how can i make fieldlots for a farm

[carlfatal]

Hi folks,
it´s some new thing for me, and now i have a big problem...

I´ve made a farmlot with the PIMX and it works fine, means it´s growing like i´ve wanted but...

I´ve made a fieldlot for this farm also, made it with PIMX as a fieldlot, but this one don´t want to grow. I cleaned the farmfields in the farm descfile in the reader and putted in there only the exemplar ID of my farmfield, but my farm only grows without fields. What is wrong?

Thanks in advance, Carl

[FrankU]

Hi Carlfatal,

I took a look at the Bat thread you are working on in Simforum.de. The developments look very good! I like the mais field and the machinery.
But you obviously have a problem with getting the farm fields correct.

It is hard to see what went wrong, but maybe it is useful if I tell you how I got my farm fields correct.

1. Open SC4-Pim. Select under "Resources" the option "Other Models". There you find a blank model.

2. Drag this onto the option "Building-Agricultural field". A window appears where you are supposed to enter a name. I advise you to use the word "farmfield" in this name, so that you will know this file belongs to a farm field. For example call it "Carl_FarmField_Mais".
The stupid thing is that names of farm fields and names of farm lots look very alike when they are generated by SC4-Pim. I once got confused and needed to make some fields anew.

3. Now a file is generated with the name you gave in plus three hexadecimal numbers and with the extension SC4Desc. This is the building file of your farm field. In my exaple the filename is: Carl_FarmField_Mais-0x6534284a-0x99577607-0x9c62a25d.SC4Desc.

4. Click with the right mouse button and select the option "Create a growable lot using this building". Indeed there are two lines with this name. I don't know if there is a difference. I think it is a small flaw in SC4-Pim and that there is no difference.

5.A menu appears. You need to  keep the field size 1x1, stage 1, although there is no real stage to a farm field. Now the field lot is generated. The name is now: IR$1_1x1_Carl_FarmField_Mais_0c62a29c.SC4Lot. This is the farm field lot.

6. Open Lot editor and make the lot like you want it to look. Save the lot and exit the SC4-Pim.

Now this is important. SC4-Pim made a mistake. The building file and the lot file need to have the same Instance or: IID. Otherwise the farm field will not be recognized correctly. That is probably what happenend to you.
What can happen is that the farm field will grow, but that the game does not recognize the farm fields and that a second farm with its own fields will grow over the farm field lots. Then you will see two farm lots next to each other and two farm fields that grow on the same tile!

You need to do a small action in Reader.
You must open the Building file and take a look at the IID property. In fact this property should be visible in the name of the Desc file: the last of the three hexadecimal numbers. In the example it is: 0x9c62a25d. I always take a look with Reader in the file itself.

7. Start Reader and open the file Carl_FarmField_Mais-0x6534284a-0x99577607-0x9c62a25d.SC4Desc.
There is an exemplar and a dir file. Write down the Instance number of the exemplar. As I said it should be the same as the last of the three in the name of the file.

8. Now open the lot file in Reader: IR$1_1x1_Carl_FarmField_Mais_0c62a29c.SC4Lot.
The numer in this name is the Instance. You see it is not the same as the Building had. You are going to change that now.

9. Click on "file info" in the button bar. A menu appears. Click on "edit". Next to "Instance" you fill in the exact value of the building Instance. In this case: 0x9c62a25d.

10. Click "OK", click on the red cross, save file and exit Reader.

11. To be completely correct I'd advise you to change the name of the lotfile with Windows explorer: change the number in the lot file name into the correct Instance number. Now this is the Instance value of your farm field. You nedd this if you want this farm field to grow with a certain farm lot.

12. Open in Reader the building file of the farm lot that you want this farm field to grow with. In the option "Farm Lots" you fill in this Instance value. You can delete other instances, and you can add as many as you want (surely there will be a maximum, I don't know). If you want one farm field to grow more often you can give in that name two or more times. If you have just one field, make sure the Rep Count is 1, not 0. With 0 the game will crash when the field grows for the first time.

I hope this is clear to you. If not... please reply.
I would like to use your mais field on my own Dutch Farm lots set, but I guess this will be an add-on option later.

[jmyers2043]

Hello Carl

Hi folks,
... I´ve made a farmlot with the PIMX and it works fine, means it´s growing like i´ve wanted but...

I´ve made a fieldlot for this farm also, made it with PIMX as a fieldlot .... but my farm only grows without fields. What is wrong? .....

It means that the farm is trying to grow that particular IID but for some reason the field isn't matching up to the IID or the field is not in the plugins.

For what it is worth -  I use the XTool a lot and I'm a big supporter. But a farm field is something that I don't use it for. I simply open the LE. Select a Maxis field that I know works. Re-lot it and do a "save as". Then copy the IID of my new field into the farm exemplar and that usually works fine and dandy.

Good Luck

- Jim

[FrankU]

Hmmm, well. That sounds quite simple and effective. Didn't think of that....

[jmyers2043]

Hmmm, well. That sounds quite simple and effective. Didn't think of that....

I just read what I wrote - it wasn't a Maxis field. It was a BLS field. Barby's original field template was one modded by Grandpa Al.

Good Luck

- Jim

[FrankU]

Ah, that's why I didn't do it that way. I just checked: in LE an edited farm field cannot be "saved as". So as long as you work with LE, you are stuck with seven farm fields.
So I guess hte best way to do it is going by the way I explained above.

[jmyers2043]

So I guess hte best way to do it is going by the way I explained above.

I don't think so. Do you not have the SimGoober farm fields? Those will 'save as' ...

[carlfatal]

Thanks  FrankU and JMyers,
yes, i did the farmfield with the PIMX... I also wondered about this not to "save as", but now it´s finished and everything works fine. The problem was the wrong IID in the lotfile and as FrankU explained i have corrected this.

Greetz, Carl

[FrankU]

Hi Jim,
Yes I do have the Simgoober farm fields. The are even a dependency in my farms project, althoug I only used some of his props. So that would indeed be an option. But there is one thing I will keep wondering when I use someone else's stuff: are there certain properties or options in those lots that I do not want?
So somehow I think it is better to start with a completely clean new file. On the other hand: now that I know quite a lot about farm fields and the like it won't be too hard to check if there are unwanted properties and eventually throw these out or change them to my wishes.
It will indeed be a lot quicker when an existing farm field is taken as a base.

And Carlfatal, good luck with your project!