Hello, my name is Joel, I hail from New Zealand, and I would like some help. I would like to know exactly how it is (if it is) that I could go about making farms where I BAT and Lot some props to create farm lots (the non-field bit) and then also BAT and lot some props to make a field, to make a working farm system. Then get these working farm systems to totally override the maxis farms, meaning only my custom farms appear. The reason I want this, is that I want to create rural areas in which there are only farms like those which I see in my local area (the Manawatu, North Island, New Zealand). This consists mostly of Dairy farms, and Sheep and Beef farms (what Americans might term a "ranch") interspersed with a very few crop farms. So I am also interested in how the game decides how frequently to build certain types. I am also interested in forestry as a farm, and for these I am interested in knowing if you can,
(a)Get the farm zone tool to drag on steeper terrain.
(b)Get certain types of farm to grow only on this steeper terrain.
This way, as in RL (from my experience only) you can have forests and sheep and beef raising units on hill country, and your dairy farms only on the plains and rolling terrain, if you know what I mean.
In accordance with these plans, I also have some Ideas in mind as to some freezing works/abbatoirs/slaughter houses, Dairy factories and log processing facilities as well as some livestock transport trucks, and others. I would also like to see if I can get fences along some roads/SAM dirt roads/SAM asphalt streets, to give the impression of livestock not being able to run onto the roadway, and using dirt roads as farm tracks. I plan to BAT some farm sheds, as well as specialty buildings such as milking sheds, shearing sheds, and the props to represent the livestock.
To complete the package, I would like to make/have some-one make some automata of milk tanker trains (perhaps to replace the useless and silly steam train) and tanker trucks.
I have never tried to mod the game before, but I have experience in lot editor, and I am batting turboprop regional planes for the SCAG presently. I plan to use such things as family props, timed props and some animated props (if I can learn the BAB) to give the dairy and sheep farms more "life". I plan to BAT some farm sheds, as well as specialty buildings such as milking sheds, shearing sheds, and the props to represent the livestock.
If there are already tutorials based on these, I am very sorry for wasting your time. If you are interested in these ideas, feel free to contact me or post here. There is a good chance that I would want help/collaboration for these projects, so if anyone wants in - you are welcome.
The only thing I need help on is the Modding. I can lot and BAT just fine.
Please. Could someone at least just say: "Its too hard" or "Its not possible".
There is no way to control the growth to the extent that you want to do. By using slope settings you can control growth to a certain extent but not quite so detailed as you want.
The only thing I can suggest is that you download the BSC No Maxis files (http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=897) and only have the custom farms that you want in plugins. As farms do not upgrade you can bulldoze any that you do not want in a particular area and see if a new farm of the type you want will grow.
OK. Thank you. I will see what I can do. But can it be made to drag over steeper terrain at all? Or would this involve editing the EXE?
A little more information... ::)
Quote from: joelyboy911 on June 09, 2009, 02:53:13 AM
(a)Get the farm zone tool to drag on steeper terrain.
The property
Zone Max Slope in the
Zone Manager exemplar sets these maximum values to 16 (metres) for all RCI zones.
In order to increase the max slope for I-R, increase the 8th value in that property.
I'm enlosing that Zone Manager to this post, so that you won't have to extract it from SimCity_1.dat.
Quote from: joelyboy911 on June 09, 2009, 02:53:13 AM
(b)Get certain types of farm to grow only on this steeper terrain.
To achieve that, increase the property
LotConfigPropertyMinSlopeAllowed (normally this has a value of 0) in the I-R lot's lotconfig exemplar.
Ahh, thank you RippleJet. This should enable me to see this project through! Perhaps soon I will be able to have some forestry farms running, until I can get the time to do the BATting for the other things!
This project may soon come into being after all. Perhaps I will have to make a Mayor Diary!
While I'm gathering information, Is it possible for me to use an existing tool to change, for my own personal use, some of the t21(?)s that are used alongside the SAMs, only on some of the texture variations. I want some fences, so can these be batted in the normal way?
