FrankU's Lottery - Space Center update

[gn_leugim]

still action going on while I was absent, nice to know. nice updates, I have to get back to downloading stuff, getting behiwnd in the new releases >< but time... time is short... otherwise I might would try to do some space related stuff, why not, challenges are good

[FrankU]

Hello all, thanks for the support.

As your parks menus apparently aren't filled enough I will now add three small, but useful, lots to the set: fences and an entrance.

Here they are.





And you can make this with the set.



See how the columns of the fences are on the edges and corners? No need for inside corners, outside corners, fences with or without a column at the right or left side.... All is possible with these three lots.
I used one of Swi21's existing fence props and resized it a bit so that it has the correct length for the behavior I showed above. The original prop is exactly 8 meters wide, so then you would have double colums everywhere.
What you cannot do with Cogeo's Model Tweaker! I love this utility.

This leads to a lot new models and props and if you have followed my developments closely you will have observed that all my sets tend to contain a small file with those props.
Somehow I think it is time to collect these all into one large FrankU Mega props file. Don't you think? But how do I do that? Once I have uploaded this mega file you have to download an updated version of it every time I release a new set or lot file if that one contains another new prop... Is that practical? Or should I just go on and put my small props into the sets they belong to?
Of course sometimes I copy an old prop from an existing set into a new set, so that you will not end up with two identical props but also are not obliged to download the old file in your plugins too.... Does this still make sense to you?

Please give me your opinion. How did the BSC team start their own Mega props files? Does anyone know?

[Jack_wilds]

sweeet....   

[gn_leugim]

nicely done! 

[romualdillo]

Great set!! 

[c.p.]

Nice set.  I'll definitely be downloading

As far as the mega prop pack, I'd say only do it if you are going to be using the same files over and over again a lot.  Otherwise, it just makes things unnecessarily complicated (i.e. redownloading, finding and removing the old files, reinstalling, etc).

[FrankU]

Thanks guys! All of you.

I finished the set and uploaded it to

LEX

and

STEX

Now it's time for the Zoo to be finished.
The Space Center is giving me headaches....

The mega prop pack: thanks C.P. for your opinion. Most of these files will not be used very many times, so I better stick to the "small files as part of the upload" policy. I will reuse these props and put them into other uploads if convenient.

You will see that in this parks set I introduced a downsized and timed version of the Maxis city connection arrow as help for placing the park lots. I surely will reuse this prop again somewhere. But instead of making a new prop I will then copy this one, so that your props list in LE will not contain several identical props, each with its own IID, but just one.

[Catalyst]

Downloaded 
The entrance lot is beautiful, too bad there's no diagonal fence

What about making the space Centrer into a hi-tech research institute or something similar, like you said there's no such thing in the BeNeLux so why bother trying to make a themed version?

[FrankU]

Hi Catalyst,

Well, that is an idea, about the Space Center. I already had some little thoughts, because we do have a space research facility and we do have a very good reputation in radio astronomy. There is a large radio telescope in Westerbork.
But I liked the idea of making an improved space shuttle launching facility, even though there is nothing of the like in the Netherlands.

I'll first finish the Zoo and then I will take a look at both options.

[mgb204]

There must surely be some facility near Amsterdam, I hear people travel from there to other worlds a lot 

[FrankU]

Yes we travel to other worlds.... 

But now back to the Zoo.

I have lotted some of the modules. I based them on the modules by Jeronij, because they very conveniently split up the Zoo in sections and they have prefixed properties that probably are all right in matter of cost, production and park effects etc. I need to check that, though...

Anyway, I tested these together with my own parks and plazas. I have the following outcome.



And two zooms





Question is: aren't the paths a bit narrow for such a place? The paths are really nice for city parks, but I think they are too narrow for a Zoo. What is your opinion? Should I make, or ask C.P. to make, wider brick paths? It is not possible to make these with the exisiting textures in the set.

[Jack_wilds]

Thanks for teh park set... 

it will work well with teh other sets and the zoo...

