Missing dependency and blank lots

[Turjan]

I'm relatively new to this forum, so I hope this is the right place to ask these questions.

I downloaded Chrisadams3997's excellent "ALN Football Fields BSC", and it has two prop sets listed as dependencies (BSC MEGA Props ALN Vol01 and BSC MEGA Props ALN Vol03). Now I found out that this is not sufficient (the larger fields don't work), and the football field and track for all the larger lots are actually in BSC MEGA Props ALN Vol02, which is not listed as dependency, though it's a somewhat obvious choice. I later noticed that someone else already stumbled upon this in the comments. My actual question: Is there maybe a moderator who might add this to the proper lot description, given that the creator seems not to be around anymore?


The second question regards some blank lot. I have a blank lot with props but without buildings spread in my game. The query says "Blank_IM", and the props include stuff like a set of three semi trailers, parking lots with cars, stacks of boxes, and most prominently some flower pots with roses. The lot provides 468 jobs and seems to work fine, but obviously looks odd. I found a thread here on the forums regarding blank lots, but the last activity was years ago. The cleanitol file attached to the thread didn't find anything, and I didn't find a match in the lists. If anyone has an idea what it could be I would be glad. It's clear that this is my fault of adding too many plugins at once, but maybe I'm lucky and someone knows what it could be and I don't have to go through everything .

[catty]

Can't help you re the first problem as it needs someone with LEX admin rights to make those changes, as for the second these plugins will query as "Blank_IM" if you have them in game

Seaport03_2ee62a4d.SC4Lot
Eembden Lutherske Kark_33427a54.SC4Lot
Dock_03_ef9bfe12.SC4Lot
Dock_02_ef942d55.SC4Lot
Seaport02_2ee61c21.SC4Lot
Blank_IM6x5_4db6c162.SC4Lot
Seaport04_2ee63a70.SC4Lot
Dock_05_8f9e8a97.SC4Lot
Seaport01_6ee5fece.SC4Lot
Havoc_ballmanufacturers.dat
Dock_04_6f9c02e6.SC4Lot
Dock_01_2f8982c7.SC4Lot
LNG_Plant_4f20e934.SC4Lot
Dock_06_0fa05a89.SC4Lot
Kloveniersburgwal 95 Dat Poppenhuis_5343547b.SC4Lot

-catty

[Turjan]

Thanks Catty. I definitely have the Eembden Lutherske Kark from that list, even if I have had it for ages and had never anything blank grow. 468 jobs sounds a bit much for it.

I don't think I have any of the others, although I should check again. It might be something that's not on the list. If I have to check everything, I'll probably start with some of the Japanese lots I added, given that I might have missed something in the readme's that I cannot read .

[catty]

If its any help Dock_06_0fa05a89.SC4Lot looks like this



  unfortunately I can't show you pictures of the others as I need to finish labeling all the pictures in the gallery

http://citybuilders.co.nz/index.php/gallery

[Turjan]

Very nice gallery . Hmm, that makes me wonder whether I misidentified my problem. The lots I'm talking about look like this:



Different sizes, props vary, all the same query. It looks like missing dependencies, but there's no brown box or anything like that.

Edit: Maybe a missing texture pack?

[catty]

Doing a manual picture to database search the nearest match appears to be the Havoc_ballmanufacturers.dat



sorry I don't have bigger pictures and it doesn't match job wise you can find it on the STEX here

http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/3526-havoc-ball-manufacturer/

and looking at that picture I don't think its that one either

got to go to work so will another look tonight if you are still looking

-catty

[mattb325]

Do you have any of the old buildings as props mods by raphaelninja? These pre-date Maxis' release of the buildings as props.

They have naming conventions like this: "Plugin_RCI_Buildings_Prop_Modd.dat" and are known to be one of the culprits of blank lots.

[Turjan]

Sorry, work took a bit longer today. Thanks for the suggestions. I'm pretty sure I downloaded that ball manufacturer file, but I'm also pretty sure I never installed it. Regarding the files from rafaelninja, I'm pretty sure I don't have them. I also hope that the Cleanitol file I used from the empty lots thread should have caught those.

I really installed much too much stuff at once. Most of it were civics, and I think I only used Bripizza's General Hospital in my cities. One of those empty lots looks clearly like industry, and I didn't really install that many of those. There were several lots by Jasoncw and by you, matt, (I see Nokia and Sagra Technology everywhere in my cities now, thanks ), two from Bripizza that don't look like the lots, and some from some other Japanese modder that I don't remember the name of (several schools, offices and factories in white with blue edges). I'm trying to find the latter at the moment.

Edit: I found out that both lots in the image (4x4 or 4x5) are the ones from the Maxis IM shop "Wright Widgets", if that helps in any way.

[catty]

...I found out that both lots in the image (4x4 or 4x5) are the ones from the Maxis IM shop "Wright Widgets", if that helps in any way.

