Planning redesign, hints?

Hands down, the biggest problem I came up against was that when I had finally bought all the land and shoved everything aside, all I could see was a vast amount of green screen (this was before the snow hit). There is absolutely NO context to let you know how far one thing is relative to another thing, how far off the edge you are, etc.

When you click to buy land, the larger rectangles help you see where the approximate spots would be for dividing it into halves or quarters for zones ... But once you release that "buy" land button and try to set some marker, The whole thing just goes to solid color again.

I hope you can figure out what I mean.

Now excuse me while I scream something really really really loud. Cover your ears. And get the younguns out of the room:

GIVE ANNETTE A $&"&+%%@#* ZOOM-OUT FEATURE!!!

There. I feel better.

Honest advice ... If you can work out a graph, even a rough one, do it. Make a list of all the buildings you have. Look on the wikia thingie. I think we can give a link to it ... Here's the feature I find best on their site. This is a link to their Wiggum House page ... Two important pieces of info for a rebuild.

First, notice that it gives the SIZE of a building. (In this case, 8x4) that info can be really helpful for the larger buildings, ESPECIALLY if you don't have it yet.

Second, at the bottom of that page (and all the other buildings pages) is a list of every building ... Hyperlinked, etc. You can have a look at the list in one take, decide which ones are potentials, and get an idea of what land/arrangement you're going to need.

http://simpsonstappedout.wikia.com/wiki/Wiggum_House

Hope they don't mind a link. If that's a nono, I'm sure they can edit ... Okay, mods? :oops:

annettemarc wrote:
Hands down, the biggest problem I came up against was that when I had finally bought all the land and shoved everything aside, all I could see was a vast amount of green screen (this was before the snow hit). There is absolutely NO context to let you know how far one thing is relative to another thing, how far off the edge you are, etc.

When you click to buy land, the larger rectangles help you see where the approximate spots would be for dividing it into halves or quarters for zones ... But once you release that "buy" land button and try to set some marker, The whole thing just goes to solid color again.

I hope you can figure out what I mean.

Now excuse me while I scream something really really really loud. Cover your ears. And get the younguns out of the room:

GIVE ANNETTE A $&"&+%%@#* ZOOM-OUT FEATURE!!!

There. I feel better.

Honest advice ... If you can work out a graph, even a rough one, do it. Make a list of all the buildings you have. Look on the wikia thingie. I think we can give a link to it ... Here's the feature I find best on their site. This is a link to their Wiggum House page ... Two important pieces of info for a rebuild.

First, notice that it gives the SIZE of a building. (In this case, 8x4) that info can be really helpful for the larger buildings, ESPECIALLY if you don't have it yet.

Second, at the bottom of that page (and all the other buildings pages) is a list of every building ... Hyperlinked, etc. You can have a look at the list in one take, decide which ones are potentials, and get an idea of what land/arrangement you're going to need.

http://simpsonstappedout.wikia.com/wiki/Wiggum_House

Hope they don't mind a link. If that's a nono, I'm sure they can edit ... Okay, mods? :oops:

On android if you move your fingers together (like Pinching) you can zoom out Exposing more surface area thus seeing more on your screen. not sure on IOS

Snakeyees wrote:

annettemarc wrote:
Hands down, the biggest problem I came up against was that when I had finally bought all the land and shoved everything aside, all I could see was a vast amount of green screen (this was before the snow hit). There is absolutely NO context to let you know how far one thing is relative to another thing, how far off the edge you are, etc.

When you click to buy land, the larger rectangles help you see where the approximate spots would be for dividing it into halves or quarters for zones ... But once you release that "buy" land button and try to set some marker, The whole thing just goes to solid color again.

I hope you can figure out what I mean.

Now excuse me while I scream something really really really loud. Cover your ears. And get the younguns out of the room:

GIVE ANNETTE A $&"&+%%@#* ZOOM-OUT FEATURE!!!

There. I feel better.

Honest advice ... If you can work out a graph, even a rough one, do it. Make a list of all the buildings you have. Look on the wikia thingie. I think we can give a link to it ... Here's the feature I find best on their site. This is a link to their Wiggum House page ... Two important pieces of info for a rebuild.

First, notice that it gives the SIZE of a building. (In this case, 8x4) that info can be really helpful for the larger buildings, ESPECIALLY if you don't have it yet.

Second, at the bottom of that page (and all the other buildings pages) is a list of every building ... Hyperlinked, etc. You can have a look at the list in one take, decide which ones are potentials, and get an idea of what land/arrangement you're going to need.

http://simpsonstappedout.wikia.com/wiki/Wiggum_House

Hope they don't mind a link. If that's a nono, I'm sure they can edit ... Okay, mods? :oops:

On android if you move your fingers together (like Pinching) you can zoom out Exposing more surface area thus seeing more on your screen. not sure on IOS

Good point! It does work on IOS too. I can see a larger area, but I'd say the max dim I can see on the screen even after doing that is 20% of my ttown. I could be off on that guess, but I think its about right.

