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I feel to clarify, there is actually much better news on this front. Long before the site crash, we specifically allowed the Internet Archive to index ST pages. While there may sometimes be crawl failures on certain URLs (typically those with long query strings), we were certainly not blocking the Wayback Machine intentionally. You may have observed the few weeks prior didn't have many pages saved. Aside from this it was actively indexing the site, and still does frequently. I also know some people had been manually indexing pages, which all helped. A summary of what the Internet Archive was able to restore can be seen from this post: Using the automated import, it allowed us to salvage over 6,000 images. We might also be able to find certain STEX files too from prior years, which could be especially helpful in restoring previous versions. These would be saved from the ?do=download URLs which fetch each STEX file.

The current heatwave in Europe is forcing me to find an indoor activity—good reason to further expand my Plantation Bay region. Here an overview of the existing tile; the expansion is planned for the southwest. 1st step: creating a nice seamless transition from these mostly industrial areas including port structures... ...across the border into the next tile: 2nd building a basic transport layout: I´m not sure if I´ll keep the avenues or downgrade these to roads in the beginning. Next will be adding the 1st residential areas, most likely at the northern coastline using the s-bent road as main connection, surrounded by big farms next to the rail line. Later expanding the transport networks and zoning a 2nd res area surrounding the southern bay. Region view, I marked the new tile: Transportation overview: Comments are welcome!

The Ridgehaven Golf Course in Naperville. Based off of a real golf course in my city. If you look closely, you can actually see the golfers playing and people watching the game.

Fixing roof-texture asymmetries which were apparent in the images, and yet somehow I had missed! Am I working too much?

I did manage to get a railing that I liked to work on the HRW bridge although it lacks the middle railing. I made about 20 more prototypes for this modification but these 3 are the only ones I feel have any merit. The railing one kind of came out by accident but I think it could work. I really wanted to make this one representative of a viaduct type being used on the new HS2 line in the UK but you only have 27 pixels max to get under-girder and the concrete upper and lower sections to fit in. And then I kind of like this just solid, very modern concrete design which might be representative of the concrete cross-section bridges and viaducts being built everywhere these days.

Going to work on this one as I do the Alpen lotting:

Cool! Plop-and-Paint actually just emits a game message with the Lot ID. But this method that allows to specify both the building & lot ID would be more suitable I will investigate further! --- For people suffering from crashes, it's advisable to install SC4 Graphics Options DLL and to ensure dgVoodoo2 is properly installed. For most configurations this helps a ton! --- @Ernestmaxis: I did try lot texture removal and got a proof of concept working (via the cSC4LotBaseTextureOccupant class and its texture specifications), but sadly this method did not persist in savegames. It seems like the lot texture occupants (both overlay and base, don't be confused by the name of the Occupant class) are regenerated on each load by the actual lot configurations. See the video below. However in this state I don't consider it to be very useful - hence why the stripper can only remove decal textures you've added yourself.

I'm sorry to hear about your mother, I hope she gets better soon. I had raised this before, but for some reason Internet Archive had not been archiving this site. We could've saved a lot more content if it had been. I'm not sure if there is an explicit block or something else was going on.

Thanks! And after looking at it, it looks like the 09Brazillian file is a combination of earlier attachments from the same topic. Check these posts here and here. Fortunately, those attachemnts are stil accessible.

Didn't know where else to ask this, but... Was wondering if we were able to restore those broken attachment links in the forums as we come across them. This question here made me realize that some of us may have those files that had been attached but are now gone. Staff could go in and re-attech them if we want to go that route. Or should we hold off until a formal process is set up. Just wondering...

I have sent you the file (and others) with a PM.

@AsimPika3172 : Thank you for your comment. You're right—the error occurred because I simply didn't launch the game in LHD mode, so the traffic lights remained in RHD mode. But it's all good; both versions are available and work perfectly fine. @Ernestmaxis : Yes, in principle, SENT can be used to overlay all texture replacement mods... At least, I think so! @Turnstyled : Yes, SAM 1 and all of its variants created by other players are 100% compatible with SENT. SAM 1 is the only one among all SAMs that has the unique feature of containing no textures related to the NAM networks (RHW, NWM) or those from Maxis (RD2, AVE4, OWR2). That is, textures with T- or X-shaped intersections with the aforementioned networks. This means that SAM 1’s intersections with other networks are built using street textures (Maxis, WestWind Streets by Hugues Aroux, Urban Tarsealed Street Mod by rivit). The only thing you need to be careful about with SENT and its dependencies is that SENT must be loaded last in the “Plugins” folder. If you use (for example) “WWS” for the streets and “WestWindStreets SAM 8 - Firenze” for SAM 8, then make sure these two mods are loaded before SENT. This ensures that SENT is loaded last so it can replace identical instances across the different mods. Don’t forget: to ensure texture compatibility between SENT and other mods, be sure to check the correct box to install the proper replacement textures during the SENT installation. Aka

I see, so those are long lost images, which might have had an ImageShack or PhotoBucket placeholder that now has been replaced by an ST placeholder in the course of the restoration work. That makes sense. Thanks!

