Cities Skylines 2: a phonecall from sweden

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Cities Skylines 2: a phonecall from sweden

Entropic: Feb 21, 2007; patriarchy sucks

I had my game crashing whenever i tried to load a map after installing the map pack and trying to play for the first time in a while, turns out it was the loading screen mod which hasn't been updated for Airports yet, and there's a temp version of it someone put up on workshop that fixes it while people wait for the original mod author to update the actual Loading Screen Mod.

# ? Feb 4, 2022 17:07

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# ? May 24, 2024 19:16

Eric the Mauve: May 8, 2012; Making you happy for a buck since 199X

Yeah I love having to take a month off from playing Skylines every time a DLC drops, it's great

# ? Feb 4, 2022 17:14

dragonshardz: May 2, 2017

Eric the Mauve posted:

Yeah I love having to take a month off from playing Skylines every time a DLC drops, it's great

This DLC break was and is actually quite surprisingly short. The vast majority of mods were updated or confirmed abandoned - with replacements available! - before the first week was over.

There's still some mods that need an update or replacement, but the most commonly used mods that were actually broken have been updated.

# ? Feb 5, 2022 01:44

eonwe: Aug 11, 2008; Lipstick Apathy

if I were to get back into this, what DLC is pretty much vital, especially if I want to do some mods? Seems like a lot of bullshit DLCs. I figured the Airports and Mass Transit ones are good.

# ? Feb 5, 2022 07:38

A Wizard of Goatse: Dec 14, 2014

Industries adds some more interesting logistics mechanics since you need to keep your factories supplied with materials from other industrial zones, which puts a different pressure on your transit system than the usual commute stuff, and a lot of sorely needed non-urban-core stuff. Mass transit has bus blimps so uh yeah obviously. Rest really depends on what you want your cities to look like and what's missing visually, Airports, Campus, and Parks all work exactly the same where you paint a zone and plop some themed buildings and get a small bonus.

# ? Feb 5, 2022 15:35

Eric the Mauve: May 8, 2012; Making you happy for a buck since 199X

The mandatory DLCs are whichever ones your mod list require.

On their own merits the only ones you really need are Mass Transit, Park Life, and ~~Snowfall because the wily bastards wedged trams in there.~~

e: A relief to know because Snowfall is otherwise loving useless

Eric the Mauve fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Feb 5, 2022

# ? Feb 5, 2022 17:32

A Wizard of Goatse: Dec 14, 2014

I definitely don't have Snowfall and definitely have trams
anyway so either they made that a free feature or added them to Mass Transit at some point

# ? Feb 5, 2022 17:52

Kyte: Nov 19, 2013; Never quacked for this

iirc they were added to base game with the release of snowfall

# ? Feb 5, 2022 20:11

csidle: Jul 31, 2007

Snowfall is ok for the winter themed maps, I think. Although I haven't ever played one for too long. It is stupid that you can't cycle through seasons in maps, and I'm not aware of mods that have enabled it.

I think Mass Transit is worth purchasing and I Industries is a must-have. It doesn't change the gameplay fundamentally but the ploppable nature of the industries is vastly more interesting than the default zones.

# ? Feb 6, 2022 16:36

Warmachine: Jan 30, 2012

A Wizard of Goatse posted:

Industries adds some more interesting logistics mechanics since you need to keep your factories supplied with materials from other industrial zones, which puts a different pressure on your transit system than the usual commute stuff, and a lot of sorely needed non-urban-core stuff. Mass transit has bus blimps so uh yeah obviously. Rest really depends on what you want your cities to look like and what's missing visually, Airports, Campus, and Parks all work exactly the same where you paint a zone and plop some themed buildings and get a small bonus.

I'll go ahead and recommend parks. One of the most fun experiences I had in this game was turning the site of a meteor impact into a national park.

Campus is... I like it, but I have a hard time giving it vocal praise because it doesn't have that same gameplay memory anchor parks has for me. But being able to build out a university that looks like an actual university campus is pretty neat, and I was amused by the sports events. One of the most realistic things in the game is putting all your university budget on sports.

csidle posted:

Snowfall is ok for the winter themed maps, I think. Although I haven't ever played one for too long. It is stupid that you can't cycle through seasons in maps, and I'm not aware of mods that have enabled it.

I think Mass Transit is worth purchasing and I Industries is a must-have. It doesn't change the gameplay fundamentally but the ploppable nature of the industries is vastly more interesting than the default zones.

What I wish they'd do is integrate a proper seasonal gameplay aspect. The "winter" maps are... not appealing to me at all because of the static season. Make me deal with seasonal snow removal and increased road maintenance cost and my ports being potentially ice-locked for a period of time. I come from Michigan, so all of these are real concerns for cities in my region.