Quote from: joelyboy911 on June 12, 2009, 12:59:50 AM
While I'm gathering information, Is it possible for me to use an existing tool to change, for my own personal use, some of the t21(?)s that are used alongside the SAMs, only on some of the texture variations. I want some fences, so can these be batted in the normal way?
Certainly, for your own personal use you can make virtually anything... ::)
Yes, but can I produce them, like ordinary props, in gmax/BAT? And is there a tutorial on how to do it?
There's no tool that allows you to create T21 lots like in LE, no.
You could however create it as a normal park lot in LE and then in Reader copy the props (0x00000001 lines) from that lot's lotconfig exemplar to the T21 exemplar.
I have gotten the zone to drag over steep terrain, but for the farms, as to whether they will grow on any given slope, is it dependent on the farm lot itself or the field? I mean to say does the field fill in the road boundary regardless of the terrain away from the main lot or can you set slope limits for the field?
Also, could someone point me to a good tutorial for
a)Prop families
b)New Farm lotting to growable.
I wonder, can you make a farm as a ploppable farm lot, which then forces the zone to fill with the field tile?
Quote from: joelyboy911 on June 15, 2009, 04:20:22 AM
I have gotten the zone to drag over steep terrain, but for the farms, as to whether they will grow on any given slope, is it dependent on the farm lot itself or the field? I mean to say does the field fill in the road boundary regardless of the terrain away from the main lot or can you set slope limits for the field?
The
LotConfigPropertyMinSlopeAllowed for the lot is applicable only to the farm lot itself, excluding the fields surrounding it.
The fields themselves also have that property though.
I wouldn't recommend setting the
LotConfigPropertyMinSlopeAllowed to anything larger than 0 for custom fields though.
However, you can set
LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopeAllowed to something higher for those custom fields you want to enable on steeper hills.
Quote from: joelyboy911 on June 15, 2009, 04:20:22 AM
Also, could someone point me to a good tutorial for
a)Prop families
Creating your own prop Families (Extended version) (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=211.0)
Quote from: joelyboy911 on June 15, 2009, 04:20:22 AM
b)New Farm lotting to growable.
Open an existing farm in LE, change its building, props and textures and "save as".
Note that you need to check the building exemplar's property
Field Lots in Reader to specifiy the IID's of those fields that can appear around this lot.
Quote from: joelyboy911 on June 15, 2009, 04:20:22 AM
I wonder, can you make a farm as a ploppable farm lot, which then forces the zone to fill with the field tile?
No, field lots only work for growables.
Thanks RippleJet. You are a fountain of knowledge. &apls
I guess the fact that it is the main lot that determines the farm field placement in terms of the slope would mean that the types of farm wouldn't be completely stratified in terms of up a steepening hill, which would't be a totally bad thing.
The prop family tutorial should be excellent, I haven't read all of it yet, but I hope to perhaps use some existing models of livestock, and put them in a prop family with some blank/empty props so that there is a random placement of the animals around the field. As far as I can tell this is a perfectly viable option, isn't it?
Quote from: joelyboy911 on June 15, 2009, 08:55:56 PM
and put them in a prop family with some blank/empty props so that there is a random placement of the animals around the field. As far as I can tell this is a perfectly viable option, isn't it?
Even better, give the props only a small chance of appearing by setting the property
Prop Random Chance to a small value, e.g. 1 (default is 100).
Also set the property
Prop Time of Day. This would make the cows appear randomly (from day to day) on only 1% of all fields.
See e.g. how Maxis made the irrigation sprinklers, (I16x4x4_IrrigationSprinklers_2A4A), TGI 0x6534284A, 0xC977C536, 0x2A4A0000.
I might want them on slightly more than 1% of the fields. I am planning to have some farms with empty fields to simulate unused paddocks. I guess no-one thought that farms consisted of exactly 1 field each? This would, then, utilise SAM dirt road as a farm track, and the SAM asphalt street or maxis road or RHW-2 as the thouroughfares.
