Thu, 17 May 2012 09:09:56 +0000 1800 This is the RSS feed of the last ten file submissions accepted into our database. This RSS feed is always up to date as it is dynamically updated. http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/27618-flat-square-island/
It has custom textures, lots of place to build, a coast all around for placing ports (or blueprints built on water, like the Alcatraz or oil platform), and fertility everywhere. The Tropical Island version also has oil everywhere. Both have a fair bit of vacation areas from the start. Like the default islands, it has no road or rail connections anywhere, so you WILL need ports and airports.

It has no ground water by default in the normal game, just like the normal island, BUT if you use Neidhard's resource enabler ( http://www.file-uplo...w-maps.rar.html ) then you'll have underground water reserves everywhere too. It's up to you exactly how much you want to cheat, basically. Personally I'd think an island would get plenty of rainfall to have water for its people, but you can also take it as just a desert island and import your water if you prefer it that way. Or you can use the sandbox mod buildings to give you water.

The same resource enabler will also give you oil everywhere on The Two Sisters replacement map, if you use that version.

Either version is a flat and gently rounded square, almost perfectly flat in the middle, and gradually curving down towards the shore line, to meet the water in a gentle slope. It's still more than flat enough to build on in any point.

It is not based on the altitude data of any real place. It's just an artifficial island with as much place to build as possible, while not having any hard corners or perfectly straight edges, so it basically still looks somewhat natural. If it helps, you can imagine it as an artifficially built island, like Dubai has been building, except bigger.

There are no trees in water, nor in fact even on the beach.

I have reduced the ground texture and shadow map to 2048x2048, down from the default 4096x4096, since it seems to run smoother on my computer that way and it's not like a flat map really needs more detail. And the game's terrain multi-texturing makes it look ok up close too anyway.

To install, just unzip one or both .patch files from the .zip file into your Paks folder. To uninstall, just remove it. (Removing it might, however, break any cities built on the custom map.)

IMPORTANT NOTE 1: No attempt has been made to match the height of the map it replaces, and arguably it's not even possible to both have two maps have the same height in any place AND have one be flatter than the other. I.e., it might or might not break existing cities built on the island it replaces. It is highly recommended that you start a new city if you want to use it.

IMPORTANT NOTE 2: It has only been tested with Cities XL 2012. I have no idea if it works with 2011 or any other version.

Note 3: yes, I know it's not some great achievement. It's not the best map out there, nor particularly hard to make, nor the most realistic, nor anything else. I just wanted a flat map to build a great big island city on. Maybe someone else can use it too. Or maybe not.]]> Thu, 17 May 2012 08:56:54 +0000 27618 http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/27617-rhw-slope-mod/ nwelsh (who also went by bigdope404 later) is now available for download on the STEX!
-While this mod was released as an attachment on page 24 of the RHW thread on SC4Devotion back in August 2007, many members have had difficulty accessing the mod.
-Due to it's high demand and hard to find download location, I have discussed it's release to the STEX with the NAM Team for some time. Now that permission has been granted by the NAM Team, I have now made it available for your downloading pleasure!

Simply extract the file into your plugins folder (it does not have to be in your NAM or RHW folders to work) and you will be able to drag your RHW network (RHW-2) with smooth slopes. This slope mod is moderately restrictive, as you can see in the attached screenshot comparing it to a road with no slope mod (default) that isn't very restrictive and the Bullet Train slope mod which is highly restrictive. The photo shows a comparison of the amount of tiles you need to drag your networks to reach the 'ground lifter's' height from the hole digging lots package.

As with my other uploads to the STEX, good faith is assumed (such as my uploads from APTX in the past). Credit for creating this for this mod belongs to nwelsh/bigdope404 . I have simply uploaded it here. I would also like to thank Tarkus for providing technical and background information surrounding this mod.

Dependencies:
-Real Highway Mod (RHW)
-Network Addon Mod (NAM)

Please post any questions or concerns you have with the mod below or to the RHW support threads on Simtropolis or SC4Devotion.

Lastly, enjoy creating realistic slopes with your RHWs!
-Haljackey]]> Wed, 16 May 2012 17:38:19 +0000 27617 http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/27616-maxis-props-pictures/
These are nearly all maxis props in pictures (some effects with the green diamond are not involved)
and with their names to find them in the lot editor.
Now you know wich maxi props exist and you can see them all at once. It`s also good for making lots without dependencies or to reduce them.
I`ve already made some groups, but you can make your own.

