SC4 Devotion Forum Archives

Note:  Please see this post (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=5798.msg270718#msg270718) before voting in the poll.

Since DAMN has been officially released, I've been playing around with it, and it's a really impressive creation.  It looks just like what RTMT needs, and one of the versions of RTMT released shortly after 4.0 will contain a full implementation of DAMN menus for RTMT.  If you haven't used DAMN menus yet, you can download them from the LEX here (http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=1775) and try them out.

Currently, we offer MML (menu management lots) to cut down on the number of icons that fill up users' menus.  But as we start adding more features to RTMT, MML gets very cumbersome.  The main problems I see with it are:

• If we use a single MML icon for all of RTMT, an almost unmanageable number of icons will end up in the users' menus.
• If we use multiple MML icons, you have the standard MML problem of having to wait a game month before you can use the ones you select.  Later, if you want to select more, you have to wait again.  If you simply select them all at once, you're stuck with the first problem.  And if you always use DAMN menus, those extra MML icons just get in the way.
• MML does not get around a big problem of the current menu system, in that it is completely flat.  The hierarchical nature of DAMN menus will make finding stations a lot easier - no more scrolling through long lists.
• One of the biggest disadvantages of MML is that once you click on an icon that has been added to your menu through MML, you can only plop the lot once.  Each time you want another lot of the same type, you have to click on the menu icon again.  With DAMN, one click on the icon will let you plop as many times as you want.

DAMN has another big advantage over standard menus.  With DAMN, there is space next to each menu icon for a short description.  This eliminates the need to mouse over similar-looking icons to see exactly what they are.

For these reasons, I favor making RTMT accessible solely through DAMN menus, as I see no advantage to MML over DAMN.  Many other people believe that DAMN has made MML obsolete.  It is also far less work to maintain a single menu system than to maintain two, especially where large numbers of entries are concerned.  But I thought I would check with our users first.  I ask that before voting, you give DAMN a try.  If you think that it's a sufficient system for RTMT, please choose the first option.  If you still want MML icons in addition, choose the second option, but please also post here explaining why.  People who choose the first or third options are obviously free to post here as well.

There is an option in the DAMN menu to remove files from the main menus.  This has the same single plop effect as the MMLs however.

I would say offer both DAMN and MML:
- They aren't incompatible, actually implementation is exactly the same as far as the building exemplars are concerned (both require just setting the Conditional Building = true property).
- The MML as implemented for RTMTV3 does not require any additional implementation, if new lots are added.
- The button list may grow longer for V4, but it's not that bad, buttons have a distinctive design, so it's easy to tell whether you are in or out of "the RTMT area", ie the extra burden is just a few mouse wheel rolls. It doesn't require "thinking" or "poking around".
- Why not offer an MML for those who don't want to install DAMN?
- Installation is optional anyway.

@Diggis, has anybody tried removing the "Item Icon" and/or "Item Order" properties? Or maybe Occupant Groups like "Misc Transit"? If the game just removes the buttons, as a result (without leaving empty spaces), this might be a solution. The Conditional Building property wouldn't be set to true, of course, so it wouldn't be a "reward". I mean just remove the buttons, without making it a "reward". Just a thought.

If the icon is missing it creates issues, but not sure if you remove the properties... I would guess without the item order it would just run as 0 and order by cost, size etc.  I'll ask around though.

MML is very uncomfortable for me, but the DAMN *could* be no better.

I have to say that I haven't had enough time to test it, and the use of DAMN depends from one answer only. Once that I switch off automatic advices pop-up, can I still use the DAMN?
If yes, then it's great.
Else I think that it is not worthy of because I cannot play with my dumb advisors interrupting my game with silly messages every 5 minutes! Keeping advices on is very irritating...

