Sim City 4: No-Nonsense Metropolis

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Sim City 4: No-Nonsense Metropolis

Tai: Mar 8, 2006

Crosscontaminant posted:

I'm trying to be minimalistic with my choice of mods and stick to things which fix bugs, but NAM is thwarting that. The compulsory texture mods which I don't really want are bad enough, but they can't even just provide one simulator - instead there's five or six with fussy distinctions between them.

Why is the Maxis rail texture marked "not recommended" - is this just normal "blargh vanilla = bad change everything" modder logic, or is there an actual reason? What files should I delete to prune it down from their "minimal installation" to just the traffic simulator? Which simulator should I pick if I just want to build some cities?

It's asking you why you would not want mods?

# ? Feb 2, 2015 20:13

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# ? May 29, 2024 00:44

Crosscontaminant: Jan 18, 2007

If I go all in on mods from the start then I'll just spend all my time faffing around with mods rather than playing the dang game. I'm not really a fan of modpacks - they go too far in the opposite direction for me, I like having some degree of control even if it's just the consumerist I-changed-it-so-it's-mine reflex.

# ? Feb 2, 2015 20:21

Curvature of Earth: Sep 9, 2011; Projected cost of
invading Canada:
$900

Crosscontaminant posted:

I'm trying to be minimalistic with my choice of mods and stick to things which fix bugs, but NAM is thwarting that. The compulsory texture mods which I don't really want are bad enough, but they can't even just provide one simulator - instead there's five or six with fussy distinctions between them.

Why is the Maxis rail texture marked "not recommended" - is this just normal "blargh vanilla = bad change everything" modder logic, or is there an actual reason? What files should I delete to prune it down from their "minimal installation" to just the traffic simulator? Which simulator should I pick if I just want to build some cities?

Fun fact: you can use a zip file extractor to open NAM's .exe installation file. In there you will find a file called "TSCT_Setup.exe". That's the traffic simulator installer, which is the only truly necessary part of NAM. Everything else is cosmetic changes and endlessly frustrating alternative transit networks. Pick "Ultra" settings for the traffic simulator, which are generous enough that you shouldn't have to worry about saturating your roads or rail.

You can also use this method to change what NAM stuff you have, because the alternative is reinstalling the whole thing each time you want to opt out/in of a particular add-on. I mention this because the NAM team's advice for if you want to change something is to go through the entire reinstallation process again. This is because the NAM team HATES their users and I want to strangle every one of them.

# ? Feb 2, 2015 21:41

Crosscontaminant: Jan 18, 2007

Ah! That's superbly useful, thanks very much.

e: and then to add insult to injury underneath two layers of Windows-specific installers the tool itself is written in Java, so it's completely compatible with Linux.

Crosscontaminant fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Feb 2, 2015

# ? Feb 2, 2015 22:10

Shibawanko: Feb 13, 2013

I play this game with a lot of mods but the modders themselves suck and reading their forum or their egocentric little copyright disclaimers just makes me want to see them beaten up by a bully.

# ? Feb 2, 2015 22:53

ExtraNoise: Apr 11, 2007

Shibawanko posted:

I play this game with a lot of mods but the modders themselves suck and reading their forum or their egocentric little copyright disclaimers just makes me want to see them beaten up by a bully.

Um, yes, could you please use this installer to install my mod, thereby adding it to your list of applications and a link to it in your start menu? Cool.

Oh wait, what does it do, you ask? It adds a .DAT file to your plugins directory.

# ? Feb 3, 2015 02:40

FAT32 SHAMER: Aug 16, 2012

ExtraNoise posted:

Um, yes, could you please use this installer to install my mod, thereby adding it to your list of applications and a link to it in your start menu? Cool.

Oh wait, what does it do, you ask? It adds a .DAT file to your plugins directory.

Filejuicer :smug:

# ? Feb 3, 2015 02:42

Nition: Feb 25, 2006; You really want to know?

Curvature of Earth posted:

Pick "Ultra" settings for the traffic simulator, which are generous enough that you shouldn't have to worry about saturating your roads or rail.

Pick "Ultra" if you're a dirty cheater. Pick Medium or Low if you want a realistic traffic simulation. :colbert:

# ? Feb 3, 2015 02:45

Curvature of Earth: Sep 9, 2011; Projected cost of
invading Canada:
$900

Nition posted:

Pick "Ultra" if you're a dirty cheater. Pick Medium or Low if you want a realistic traffic simulation.

