Okay, so I may have figured it out.
If you are using the Outlanders mod (or any mod that adds a NEW kind of dwelling other than vanilla) obviously Nordos wouldn't have touched it.

Considering that each sector/settlement/whatever will only ever add +1 sector, you are always only ever going to be +1 sector ahead of running out.

I'll also have to check but some modifications to Therian and Heritor or other "dwelling" sectors by other modders might do something that throws this balance off too. But if it helps, check if you're running out of sectors to add has something to do with adding in dwellings vs landmarks and normal sectors.

Unfortunately, this does not appear to currently work with the mods that spawn in landmakers and dwellings unless I'm doing something wrong.

my mod basically works this way:
- residential sectors have an attribute called 'annex range' and 'increase annex count'. Basically, if you build a residential sector, it increases the annex range (baseline is 1) and you unlock a new sector to annex (baseline is 4).
- I added these attributes to the sector structures themselves. now, whenever you annex a sector, even without specialization, it will work as a residential sector. As such, you can expand endlessly, as long as you have more population.

I didn't touch the attribute that tells the game how many additional pops it needs to unlock a new sector, though (IIRC anyway). So you still need 4 new pops before you can annex a new sector. It doesn't matter which specialization you use, though.

At least reloading the save its a good "fix" and doesnt take much time! Also one thing i noticed, building a resident slot unlocks at 20 and 24 pop a new sector to annex, soo lf the limit its 4 and i buy a residential il go for a total of 8? ( 1 base city - 1 Residential - and 6 sectors in total? )

Good that you found a workaround for it, even though it is quite annoying :) I fear this issue is a hardcoded one, as such workarounds are the only way to fix it. Maybe there is some way to refresh it forcefully, but I haven't yet found the optimal way just yet.

I think its the sectors bug, after reloading everything goes back to normal. Im not using other mods that change sectors / cities / landmakrs except this one. Other mods im using are with new factions only

since that is NOT the expected behaviour, I need some more informations.
Do you use any other mod? Any mod that changes the sectors will be incompatible.
There also is, as I mentioned, a bug that sometimes make sectors not annexable until it somehow gets refreshed.

Hello! I wanted to ask lf its normal that with this mod after i annex 4 normal sectors i stop expanding? I can keep making resident sectors until i want, but when i get 5 normal sectors i cant expand anymore, isnt please possible to have sectors unlimited? Or im doing somenthing wrong?

Feels like that, just in case, I'd need the dlcs to really make use of this one. So, I'll come back to this.

I would still be interested if you actually can use this mod even without having the DLCs. I am not clear how such a thing exactly works. It may be that the changes are just ignored (as in, every DLC change does not affect you). In that case, you would be able to use this version without a problem.
It may be that it does require the DLCs to work to begin with, though.

TL;DR: the DLCs changes are only necessary if you actually have the DLCs.

This mod does require the DLCs, mostly because I edited all landmarks as well. There is a version without the landmarks, which, I hope, should not require the DLCs:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2746874108
That version does not have unlimited Exploitations, though.

Just to be clear, in order to utilize this mod, I require all the DLCs? Or will it work without them?

Yeah. I can change it so that it happens at, lets say, 16 or 12 pops instead.
I thought the residential would work differently, but of course it would need to get its own sectors before you can get additionals, and since the last 2 sectors were at 100 pops, you were not able to get new ones before reaching that point.
Anyway, commenting that under the Population mod would have been a bit better so that I don't get too confused :P

At pop 24, when I click on a sector, it says "needs 76 more colonists before it can add this sector" :-D. I think those mods are breaking the game a little :-D
24 + 76 = 100
Need more testing... On it...

Each sector gives, with this mod, 4 slots (1x of each Energy, Prod, Food and Science). So that each annected Sector gives enough pop slots to get another sector going.
Well, if you CAN'T annex anything anymore, you can't get slots that way either...

Maybe changing the amount of worker slots given each time a sector is annexed? Is that possible? Would that solve the problem?

I mean, your problem is as following:
- you reached the pop cap. Pop cap is determined by the amount of your workers. It basically is the accumulative of all worker spots.
- you have, due to having enough pops, not reached the sector limit.
- annexing a new sector would allow for more workers, which allows for a higher population cap
- you are unable to annex more sectors, due to the vanilla(?) bug.
- because you can't annex a new sector (even though you have annexing spots free), you don't get additional worker spots, and thus your population cap stagnates.

What you basically need, would be a repeatable upgrade that increases worker slots. Dunno if thats possible, never tried to do it.

"freepop" didn't help, stuck at 49/49. Will have to grow a megacity (again) up to 100, stop growth, and test mod...

yes, thats what I mean with the bug. Some sectors just aren't annexable even though they OUGHT to be. And no, I have no clue how to fix it. I assume its a vanilla bug

Oh, and I could only annex that sector I had razed. No other sector was annexable.

