Reconstructing your Plugins Folder

[fe_lipe]

Hey guys !

It's basically my first topic round here (so anything wrong please tell me). I had few problems with plugins (my dad just deleted half of them accidentally, er...), so it'd pretty exhaustive to recover and rebuild the plugins folder, and I just decided to delete them all and download strictly what I really want to see in my game.

However, I started to think about if other players already went through this (as there's no big info about), and what have they done (like crying, pulling hair, planning a massive download operation or going vanilla eternally).

  Has this already happened to you? What have you done? What would you advise for people who would face it?

[Terring7]

1) Relax, take it easy
2) Rebuilding something means more experiments, less useless stuff, better experience, greater cities
3) Categories! This is the best way to find out your plugins. Mine, for example, is divided by the sub folders "Dependencies", "Grownable Buildings", "Mods", "NAM", "Plopable Buildings", "SimMars", "Vehicles", "X-Ports" e.t.c.
4) Have a nice restart

[Andreas]

Make a backup. Always. Regardless how careful you're with your computer, and how expensive your HD was for "extra durability". Or how much you paid for your antivirus security suite, and how well you know data recovery programs. Data loss can always happen, either by accident, or by hardware failure.

Burn some DVDs, buy an external hard drive or a USB stick that can hold all your personal data, auch as your plugins folder, your region folder, and naturally averything else that you collected on your PC over the time: pictures, music, videos, letters, e-mails, bookmarks, address book and whatever.

I always make a backup when I read that somebody lost his data, you'd be scared how often that happens. Yes, I lost some of my stuff, too, and mostly it was my own fault, like overwriting the new files with an old backup. But fortunately, there are nice backup tools available for free (just do a Google search) that will do most of the work for you.

[Lowkee33]

My post is gone, I will check back for a double...

I start with what I see first, and that is a Terrain/Water/Beach/Cliff mod.  I then add Flora of all types, Networks, and finally buildings from small to large.

As Terring7 said, it is important to keep the useless stuff to a minimum (I only add x-ports to a city that wants a port).  Using a  program like PIMX will defiantly help you with knowing what is in a MEGA pack.  Further down the line you can say something like "well, do I really want to add another pack just for that one prop on that one lot?"

[fe_lipe]

Great advice, Terring7. I was upset with my cities architecture, so it will be an opportunity to fix it.

This time I'll probably backup, . I noticed how often it happens, Andreas, but not from hearing from other players... I think I lost two or three regions already (I had no experience that time with gameplay, so I don't regret losing them as they looked extremely bad).
I'm now starting with terraforming (no downloads at all), and when I finish terraforming I'll start downloading essential mods and flora, as Lowkee33 said.

Anyway, it's hard to keep away for some days/weeks from transit systems and real city building, but it means more time to plan...

[io_bg]

A couple of days ago I also lost all of my plugins and I was really sad about that, however, later I realized that now I've the chance to improve the structure of my plugins folder (at this very moment it's completely empty though ). I know rebuilding all my plugins and starting a new region would be really time-consuming but I'm sure it'll be worth it in the end. Plus, I was getting a bit bored of the layout of my previous region

[Pat]

as finally getting my computer to co-operate with SC4 after some other issues Im happy to rebuild my plugins folder as it was after being dat packed and what not it was still massive in size...

What sucks though I had the LEX DvD and I cant find it grrrr cause that would have been my life blood for rebuilding easily and I bet anything I know where its at and cant get it..  But get the LEX DvD for sure its worth it as it has everything you need for a restart plus some great goodies too that you will love ;-)