On the prop random chance, is that for a prop family, or on an ordinary prop which is set to appear on chance intervals? I haven't started doing these mods yet, as I am spending most of my SC4 time doing my planes and other things for the SCAG projects. Therefore, I may still have some stupid questions to come.
to Jestarr, should you ever read this. Can I use your cow and sheep props, alter their being, and put them in my farms? if all goes well with this project, which would be a total mod, for a totally different farming style, I might think about a release in some form, (if anyone wanted it) which is why I ask permission for something which, at first (at least) will be for my own use.
Quote from: joelyboy911 on June 16, 2009, 05:10:47 AM
to Jestarr, should you ever read this. Can I use your cow and sheep props, alter their being, and put them in my farms? if all goes well with this project, which would be a total mod, for a totally different farming style, I might think about a release in some form, (if anyone wanted it) which is why I ask permission for something which, at first (at least) will be for my own use.
Joel, I of course don't speak for Jesstar, however, the normal practice is if you mod someones models you include you're new description file (never mod the original, always create a new one with a new TGI) into your package and then in the upload reference Jess's model pack. :thumbsup:
Quote from: joelyboy911 on June 16, 2009, 05:10:47 AM
On the prop random chance, is that for a prop family, or on an ordinary prop which is set to appear on chance intervals?
For any props, whether they belong to a family or not.
Each prop in a family can have its own chance of appearance and own time of day appearance. ;)
It is possible to use BSC No Maxis files with CAM?And DuskTroopers File that block maxis?These can be used with CAM?
Quote from: Luke09 on June 16, 2009, 01:33:08 PM
It is possible to use BSC No Maxis files with CAM?
Yes
Quote from: Luke09 on June 16, 2009, 01:33:08 PM
And DuskTroopers File that block maxis?These can be used with CAM?
No
Oh thanks a lot RippleJet
I got to work today starting out modding some of the cows by jestarr. I went into reader, opened the new .desc files I had created, added the time of day and random chance properties, and I was wondering how to set them. Do I add two values to the time of day, and set one of them to the start time and one to the end? I want to make two versions eventually, so that the cows will appear for an hour or so at the milking shed (which I have batted, perhaps we can move this thread and rename it in the Modd projects or BAT Projects area at some point.) and then re-appear afterwards in a different position in the field.
For the random chance, the default value is 0x64. Since I don't know hexadecimal, can I change the data type to Float32 and simply enter '5' to give a 5% chance to appear?
Quote from: joelyboy911 on July 10, 2009, 06:28:44 PM
Do I add two values to the time of day, and set one of them to the start time and one to the end?
Yes. Note that these are decimal 24-hour clock values. Thus, e.g. 10:15 pm would be 22.25
Quote from: joelyboy911 on July 10, 2009, 06:28:44 PM
For the random chance, the default value is 0x64. Since I don't know hexadecimal, can I change the data type to Float32 and simply enter '5' to give a 5% chance to appear?
No, never change the data type. The game always expects each property to be of one, and only one, format.
If you change the format to Float32, then the data will be saved in a different way and will not be read correctly.
For all data types, except SInt64 and UInt64, you can enter decimal values in Reader though, and they will automatically show up as hex.
You could also use the MS Calculator to convert between decimal and hexadecimal presentation.
Make sure you have it in advanced format, not standard. Then press F5 for hex and F6 for decimal.
Btw, 0x64 = 100 ;)
Ah. Okay.
Quote from: RippleJet on July 11, 2009, 03:12:31 AM
Btw, 0x64 = 100 ;)
Yeah, I kinda figured it would be. :D
One more thing; is it possible to somehow quickly assign the exact same .desc to multiple models. I don't know if you have examined jestarr's livestock, but there are several types of cows and one type of sheep on 6 different angles, and I just want to know if there is a quicker way.
Last thing for today; can lots have a transparent base texture (I understand this can be done in the Reader - though I haven't tried to do it yet) and a visible overlay? I plan to use semitransparent overlays with a grassy texture (I have made these already) that still show through some of the terrain.
Thank you so much RippleJet. You explain everything so well, and so quickly too. I can't thank you enough.
