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I know everyone has building mods they love and you’re probably using them in your city designs.
If your goal is to share your design with as many people as possible- I would highly advise against it.
If you look at the download numbers of the currently released City Plans versus addon packs, they are not close. I don’t think it’s coincidence that they all have mod requirements outside of Sim Settlements- especially with the advent of esl files meaning the mod count isn’t a big concern with them. Now obviously, building designs are much more versatile than City Plans, so that plays a role in this as well- but if you look at the comments on the pages for both City Plans and Transfer Settlements Blueprints, the biggest hesitation folks have, is needing to install additional mods. The Project Blueprint mods are special in that the player’s your City Plan don’t need them installed- these are simply construction records for things included in the base game or Sim Settlements, so all players using City Plans will have them already.
One of the big reasons I created the Project Blueprint mods, was to avoid the situation that Transfer Settlements finds itself in, which is that most users aren’t willing to install a bunch of mods to get access to a settlement design. If you haven’t already, spend some time digging into these mods, the item pool is incredibly deep. We have just about every vanilla asset available.
Obviously, there are tons of great settlement object mods out there, but 90% of them are adding assets from the vanilla game and are either combining them for quicker placement, or adding some sort of functionality. Rare is the building mod that is adding actual unique assets. Consider this when you’re designing with other mods, “Could this be built by combining pieces and special effects that are already available?”
I would argue that people using City Plans are primarily concerned that the place looks great- the fact that a light source is separate from the model or that a pile of clutter is individual pieces rather than one mesh isn’t going to matter to the end user. By avoiding building mods that are just making use of vanilla assets and building these things yourself, or finding alternatives to those custom asset mods by combining pieces from the PBP mods, you’re putting in more effort up front, to make things easier on your would-be fans- and they will love you for it!
All of that said, not every creator does things for the same reason, and I built support for all mods in the City Plan system so you can design however you like- unrestricted. Some of you should definitely use whatever build mods you love in your City Plans! The purpose of this post is to recommend that before you put in the dozens of hours to design a City, you consider your own motivations- if, like me, you are heavily motivated by reaching a wide audience, avoiding external mods in your design will help you reach that goal.
If your goal is to share your design with as many people as possible- I would highly advise against it.
If you look at the download numbers of the currently released City Plans versus addon packs, they are not close. I don’t think it’s coincidence that they all have mod requirements outside of Sim Settlements- especially with the advent of esl files meaning the mod count isn’t a big concern with them. Now obviously, building designs are much more versatile than City Plans, so that plays a role in this as well- but if you look at the comments on the pages for both City Plans and Transfer Settlements Blueprints, the biggest hesitation folks have, is needing to install additional mods. The Project Blueprint mods are special in that the player’s your City Plan don’t need them installed- these are simply construction records for things included in the base game or Sim Settlements, so all players using City Plans will have them already.
One of the big reasons I created the Project Blueprint mods, was to avoid the situation that Transfer Settlements finds itself in, which is that most users aren’t willing to install a bunch of mods to get access to a settlement design. If you haven’t already, spend some time digging into these mods, the item pool is incredibly deep. We have just about every vanilla asset available.
Obviously, there are tons of great settlement object mods out there, but 90% of them are adding assets from the vanilla game and are either combining them for quicker placement, or adding some sort of functionality. Rare is the building mod that is adding actual unique assets. Consider this when you’re designing with other mods, “Could this be built by combining pieces and special effects that are already available?”
I would argue that people using City Plans are primarily concerned that the place looks great- the fact that a light source is separate from the model or that a pile of clutter is individual pieces rather than one mesh isn’t going to matter to the end user. By avoiding building mods that are just making use of vanilla assets and building these things yourself, or finding alternatives to those custom asset mods by combining pieces from the PBP mods, you’re putting in more effort up front, to make things easier on your would-be fans- and they will love you for it!
All of that said, not every creator does things for the same reason, and I built support for all mods in the City Plan system so you can design however you like- unrestricted. Some of you should definitely use whatever build mods you love in your City Plans! The purpose of this post is to recommend that before you put in the dozens of hours to design a City, you consider your own motivations- if, like me, you are heavily motivated by reaching a wide audience, avoiding external mods in your design will help you reach that goal.
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Of, course, when changing plans it builds provided you have lvl 1 of Local leader.