Ultra drastically underestimates the real-world capacity of transit networks. I was unhappy with how quickly rail lines were saturated in-game, and did a lot of research.

Feel free to skip if you don't care for transit nerdery:

The New York City Subway's R160 car has a standing passenger capacity of 202 people. Assume trains are 8 cars long (typical for New York City, though San Francisco manages 10 per train), meaning each train can carry a maximum of 1616 people.

If trains maintain two-minute headways (some Japanese trains manage only 1.5 minute headways, but that's considered exceptional), and stay at each stop for three minutes, that means each tile will have had 12 trains pass through it per hour. Multiply out for the whole 24-hour day, then double it because SC4 subway tiles have two rail lines, not one, and a subway tile has a capacity of over 930,000 per day.

I applied these same numbers to other rail networks. I actually raised it ~~75%~~ 50% for commuter rail, because as God-King of my city I decree that those double-decker Amtrack cars are going to be packed like sardine cans, boosting their capacity compared to subways.

Of course, station capacities need to be increased as well. Assuming a small-but-consistently-busy station has only 30 people get on/off for each train that passes through, that's a 8,640-person daily capacity. That's like rock bottom. A substantially busy typical three-tile wide station should be able to handle north of 25,000 per day. Yet, I still see train stations with 6,000-person capacities... And that doesn't even touch multi-line stations huge enough to handle entire trains of people getting off at once. They should have capacities of over 1 million, easily.

Highways, on the other hand, are comparatively pitiful. I'll spare you the numbers, but my source is this research. In America, passengers per private car during work commutes averages out to 1.2 people per car. So, multiplying it out, we get 60,480 passengers per tile of highway. (Please note: per tile, not per chunk. The highway builds in two-tile-wide chunks, but the traffic simulator only calculates on the basis of per tile.)

For the record: Ultra settings may not go high enough, but you still can change the traffic simulator properties to match using iLive Reader. You can also change network speeds, which I did, because the monorail/high-speed rail's speed was pitiful and even commuter rail can hit speeds of 200 km/hr before being classified as high-speed.

Curvature of Earth fucked around with this message at 11:14 on Feb 3, 2015

# ? Feb 3, 2015 04:50

FAT32 SHAMER: Aug 16, 2012

Curvature of Earth posted:

Ultra drastically underestimates the real-world capacity of transit networks. I was unhappy with how quickly rail lines were saturated in-game, and did a lot of research.

Feel free to skip if you don't care for transit nerdery:

The New York City Subway's R160 car has a standing passenger capacity of 202 people. Assume trains are 8 cars long (typical for New York City, though San Francisco manages 10 per train), meaning each train can carry a maximum of 1616 people.

If trains maintain two-minute headways (some Japanese trains manage only 1.5 minute headways, but that's considered exceptional), and stay at each stop for three minutes, that means each tile will have had 12 trains pass through it per hour. Multiply out for the whole 24-hour day, then double it because SC4 subway tiles have two rail lines, not one, and a subway tile has a capacity of over 930,000 per day.

I applied these same numbers to other rail networks. I actually raised it 75% for commuter rail, because as God-King of my city I decree that those double-decker Amtrack cars are going to be packed like sardine cans, boosting their capacity compared to subways.

Of course, station capacities need to be increased as well. Assuming a small-but-consistently-busy station has only 30 people get on/off for each train that passes through, that's a 8,640-person daily capacity. That's like rock bottom. A substantially busy typical three-tile wide station should be able to handle north of 25,000 per day. Yet, I still see train stations with 6,000-person capacities... And that doesn't even touch multi-line stations huge enough to handle entire trains of people getting off at once. They should have capacities of over 1 million, easily.

Highways, on the other hand, are comparatively pitiful. I'll spare you the numbers, but my source is this research. In America, passengers per private car during work commutes averages out to 1.2 people per car. So, multiplying it out, we get 60,480 passengers per tile of highway. (Please note: per tile, not per chunk. The highway builds in two-tile-wide chunks, but the traffic simulator only calculates on the basis of per tile.)

For the record: Ultra settings may not go high enough, but you still can change the traffic simulator properties to match using iLive Reader. You can also change network speeds, which I did, because the monorail/high-speed rail's speed was pitiful and even commuter rail can hit speeds of 200 km/hr before being classified as high-speed.

This is a good post. Also, how did you edit the train speeds? I want my Shinkansen to go 300km/h dammit

# ? Feb 3, 2015 05:21

Nition: Feb 25, 2006; You really want to know?