Warmachine fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Feb 6, 2022

# ? Feb 6, 2022 18:48

Digital Jedi: May 28, 2007; Fallen Rib

My 1st city (and really only) I was playing with the progression lock. I managed to get up in the 60K pop and unlock a decent amount.

I want to start a new city with the new DLC and because I haven't played a so long. I don't want to start at the beginning with nothing unlocked and i don't want to disable the progression and unlock everything.

Is there a setting or a mod that allows you to keep that progression throughout new cities?

# ? Feb 6, 2022 19:42

a podcast for cats: Jun 22, 2005; Dogs reading from an artifact buried in the ruins of our civilization, "We were assholes- " and writing solemnly, "They were assholes."; Soiled Meat

I think unlockable unique buildings carry over from city to city by default, as long as you have placed at least one instance of the unlocked building in your old city.

# ? Feb 6, 2022 19:49

A Wizard of Goatse: Dec 14, 2014

I too would like something that'd start you maybe halfway through the progression tree, so there's still goals to build towards like leveling your zones but you aren't forced to start every city around a highway exit + car-based suburb

# ? Feb 6, 2022 19:50

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Cities can be converted between summer and winter, City Planner Plays on YouTube did it. I don't know how but it sounded like it's not too hard.

# ? Feb 6, 2022 20:21

csidle: Jul 31, 2007

Well, almost 7 years after purchasing the game, I've for the first time set about creating a city based in some semi-natural development with a lot of custom assets.

This is Underhill, a town in the municipality of Portsmouth, MA. The backstory is that its an old, tiny fishing town that's blown up since heavy investment was made into tapping the oil deposits found offshore.

In the future, it will be a tiny neighbour to the Municipal Capital of Portsmouth, a dirty, modern metropolis. I have not set about creating this, but it's coming up soon since I can't provide enough housing for a population sufficient to run the industry.

The Underhill Mining Co. employs far more people than constitute the population of the city, so workers must commute from out of town.

Underhill Mining Co. local administration and worker's barracks, and the Underhill Plastic Manufacture Company.

Old Underhill, built prior to the discovery of oil.

The view from the old church.

Old fishermen's quarters known as Old Top. 'Cause it's not the top of the town anymore.

Modern expansion of Old Top.

Modern cargo and passenger terminals on the harbour, as well as modern small-scale fishing operations. Probably going to redo the harbour, since it's primarily vanilla assets and they're a lot more colourful than I'd prefer.

Full view of my progress.

Next up is building the actual old fishing docks, which I haven't established yet, as well as really, really small-time old fishermen's huts.

I was going to keep expanding the suburbs up the huge mountain which this town rests at the bottom of, but it's probably not realistic. It's extremely steep and I've already done a lot of winding around hills and passes in this little town.

I'm also going to be creating a couple of station towns along the rail that leaves Portsmouth (which at the moment goes nowhere). I might go the route of establishing the station towns first and seeing which one of these most naturally would grow into a large city.

I'm going for a grimy dirty 70's look, and all the vehicles are 70s save for a Mercedes Benz that is 1980-ish. So the other towns are probably going to have ore and forest industry, saving high tech offices for the real big city.

# ? Feb 7, 2022 23:56

BrassRoots: Jan 9, 2012; You can play a shoestring if you're sincere - John Coltrane

My guess is that he used theme mixer and changed the map theme.

There is also built in mod in the base game to unlock all progressions that can be enabled and disabled as desired. That way you can enable for one save and disable for another.

# ? Feb 8, 2022 02:35

Infidelicious: Apr 9, 2013

Looks rad overall.

But the rigs so close together and to shore kinda kill the vibe.

MoveIt! Would help a lot.

# ? Feb 9, 2022 02:10

csidle: Jul 31, 2007

Agreed. It looks a bit silly. I would prefer a main station for departures & arrivals, and the rigs far offshore. I can't move the platforms seperately from the main buildings using Moveit, unless there's a function I'm not aware of, since it's "one" building. I have been meaning to look up custom offshore oil platforms on the workshop.

# ? Feb 9, 2022 12:54

Infidelicious: Apr 9, 2013

Oh now that you mention it I think i just ended up making artifical islands ala Los Angeles / Long Beach Harbor because i thought it looked silly, and was using an LA map anyways.

But yeah hopefully someone has custom a asset.

# ? Feb 10, 2022 19:21

csidle: Jul 31, 2007

Infidelicious posted:

Oh now that you mention it I think i just ended up making artifical islands ala Los Angeles / Long Beach Harbor because i thought it looked silly, and was using an LA map anyways.

