GoodOak

fafalone: So, in the bottom right corner of both of your pictures, there's a big, long building there. What is that? I don't think I've seen it before.

Ah, that's right. I don't really like the udrive it missions, so it has been a while.

Well, I made the initial mistake of downloading all kinds of stuff from STEX and LEX, a bunch of Japanese sites, and the various DVDs here and there. I went nuts with it.* Ironically, the volume of extra content made the game almost totally unplayable. So, to fix my bloated menus, I backed it all up, then wiped the game out. Then re-installed it clean. Then added the "known-working" stuff first - NAM, most of Pegasus' work, much of the BSC stuff, etc. If it came with an installer that installed intelligently to it's own little folder system (such as almost all BSC stuff from the LEX), I just left it alone. If it was just a folder full of files, I categorized it myself in folders: Airports, Train Stations, Large Skyscrapers, Schools, etc. You get the idea. Anyway... Then I spent some time figuring out how to edit the exemplar files myself to clean up some of the mess and tailor it a little more to my liking. I'm not too good at this, but thanks to some people here I found that iLive's "Reader", Daeley's "DAMN" (advanced menu navigation), and the other little tool that makes stuff DAMN compatible are essential. Go to the LEX and search ilive, Daeley, and Stefan79, respectively, for the above mentioned tools. Now, I add content slowly and I put buildings where I want them in the menus. I created a numerical system on a spreadsheet that reserves certain ranges (0-99) in the "Item Order" property for certain types of buildings. For example, to keep schools in the education menu clustered together, and museums likewise, etc. And further, to keep small schools clustered separately from huge schools. If I download a new school, I just look at the number range on my spreadsheet and then change it in Reader. And changing "Occupant Groups" will get your buildings in the proper menus in the first place. For example, why clutter up Landmarks constantly, when some buildings can be stashed in other much less crowded menus. Or better yet, place the lot in DAMN, then remove "Occupant Groups" all together. It is tedious, but I found that once I got the major stuff back into the game, maintaining the mess becomes a breeze. Hope all that helps somehow. * Pointless side note - I kind of Rip Van Winkle'd on this game in general. I've played SimCity since the good (and ugly) ol' days of the original. I bought SC4 the day it came out, then bought Rush Hour. Then fell asleep on this game until this winter. Checked some SC4 fansites - then "holy hell! Where has all this been all this time!" I had no idea the SimCity mod community was so active... So as far as I'm concerned, this game ALREADY IS SimCity 5. I doubt there will be a fan-pleasing sequel to SC4, but I couldn't care less. Do we even need it?

Nevermind! Posted mostly based on the picture. But I think you want more of a steep, fast moving creek...

Watch the shadow of the helicopter on the ground. That's the best way to see exactly where the thing is in the air. The fixed perspective of SC4 makes it hard to tell what you're directly over the top of.

I may be incorrect here, but it seems that if you were to send a developed city that uses any custom content, you'd also have to include that custom content (or, at least a huge list of stuff you need to download). I would think that you'd need to send a region folder, along with the region creator's entire plugins folder. I've only just started using SC4 this winter with custom content, and my plugins folder is tipping the 8GB mark at this point. In short - too much to send! Maybe you can convince (pay) somebody (no, not me) to package all the important folders up in a ZIP, then split it, then burn the files to a few DVDs and physically mail it to you.

I just use the in-game signs for this. The "signpost" ones are too ugly and prominent to be used as anything else, so I just make a path of signs to indicate where future expansion of routes will go. Like a long row of signs that say "CANAL" or "BRIDGE" or something like that - about every 20 squares or so. Just as a reminder to myself not to put a stadium there or an actual neighborhood worth keeping.

I'm sure it isn't news to anybody here that it doesn't take many BAT downloads to end up with a busted landmark menu that takes ten minutes to scroll end to end. So I'm trying to fix that. I figure that if I'm going to use three different coastline kits, NAM, about a billion landmarks, and all kinds of other crap, I should at least have some way to know where I put it all. Here are my questions: 1. Can I edit the in-game descriptions and titles by modifying a file? I know the titles of buildings/parks/etc can be edited in-game, but I want to know how to open up the files and just fix the problem permanently. I've noticed quite a few times that somebody will make this awesome skyscraper - great nightlighting, perfect proportion and design ... only to plop it and realize that this amazing structure is entitled "Custom Ploppable" and it doesn't have any description (so I can differentiate it from the million other awesome skyscrapers). I'd like to edit the files and fix that. 2. Can I edit menu locations of buildings and the order in which the building appears in the menu? I'd like to be able to control which menu buildings show up in (parks, landmarks, hospitals, etc), and then also be able to "cluster" them with similar models. For example, keep my various Dubai towers all together in landmarks, or keep various cargo ship props all in one place under seaports, and the libraries and museums separated. I'm trying to fix instances where I find a neat train station, find that it doesn't show up in-game, and weeks later find out it had been hidden at the bottom of the parks menu. After enough downloads, it gets sorta irritating. I assume there is some numerical identifier to tell a building where it goes in the menu. Can this simply be changed by editing the file? 3. If the above is do-able, can I use the RCI menus and add stuff to those? Those menus are always nicely empty. I'd like to stick various shops, malls, towers, industrial clutter ... all of that undernearth the zone/dezone buttons. But I've never seen anything else placed in there. Thanks for any help or responses!

What? No votes yet for "Nuclear Free Zone?"

I played SimCity (the first one) on Windows 3.1 at my friend's house when I was a kid. We'd stay up until all hours of the night playing Dune II and SimCity. Fine memories!

Actually, I have wondered a bit along these lines as well... I'd like to know when the "cutoff" dates are on the two disks. I'd like to be able to kind of avoid any download duplication. Downloads on STEX tend to be quite slow, and anyway I have a cap on internet bandwidth every month, so I don't like to waste it re-downloading stuff that's already on the disks. So, does anybody know (even just roughly) what periods of time do the two disks cover? Like, when does disk 2 start with and stop. And all of that. Not that big of a deal but I don't really want to check the two disks (not to mention the LEX disks) every time something looks d/l worthy.

So, I played around with DAMN for awhile ... it looks really promising for clearing up some of the seldom used menu clutter (like stadiums or small office towers that don't really work as "landmarks" etc) ... I'll need to try this a little more, or see if I can find a tutorial. I'll probably take a hybrid DAMN/file mod with iLive approach and just keep it organized that way. And indeed, I'll check out that menu moving thread on SC4D. So thanks Thingfishs and Captcity! I really appreciate the help.

Wow! I thought that custom menus were not possible ... What's up with the aptly named DAMN? Got a link for it?

Thanks to the both of you. Reader works great. It took a little bit to figure out what was going on, but it makes sense. But how do I change which menu a building shows up in? For example, if I wanted to move something from the Landmarks menu to the Power menu? How do I define which menu something shows up in? And just out of curiosity, why is it not possible to place anything under the RCI tabs? Thanks again!

I almost always use SOMY's microwave plant, but it's expensive and you either need to cheat or have a very well established city. Can't beat the power source, though. And the design and nightlighting is pretty kickass. Microwave Rectenna: https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=11118