Someone (I'm looking at simcutie) may reply though.

Can you explain what you're willing to accept more thoroughly?

I'm basically looking for things to document, so that people may modify them.

I'm not interested in the whole "lets add buildings" or "work modes".

The aim of this particular subset of my reversing work is to help others get their work done, and to help push people along.

For instance, there are functions which increase the cost of a commodity, and decrease it. They're fairly open to use and abuse, but if they were modified to use a C++ storage type, and guarded to stop repetitions, etc., I could open up Lua functions like:

-> IncreaseStockCostBy("corn", "25") (+25, to 425)
-> IncreaseeStockCostByPercent("corn", "25") (+25%, to 500)

I'm not interested in letting people bypass DLC, or anything like that.

If you want to know how something works, or want to tweak something somewhere in the pipeline, I'm happy to look into it ... but adding military support, or additional buildings, or transport modes, is beyond this.

I mean, building modes? They're already easy, so I'll look into expanding them anyway, but they're not something I want to openly expose.

i'm not sure if this is a acceptable request or not....if it isn't, i apologize.

is it possible to mod buildings so they do not have to be connected to a road? some examples would be the police station or any metal mines.

the reason i ask is it kinda opens up new options for designing my cities....i don't need to have to make an extra road depending where i place things.

thanks

Quite a reasonable modification. I think I know where that is (from the Tyrannus car edict), but I'll add it to the list of things to look into

I want the old statue textures from Tropico 3 put into Tropico 4, the presidente statues look freakin horrible. i prefer the Tropico 3 gold statue too Would that even be possible? i don't know why they made shitty statues for Tropico 4 but made everything look nicer :/

(24-03-2012 01:31 AM)Feeblezak Wrote:  I want the old statue textures from Tropico 3 put into Tropico 4, the presidente statues look freakin horrible. i prefer the Tropico 3 gold statue too

That's a model difference. I can probably get T3 models loading into T4 ... but it's complex and I can't really release the T3 packs.

If I get around to investigating how they're packaged, I might look at enabling T3 entities in T4, and provide instructions on how to do it, but I can't really do much else.

Replacing the entities will be another problem, but we'll see.

(24-03-2012 01:34 AM)Swixel Wrote:  

(24-03-2012 01:31 AM)Feeblezak Wrote:  I want the old statue textures from Tropico 3 put into Tropico 4, the presidente statues look freakin horrible. i prefer the Tropico 3 gold statue too

That's a model difference. I can probably get T3 models loading into T4 ... but it's complex and I can't really release the T3 packs.

If I get around to investigating how they're packaged, I might look at enabling T3 entities in T4, and provide instructions on how to do it, but I can't really do much else.

Replacing the entities will be another problem, but we'll see.

its not a big deal but if your up to it and get around to it, let me know

Well, given model differences, and other Haemimont games available (Imperium Romanum, The First Templar), it's possible, based on their similar handling. My only issue is HGE1 vs. HGE2 handling of textures and models --- I don't know that much about how HGE1 handles things, and HGE2 is much of a mystery as I haven't had the time/patience to do it (the moment I found out it was the "Granny2" format, I knew I had problems).

I can't "add" anything outside of their format though -- even loading older things without collisions may be a problem. All of the model loading code is in C++, and my x86 ASM is probably decent enough to get a handle on it, but there are a lot of "dummy" references (I'm sure they're actually used, but based on how Steam does nasty things to the binary, and even "optimisations" to the binaries) I'm having trouble sifting through the loading code.

The format does, from what I can tell, appear to be "standard" GR2, which is a plus.

I managed to load (and crash) T4 a while ago by dropping the model and atlas files into it and disabling all non-T3 buildings.

(24-03-2012 12:25 AM)Nineballfool Wrote:  is it possible to mod buildings so they do not have to be connected to a road?

As a temporary (hacky) fix, you can disable it by removing "GarageBase" if you have a parents... Off the top of my head:


There's *probably* a way to toggle it, but I'm yet to delve deeply into Entity states ... but I suspect it'd introduce latency (or I'd need to pause it, or make it a "per map" option).

Prisons should hold more people. My islands look more like prison colonies at the end, so I can crackdown on crime, plus, the prisons look like they should be able to hold much more people.

(24-03-2012 09:43 AM)rimlanin Wrote:  Prisons should hold more people. My islands look more like prison colonies at the end, so I can crackdown on crime, plus, the prisons look like they should be able to hold much more people.

So mod it.

(24-03-2012 12:25 AM)Nineballfool Wrote:  i'm not sure if this is a acceptable request or not....if it isn't, i apologize.

is it possible to mod buildings so they do not have to be connected to a road? some examples would be the police station or any metal mines.

the reason i ask is it kinda opens up new options for designing my cities....i don't need to have to make an extra road depending where i place things.

thanks

I don't think they have to be connected anyway. If people can walk to them they'll walk. The integrated garage just makes things more convenient.

