesn't matter. The folder you choose when setting up the new profile is simply the folder that sc4pac will place content into. However, the game will only read from Documents\SimCity 4\Plugins\, so when it comes time to actually using the folder from your profile, you can either manually rename the new folder to \Plugins\, or use use the SC4 launch parameter -UserDir:"..." to start the game with a custom location for the Plugins folder. I.e. you could have multiple shortcuts to SC4 on your desktop, each set up to read from a different folder.

Edit: this is lightly insinuated in the docs here but it definitely could be clarified.

  Edited October 10, 2025 by nos.17  

[nos.17 5,256]

Added 4 packages by @CorinaMarie and @Cyclone Boom, with one by @BannanaPeppers targeting color blind users. (#228)

And 59 beautiful flower gardens and parks by the @BLaM team and their @BLaM French Connections project (#285).

[nos.17 5,256]

46 packages by @Gn_leugim have been added (#282), 

alongside 4 packages by @ABBT with containing some mid-century industrial W2W. Preparations have been made for their inclusion with IRM industrial extensions also. 

[nos.17 5,256]

Finishing out a huge milestone, all items in @Pegasus CDK3 Collection have been added, for approximately 90 new packages (#253). I have updated all existing STEX pages to also point to this package, both via a banner at the top and the 'Download with sc4pac' link.

[nos.17 5,256]

🚨🚨 36 new packages by @Cockatoo have hit the channel. (#295) 🚨🚨

[nos.17 5,256]

A bit of a smaller update this time, but @shokthrpy's (aka SHK's) 9 remaining packages have been added, giving SHK's files 100% coverage in sc4pac. #301

Additionally most of @Magneto's content (#300) was added, with the exception of the JPN Sidewalk Mod, as it relies on more content from Hide Inoki which I'll need to figure out how to add to sc4pac.

[Jasoncw 11,949]

I uploaded a batch of BATs with .yaml files a few days ago and they still don't have the "Install with SC4Pac" button. Did something change or did I do something wrong? 

[memo 1,473]

@Jasoncw Currently, there's a bug in the pipeline. See https://github.com/sebamarynissen/simtropolis-channel/issues/308.

[Jasoncw 11,949]

13 minutes ago, memo said:

@Jasoncw Currently, there's a bug in the pipeline. See https://github.com/sebamarynissen/simtropolis-channel/issues/308.

Ok! I'm guessing once the bug is figured out the uploads will be added automatically, but let me know if I need to do anything on my end.  

[smf_16 1,838]

@Jasoncw the issue has been resolved, the install button should appear in a few minutes (if it hasn't already). Don't worry, you did nothing wrong. Turns out that the Node.js runtime for the actions was an older version that did not support yet certain features the code relied on. It's fixed now.