[FrankU]

Hi friends,

(Thanks Jack!)

It was a bit silent these days. I actually am trying to lay down a new region, although gameplay will have to wait a bit.

But in the meantime I did some thinking about the Zoo and the Space Pad.

In short: here are my latest lots.

The Space Pad
I decided to use the Ariane 5 model instead of the Space Shuttle. I made a large lot, faintly resembling the lay out of the Kennedy Space Center with a road around the launching facility. I don't know what they use it for, but it looks nice, doesn't it?
I have no large buildings that I could use for the assembly building, so it is just not there. Maybe you can think of something for yourself.
I did add the railway to the launching pad, so if you have built a new space craft you can bring it there.

A building for the control center, a radar installation for weather forecastst and drone alarms, some fuel depot... That's all I could think of. Is something important missing? Please tell me.



And then the Zoo
The modular one. I added three simple 1x1 lots with brick pathways so that you can connect the modules. Of course you can also add the Park lots and Plaza lots. I did a bit of that too.
Jeronij also added several modular aquarium lots. These will be added too, but I could not wait to show you this. Does it look nice?

My example


The final upload wil also contain this Zoo-in-one, so you can choose which you want in your cities.



Please comment!

Frank

[c.p.]

I like the zoo-in-one a lot
The modular zoo looks less appealing to me for some reason.  Maybe just because of the open park spaces around it.  I'm imagining if the parks and grassy areas outside the fence were instead developed, or if the fence was up against the street, it would look great.  Which I guess means the zoo pieces themselves are great

[FrankU]

Thank you brian,
The parks around are totally voluntary. You can make them as you wish.

But the news for today is: another step in "FrankU learns Modding"

Ha! I did it!

I made the Zoo Reward lot into a MML lot for the other modules. This means: in the Rewards Menu you will only find the Zoo Entrance lot (which replaces the original Maxis Zoo). When the time comes that the Zoo is unlocked you may plop it. Then the other lots come available and you can build you Modular Zoo.

Advantage: no sneaky building of Zoos before the reward comes avaliable and no lots filling up your Rewards Menu without purpose.
Disavantage: if you want to remove the lots from the menu you must bulldoze the entrance building......
I could, of course, make another lot that looks exactly like the entrance, and has most of its properties, but is not the Reward. So you can bulldoze the Reward lot and put this one in its place. The Zoo Modules disappear from the menu again. Or is this too complicated?

Please comment!

[FrankU]

Update.....

The Zoo again

At the moment I have a Reward lot, that also acts as an MML.
- When the conditions are met you can plop the Reward lot. It is 4x3 tiles and only contains the Zoo entrance.
- After several game days the other Zoo lots appear in the Reward menu. You find them on position 1 in the menu: as first lots, so that you don't need to scroll down after every plop.
- You can plop these as often as you like.
- One of these lots is another entrance lot. You find it in the menu, but it is greyed out.
- When you bulldoze the Reward lot, this other entrance lot becomes available. When you plop this one, save the game, leave the city and enter it again, you will find the Reward Lot greyed out, the entrance lot greyed out and all other Zoo lots have disappeared from the menu. So now I have removed 15 lots from the menu.

I made this second entrance lot using the original Maxis building file, so the building exemplar is identical to the building exemplar of the Reward lot.

Problem here is:
1. This proceduere with two identical looking lots with different functions might get confusing to other players. (May I have your input here please?)
-   I could give the Reward lot a Bulldozer image on the icon, so that it is distinguishable.
-   And of course a good ReadMe, but who reads the ReadMe?
2. The entrance lot is located on menu position 1. Should I move it to the same position as the original Reward lot, or is this even more confusing?

And another thing: my zoo modules now need car access. How can I remove that condition? I based the lot on the Zoo Building (with SC4-Pim). That is the reason, probably. Or should I base the buildings on a park and then move them to the Reward menu by hand?
Who knows what to do?

Frank

[art128]

Hmm.. I really never liked the whole MML thing, and having to scroll down the reward menu can be discouraging.