In terms of it hard connecting the road though, the "GarageBase" parent controls that. Removing it disables the "garage" functionality.

There's more to it of interest to me -- I'd like to see a firetruck come out of any connected building, but I know how much of a pain that is at present

This isn't doable yet obviously and could violate the UI mods you mentioned... But do you think you could see if you can mod Modern Times when it comes out to allow old buildings to be built even when new versions exist?

We'll see when it comes out ... I mean, Tyrannus already demonstrated variations, and if it's anything like my old test code, you can build *anything* that has a build sequence ... it'll really depend on how they do it.

That said, the build menu is a pain. Most of the UI stuff annoys me no end. It's easy enough, it's just a question of not breaking things when it comes down to timers -- and that's the only way I could get it working without a permanent bar across the top of the screen.

Thanks for offering your assistance, compadre Swixel. Here are my requests:

• Foreign trade missions, how do they work? Besides improving relations with the US/USSR, can the type of outcome be influenced somehow, or are they pure dice rolls?
  

• Also, is there a way to modify the code to provide more options for controlling the view such as: locking the camera to face north, a way to extend the zoom, an overhead/bird's-eye view etc.
  

• Finally, I play with the absolute minimum graphics "to optimize game speed" (euphemism for "because my PC sucks" lol ) - how do I hide natural trees? Gardens and artificially planted trees are OK; I like things looking orderly
  

I want to know if the import limit can be changed . It's very hard to run a island with just industry with the 500 units limit .

^ The 500 units limit is per freighter, so you want freighters to come more frequently; that can be readily solved by building more docks. But yeah I sometimes considered that too, raising it to 1000 units per freighter maybe - that would be hella fun: you could dedicate the interior of the island to industrial production, line the coast with docks, import all you need and make money off of the price discrepancies between raw materials and finished goods

Once again -- Request Withdrawn.

heh coconut, you could take it one step further.. turn um into stay at home moms.. Unless your kid is in grade school.. that would really give a reason to build these things..

and the same sex marriage edict would become a bit more important..


opps moments like.. Ohh no.. a power black out, all my workers are home taking care of kids!

(24-03-2012 01:56 PM)Dicktator Wrote:  

• Foreign trade missions, how do they work? Besides improving relations with the US/USSR, can the type of outcome be influenced somehow, or are they pure dice rolls?
  

Just random. Yes, I could mess with that (fairly easily).

(24-03-2012 01:56 PM)Dicktator Wrote:  

• Also, is there a way to modify the code to provide more options for controlling the view such as: locking the camera to face north, a way to extend the zoom, an overhead/bird's-eye view etc.
  

Probably. There are multiple cameras in the game, but I think they're C side. I'll look into that one though.

(24-03-2012 01:56 PM)Dicktator Wrote:  

• Finally, I play with the absolute minimum graphics "to optimize game speed" (euphemism for "because my PC sucks" lol ) - how do I hide natural trees? Gardens and artificially planted trees are OK; I like things looking orderly
  

Trees are entities, so unless I removed them (no more logging and probably annoyed environmentalists), I don't think I could stop them rendering unless I tapped into the rendering related code ... which I'm fairly sure is on the C side.

(24-03-2012 02:20 PM)t_tropicano Wrote:  I want to know if the import limit can be changed . It's very hard to run a island with just industry with the 500 units limit .

(24-03-2012 03:16 PM)Dicktator Wrote:  ^ The 500 units limit is per freighter, so you want freighters to come more frequently; that can be readily solved by building more docks. But yeah I sometimes considered that too, raising it to 1000 units per freighter maybe - that would be hella fun: you could dedicate the interior of the island to industrial production, line the coast with docks, import all you need and make money off of the price discrepancies between raw materials and finished goods

Pretty much. I mean, while it may, in principle, be something I can change, I'm more interested to see if MT does it first in this case.

(24-03-2012 03:19 PM)CoconutKid Wrote:  Extend the time the married female is held to the Mother avatar:
- From: date of pregnancy to date of infant's birth, nine months;
- To: date of pregnancy to date infant transmogrifies from invisible, immobile Infant\Baby to Child avatar, three years and nine months.

I understand it, and I guess it's probably possible. No, there isn't really an issue with modifying too much there, but making the "Mother" job last longer is an issue as it would prevent the odd instances of having two children back to back, thereby crippling your reproduction chain.

Thanks. Question answered.

well a work around for this would be another avatar.. basically, after pregnacy, you would swap to another avatar, "stay at home mom" this avatar would be used till the child went to schoool, or turned 13..

then you could swap back to the prego avatar if that script fires.

granted making new avatars/models is outside the scope of a mod for the most part. (atleast your modding)

But it would work i think. the main issue with this would be, the obvious reduction in productivity.. (if you didn't build grade schools)

Also, it could lead to the need of a new building... Day care, if you wanted people to get back to work before the kid turned 5..


all and all most likely out side of the scope of a mod, But would be a great addition to the game IMO..