Oh, sure. There've been a million images lost over time. A site called ImageShack yanked the rug out from under peeps even before I joined. Then PhotoBorket did the same to me (and others) in my first year here. And many peeps delete their pics from ST after a few months so that also leaves database entries pointing to nowhere. I believe all of those will be detected as broken linkys. (Or when CB gets back, he can give us the real answer.)

Take a peek in here?

@Turnstyled It's been a few years ago, but just prior to when CB and I created my Side Water Shoppe, I played around with several settings and created a look I really, really liked including a faint aura along the shore lines. (Sorry, no, I don't now recall what I did, but my point is: Do experiment with the settings until you find what pleases your eyes the best.) Edit: Found a pic that shows said aura.

It works for me, but since it is a Debug build it won't work for most people due to needing to have Visual Studio 2022 with the C++ tools installed to get those debug CRT DLLs. Even beta DLLs should be Release builds for public distribution because the Microsoft Visual C++ 2022 redistributable does not include the debug versions of the runtime. Is there a way to reset the camera to the Maxis defaults?

Looks like it was attachd here, but the link to the attachment was broken when the site went down. Will 'call' on @Wallibuk to see if the file still exists and can be restored.

This will be fixed soon. Yes please! According to the tracker, AGC's and smf's files are still missing! The MZ City Hall fix is currently working correctly.

Powered by @memo's beautiful 3D Camera Mod, the City of Naperville overlooks the Cirque City skyline early in the morning.

@CorinaMarie, @Cyclone Boom, I have a more general observation which I post here instead of in the recovery pages. Are we sure that nothing was lost prior to 17 June, 2024? E.g. for the file I link below, there are a great many comments going back to 2012, all with images. And all the images have a placeholder. I am certain I have seen placeholder images before in posts older than 17 June, 2024. I also notice that the original image name for all of these is "%3C". Maybe this helps investigating it.

