Ordering my menu icons: some hints?

[0rion79]

Hi. Now that I'm starting to download from SC4D some VERY cool stuff (thanks to creators!!) I'm using SC4 Tools to change the ID order variabile of the collected files to put their icons in the order that I want. Still, I have some specific questions and I hope that somebody of you may give me some more precise hints.

1st - is it possible to move some plopable lots, as non-landmark commercial buildings or industrial plants, in the menu together with the icons that are use to ZONE? IE, I would like to place my Joerg Car Facility, Shmails farm fillers & stuff together with the industry zoning tool, while the hotels and supermarkets together with the commercial area zoning tool. In this way, I would free a lot of space in the park/landmarks/rewards menu that are already very full. If yes, please give sptuipd-proof instructions

2nd - there are some items, like the functional pedestrian plazas, that are in 3 categories:
- Buildings: transportation
- Buildings: misc.transit
- Buildings: parks
Can I delete one of these to have them to appear in only one menu? In some cases, I've seen that there are just a series of numbers so I'm not sure.

3rd - there are some very cool buildings, especially industries, that can both grow spontaneously and both can be placed in a city by the menu, like Hardun Coal Mine that is both a I-M reward (just is less polluting) or a spontaneous I-D. How should I modify those files to prevent those buildings from growing up spontaneously?
I would even like if those rewards would turn grey when built once.

4th - is it possible to group some icons into a TAB ring, with SC4 tools? Or do I need other things? I've red about RTMT 3.5 >> 4.0 that it is not possible with mass transit so what if I try to do it with pedestrian plazas that are by fact used by pedestrians?

Thank you a lot: I hope that I'm not writing in the wrong forum session, even because it is so big that I still have to get used to it.

[Andreas]

1.) No, unfortunately not.

2.) It depends. The menu where the lot shows up is defined by the "Occupant Group" property. For some lots, the Occupant Groups define both the menu and the functionality (i. e. the schools or powerplants). For most park lots and similar, it doesn't matter, though, since their impact on the game is merely by providing some park effect etc. (which is defined in other properties). In this case, you can delete some of the superfluous occupant groups.

3.) Well, if you don't want these lots to grow automatically, simply remove the growable lot from your plugins folder. In order to make ploppable rewards available only once, they need a "City Exclusion Group" property that contains the ID of the building exemplar file.

4.) No, unfortunately not. If it would be possible, we would have done it already, don't you think?

[0rion79]

1 - What a pity!
2 - I think that I just have to make a back-up and try.
3 - How do I recognize the growable lot? I will try for the exclusion procedure.
4 - yes, but maybe it was something very difficult to do... for example, something similar has been done for the NAM with road to highway plops! Or maybe it would be more difficult to recognize the single pieces if grouped together from the beginning! But it is ok...

I have a new, 5th question. There are some buildings that I like very much and that are transit enabled.
Some samples are the algae farm or some commercial services included with the FBC pack, like the bus repair shop & stuff. They become immediately red and congested if even just a little of traffic passes near of them.
I see "transit switch entry cost = 0" and "transit switch traffic capacity = 100" . Since true stations have 50.000, I think that 100 is just too few... but maybe I'm looking in the wrong direction.

[Andreas]

3.) Usually, the name should give you some hints. For example, SimGoober's ploppable lots always start with "SG_...", while the growables have the appropriate labels, such as "I-d3_6x6_...", which tells you that this is a growble dirty industry building, stage 3, on a 6x6 lot. Ultimately, you can easily check if a building is a ploppable by opening the lot file and see if there's an icon in it, and an "Item Icon" property.

4.) TAB cycles are reserved for network tiles, it doesn't work for lots. It doesn't have anything to do with the difficulty of the process.

5.) If a transit enabled lot is only transit enabled for visual things, such as a driveway, all Transit Switch properties should be removed entirely. Those are reserved for lots that actually provide a transit switch, such as a bus stop or a railway station.

[RippleJet]

5.) If a transit enabled lot is only transit enabled for visual things, such as a driveway, all Transit Switch properties should be removed entirely. Those are reserved for lots that actually provide a transit switch, such as a bus stop or a railway station.

For more information about that, read this.