Besides I`ve also made some pictures of some proppacks. They are in the folder _mixde_

Have fun!
and dont`t forget to use the prop families

Aquazona883]]> Wed, 16 May 2012 08:20:02 +0000 27616 http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/27615-alfa-midi-and-indomart/ mini market in indonesia.. Mon, 14 May 2012 12:26:07 +0000 27615 http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/27614-between-the-hawkesbury-and-the-hunter-central-coast-of-nsw/
Today I wish to present a map requested by none than a favourite son of simtrop Shadow Assassin, Thanks mate. It is a map of the Central Coast region of NSW and lies between the Hunter and Hawkesbury Rivers. It is the town Spike Milligan's parents emigrated to and Mr Milligan occasionally spent time there.

This is a real world map and is terrain and scale accurate. It measures 65.536km x 73.728km and was produced with dem and satellite data. It is in SC4M format and requires Wouanagaine's mapper or terraformer to import it into one's game.

A free readme is included containing instructions and links.

That I think is about all.
No wait the multi-coloured water is some I'm making to suit Lowkee's terrain mod.


Cheers]]> Mon, 14 May 2012 12:02:40 +0000 27614 http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/27613-better-heavy-industry/
It will leave the low and mid density factories unchanged, because I didn't want to screw up your economy while you still have a tiny city and can't build much else to provide jobs. But as soon as you're big enough to zone for high-density heavy industry, you can demolish the old factories and zone for these more efficient ones. And use the left over space and workforce for, I dunno, manufacturing or high tech.

The basic story is that I hated having to build that much heavy industry, and the pitiful taxes they paid didn't even cover the cost of cleaning up their pollution. I COULD use the wonderful sandbox mod, but it's not very realistic, and trips my suspension of disbelief. I wanted something which still maintains at least a thin pretense of realism.

So the changes are as follows:

- as mentioned, I increased each factory's production by 2.5 times. You'll still need to zone several full square blocks before coming anywhere near a sandbox factory, but you don't have to fill half the map with heavy industry either.

- I've increased their workforce from 3 unskilled, 3 skilled and 2 executives to 4 unskilled, 3 skilled, and 2 executives. On the whole, because you need less heavy factories and can build more manufacturing and high-tech, you'll still end up with a lot less unskilled workers in the city, but I still wanted to have a half-way believable number of them. A city with twice as many elites as unskilled workers is kinda silly.

- I've reduced their profits per unit sold to half (mass-production lowers prices), and increased their maintenance per factory by 6 times, so they don't pay insanely high taxes. They still do pay a lot more tax per factory, but it is still quite a bit lower than an equivalent manufacturing factory. The point I'm aiming at is basically that zoning for it isn't a loss, but it doesn't turn into a cash cheat, either, and it doesn't remove the incentive to build more manufacturing and high-tech instead if you can.

How to install it: just unpack the .zip file in your Paks folder. Any existing high-density heavy factories will be automatically upgraded, so in a large city you'll end up with an instant surplus. Sell it or demolish some.

How to uninstall it: just delete the .patch file from your Paks folder. Any existing high-density heavy factories will be automatically downgraded to the vanilla ones. I.e., large cities will have a massive defficit of heavy industry until you build some more to make up for the downgrade.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This has only been tested with Cities XL 2012. I have no idea if it works with any other version.]]> Mon, 14 May 2012 10:17:07 +0000 27613 http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/27612-simcity-3000-base-textures/ Here are some classic textures from the Building Architect Plus in SimCity 3000. With over 90 base textures in DAT format included in this zip, all you need to do is unzip this file into you plugins.]]> Sun, 13 May 2012 16:20:32 +0000 27612 http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/27610-republic-city/ Welcome to Republic City, former site of the Fire Nation’s largest and oldest Colony Yu Dao. Founded by Fire Lord Zuko and Avatar Aang approximately 116 years ASC, Republic City is both the capital and the largest city in the United Republic of Nations, and is host to numerous Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation citizens, as well as a sizable population of Water Tribe members. In addition to the main city, the region includes Republic City Bay, host to Air Temple Island—the home of the world’s last four Airbenders: former Avatar Aang’s son, Tenzin and Tenzin’s 3 children Jinora, Ikki, and Meelo—as well as the current Avatar, Korra.

