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Discussion City Plan Improvements

kinggath

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Hey City Planners!

This discussion is aimed at people who have created City Plans, as some of the stuff I'm working on will directly impact the future of things like the City Plan contest.

With the next expansion, we're going to be making improvements to just about every system in Sim Settlements, with the aim of expanding options for players and creators alike.

I'm looking for suggestions of things you'd like to be able to do in your City Plans that you feel like you can't currently. An example of this is one I've implemented for that expansion, which is the ability to have the Advanced Industrial buildings work correctly in a City Plan when Designer's Choice is on.

What other things would you like to see changed about City Plans?
 
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Oh boy, you opened a can here boss. :)
  • Apply plot skins across the whole city plan from one menu option. Example: I take over a settlement as the Children of Atom. I open a settlement menu and select Apply Skin. A list of skin choices appear that at least one building plan has. I select the one I want from that list. Then all building plans that have that skin available apply it.
  • Dismiss visitors. Sometimes a settlement has too many AI targets and they're the easiest to get rid of as they're just eye candy.
  • Holotape or MCM option for city plan contest builders to force a settlement to a cityplan level. I know there are console commands for that but I have to toggle out of the game to look them up. Quality of life thing.
  • HUD option to show the count of each plot type currently in the city plan. I lose count when tearing down from L3 to L2 for example. How many Ag did I leave? Again, it's just convenient but when you're zipping around a large settlement trying to count Recreation plots and then OCD kicks in and you have to go count them again...
  • Bushes. I hate bushes. And grass higher than my chest and saplings in the only flat spot in a settlement... Could we have scrap baseline files that have that stuff removed in a safe manner? I know we can't bust pre-combines or use mods that do that... but is there any way to clear out that stuff for a city plan?
  • Show vanilla markers in workshop mode somehow. Example: There is at least one spot in Sanctuary, on the driveway where the workbench is, where settlers always sit. If I put a crafting bench near it, I have to step on the settler to get to it... but I can't see it. If I knew where it was, I wouldn't put anything over it. Same goes for the caravan guards in Tenpines and other settlements. Knowing where these markers are will help the builders from placing a plot over the top of them.
I'm probably think of some more so I'll just edit this one post.
 
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Need more layers than 16 in WS+ (I make things very modular)... as well, have an option where you can place the blueprint controller for a certain plan go to the location of the blueprint creation. Clipboard does this and is a great function.

So basically, if I create a city, I want to blueprint the fences, walls, furniture, etc... as a single entity. When I place the controller, record the position of the controller so if I am in another game, I can pull up that same city plan, move controller to the record position for that specific plan to import.

This would then make the blueprint plan be inserted exactly same location all the time.

And honestly, I don't use the blueprint controller much and use Clipboard for this exact reason. I love clipboard and I think if WS+ took more of those ideas, it would be easier to utilize... and would offer a larger realm of flexibility.

My 2 pennies.
John
 
Oh oh oh… 2 more pennies.

During the City Contest Mod scan for legality, when an item is scanned and highlighted as illegal, that identification of said item - move that item to a whole new layer - called NonCityPlan - sometimes hard to see colors of the highlighting and if on a separate layer, one could toggle on/off that layer and remove the offenders.

This would be EPIC.

John
 
Minor Change:
Town Meeting style commands in the CP contest holotape, but more like 'summon all unemployed' or homeless.

Alternate Judging criterion:
Not saying its bad or anything, but 1st, 2nd, 3rd is sooo 2019.
I wonder if it's possible to do things like Most Functionality, Most X-box friendly, Most popular (the current way we do it), Most Lore Friendly, Most Lore Breaking, Most use of KG's poop mod, Most Bribed Uituit with blood and guts. etc.

More goofy/fun rules:
The Floor is Lava
Only use Megapacks
Scaffold Only - to drive Adam Kluga insane
Conq-Prebuild focused CP's designed for peeps to take over
Judges choose ur city leader - build CP to suit!

and my #1 - SS Community Custom Settlements and/or winner to chose next settlement to build in.
...and of course, being allowed to use all DLC/PBP's DLC Items, in a no-holds barred free-for-all contest (Maybe Masters MkII)

As for City Plans themselves..
...I've been playing with XVersus' foundations pack; They are great and really should be utilised.

..allow custom settlement creators, to upload scrap profiles to the CP maker website somehow?

..some sort of AI Pathing tool/visualiser?

.. a conversion of the contest holotape, into a more holistic CP Manager holotape.. with the ability to turn off contest specific highlighting when building regular ol city plans.
 
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I wonder if it might be possible to have city skins like those currently avaliable for plots. To be able to create versions of city plans specific to themes, factions, current state or even presence of specific dlc/cc/addon. The game might auto pick an appropriate faction or if a specific vassal or outpost skin was available for that plan, or the player can select one which they like the best. Faction decorating this way might be more satisfying than the random decoration.
 
Force release all the plots once a City Plan level reaches 100%.

Situation: I currently have a test build of The Castle at L3, 100%, aka fully built up.