Fair point. I guess when I said "realistic" I meant "doesn't feel like cheating", considering the super-duper-low "Classic" defaults.

# ? Feb 3, 2015 05:29

Terrorist Fistbump: Jan 29, 2009; by Nyc_Tattoo

Curvature of Earth posted:

Congrats for caring about 9/11 with your imaginary train station?

Not imaginary. But no less bizarre for being based on a real place.

# ? Feb 3, 2015 05:32

FAT32 SHAMER: Aug 16, 2012

I only felt like I was cheating when I made a city with 1.6mil people in it and it was skyscrapers everywhere, but then I looked into it and apparently there are around that many people in whatever amount of kms a large city tile takes up in NYC so :shrug:

# ? Feb 3, 2015 05:32

doctorfrog: Mar 14, 2007; Great.

There's a leap in experience and devotion between, "I'd like to play the game as the designers more or less intended, because it's probably more fun and city simmy enough on the whole for this dipshit gamer," and, "I'm now involved enough in this game that I'd like to selectively impose my ideas of what's realistic upon it," that make it a bit challenging for the new player to decide on certain kinds of settings.

I think what's pretty safe though is ragging on the Sim City mod community for making mod installation as painful, special-knowledge-dependent, registration-requiring, and self-aggrandizing as possible, so one thing we can all agree upon is, those guys are super annoying and make modding in general a more complex pile of bullshit than it ever needed to be.

# ? Feb 3, 2015 08:50

Curvature of Earth: Sep 9, 2011; Projected cost of
invading Canada:
$900

Tusen Takk posted:

I only felt like I was cheating when I made a city with 1.6mil people in it and it was skyscrapers everywhere, but then I looked into it and apparently there are around that many people in whatever amount of kms a large city tile takes up in NYC so

I don't worry too much about realism. I nerded out over the transit networks because I enjoy it, but I don't value realism for it's own sake.

The scale of the game is just too out of whack. For example, my old high school is the equivalent of 11 SC4 tiles across. And it only held 1200 students! The middle school next door was a similar size. My tiny community college is the equivalent of 34 x 34 tiles! Imagine if every school in the game was that big.

And light rail stations have a typical size range (PDF alert, only worth it if you're a transit nerd) of up to 400ft � that's 8 tiles long! Every station I've seen from modders tops out at 6 tiles. Heavy rail stations are even longer.

And do not talk to me about the hospital system. I've noticed that SC4 cities can have up to 10% of their population in hospitals at a time. Think about that in real life. My home town has about 50,000 people, all served by one general hospital. If 5,000 people showed up at the hospital tomorrow, it would mean that the worst public health disaster in my town's history had just happened. There's no way it could handle that volume of people.

My point is that you shouldn't prize realism for its own sake. If you want to painstakingly recreate the exact look and feel of a certain kind of neighborhood, do so. Games are for having fun, so have fun however you want. But the game mechanics are broken and don't reflect realism in the slightest. All SimCity 4 realists are forced to make arbitrary compromises by the game, so I've learned not to focus on realism much.

(By the way, @Tusen Takk, I am working on instructions for editing the traffic simulator.)

# ? Feb 3, 2015 09:28

Curvature of Earth: Sep 9, 2011; Projected cost of
invading Canada:
$900

Tusen Takk posted:

Also, how did you edit the train speeds? I want my Shinkansen to go 300km/h dammit

Alright, let's learn how to edit the NAM traffic simulator! :eng101:

First, open iLive Reader. (It's Windows-only, but it's the only editor I know of that can open the simulator file properly. If you're running Mac or Linux and still want a customized simulator, I'm willing to either share my own edited simulator file or make one customized to your tastes. Either should work fine if you have NAM installed.) If this is your first time opening iLive Reader, you have my pity because it's a real pain.

Click the open file button at the top left:

Navigate to the Network Addon Mod folder in your SimCity 4 Plugins directory. Select the file that starts with "NetworkAddonMod_Traffic_Plugin_Z_":

The last two words in the file name are different depending on your existing traffic simulator settings, but it doesn't matter.

You should get something like this (emphasis on "something" because I don't remember how lovely iLive Reader's default settings are):

Select the first item listed in the left sidebar:

Now double-click on the variable you want to change. For this example, we're going to change the max speed of the monorail:

Now, the "Max speed" settings, "Network Traffic Capacity" settings, and "Monthly cost for network tile" settings all contain a list of 13 variables. They represent, in this order:
1. roads
2. rail
3. elevated highways
4. streets
5. [placeholder for nonexistent network]
6. [placeholder for nonexistent network]
7. avenue
8. subway
9. elevated rail & light rail
10. monorail & high-speed rail
11. one-way roads
12. dirt roads (the Real Highway mod piggybacks off this network, so set it to match the highway variables)
13. ground highways

The description at the bottom of iLive Reader's window is incorrect for some of these settings, so ignore it. The above list is their actual order.

