Halisburg - Newbie's Sandbox

[vortext]

In short, yes there are various methods to get seawalls at a specified level.

And that's about as specific as I can get at the moment because I don't know which PEG set you're referring to and don't know how they're modded to begin with (though iirc PEG stuff typically uses water/land constraints). Moreover, choosing the most suitable method depends on the situation ingame, how the seawalls props are made (e.g. below z-axis, overhang), what type of lot you're after (e.g. one-off eyecandy lot or complete set) and personal modding preferences.

To give a few examples: you could temporarily set the sealevel to zero in the reader and thus be able to plop ordinary land walls on the slope where the shore used the be. Or you could mod the lots to be water compatible, which in combination with zero slope thresholds allows you to place them in water, directly on the sloped tiles. Or maybe the other way around is more suitable, and you could make the seawall props overhang the slope from land side. Each method has its (dis)advantages, and needless to say they can be combined.

[imoutofusernameideas]

Hello vortext,

Thank you for your reply. I'm terribly sorry, you're right I should have been more specific. The set I'm using - and yes, I would like to use the whole set - is this:

[url]http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/10897-peg-RKT3-recreational-style/[url]

But I'm encountering the same issues with all his sets pretty much. In this particular situation I'm trying to place the walls on tiles that are between 5 - 10 metres above sea level (so 255 - 260).

[vortext]

Right, so in this case the wall props overhang the slope, which is good news because it means you can actually already place them at any desired height. You just need to make sure the tile on which they're placed is flat, otherwise they do indeed auto-level the land. And that is because the foundation threshold is zero.

If you still wish to get rid of the auto-levelling, you'll need to go in the Reader, look for LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopeBeforeLotFoundation and set is to a high value. I typically go for 200. However, this gives rise to another problem, namely misaligned props, like so:


On the left slope friendly lot, however, note the flags and people props which are, uhm, not correct shall we say? On the right an example how to place them high above sealevel.

The flag can be corrected by setting the Orient To Slope property in the prop exemplar to false. The floating people on the other hand are a bit more work because this is an overhanging prop as well and placed at the center of the lot. To make them appear properly, you'd first need to place them at the edge of the lot, like the seawall is, and then use the SC4ModelTweaker to pull them backwards a bit. Definitely doable but once again, it all depends on what you're after and comfortable with.

[imoutofusernameideas]

Hey vortext,

I'm just dropping by to say that the changing of the aforementioned value did the trick. "Doing nothing" does not work for me. No matter how flat I make the tiles and how perfectly I form the surrounding terrain, the lots will ALWAYS lower themselves. Such a pity.

In any case, with the edited value, I'm now able to place the lots as desired, so thanks! :-)

I was wondering however if it's possible to edit the lots? Each set is included in only one .dat file, no SC4LOT files.

[vortext]

I was wondering however if it's possible to edit the lots? Each set is included in only one .dat file, no SC4LOT files.

Dat files are the SC4 container file format and can hold anything from lots, BATs, textures, network overrides, you name it.  If you open the file in LE you'll see the lots, in addition to props, and you can edit lots inside of dat files without problem.

Though, general remark, it's advisable to not edit huge dat files because it slows down the saving process, and it runs the small risk of corrupting the entire dat file. If you want to edit for instance lots which are inside a sizeable dat file it's best practice to extract and save them into a small dat file beforehand.