[REQUEST] make growable areas bigger than 4x4

[RustyCool]

I wonder how hard would it be to mod this into the game, if possible. What you guys think?

After marking it possible, building modders can make bigger buildings that would fit into these new sizes.

What you guys think? Is it possible?

 

[cinephile]

Ideally it wouldn't have to be modded in, it should be something the game supports natively. Lot sizes should be far bigger than they are now. They're tiny. People shouldn't have to rely on ploppable items to build up their city like a model village.

This was one of the things that hamstrung SimCity 4 even though it had much larger lots, and as a result it showed the absolute best talent of the modding community when it came to building ploppables, and ploppables with functional utility.

Along with bigger lot sizes for buildings, it should be possible for people to link their assets together in the editor or in a settings file for their asset, and have them automagically expand into neighbouring lots, choosing other linked assets when they do so. For example, a shipping business buying out nearby lots for extra cargo space, farms buying lots for fields, etc etc.

I'm surprised and kind of disappointed that it doesn't happen already.... I feel like I have to prefix comments like this with 'this game is great fun to play, a great achievement for a small team etc etc, BUT...'.

All that is true, but some small things like lot sizes are really frustrating. Especially the tiny sizes given over to farms. Farmland just doesn't look like farmland, and doesn't function anything like farmland. Industry is really the zone to suffer the most, since it really wants to be claiming nearby lots to expand out, as a process of doing big business. The flow of the industry in your town and managing it should be one of the compelling gameplay forces. It's sort of there. But without business owning multiple lots, not really.

I really hope that it gets improved upon given the massive success of the title and the obvious demand that the modding community has. Even as a basic first step, I would just like to have unlimited or very large lot sizes made possible, or some kind of support for modular lots.

 

[TheeLord]

agree, we need bigger lots. 4x4 is just not enough.

 

[RustyCool]

Ideally it wouldn't have to be modded in, it should be something the game supports natively. Lot sizes should be far bigger than they are now. They're tiny. People shouldn't have to rely on ploppable items to build up their city like a model village.

This was one of the things that hamstrung SimCity 4 even though it had much larger lots, and as a result it showed the absolute best talent of the modding community when it came to building ploppables, and ploppables with functional utility.

Along with bigger lot sizes for buildings, it should be possible for people to link their assets together in the editor or in a settings file for their asset, and have them automagically expand into neighbouring lots, choosing other linked assets when they do so. For example, a shipping business buying out nearby lots for extra cargo space, farms buying lots for fields, etc etc.

I'm surprised and kind of disappointed that it doesn't happen already.... I feel like I have to prefix comments like this with 'this game is great fun to play, a great achievement for a small team etc etc, BUT...'.

All that is true, but some small things like lot sizes are really frustrating. Especially the tiny sizes given over to farms. Farmland just doesn't look like farmland, and doesn't function anything like farmland. Industry is really the zone to suffer the most, since it really wants to be claiming nearby lots to expand out, as a process of doing big business. The flow of the industry in your town and managing it should be one of the compelling gameplay forces. It's sort of there. But without business owning multiple lots, not really.

I really hope that it gets improved upon given the massive success of the title and the obvious demand that the modding community has. Even as a basic first step, I would just like to have unlimited or very large lot sizes made possible, or some kind of support for modular lots.

Yes, all that has to be officially implemented. I say that before getting tunnels and that other stuff CO said will do, we should get bigger lots. Let's sign a petition at change.org?

 

[LordCrash]

As long as we don't have a lot of plopable buildings with a bigger ground size than 4x4 there is just no point in making growable areas bigger than that.

 

[gaerraty]

Both agricultural and forestry industry could really benefit from larger plot size than 4x4. Perhaps 8x8? It would work well with road snapping tool and existing guidelines.

For residential, commercial and offices I don't seem to miss larger plot sizes.

 

[LordCrash]

Both agricultural and forestry industry could really benefit from larger plot size than 4x4. Perhaps 8x8? It would work well with road snapping tool and existing guidelines.

I don't think so. The reason is that every industry building needs a direct connection to a road (for services and collection of goods by lorries) and there are no bigger plopable buildings in the game than 4x4 right now. So people not only had to make the areas bigger but also create a lot of new plopable buildings of respective size, e.g. 8x8. I would really love to have 8x8 agricultural farms for example, but it would be a quite extensive mod to make that many big buildings that it's visually attractive and there is some variation.

 

[cinephile]

Honestly, I went in to the editor already looking to design huge farm plots. For people that have the desire to do it, it's not a big deal. There are already some nice looking oversized ploppable (park) farm plots on the workshop. The only 'work' part is varying the tiles. But the effort is worth the reward when they appear in game, if you've produced say 8 variations, with some colour variations and random props on those tiles.

I feel like, probably getting bigger than 4x lots is unlikely due to how the game is coded. But I also feel like just having lots be able to 'claim' nearby lots would work the same way.