But yeah hopefully someone has custom a asset.

Unfortunately I can't find any on the workshop, which is pretty weird. Generally, there are surprisingly few specialized industry assets on there.

edit: There's a thread on reddit about a pretty cringeworthy thing that's been discovered in mods by the guys behind Network Extensions 3, Harmony Redesigned and some others.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CitiesSkylines/comments/spo2mn/alert_stop_using_network_extension_3_harmony/

reddit posted:

Reputable modders in the community has found that the above-captioned mods contain malware which can cause bugs to your game and potentially harm your computer.

More details by the TMPE team here

Problematic workshops: Chaos and Holy Water

Use this version of Harmony and Network Extension 2 instead

(Edited: added links)

TMPE crew posted:

In TM:PE 11.6.4.8 we are marking _all_ mods by Chaos / Holy Water / drok (same person) as incopatible for the following reasons:
Network Extensions 3 contains malware which directly targets multiple members of our team, dozens of other modders, employees of Colossal Order, and dozens of Steam users many of whom will not be aware that they are targets of malware.
While the malware is trivial (it randomly alters speed limits), it's caused a lot of excess support workload and raises concerns about what other malware may be present (particularly in the Harmony "Redesigned" mod).
Network Extensions 3 was modified with "tripwire" code specifically designed to cause bugs in other mods.
Those bugs are affecting TM:PE users (we have several confirmed cases) and when TM:PE team go in to investigate we are hit by malware.
Upon bugs appearing in other mods, Chaos claims that they are badly written in order to gain more users for his mods - which in turn are designed to cause bugs in other mods.
Chaos has blocked former members of Network Extensions mod, including myself, from creating derivative works on his version of the mod.
Chaos has added code to his Harmony "redesigned" mod's reporting tool which is highly misleading (often indicating the wrong mod being responsible for an error, when in most cases it's _affected_ by an error from somewhere else)
Chaos is doxing and harrassing anyone who calls him out on his behaviour, adding them to his targeted malware system, and then claiming that _he_ is the actual victim.
And more... (details to follow)

In the interim there is a high liklihood that Holy Water will release his own version of TM:PE. It's not our place to tell you which mods to use, but at least wait for the additional detail before making a decision.

TMPE crew posted:

Malware in Network Extensions 3 mod

As mentioned in OP, the malware is trivial:
When someone starts the game with the NExt3 mod enabled, it checks if the game is running in Steam portal and, if so, then checks the player's Steam ID against two lists of Steam IDs[github.com].
One of the lists appears to be mostly modders and CO employees; the other is a list of ordinary steam users many of whom will not be aware that they are direct targets of malware.
If the player ID matches an entry on the list, the mod proceeds to change road speeds to a random - but always slow - value[github.com].
This gives the false appearance that it's the other mods which contain bugs - a topic which I'll cover in a later comment.

As you know, TM:PE team have been working hard to fix speed-related bugs over the past few weeks, so you can imagine how it felt to discover that some of those problems were created on purpose by another modder and that they were directly targeted at us.

Given the persistent and escallating actions of Chaos / Holy Water / drok (same person), we are now treating all those mods as potentially malicious until proven otherwise. Even if they do not currently contain malware, we don't know what will be added in future updates (especially via "Update from Github" mod which bypasses Steam workshop entirely).

Just pathetic.

csidle fucked around with this message at 11:19 on Feb 11, 2022

# ? Feb 11, 2022 10:33

pointlessone: Aug 6, 2001; The Triad Frog is pleased with this custom title purchase.

Ain't no drama like the petty modder drama.

# ? Feb 11, 2022 13:13

Warmachine: Jan 30, 2012

Modder drama is especially pathetic since you're technically not even making money for your efforts to sabotage the competition. And if there was a mod to dev pipeline that was in any way reliable, the dude who made the CP2077 full rebalance mod would have been hired by CDPR already.

Instead all modder drama does is show which of these socially inept weirdos is the one you should avoid because they have strong opinions about Oblivion gates or something.

# ? Feb 11, 2022 14:42

Kyte: Nov 19, 2013; Never quacked for this

One should be wary of modders that offer replacements to widely-used mods under vague pretenses of being better but don't actually specify any new features.

Also never trust a modder that has blocked comments.

E: What's most stupid is that this guy uses github so all the evidence is public and unremovable short of killing the repo.

# ? Feb 11, 2022 15:51

Otacon: Aug 13, 2002

Kyte posted:

One should be wary of modders that offer replacements to widely-used mods under vague pretenses of being better but don't actually specify any new features.

