Ploppable RICO Settings Guide

Hey guys!

This is a step by step guide for creating single use, regular footprint buildings for use with the Ploppable RICO mod.

Getting Started

The Ploppable RICO mod works by converting a normal ploppable asset into a RICO asset on scene load.

To make your assets compatible with the RICO mod, you simply need to include a .xml RICO settings file with your asset.

To begin, follow the normal process for creating ploppable assets. You can use any template you like, such as a unique building or a park. As your saving your asset, remember the asset name. You'll need to include this in the RICO settings.

RICO Settings

A .xml file is a formated text file. It can be opened and modified in any text editor.The RICO mod uses a .xml file to store its settings.

For windows users, XML Notepad[www.microsoft.com] is a simple free program that makes editing .xml files easier.

To get started, download the Ploppable RICO .XML Template[gist.github.com].

Click Download ZIP, and extract the .xml file from the folder. Once you've extracted the .xml file, you can open it in XML Notepad or any other text editing program. To add RICO settings, simply fill in the fields with the desired settings, and save the file.

In XML Notepad, change the settings on the fields on the right.



In Wordpad, change the settings between the quotes.



The settings you can edit are:

name: Enter the asset name of your building here, including caps and spaces.

service: Use residential, commercial, office, industrial, or extractor. Industrial processing buildings will have industrial as a service.

sub-service: For residential and commercial, use high or low. For generic industrial, use generic. Industrial processing and extractors can use farming, oil, forest, and ore. For office, use none.

level: Buildng level. 1-5 for residential, 1-3 for office, commercial, and industrial generic. Use 1 for for extractors and industrial processing.

workplaces: Total number of workplaces. Set to 0 for residential.

homes: Home count for residential. Each home holds 3-5 residents. Set to 0 for non-residential.

construction-cost: Inital construction cost. Enter 0 for no construction cost.

ui-category: This determines what panel the asset will be added to on the RICO panel. Options include reslow, reshigh, comlow, comhigh, office, industrial, oil, ore, farming, forest.

All settings other than the asset name need to be under case.

Testing and Uploading Your Asset

Now that you've created and saved your asset and your .xml file, its a good idea to run a quick test to make sure all is well.

In a file browser, navigate to your "Assets" folder. For Windows users, copy this path into your path bar: %AppData%\..\Local\Colossal Order\Cities_Skylines\Addons\Assets\

Next, create a new folder with any name in your "Assets" folder. Place both your .crp file of your asset and the PloppableRICODefinition.xml file in the new folder.

When you load a new game, the mod will apply the RICO settings and create a button for your asset in the RICO panel. It will also remove your asset from the default game panels.

If everything is working ok, its time to upload to Steam!

In the Content Manager, find your asset in the list. Click on either "Share" or "Update". You'll see a menu that looks like this. Click on the little file button.




This will bring up a file browser. Navigate to the "Content" folder in this directory. You should see the .crp file of your asset. Next, simply drag and drop your PloppableRICODefinition.xml file into this folder, and close the file broswer.




When you click "Publish" on your asset, the .xml file will be bundled with the asset, and made availible to any player who subscribes to your mod. Every time you update the asset, you'll need to re-drag the PloppableRICODefinition file back into this directory.

Keep a local copy of both your .crp and .xml file outside of your "Assets" folder.

The Ploppable RICO mod can be also be used with Sub-Buildings Enabler and Sub-Buildings Tabs to create mixed use and large footprint RICO buildings. If your interested in learning more about how to make these types of assets, take a look at the Advanced Guide.

If you have any questions or issues with the mod, feel free to ping me on Steam chat, or post in the Report Issues Here thread on the mod Steam page.

[Tsundere Senpai]

Can we convert growable assets to be rico compatible?

[Ionwind]

@TheArkerportian: apparently the keywords are "tourist" and "leisure", for both sub-service and ui-category.

[Hades Moon]

What subservice do I need to put in the XML to create RICO tourist and leisure commercial buildings? Seems there's nothing about in on the whole internet.

[willowitch]

@HGscMENTOR In case others have your quesitons, I'll explain.

To extract the file from the zip folder means to get it out of the folder so it is no longer zipped. You can drag the .xml file onto your desktop, or you can drag it to some other normal, non-zipped folder. I haven't read all the instructions for how to set RICO. I presume they tell you where the final destination is that the finished file must be in. You can put it there to start with, or edit it elsewhere and move it to the final folder when you're finished.

Once you have the file in a non-zipped folder, open the file with Notepad. (There is no XML Notepad program.) Notepad is installed by default with Windows, but I believe they've moved around how to launch it over the past couple versions. Try searching for it. You're looking for notepad.exe. Notepad likes to save things as .txt files. An xml file is just a text file with a different file name extension. Be sure you keep the .xml extension when you save.

[Beth2020]

No answers to my Jan 9 question and no answers on the REPORT ISSUES HERE thread either - so I guess AJ3D has lost interest. And at this point, so have I. I'm overwhelmed by all of this anyway, so I'm giving up for now at least and unsubscribing from both threads. Need to take a break.

[Hugga51]

O, and Dummy means it's a building for display-won't do anything, just sit there.

[Hugga51]

Extractor means it's a specialized industry creating natural resources like a farm with crops! No problem!

[Hades Moon]

Great guide. Only, what do you mean by extractor?

[Beth2020]

@AJ3D
I noticed you haven't answered any questions on the REPORT ISSUES HERE thread that you say we should post our questions to, so I'm posting it here also in hopes you will answer one of them:
I've downloaded the programs you said to download but in your guide you say:

<<Click Download ZIP, and extract the .xml file from the folder. Once you've extracted the .xml file, you can open it in XML Notepad or any other text editing program. To add RICO settings, simply fill in the fields with the desired settings, and save the file. >>

I'm really new at this stuff so was thrown by the language - I downloaded the zip and clicked it to install, and even got the zip folder that was created into the folder for my RICO instructions. but then I got hung up on the language ---

1) how, exactly, do I "extract" the .xml file from the folder? and where am I "extracting" it to?
2) how do I open it in the XML Notepad?

Help with this would be very much appreciated. :^)

[Empusa]

I keep getting errors and crashes when using Rico and i might have got to a dilemma, maybe
When i add local assets, the format for workplaces/homes is sometimes scrambled in the local xml. For example all buildings, regardless of destination add to "homes" category, which later on disperse on the "workplace" field into what i assume it's type of workers as follows

service="industrial" homes="2" workplaces="0,2,0,0" />

But in the original Rico definitions, it's not like above item. It's something like this
homes="0" steam-id="" level="1" workplaces="2"

So i can see why the game give out errors of workers assigned but not in use if i recall.

So my question is which definition is the correct one, do the workplaces need to have specific info about the type of workers? Because if so, then all Rico definitions need an upgrade, since the local assets work for me now and i get errors on the ones i downloaded which say are Rico ready.