Tyberius (Heretic Projects) Lotting and Modding Experiments

[mgb204]

I've encountered the same problem myself. I'd have to guess the ID conflict is not one you can resolve yourself. Since CALs canals are BSC modded, I'd be very doubtful the problem lies with CAL's canals. More likely, some other creator has inadvertently used his family IDs.

[Seaman]

ahhh... walls. One can never have enough of them. I think they extend the current set of walls out there quite nicely and will fit wonderfully in the semi-rural outskirts of a city to embank Roads and rails... 

[FrankU]

Hi Tyberius,

I remember I had the same problem with Glenni's houses. I suppose I just refrained from using Glenni's file and deleted it from my plugins. I don't exactly rememeber what I did, it's long ago, but I certainly did not change anything in the Glenni or SG files.
Of course you may edit as much as you like, but I think it would not be wise to upload this to the community. Besides the fact that it is not allowed it would open a can of worm conflicts.

[Tyberius06]

Thank you everyone for the help!
@FrankU: Yepp my first approach was making an exact copy of CAL's propfamily than changing only the family examplars to one of mine, but as you said that is not allowed. So I made just a new propfamily which is using the original file, but on my lot the props will appear correctly.
I have a little sideproject with CAL's canal, and in that project I already remade the straight 1+ canal piece with the new family. With a cleanitol it could be a good replace for the conflicting file(s). And as I know this method is allowed.

Well I have an other question. How can I make custom blockers for my game. If in my plugin folder there is a growable lot which I would like to see in my game once or twice but not 100 times. I'm thining about like maxis blocker T-wrecks' blocker for the IRM set.

Thank you in advance.

- Tyberius

[Andreas]

There are probably several methods to create such a blocker, but I think the easiest one would be to make a copy of the offending lot(s), and either change the zone settings to something invalid (i. e. LotConfigProperty "0x04" [low density commercial zone] for a residential lot) for a complete block, or (better) adjust some stats to be more in line with the rest of the buildings to avoid having them growing like weed.

I used the latter method for number of W2W houses, some were overgrowing most of the other development, because they offered more room for residents than others, so all my little 1x2 W2W residentials now hold around 35-40 residents, like the Maxis brick walk-ups. For a given stage and lot size, the game tends to pick the building with the highest occupant number, so those should be leveled properly.

[Tyberius06]

Thank you Andreas, I will keep it in my mind, but I would appreciate a tutorial for that kind of blockers what I spoke about earlier.

[Andreas]

I had a look at T Wrecks' IRM, but I don't see any "Maxis blockers" there, so I'm not sure what you're talking about... The only "block" files are related to some building families, maybe to avoid odd results on the reworked Maxis lots. The IRM provides more variety because there are reworked and also new lots for the Maxis industrials, making the whole look of your industrial areas less boring and repetitive.

[Tyberius06]

I'm sorry, You're right. I left an "or" word out from my sentence. So like the maxis blocker OR T-Wreck's IRM blocker. According to my understanding with the IRM blockers you can choose that the game grows the normal IRM lots or the new W2W set. And using either or the another blocker you can control which set to be in "charge"...
What I would like to accomplish that with blocker(s) controlling (with keeping their normal functionality) residental and commercial lots. Many times I make a larger zone and the game split the zone and put 1x2-3-4 lots for example onto a 4x4 zone, or split the zone half and put next to each other (on the 4x4 zone) two 2x4 lots from the same building. And the game wants to put the same 2x4 building onto evry 4x4 zone, instead of growing 4x4 lots.
But that is just an example. Another time onto each part of my city I would build modern row houses with lot of occupants, but two roads further I would build a different kind of w2w building set. With a blocker I could controll which type of houses can grow and which can not.

[Andreas]

Yeah, that behavior is a bit annoying, but it's the representation of what I was talking above. There is a certain demand (say, 2000 CO$$$ jobs) which the simulator wants to fill, and it just happen to pick two identical CO$$$ buildings with 1000 jobs each, cause they have a lower stage than the desired 4x4 CO$$$ building which offers 2000 jobs. So when you add some other CO$$$ lots that supply 1000 jobs each, the game might pick two different ones, avoiding such boring repetitions.

Anyway, I haven't looked at T Wrecks' W2W sets yet, just the base set and the filler add-ons, but the old Maxis blocker that I have installed (not sure who made it, maybe some BSC member?) just makes the aforementioned copy of the in-game lots, and makes one property invalid - after checking the DAT, it turns out that it sets the growth stage to 0xFF. So it's as simple as that: Make a copy of all lot exemplar files, edit the growth stage to an invalid value, and you're done. Gather the exemplars in several DAT files for easier handling (say, one for 1x2 W2W etc.), and move them into your plugins folder when needed.