Also never trust a modder that has blocked comments.

E: What's most stupid is that this guy uses github so all the evidence is public and unremovable short of killing the repo.

code:

if (!m_U_Mad_BRO_slow_the_fuck_down.HasValue)
   {
       m_U_Mad_BRO_slow_the_fuck_down = AccessControlLists.isBlocked() ?
       new Randomizer(PlatformService.userID.AsUInt64).Int32(6, 21) * 0.033f : 1.0f;
   }
   return ohNoYouDont * m_U_Mad_BRO_slow_the_fuck_down.Value;

lol

# ? Feb 11, 2022 16:08

Kyte: Nov 19, 2013; Never quacked for this

https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/discussion/1637663252/4731597528356140067/#c4731597528356907380

quote:

Several modders are now investigating what's in the "download from github" version of the "Harmony (Redesigned)" mod, and it's not looking good.

Notably, the code it contains does not exist in any of the workshop releases, nor does it exist in the source code repository. It appears to be a different mod (modders are still investigating). Additionally, the way it downloads a zip file isn't controlled in any way; it can be any zip file that Holy Water uploads - it is automatically executed (run) when you start the game, even if the mod is disabled (it self-enables itself).

Image link of collapsed code view after decompiling the "download from github" version of "Harmony (Redesigned)": https://imgur.com/C8GZaQ9

Update: The `MalwareBypass` code blocks are doing stuff like disabling bits of Boformer's Harmony mod, and also remove feeds, workshop ads, whatsnew panel, dlc panels, paradox account panel and whole game telemetry. The code is still being investigated.

Reminder that C:S mods are DLL that do not run in a sandbox and can do anything a user can. Never forget that DLL mods are extremely dangerous.

# ? Feb 11, 2022 16:26

Vizuyos: Jun 17, 2020; Thank U for reading

If you hated it...
FUCK U and never come back

Wow, this guy was not subtle at all in his code, this is hilarious

quote:

namespace TrollControl
{
internal class AccessControlLists
{
/* Individuals who in some ways poo poo on the any community I am in
* and seed discord and division are not permitted to copy or run
* this software, by virtue of the LICENSE.
*
* Their primary steam ID's are listed here.
*
* The implementation of this access control list is a lock under
* DMCA legislation
*/

static public HashSet<ulong> assholes = new HashSet<ulong>()

quote:

* This code is a version lock to cause NE3 (this mod) to fail unambiguously
* when run in the presence of Collossal's version mess. A clean, obvious
* failure is much easier to deal with than subtle errors involving
* multiple seemingly unrelated components. So I choose a clean break.
*
* It will run correctly with any version of Harmony (redesigned), and
* with versions of Collossal's Harmony only up to and including 2.0.4.
* Some older versions were broken, so in reality only the non-broken
* Collossal versions will work with this mod.
*
* I'm hoping that Colossal will re-think their Harmony 2.2 plans
* and not implement them for the time being.
*
* What is being done here could be considered a mistake when done by
* a minecraft kid, but I am an engineer. I know this is wrong, and if
* I were to follow suit, I would not be making a mistake, I'd be
* criminally unethical, because I know better and I'm trained and
* expected to know better.
*
* Long story short: If you chose to fork this software in order to
* remove the roadblock below, you knowingly committing something.
* I suggest consulting a lawyer before touching this code.
*/

# ? Feb 11, 2022 16:36

nekoxid: Mar 17, 2009

Vizuyos posted:

Wow, this guy was not subtle at all in his code, this is hilarious

In short: "This is clearly bad, but I know what I'm doing, so it's okay."
:allears:

# ? Feb 11, 2022 17:07

A Wizard of Goatse: Dec 14, 2014

wait, the dude commented that poo poo? That's more clearly written than any non-malicious code I've ever seen

# ? Feb 11, 2022 17:19

Captain Melo: Mar 28, 2014

Vizuyos posted:

Wow, this guy was not subtle at all in his code, this is hilarious

I touched his code and did not consult a lawyer, jokes on him.

# ? Feb 11, 2022 18:05

death cob for cutie: Dec 30, 2006; dwarves won't delve no more
too much splatting down on Zot:4

Vizuyos posted:

Wow, this guy was not subtle at all in his code, this is hilarious

loving incredible

# ? Feb 11, 2022 21:11

duffmensch: Feb 20, 2004; Duffman is thrusting in the direction of the problem!

I�m not sure if I�ve got a weird mod problem or just what but I�ve got a new city that I started this week and got to 130,000 population but as soon as a built out the cargo portion of my airport all of my industry immediately got hit with �not enough raw resources�.