The region measures about 16 by 20 km.

This is a map of the fictional Republic City, Capital of the United Republic of Nations, per the wonderful minds of Bryan Konietzko and Mike DiMartino of Avatar: The Last Airbender/Legend of Korra fame, drawing inspiration from steampunk and 1920s/30s Shanghai/New York/Boston. As such, the design of this region is owned by Nickelodeon, but this adaptation should fall under the Creative Commons/Fair Use license, as it is completely for fun (not for profit). You can probably use it in your city journals (I don't care), provided you cite Nickelodeon as the map source (and preferably its SimCity 4 version creator, me).

It took a lot of time to make this map, since I basically painted in grey-scale over the actual map of the city. Constructive Criticism is welcome and encouraged, as this is my first upload to the STEX.

You will need SC4Mapper or SC4Terraformer to use this map. Included in the folder are .SC4M and .PNG files, as well as a readme.
The map's highest point is about 3000 meters high (2750m above sea level). Please make sure your game map can go this high. Otherwise, smooth it out in SC4Terraformer or in paint/photoshop to lower than 140/255 grey (about the value of the highest point).
The terrain modd shown is CPT's Meadowshire Terrain Modd. You can find it on the LEX.

Enjoy!

P.S. I have absolutely no idea if this is to scale or not. All I had was the stunning aerial illustration, stylized map, and a few detail shots to go from. Also, the map is really just the actual pictured map converted, which is why the left/northmost mountain is included in the region, but not the one on the right/southernmost. I am interested in seeing what people do with it though.]]> Sun, 13 May 2012 06:30:07 +0000 27610 http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/27609-kamchatka-russia/ Kamchatka, Russia
a map by: blunder

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Description:

In Soviet Russia, Terraformer maps YOU!

Kamchatka is a Russian peninsula on the Ring of Fire north of Japan. This map follows the Kamchatka river past the massive volcano of Kliuchevskoi and 2 of its neighbors: Kamen and Bezymianny. It passes the town of Klyuchi and then spreads out into a large wetlands area before reuniting and passing through the mountains to the east on it's way to the pacific. Only some of the wetlands has been converted to SC4 game water (about 1/3 to 1/2) since converting ALL of the marshes wouldn't leave much room to build on the flat lands. And also because i made this map to suit my own style of play and to appear in my CJ, the Ring of Fire.

HUGE props go to drunkapple for his advice in how to fix what i was doing wrong with the SRTM satellite data, this map wouldn't have been possible without his immense help.

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Installation:
This map is in .sc4m format and requires either Terraformer or Mapper to import.

1. Navigate to your Documents/Simcity 4/Regions folder and create a new folder with your desired region name
2. Copy+paste the config.bmp file into the folder you just created.
3. Open SC4TF, open the new region, import the .sc4m file, save and quit.
4. You must open and save each tile for it to display your terrain mod instead of the terraformer/mapper elevation color overlay.

This map is 60 km x 60 km (15 x 15 = 225 large tiles). It is scale and elevation accurate, other than one annoying hole in the satellite data. The volcano Kliuchevskoi tops out at just under 5000m game elevation, so you will need a terrain mod or a patch that has it's max altitude set to AT LEAST 5000m to load this map.

(I HIGHLY recommend using the high altitude + snow installation of Lowkee's most excellent Appalachian Terrain Mod and shokthrpy's Brigantine 2.0 HD water)

For questions, comments, and requests please see my Map Thread over at simpeg.com

Happy Gaming!]]> Sat, 12 May 2012 21:34:34 +0000 27609 http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/27607-tritours-building/

That is my first "skyscraper", usually i make houses so please rate and comment to help me in futur.

File description :
- Plopable landmark with no jobs
- 3x3 tiles
- 91500$ to build
- 915 to bulldoze
- NO night lights (i dont know how to do it sorry but tell me and i'll...)

Some dependencies :
- BSC MEGA PropPack CP Vol01
- WalkingSnake Textures Vol01
- NAM (last version)]]> Sat, 12 May 2012 18:57:38 +0000 27607