What I'd do if it were my upload, is to make the entrance of the zoo in the rewards, and the inside elements as parks instead. (so you can even plop them somewhere else)

[gn_leugim]

well the zoo(s) ain't exactly what we can find here in Portugal as it has a lot of open spaces ( here is more paths in the middle of the fenced areas with animals) but the lotting is good. The Space pad,so far the layout is ok, I like it. lets see what else comes from there

[FrankU]

Thank you gn_leugim!

Well.... I managed to do it. The Zoo is finished and on the LEX. The STEX will follow later, it is out of order at the moment. I guess some kind of system maintenance.

You now have the Zoo available in an all-in-one version: in fact the Maxis Zoo, looking a bit Dutch.

And you have the Modular Zoo. I consists of 15 ploppable modules. I incorporated the Newman Inc Aquarium Seaworld as modules, just like Jeronij did with his Modular Zoo.
Personally I am very proud of the way this Zoo works. All is explained in the tutorial (in the ReadMe), but I feel like bragging a bit and so I show it here too.

The tutorial

1. When your city does not yet meet the requirements your Reward Menu will look like this.
The menu explains the most important details. At the bottom you should see the original list of requirements in your own language. Sorry I did not translate this. It's just in English.



2. Your city has grown and meets the requirements now. The Construction Lot is available.
By the way: it is cheap to plop and cheap to bulldoze. It hardly has any effects.



3. You plop the Construction lot and it gets greyed out in the menu. At the sides and at the back of the lot you see narrow brick textures: there you can connect your other modules later.



4. You now run the city for a couple of days and open the Reward Menu again. The Zoo modules now are available. You can build your Zoo now. You can plop the modules ad often as you like.
At the top you see the final Entrance lot. It is not available... Why not? Because the construction lot is still there.



5. So you bulldoze the Construction lot.



6. When the dust settles the Entrance lot is available.



7. And you plop the Entrance lot. Is greyed out immediately. An when you scroll down you will see that the Construction lot isn't available either.



8. When you run your city now all modules become greyed out. You cannot extend your Zoo anymore... So plop the Entrance when you are finished.



9. When you exit your city and enter it again....The Module icons have disappeared.
Only the Entrance lot is visible, but greyed out.



And what is the purpose of this all?
We are all suffering from menu obesitas. Someone, I forgot who, invented the MML. And while I was working on the lots I was thinking of a way to make maximum use of the MML system. Besides that it had always bothered me that the Modular Zoo by Jeronij was available all the time. I wanted it to be locked until the requirements for the Zoo were being met in my cities.
So I decided the Reward lot was going to be the MML file. This made the module lots/icons invisible until the Reward is being plopped. But then a problem remained: what to do with the icons after the Zoo had been built? So I thought: the Construction lot must be deleted afterwards. But then I delete my Reward! And then... The Reward/Cosntruction lot is being replaced by one of the modules; one that has the properties (effects, cost etc) of the original Zoo and that locks the Construction lot!
It really feels like some kind of circular process and I feared I was going to screw up the game seriously. But no. It works.

Only one thing remains that bothers me: After everything is done the Reward menu contains a greyed out Construction lot on the location of the original Zoo Reward lot (between cemetery and city hall) and one Entrance Lot at the top of the Reward Menu, also greyed out. Ideally the latter should be hidden too somehow. And there is a system of hiding icons the male/female major statue disappears after you have plopped the female/male.
But I don't know how to do that... So if someone has a hint I will improve my Zoo one step further.

So please try for yourself!

And the Space Center....
I finally decided upon this name. We have Launch Pad, Space Pad, Launch Center...  no good.
I finished lotting it and wanted to upload it but suddenly I stumbled upon the AC Functional Airports system. I am a great fan of it and so I thought my Space Center should be compatible with it, but whatever I try it does not work..... There is something utterly incomprehensible for me in this thing.
So either I decide my Dutch Space Center is incompatible or someone should be willing to help me out here....

Frank

[Jack_wilds]

got my zoo... thx     well done 5/5