Anyway, may I aslo ask for a couple of different things about RTMT?
I'm taking confidences with the available MT stops and I would like to know:
- if in version 4 you plan to keep the non-avenue 1x2 stops and those el.train stops.
- if there is any way to use subway stops together with zones viewer. Actually, I have problems to place subway stops in an already-built city because I risk to place them into a small building and to close all of its connections with avenues (and sometimes road), and I risk too of not "centering" the street but to destroy a building by mistake.
Thank you! :)

Quote from: 0rion79 on October 03, 2008, 08:34:31 AM
- if there is any way to use subway stops together with zones viewer. Actually, I have problems to place subway stops in an already-built city because I risk to place them into a small building and to close all of its connections with avenues (and sometimes road), and I risk too of not "centering" the street but to destroy a building by mistake.

Unfortunately you cannot get rid of the buildings when plopping stations.
You could try to press PgUp and PgDn to get a better view though.

You could also try to press "G", and keep it pressed, so that the grid is clearly visible.
Then, count the number of tiles from something you can see.

In any case, do remember to save your city before plopping a difficult-to-see RTMT stop. :thumbsup:

Quote from: 0rion79 on October 03, 2008, 08:34:31 AM
MML is very uncomfortable for me, but the DAMN *could* be no better.

I have to say that I haven't had enough time to test it, and the use of DAMN depends from one answer only. Once that I switch off automatic advices pop-up, can I still use the DAMN?
If yes, then it's great.
Else I think that it is not worthy of because I cannot play with my dumb advisors interrupting my game with silly messages every 5 minutes! Keeping advices on is very irritating...

EDIT: Jonathan gave a more authoritative answer below, so I'll just refer you there.  And of course, playing the game at Medium or Hard difficulty successively reduces the number of popups you get.

I'll answer your other questions in The RTMT V3 Support Thread (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=5651.msg185977#msg185977), as they're unrelated to DAMN.

Unfortunately you do need the advisor popups on :( , but I'd rather have the popups on and the DAMN on then both off.

Jonathan

Quote from: Warrior on October 03, 2008, 12:02:16 PM
Unfortunately you do need the advisor popups on :( , but I'd rather have the popups on and the DAMN on then both off.

Note also that you do get considerably less advisors popping up if you're playing on hard difficulty instead of easy... ::)

is it possible for a mod that reduces/removes the number of popup ones? so I dont end up spending 5 minutes at the start going through popups? :D

Joe

Since changing a standard game setting means that DAMN will not work, I think we're going to need to keep the standard menus and MML as an installation option, unless and until someone finds a way around this problem.  I think that DAMN would be installed in any case, as I see no downside in doing so.  Does this sound reasonable?

As long as we can choose, yes! :)

Quote from: z on October 03, 2008, 05:18:27 PM
Since changing a standard game setting means that DAMN will not work, I think we're going to need to keep the standard menus and MML as an installation option, unless and until someone finds a way around this problem.  I think that DAMN would be installed in any case, as I see no downside in doing so.  Does this sound reasonable?

Yup, Sounds very reasonable to have both as an option.. You guys have done great work with this so far... &apls

its greatly appreciated..

Thanks, Brian

Has anyone tried the 'Stupid News Ticker' Mod (http://www.simtropolis.com/modding/index.cfm?p=details&id=322)?  It gets rid of useless messages, but leaves important ones.  It would also be interesting to know if anyone has used it with DAMN.

Z, that question is probably best placed in the DAMN thread, not here.  :P  On a side note, we may have figured out a way to hide the files when using the DAMN without the single plop problem.  We are just testing the theory before releasing a trick that may break stuff, but PM me if you want to test it.

I've been doing a little math here, which has caused me to revisit this issue.  I know that some attempts to count stations were done in the New Additions thread, but looking at them, I see that they weren't accurate.  Here are the real numbers:

The core RTMT package contains 15 stations - not a huge number.  If you add in the roadside stations plus the GLR-in-avenue stations, you get 26.  That's what RTMT had been running with for the past couple of years or so.

The T-RAM stations I recently uploaded add only 3 more stations, making 29.  There are going to be 15 SAM stations (they're mostly done).  Oops - we're up to 44 now.  RTMT stations for turning lanes on roads and avenues make another 9 - that brings the total to 53, twice what we had at the beginning of the year.

