Lextar

I've moved some pieces from the parks menu into the police menu, but kept the budget Department and Purpose the same (Park and Rec and Park Effect), but for some reason it doesnt show up when I plop it so there isn't any maintance cost. Any ideas?

OK... from some other threads I so happen to come across on a different site, I've found the answer. If you want the "Budget Department" to have the value "Park and Rec", but the lot is not in the Park menu, then you need to set the "Budget Purpose" to the value "Landmark" instead of the "Park Effect". Now the question... is there a tutorial about the Budget Department and Budget Purpose explaining the combinations allowed? Also is it possible to combine the entries in the game into one entry? Example, I have 5 different castle walls plot, and when I place all 5, the 5 differrent names appear under City Beautification. Is there a way where you can name the 5 lots so when you open the City Beautification, that you would only have one item listed, but you've placed 5 of them? Even if they were different lots.

Some lots I've downloaded states that it is a rail, bus, garage and underground station. How do I confirm that this is the case and its not just a visual thing they done so it looks like its everything, but doesn't really function as everything? Any pointers or link to a tutorial explaining it? Thanks

hmm... probs sometimes is that there isnt any docs with it

I guess with the amount of experienced modders here and no visible solution, I guess it must be impossible to make a functioning Residential Plop. But wondering... is there still official support from EA that they may consider fixing this problem? Or would they be too busy with their latest games? *sigh* after downloading hundreds of lots, I realise it may all be in vain when the new game is released

I think I've patched my Sim City Deluxe, but not sure. Which patch do I need to get this working? As soon as I switch the time to night, the night lights should immediately come on right? Even if the game is paused? or do I need to ensure the lot has electricty and not abadoned and then unpause the game before I see the night lights of lots?

Just curious as I'm going through all the downloads available. There are many different residential towers/styles and commercial towers, hotels etc... but what I noticed is that there is something missing that would make a city look amazing... and that's the hotels in Las Vegas... how come no-one's done any lots of the many different theme and styles of the hotels in Las Vegas? It would be one good reason to run a sim city purely at night time.

Now is there a guide to all the different parameters/values that are used within the Examplars?

I've downloaded some lots where some appears in Landmarks and some in Rewards. Is there any difference where they are? I know Rewards can have certain requirements before they become available, but some downloads appear in Rewards, but can be used immediately. I have some standard towers, with RCI properties, some appear in Rewards (without any requirements before available) and some in Landmarks. Any ideas if there is any diff? Or is it just a place to put them in the menu?

Ok. Understood. So I presume if a lot appears in the landmarks, I can easily change the occupantgroup to the rewards with no ill effect. And if a Reward lot that has no pre-requsite, I can easilt change the occupantgroup to the landmark? The reason is so I can order the lots I downloaded a bit better.

That's what I was trying to get at, looking at the parameters, there isn't much diff. Is there specific parameters that are available in the Rewards that is not available for a Landmark? and vice versa? Besides the obvious ones where the Rewards can have requirements before they become available. i just don't understand why someone put an item in the Rewards menu, but it has no requirements. Would this have been happily placed in the Landmarks?

I've downloaded the British Airways London Eye and want to provide more details in the Desc. I've used LProp to do this, but that has failed. I then used iLive Reader and checked the Item Description Key and that points to the correct LTEXT (which is plain text). But for some reason, it still says "London, England" even though I've deleted the Item Description. Anyone got any ideas?

Looking about on the lots for downloads, I've seen ponds sets etc. Is this what people use to create ponds, canals, rivers and waterfalls? I havent had a chance to play with them yet, but do these still require rivers to be already be sculpted while Teraforming? If they are plopped during city building, do they still act as a source of water or not?

Not sure where to ask this, so I guess this is a general place to ask. Wondering if there is a mod that changes the layout of the menus. Getting sick of scrolling down to find the buildings I want.

hmm... why is University under Rewards?!?

I havent seriously gotten into playing SC4 yet, but would like to, considering I've spent days, downloading 100+ lots and aligning the stats, ordering them, sorting out the description and I havent even build a city yet!!! So I'm looking at the DVD that are on offer. I'm wondering what the stats are like, Are these all sensible values?? Also the ordering of them in the menu, are these all sensible too? So all the schools are grouped together and the museums grouped together in the civic menu? or is it all a mess. Because if both queries are positive ones, I'm seriously tempted.