Because monorail trains obviously only run on the monorail network, we leave the other variables at zero and select the 10th. All speed values are in kilometers per hour, so if you're used to thinking in miles per hour, find an online metric converter.

Select the relevant variable:

And type in the value you want:

Now that it has the number we want, click the "Apply" button twice (once to remove the cursor from the text box, the second to actually apply your changes).

And we're finished!

Now CLICK THE SAVE BUTTON OR ALL YOUR CHANGES WILL BE LOST.

Changing the other networks' speeds isn't any harder. Again, always in km/hr. Because cars, buses, and trucks are capable of running on all road-based networks, enter values for them in variables #1, 3, 4, 7, 11, 12, and 13 based on whatever speed you think is appropriate for those respective networks.

(I don't know what happens if you accidentally tell a bus to run at 100km/hr on subways. It could crash the game, or you could've discovered an amusing hack.)

IMPORTANT NOTES:
Once you've edited the simulator using an external editor like iLive Reader, trying to change settings using NAM's provided Traffic Simulation Configuration Tool will undo ALL your changes. The NAM Configuration Tool hates you � it won't even report the correct numbers if you set them really high.

The in-game Traffic Volume Data View doesn't like capacity values above 65,535 and will automatically highlight networks with a capacity above that in bright "over-capacity" red. That's a quirk of the user interface, but the game itself doesn't care and your city will continue functioning normally. Interestingly, the Traffic Congestion view will accurately account for any number you put in the simulator and you can continue relying on it.

Do not change the "Max speed by Network for walking" settings. Yes, 15km/hr is bicycling speed and definitely not walking speed by any metric. However, if you reduce it, your citizens will refuse to do basic poo poo like walk to a bus stop 8 tiles away, and your city will die.

Finally, if you don't want to research "realistic" traffic capacities yourself, here are my settings, based off my own research into real-world highway and rail capacities. I treat lower-tier networks like roads and avenues as appropriately reduced versions of full-blown highways.

My Network Traffic Capacity settings (people per tile per day)
1. roads: 30240
2. rail: 936000
3. highways: 60480
4. streets: 15120
5. [placeholder for nonexistent network]: 0
6. [placeholder for nonexistent network]: 0
7. avenue: 40320
8. subway: 1152000
9. elevated rail & light rail: 432000
10. monorail & high-speed rail: 432000
11. one-way roads: 45360
12. dirt roads: 60480
13. ground highway: 60480

Curvature of Earth fucked around with this message at 11:59 on Feb 27, 2015

# ? Feb 3, 2015 14:17

Baby Cakes: Nov 3, 2005; I AM BECOME DEATH

Curvature of Earth posted:

Ultra drastically underestimates the real-world capacity of transit networks. I was unhappy with how quickly rail lines were saturated in-game, and did a lot of research.

Feel free to skip if you don't care for transit nerdery:

The New York City Subway's R160 car has a standing passenger capacity of 202 people. Assume trains are 8 cars long (typical for New York City, though San Francisco manages 10 per train), meaning each train can carry a maximum of 1616 people.

If trains maintain two-minute headways

Sorry I've been lurking in this thread and as a resident of NYC, this made me chuckle.

Assuming there are no delays (there are always delays) NYC trains run every 2-3 minutes during rush hour only, and that's probably 202 skinny people who have perfect subway etiquette. The ridership for the MTA subway is about 5 million people per day.

Here's some actual MTA ridership stats for you to digest. Have fun: http://web.mta.info/nyct/facts/ridership/index.htm

Baby Cakes fucked around with this message at 19:45 on Feb 3, 2015

# ? Feb 3, 2015 19:29

PoizenJam: Dec 2, 2006; Damn!!!
It's PoizenJam!!!

So anyone have problems with building props randomly disappearing? I'm not talking about brown boxes or mixxing assets, I'm talking just straight up missing. I keep encountering this on my most recent region- if I place a new building of the same type or destroy/rebuild it, it appears fine, but buildings or parts of buildings keep randomly vanishing.

# ? Feb 3, 2015 19:36

Subyng: May 4, 2013

By the way, kinnas your game looks gorgeous please post more screens.

