Problems with PEGs OWW

[Rady]

Hi, yesterday I wanted to place some of PEGs OWW2-Lots. I did that already in another city without problems, but this time the LOTs are placed at different altitudes.

Initially I had a ground level of 257,7 m and used Jeronjis Seawalls. Than, for the OWW2 files, I thougt I remeber that they need to be placed nearly at sea level like those harbour files. So I used PEGs CDK4-Leveler to get the correct terrain altitude, then I flattened out the terrain using street tiles. Everything looked perfect as you can see here:



Then I removed some srteet tiles in order to place the OWW2 LOTs:



However, no matter what I did the different LOTs ALWAYS ended up at different altitudes:



Has anyone encountered that behaviour before? As I mentioned I already placed a complete OWW2-waterfront in another city without problems. And I can't think of anything different that I did then ..

[threestooges]

I would suggest that you try removing all roads around the pieces before plopping. I know the surroundings of a lot can have an influence on its plopping . I've experienced the problem myself. I got it to work with some trial and error, but I'm not sure what causes it. I'm fairly sure it has something to do with the lot properties, but I'm not sure what.

The best place to go for technical support for Peg's works would be Peg's site. He should know what causes it and be able to give you the best information since they're his lots.

[FrankU]

I had the same problem and teared some hairs out of my head from frustration.
I guess the problem is related to the ground level.
I did encounter the problem on a city tile where I levelled the ground one meter too high. As I edited the city in Terraformer, using the Make Harbour tool, the problem disappeared.
So the question is: what is the easiest way of levelling to this harbour level? I only know the Terraformer.

It might really come in handy if there was a leveller tool that gave us an exact level on plopping. Maybe our slope mod friends could help us out?

[Rady]

FrankU, that's what PEGs CDK-Leveller is for (at least it's supposed to level the terrain exactly for whats needed by harbour lots. You can find this tool over at simpeg.com (you'll need to register btw). I already have a thread over there since both the leveller and the OWW2 is from PEGASUS.

This tool worked out fine once, but now I encountered problems. I already have some suggestions, as there are:
> using road instead of street for levelling
> creating a falt seabed - possibly this behavior is generated by the seabed along the coastal line going up and down (which mine definetely does)
> SAV-EXIT-ENTER AGAIN after terraforming ...


I will give it a try and keep this post up to date in case I succeed (or fail, in that case I will come for some hugs to get over it  ..)

[psander5]

Hi, I've had many such problems when plopping self levelling coastal lots.  From my experience all I can suggest is trial and error.  I've even had the same problem with PEG's CDK levelling lots, since they use the same self levelling 'technology'.  I would definitely echo the suggestion to have a level sea floor as well as coastal area.  Even that though doesn't help too much in my experience.  Neither does the save/exit/re-enter attempt.  It seem to me as if their are certain areas of a map that are prone to this 'glitch'.  Occasionally I can built a massive port in one area of a city tile with no problems at all, then I move to another area and I encounter the levelling problem as in your pic.

What I usually do when I get this glitch is to level the area as sea using the mayor mode tool, then use that same tool to carefully level it back out into harbour height land.  That sometimes enables better placement, but is incredibly tedious if it's just a 3 tile stretch of coastline that's affected.

It doesn't seem to be lot related either, so sometimes you can use a larger lot to 'bridge' the affected area... but this doesn't always work, nor is it always possible to find a larger lot.

I've never sought support from PEG's site though, so my experiences might be completely useless if you take the time to look   There might be a perfectly simple, straight forward proven technique for fixing it... but I've never been bothered to look myself 

[SC4BOY]

There is a fairly extensive and detailed tutorial on using those lots. Its been available as long as I've been playing SC4.. about 7 yrs or so.. I don't generally do my harbors that way, but it definitely works..

"PEG-Style" harbor forming

[Rady]

Hi to all!

I already managed to place the LOTs after I

> levelled the whole place with the CDK leveler (instead of placing it once and expanding the levelled area with the road tool)

> levelled the seabed as best as I could by switching between "water pipe" mode and terrain editing since you simply dont see what you're doing when terraforming underneath water (there must be a "sealevel cheat" out there somewhere but I yet have to find it).

> dezoned the whole area

So, I'll keep you informed  ...

[Swamper77]

One of the best ways I found to edit terrain that is underwater is to use the "Water Pollution" dataview. It shows the water surface as almost transparent, so you can see under it.

-Jan

[Rady]

One of the best ways I found to edit terrain that is underwater is to use the "Water Pollution" dataview. It shows the water surface as almost transparent, so you can see under it.

-Jan

Now THAT seems to be the genius idea! I already found quite a lot of different ideas around here an at other sites, bus the obvious one didn't come into my mind ... can't wait to give it a try this evening!

[FrankU]

I remember having worked with the CDK leveller, but it didn't seem to do the job. I don't know exactly what went wrong but anyway I deleted the lots (surely have them in my backup directory).
The levelling with Terraformer seemed to work, but I'd be glad if there was something more useful for small areas.

By the way: I usually play with large flat areas of land and a flat area for seabed. I like abstract landscapes. Natural shapes make me nervous. 

Another BTW: I have the impression that the problem rises when land level is almost the right harbour level. So if the terraformed level is maybe 1 or 2 meters higher than the lots need to be. If the land level is much higher I thought I found that the self levelling of the lots and the CDK tools work fine. But I am not sure....

[SC4BOY]

There is a mention in the above linked tutorial that the  game has a "memory" problem..and that when you first place the lot, it is at proper level, but has "retention" .. I don' t know if this is based on the "reconciliation algorithm" or what.. but he suggests exiting and re-entering the city immediately after the plop (I think.. I'm speaking from recall.. check the tutorial for the straight skinny) and it goes to the right level... I don't normally use this method, but it certainly is one which has been re-visited for the bazillionth time..

[Rady]

Good Morning to all of you who participated in my darkest sc4-hours   


I couldn't stand to wait until the weekend to give it a new try so yesterday night I started up my city (it was almost today, as a matter of fact   ) and tried the "terraforming in water pollution mode" trick. First, to me this seems the easiest way without the hazard of running into other problems by e.g using the "sealevel cheat". So I terraformed some parts of my seabed. Pressing the "g" (show/hide grid) button continously helps a lot since you will get a bright yellow grid the size of 2x2 the normal sc4 grid size. That helps much in identifying where to position the terraforming tool (on size 1 setting) since near or below sealevel the normal sc4 grid won't show.

So I flattened out some areas and plopped again some OWW2-lots - and guess - it worked without problems. So the conclusion I can draw from this for a proper proceeding is:

1. use the CDK leveller for the whole area - don't flatten out the area using the road tile method
2. flatten your seabed at least where you're gonna plop the lots
3. pray
4. plop

So, again thanks to everyone of you!

[FrankU]

Hello Rady,

I hope you had a good morning's sleep after the experiment? 

I will dig up PEGs lots form my external HD and test your method, except for the praying part. Thanks.

[Rady]

Hello Rady,

I hope you had a good morning's sleep after the experiment? 

Naa, it ended at 5 o'clock with the sound of my alarm clock

...except for the praying part. Thanks.

Not sure wheter the process works out then  At least I would suggest to add a bit of hope ...