I'll have to do a bit of looking, the Maxis "Wright Widgets" building looks like this



EDIT: You can try the Query.txt and see if that tell you any more about the lots, to use Query.txt select the Query toll and then hold down the SHIFT + CTRL + ALT keys (this requires the SC4 Extra Cheats .dll to work) and click on the lot, it will generate a file usually in your /Program Files/Maxis/... folder

it can sometimes tell you the name of the plugin, a random example taken from the original topic  http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=8870

Code Select Expand

|-----------------------------------------------------------
| Query info for cell (114, 163) on 10/4/2768
|-----------------------------------------------------------
| Lot: (116, 161) 6x6, north-facing, state: occupied new, configuration: R$$_6x6 TaiYuen Phase2a TE (CAM)_b3defe85
| Jobs $0.0 $$0.0 $$$0.0 - Travel Jobs $0 $$0 $$$0
| Building: R$$ TaiYuenPhase2 (CAM), 9411 $$
| Occupancy--building (tract): R$ 0% (0%), R$$ 93% (100%),
| Zoned: Plopped Bldg
| Altitude: 270.0
| Land value, intrinsic: 10, total: 255 (High)
| Slope: 0.0
| Powered: yes
| Watered: yes
| Network:
| Traffic Volume: 255   Traffic Congestion: 0
| Edge Density Matrix for travel type 0 (total = 0):
...
|-----------------------------------------------------------


hope that helps

-catty

[Turjan]

Hi Catty, that's another great piece of info, even if it didn't tell me what I wanted. Now I know how to get detailed jobs info. The relevant info:

Lot: (27, 56) 4x5, south-facing, state: occupied new, configuration: I-m3_4x5_90000de0
| Jobs $217.5 $$195.8 $$$21.7 - Travel Jobs $218 $$196 $$$22
| Building: Blank_IM, 468 $$
| Occupancy--building (tract): Im 93% (93%)

The configuration info is unfortunately the same as that for the real Wright Widgets, which also grows in this city (that's how I found out which lots the offending plugin (ab)uses), and the building name is still Blank_IM.

I wonder if the real plugin building would grow if I zoned larger. Then again, I doubt it, as the problem seems to be that the plugin building must have been assigned to the building family Wright Widgets is in, and those lots are small. Anyway, I'll give it a try.

[catty]

Hi Catty, that's another great piece of info, even if it didn't tell me what I wanted. Now I know how to get detailed jobs info. The relevant info:

Lot: (27, 56) 4x5, south-facing, state: occupied new, configuration: I-m3_4x5_90000de0....

No I still can't tell you where you downloaded the file from or what it's name is, but I can tell you that "90000de0" as well as belonging to a MAXIS building also belongs to a file called "SimCity_1_dat_ExemplarFiles.dat" and it was created by Tropod while working on something for MAC users

http://community.simtropolis.com/topic/2755-macs-rh-update/

-catty

[Turjan]

Hi Catty, thanks again for your help. I'm not sure what to say, but my problem found a happy though somewhat unsatisfying end. All my empty lots - and I had maps where they made up nearly one third of all industry - were overgrown. In the most infested city I had rezoned some of the land with a large roadless zone, and I had seen lots of new buildings I had never seen before, but they all had names or blank name fields and a different number of jobs compared to the offending lots.

When I restarted  the game today, the empty zones had their wealth level changed from $$ to $$$, and it took less than a minute that they were overgrown by the real Wright's Widgets or both variants of Patch"s Paint (both are $$ outfits). All cities that I opened had their empty lots been overgrown immediately when I opened them. I'm as clueless as before, but the search has come to a preliminary end.

In full disclosure, I had actually deleted the file Eembden Lutherske Kark_33427a54.SC4Lot that you listed further upthread as soon as you mentioned it, especially as I had never seen this building in my game or in any of the menus (I have had it in my plugins for weeks now). But this deletion had no immediate effect, and I have saved and restarted the game several times since. Oh well. Let's hope the problem doesn't show up again.

[catty]

good to hear it sorting itself out ... good luck for future playing   

[Turjan]

Thanks. It's not completely over yet, as I now had a commercial lot grow blank. That was nameless and had 1000 jobs, so definitely one of the Japanese files. That's so rare that my chance to find the culprit would be practically nil, if it weren't for the very limited number of files with that many jobs to look at.

One question though: Does a building that doesn't show the usual growth out of the ground but just an empty growth field and then blinks into existence when the growth field disappears have this problem, or is that unrelated?


Edit: So, finally identified some plugins, like G. Thomas Corporation and a few others. Let's hope the purge now stops this.

[catty]

...One question though: Does a building that doesn't show the usual growth out of the ground but just an empty growth field and then blinks into existence when the growth field disappears have this problem, or is that unrelated?...

Good question its one I don't think I can answer tho, when someone mods a new lot they have the option of changing how something constructs in-game (how long it takes, what the construction looks like eg are there cranes, etc, does it just pop up).

That's something you can look at yourself using ilive reader or the PIM  you can find both on the LEX here  http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=656  and here  http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2260

-catty

[Turjan]

Cool, I will have a look some time next week.

If anyone still updates that "Empty Lots" list, G. Thomas Corporation is from Beach Star and grows empty on commercial lots. There were others, but I just kicked them all out as they had blank name fields and I couldn't identify them.