# ? Feb 3, 2015 19:42

benzine: Oct 21, 2010

Poizen Jam posted:

So anyone have problems with building props randomly disappearing? I'm not talking about brown boxes or mixxing assets, I'm talking just straight up missing. I keep encountering this on my most recent region- if I place a new building of the same type or destroy/rebuild it, it appears fine, but buildings or parts of buildings keep randomly vanishing.

Does it seems like prop pox?

http://www.wiki.sc4devotion.com/index.php?title=Prop_Pox

More images:
http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=7066.msg491086#msg491040

benzine fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Feb 3, 2015

# ? Feb 3, 2015 19:57

PoizenJam: Dec 2, 2006; Damn!!!
It's PoizenJam!!!

That's precisely what it looks like, and it looks like the lots aren't recoverable.

For fucks sakes... Guess I'm done with this game for another few months because I seriously do not have the patience to go through my current region, delete all the plots, clean out my plugins folder, and let everything re-load.

# ? Feb 3, 2015 20:03

kinnas: Jan 28, 2008; The Case of Martin Heidegger, Philosopher and Nazi Part 2: The Cover-up

Curvature of Earth posted:

Nam traffic tutorial

Thanks for the writeup! This should probably go into the second post OP.

Poizen Jam posted:

So anyone have problems with building props randomly disappearing? I'm not talking about brown boxes or mixxing assets, I'm talking just straight up missing. I keep encountering this on my most recent region- if I place a new building of the same type or destroy/rebuild it, it appears fine, but buildings or parts of buildings keep randomly vanishing.

You might be a victim of some mythical beast of the engine called the Prop Pox.

--

Alright more pics! I am going to have so much fun eminent domaining the gently caress out of all this farmland and tiny settlements when it's time to lay down some interstate highways.

Haven't actually had all that much time to play the game after this modding binge. After setting up drat menus for all of my ploppables :suicide:

# ? Feb 3, 2015 20:05

benzine: Oct 21, 2010

kinnas, can you link the water tower? It looks really good.

Poizen Jam, shame about that. Care to post some pics?

# ? Feb 3, 2015 20:09

FAT32 SHAMER: Aug 16, 2012

kinnas posted:

Thanks for the writeup! This should probably go into the second post OP.

You might be a victim of some mythical beast of the engine called the Prop Pox.

--

Alright more pics! I am going to have so much fun eminent domaining the gently caress out of all this farmland and tiny settlements when it's time to lay down some interstate highways.

Haven't actually had all that much time to play the game after this modding binge. After setting up drat menus for all of my ploppables

What textures/terrain mods are you using? It's stunning!

edit: Thanks CoE! I'm going to have to try that out

# ? Feb 3, 2015 20:10

PoizenJam: Dec 2, 2006; Damn!!!
It's PoizenJam!!!

benzine posted:

Poizen Jam, shame about that. Care to post some pics?

It looks exactly like the example images posted. Every time I save, I lose more props/buildings, and the city looks barer/more messed up. It started with small ploppables like plazas and bus stops but now it's affecting things like my nuclear power plant, railyard, and seaport.

I had JUST finished my first large city tile after terraforming the heck out of Fhuzo and adding my regional train/highway network. Finish the industrial district of one of the 3 main cities in the region and props started disappearing. I guess I should be happy I didn't lose a region I'd invested a lot more time in, but I absolutely do not have the patience to start from scratch and rebuild the railyard and custom seaport. I do not relish the thought of purging my plugins folder, re-starting, and then over-writing the plagues city tile with one from a blank Fhuzo.

gently caress the whole city sim genre. The one actually playable game in the genre falls plague to memory caps and bad programming because it's so old. I could live with and fight with the lovely user interface and endless scrolling/tabbing, but I cannot stand when my progress is randomly ruined. I stopped playing SC2013 for similar reasons.

PoizenJam fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Feb 3, 2015

# ? Feb 3, 2015 20:14

Curvature of Earth: Sep 9, 2011; Projected cost of
invading Canada:
$900

Baby Cakes posted:

Sorry I've been lurking in this thread and as a resident of NYC, this made me chuckle.

Assuming there are no delays (there are always delays) NYC trains run every 2-3 minutes during rush hour only, and that's probably 202 skinny people who have perfect subway etiquette. The ridership for the MTA subway is about 1 million people per day.