This is very well spoken, and again I appreciate it. Though, why Matt325's stuff is forever prohibited from editing to a "modern" update standard, but SimGoober and JBSimio's can be freely updated, I don't understand why. Maybe that's beside the point, but I do wonder. Matt's intent carries forward forever somehow? I wish I had that kind of staying power. I wonder why SimGoober doesn't have it. Or is it because it's ok for a Staff member to modernize, but no one else can (you said I'd need to make an explicit override mod)? That might make sense, if the updates were fair. But what if those staff members start "modernizing" all civics to a CAM standard with high capacities and ratios and forget about out-of-the-box players? Would that be fair? What if they do that by making the modding tools biased to their style? Also, I see things being updated that, were I to do it, I'd probably be given a stern talking to. And it is odd when a creator happens to notice their stuff has been updated without their explicit permission, though maybe they're ok with it in the end. I guess we all dodged a bullet there, huh (we wouldn't want another WolfZe situation, would we)? Still, you are essentially correct that, despite optionality, a person may end up being forced to mod things to how they want them no matter what (maybe the next hot BATter is a full blown CAM zealot or something). I completely agree. But my point is, right now the modding tools are geared towards essentially forcing not only the ERM on everyone now by default, but also using a CAM standard. And this CAM standard might apply for most civics, unless one happens to know the ins-and-outs of writing PIM-X New Properties code, which frankly is beyond almost all of us. @CasperVg may pull a rabbit out of a hat and could bake in some awesome options, as I've seen in the 2026 PIM-X channel, but the options need to exist in the first place. Shouldn't at least the modding tools be neutral here, even if there is a default? If there's a default, then shouldn't we as a community endeavor to not forget about the other half, or third, or quarter of the community, that prefers the non-default? Maybe in fact they're the silent majority, as I suspect they are. Shouldn't we try to accommodate them in the best manner possible, if we're as welcoming as we all claim? I started out by saying that I wasn't going to revisit past decisions and fight over the inclusion of the ERM in New Properties. But maybe I should've. So permit me to be blunt: It was a dumb idea then, and it's still dumb - at least for anyone who actually wants to play this game and not turn it into a painter. All the capacities of educational buildings are CAM-sized (how many 3x3 libraries does a person need with 900,000 books?). Now you, @Tyberius06, may have extra work to update collections like JBSimio's Education Pack, and maybe others. And players need to update their entire downloads to make it work with new packs like SimGoober, again if they actually play the game. In the meantime, players are faced with the certainty that either they avoid all packs with the ERM standards applied, or mod the hell out of their game, or, as someone may intend - to install CAM and its various one-size-fits-all Controllers with zero documentation on how it affects their regions and other plugins. How convenient. The long-term 10+ year regional players are left in the past to rot, apparently. They just don't need to install new BATs, after all. Ultimately, I'm just trying to offer another mod for people to use if they choose. And I'm trying to be fair to the players who want to play, particularly those who have regions they're growing. How fair is it to tell someone to bulldoze their home garden after years of effort and pruning and work to make it look right? That's what re-starting a region would be like. I daresay that if @Haljackey ever lost his region, his interest in SimCity4 would cease to exist. So with all that said: 1. I think it is completely upon us as a community to develop modding tools that are neutral, or fair, or offer optionality when possible. 2. For the ERM, I think it's fair to include in New Properties so long as there's a version without it. I don't think "default" building stats should depend on a mod, or CAM. This is not a "fix" like Private Schools with Sliders, or the Opera House. It's an option on how to play the game being forced in a modding tool, which isn't right. 3. I also think it's fair that, unless a happy compromise can be provided as @memo suggested, an option for civic buildings exists that does not force CAM capacities and a CAM radius. 4. Assuming that the Staff here appreciates their own community and the accepts some principles of neutrality in the toolset, I will be happy to contribute to efforts to make those things happen, as well as possibly modding or editing collection packs to include ERM variants or non-ERM variants, if needed, just like there's IRM variants for Industrial collections and CAM variants and Vanilla variants. Some people like playing the game, even as a challenge. Are we going to up the starting funds, up the capacities, the radius, the effects of everything just because of complaints from Reddit that the game is hard at first? How dumb are we going to make things? Now starting funds for an easy game are at 1 million in CAM. No, thank you. They can play their easy way so long as the tools aren't forcing their playstyle on mine - as they are right now. That is wrong. But more broadly than that, I'm not going to shit on half of the community merely because I prefer a certain type of game style, and I'd hope that the Staff here and those making the tools to mod the game won't do that either. Thanks, Tyberius for all of your efforts to not only update things for all of us, but keep packs alive with variants (IRM and non-IRM, CAM and non-CAM). I think you're a pretty reasonable guy and understand one style of play doesn't fit all. And I hope that things can more forward positively for the players here, a ton of whom are just playing Vanilla and incrementally adding to downloads and do not want to destroy their regions or install mods that conflict with half their plugins any more than a person would bulldoze their home garden.

Oh, thanks! I wasn't sure because I have some Brazilian/Latin American building files by Wallibuk, but they just aren't working in-game. I thought the '009Brazil' file had the dependencies. I can't remember where I downloaded them from. But no worries—I'll just stick to the ones that work. Thanks a lot!

@CorinaMarie Thank you so much! I remember the Side Water Shoppe thread. I might experiment a bit further, but for now, 32 for both WaterMinAlpha and WaterDepthForMaxAlpha looks great to me. I like the Gobias HD Bodensee water. It's not TOO bright like Gobias's Caribbean water. (Note to self: Look up where in the world "Bodensee" is!) I was going to ask if the @CasperVg's CAS_AutoHistorical_v0.0.2 DLL and it's corresponding .dat that were on SC4Devotion still had any use with the AutoSave DLL mod, but I see that it has some functionality outside of its autosave functionality. Also, I did a search on the "new" SC4Devotion and I found the files. So much is available through sc4pac. More and more downloads are being updated to "modern standards" through Project ZIP. So many of the downloads on SC4Evermore have Cleanitols included. The community is a giant of governing gifts. Stand tall, Simtropolis. Stand tall. Edit: I didn't want to open SimCity 4 to see what I was going to misquote!

Thanks! I just skipped to the recommended settings! So, it seems to me that if I want more transparent water, then I should set a lower value for WaterMinAlpha and a higher value for WaterDepthForMaxAlpha. I'll try 32 or 50 for for WaterMinAlpha (but probably 32) and 32 for WaterDepthForMaxAlpha.

