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asasnat

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Everything posted by asasnat

  1. I've never heard of that being a thing. If it does exist, I'm not the one who has the build.
  2. Fair. I didn't mention them because, while more functional than the rest of the hydrology simulation, the fresh/saltwater system is still very incomplete (all surface- and sea-level water sources are treated as providing both fresh and salt water). If the modders find a way to introduce a clear separation between fresh and salt water sources, I might be more interested in it, but as it stands, I think it's a completely forgettable game mechanic, certainly one that I won't be playing with anytime soon. That is true. However, from what I recall, the weather simulation doesn't affect the city simulation much, if at all. (The game does use the moisture values to determine what terrain textures should be placed where. Temperature is also a factor, but I don't know if it's taken from the weather simulation, or just approximated based on terrain height. These are completely cosmetic though.) The only thing I managed to find that still worked - a multiplier for flammability in summer - is disabled by default (set to 1, which means that flammability is the same regardless of season). But I'm not sure if it even uses the weather simulation for that. I have a suspicion that it has something to do with the mysterious city latitude and longitude values that Null 45 found. Maybe it uses those to calculate the start and end of summer for the purposes of the flammability simulation? Back when SimCity 3000 was still being developed as a 3D title, there were plans to have special zone types for farming and mining uses. It's possible that these ideas came up again during the development of SimCity 4. This is just speculation though. I don't think anything related to these features has been found in SimCity 4's code base. (Besides farming, that is very much a thing in SimCity 4.)
  3. I'm not an expert, but I'd say it depends on how much of the hydrology code is left in the final game binary. If the hydrology code is fully intact but disabled by an obscure "toggle", it should be possible (with enough looking around...) to find it and turn it back on. If the hydrology code is either fully gone or only small pieces of it remain, things would be a lot harder. It'd probably take a lot of SC4Fix-style code injection to reimplement the missing functions and make it work again. Sadly, if Null's words are anything to go by, this situation seems like the more likely one. Also, it appears that the few people who possess the knowledge to do all this stuff are not terribly interested in the hydrology simulation, and would rather research parts of the game that would have a greater impact on the player experience. I can't blame them - other city builder games with water physics have game mechanics that mesh well with the water, making it fun to play with. Timberborn has badwater - which you must keep away from the beavers so they don't get sick - and droughts, so you have to stockpile water to keep your beavers hydrated and farmland watered. Cities: Skylines has building abandonment and damage from floods, so you have to be careful when damming up a river for power. Also, you have to carefully place your pumps and sewage outlets, so you don't accidentally pollute your devoted cims' water supply. SimCity 4 has none of these, so to make the hydrology an actually interesting gameplay mechanic and not just a neat gimmick, you'd have to design and implement special mechanics that take advantage of it. That's a tall ask for a modding community whose knowledge of the game they're modding is still very incomplete. Now, part of me thinks that this conversation is off-topic. However, another part of me thinks that the "and other modding discoveries" in the post title means that this conversation - which is about things found deep in the code base of SimCity 4 - is still on-topic. What do you think?

  4. tool SC3K Sprite Extractor

    asasnat replied to thiekus's topic in SimCity 3000

    Oh my goodness gracious. I've wanted this for so long. And it's finally here! I hope this paves the way for reinsertion of modified sprites in the future.

  5. Source code dreams...

    asasnat posted a topic in SimCity 3000

    For some reason, I often wish that SimCity 3000 modding was comparable in complexity to SimCity 4 (or maybe even Minecraft) modding. Maybe one day, someone at Maxis or EA will decide that the game is too old to be profitable, and release it as open-source software. Highly unlikely, but, you know.

  6. Parksville

    asasnat posted a file in SC3K Cities & Maps

    Version 1

    131 Downloads

    January 12th 2423. Population ~902k. Has a... reasonable amount of wealth. Tax 5-5-5 Economy: power and garbage export, water import Uses building plop cheat (walls on the prison island)

  7. Show us what you are working on in SimCity 3000!

    asasnat replied to SimCityHawk's topic in SimCity 3000

    @Quelquechosedautre I'm sorry but what is orthniscelidophobia? I can't even find a mention of that on Google - closest I can find is ornithophobia (fear of birds), which considering the complete lack of birds I highly doubt that image would trigger.

  8. Show us what you are working on in SimCity 3000!

    asasnat replied to SimCityHawk's topic in SimCity 3000

    PlazaLandia [image temporarily hidden]

  9. Show us what you are working on in SimCity 3000!

    asasnat replied to SimCityHawk's topic in SimCity 3000

    Plazaville Moth Lake Airport, named after the nearby Moth Lake. CJ coming soon[tm]

  10. (Mod) AMPS Development Thread

    asasnat replied to RobertaME's topic in SC4 - Custom Content

    Some of the advisor message links for buildings (mainly the generator ones) cause the red arrow bug. I'm assuming that's just an effect of the mod's extreme modularity - is that right? My answer is probably hidden somewhere in this thread, but it's too much for me to skim through.
  11. NAM DLL ( ) accomplishes diag streets and disabled autoconnect, as well as street tunnels. I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to make RHW tunnels as well. No comment on adjacent bridges or NC streets/OWR.