And here's the kicker - All those networks either have diagonal versions, or have them planned.  So now we have 53 x 2 = 106 stations.  But wait, that's not all!  Throw in another 3 stations for el rail over road, another six stations for two different FAR pieces (at least), and that makes 115 - exactly 100 more stations than the current core package.  But we mustn't forget underground rail under road, and ped mall, and avenue, as all those are coming.  That comes out to 31 more stations (greater than the current size of RTMT right there), for a grand total of 146 stations.  And we haven't even gotten to the stations needed for all the versions of NWM...  And there are probably some that I forgot.  Also, SAM users might decide that they want some of those nice 1x2 stations, or various other ideas might come up.  (I've already got some in mind.)

I haven't even counted intersection stations, which I'm beginning to think we'll skip.

Anyway, by the time you throw in the NWM stations, you've got well over 150 stations, possibly even close to 200.  How many people want that in their menu?

Early on, we were on the verge of doing DAMN menus only, which is the one approach that I think can handle that volume of stations.  The big stumbling block came from people who objected that DAMN doesn't work if they turn off advisor popups.  I've been playing around with them, and turning them on and off doesn't seem to be a big deal.  So I think that those people who want to leave them off can do so most of the time, and turn them on when they want to use RTMT stations.  The change is immediate.  Nothing disastrous happens if you forget to make the change - events remind you soon enough.  The only alternative I know of is to have 150+ stations in your menu, which I think is unmanageable.  And MML here only postpones the inevitable.

So what do people think?  Is it OK to go straight to the multi-level DAMN menus for RTMT V4 and scrap the regular menus entirely?  Please respond, and you can also vote, or change your vote, above.

DAMN seems the only sensible way, especialy now its easyer to creat DAMN menues, with SSPTool

Hello Z, how're u? Long time that I don't come on this forum but, by luck, today I have been allowed to stay at home for personal reasons and I've just got your mail.

I would glay appreciate if somebody of you could update me about the main news, but I would like to express my opinion about the matter: I hate DAMN and I think I won't use most of the new possibilities. I don't like ground light rail and won't use it and, as well, I won't use diagonal stops because diagonal streets in my cities are so few that I prefer to use enlarged versions of the 1x1 stops, so the number of icons in my game would still be reasonable and it would be a violence against my freedom to choose, if somebody would force me to use DAMN.

If it is possible, I would still like to have standard menu buttons, so that I would be free to choose the few ones that I will use. Else, please don't remove the previous RTMT version and include a link to it in the latest version release too.
Eg. "If you really don't like DAMN, you can get previous version here: www.PREVIOUSVERSION.foryou"

Thanks.

PS: I've just seen that I've forgot to reply to your latest e-mail. When I've written that I've lost confidence with the forum, I ment that there are too many news here and I have no time to read everything and keep myself up to date with latest news. Eg, I don't know what happened to CAM 2.0 project & stuff.

Quote from: z on April 03, 2009, 02:50:38 AM
So what do people think?  Is it OK to go straight to the multi-level DAMN menus for RTMT V4 and scrap the regular menus entirely?  Please respond, and you can also vote, or change your vote, above.

Z, in response to this, and to Orion's post above, when you create each lot you will still need to have a menu icon and location as per normal.  I would suggest leaving this as an option for people who don't want DAMN and using an override file, installed at the same time as the DAMN to remove them from the menu.  Best of both worlds.  ;)

how hard are MML's to make? is there a "template" thing, as Stefan (or anyone fluent in java) may be able to make a plugin for creating MML's for SSPTool, and then you could make a two(/three) option installer: nothing or DAMN+overrideds (or

• MML's)
  Joe

MMLs are rather easy to make, it's just a bit time consuming as you have to collect a copy of every building exemplar file, and the IDs of said exemplar files for the LUA script. With some 150+ lots, this will take a while. ;)

unless a SSPTool+DAMNplugin like plugin is created?