There are 14 settlers + 1 Companion (City Leader) in the settlement. There should be 11 Sim Settlements work plots:

14 Settlers total +1 Companion is a total 15 population
-1 City Leader job
-1 Radio Operator job
-1 Ronnie Shaw custom vendor job
-1 Artillery job
= 11 settlers for Sim Settlements work plots

Yet in this 100% built L3 City Plan I have only 8 of the job plots released and 2 or 3 unemployed settlers roaming around. (The "invisible pub" is a separate vanilla-game issue.)

==more detail by level==

At L0, all plots unlocked properly.

At L1, all plots unlocked properly.

At L2, 2 job plots should have unlocked: 1x Martial plot (Spider Gate by Uituit) and 1x Agricultural plot (Amazon Fishing Wharf by Uituit). Neither have unlocked, leaving the settlement short of defense and food.

At L3, 1 job plot should have unlocked: 1x Industrial plot (by Mytigo IIRC). This has not unlocked, leaving the settlement short of the 5x Industrial plots required to allow Martial plots to upgrade to L3.

So please. Regardless of settler population, whether over-populated or under-populated for it's level. Once a City Plan has reached 100%, have it forcibly release any remaining plots (job and residential) for that level of the City Plan.
 
I have a couple thoughts.
  • Total wishlist feature, but I'd love to see city plans capable of more than just the four levels. One of the things I ran into during the Master's contest was having more nice, logical stages of development than I could fit in the available levels, while having 2-3 more would have made for a smoother transition from subsistence-level hovel-dwellers to the full-on city with dedicated industrial buildings I had envisioned. Something like this can be simulated by having a second city plan that uses the first one's Level 3 as its Level 0, and I have a feeling that that would unassign settlers in addition to resetting the plots to Level 1.
  • Something that I wish was possible without having to use the CK is the ability to create doors/transition points that can teleport the player. I'm envisioning using this to move the player into a simulated interior built under nearby terrain, or in the case of Hangman's Alley, inside one of the boarded-up buildings.
  • A system like the Private Area Markers mod would be really cool too - flagging areas as player-only within the city plan and somehow getting settlers not to path into it or see furniture/markers within the area as usable.
Besides that, I'd like to echo the interest in a no-holds-barred, all-DLC-allowed CP Contest month. I'll be thoroughly trounced, I have no doubt, but I'd love the freedom and the opportunity to see what everyone else comes up with.
 
I have a couple thoughts.
  • Total wishlist feature, but I'd love to see city plans capable of more than just the four levels. One of the things I ran into during the Master's contest was having more nice, logical stages of development than I could fit in the available levels, while having 2-3 more would have made for a smoother transition from subsistence-level hovel-dwellers to the full-on city with dedicated industrial buildings I had envisioned. Something like this can be simulated by having a second city plan that uses the first one's Level 3 as its Level 0, and I have a feeling that that would unassign settlers in addition to resetting the plots to Level 1.
  • Something that I wish was possible without having to use the CK is the ability to create doors/transition points that can teleport the player. I'm envisioning using this to move the player into a simulated interior built under nearby terrain, or in the case of Hangman's Alley, inside one of the boarded-up buildings.
  • A system like the Private Area Markers mod would be really cool too - flagging areas as player-only within the city plan and somehow getting settlers not to path into it or see furniture/markers within the area as usable.
Besides that, I'd like to echo the interest in a no-holds-barred, all-DLC-allowed CP Contest month. I'll be thoroughly trounced, I have no doubt, but I'd love the freedom and the opportunity to see what everyone else comes up with.

I think this goes along with more layers - I think you are absolutely correct... 4 levels... seems to be compressing progression from a city building during an entire game into … a few days/weeks/etc. in game..

Also, I think that if you had more levels.... the script load or engine load would be smaller as each level would be smaller...

Kind of like taking smaller bites of the apple.

And custom settlements... I pretty much do those - I burned myself out on the vanilla ones … so, yeah customs would be great...

John
 
And while not a "city plan" improvement - and probably a very unpopular idea - but considering all those stating "SS/Conqueror broke my game, CTD's all the time, <insert various over redundant complaints>"....

Like Journey enables Fast Travel between settlements in survival when discovered, built, and a provisioner is hooked up...

Disable Fast Travel to SS cities... sorry. I know. Dumbest idea... but considering I play survival only and walk, I do not have CTD's. Period. I use custom settlements as jump points... this wouldn't disable the fast travel all around the game, but if you want to go to Abernathy/Sanctuary/RR - hey, you have to jump to Wicked Shipping, Concord, etc... and walk. Let the game do its job.

But most people playing this, SS or Conqueror... think they can play normally. And honestly, they can't. I know it would be a great thing to advertise, but with the Beth engine and how much this loads the engine...

At some point, the elephant in the room is going to get beserk.

John
 
Beside it being impossible to do without editing vanilla code, I fast travel into fully levelled plans all the time and never crash.

I kno . Wss just an idea...

And while I cant fast travel, I do coc. And not ctd either.

I was only referencing the broad general population... ;)
 
If they are crashing that's on them. A properly maintained save will not crash.

