Mod or existing Lot/BAT tweak to prevent them from growing.

[buckbeach]

A major problem in every Region I have ever created is to have dominating buildings saturate the game.  The solution has been done in a major way with the No Maxis mod and to a lesser extent with the No Perdriana Farms mod so it appears possible. 

The purpose would be to allow a once or more occurrence of any lot and then have the ability to turn it off while still maintaining existing lots to function properly in the game.  Both of the aforementioned mod allow for this.

Instructions for a simple tweak to each of unwanted existing lot would be ideal to allow the player more control.

Please forgive me in my ignorance of the complexity needed if this would be too complicated to develop.

[RippleJet]

There are two ways to stop buildings from growing completely.

1. Change the Growth Stage to something above 15
This property is found in the lotconfig exemplar (SC4Lot file).
Setting the growth stage to e.g. 255 means it will never grow, since only 8 stages (in Rush Hour) or 15 stages (in CAM) are available.
If this is done to buildings that have already grown in your city, they will not upgrade though, since that would require it to be replaced with a building of a higher growth stage.

2. Remove the Occupant Groups telling which building style the building is
This property is found in the building exemplar (SC5Desc file, or SC4Lot file if merged with the lot).
The occupant groups are 0x2000 (Chicago), 0x2001 (New York), 0x2002 (Houston) and 0x2003 (Euro).
If all these are removed, the building won't belong to any building style and will never grow. It will upgrade to a higher stage building though.

I think the second option comes closest to what you are asking for.
The easiest tool currently available for changing any of these properties is the SC4Tool.

[buckbeach]

There are two ways to stop buildings from growing completely.

1. Change the Growth Stage to something above 15
This property is found in the lotconfig exemplar (SC4Lot file).
Setting the growth stage to e.g. 255 means it will never grow, since only 8 stages (in Rush Hour) or 15 stages (in CAM) are available.
If this is done to buildings that have already grown in your city, they will not upgrade though, since that would require it to be replaced with a building of a higher growth stage.

2. Remove the Occupant Groups telling which building style the building is
This property is found in the building exemplar (SC5Desc file, or SC4Lot file if merged with the lot).
The occupant groups are 0x2000 (Chicago), 0x2001 (New York), 0x2002 (Houston) and 0x2003 (Euro).
If all these are removed, the building won't belong to any building style and will never grow. It will upgrade to a higher stage building though.

I think the second option comes closest to what you are asking for.
The easiest tool currently available for changing any of these properties is the SC4Tool.

This sounds simple enough (hope I can learn to do it!!)?   I wonder why it is that I haven't seen anybody approach the subject before (or has it).  It has to be a universal problem for people who prefer to play with growables.

Thank you very much.

[High5Tower]

The main downside to these two changes is that as soon as you go to another tile to play and draw out commercial again these altered BATS will not be available to grow in your new city. It would be too much work to keep changing,just re-data packing the changed fills would drive one over the edge.

[xxdita]

You could use StartUp Manager, and have the original lots in one dat, then your altered lots in another, so that when you start the game you'd have that option. This would prevent too much datpacking, and moving files around between games.

[Andreas]

Well, you can do the following: Copy the relevant exemplar file (or all exemplar files from the lots you want to modify) into a new DAT and put it in a folder that starts with a "z", so it's loaded after the original files. Now apply the modifications to the copy, this will leave the unaltered file intact. Start playing your city without the "z" folder, and once you think that enough buildings of that type have grown, activate the "z" folder in your SUM profile. The modified DAT will prevent further buildings from growing, but the existing ones remain untouched.

[buckbeach]

2. Remove the Occupant Groups telling which building style the building is
This property is found in the building exemplar (SC5Desc file, or SC4Lot file if merged with the lot).
The occupant groups are 0x2000 (Chicago), 0x2001 (New York), 0x2002 (Houston) and 0x2003 (Euro).
If all these are removed, the building won't belong to any building style and will never grow. It will upgrade to a higher stage building though.

I must be doing something wrong because a couple of test lots I've deleted the Occupant Groups from are still showing up.  I do have an observation however, none of the Industrial Maxis Lots have a dedicated tileset or Occupant Group and they still grow in all games if not controlled by the No Maxis Lots Mod.  This leads me to wonder if just deleting the Occupant Groups is the solution and do in fact prevent the Lot from growing.  (not trying to out think the experts here because I couldn't in a thousand years).  Can you think of something else? 

Like I said before I am probably doing something wrong.  Could one of you that knows what you're doing try a test and confirm that your solution does work.

[wouanagaine]

Yes Ind are not subject to tileset, and you should not delete the OG property for any lot, only remove the tileset values
If yuo have delete the OG property, then if the desc has a parent cohort ( which is 100% the case with Maxis building ) then the OG property of the parent cohort will be used. That is why you should only remove the tileset values

For Ind lot the solution is to set the lot stage to 0xFF

[buckbeach]

Yes Ind are not subject to tileset, and you should not delete the OG property for any lot, only remove the tileset values
If yuo have delete the OG property, then if the desc has a parent cohort ( which is 100% the case with Maxis building ) then the OG property of the parent cohort will be used. That is why you should only remove the tileset values

For Ind lot the solution is to set the lot stage to 0xFF

Can the tileset values be changed with the SC4Tool.?  I see the original values of the various tilesets but unable to save any changes?  Will changing the lot stages effect the lot's ability to auto redevelop (as mentioned in above post)?   What about commercial lots?

Please direct me to the appropriate thread for instructions if this should be discussed elsewhere, so as not to clutter this thread.

[RippleJet]

Can the tileset values be changed with the SC4Tool.?  I see the original values of the various tilesets but unable to save any changes?