Outright, no change. I raze a sector, pass one turn. Now I am at "542/538 Maximum population reached". Still nothing on "Event", no population growth expected.
Maybe I will have to ditch this map and start again... I guess I can "freepop" my way to 100, stop growth of population, and see if I can still make new sectors. Just to test if that would work.

yeah, thats the problem then, I suppose. You are theoretically capable of annexing other sectors, but none of them let themselves be annexed :/
I sometimes was able to circumvent it by either annexing something nearby, loading, or building a forward base...

As far as I see, I am not at max sectors. I found this bug, but only with sectors that were close (1-2 sectors distance) to another city. Maybe it "reserves" some growing space for cities....

Last question, because I forgot to ask it:
Are you at 'maximum' annexable sectors as well? As I had written, there is sometimes a bug that you can't annex regions that you ought be able to annex (and I have no clue how to fix that)...

I will try the new version asap. Hopefully with the same map, I hope I don't have to grow a new one up to 542 :-D
Thanks a lot

If it counts the difference from "last pop" to "current pop", maybe the solution would be to cheatingly reduce the population? Then there would be new increases of pop, so new "Annex sector" options... maybe....

In the population panel, i get "542/542" (current/max). At the right of that, there should be the number of turns needed until pop is increased. But in my case, there is nothing. If i hover the mouse over the "542/542" it shows "Maximum population: 542".

so, apparently, the way a new sector due to residential just looks at the difference of the last and the one before, so, if both are at 16, they ... the difference is 0...
So, at least that. From what I tested anyway (I had over 30 sectors with 18 pops)

I added a new version with that 'feature'. If it doesn't work outright, you may need to burn down one sector and re-annex it. Try that at least.

In my test, at least, the maximum cap is over 1k (I am at 482). So, the question is, is that the case for you, too?

If there was a way to make a residential not "cost" any pop.... The requirements for building a residental are not in the same place where you found the max number? Idk....

That happened to me as well, several times, city decided to sell all food. I had to change it to "keep" or "take" food to go on. But this 542 is different, it stays there even if I keep the food. And the "xxx turns" at the right of the pop number has disappeared. Clearly no new pop will spawn...

damn.
Is the 542 the cap, or is the cap higher, but your pops don't go over 542?
When I tested it, after reaching a certain size, my city decided to sell all food, even though pop slots were still open. I do not think this happened to you, but I wan to be certain.

Not sure where the sector to pop is tied to (I know the initial ones, which are, again, in the citycore, but not the logic behind the additional sectors due to residentials)

Maybe the only solution is to untie the "annex sector" from the population increase... Idk.... Or maybe it's just impossible to build a megacity without breaking the game... :-P

I spoke too soon.... Maximum population: 542. Doesn't move from that...

It worked!! Beyond 400 pop and 50 sectors, no problem :-)
Thank you very much!!

Sorry for that delay, but damn is it annoying to get a cityp up to 400+ to test whetever it truly did what it ought to do.
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2755307106&result=1
Please test whetever it works. Thanks.

As long as it is compatible with this "extended sectors" mod, I would be good with it, thank you, would be very appreciated. I don't use Adventure mod or any other "City" mod. Finally being able to test the megacity... I will tell you if I encounter other limitations after testing it :-)

@coyote:
It is actually not hard to change the population cap. The reason I did remove this feature was, because it tends to clash with other mods (any mod that adds new buildings for the city, for example). Reason for that is, that the colony core has a LOT of things you can change ... and only one change takes precedence (so sadly even if I only change the cap, it will still overwrite the changes from, lets say, Adventure Mod).
I don't think there is any other way to overwrite it, not as far as I can see. If you really want it, I can make a very, very, very small mod that merely changes the population cap.

@ohalucky:
It is possible. I ... kinda did what you want, but as a prerequisite instead of being the objective itself: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2521313374

I just tested it in Enormous, 12 players. Mod works great! Then I hit "Maximum population reached" in my megacity, at 400 colonists and 52 sectors (if I counted it right). Do you know of any way of bypassing this? If maxpop can't be changed, maybe changing the requirements for annexing a sector? Maybe 1 pop -> 1 sector, or unlocking the "Annex sector" action after reaching maxpop...? Idk....

Can you create a mod that removes the penalties of razing a colony? The race relation and reputation penalties are so annoying that makes me abandon the game eventually.

For those trying to cheat their way to the "one single MegaCity filling all the map", remember that population limit of a city is also capped... I don't know if it is possible to change that, too.

Works fine, all on 999.

@JayIo:
can you try it again?

gimme a few mins. Gotta find the pack where the relays were defined. Sadly can't overwrite it from the pack I imported (I tried)

More relays and this will be spot on,thanks.