It's not a question of avatars ... it's about how the game checks. If she's in the "mother" role (I'm not going to get into mum vs. mom here), she won't be processed. If she's not in the mother role, she's unemployed. If she's a mother, she can't have a new child. If I break that, you might start seeing multiple pregnancies, game crashes, etc., or no children. Neither are pretty outcomes.

Rewriting the entire role (i.e. "Mother") is time consuming due to multiple steps, and while I'm not ruling this out, until I find out how far the consequences travel (i.e. she'll gain proficiency in being a mother, what does this actually mean?), it's something I'm prepared to do, lest I "half" do it.

The day care element would be nifty, but unless I could find a way to steal partial models, or something, I can't do it --- I don't know how to get models into (or out of) the game, otherwise I'd be much further along the modding path

EDIT: I can steal T3 and other Haemimont Game model packs, but doing so is always risky, and I'd require the user to supply their own to avoid copyright, etc., issues.

EDIT #2: Updated first post to reflect the approach.

(27-03-2012 12:19 AM)Swixel Wrote:  It's not a question of avatars ... it's about how the game checks. If she's in the "mother" role (I'm not going to get into mum vs. mom here), she won't be processed. If she's not in the mother role, she's unemployed. If she's a mother, she can't have a new child. If I break that, you might start seeing multiple pregnancies, game crashes, etc., or no children. Neither are pretty outcomes.

So when i said, they need a new avatar, that means they need a new job.

So check the check would go like..

Married>>pregnant>>baby>>stay at home mother.. (at this point the prego clock can start ticking again to see when next baby comes)


Basically what would happen would, Instead of having the baby, and the mother then reverts to her previous job slot and starts working again. If she had a job she just goes back to work, if she didn't she reverts back to homeless.

You could do a check when that point comes to see if there is either Day care available. If so, then all goes as normal. If not, the tropican takes New job.. "stay at home mother" (which is why i said avatar)

Now this person stays at this job, till day care opens. (which would let the tropican go back to it's normal job check, Homeless, or take a real job. Again this check could happen if the kid goes to grade school, Or youngest child hits 13.. would this lag behind if it is one of those kids that doesn’t change to adult till later?

Daycare building:: Job worker, "stay at home mother" (this is a girl that works at the building, Only job a stay-at home mother can take, Wouldn't have to be a stay at home mother to keep though...

Convert any "country house" 2 workers, 10 kids.. Or, "house" into daycare... 3 workers, 15 kids..

New Edict, "free day care"

Balance issues,, these should most likely be money sinks outside of a few high end facilities priced high for rich kids..

settings like Religious rule, (drops courage, + increases chance they will grow up to be part of religious faction,. % chance that child will turn rebel at 13.. (or move to adult)

Computers and Blocks, (raises chance that child will be join the intellectuals)

the kids rule the asylum, (+10 students, increases chance that an unruly kid causes an accident)




Now this is another idea that just popped in.. Skill at being a stay-at home mother.. (perhaps it could use the same skill as Day-care) The better the skill the less likely the kid could get into trouble. trouble could be a disaster such as starting a fire.. Or perhaps even increasing the chance someone will go rebel! Who hasn't thought about taking for the hills when 5 unruly kids are acting up? What could even lead to more humor is watching the mother decide to go rebel and leave her 5 kids stuck with their dad... (though i think some sorta check code would have to be added or you could end up with tons of kids with no parents and 100 rebels rather quickly.. ) So the later would have to be a very rare event..


In theory i can see that working,, But not really sure how you would go about doing it.. Hmm perhaps i should figure out how to mod the game.. could be fun to give it a try..

Inappropriate comment removed.

Quote:What could even lead to more humor is watching the mother decide to go rebel and leave her 5 kids stuck with their dad...

It is unusual for mothers to become revolutionaries.

Come to think of it, most revolutionaries stayed either single or childless... sometimes even after the revolution.

(27-03-2012 12:19 AM)Swixel Wrote:  The day care element would be nifty, but unless I could find a way to steal partial models, or something, I can't do it --- I don't know how to get models into (or out of) the game, otherwise I'd be much further along the modding path

I was just giving my thoughts on it.. as he mentioned this.. Personally if i wanted to mod something i would go with making pirates.. But that is a bit out of the scope of this thread.

Could you find way to adjust work efficiency of the individual workers other than skills?

I'd like to make them work harder or lazily depending on their individual satisfaction on various conditions (basically by respect or approval rate on the El Prez). 50% approval rate means roughly same as unmodded, 60% approval means 110% of unmodded, etc. So El Prez will have strong incentive to keep his people happy around a year, not just for election.

I have some experience on modding SimCity4, Sims 2, Civ 4 and various other games, and Lua, Python, C++, etc.