Here's some actual MTA ridership stats for you to digest. Have fun: http://web.mta.info/nyct/facts/ridership/index.htm

Oh, I know. The real world ain't perfect. Like, the maximum speeds I set trains in the traffic simulator to would never be achieved in real life � constant station stops means they don't even have time to hit that speed. The NYC subways manage 25-45mph in practice, even though some of their cars were theoretically capable of almost 90mph.

But anyways, that's why it's maximum capacity. It's the highest possible daily throughput an in-game tile of subway is capable of handling.

Edit: poo poo. I've become the Simtropolis :spergin:

people.

Curvature of Earth fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Feb 3, 2015

# ? Feb 3, 2015 20:17

kinnas: Jan 28, 2008; The Case of Martin Heidegger, Philosopher and Nazi Part 2: The Cover-up

benzine posted:

kinnas, can you link the water tower? It looks really good.

Poizen Jam, shame about that. Care to post some pics?

That's the Vintage Water Tower

Tusen Takk posted:

What textures/terrain mods are you using? It's stunning!

edit: Thanks CoE! I'm going to have to try that out

I'm using the Aerden Tree Controller which has a ton of dependencies a lot of which are very good mayor mode ploppables. It's got a pdf with a list of all the dependencies with clickable links so getting it all is about as painless as you can expect from the sim city community.

For terrain I've got the LK Appalachian Terrain Mod with the Cape Cod beach file from this Gobias HD Beach Pack

# ? Feb 3, 2015 20:29

benzine: Oct 21, 2010

kinnas posted:

That's the Vintage Water Tower

I'm using the Aerden Tree Controller which has a ton of dependencies a lot of which are very good mayor mode ploppables. It's got a pdf with a list of all the dependencies with clickable links so getting it all is about as painless as you can expect from the sim city community.

For terrain I've got the LK Appalachian Terrain Mod with the Cape Cod beach file from this Gobias HD Beach Pack

Thanks.

Also I've the dependencies for Aerden. If people are interested I'll upload them later when I'm at home.

Shame abouth that Poizen Jam.
From what I've read the prop pox comes from Pegasus CDK3-OWW2.

# ? Feb 3, 2015 20:33

PoizenJam: Dec 2, 2006; Damn!!!
It's PoizenJam!!!

I can't pin-point when it started, but I believe I encountered the problem after plopping the Marina Reward plop from PEG's custom marina set, which I believe is part of the CDK3 suite. I have used the CDK ploppables for well over a year now without a hitch, so this sucks.

I thought it was just the over-all size of my plugins folder, which is approaching 4gb.

Edit: What's double weird is I installed the CDK pack manually a little over a year ago, and prop-pox related to that set dates back to 2009/2010. So either PEG never bothered to update them, never bothered to take them down, or just never bothered to put up a warning.

PoizenJam fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Feb 3, 2015

# ? Feb 3, 2015 21:11

Rah!: Feb 21, 2006

Poizen Jam posted:

I can't pin-point when it started, but I believe I encountered the problem after plopping the Marina Reward plop from PEG's custom marina set, which I believe is part of the CDK3 suite. I have used the CDK ploppables for well over a year now without a hitch, so this sucks.

I thought it was just the over-all size of my plugins folder, which is approaching 4gb.

Yeah, it's apparently the CDK3-oww2 related stuff that triggers prop pox (among other things, perhaps), once your save file gets to a certain size. I had it happen a few years ago to a large city with about a million residents that I had worked on for a long time, which had the suspected CDK3 lots in it, and most of the other cities in that region also had those lots and were infected too, but had no symptoms yet. And seeing as it's apparently irreversible once you save the game with those lots built, I decided to abandon that region...it put me off playing the game for a year. I haven't used any of those suspected CDK3 lots in my cities since then, and haven't had any problems yet, and I hope it stays that way.

Also, you gotta love how Pegasus denies that his lots were causing it, despite evidence to the contrary. "I am an expert and prolific Sim City 4 modder, how dare you disrespect my supreme knowledge and skill. Your well-supported hypothesis is clearly wrong, there are no glitches to see here" :smug:

# ? Feb 3, 2015 21:28

Generation Internet: Jan 18, 2009; Where angels and generals fear to tread.

kinnas posted:

Alright more pics! I am going to have so much fun eminent domaining the gently caress out of all this farmland and tiny settlements when it's time to lay down some interstate highways.

Haven't actually had all that much time to play the game after this modding binge. After setting up drat menus for all of my ploppables

Those look amazing, and I want to do that so badly. I don't think I can stomach going through the pain of modding this game, though, so please keep posting pictures.