Trains and boats come in with lots of supplies, and even building out industrial districts doesn�t help. I�ve noticed that I get a BUNCH air cargo planes flying in but they�re all empty when they land but are partially or totally full when flying out.

Has anyone else seen any behavior like this?

# ? Feb 11, 2022 23:26

Kyte: Nov 19, 2013; Never quacked for this

Sounds like it's exporting all your raw material?

# ? Feb 12, 2022 00:03

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Try adding some warehouses set to balanced or fill with the appropriate raw materials.

# ? Feb 12, 2022 00:11

duffmensch: Feb 20, 2004; Duffman is thrusting in the direction of the problem!

Maybe, but it didn�t go away when i bulldozed the cargo portion of the airport. Does make me wish I could prioritize resources for importing and exporting.

I figure I�ll try loading the city without any mods when I get home and see if it changes anything but figured I�d see if anyone had experienced that themselves.

# ? Feb 12, 2022 00:11

Warmachine: Jan 30, 2012

Vizuyos posted:

Wow, this guy was not subtle at all in his code, this is hilarious

I can't think of a Nexusmods temper tantrum that quite hits this level.

# ? Feb 12, 2022 20:22

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

Is it just me or are the concourse networks kinda ugly

# ? Feb 13, 2022 23:59

dragonshardz: May 2, 2017

VostokProgram posted:

Is it just me or are the concourse networks kinda ugly

the classic one is, the other two are pretty decent.

there's already a new one on the workshop, too, and it's pretty nice

# ? Feb 14, 2022 00:46

Luneshot: Mar 10, 2014

Posted on the steam news page:

quote:

An important message from the Cities: Skylines team,

We have an amazing modding community and greatly appreciate the dedication and helpful nature that�s been at the center of it for 7 years. Recently, there have been concerns in the community about reports of malware on the Steam workshop, which we want to address.

We recently banned a few mods from the Cities: Skylines Workshop and want to clear up some of the misinformation surrounding these mods. The mods in question, which have been banned, are �Network Extensions 3� and �Update from Github.�

No keyloggers, viruses, bitcoin mining software, or similar has been found in mods on the Steam Workshop.

�Network Extensions 3�, the mod alleged to contain malware, was banned due to discriminating against specific Steam users. First, it blocked a short list of Steam users from using the mod, but this was later changed to cause what appeared to be buggy gameplay. Blocking users or creating specific restrictions for them violates the Steam Subscriber Agreement and such resulted in the mod being banned.

The mod �Update from Github� was removed shortly after appearing on the Workshop. This mod was designed to check for and install updates to mods directly from Github, making changes to existing Workshop subscriptions without the user's knowledge. This bypasses the Workshop entirely, and to avoid potential abuse (such as downloading malicious software) the mod has been removed.

�Harmony (Redesigned)� has been mentioned in this context, however, the mod has not been updated since March 15th, 2021. Further updates to this workshop item are not possible as the account is banned and contributors are unable to update workshop items.

In short:
No keyloggers, viruses, bitcoin mining software, or similar has been found in mods on the Steam Workshop.
The mod �Network Extensions 3� was banned due to a violation of the Steam Subscriber Agreement.
The mod �Update from Github� was removed as a potential risk, and only affected ~50 users.
The �Harmony (Redesigned)� mod available on the Steam Workshop has not been found to contain the code to automatically update mods outside the Workshop.

If you come across any concerning mods, reuploads of banned mods, or mods containing the same/similar code, please report them using the report button on their workshop page.

# ? Feb 15, 2022 05:35

Entropic: Feb 21, 2007; patriarchy sucks

A mod can ban specific users from downloading it? How does that even work?

but lol that definitely hints at some NexusMods level drama going on.

# ? Feb 15, 2022 21:22

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# ? May 24, 2024 19:16

Warmachine: Jan 30, 2012

Entropic posted:

A mod can ban specific users from downloading it? How does that even work?

but lol that definitely hints at some NexusMods level drama going on.

You can download it, but some SteamID fuckling lets the mod go "Ahh, that <racist explicative> user 42069, I'm supposed to set all their road speeds to 10 because they left a bad review of my creator's mods once."

Which seems like a great way to piss off Valve and lose your Steam account for abusing their software for malicious purposes. Which it sounds like is exactly what happened according to some commentary about the malicious mod creator's accounts getting banned.

As someone who sees modding as a communal exercise in which everyone should be allowed to freely improve the work through creation of derivatives (and has always been transparent and welcoming with his own works) :rubby:

Warmachine fucked around with this message at 21:55 on Feb 15, 2022

# ? Feb 15, 2022 21:53

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