  12. Legalize Gambling Ordinance Upgrade

    asasnat commented on Null 45's file in DLL Mods

    I hope this lays the foundations for many great things in the SC4 modding scene.
  13. I hope this is not considered necroing but I don't think it would've worked that way. The stream effect can "jump" into the air if it goes down a slope that is too steep. We all know Maxis developers were hardcore when designing SC4, but I don't think even they would be hardcore enough to take jumping rivers/streams into account for the hydrology/erosion simulators. This may sound silly, and admittedly I don't have much to prove this, but I think for the water/stream simulation they were going for something more akin to the lava spewed out by the volcano disaster, which flows and pools in a realistic manner (at least until the disaster ends and the lava magically vanishes; realism is my passion). Features like these, and the possibility that we might never get to see them work in the way Maxis envisioned, make me want to create my own city builder, implementing all such features. Maybe some day...
  14. Oh, I recognize that one. Accidentally found it when playing around with Cori's LUA execution thingamajig! I didn't think it was the originally intended river tool, because I couldn't bridge over it (although that's probably just a limitation of having to spawn the effect in manually by using cheats or scripting) EDIT: Another thing. Unused parameters in the terrain tuning INI file suggest that water streams would pick up sediment from the ground, turning a different color. As it goes further downstream, it would deposit it back into the ground, leading to slow, gradual, hydraulic erosion. I wonder if this would work with the stream effect?
  15. SimCity_1.dat includes three unused God mode tools: Spring, Rainfall and Lake. They allow you to place bodies of water above sea level. Teirusu's mod enables Rainfall and Lake. Unfortunately the water that you place down is completely stoic and doesn't save. Also, the Spring tool isn't enabled because it doesn't work. I was looking at November 2002 preview footage when I noticed an above-sea-level body of water being placed: Not only that, you can clearly see it sloshing around as more water is added - kind of like how Cities: Skylines simulates bodies of water. Would it be viable (or even possible at all) to locate the code that handles the water physics and enable it with a DLL? Assuming - of course - that there isn't an option somewhere deep in the .dat files that needs to be ticked to enable it, or that the code for this is even present in the final build at all. Sorry if this is the wrong place to talk about this. I noticed the water physics at 3:00 AM while discussing SimCity 4 prerelease footage and have no idea where to talk about this. We can make this a separate thread if the admins so desire.

  16. Video of SimCity 4 in its beta glory!

    asasnat replied to Neil_Fairbanks's topic in SimCity 4 General Discussion

    Noticed a peculiar detail at 0:24 - you can see the player placing down an above-sea-level body of water, presumably using one of the axed God mode water brushes. Since this is a very late preview, with the game releasing only 2 months after, I'm optimistic that the necessary code for this is still left in the game, but is disabled.

  17. Advanced Water Management

    asasnat replied to Ulisse Wolf's topic in SC4 Modding - Open Discussion

    I once found this peculiarity when puruising through "SimCity_x.dat" files. I tried enabling it but with no results. Glad to see you managed to get it working (for the most part)!

  18. Show us your Oddities!

    asasnat replied to borntoboogie's topic in SC4 Showcase

    I used to hear about being able to see trash when garbage is at capacity, but never actually saw it in game.

  19. Show us your Oddities!

    asasnat replied to borntoboogie's topic in SC4 Showcase

    Interesting. My parks never have any workers commuting to them. Anyway, "Ma, these veggies taste plasticky..."

  20. Source code dreams...

    asasnat replied to asasnat's topic in SimCity 3000

    Sorry for bumping but I'm thinking of just creating a new game to put these ideas into. I have zero modding knowledge.

  21. Increase map size maximum

    asasnat replied to Martin892's topic in SimCity 3000

    I once tried tampering with save files to change the map size -not much success with that (although I changed a 64x64 map into 256x256, which is cool I suppose). Heard of someone on Discord who made the map wider in one axis than the other, but I haven't seen any screenshot proof yet.
  22. I think overloaded plants do explode but not immediately, takes a few ingame months or longer

  23. SimCity - Memes / Jokes

    asasnat replied to TowerDude's topic in General Off-Topic

    it's obvious that it's a goat smh

  24. The Simtropolis Closet Thread - deux!

    asasnat replied to Boggy1's topic in General Off-Topic

    I used to dislike the idea of males having relationships with other males. However... I don't know how this happened, but I just woke up one day and decided "I am now part of them". I have no idea what else to say, it's just- I'm sorry. Also, I recently had a strange daydream where I was a transvestite (dresses up like opposite gender). After waking up, I was... interested by it, if you know what I mean.

  25. SimCity - Memes / Jokes

    asasnat replied to TowerDude's topic in General Off-Topic

    when i decide i wanna lose weight
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