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CAMifying

Started by Dreamcat, February 20, 2012, 10:49:41 PM

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Dreamcat

Hey guys  ;D

I'm setting out on the long task of making all my plugins CAMpatible. The stuff on the LEX is great, but I have a ton of stuff from other locations that are still stuck in the dull 8 stage Maxis plan. So far, I think I'm doing it right, but I just want to make sure.

So, I'm in the X-Tool. I open up the building. I look at how much of the yellow cube it occupies, and then I put down the filling degree. Save. Move on to the next one. Pretty simple. Is that all there is to it? And do I need to take any other factors into consideration? (I know what to do with mega lots, but not much else.)

Also, how accurate are the ones in the LEX? So far, I've seen a couple of jestarr buildings that seemed a bit off. Should I bother looking through them?

Thank you!

Lowkee33

#1
Quote from: Dreamcat on February 20, 2012, 10:49:41 PM
So, I'm in the X-Tool. I open up the building. I look at how much of the yellow cube it occupies, and then I put down the filling degree. Save. Move on to the next one. Pretty simple. Is that all there is to it? And do I need to take any other factors into consideration? (I know what to do with mega lots, but not much else.)

That is pretty much it.  Another thing is setting the CAM stage.  If the lots are placed into the plus stages,  go back into the building exemplar, and set the CAM stage to whatever the lot is.  This is optional, but you will be able to see your lots in the CAM counter.

Sometimes people change the Occupant Size, and this is where the filling degree gets its stats.  So, you might get different results than you want.  However, rebuilding the occupant size may cause issues (if the new occupant size is bigger, then you might make yourself an immortal lot).  You could rebuild, recompute, set the size back to what it was, and then save.  This will take much more time, I think that as long as the occupant size isn't way off, you should be fine not messing with it at.

QuoteAlso, how accurate are the ones in the LEX? So far, I've seen a couple of jestarr buildings that seemed a bit off. Should I bother looking through them?

Older stuff on the LEX might be a little iffy.  I would run them through.  Farms are different as well.  Jmyers has his own way to make the stats (Link), and I follow this format when going through old stuff (even his older lots don't follow this method).

jmyers2043

#2
Quote from: Dreamcat on February 20, 2012, 10:49:41 PM
Also, how accurate are the ones in the LEX? So far, I've seen a couple of jestarr buildings that seemed a bit off. Should I bother looking through them?

The Xtool was developed about the same time as the CAM. So the stats up until then are best guess or hopefully close approximation.

The goal of consistent content is how the BSC got its start. BSC stands for Bat Squad Certified. It was hoped that feedback from multiple players testing buildings in the game would provide reliable gaming content. Later, Grandpa Al discovered the relationship between the buildings volume and capacity. He developed some spread sheets to help determine capacity. But stage growth, pollution, consumption was still determined by observing surrounding and similar buildings during the testing process. A spreadsheet developed by RippleJet was the next step. It added such things as water usage, garbage pollution, and stage growth functionality to the spreadsheet calculations. So the numbers through the years became more reliable with each new observation, idea, spreadsheet, and tool. 

I also did what you're doing when the Xtool was still in beta. Still do to this day for content downloaded from other sites. Recent content on the LEX has an XTool requirement. But no one has enough spare time to recalculate everything from donkeys years ago.

You mention Jestarr. Sometimes industrial lots are figured the same way farms are done. Large industrial lots can have several buildings. One is the 'real' building used to determine capacity, and the others are props used when creating a large lot. So you may want to add some filling degree to increase capacity in those instances. 


Good Luck in your project.

- Jim


Jim Myers  (5th member of SC4 Devotion)

Dreamcat

Thank you both! I'm well on my way to modernizing my collection  :)

But I have another, semi-related question. I don't really like making my own lots, so is there a way to convert a certain type of growable (e.g. CS) to another (e.g. IHT) while still keeping all the lot details from the first?

Lowkee33

You can copy/paste lot properties in PIMX, so the simple way would be to make a new building/lot desc with the type of building you want.

The type of building it is (as far as PIMX goes) is the Occupant Groups, and I think that all you need to do is change this in Reader.  The next time you open PIMX, the building should show up as what you want.  You would have to recompute the properties.  I think that would be okay, never done it when the lots are already made.

You know who has a lot of Lots?  Maxis.  I try to add as many buildings as I can to the Maxis Families.