Quote from: joelyboy911 on July 11, 2009, 03:51:41 AM
One more thing; is it possible to somehow quickly assign the exact same .desc to multiple models.
No, one prop exemplar cannot reference more than one model (unless it's a timed prop, which can reference two models, state 0 and state 1).
The proper way would be to create several prop exemplars (SC4Desc files) and give them all the same Prop Family ID.
Jestarr already did add his cows into families:
- 0x51500028 - Cows Straight
- 0x51500029 - Cows 11.25° Left
- 0x5150002A - Cows 11.25° Right
- 0x5150002B - Cows 22.5° Left
- 0x5150002C - Cows 22.5° Right
- 0x5150002D - Cows 45°
If you want them all to be in the same family, together with the sheep, then you would have to create your own prop exemplars for all of these.
This would also require that you reserve your own
Prop Family Range (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=2490.0).
You could of course also use the
Alternative to Prop Families (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=5350.0), as posted by
smoncrie.
In your case, make the lot in LE using Jestarr's prop family 0x51500028.
Then open the LotConfiguration exemplar in Reader and add the other ID's as new reps to the end of the prop line that now has 0x51500028 as the 13th rep.
Add the following ID's as reps 14-24 (after the 13th one, which would still be 0x51500028):
0x51500029, 0x5150002A, 0x5150002B, 0x5150002C, 0x5150002D, 0x35C9A675, 0xD5C9A695, 0x35C9A6AE, 0x35C9A6C8, 0x55C9A6E8, 0x35C9A701
Quote from: joelyboy911 on July 11, 2009, 03:51:41 AM
Last thing for today; can lots have a transparent base texture (I understand this can be done in the Reader - though I haven't tried to do it yet) and a visible overlay? I plan to use semitransparent overlays with a grassy texture (I have made these already) that still show through some of the terrain.
Yes, as long as you're aware about the fact that it will trigger the water bug. ;)
What I was meaning was, Is there a way to quickly assign identical properties to many models, by somehow copying and pasting the properties in reader, or otherwise. I will explore tomorrow (It is late at night here), and try to learn more about the reader in general by experimentation. You will be glad to know that your teachings have (finally - my fault) led to the creation of something worthwhile; today I created my first working farm, a forest which I programmed to grow only on hillsides, using the Pegasus pines. I am also in the process of making more types of PEG pine forests and some with stumps which came in a pack from somewhere or other. I got the first one to grow, and it looked superb, I did it by a 1x1 lot with the same props as the field, which had an invisible building I generated using BAT. I will show pictures soon. I have also BATted some farm sheds and a rotary milking shed.
Quote from: joelyboy911 on July 14, 2009, 04:56:40 AM
What I was meaning was, Is there a way to quickly assign identical properties to many models, by somehow copying and pasting the properties in reader, or otherwise.
You can always copy properties in Reader from one exemplar to another.
However, since the TGI would have to be manually generated for each new prop you make, I would still think it would be faster to create each prop exemplar separately in PIM.
For the hover query to function for props you should add a
User Visible Name Key (with the values 0x0,0x0,0x0 if
Query as Main Building is true) to the prop exemplar though, and that
UVNK could easily be copied in Reader from one exemplar to all the others.
Ah yes, I knew I would have to create the descriptors in PIM, but if I can copy the properties to each exemplar, I don't have to assign so many properties manually, if you see what I mean. It seems that very soon I will have this project in the game, my dairy farms will run smoothly and I shall look upon my creation with joy.
Again, I thank you RippleJet.
Quote from: joelyboy911 on July 14, 2009, 05:28:18 AM
but if I can copy the properties to each exemplar, I don't have to assign so many properties manually, if you see what I mean.
Certainly! ;)
Just be careful as Reader doesn't replace already existing properties by the new ones you copy.
In that case you will have to manually delete the old properties as well. Don't leave duplicates of the same property!
