MY SC4 2010: J-spec

[jigsaw]

hello all. this is my first mod so i am learning as i go.

basically, after all of these years, i am sick of playing the game as it is. i am not sick of SC4, just sick of some of the games elements, and i am sick of the looking at the same old game. It is pretty clear we are not getting a full replacement, however we have all the tools and skills to do a lot with what we have got.

So, i about a month ago i have stopped playing the game until i can resolve some things that are bugging me. I have embarked on 3 aims, and i am working on them concurrently. so, no more 2003 simcity 4. i am determined to create a modern standard that will help make the game more enjoyable, more relevant to the present and be more flexible and dynamic.

:::: STILL WORK IN PROGRESS ::::

hence: MY Simcity4: 2010 project: jigsaw spec (j-spec)
my plan is to release them as a complete pack, and as individual modules.

aim 1: new tilesets.(j-spec tilesets)
the maxis default ones are tired, outdated, limited and irrelevant. after years of gameplay, custom content,community choice, and lots of CJ's/MD's i have determined that the best 4 tilesets to reflect a modern 2010 standard are:
(available on the STEX)
http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=23723

-OLD EURO (w2w sets, dutch, paris sets etc)
-MODERN WESTERN WORLD (present day/modern american, modern european design)
-MODERN EASTERN WORLS (dubai, hongkong, tokyo,singapore etc)
-AMERICANA (late 19th century, early 20th century american/british design)



with these new tilesets, i have also also shuffled the maxis content around. all Houston and Euro contemporary now live in MOD WESTERN, and all Chicago and New York now live in Americana. (good suggestion Andreas)

along with the new tilesets, all custom content that i have DL'd over the years has to be audited to align to new tileset categories.

aim 2: less maxis content (plan zero)
im sick of the maxis reward chain, and im sick of most maxis civs, utilities, parks and transits. they have been used by me 1000's of times, and there is better custom content out there.



so, i have decided to remove as much of the unwanted stuff as possible. i will be relying on more custom content and free-ing up space in the menus for more desired plugins.

i have named the project 'plan zero'. the eventual mission is to run my SC4 game without any maxis content at all.

aim 3: new look UI (j-spec UI)
to top off the above 2 mods which will dramatically change the way i play the game, i have decided to start on a new UI to reflect change. transparent smokey black glass with orange trim






all of these mods will be ongoing. their is a lot of work still be done, but i will not start playing the game again until i achieve creating a fresh new look to how the game works, looks and feels.

new tilesets for better variety and versatility, less unwanted content to free up the gameplay and a fresh look should be the home renovation, facelift, botox and liposuction the game needs to keep it going for years to come.





thanks to all that have helped me so far when i have hit a snag, or have inspired me to keep going with it. RippleJet: thanks for your help so far, very much appreciated

this is far from finished, and i will post more pics when i reach significant milestones.

[MandelSoft]

Well, I do not fully agree with Plan Zero. Some Maxis things I use quite a lot and are very usefull, even though I have a ton of Custom Content, because they are easy in use. I suggest you shouldn't remove:

- The Landmarks.
- The Maxis primary and secundary school and library.
- The Maxis Clinic and Hospital.
- The Maxis University (maybe as normal building in the school menu instead of reward).
- The Maxis Rewards in the Parks Menu.
- The Maxis Cargo Train Station.
- The small, medium and large Police Department Buildings
- The small and medium fire department
- The prison

You could also remove:

- The Maxis Airports (way underscaled)
- The Maxis Bus Stop.
- The Maxis Plazas (Could be replaced by NAM Ped Mall).
- The Maxis Rangers House (never understood the use of that park building)
- The Maxis City Gardens

Furthermore, I strongly recommend NOT to remove any Utility building. Without them, it's not even possible to start up a city.

My two cents

Best,
Maarten

[jigsaw]

Well, I do not fully agree with Plan Zero. Some Maxis things I use quite a lot and are very usefull, even though I have a ton of Custom Content, because they are easy in use. I suggest you shouldn't remove:

- The Landmarks.
- The Maxis primary and secundary school and library.
- The Maxis Clinic and Hospital.
- The Maxis University (maybe as normal building in the school menu instead of reward).
- The Maxis Rewards in the Parks Menu.
- The Maxis Cargo Train Station.
- The small, medium and large Police Department Buildings
- The small and medium fire department
- The prison

You could also remove:

- The Maxis Airports (way underscaled)
- The Maxis Bus Stop.
- The Maxis Plazas (Could be replaced by NAM Ped Mall).
- The Maxis Rangers House (never understood the use of that park building)
- The Maxis City Gardens

Furthermore, I strongly recommend NOT to remove any Utility building. Without them, it's not even possible to start up a city.

My two cents

Best,
Maarten

The Landmarks. gone
The Maxis primary and secundary school and library. gone
- The Maxis Clinic and Hospital. gone

-The Maxis University (maybe as normal building in the school menu instead of reward).
- The Maxis Rewards in the Parks Menu.
- The Maxis Cargo Train Station.
- The small, medium and large Police Department Buildings
- The small and medium fire department
- The prison .... all gone

You could also remove:

- The Maxis Airports (way underscaled) gone
- The Maxis Bus Stop. kept... for now
- The Maxis Plazas (Could be replaced by NAM Ped Mall). gone
- The Maxis Rangers House (never understood the use of that park building)
- The Maxis City Gardens gone and gone

Furthermore, I strongly recommend NOT to remove any Utility building.... kept for now. but there are lots of replacements available.