Well, any automated tool would speed up the process greatly. :) I'd say if said tool will allow you all lots that should be included in an MML Mod, creating the necessary file could be done within a second or two, needing only two or three clicks. But I'm not a programmer, so those are just guesses. ;)

Quote from: Andreas on April 03, 2009, 01:56:15 PM
MMLs are rather easy to make, it's just a bit time consuming as you have to collect a copy of every building exemplar file, and the IDs of said exemplar files for the LUA script. With some 150+ lots, this will take a while. ;)

Andreas, in RTMT V3 (and I guess it's gonna be the same in V4 too) it's actually much simpler, ie you don't need to make copies of every building exemplar, as all have a common parent cohort; the MML plugin only contains an override of this cohort. And this make maintenanc much easier, ie if you want to change sth for a sepecific station, you don't need to update the MML as well. The same technique can be used for the (DAMN) plugin that hides menu icons, though not in DAMN itself (it has to be updated as new stations are being added).

Yes, the parent cohort is retained in V4.  And fortunately, not all 150+ stations are going to appear at once.  $%Grinno$%  So it seems that a version of JoeST's multiple option installer will be able to provide everyone with what they want - DAMN plus overrides for those who are comfortable with DAMN and (optionally) plan to use a large fraction of the different types of RTMT stations, and plain menus/MML for others.  It will take a bit of designing to figure out the optimal way to implement this second option.

Meanwhile, can someone either point me to a post explaining how the DAMN menu overrides work, or simply explain them briefly?  Thanks!

And it's good to hear from you, Orion!  You've brought up an important point, and as there are bound to be others who feel the same way, it will be addressed, and you won't have to miss out on V4.

Z, there is a whole thread in Daeley's section of the BSC team sub board on DAMN.  What do you want to know?

Yes, before my last post, I searched there for "override" but didn't find anything.  So that's all I wanted to know - how you turn off the regular menus when using the DAMN menus.

Ahhh, yes.. that was a trade secret.  ;)  J/K we just weren't sure it wouldn't cause any issues, but it appears not to.

You need to make a copy of each of the building exemplars from the lots and save them into a new DAT to preserve the original, then remove from each exemplar the lot resource key.  This will leave the lots fully functional and available to plop through DAMN but remove them from your maxis menu.

If there is indeed a "stupid news mod" that blocks the unwanted news, couldn't there also be a "all news blocker" mod that would block all pop-ups *except* the DAMN menu?  wouldn't that completely solve the problem?

That's possible, but I don't know enough about that aspect of the game to say for sure.  As Diggis said to me when I first asked about the stupid news mod, "that question is probably best placed in the DAMN thread, not here."

Also, I don't think that would completely solve the problem, as there seem to be some people who simply don't like DAMN.  But it would certainly be helpful.

More data, more questions.

First of all, I would like to revise my last estimate of the eventual total of RTMT stations, based both on what has been released by the NAM Team since then, and what is currently planned.  Previously, I had said that I that there would be somewhat more than 150 stations.  It is now clear that if we support the networks that are complete, in progress, or extremely likely to be built, we will have at least twice that number of stations, and maybe much more than that.

Fortunately, building stations is not that hard; I find it getting simpler all the time.  I also plan to train some of the team members in the full range of station-building skills so that this can go much faster.  (The current bottleneck is the amount of time I have to build stations, not how long it takes to build them.)

That being said, I would like to revisit the issue of DAMN menus vs. MML one more time, with some additional information.

First of all, it seems to me that having literally hundreds of RTMT icons in a flat menu would be unmanageable for virtually any user.  (Any disagreement here?)  The only alternative here would be to have different portions of RTMT selectable at installation time.  But that would require a lot more work to implement, and would require keeping all the different parts of RTMT separate, which would increase maintenance work significantly.  With our finite resources, this means that new development would also be slowed.  Furthermore, as the number of RTMT stations and NAM features increases, the majority of people are going to want more stations, and saving a few or even a few dozen is not going to make a flat menu system significantly more usable.  And as recent polls on the NAM Board have shown, if a feature exists, people tend to use it.