Ok. I was testing out my forestry farms using peg's pines, and this happened:
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi597.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Ftt56%2Fjoelyboy911%2FRegionalFarms.png&hash=5e9e8e3f0927ed4f260dc4ce8831abded0413046)
There are 5 types of farms, and according to the reader all have the corect farm lots assigned. Over these 5 medium city tiles, I ran the simulation for a while, and these two farms grew, then development ceased. I had assigned growth stages in the reader to have one at stage 1 two at stage 2 and two at stage 3. The ones seen here are the two set at stage two. If it will help I can attach the lot files and someone can take a look at what I may have done wrong.
Quote from: joelyboy911 on July 14, 2009, 09:13:43 PM
Ok. I was testing out my forestry farms using peg's pines, and this happened:
I think you'd better explain what happened... :)
Difficult to know if something is wrong in that picture, since I don't know what there is supposed to be...
Quote from: joelyboy911 on July 14, 2009, 09:13:43 PM
There are 5 types of farms, and according to the reader all have the corect farm lots assigned. Over these 5 medium city tiles, I ran the simulation for a while, and these two farms grew, then development ceased. I had assigned growth stages in the reader to have one at stage 1 two at stage 2 and two at stage 3.
Did you want them to upgrade?
In that case you need to know that I-R is the only RCI type that does not upgrade.
A farm will stay the same till you bulldoze it. It will never upgrade by itself.
I think I have arrived at the cause of the issue: Could this be caused by the game being ready for growth stage two, but no stage two lots being present? It seems I made an error in modifying the lots. I will go and play around some more now, and try to fix that up.
I take it that you are simply trying to test your new timber farms to see if they grow and function properly?
BTW - Pop on over to my GRVII threads. I've done some forestry farming and my results can be seen there.
This how I test all my farms.
I first make the farm properly by using the PIM to create a farm. Then the lot editor to create the farm lot. I'll make use of iLives reader so I can choose specific fields and and make other changes such as query sounds. I'll insure that the growth stage of my farm is set to stage 1 (use the iLives reader) then move on to phase 2 which is my test city.
My test city is just that. A new city with bare bones plugin in a new never been played before region. I have a farm test city that is flat and another farm test city with rolling hills. The cities RCI zones are all in place, water, power etc. I'll make sure that no other farms are loaded and also make sure that the 'prevent farms mod' IS loaded so that no maxis farms will grow. In your case you will have to insure that the proper dependencies are also loaded e.g. Peg's trees etc. . . . All I need to do is click 'go'.
I will know that something is wrong if my farm does not grow by the bunches within the first year. I'll know that I've missed something if it doesn't query right, if the fields don't query right, if the fields are totally wrong etc. . . I'll snap some in game picutres for future use if every thing looks good. Exit without saving as I want my test city to be ready for my next experiment.
All that remains is to change the farms stage growth to the one you desire. End of story because if it grows correctly as a stage 1, it will grow correctly as a stage 2 - keeping in mind the probability of growth of a farm in a real game has some variables.
Hope this helps.
Well, I sort of already did that, but they grew nicely, then stopped. I would have liked the entire city to be covered in pine forests, but that hit the above snag along the way somewhere. I will try going back and setting them all as growth stage one, but I don't think this will work since i had some stage 1,2 and 3 and none of them grew after the amount in my region view shows, everything stopped. I am running on a fairly slow computer, but in two of those tiles, residential development continued correctly, and there was plenty of I-Ag demand.
This is the typical farm growth scenario. You'll start your first city in your first region. A good number of stage 1 farms will grow. As you add industry, commercial districts and population you will get a few stage 2 farms. As you continue to develop and almost before you know what has happened your region or city will favor stage 3 farm lots. About 80% chance that a stage 3 farm will grow and only 10% for stage 1 and 2.
Those interested in variety typically fill their plugins with stage 3 farms. The CAM modified the way farms grow. At the very beginning you'll have an equal chance that all three stages will grow from the onset plus it features other farm stages for specialty farming.
In your case, I would make the forestry lots stage 1. Remove all other farms and let your tree farms grow where you wish. Stop the game and save when you are happy with the forests. Restart the game with normal farms if that's your goal.