Also, you should not coc on a playthrough. It messes with workshop/npc/companion data.
 
If they are crashing that's on them. A properly maintained save will not crash.

Also, you should not coc on a playthrough. It messes with workshop/npc/companion data.

Really … didn't know that... is fast travel a different function than coc? I was under the impression it was the same thing.... and for about the less than 1% I do it, I haven't noticed any issues. Would be good to understand the mechanics of this.

John
 
We shouldn't be chatting in this thread.
But yes it's different. coc doesn't save on travel, ignores timescale, often doesn't teleport companions with you. So leaves data scattered everywhere. It's supposed to be for testing only.
 
I've already posted suggestions via discord.
  • Apply plot skins across the whole city plan from one menu option. Example: I take over a settlement as the Children of Atom. I open a settlement menu and select Apply Skin. A list of skin choices appear that at least one building plan has. I select the one I want from that list. Then all building plans that have that skin available apply it.
I like this idea.
  • HUD option to show the count of each plot type currently in the city plan. I lose count when tearing down from L3 to L2 for example. How many Ag did I leave? Again, it's just convenient but when you're zipping around a large settlement trying to count Recreation plots and then OCD kicks in and you have to go count them again...
I like this idea too.

  • Bushes. I hate bushes. And grass higher than my chest and saplings in the only flat spot in a settlement... Could we have scrap baseline files that have that stuff removed in a safe manner? I know we can't bust pre-combines or use mods that do that... but is there any way to clear out that stuff for a city plan?
Not really possible without busting precombines. One option is to install transparent textures for them - but that's a worldwide change.

I have made some patch mods in my Commonwealth Engineering city plan pack that remove most brambles and crap, without making them too clean. I did remake the precombines for those patches, which makes them rather large to install.
 
Can't think of anything that hasn't been already been posted, but I'd definitely like to see:

All DLC city plan contests
A holotape option to force level individual or all plots
Summon homeless/jobless settlers
Be able to visualize vanilla markers in WS mode
City-wide skins with different themes
More WS+ layers
 
I wonder if it might be possible to have city skins like those currently avaliable for plots. To be able to create versions of city plans specific to themes, factions, current state or even presence of specific dlc/cc/addon. The game might auto pick an appropriate faction or if a specific vassal or outpost skin was available for that plan, or the player can select one which they like the best. Faction decorating this way might be more satisfying than the random decoration.
I'm still working through the other comments, but this one really jumped out at me and I wanted to second it.

When I built my entry, a few people mentioned things along the lines of wanting to see the faction I'd semi-inadvertently created, which made me think about the connection there.

Some settlement designs are CLEARLY Institute, or Minutemen, or what-have-you. I'd love to see a way to "tag" a settlement by its faction (or lack thereof) and then have the Conqueror Auto-Build be mindful of that with placement of different groups. Going a step further, we could globally disallow a given faction if we don't want it to pre-populate (for example, if I want to play an Institute character, maybe I don't want 'enemy' cities with Institute designs).

-asp

EDIT 1:
Going back through, one other thing that jumps out at me is from one of Rudy's suggestions:
  • HUD option to show the count of each plot type currently in the city plan. I lose count when tearing down from L3 to L2 for example. How many Ag did I leave? Again, it's just convenient but when you're zipping around a large settlement trying to count Recreation plots and then OCD kicks in and you have to go count them again...
Going a bit further, how about a full "City Plan Builder" HUD option? I'm sure we can think of all sorts of things like this that we'd love to see when building that the average player doesn't need to see. If you made it a disabled-by-default toggleable option, then you can add new things without necessarily disturbing what's already there.

EDIT 2:
This seems like a good place to bring back my dream-idea regarding the War Planner's Desk:
https://simsettlements.com/site/index.php?threads/war-planners-desk-in-city-plans.11414/
In short, the War Planner's Desk is outlawed in the contests, because it requires the Conqueror mod. The vanilla one in Conqueror is built on a desk that already exists in the base game. I'd love to see a way to place a marker in the plan that in the presence of Conqueror becomes a War Planner desk and in the absence of it becomes the plain, empty desk. That way, there's no compatibility issue and those of us building contest entries meant for Conqueror players can eat our cake & have it, too.

-asp
 
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Oh boy, you opened a can here boss. :)
  • Show vanilla markers in workshop mode somehow. Example: There is at least one spot in Sanctuary, on the driveway where the workbench is, where settlers always sit. If I put a crafting bench near it, I have to step on the settler to get to it... but I can't see it. If I knew where it was, I wouldn't put anything over it. Same goes for the caravan guards in Tenpines and other settlements. Knowing where these markers are will help the builders from placing a plot over the top of them.

This was accomplished by one of the animation marker furniture packs (Invisible Marker Pack; Nexus ID 28645) that came out a while ago, but I don't know how. It's worth noting that said pack also has been marked hidden and from what I remember when it went down, someone was citing bugginess and/or compatibility issues that the creator wasn't able to rectify.

So there may or may not be a vanilla compatibility issue to deal with. I still think it's worth investigating, and I'd also love to see it, but it may end up being pie-in-the-sky.

-asp
 
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