I'm getting back into the game and the community after a few years, and I've started working on a region that I eventually hope to showcase. I've recently downloaded Marcszar's Baltimore Rowhouses, and I'm finding that they are very difficult to grow and keep around in areas large enough to make realistic rowhouse neighborhoods. I want to make a mod that allows me to plop these buildings as well as grow them.
Before anyone says anything, I know that there are issues with creating and caring for ploppable residential lots. However, I have three of them that I've managed to keep going for at least five game years in testing, so I feel that my cities have the demand and employment base to support them. One of these is Andisart's One21 Apartment Tower, the other is Skyscraper's The Palm Building, which seems to be perfectly fine even if plopped on bare, unzoned land and left to its own devices (Both found on Simtropolis).
I tried to clone the One21 Tower and edit the exemplar files so that they match those of the rowhouses, but after saving it and opening it in Lot Editor, I find that I cannot replace the building with one of Marcszar's rowhouses. Even though I have the rowhouses installed, the buildings just aren't in the menu.
I've downloaded and explored the PIM, but (of course) there's no option to create ploppable residential structures. Will I have to make these first as landmarks and then insert the residential capabilities via Ilives' Reader? What's the best method to go about doing this?