I caution you not to change the stage growth of the forestry lots once they've grown. A change in stage growth of a farm lot will result in a no water zot when you return to your city. It will turn crispy black and there is nothing that I've discovered I can do to bring a farm back to life in that scenario. An occupational hazard when one tinkers with farms as much as I do. . .
Good Luck.
Jim Myers
I might just go back, obliterate those tiles and start with all the farms at stage one. I recall now, the initial problem I had which was this: No farms grew. The solution to this was that all the farms were set at stage 3 (A default value). I changed them all to 1, then this happened, so I tried changing some back to 2 and 3. I will try starting fresh. There aren't any other properties that are critical that I should know about?
I think I may have found the cause of my woes. Whilst reading the inCAMpatible mods thread I found something about the pedriana plant killer mod. It said something about it affecting farms growth and I vaguely remembered installing it. This could perhaps have been the cause of none of my forests growing correctly. Having said that I have decided to start over on my forestry farms using peg's pines, because they were too dense and not especially aesthetically pleasing. I am also on the verge of getting the dairy farms up and running too, but I need to know how people get lots bigger than the 6x6 allowed by LE, and whether or not lots of this size will grow (I will only have my farms and a select few other custom ones available for growth). I need to know since I built a milking shed in BAT and it was too big to fit on the lot. Perhaps I should re-evaluate its size!
Quote from: joelyboy911 on July 19, 2009, 11:26:09 PM
I need to know how people get lots bigger than the 6x6 allowed by LE
Making growable lots larger than 6x6 - Megalots (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=18.0) by
Barby :thumbsup:
This is how I modded a prop exemplar, for the cows I wanted to have appear on my farm fields. I wanted to have 15% of them appear. Can anyone point out anything I may have done wrong.
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi597.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Ftt56%2Fjoelyboy911%2FModdingTrouble.jpg&hash=2444017d9529c61d2530eef3ed2820caf726aca4)
The problem is that all of the cows appear. The 'Random Chance' property appears to be having no effect.
Ok, this one I know (I hope!). There is one more piece of advanced modding to make this work. Right now the prop is set as "Resource Key Type 1". Basically means this is a "normal" prop, and should appear at all times. Need to change it to "Resource Key Type 4", but it's not quite that simple. Resource Key Type 4 has 8 reps in it, Type 3 has three. Make it have 8 reps : 0,0,0,0,0x27812821,0x5ad0e817,0x954d715a,0x00030000
The first rep tells it if it is on or off, 0 or 1. If the 0 doesn't work, change it to 1. I get those backwards sometimes. The last four are the name value of the Resource Type 1, and the TGI of the prop you are using.
For more detailed information about RKT4, read smoncrie's Making Seasonal/Timed Props (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=4789.0).
Thanks for the help, and pointing me at the tutorials. But Goober, the tutorial says 1,0,0 etc, so I guess you got them mixed up this time. :P
I see now I should look for tutorials myself...
Hopefully my farms will be back on track, and I plan to use these techniques on the modding of my newest plane props, I plan on having an 80% chance so that each day 20% of the gates at the airport will be empty (this is not realistic really, but...) but they will be a different 20%. Also so that ones in prop families will change as well. I will need to learn more about RKT4 and its repercussions and interactions with prop families. I do have one specific question though: Is there a way to put 2 props in a family, and have one of them appear a specific amount more often. I have a specific scenario, where I want one of the props to appear roughly 90 percent of the time, and the other only 10.
Thanks again, Goober and Tage.
Quote from: joelyboy911 on October 09, 2009, 03:43:25 AM
I do have one specific question though: Is there a way to put 2 props in a family, and have one of them appear a specific amount more often. I have a specific scenario, where I want one of the props to appear roughly 90 percent of the time, and the other only 10.
Props within a family have the same chance to appear.
Thus, if the family contains two props, each of them would have a 50% chance of appearing.
In your case you would have to create 9 prop exemplars (with different TGI's) of the prop you want to see more often,
and combine them in a prop family with one prop exemplar of the prop that you don't want to see so often.
Note that you only need 9 separate prop
exemplars (small files).
They can all still reference the same model file by having identical Resource Key Types.
OK, Thanks. That will be easy enough.
