The SFBT Advent Calendar

[Sciurus]

Woaw, wonderful! Great work SFBT!

Guillaume

[alj]

Great project! And 11 doors in the calendar still to be opened!

[Chrisim]

Every evening this month (until the 23rd), Andreas spends his free time to finalize and upload the SFBT Advent Calendar contribution, and on some days (like yesterday), he spends much more time than the evening only. We (the other SFBT members), we would like to say a big THANK YOU to you, Andreas, for your time and dedication for SimCity 4, the SimForum, the SimForum BAT Team and also to SC4 Devotion.
You are a real Devotee! 

For today's upload, I am glad that I could help (but Andreas had no free Advent Sunday because he created the installer):

The SFBT Simple Tram-on-Street Stop

is a simple GLR/tram and bus station for the tram-on-street, new in the NAM of June 2009.

It fits well into most city environments due to the minimalistic design. The tram stop is only one tile long. If  you use long GLR/tram automata, don't place the station close to a junction. Dependencies: Network Addon Mod and SFBT Essentials (see Readme for links).

The included file z_OptionalHighCapacity_SFBT_TramStreet_Stop.dat is for users of high capacity traffic simulators. Simply move it into the folder SFBT\Tram-on-Street Stop, if you need it.

[Andreas]

Thanks, Chrisim! Today's advent calendar door is the return of an old STEX classic, which as been extended notably in order to shape a nice collection.

SFBT Mayor Mode Ploppables by Mathe Man, Khiyana and Andreas

Ploppable Mayor Mode trees have become popular recently, and developers quickly realized that the same method can be applied to any prop, so we also have seen ploppable bushes and shrubs, boats, coral reefs and even rocks. Small things like these are often used by city journalists in order to recreate the real world as detailed as possible.

T Wrecks created a wonderful city journal in the German SimForum, showing open lands with smooth hills and lots of agricultural zones. Even the smallest village gets lots of attention, and so every detail has to be perfect. One thing, however, was missing: realistic livestock paddocks! If you have ever been to any rural area in the world, the first thing you notice in a cow paddock are lots and lots of cow pats. Finally, this important detail has been recreated for SimCity as well. Simply open your Mayor Mode menu, select the SFBT cow pat and plop as many as you want. Other than their real-life counterparts, those doesn't smell, and they won't affect the ground water at all!

Over the time, additional Mayor Mode ploppables have accumulated in the SFBT labs, all suitable for a more realistic rural landscape. Mathe Man created some nice stacks of logs and firewood, a hide where hunters can watch for deer, a hay rack, and some beehives for the apiarists among us. Khiyana created some heaps of gravel in a test rendering, and they turned out so nice that we decided to include them into this pack as well.

 

[Battlecat]

This is a seriously excellent set of mayor mode plopables!  I'll be putting these to good use.

[Fresh Prince of SC4D]

Just what I wanted for my birthday! New plopables. This will show how industrious my cities are. Thanks SFBT!

[Girafe]

Nice mayor plop items which are useful

I think we can thank Andreas and SFBT team for their nice work and take time to upload it   

[Sciurus]

Wonderful, as always!!

Guillaume

[Andreas]

It's nice to see that also the small, not so obvious things are appreciated - today, I've chosen yet another of those almost forgotten things that proves to be really useful in pretty much every city. T Wrecks dug up an old model by rp2005 (aka zero7) and created two nice lots for it.

SFBT Sports Pitch Set by T Wrecks

This package contains two sports pitch that are based on RP2005's props. As far as I know, they were only used on RP2005's Ardnox School lot once. Now, they can celebrate their reincarnation as separate lots, either on their own, or combined with other lots in order to create larger complexes.

The smaller 3x6 lot provides only a sports pitch and a small path at one side. The larger 5x6 lot also offers a parking lot, a club house with snack bar and some tables, and a restroom facility. Feel free to combine the lots to your liking - next to each other, parallel or crosswise, and whatnot.

 

[tamorr]

   Thanks that is probably what I'll do with the Lovely church pack, as now a days I find myself modding things to a certian degree for my own private use. Mainly the growables as I prefer to change the tileset they grow in....

   Anyways it is nice to see those cow pats again with more stuff included this time... Love the gravel piles and wood piles as well... I can find many uses to play around with them a bit on my landscape, when I am in that sort of mood..
   It is good to see quite a bit of the other stuff too like te sports complex and the one Chrisim released for you a couple days ago I think.... No matter the work here seems to be a steady being pleased with every release.

[Andreas]

You might remember the Plattenbau lots by Ch. P. and ArkenbergeJoe for creating large areas of highrise tenements - today's upload will be a nice addition to ArkebergeJoe's set of large lots that grow on 4x5 and 5x4 lots in particular.