With computer prices dropping the way they are, I think my 3.5GHz 1G RAM and a 256MB PCI-E graphics card probably can handle it. I do rather play SC4 without any cheats though. And the reason I was thinking about the CD is because some texture packs I want seemed to be locked by admin. And also sorting out the stats taking up a lot of time. Even though I like number crunching, the lack of keyboard short cuts in the tools means a hell of a lot of mouse clicking, so getting RSI. So I guess if the stats of the lots on the CD are no different to the downloads, I guess I'll be giving it a miss

I remember playing Simcity3 (or may have been 2) where I played continuously for 6 hrs until a friend called me up and asked if I wanted to go out for lunch. My reply was that I was busy. Realising that I was hungry, I got up... imediately falling back into my chair as I havent moved for so long. After the wave of weakness passed, I opened the door and the coldness of the empty house seeped into my study where the computer had successfully kept warm. I think that lunch sounds nice just about now. Anyway, back to the topic. I've recently started to download plots for SC4 which includes all the buildings replicated from Hong Kong. It's been a while since I played SC4, but my immediate recollection was the annoyance of the zoning of the areas. I remember back in the old days, Residential and Commercials where placed in squares of 3x3. But in SC4, its dynamic and the Residential automatically puts in the roads too which complicates things as sometimes you get plots of 3x1 successfully, but then sometimes if your drag isn't correct, you get zones of 2x1 which I didn't want. And then you get the roads connecting wrongly to how you want etc etc. Also problems like large buildings popping up in the wrong place within the zone you made. For instance you have a plot 6x3, hoping that it'd grow into two large tall towers 3x3 next to each other, but for some reason, a 3x3 appears two rows across leaving 2x3 on one side while a 1x3 on the other. How do people avoid this? Especially when you're trying to build a city that represents Hong Kong or any city with tall towers. Ideally you don't want small plots of 1x1 or 1x2 squares all over between tall rises.

Where is teh Uni in SimCity_1.dat? I'm trying to align/check the occupancy group for my downloaded lots. So I've opened up the Simcity_1.dat file to see what they should be, but can't seem to find the university exemplar. Am I missing something??

The prob with games like SC4 is that there is no good break point. Other games, its end of mission, or vital story advancement etc. The 6 hrs just seemed to disappear. But that was the good old days. Anyway, back on subject, so I understand the use of the Ctrl, Alt and Shift Keys (almost). Still not quite sure how to make 2 3x3 parcels. Instead of 6x3. Any good pointers?

The problem with the downloads I've been doing are a mess. Some of them have default stats or 0 maintanance cost or high capacity/radius. I understand some people want to make the game easy, but sometimes I don't understand why a school lot has a radius cost of 2 billion (it was an extremely high number) so if you wanted the school to have a even one square radius, it'd cost you the city. Then there are some lots with incorrect occupancy, so they appear in the wrong menus or in multiple menus that they shouldn't belong to. Some don't bother with description either. Hence thinking abiout STEX CD. So anyone purchased them? I've still not started plating SC4 proper, I rather get all the downloads I want before and sorted out before beginning. Its the way I am Chances are when I'm done, I'll probably find something else to play. It was the same with the Sims. Downloaded 2G worth of downloads, sorted everything out and then gave up and packed everything away. Well... Sims 2 came out, but refused to buy it lol

So looking at the original problem above posted by Mr_Maison... his solution is to zone some low desnity comericals if he wants Starbucks/Mcdonalds in his downtown area? Rather than all the tweaking with taxes or making buildings historic?

I'm a newbie and recently got back into SimCity4 Deluxe and I downloaded a pile of lots and stuff. After a long search for gmax so I could install BAT architecture, I think I got everything working. Now all I want to really do is tidy up some downloaded lots (update desc, re-order them in the menus etc) as I'm like that. So first question... How do I put a new line character in the description? Second question... I downloaded some lots, but in the Plugin manager, they appear in the Lots folder, but some don't appear in the Buildings area for me to change the description. Why is that???

I ended up using item orders of 6000 and they appear the way I want it to be in the menu. I tend to make this large numbers so I can easily slot new downloads in between existing ones without having to re-number existing ones. Also if you check the monorail order, that's quite high.