# ? Feb 3, 2015 21:30

Curvature of Earth: Sep 9, 2011; Projected cost of
invading Canada:
$900

Poizen Jam posted:

I installed the CDK pack manually a little over a year ago, and prop-pox related to that set dates back to 2009/2010. So either PEG never bothered to update them, never bothered to take them down, or just never bothered to put up a warning.

Pegasus is a true SimCity modder, in that he belittles others and denies any problem:

"Pegasus in denial" posted:

This individual also claims that the PEG BDK (Beach Development Kit) is the source of the pox... We here, however, are not inclined to change anything unless actual players come forth and report that they are indeed having issues with the identified lots and dependencies.

# ? Feb 3, 2015 21:30

PoizenJam: Dec 2, 2006; Damn!!!
It's PoizenJam!!!

If it's just the CDK OWW2 set (I don't use the beach set though- just the marina set and his seaport set. The marina set is related to the CDK OWW2 set though) I may just suck it up and re-build the city in a couple weeks. If there are multiple lots known to cause this issue though I think I'm just done with the game period. Losing entire regions after sinking hundreds of hours into them is just not fun, and the game is just not worth creating a complicated tiered backup file system for. I don't want to continue working on the region if it's possible it could all be corrupted, but only one of my plots were actually 'done' (ie. I had more than a rail bed and highway made.)

Shame the save file itself gets corrupted though, and removing problem lots doesn't fix the problem. I could live with completely de-zoning and re-plopping things, but drawing my rail-yard and highway again is just daunting. It's fun the first time you do it, but doing a straight replication will be an agonizing chore.

Here's hoping Cities XXL is more passable than it's predecessors, else I'm waiting for Citybound.

Curvature of Earth posted:

Pegasus is a true SimCity modder, in that he belittles others and denies any problem:

So he just... Denies the problem exists? So why the hell is my city turning bare after I plopped your stupid arena reward lot?

Edit: Oh God I feel greasy just reading Pegasus' posts. Dude has a ridiculous nerd ego. I can feel cheetos dust congealing on my screen as I read his posts.

PoizenJam fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Feb 3, 2015

# ? Feb 3, 2015 22:11

Curvature of Earth: Sep 9, 2011; Projected cost of
invading Canada:
$900

Poizen Jam posted:

Here's hoping Cities XXL is more passable than it's predecessors, else I'm waiting for Citybound.

Don't forget Cities: Skylines. Judging from the beta videos and dev journals, it's shaping up to be one hell of a city simulator.

# ? Feb 3, 2015 22:28

FAT32 SHAMER: Aug 16, 2012

Curvature of Earth posted:

Don't forget Cities: Skylines. Judging from the beta videos and dev journals, it's shaping up to be one hell of a city simulator.

Holy Christ those graphics are GORGEOUS

It literally looks like tilt-shift photography.

I hope this will be available on Mac so I can use it to not pay attention in class :ohdear:

. I just hope there's a region mode that can be used to build scaled replicas of cities instead of trying to expand your city towards the next natural resource.

FAT32 SHAMER fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Feb 3, 2015

# ? Feb 3, 2015 22:31

kinnas: Jan 28, 2008; The Case of Martin Heidegger, Philosopher and Nazi Part 2: The Cover-up

Poizen Jam, that's a pretty lovely thing to have happen

In disease prevention techniques if I do a "*CDK" search in my plugins folder and nothing shows up I should be safe?

Also is there any way to see what exactly is tanking demand for stuff? Some Census something something, does it say something to the effect "no more low wealth residential development because your taxes are too high" or "you've crossed the invisible barrier, there's too much industry, no more agriculture for you"? I'm loosing agricultural demand in some rural areas which is annoying if I wanna bulldoze and regrow some of the farms . I wonder if it's because there's a tiny town across the map that's got a tiny factory in there or if it's the fact that the whole region is pretty drat rural at the moment and the great sim nation really doesn't need farms anymore.

# ? Feb 3, 2015 22:38

FAT32 SHAMER: Aug 16, 2012

kinnas posted:

Poizen Jam, that's a pretty lovely thing to have happen

In disease prevention techniques if I do a "*CDK" search in my plugins folder and nothing shows up I should be safe?

Also is there any way to see what exactly is tanking demand for stuff? Some Census something something, does it say something to the effect "no more low wealth residential development because your taxes are too high" or "you've crossed the invisible barrier, there's too much industry, no more agriculture for you"? I'm loosing agricultural demand in some rural areas which is annoying if I wanna bulldoze and regrow some of the farms . I wonder if it's because there's a tiny town across the map that's got a tiny factory in there or if it's the fact that the whole region is pretty drat rural at the moment and the great sim nation really doesn't need farms anymore.