If you want to modify in-game buildings, not custom content buildings, then you cannot use the SC4Tool.
In order to change in-game settings you would first have to copy the in-game building exemplar into a separate file,
and that can currently only be accomplished with iLive's Reader.

After that the extracted file can be modded in SC4Tool though.

Will changing the lot stages effect the lot's ability to auto redevelop (as mentioned in above post)?   What about commercial lots?

Yes, you shouldn't change the growth stage to anything it might grow as, only change it to 255 (0xFF) if you want to stop it from growing.

For Ind lot the solution is to set the lot stage to 0xFF

Industrial buildings can also be blocked by removing the industrial subtype from the Occupant Group:
     0x3000 = Anchor
     0x3001 = Mechanical
     0x3002 = Out

[buckbeach]

If you want to modify in-game buildings, not custom content buildings, then you cannot use the SC4Tool.
In order to change in-game settings you would first have to copy the in-game building exemplar into a separate file,
and that can currently only be accomplished with iLive's Reader.

After that the extracted file can be modded in SC4Tool though.


Yes, you shouldn't change the growth stage to anything it might grow as, only change it to 255 (0xFF) if you want to stop it from growing.


Industrial buildings can also be blocked by removing the industrial subtype from the Occupant Group:
     0x3000 = Anchor
     0x3001 = Mechanical
     0x3002 = Out

I guess I'm out of luck then because the lots I want to change are all in game buildings (if I understand that term right) I only want to disable a lot from growing after it has already developed elsewhere in the current game.  I fear ilive is much to complicated for me to try I am not techy enough for such an adventure.  Triple damn!!

[BarbyW]

I only want to disable a lot from growing after it has already developed elsewhere in the current game

This is just not possible. Either a lot is allowed to grow or it isn't - ie using a Block Maxis mod - you can't have some instances grow then disable it without a great deal of modding and swapping in and out of game. Even then I am not sure it would work.

[buckbeach]

This is just not possible. Either a lot is allowed to grow or it isn't - ie using a Block Maxis mod - you can't have some instances grow then disable it without a great deal of modding and swapping in and out of game. Even then I am not sure it would work.

I am sure to the point of almost positive that if the No Maxis mod and the No Perdinia mod is placed in a game in process the mods will allow the already developed lots to continue to function and only prevent others from being built.  But, I have been wrong many times before!!

[RippleJet]

I am sure to the point of almost positive that if the No Maxis mod and the No Perdinia mod is placed in a game in process the mods will allow the already developed lots to continue to function and only prevent others from being built.  But, I have been wrong many times before!!

That is quite true. DuskTrooper's Block All Maxis Buildings removes the building styles from the occupant groups,
which allows them to be upgraded later in the game, even if they are blocked from growing.

Also BSC No Maxis Files allows the buildings to function well if they grew befire installing the mod.
However, those buildings will function as if they were made historical. They won't upgrade.

However, if you want to be able to decide which buildings to block on a building-by-building basis,
then you would have to extract those specific building exemplars yourself.

You could also try dhamp's No Maxis Buildings mod v2,
which enables you to block residential and commercial buildings on a more detailed level than DuskTrooper's No Maxis Mod.

Also note that, if you're using CAM, DuskTrooper's mod and those files by dhamp that block stage 7-8 buildings are not CAMpatible.

[jmyers2043]

The Pedriana Plants Killer mod changes the growth stage of the Maxis farms to 0xFF which means the farm lots will not grow. So I guess one of your concerns is farm building repetition. My guess is that you wish to grow a few of these farms. Then insert the mod to stop further growth.

This is what will happen under your scenario as I understand it. When you open the game that second time and now have the mod in your plugins. You will first note that the Pedrianas farms that grew will now have some 'no water' zots. The farms will function for a while then turn a nice crispy black color and dilapidate and then stop functioning.

This often happens to me because I use real regions to test new farms. The above will also happen if you merely change the growth stage of a farm from stage 1 to stage 2. All the farms that grew when it was a stage one will dilapidate because the farm is now a stage 2.

I can't answer the other part of your question regarding the No Maxis Mod. As I don't have any experience using it.

I actually have the Pedriana's Plants Killer mod in my plugins and I leave it there as I do not like the look of the building. I do however have a freight rail station lot with that building on it and I usually place one in each rural city as it makes a good grain elevator type of building. Regarding farm building repetition? There are plenty of things to download to take care of that. The best way to deal with buildings that grow like weeds is to download other similar buildings. I made my small shops series because I grew tired of the same Maxis small shop growing again and again.

Hope this helps.

[Shiftred]

Would a building-by-building blocker be inCAMpatible?  Must it load after all CAM files?  I am thinking of starting something like this for myself to stop all of the small non-W2W comercials from growing, i.e. Simpson, INC, Rivello Building, etc.

[RippleJet]

Would a building-by-building blocker be inCAMpatible?  Must it load after all CAM files?  I am thinking of starting something like this for myself to stop all of the small non-W2W comercials from growing, i.e. Simpson, INC, Rivello Building, etc.

No, it wouldn't. The only blockers that are inCAMpatible are those that change building exemplar properties of certain stage 7 or any stage 8 residential and commercial buildings and those that change the building exemplars of any industrial buildings (since all industrial buildings were modded to give a better occupancy in CAM).

Since the Occupant Group property is in the building exemplar, the blockers that change them (tileset or industrial subtype) are those that may be inCAMpatible.

All blockers that change the growth stage of lots are CAMpatible, as long as they are loaded after CAM's main file (which is in the a_CAM folder).

A little more information can be found in the CAM - inCAMpatible Mods thread.