The additional information that I mentioned has to do with the biggest objection people have had to using only DAMN menus in the past, namely that it requires leaving the advisor popups turned on.  This is still true, as that is how DAMN menus work.  However, I have looked at the inside of the "stupid news mod" mentioned above, and have also looked at how the advisor popups are implemented.  Each piece of advice has a different severity level; certain severity levels can be disabled as an option.  Each piece of advice can also be flagged so that it shows up only in the bottom window and not as a popup; in this way, it doesn't disturb the running of the game.  So as an option, popups could be reduced to next to nothing while still running DAMN.  (The My Sims feature also has popups, but since you have to actively use this feature to get them, I wouldn't plan to do anything to it.  Does this sound OK?)

This being the case, if this option is available, are there still any strong objections to having the menu system DAMN-only?  The initial set of DAMN menus (including those for stations in beta testing) is almost complete, and they work great.  They are quite easy to use.  These menus can easily accommodate all the stations we would ever have.

I am going to reset the poll at the top of this thread so that people can vote again, using this new information.  I think that both the players and the RTMT developers (which means, in turn the players) will benefit greatly from a system using only DAMN menus.  If you still have an objection to them, please state it below.  And in any case, please vote in the poll. Thanks!

Oh awesome, hiding the pop ups would be excellent, could you release it as a separate mini-mod?

And I dont think I ever had qualms about DAMN menus, especially if you can hide the icons from the game menus as well :D

Joe

Somehow I expect there are times when MML's are best and times when DAMN's are best. As I rarely use the RTMT sets, I can't say.. however if one used them they certainly would be used quite often throughout the building of a city.. What that means in terms of which would be best, I can't for certain say. I use MML's very often however and I'd say that for anything that you will be using frequently and repeatedly that they aren't the best choice.. I haven't used the DAMN so I can't speak to that.

Quote from: JoeST on August 28, 2009, 03:20:47 AM
Oh awesome, hiding the pop ups would be excellent, could you release it as a separate mini-mod?

I've actually been thinking of doing that; I'm sure a lot of people would like that.  But if you don't use DAMN, is that really any better than just using the built-in game option?  Maybe I should just offer this to Daeley as an option for DAMN.

Another option is to create a few of these option packs.  One would have no popups.  Another would show only URGENT messages ("Nuclear plant about to explode!").  There are HIGH messages ("Tax Trouble: Small Stores Closing Doors"), MED_HIGH ("Crowded Crooks Reported Ready to Riot"), and MEDIUM ("City has Gaps in Police Coverage").  So a complete set  of these option packs could be created, both for RTMT, and as a separate download on the LEX.  Would people like that?

Meanwhile, people have voted for keeping both MMLs and DAMN, but no one has explained why.  :(   I hope it's clear that MMLs mean keeping the original menu system; it's easy enough to implement DAMN without the original menus without using MMLs.  Anyway, for now, it looks like we'll continue keeping the original menus.  That part is easy enough to do.  But unless someone can put up a convincing argument otherwise, it's just going to be one long menu with one MML.  There would have to be a really good reason to do something that would require a lot more work than that.

EDIT:  I almost forgot.  I think that the obvious name for this mod would be the "No News Is Good News" mod. :)

I just made the interesting discovery that the DAMN menus can still be used with the Urgent Advice Dialogs option turned off.  If you click on the new flipper, you get the standard news window.  If you then click on the option to open additional submenus, you don't get a separate popup box.  But the submenus do open right at the top of the news box.  You can descend levels and do everything you can do with the popup box.  It works a little differently, as the style of the news box is mixed in there, but it's trivial to figure out, and nothing is lacking.  I was not aware this this was possible.

We're going to go ahead and create the "No News Is Good News" mod anyway, as the larger popup box is a bit easier to work with.

People who work with the Urgent Advice Dialogs turned off may wish to take a look at my Bigger News Window (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=8841.msg274110#msg274110) mod, as it makes working with DAMN menus much easier in that environment.