Usually demand for farms goes down as your Sims become more educated. Same for Dirty Industry.

It could be a tiny town way aways from your city but most likely it is not.

# ? Feb 3, 2015 22:46

Ms Adequate: Oct 30, 2011; Baby even when I'm dead and gone
You will always be my only one, my only one
When the night is calling
No matter who I become
You will always be my only one, my only one, my only one
When the night is calling

Alright first thanks Curvature for that big NAM writeup, I've never felt the need to mess in detail before but I just might now that it's been laid out so well. Second gently caress pox prop, lost a city to that years ago, am still :smith:

kinnas posted:

Alright more pics! I am going to have so much fun eminent domaining the gently caress out of all this farmland and tiny settlements when it's time to lay down some interstate highways.

Haven't actually had all that much time to play the game after this modding binge. After setting up drat menus for all of my ploppables

The screenshot game ridiculous

# ? Feb 3, 2015 22:46

PoizenJam: Dec 2, 2006; Damn!!!
It's PoizenJam!!!

Curvature of Earth posted:

Don't forget Cities: Skylines. Judging from the beta videos and dev journals, it's shaping up to be one hell of a city simulator.

I am really not excited about small farms, small airports, an SC2013 style resource system, and a population cap somewhere around a million or lower. The developers made the stupid decision to go with agents in the name of 'immersion'/'realism' and soon after starts abstracting the hell out of building/population numbers because no modern computer CAN run a large agent-driven city. So they chose agents for some hackneyed reason then immediately contradicted that reason by abstracting the agents. I wish someone companies would just wait for the drat technology to catch up, or use a statistical simulation, rather than putting limitations on what kinds of cities I can built in a city sim.

I was so excited when I first heard about Skylines but my enthusiasm evaporated a long time ago. Sorry for being a downer. I'm actually sure lots of folks will enjoy the game for what it offers. I'll probably even give it a shot if I know a friend has it or something happens between now and release that changes my opinions. But after the infinitely expansive feel of SC4's region system I really don't feel like scaling down my experience.

It's not that every city I make needs to be a million+ person metropolis- it's that a God/Sim game about cities should give me the freedom to make everything from small backwaters to Hong Kong.

kinnas posted:

In disease prevention techniques if I do a "*CDK" search in my plugins folder and nothing shows up I should be safe?

After some research, it seems the primary culprit is the CDK beach set- in particular the BDK Resource file. Maybe all the OWW files. Apparently there is some suspicion the maxis lot blocker might be implicated (Not enabling it, as opposed to enabling it, with custom content) as well, and an older version of the MTP forest pack that's no longer available.

I'm not sure if you're in danger of prop pox for simply having the problem lots in your plugins folder, or if you actually need to plop them. If it's the former, then I could easily be experiencing problems related to the CDK beach set as is the case with most folks. If it's the latter, then some other lot is causing me problems, either the CDK OWW2 marina (The problem specifically began after placing the 'Reward' version of the CDK marina, at least for me) or something else entirely.

PoizenJam fucked around with this message at 23:00 on Feb 3, 2015

# ? Feb 3, 2015 22:54

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# ? May 29, 2024 00:44

FAT32 SHAMER: Aug 16, 2012

Poizen Jam posted:

I am really not excited about small farms, small airports, an SC2013 style resource system, and a population cap somewhere around a million or lower. The developers made the stupid decision to go with agents in the name of 'immersion'/'realism' and soon after starts abstracting the hell out of building/population numbers because no modern computer CAN run a large agent-driven city. So they chose agents for some hackneyed reason then immediately contradicted that reason by abstracting the agents. I wish someone companies would just wait for the drat technology to catch up, or use a statistical simulation, rather than putting limitations on what kinds of cities I can built in a city sim.

I was so excited when I first heard about Skylines but my enthusiasm evaporated a long time ago. Sorry for being a downer. I'm actually sure lots of folks will enjoy the game for what it offers. I'll probably even give it a shot if I know a friend has it or something happens between now and release that changes my opinions. But after the infinitely expansive feel of SC4's region system I really don't feel like scaling down my experience.

It's not that every city I make needs to be a million+ person metropolis- it's that a God/Sim game about cities should give me the freedom to make everything from small backwaters to Hong Kong.

You're not being a downer, you just saved at least one goon from spending a bunch of money on a prettier SC2013

# ? Feb 3, 2015 22:57

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