[Fabian93]

Could you please specify the Old Euro + W2W set?
If you plan to use this as a set for both, european W2W houses and normal houses I'd suggest you to do a category only for W2W buildings (sorry if this seems to be a dumb question... but where do we put normal european houses if not there? it's quite confusing for me )
***
A fantastic idea, in my opinion... I'm looking forward to the whole progress

Fabian

[Myself.or.?]

Just a question from somebody who doesn't know s..t about the inner functions of the game. 
I've read in a couple of threads that Maxis left a whole bunch of unfinished items and menus inside the game. Would there be any chance to actually aument the number of Tile Sets? That way we could have W2W, Suburban, EuroModern, Asia,... divided into different sets. Probably it isn't possible, but it's an idea that just struck me. 

[Andreas]

Just a question from somebody who doesn't know s..t about the inner functions of the game. 
I've read in a couple of threads that Maxis left a whole bunch of unfinished items and menus inside the game. Would there be any chance to actually aument the number of Tile Sets? That way we could have W2W, Suburban, EuroModern, Asia,... divided into different sets. Probably it isn't possible, but it's an idea that just struck me. 

Well, you are of course not the first one who thought of that, but unfortunately, it turned out that the number of tilesets must be something that is controlled via the EXE. So yeah, even though more tilesets would be just awesome to have, we are stuck with four, and it is not easy to decide which items are the most important ones - and this largely depends on the personal building style as well, naturally. With four tilesets, it seems somewhat logical to have one style for 19th/20th century New York/Chicago buildings (covering the NYBT and BSP creations, JBSimio's and spa's creations, to name a few), old European/W2W BATs (xannepan, porkissimo, ferox, vanderaap etc.), modern Western (Houston/Euro sets by Maxis, NDEX, PDA/ATR, SimGoober,...) and a modern Eastern (esp. HKABT, Dubai BATs and similar) set that wasn't available before.

You would have to mod your custom content accordingly on your own anyway, and if you like, you could also create your own UI for the four tileset options, so if you don't use, say, modern Eastern buildings at all, you could easily separate your W2W stuff from other older European buildings. Maybe someone will create a Batch Editor for SC4 files eventually (I've been waiting for something like this since years), making such tasks a lot easier (you could place all your W2W lots into one folder, and the batch tool would change the tileset property of all files in those folders and subfolders automatically)...

[Myself.or.?]

Well, as far as the number goes, I did somehow expect that much. That means that I fully agree with your new division of tiles. But having a batch manager would surely help (maybe somebody will get down to making one now that there are new sets  ).

[jigsaw]

my reasoning on how i picked my tilesets was based not on perfection, but actually more on community popularity, and logic

Could you please specify the Old Euro + W2W set?
If you plan to use this as a set for both, european W2W houses and normal houses I'd suggest you to do a category only for W2W buildings (sorry if this seems to be a dumb question... but where do we put normal european houses if not there? it's quite confusing for me )
***
A fantastic idea, in my opinion... I'm looking forward to the whole progress

Fabian

now, based on history most cities were built in europe in the w2w style up to the early 1900's. you could add non-w2w into old euro and make it a lower density, leaving the med-hi to influence w2w buildings to grow.

otherwise, if it is european post WW1 i would add it to mod western. Modern Western architecture is more or less a global standard now, as it spreads with the infuences of the Western world.

however the difference with this and Mod Eastern would be residential densities. the Far East tends to go up, instead of out.

re-arrange what best suits you. i did this based on common trends with SC4 Bat's people make, the CJ's people make, volume of content available, and of course made the most of only having 4 tilesets to choose from.

a sound word of advice to all that plan to conform to these new tilesets:
- make sure you mod enough content to cover all growth stages.
-make sure you mod use enough content to cover all LCPZT, LCPPT (ie, densities, and all wealth stages, CS and CO etc)
- if you are after 'tileset discipline', you must check all content to ensure it is only available in your selected tilesets. A LOT OF CONTENT IS MULTI-TILESETS.

most of HKABT is high end stage 8 growth. now that i have dedicated an entire tilesets to the HK theme, i have had to lower some of the plugin's growth stages to cover it all.

be prepared to do a lot of work to make this work properly. it took me 5 full days to build up a decent amount of w2w across all areas. i am still working on Mod Eastern at this time.

[jigsaw]

today's work:

[joelyboy911]

Does the transparency element have any impact on the game's performance?

[jigsaw]

not that i know of, but i have discovered more about the GUI. i overlaps a lot, so the transparency will be darker in parts as you open and close menus.

[ShultzCity]

Just thought I'd drop in and say that the UI looks brilliant! Love it, though would I be able to make my own personal changes? Are you happy to give me some instructions or something similar?

Thanks, Jacob 

[ElPhantasmo69]

What a great idea! I'll be keeping my eye on this project!

[dobdriver]

This is a great piece of work Jigsaw about time the game got a facelift.

[jigsaw]

just a quick sitrep... the GUI mod is on hold at the moment. i have finished all the 'panels' of the mod, and the only thing left is the buttons. this is a bigger job than i anticipated, but i have found my way to this point so far and not had much problems.

i have done some some experiments with the buttons, and even created square one that work etc. however, my graphic artist expertise is lame, so for decent quality of workmanship i am talking with someone, and we will share this GUI project.

this may entail starting from scratch again, who knows. however i have discovered that a massive makeover of the GUI is highly possible, change not only colours, but shape of the GUI to some degree. a proposed J-spec 2 GUI will be a massive makeover if i have the time in the RW to do it.

so, i could deliver a sub-standard product now, or wait and re-work it to be a better product. i have chosen the latter. it's not cancelled, just being re-done again.

cheers

[ShultzCity]

S:ounds great Jigsaw! I can't wait to see what you come up with. Actually, I wouldn't mind having a go myself!