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High Performance Buildings Mod

Started by Atelier Kell, November 23, 2010, 04:56:20 PM

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Atelier Kell

There has been a big push in the last few years to pass legislation requiring civic buildings to be "greener".  The effects are pretty diverse (both positive and negative.)  I began thinking about a mod last night that you could enact as an ordinance which would cost you some money every month but would decrease civic building's use of water and power, and decreased generation of trash and water pollution.  The mod would affect an increase in residential demand, improve school performance, and theoretically reduce crime to some degree.  Admittedly, I am no modder.  I am a LEED accredited professional and I can model but I am really not much of a BATer either.  So, I am not entirely sure what kinds of things can be cross-influenced in the game.

Beyond the ordinance, there could be a LEES reward chain (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Simulation) started that unlocked items like high-tech industries that cater to "green" building; a subsidy (decreased monthly cost) for "green power" like windmills and solar; special parks that do the same job as water treatment plants and also lower air pollution; and a whole slew of "green" BATs that can be tracked and further rewarded.  I'm just brainstorming some additional bits here...

- increased demand for high density zones
- more use of public transportation (subways, trains, busses, ferries, etc.
- "reward" lots for endangered species (costs the city money to upkeep... if you decline the lot there is a hit to the mayor rating.)
- penalties for building on top of farms (increased I-Ag demand?)
- penalties for bulldozing parks (increased cost of / negative mayor rating effect)
- LEES Bats have less night lighting
- Bike related rewards (bike parking structures)
- Electric / Alternative Fueling stations
- Less traffic congestion due to less single occupancy vehicles
- Reduced water usage due to not watering landscaping, water efficient fixtures, gray water systems, rain water collection
- Some buildings may actually contribute energy to the grid (little power plants?)
- Wave and Tidal power generation
- Bio-fuel power generation (eats some garbage.)
- Some farms to provide rapidly renewable materials and industries to manufacture goods from them (bamboo, wheat board, cork, wool, cotton, linoleum.
- Certified forrests (farms?)
- Lower garbage to the landfill due to materials recycling from construction
- SCGBC headquarters for your city
- Some CS$$$ demand increase to handle the process of designing and certifying "green" buildings
- Decrease in demand for ID lots.
- Number of "green" lots could affect the overall strength of mod?
- Mod could be in phases: one for just civic buildings, one for requirements for all buildings (penalty for lots that aren't green or tax breaks for lots that are,) and one that prevents some lots from being built at all (an extreme green ordinance.)
- A broader penalty-based high-performance ordinance should discourage industrial and commercial growth.
- "Green" lots increase health in the immediate area.
- Decrease in cost of road maintenance.
- Penalty for developing tiles with lots of trees or for decreasing water tiles in the city.
- Citizens want more parks and recreation lots in the city.

Every effort should be made to balance costs and mayor rating hits with the benefits of the ordinance.  A green city is harder to run and its citizens should be more sensitive to non-green issues.  Any thoughts on this?  I'd love to find out what things can and cannot be done with a mod like this and how other aspects can be implemented to make a greener city.

Lowkee33

That is quite the list there.  I have been thinking about doing the exact opposite myself  ::)

A lot of the ideas you have are possible.  They also span a large amount of modding genres, and are tough to detail in one post.

I would suggest checking out PIMX.  This program will let you make all of the types of things we see in-game (growables/parks/fire depts).  You don't have to be a BATer to do these things either, but rely on the expertise of others.  Many of your ideas are of clean energy/water works and with practice this can be a snap.

Other things on your list are more complicated.  For these you will need Reader.  From there you can get more radical than PIMX in how much certain actions cost (you could set farms to cost $100 per tile to demolish, or perhaps planting trees will cost negative cash).

The reward chains are a little tricky, but they are totally possible and are the most interesting to me.  A lot of this stuff is learning the bounds of SC4 and working within it.


Atelier Kell

When I started the post I was thinking it could be a simple ordinance mod.  However, when I started thinking about the things it would affect, A whole bunch of other ideas popped up.  I'll look at PIMX and Reader and start there.  Once I have a few minutes to distill my post, I'll try to break it into a few categories of ideas.  I just wanted to get it all out of my head while I was thinking about it.

Lowkee33

I really like the reward ideas.

Quote- Decrease in cost of road maintenance.

I pulled this one up because I believe it to be possible, and also tricky.  You wouldn't really drop the cost of roads, but add back a certain amount.  The game keeps track of how many road tiles there are in a city.  If you could multiply that amount by another (much less than 1) amount, then that variable amount as a negative would be the buildings budget cost.

I believe mods like this are possible (Census Repository), and mods like this are certainly worth trying out.

Then you could set this building to be a reward, and make it depend on the EQ of your sims or IHT capacity.