The SimDate cheat and seasonal props

[Themistokles]

Hello everyone!

As I've been working on an entirely plopped city, I have faced a problem with seasonal props: If I fast-forward time for them to show up, my buildings dilapidate. Very recently I found the neatest solution conceivable, the SimDate cheat -- there's only one catch. The cheat itself works flawlessly, but those seasonal props, however, just don't want to show up.  This is the use I thought people had of this cheat!

I have tried to set the date to the end of August and then let the simulation take itself into the autumn -- no luck. I don't now the exact date when sim-spring sets in, but I have tried most month changes (last day-first day) early in the year, with still no luck. Any ideas? Am I misinterpreting the workings of this cheat?

Greatful for any suggestions! Thanks in advance!

[Simcoug]

Yeah, that's why I stay away from plopped buildings.  I don't think there is anyway to get seasonal props to show up correctly except to let the time pass naturally.  However, when I am using the lotplop cheat to test my lots I've noticed that I can get the lots to stay around a while (at least enough time to see all the seasonal variations on the lot) as long as they are watered and powered and have some type of road access.  How quickly are your buildings abandoning? 

[Themistokles]

Thanks for your quick reply, Simcoug!

Yes, they do stay well long enough for the seasonal props to show up. The problem really has come about since I've gotten into using SPAM ploppable fields (yes, more plopping ), which have the diagonal advantage, but the drawback of being seasonal. To know what I'm doing when I'm landscaping my rural areas, I'd like to have a way to see the croplands. As it is now, I have fast-forward for the props show up until I can see the result of my work, but then I have to reload the city before I continue building -- the process has just gotten a tad tedious. The problem would, for my part, go away if I could change some property of the props' .dat to  make them non-seasonal, or if there were non-seasonal versions of those lots. As yet, I have not come across any, though.

[Simcoug]

Aaah - I see what you mean.  Yep, I don't have any magic solutions to that, but maybe some of the smarter-than-me members here on SC4D can offer up something

[vortext]

You could probably get away with just deleting the timing properties (make a back up first, obviously). The properties to nuke are Simulator Start Date, Simulator Date Duration, Simulator Date Interval*. Use the analyzer in the Reader to filter for these properties and then delete them in one fell swoop.


* or PropStartingDate, PropDuration, PropInterval. This apparently depends on the xml properties file. For me it used to be the former but now it's the latter. I reckon these names are outdated since it isn't mentioned anywhere, however, as it's more consistent with PropTimeofDay and PropRandomChance I never bothered to look into it more. Sure was confusing at first though.   

[FrankU]

Huh.... I would not just delete properties form the prop exemplars. Prop Pox and the like... Besides: the props still are RKT4 and I don't know what comes out then.
The best way is to make new non-seasonal props and put them on new farm fields, but that is a lot of work. I guess for all the SPAM fields you need at least a full day.

About working with the date cheat I know nothing. I never use it. I did use the whattimeisit cheat and that works for timed props. I tested my stadium props and I could reduce the waiting time comfortably.

[Themistokles]

@vortext: It works! It works!  Thank you!

@FrankU: Hmm, I don't know about prop pox, I thought it only had to do with the number of props in a certain city tile, so since I'm working on a medium tile I haven't been too concerned -- maybe I should, though. I thought this was no different from if PEG had just made them non-seasonal from the beginning.

[FrankU]

Prop Pox,
It might be me, because the discussion became so technical I stopped following it. But it had apparently started with a prop that had been changed while the IID was kept the same. And that is exactly what you seem to think about. I would never do it, even if prop pox was not an issue...
So If you want to have non-seasonal SPAM fields I fear you have to make non seasonal props and field lots with these props yourself. Or talk me into it. I can do it. It's just the time.... And I am working on other projects at the moment. Sorry.

[mgb204]

Frank is right here, in so much as any of us really know what causes the problem, it's been traced to be the most probable cause, the exact settings you are changing. It's fine to do, you just need to change the ID's of the props too or you *may* run into problems. If its for personal use, take care, prop pox is unlike anything, you won't be able to restore from a backup, so tread carefully here.

[vortext]

Current knowledge as far as the pox goes is that it has to do with duplicates, i.e. two prop exemplars with the same IID, yet different properties.

The Theory:
When the game saves, it goes through every file in memory in loading order. It creates a field in the SGProp (I believe) for every piece of information required to load the prop. When it reaches the last prop in load order, that information overwrites all the information already entered. In the case of the BDK umbrella, the "nighttime state of change" field is added by SimCity_1 dat, then that field is null in the BDK.

In this case there's no duplicate (I hope), so the savegame shouldn't get corrupted. Still, it's a murky area indeed and nuking properties may have adverse side effects in the long run. But since this pertains a plop only city it wouldn't be as disastrous as a painstakingly grown city. That said, Themistokles, you're of course well advised to make back-ups.

On a side note, I have found out safe game corruption also occurs if you keep editing and saving already grown lots way too often. It was a test tile so no harm done but at one point it appeared the tile was poxed. 

[11241036]

@ Themistokles: While I do not know a solution to the SimDate issue you mentioned, I do think there is a solution to the dilapidation problem:

The main reason why plopped buildings are being abandoned is: Traffic (both passenger and freight) can enter, but not leave them. Therefore, commercials, for instance, won't be abandoned merely due to being plopped. Industrial and residential buildings, on the other hand, will most likely (because industrials are sending freight traffic to the city border and residentials are sending commuters to buildings with jobs). However, there's a solution to this problem: If yo want to plop, let's say, a 2x2 residential building, lay out a 2x2 residential zone correctly and then overplop it with the building facing the direction the zone arrows are indicating. To my knowledge, the residential building will not be abandoned, the residents just won't commute.

So far, I've only tried this trick on a few occasions, but none of the plopped buildings has been abandoned so far. Sounds promising, although I can't imagine if this would work out well in a city where everything has been plopped. I'm not sure, but if commercial buildings in your city won't see enough customers, they might be abandoned as well. Also, plopped buildings are still affected by causes such as pollution, NIMBY effect and the like.

Another solution might be: If you know at which date exactly the seasonal props you prefer will appear, let the game run until exactly this date before plopping anything. When you've reached this date, you can plop a building and the seasonal props will appear immediately.