SFBT Anlage Wohnglück by JohnD and ArkenbergeJoe

The real-life counterpart of this apartment complex is located in Cottbus, Germany. In order to create a larger variety, I created three different models with different heights. The tenements are another part of the SFBT Large Lot series in European-Contemporary style, which is intended to create growable quarters with low-wealth highrises in the typical Plattenbau appearance.

This is another example of mass construction that is mainly intended for the general public, so the lots were designated as R-§. They grow only on high density zones, since you'll find this type of buildings in residential highrise areas in particular. The set includes buildings with 8, 6 and 4 floors.

 

[metasmurf]

Nice one Andreas! 

[Andreas]

... and another one in the category "plain and simple, yet versatile and realistic".

SFBT Billboards by T Wrecks

First off: The initial lot of this set is 95% oppie's work (from SCCentral / Simphoni). He had the initial idea, and his lot, which I found among my SC4 stuff, was the core of this new release. I simply changed the prop layout, matched the base texture to the street side, created a new icon and new LTEXT descriptions, and I changed the values a bit.

Then I added two additional lots, one freestanding sign, which looks nice next to roads and ground highways, and a lot with a raised billboard, attached between two poles. It's pretty unbelievable, but there wasn't a single pole that was suitable for this purpose among the Maxis props! So this lot requires the only dependency, SimGoober's mega prop pack.

All billboard lots produce a small income between § 1 and § 2, and they raise the commercial desirability a bit within a radius of five tiles. In return, the residential desirability is lowered a bit in the same area. Once you plop a lot, a random billboard prop will show up. If you don't like one of them, or if the same billboard appears twice, simply bulldoze the lot and try it again.

The lots will show up in the landmarks menu. Placement help: The arrow shows from which side the billboard can be seen. For the freestanding billboards, it should point towards the adjacent road, then the billboard will appear next to the curb.

 

[Andreas]

IIRC, this was JohnD's first BAT - lot and modding was done by ArkenbergeJoe again.

SFBT Rail Viaduct Station by JohnD

This station was designed and BATted for the Rail Viaducts from the Network Addon Mod. The lot has a size of 1x4 tiles; for building the station, you either need to leave room between your railway viaducts, or bulldoze them before plopping the lot. In order to prevent crashes when dealing with puzzle pieces and transit enabled lots, it's highly adviced to build the rail viaducts first, and then plop the lot. The station also needs road access at one side at leas

 

[puresim]

Wow, only just found these! Well done to everyone who worked on them all, some very nice stuff being released here daily

Andreas thanks for sharing them with us non-German speakers!

[Andreas]

Well, I'm a bit late today, but I'd say the wait was worth the effort. Today's upload is a huge one - containing more than 50 lots in total, with hundreds of hours spent on planning, calculating, modeling, lot making, modding and packaging. SFBT member exziviben started this project months ago, and now it's finally finished: the SFBT Urban Highway Set!

SFBT Urban Highway Set by exziviben

Although the Maxis Highways were put on the backburner a bit by many players after the release of the Rural Highway Mod (RHW), they are nevertheless an essential component for urban transportation. Many large cities around the world have elevated highways running across the city, and in most cases, the (albeit not very attractive) space below is used in one or another way, since space is rare and expensive in metropolises. You might find underpasses, parking lots, billboards, bus stops and many other things.

With this extensive set that contains more than 50 individual lots, you can make use of the unused space below the elevated highways finally, even though most lots are only eye-candy (apart from the bus stops and subway stations). Especially low-wealth areas will look a lot more realistic, and it doesn't really matter if you simply don't use the space, or place some non-functional items in this area after all, does it?

All lots have minimal plop and maintenance costs, and they have only a very small impact on the vicinity, so you can use pretty much as much of them as you like. There are both orthogonal and diagonal lots, including a variety of special-purpose lots, i. e. for highway onramps, underpasses, curves, on-slope puzzle pieces and many more. You might get confused by the diversity at the beginning, and some features might be not that obvious on the first glance, but with some trial and error, you should be able to overcome the obstacles soon.

 

[canyonjumper]

This will be very useful! Great work!

                      -Jordan

[Ennedi]

That's fantastic Andreas! 
RHW is very popular and it deserves it for sure. But RHW can't replace "regular" highways in every case. These empty spaces unedr raised hoghways always were a big problem and now it is solved 
Looking at this set I have a strange feeling some of these lots can be used not only under highways, but also in another, more original configurations  . I will try them as soon as possible!

Adam

[SimNation]

Fantastic job on these...has anyone tried using them on elevated RHW as well yet? And if they do not fit with them..any chance we might see a elevated RHW version one day?

[Fresh Prince of SC4D]

This will be very useful! Great work!

Useful doesn't begin to tell how I feel about it .Especially since Maxis Highways are the majority in my region.