So I can zoom out to see a smallish sector of my land, tentatively set buildings, and then zoom in for detail work. What I cannot do is see the area in relation to the whole. Its like going on a road trip from San Diego, California up to the Canadian border with nothing more than a map of each county ... No map of the country to give perspective of how far you are from beginning to end, but some nice details of what the cities look like ... ;)

I feel like that old fable about the three blind men describing the elephant.

I go section at a time, I never start fresh, it's daunting! Try to think about spaces and neighbourhoods and events! I like my thanksgivings and christmases and valentineses LOL to be together.

I'm in the middle of 2 redesigns:

1. christmas 2013 area
2. prep for valentines 2014 and clean-up of valentines 2013

Wise move. Problem was that with the channel six glitch I was able to finally buy huge amounts of land in a very short time,plus the landing zone shifted every time I added land.I wanted the center of the city to be where my town hall, churches, public services, schools,and park would be ... And some of those buildings come early in the game.

Now that the metal tree controls our landing zone, its a new ballgame. But I already had the thing halfway arranged before that tree came along. :)

Leilani2013 wrote:
I'm redesigning bit by bit as I add land. I just added a bunch over the past couple of days, so I have a bit to work with. I hadn't been buying premium items until recently, so that's what I've been filling most of my newly open space with just moving a few small things here and there.

I suppose if I were going to start a major rebuild, I'd start from the middle out and do it counted cross stitch style. Since I can't fold the screen in half to find the middle, I'd use fences to tick off every other space to find the middle and then use them as a guide to lay out the town. Then when I was done with the layout, I'd have all the fences to place in my design. Hopefully it won't come to a major redesign in my game, but if it does hopefully I'll either remember what I just wrote or find this thread to remind me how I want to do it.

Actually, what works fairly well is laying down strips of "pavement" ... Before the tree magnet thingie came along, I found the geographic "middle" of what would be a town with all land purchased. I dropped a concrete square right there, and sat jebediah right on top of it. Then I made concrete strips at specific intervals ... It ended up sort of like a bullseye target would look if the bullseye target were square.

It wasn't pretty ... But it gave me some semblance of order, quadrants, etc. The trick was to not add any OTHER concrete strips for other purposes. :)

Jamie5966 wrote:
The best advice I can give is to buy as much land going across then work your way down. I didn't want to redesign my town fully before that because I would just have to do it again down the road and with how unpleasant it is to have to move everything piece by piece I did that first. Then I thought about how I want my town to be laid out. Residential neighborhood, beachfront, town square area, shops and restaurants, power plant, Forrest area and so on. So it in small sections so it doesn't seem so overwhelming. Start at a corner and work your way around that.

I'm not one to give advice on planning a successful re-design, as my town has been in under construction mode for weeks after the last time I nuked it (I think I'm slower than Annette.:mrgreen: ). That said, I agree with this advice.

I find it easier and more satisfying to finish one section at a time before moving on to the next. You should certainly think of the general layout ahead of time, but I found that when I focused too much on the big picture (i.e., by mapping things out and laying a bunch of roads ahead of time), the product just didn't look as good. You sacrifice creativity when you elect to fit each building to a pre-specified block of land rather than letting things flow.

When you are planning out districts, try to also include an urban district, as we have three skyscrapers now.

Also, as mentioned, try to acquire close to all of the land before you hit the button. This way you won't have to do this all over again.

And no need to store things when you can park them in the far right corner and still earn.

You are the most awesome people, EVER!!!!!

Wow! Thank you, this is amazing stuff. I have a lot of work to do...

My biggest mistake was putting EVERYTHING in storage. Seeing nothing on my SF made my mind go blank with it :shock: . I would suggest you do as others recommend to do it one section at a time.

Good luck!

This is how I redesigned in steps.

1. Place all in storage.
2. Work in first corner that consists of your neighborhood that includes houses, church, community center, and retirements castle.
3. Finish your last three corners. ( mine - power plant, tire fire, Halloween )
4. Insert large park near center
5. Have a Christmas Area
6. Have a Halloween Area
7. Have coliseum and baseball stadium on separate ends of your town.
8. Have a decent size blank lot for a forest.
9. Layout rest of your roads.
10. Finish up adding in rest of buildings.

I found this pretty easy for myself. I'm able to redesign my entire Springfield in a couple of hours each time. Minus tree and flowers.