Thanks! Well, I don't want to dig into Reader for too much, but it'd probably problematic to pile a beach extend mod and Diagonal Jagged Edges Mod on top of Gobias Sudden Valley, so I've changed some values for Sudden Valley from sc4pac using Reader. Following this guide, I changed MaxNormalYForCliff to .77 to match Diagonal Jagged Edges Mod. I also changed MaxBeachWidth to 5 and MaxBeachAltitude to 3. I took a quick look at Gizmo's Water Flora in Reader and I promptly removed it from my plugins folder. I know that it's a very old mod, but it modifies a lot that I don't want it to modify. Now, following the guide, I placed Sorchin's Water Flora in 075-my-plugins, but I found that the guide didn't do a very good job of explaining what WaterMinAlpha and WaterDepthForMaxAlpha do. I'd like my water to be more transparent, so should I set both values to lower values? I'm using Gobias's Bodensee HD water, by the way. Thank you in advance! Edit: Whoopsie. The guide is here:

Hi HanzMaaz, a search in the SC4 Prop Texture Catalog shows that item is a part of fz_farmressource.dat, which is included in Fantozzi's main package, not a dependency. Make sure you have that file present. If that doesn't work, please share a screenshot or two.

Yep! Please do. And if this ever causes any trouble with your attachments storage quota, send a PM to CB and me and he can prolly write a script to disassociate them from your count (or such). It gets a little tricky for the next post where it's quoted. To fix that you have to jump thru a few hoops. Fix the attachment in the original post first. Now quote in the same way as the next person did. Change to Source in the editor. Copy it all (then erase it there). Edit the next post. Change to Source. Replace the borked quote with your copied version. Save. And if it's a silly long quote when it doesn't need to be, feel free to chop it down to a proper size. If you aren't comfy with HTML Source Editing, let me know on a case by case basis after you fix the attachment and I'll tweak any quotes which also include the linky.

Thank you very much!

@Aka Thanks so much for the explanation! I'm installing as much as possible through sc4pac as I can, so my plugins directory structure pretty much follows what sc4pac does. There are some things by Rivit, MGB, and Scoty that I have to place outside of the sc4pac structure...and the fact that what they do is so complex is a compliment from me because their work is outstanding. I've selected all the proper options in the SENT installer, so my plugins directory is pretty much just: _Release RRW-Maxis xxx-sc4pac-directories z00_Catenary_Essentials z00_Jondor_Railroad_Crossings z00_MGB Mods z10_Scoty Mods z20_SENT z90_Minimize Button Remover So, yes, I have SENT loading after custom SAMs.

Oh, Cori!! Your thoughtfulness and dedication really know no boundaries! You didn't have to go through all this trouble! But thank you SO MUCH!! I see, maybe the way I like to make them (using custom bitmaps and the URK) it really can't generate .bld files, only the Building Architect can. I guess my next buildings will just have to be landmarks then. But now, thanks to you, I know why. Thank you again, OMG, you're the absolute best. p.s.: I called you Cori because that's what you say you prefer in your "about me"

It depends. For the planes, fighters, helicopters, emergency vehicles, etc., the answer is generally there can only be one at a time since they replace a Maxis model. Things like cars and trucks you see on roads could be either. As always check the readme - it should say if they are overrides or are "new instances".

I found a tool on GitHub and extracted your BMPs: Then I loaded the SC3URK and I did the creation exactly like you showed. That then created a file named BAT.DAT (or such). I renamed it and did other tests and then sort of forgot all that I did, but my final naming was Test1.dat with an internal name of Test. With it located in: C:\GOG Games\SimCity 3000 Unlimited\Apps\BARender it is then available as growable replacement in the game. The trouble I'm having now is that having done that once, it errors every subsequent time saying it can't create the Building List or some such. Separately, I suspect the .BLD is only for the ones made in the Building Architect Tool and that's where you stack blocks and paint on decals and such.

Included in this pack here: https://www.sc4evermore.com/index.php/downloads/download/21-other/205-sc4d-LEX-legacy-reddonquixote-compilation

I don't know if this is already a thing, but I give permission to restore my own images if they're found on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. I've been so tired with my mother's broken arm. I really don't have much energy to partake in a project like the restoration currently ongoing. Though I did look for a few of my uploaded images on the Wayback Machine and the only capture of the webpage that the image was on triggered a Cloudflare block from the webpage being captured.