[vortext]

after checking the DAT, it turns out that it sets the growth stage to 0xFF. So it's as simple as that: Make a copy of all lot exemplar files, edit the growth stage to an invalid value, and you're done.

iirc changing the growth stage will cause no water zots on already grown lots, regardless they actually have water or not.  Something to keep in mind, especially if you want to toggle lots 'on & off' which I gather is the intention in this case. Personally I toggle lots 'off' by means of changing the minimal slope required to some absurd high value - effectively banning them to grow on steep slopes exclusively, i.e. never - and back to zero if I'd want them to grow again.

[Tyberius06]

Hello!

Thank you the answeres! I'll give it a try these methoods.

Well,
I updated my SeaPort Project. Now it's v1.5. I had to change 39 lots, there were minor and major changes aswell, so you need to demolish and replop those lots (I put a list into the readme about the affected lots).
With the update (just a separate upload) I released the expansion set aswell, you can download both of them.
Heretic SeaPort Project v1.5
Heretic SeaPort Project Expansion




















Bonus (developing industrial harbour area with lots of canals and rail lines)


Have fun!

- Tyberius

EDIT: restored the broken picture links...

[tigerbuilder]

Thank you for all the work you've put into this set Tyberius, these lots are really good. I will use them all for sure.

[Tyberius06]

Thanks tigerbuilder and for everybody the support and help.
Well, I just released my next project the so called Heretic Slope Side Walls



Extra images from my Noir City - North Harbour with the walls.







Well, about the future. I'm about to rework some of my early lotting things, which includes ped bridges for Paeng Urban Canals, and some SG-CAL canal additions. And probably I will give an other addition for the SeaPort Project which contains some of the already released lots just without those high light cones, as a few people asked that over there on Simtropolis. And with that release, I might put some new stuff aswell, but for the moment no WIP previews.
In the meantime I'm playing with the game and making for example these interchanges...





- Tyberius

EDIT: Restored the broken image links..... AGAIN... 

[compdude787]

Nice lots. And more importantly, awesome interchanges!!

[Silur]

Once  more- very interesting for me. Thank YOU

[Missvanleider]

Hi,

I am tempted to download the Heretic SeaPort Project v1.5 as it looks excellent. I have also grabbed the CAL canals and the add-on bits of it, I appreciate that this is question is no doubt answered somewhere in the readme but I can't open that from my desk at work. Basically will I end up with 2 versions of all the PEG stuff in my seaport menu or does the v1.5 overwrite the older, PEG versions in game. I would really prefer to not have 2 versions of each of the buildings available in game if at all possible.

Thanks for your help, well done for doing all this work!

Abbi

[Tyberius06]

Hi Abbi!
The Readme was written with MS Office 2007 and the standard type of that program for documents is the *.DOCX.
In the documentation folder You suppose to find a "cleanitol.txt" file. That documentum file contains all the filenames what you do NOT need, after you put my files into your plugin folder. If you do know the BSC Cleanitol program (you can download from LEX), you can run and browse this cleanitol.txt, and the program automatically remove the listed files. BUT first you have to remove the listed files and than copy the Heretic Seaport Project contents into you plugin folder.
If you don't want to use that program, you can remove the listed files manually from your plugin folder.
As I remember only the actual seaport files overwritre the old ones and those are in a different folder.

I hope it's helpful.

- Tibi

[Tyberius06]

Hello everybody!

Well after my shorter holiday (nice journey into Amsterdam - little/big party in Utrecht, Antwerp and Brugges), I started to make a few new lots. The Seaport expansion is still WIP, I can show a few pictures in a very early WIP stage, at this moment these are just conceptions, experimenting with a props on lots. The other WIP project this time not a new set, just a little (30x17) single lot - Heretic Railyard and Roundhouse, where I use Oppie's building (as prop) and the WMP team railyard props aswell. Well this is also in an early development stage, I only placed the main buildings and the rail track layout.

1. Seaport expansion - warehouse everywhere: inspirated by American movies





2. Heretic Railyard and Roundhouse (right handside is mine, left handside is a modified version - for this setting - of Simmer2's SM2 Train Repair Yard, and above that mgb204's MGB RDP Starter Lots.



- Tyberius

EDIT: restored broken image links... AGAIN...

[Bipin]

Really great work; this deserves a lot more attention.

[FrankU]

Nice plans you have Tyberius!
I'll follow them closely.