to the SC4d/ BSC developers

[jigsaw]

i not a newbie as such, but im a long time reader.
but, since i dont have the points on the board i will ask here.

is it possible, or has anyone attempted (or running) game with no Maxis content? has anyone 'stripped it down' to keep the engine, the brain of the game and added nothing but custom content? (this surely would be an efficient way to run the game)

now i dont want to offend EA, Maxis, SC4D et al, i am just asking about the potential of such an idea. there are No Maxis modds, which just block the maxis content from loading, but with 5yrs of custom content available, it would make sense to remove it to ease the burden on the game.

has anyone done this? and how does it perform? i am asking on a technical level not just as an opportunist. and if it has been done, how was it done?

[BarbyW]

That hasn't been done although I have made two new sets of lots to replace some Maxis rewards and they work quite well. The No Maxis mods block the growables not the ploppables and it would be extremely time-consuming to block all the Maxis ploppable content. The only other way would be to physically remove the lots and exemplars from simcity_1.dat and that could not be distributed.

[jigsaw]

does the new sets of lots rewrite and remove the old original lots, or are added to the game, and block the vanilla maxis at the same time?

[BarbyW]

My new sets block vanilla Maxis and are added to the game with the same IIDs as the originals.

[mightygoose]

well hang on, if download utilities, a heck of alot of content, use the euro road mod and and the SAM, then use alternative rail textures by SFBT, and the HSRL, then get custom stations etc, then use a no maxis mod, that just leaves terrain, flora, water, power pylons and rock mods but these are all done too, so in theory it is possible to make a city with nothing maxis. but to have it so nothing maxis displays in the menu is unnecessarily complicated.

[dedgren]

An interesting discussion.  There's one point, though, that I'd disagree with Barby on.

The only other way would be to physically remove the lots and exemplars from simcity_1.dat and that could not be distributed.

We change stuff in the game DATs all the time, and in this one in particular.  The NAM's RUL files, if I'm not mistaken, are original game DAT files that have been substantially changed and which are redistibuted every time there's a new NAM.  I don't see any issue with changing and redistributing any of the simcity_X.dat files, to include removing all game content entirely.

I think John (mightygoose), though, has a good point.


David

[Jonathan]

Barby means the actually Simcity_1.dat could not be redistributed,
The NAM RUL files were taken out of the SC1.dat and then put in a new dat and then modified.
The SC1 dats are from the game disc and without it you couldn't play the game and are the property of EA.

Removing all the ploppable maxis buildings should be as "simple" as copying all the right exemplars to a new dat and removing all the properties from them. So these blank exemplars overwrite the ones in SC1 dat (because they'd share the same TGI) (this would prevent them from showing in game, and then all news messages would have to be modified not to point at the maxis files)

Jonathan