I'm not the only one noticing this is an issue, but that's your choice to muddle things. There's a reason why you renamed CAM Core. It's just confusing if it doesn't involve growth of high-stage lots in some manner. I don't even understand what CAM means anymore. It's a far cry from Tarkus's explanation on his blog. But this is all besides the point anyway if you don't explain what things do, which is part of explaining what they are. Let me understand. You release a mod that affects the simulator, designed for people with existing regions and downloads, and won't even tell them what it really does and if something is incompatible with it? I mean, the CAM 2.1 manual had a very detailed list of common popular mods that were incompatible with it. How do you expect anyone to install this if they have no idea what it really does and whether it will work with their downloads? Trust their luck? I'm not asking for a the formula for the ratio of radius to fill value, or whatever. Heck, even a note like - "hey, this mod is incompatible with X very popular mod. Make sure you uninstall it." That would probably require less effort than the work involved in making this in the first place. And I hate to ask but WHAT changelog? This is brand new. Or are you referring to the entire CAM changelog otherwise? Was I just supposed to know to look at the CAM Controller's changelog if I'm not even using that mod? Why be so dismissive or blase? I'm not a newbie asking about how to install stuff on Reddit, so I don't understand the hostility or dismissiveness. EDIT: Also, part of the problem is that you baked in the Educational Realism Mod's requirements into New Properties without any discussion or consideration otherwise, and now we are still faced with a situation whereby old mods and collections are "obsolete" with these requirements. Whether they'll ever get fixed is anyone's guess, particularly if you are completely dismissive of anyone who asks about a mod's effects at all. @memo suggested that at least a middle ground for things, but New Properties is basically CAM-only at this point and Vanilla users are screwed otherwise. Too bad, @memo. You had a nice suggestion but I guess we're all just newbies or something. @CorinaMarie I appreciate the help because frankly it looks like the entire SC4 world is going to be forced into CAM gameplay at some point (whatever CAM even means anymore - here apparently it means creating a library you need to have a filling degree of 0.01 in order to run it in your game without blowing out all capacity). @CasperVg's new PIM-X will incorporate the New Properties that is strictly CAM only because of a single person's decision.

I find it absolutely bizarre that your original provider was willing to resort to a antimatter annihilation equivalent attack against ST as a whole. I am so glad that your were able to recover from this farce.

More row houses:

Laying the foundation for the construction of a tunnel over the highway. I would have liked to have openwork side walls so I could see the highway. But the slope of the terrain where the railroad passes doesn't allow for that. Do you think applying a “trompe l'oeil” texture to this side wall could simulate the continuity of the highway?

@Kel9509 I will upload the missing files next week (I thought I had lost the files but I found them). I updated my "Automobile DLC" and "Statues and Monuments". I changed the complex file system to a single .dat file: This is what I added

My conclusion is we can create the equivalent of .bld files. At least from the player's standpoint. If I'm remembering correctly (from all those years ago when I knew these things) the .bld ones are used to replace growable buildings in the game. I achieved the same thing with yours, but I think it gets added to one ongoing .DAT file (and my renaming messed that up during my testing). Ofc, once we figure this out, we could write a little tutorial explaining how peeps can do it themselves. I'm wondering if it would be good for you to include a Suitcase .sjs version which would allow others to do the same import as I did? Yep! Please do. It is what I go by IRL. The way my UserName came about was long before I joined ST, I was creating an account on a different gaming site. Both Cori and Corina were taken so I added my middle name. That site ran on old custom written software which didn't allow spaces in a user name. I don't really care for how underscores look_in_a_name so I just smooshed mine together, but with a capital M for easier reading. Then, later, I've maintained that exact user name on other sites for consistency and did the same here on ST.

Nice work! Bold and modern but warm and inviting all at the same time

Hot off the press is a bunch of new content for the Simtropolis channel! +68 packages by @xannepan, with lots of delicious W2W and Euro/French architecture +7 packages by @gerAndi +48 packages by @AP, covering all of their remaining content to date!

Jason, I'm very happy to see someone making use of the feature!

What guides are you referring to? I've been working on something similar. RCI demand balance has always been a critical element to success in every game in the SimCity franchise, but given the most recent iteration's city size restrictions, optimizing space and resources has never been more important. Perhaps equally as critical as RCI demand being in balance is the marginal revenue and costs associated with additional zoning, whether they stem from new shoppers, or more services and road tiles being required. Here is my post on calculating marginal value added: