nerdly_projects

[nerdly_dood]

An email I sent to my uncle who knows most everything there is to know about computers:

My laptop problems began a while back when I was at the library.  The battery had run out, and as I went to the nearest power strip to plug in the charger cable, something caught on the laptop, and it fell from the chair into the floor.  When I opened it up, the colors on the screen were distorted (but not the shapes) so I restarted it and everything was peachy for a while.  Then after a while this situation began happening more frequently, but without any large shock like being dropped like that. A firm shake alleviated the problem for the moment, but it didn't totally fix it.  I think of that as being "when the colors get stale, shake it."  The computer stayed like that for a while, and then of course I got the BSOD, and that was the end of the older laptop. When I go the newer one, it worked PERFECTLY until I changed hard drives on a whim (The other laptop's hard drive wasn't the BSOD problem apparently) It worked fine until I had it at school and the friend of a friend couteously reached over during lunch and poured a small amount of iodized salt on the keyboard.  Nothing bad happened after that - until a couple hours later, the cursor started behaving very erratically - bouncing around the screen of its own accord, moving in straight lines with no input from me, that sort of thing.  I shut the computer down and tried scraping around the trackpoint with the only available tool: a paperclip.  I didn't find any white granules.  I restarted it and hoped it would work.  it showed the blue IBM in one top corner of the screen and 294 336 KB OK in the other.  When it showed the ThinkPad logo in the corner, though, it showed the code 8611 under 294 336 KB OK.  Then it showed a CMOS box with the word ERROR and the choices TEST or RESTART.  I chose RESTART and it worked fine.  Things went like that every time I started it for a few weeks.  Then it wouldn't get past the ERROR message - it would restart and give me the 8611 again.  I then hit TEST and, experimentally chose the SystemBoard test.  It ran the test, but it quit when the progress bar was about 80-85% done.  Then the test box disappeared and the SystemBoard icon had a red X next to it and under it, in red text was:



DEV 086

ERR 22

FRU 0010



I don't know exactly how I found the looptest feature, or how I figured that pushing the trackpoint around while it ran the looptests would help, but for a while I would run the looptest on the System Board and it would run fine: CMOS, REAL TIME CLOCK, PROTECTED MODE, CPU REGISTERS, CACHE, CO-PROCESSOR, and when it got to POINTING DEVICE it quit and gave me the same error text as I typed above.  So for a few months I avoided shutting down or restarting, preferring to have it just on Standby, and only shutting down for hardware tweaks.  Then a few days ago, the screen broke and I got a big black spot on the screen along a crack, and so I shut it down, switched screens with the old laptop, and after getting past the 8611 message I found that it had the same glitch with the screen that made the colors stake, except this time it was more severe - the screen would sometimes go black entirely. I had to smack it pretty hard to get it to respond.  Then even this quit working, so I took the screen off, peeled off the paper cover on the back, and made sure that everything was plugged up right.  One little ribbon going from one green wafer to another seemed to be loose, so I removed it and put it back, and then put the screen back and started the computer.  The screen problem wasn't entirely fixed, but it wasn't nearly as bad.  But of course, there was that 8611 message.  I cranked on the trackpoint as it ran the looptest on the system board for about twenty minutes, and then I just got bored with it and turned it off.  Then I got the old defunct laptop with no screen and removed all the screws from the bottom, which released the keyboard and the speakers and the sheet of whatever-it's-made-of that they're attached to.  I then unscrewed the keyboard from the unidentified-material plate and found that the trackpoint was also attached to the keyboard.  I then pulled off a random key that was directly adjacent to the trackpoint - the H key, as I recall.  There were four tiny Philips-head screws holding the trackpoint and its small little doodad under the keyboard's baseplate to the baseplate.  I then pulled off the G, B, J, V, F, and N keys, and found my glasses screwdriver, and found that the screws were too tight for this screwdriver to work.  So I was then unable to transfer only the trackpoint from one computer to the other.  I then got the idea that I could transfer the whole keyboard/trackpoint bundle from one computer to the other...but then again, I had removed a number of keys and they weren't going to be reattached anytime soon.  I am now left with no choice but to run the looptest indefinitely until it realizes that I DO have a backup "pointing device."

So I am going to be unable to make any police car mods (or any mods at all for that matter) for a while until I can solve my laotop's retarditude.

My laptop is an IBM ThinkPad 600E with Pentium II, 256MB RAM, a piece of crap 2.5MB video card, a 12GB hard drive, and once it boots, it will have Windows 2000 again.

My desktop is a custom-built job (by my uncle) with AMD Athlon64, 1gb RAM, a decent ATI Radeon x1050 video card, 40GB hard drive, and a stable evaluation version of Windows Vista Ultimate, but no internet access.  Since it's Vista, I am unable to properly use FiSHMan, and sometimes the Reader acts improperly, too - so modding is out of the question.

[T1]

Well, this just caught my eye on the STEX, sorry to hear about your laptop, I hope everything works out there Nerdly.

http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=20109&v=1

I think that guy might be taking requests, all I saw was expect me to come out with more, but maybe if ya ask ja/att.

[nerdly_dood]

I've been communicating plenty with Ja/att and I see a lot of great mods coming from him in the near future.

[Une_ame]

TY Nerdly and T1 for those nice news (about the arrival of new MOD!!) and I hope your uncle will find a way to solve your laptop problem .

[sgtsoul]

Sorry to hear about your problems nerdly!

I have been testing all of these for ja/att lately, he has great things in store! I have also asked him for military Fire/EMS/Police Van and Chopper! I am sure he has a lot of ideas of his own as well.

Hope u r back online soon!

[mojave1]

sorry to hear about your computer trouble, it will be a shame that you won't be able to make any more cool stuff for a while. i just downloaded your request pack 1 and inserted the green german police car into my plugins folder, but when i dispatch one in my city, a generic all white taurus-looking thing shows up instead. the white cars are also parked in the police stations. what have i done wrong?

[jaatt]

tanx for the compliments guys but from what I can see on the stex there is a lack of interest for my automata. lol did you see they got outrated by that first time bat residential house? I thought there would be a high demand for the helicpter files since there hasn't been a market for them before.

[Une_ame]

Don't let them curb your enthousiasm, your idea is very good and I hope you will MOD more of this .

Like we say in France, sometimes, the hunger comes while eating .....

[sgtsoul]

For sure don't be discouraged, your work is greatly admired!

[scottott999]

I love the automata created by both Nerdly_dood and ja/att but the issue I have and I think others as well is the game's limitation which only allows you to use one set of models at a time.  I think this somewhat limits the demand in my opinion.

On the contrary...As for the models themselves, I'm really hoping that a set of props could eventually be developed so that we could take advantage of the diversity that both of you offer.  I would love to see my military police station lot with camo cars while my civilian stations in the same region are lotted with your black and whites.  Helos are rare in fact outside of the some coastguard choppers that I believe came from Pegs site, I don't recall any other props in existence leaving our airports barren of this type of aviation.  The toughest choice for me right now is the fire trucks. Neerdly_dood's yellow engine's was a nice break from the normal red but Ja/att's recently released flag painted engines certainly adds some pop.  Which to choose??  In any case I hope you both keep developing new models and continue to present us with this dilemma

[Une_ame]

I know that the Mi-24 is available has a prop but where The Mi-26 has also been made by SimFox (release ??)

On Simtro, Casper has made the V-22 and the UH1 (http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?page=1&Keyword=casper3141&view=all) .

[nerdly_dood]

I love the automata created by both Nerdly_dood and ja/att but the issue I have and I think others as well is the game's limitation which only allows you to use one set of models at a time.  I think this somewhat limits the demand in my opinion.

Umm... Nobody ever said that.  I am currently in the process of figuring out how I can make additional police cars.  It should be pretty simple, too.

I am also currently planning the creation of a stand-alone prop pack so that you can have, if you wanted, every single one of my police cars in Lot Editor.

[sgtsoul]

Nice stuff Nerdly, keep up the great work! I am assuming ur computer problems are over, bet thats a relief!

[j-dub]

Computer problems are no fun. Its sad to hear about the laptop, I saw a neighbor drop his across the street. If, and I mean if I ever get one of those, I probably would get the toughbook type. I had liked your commitment to fufill requests, Nerdly.
Guys, just multiple ids are needed so the replacements aren't duplicate. Now, since textures require new id's like the rest of the community, if only someone can come up with a system like that for automatta, that and others' replacement vehicles probably could have been. Lots of people do want more than one type of moded automata in their game. However, since the community spans well beyond this site, it probably is too late to ask everyone around to follow a new system for new automata id's. In my case, I have multiple fire units, multiple taxis, 2 types of patrol car, 2 types of passenger train, and 7 type of freight train, thats more than one of the same type compatible in my game. Funny, that they already consisted of multiple users' work already. As for patrol units though, it would be wierd to see multple ones in the same town for me. Then again, that could be state, local, county, gov. I think if there could be the same station that had there own unit, may be what people want. Who wants to be switching plugins all the time?

[sgtsoul]

I for sure don't mind spending a total of 10 seconds to change plugins! Having said that< I am looking forward to the additional packs if they do come to fruition (like the multiple fire trucks pack but for police etc)
VERY interested on how u have 2 different patrol cars running at the same time! I would love to do the same, have marked and unmarked cars at the same time.

[nerdly_dood]

As a matter of fact, I am about to make my additionals available so that you can use them IN ADDITION to swamper's additionals.  The same theory goes for making the additional police cars, but I don't have a template exemplar to base them on yet (I don't know what IID to change what part of the additional fire truck exemplar to...) so fire truck additionals will be released before police cars will. (They will likely be released as an update to the existing files and will not take up more space on the STEX)

Also, Swamper gave my my own IID range, which is E4400000 - E44FFFFF so that my projects won't conflict with his.

Also, I have some ideas on how to make a state police car in addition to police cars that will appear on the UDI menu separately from the standard city police car.  (The same might be said for sheriff cars)

BTW, in Virginia, cities are utterly and completely independent from counties, and as such have separate police departments and sheriff's offices, and the members of the city sheriff and police have no business in the county, and vice versa. Towns on the other hand are part of the counties and although they may have their own police, the county sheriff still has jurisdiction in towns.

[sgtsoul]

Law Enforcement Overload! I can only imagine the unnecessary costs due to duplicarion of services, and comunication and co-ordination nightmares when systems differ from state to state, even area to area! Lot easier here, we have the Australian Federal Police (FBI type investigative role plus air/sea port protection, digintary protection and general policing in the Australian Capital Territory. Then each state/ territory has a state force.

Vehicle markings WERE supposed to be nation wide, in the markings u did, but states are starting to vary, in markings and colours of cars. I still like our ones in New South Wales (the ones u did, although the Highway cars in particular are starting to come out in random outlandish reds, blues greens and yellows!) Makes life as an Emergency Services vehicle photographer more interesting for sure! My website is much more colourful now!

[j-dub]

The US was developed mostly by townships first, then growth over time, had seperation of city and state. Thus, most cases you had to rely on the sheriff, which was for that county. So my city, well it was a town first, had a township, before incorporation, there was only a certain amount of land. Then after cities are incoroporated, you get local community patrol. Actually whats weird now is, where the city limits end, the township which was settled for that city, goes into other cities. City limits are completely different than townships, thus community boundry lines overlapping existing boundry lines. So then, theres an agreement, that patrols have a certain amount of distance across boundries for patrol. One part of the neighborhood is one community, while the other is different, but then that road circles back to the first one, (there was an issue with residents declaring their address as to what city the street was on) or the road is the boundry line in between communities. There was a state troopers building in my city, but I think the priority is the interstate/highways. Basically thats an explanation to the U.S. having enforcement overload. Oh yeah, occasionally park/forest district have their own seperate gun wielding units. This isn't private security I'm talking about either. Even the zoo has patrol. A wild cougar, not from the zoo, was on the run in city streets once, and the police shot it down to death. Which reminds me, was the park ranger station in this game suppose to have a patrol unit at one time? In my game, there is another police car pictured in the SimCity 4 automatta, but not in game. So were looking at local patrol, county, state, and government. Which the government is a bunch of smaller branches, that don't always live well with each other. I wouldn't suggest other countries do the same type of system the U.S. has. But we all have our differences. I have never seen cop cars like the ones Spain has here.

[nerdly_dood]

Around here, you have the FBI of course... Then there's the VA state police, primarily as a highway patrol force, but they also respond to major problems like bombs and visiting presidential candidates and such.  Then there are the sheriff's offices, which carry out court business, and police, well they're just the city police I probably don't need to explain that.  The County and City of Roanoke are separate entities so their police and sheriff's deputies have no business in the other's limits.

Now I just need Swamper77 to release his police Jeep so I can use its exemplar to make state police cars and sheriff cars separate from city police cars... (I will need some advice on how to put them in the UDI menu though)

[nerdly_dood]

Okay...so...

Current project is making my current police cars into standalone props that you can use in the Lot Editor.

Next project is making the police cars into additionals which, when you choose to drive a police car with UDI, the game will randomly choose from either whichever police car you have as a replacement (or the default Maxis clunker if you don't have one) or it will choose the additional.

After that I hope to make a pack of state police cars which will be standalone choices in the UDI menu, so that you can have a city police department and a state police department. (When you dispatch a police car, it will be the city police)

Then maybe I'll make the sheriff cars already available into another standalone choice in the UDI menu so that you can have police, sheriff and state police.

The second one - the additionals - requires a little advice from SW77.

The last two - the standalone additionals - require SW77's police jeep to be released, as well as a little more advice.

Here's a picture of slightly less-than-current progress with the police car props:

I actually have ten done so far, including CHP, British chequered police, all three blue police cars, and the five blue-and-white police cars that have blue lights (Still haven't gotten to red or red and blue lights yet)