For example, a 4x business is profitable, it is fully staffed, it is reaching an upgrade milestone, etc. Next door there is another 4x lot, and by whatever method you use to judge this, it's not doing as well. Maybe it's understaffed or just not growing as fast, or maybe it's a level below the business plot. Let the business plot 'spend' some of its upgrade points (or assuming this stuff is simulated behind the scenes, its wealth) to claim this lot. Now the game checks for linked assets to the first business (could be something as simple as a text file with the same name as the asset, with a list of asset files), and spawns one of them in the new lot. The new lot gets the same business name. You could even make it so they now shared statistics like employees etc.

In this way, if you had a large grid layout for farms, it wouldn't matter if a lot was next door or just near by, a flourishing farm business could claim a lot and put an appropriately themed new lot in that place.

edit: it would also be pretty cute if farms could snap to paths. But that's a different idea

 

[Brazilian Joe]

Uhhhh, last time I checked there were several ploppables much bigger than 4x4, just check parks and monuments.

As for growables, no there are no growables beyond 4x4.

 

[TheeLord]

Both agricultural and forestry industry could really benefit from larger plot size than 4x4. Perhaps 8x8? It would work well with road snapping tool and existing guidelines.

For residential, commercial and offices I don't seem to miss larger plot sizes.

I do, many large buildings (offices, condos etc...) take up an entire city block inside of downtown areas of large cities. And what about large suburban structures which sometimes have huge footprints. Strip malls, office complexes, suburban apartment buildings.

 

[Dab42]

To mod larger random growables, I'd think you would have to mod all the roads to create deeper zone grids when they were created.
Or a tool to lay zone grids adjacent to already existing ones.

 

[CalPolyFan]

I just wanted to post here to encourage this thread. This is one of my main 3 complaints about this game.. and this is one of my special "broken record" complaints, but I feel at home in this thread

4x4 max groweable isn't big enough.. This is a very high priority game fix.. It would be nice to have up to 7 tile zone depth, but 8 would be great... Why stop there? Why not just have a value between 1-20 and have the middle mouse wheel scroll that value as you're placing roads..

Just use the middle button to scroll up/down from the default 4 deep zone depth, up to say 8 or 9 deep and down to zero or one deep.

 

[GrauPanther]

+1.
Even a change in maximum width only would help a lot (no pun intended), depth, while highly desirable too, is probably more difficult to change within the existing framework. More width would be great for wall-to-wall buildings in particular.

 

[CalPolyFan]

+1.
Even a change in maximum width only would help a lot (no pun intended), depth, while highly desirable too, is probably more difficult to change within the existing framework. More width would be great for wall-to-wall buildings in particular.

Definitely.. It would be the matrix between 1 and 8.. so every dimension in between 3x8 etc.

Imagine if a "zone box" could be created using the X and Y coordinates.. the center mouse wheel would define zone depth (x), while the mouse wheel and right mouse button active at the same time would define the zone width Y dimension.

So, you would change the zone depth by using the wheel, and would change the width by holding down the wheel first, then using the right mouse button, then scrolling the wheel to change the zone width, depress the right mouse button to change back to zone depth....

A highlighted boundary around the zone size would appear, delineating the zone dimensions if people wanted to get that precise.

That would be amazing.

Take it one step further, and have a Z coordinate added, to define maximum building height allowed Nah, that's ok.

 

[KnightHawkTFC]

+1, 8x8 at a minimum really is needed.

 

[TheeLord]

Imagine if a "zone box" could be created using the X and Y coordinates.. the center mouse wheel would define zone depth (x), while the mouse wheel and right mouse button active at the same time would define the zone width Y dimension.

So, you would change the zone depth by using the wheel, and would change the width by holding down the wheel first, then using the right mouse button, then scrolling the wheel to change the zone width, depress the right mouse button to change back to zone depth....

A highlighted boundary around the zone size would appear, delineating the zone dimensions if people wanted to get that precise.

This is a great suggestion in my opinion!! Also solves the issue of two steets intersecting at non-perpendicular angles and you not being able to zone the size you wanted because of that. But no need to stop at 8! Let it go out as far as we want (unless you can handle farms outside of the zoning system somehow then 8 should be fine)

 

[CalPolyFan]

This is a great suggestion in my opinion!! Also solves the issue of two steets intersecting at non-perpendicular angles and you not being able to zone the size you wanted because of that. But no need to stop at 8! Let it go out as far as we want (unless you can handle farms outside of the zoning system somehow then 8 should be fine)

Sounds good to me.. This would be such a huge mod.

 

[jamiechi]

Also, zones shouldn't be broken up because the ground isn't perfectly flat.

 

[NickSlip]

I agree, it would be incredibly cool to see four 4x4 buildings in your city center become a single huge skyscraper under the perfect conditions, naturally, without plopping. That's a big facet of the game that's missing right now - the fact that you can't zone buildings higher than about 300 feet. Moreover, the variety of building sizes and shapes will give the game a much more organic feel. It'll take some work on CO's part in making this possible, but it would a huge, huge improvement to the game, no doubt about it. Plus, it'll open up a whole new door of opportunities for growable custom assets, which will give this game even more longevity.