Quote from: RippleJet on June 15, 2009, 05:47:43 AM
The LotConfigPropertyMinSlopeAllowed for the lot is applicable only to the farm lot itself, excluding the fields surrounding it.
The fields themselves also have that property though.
I have a question.. If I understand properly the farm AND fields conform to the slope min/max property? Does the slope of the land (assuming it is somewhat irregular) have anything to do with where on the farm the "building" will develop? Or is it random? If the zone tool works for farms, does that mean the farm and fields will also grow there? or is there areas that you could zone but wouldn't grow? I've had some farms look pretty ugly on slightly irregular land.. just curious..
Oh and a note to Joelyboy.. try to make the lots at least somewhat slope conforming.. they are much more aesthetic than those that grow on "foundations".. I've seen both types.. unfortunately I don't know what they are.. If its really an issue to you I can look up examples of slope conforming ones (assuming they are still in place)
A farm lot (i.e. building) will develop along the side of a road although aesthetically it may look as though the farm is in the middle of the fields - depends on how the lot is made.
Quote from: SC4BOY on October 09, 2009, 04:33:50 AM
Does the slope of the land (assuming it is somewhat irregular) have anything to do with where on the farm the "building" will develop? Or is it random?
The slope within the zoned area may certainly restrict where the farm itself can grow.
If the slope along the road is higher than the farm lot's
LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopeAllowed, it won't grow there.
Quote from: SC4BOY on October 09, 2009, 04:33:50 AM
If the zone tool works for farms, does that mean the farm and fields will also grow there? or is there areas that you could zone but wouldn't grow? I've had some farms look pretty ugly on slightly irregular land.. just curious..
The zone tool allows farmland to be zoned if the slope within a single tile is less than 16 m.
The individual farm tiles are divided into three groups, having a maximum allowed slope of 5 m, 35 m and 40 m.
Those with trees (apples and oranges) only grow where the slope is no more than 5 m,
and thus won't grow everywhere that farmland could be zoned.
The others would grow wherever you've been able to zone for farms.
If you set a range (min slope 5 and max slope at 10) then the farm building will grow on slopes between 5 and 10.
I've done this myself. I have some forestry farms that are set to grow at slopes at 10 to 50. They grow on hills where a 'normal' farm would look odd.
Also keep in mind that the slope setting refers to the whole lot. I have a 1X1 farm. A slope of 5 is a very steep hill. If you have a 5X5 farm then a slope of 5 is more moderate. The slope refers to meters too. My 1X1 farm lot is 16 meters wide. A slope of 5 meters measured from side to side is roughly 30 degree hill.
I make most of my farms 4X4 tiles. And I usually set the min slope to 0 and max slope to 5. Wow! That is not much slope you may be thinking. The scenario is that you could have 3 tiles across that are level and the 4th tile drops 5 meters suddenly. The farm will then develop on relatively flat land but some of the props such as fences will have to deal with that steep slope.
The fields are 'attached' to the farm building. So the min/max of the field does not play a part in where the 'barn' building will grow. The thing to keep in mind is 'minimum slope before foundation' of the field lot. This, if set wrong, could create some unsightly digging into hillsides when the fields develop.
QuoteI've had some farms look pretty ugly on slightly irregular land.. just curious..
My early farms didn't conform well with the terrain. I learned over the years by playing and adjusting, playing again and adjusting again the slope settings. I also now make foundations for all my farm buildings to help with how they look on the hills and dales.
The best thing for you? Take those farms that do not look right on hills and set the min slope to 0 and max slope to 2 or 3. That can be done in the LE or iLives tool. Those changed will grow on somewhat level ground and those left will grow on steeper slopes.
Thanks to all for their enlightenments!! And of course you, Mr Myers, have well earned your "Plowboy" nom de plume.. you should be promoted imho.. Plowboy Supreme! ;)
would love to see your "tree farms" as demonstrated in your recent challenge posts to be released.. very creative and appropriate use of tree farms!
This thread, perhaps with a touch of cleanup or merging might make the core of a very good tutorial.