A basic flaw in Maxis prop families?

[FrankU]

Well, I found something very strange indeed.
It considers a very basic function in the most simple Maxis lots. And I am very confused about what is going on.

Listen,
Last week I wanted to make some new stage 1, 2, and 3 farms. So I put the selected files into a fresh Plugins folder, opened the LotEditor and opened the first Maxis farm with size 2x3 (0x900012d0---I-r1_2x3---).



Then I took a close look at the props that were on it.

I checked every prop and found four different props:
two prop families: 0xa000004b and 0xa000004d, which are shrub prop families.
one prop: the barn and anonther prop: the flatbed trailer

Look at the images to make sure I am not saying anything stupid.


The barn


The flatbed


Prop family 0xa000004b

I hope you will believe me without an image to prove it that all other shrub-like props you see on the lot are either 0xa000004b or 0xa000004d.
Of course you can check for yourself. And in fact I'd like you to do it to see if this is common or to prove that there is something very wrong with my SC4 game.

Now, if you look closely, there is something weird. Not all blue squares that represent the prop families have the same size. Especially this one is very large, though it is 0xa000004d, containing nothing but three small shrubs. If I click on it and cycle through the props (with n-key) I indeed see only the three props that are listed.
What is going on here?


Also the flatbed in front of the greenhouse looks a bit too large. Wasn't the prop smaller? And indeed, when I select the prop and place it anew next to the prop that was originally on the lot I see a different size.


Now that is enough in the LotEditor. What will we see when the lot is placed in game?

After I had found all the above I emptied my plugins folder to make sure this was not caused by some conflict with the plugins in some way. But no, all images shown here were made with a completely empty plugins folder except for the "SimCity 4 Extra Cheats Plugin.dll", because I needed that for the next images.

I placed the lot several times into a completely new and empty city.
(Crtl X, Lotplop, and then select "0x900012d0, lotname I-r1_2x3)

This is what I got:
(In my Dutch game the lot is called Heintzbergen boerderij)


and



You see that there are many props that should not have been there.
The flatbed, which was not a prop family but a single prop, is replaced by a shrub, a trailer, a pallet with cans and a tree. And sometimes it even is the flatbed.

The barn behind the greenhouse, which also is a single prop according to the LotEditor, is replaced by a haystack, a tractor, the pallet with cans, a waterpump and the flatbed.

Also the shrub props suddenly show a trailer (so that's the reason why the blue square of the prop family was so large!), a tree, the flatbed, the pallet with cans and on some spots they are even invisible (which is a very interesting feature indeed, if reproducible!).

After this I even checked these fact with grown farms in game.
I give you one example. I could show more, but this does not add more info and it makes loading time of this post even larger.



Now is there someone who want to check if this problem is reproducible on her/his own computer? And is there someone who knows what is going on?     

[Andreas]

I haven't checked this, but it might be possible that Maxis used some "ad-hoc" prop families on those lots. You can create variety with the selection of props either with prop families, or by adding additional prop IDs manually after the 13th REP in the corresponding "LotConfig" line in the lot exemplar file. While prop families are easier to use, ad-hoc families have the advantage that you can create any combination you want, without the need to add a prop family property to the prop exemplar files.

[RippleJet]

I haven't checked this, but it might be possible that Maxis used some "ad-hoc" prop families on those lots.

Yes, that's exactly what Maxis did here.
You can read more about them in smoncrie's Alternative to Prop Families

Only the prop (or family) indicated by the 13th rep of such "alternative families" are shown in LE (you need Reader to see the extra information).
However, all props on Farhan's farm (Heintzbergen boerderij) have at least two extra reps:

Most brush props (13 of them) have these in reps 13, 14 and 15:

• 0xA000004D, 0xA000004B, 0xA000004A

Two of the brush props have these in reps 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17:

• 0xA000004D, 0xA000004B, 0xA000004C, 0xA000004A, 0xA0000052

Two of the brush props have these in reps 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 (these are the ones showing as 0xA000004B):

• 0xA000004B, 0xA000004D, 0xA000004A, 0xA0000078, 0xA0000077

One of the brush props (the big one) has these in reps 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18:

• 0xA000004D, 0xA0000052, 0x1D430000, 0x2A420000, 0x1D550000, 0x03060000

The truck in front of the barn has these in reps 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17:

• 0x1D430000, 0x2A420000, 0x1D550000, 0xA0000052, 0xA000004D

And finally, the shed behind the barn has these in reps 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18:

• 0xAE1A0000, 0x1C410000, 0x2A480000, 0x1D430000, 0x2A1A0000, 0x2A420000

Note that this way you can freely mix individual props (e.g. 0xAE1A0000 - the shed, and 0x1D430000 - the flatbed truck)
with prop families (e.g. the brush families 0xA000004A, 0xA000004B, 0xA000004C, 0xA000004D).

[FrankU]

Ah, OK,

I already had the suspicion that someone before me must have discovered this.
This means that I can use this feature in every copy of these lots, but not on other lots. I see.

Thanks guys.