sc4pac

A package manager for SimCity 4 plugins.

This program handles the process of downloading and installing SimCity 4 plugins, including all their dependencies.

Currently, this program only comes with a command-line interface (CLI).

Usage

• Prerequisites:
  • Java 8+ (https://adoptium.net/installation/)
  • Enough disk space
  • On macOS and Linux (not needed on Windows):
  • Mono (macOS/Linux): This is optional and only needed for a few packages that originally use an installer.
• Download the latest release and extract the contents to any location in your user directory (for example, your Desktop).

• Open a shell in the new directory (e.g. on Windows, open the folder and type cmd in the address bar of the explorer window) and run the command-line tool sc4pac by calling:

  • sc4pac in Windows cmd.exe
  • .\sc4pac in Windows PowerShell
  • ./sc4pac on Linux or macOS

  If everything works, this displays a help message.

• Install your first package memo:essential-fixes:
  • sc4pac add memo:essential-fixes
  • sc4pac update
• Be aware that Simtropolis has a download limit of 20 files per day. Intermediate downloads are cached, so if you reach the limit, simply continue the installation process the next day. Alternatively, there is a temporary workaround using cookies.
• Install other available packages.

Available commands

add             Add new packages to install explicitly.
update          Update all installed packages to their latest version and install any missing packages.
remove          Remove packages that have been installed explicitly.
search          Search for the name of a package.
info            Display more information about a package.
list            List all installed packages.
variant reset   Select variants to reset in order to choose a different package variant.
channel add     Add a channel to fetch package metadata from.
channel remove  Select channels to remove.
channel list    List the channel URLs.
channel build   Build a channel locally by converting YAML files to JSON.
server          Start a local server to use the HTTP API.

See CLI for details.

Plugins folder structure

(preliminary)

050-load-first
075-my-plugins         (your existing manually installed plugins)
100-props-textures
150-mods
170-terrain
180-flora
200-residential
300-commercial
360-landmark
400-industrial
500-utilities
600-civics
610-safety
620-education
630-health
640-government
650-religion
660-parks
700-transit
710-automata
777-network-addon-mod  (installed manually)
891-my-overrides       (your manually installed zzz-folders)
900-overrides

(source)

Packages are installed into even-numbered subfolders, as the order in which files are loaded by the game is important. Files you install manually should be put into odd-numbered subfolders (ideally before 900-overrides).

Migrating an existing Plugins folder

If you already have a non-empty Plugins folder and want to switch to sc4pac, start by moving the bulk of your manually installed files into a new subfolder 075-my-plugins and your zzz-folders into 891-my-overrides to ensure correct load order. Once you install more and more packages and dependencies with sc4pac, delete the corresponding older, redundant, manually installed files to avoid duplication or version conflicts. If a dependency was installed with sc4pac, there is no need to keep older manually installed copies of it.

In the long run, create additional odd-numbered subfolders for better organization of your manually installed files and to fine-tune load order.

Details

The sc4pac CLI saves its state in two files.

The file sc4pac-plugins.json stores the identifiers of packages you explicitly requested to install (without dependencies). This information is used by sc4pac to compute all the necessary dependencies and download and extract them into your plugins folder.

The file sc4pac-plugins-lock.json stores information about all the installed packages (including dependencies). This tells sc4pac which version of packages are installed, where to find them in your plugins folder and how to upgrade them to newer versions.

Sc4pac obtains its information from metadata stored in a remote channel. The metadata is added in terms of .yaml files (see Adding metadata). The metadata of the default channel is stored in the metadata repository.

Uninstalling

• Remove all installed packages from your plugins folder. Either:
  • run sc4pac remove --interactive and select everything, or
  • delete every folder named *.sc4pac from your plugins folder, or
  • delete the entire plugins folder.
• Optionally, delete the cache folder. (In case you forgot its location, it is saved in the file sc4pac-plugins.json, which you can open with a text editor.)
• Finally, delete the folder containing the sc4pac program files.