BAT Projects - SimGoober

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Let's see...

[x] Loading crane with shovel
[ ] Loading crane with hooks
[x] Some heaps of coal and other material (e.g. made by jeronij)
[x] Containers and trailers (made by gascooker & jestarr)
[x] misc. other industrial props
[x] rail and concrete overlay textures
[ ] some conveyor belts and open silos

= Cargo yards galore!


On a side note, I realized too late that I shouldn't have waited for Flopper Stppers to grow. Instead, I should have relied on the ploppable version. Only in doing so would I have become a proper Flopper Stopper plopper! Well, you can't have everything...

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Let's see...

[x] Loading crane with shovel
[ ] Loading crane with hooks
[x] Some heaps of coal and other material (e.g. made by jeronij)
[x] Containers and trailers (made by gascooker & jestarr)
[x] misc. other industrial props
[x] rail and concrete overlay textures
[ ] some conveyor belts and open silos

= Cargo yards galore!


On a side note, I realized too late that I shouldn't have waited for Flopper Stppers to grow. Instead, I should have relied on the ploppable version. Only in doing so would I have become a proper Flopper Stopper plopper! Well, you can't have everything...

[Andreas Roth 607]

Date: 2/13/2006 1:10:46 PM Author: T Wrecks

I have become a proper Flopper Stopper plopper!

quote>

 

Oh my, what funny stuff have you eaten today?

 

That loading crane looks gorgeous indeed, and I agree that some conveyor belts etc. would be a great addition to make the industrial prop set complete.

[The_Family_Guy 2]

This is about the problem I had with the helipad. I am using a PC, and now my city won't even load anymore! This started right when I deleted my pre-existing airport. It said that my budget was gone, and then I was booted out.

Perhaps I should delete it, and maybe try downloading again: no one else seems to be having any problems.

 

The weird thing was that the capacity of the helipad went up to the billions, then was filled to a matching number, making the helipad completely dilapidated. I deleted it, then rebuilt it.

 

There weren't any game related problems until I bulldozed my other airport (which went down to a 35 person occupancy from 100K+, after I built the helipad).

 

Any ideas?

[BarbyW 40]

Do you have this file: Airport Support File ? And if so did you follwo the instructions for installing it?

I have been using the Heliport in testing for several weeks and have had no problems.

Barby

[The_Family_Guy 2]

I do, and I installed it successfully.

[+Guest]

I have the Airport File and still unable to access city with a Heliport.Any help is appreciated.Thanx

[SimGoober 2,351]

I have to admit I am stumped as to what is happening with your airports.  Try deleting the heliport completely and try again.  If everything works, then it is probably a bug with mine, or Swampers mod.  if it doesn't work still... it's hard to say if it's a bug with either, a bug with another, or a conflict of some sort.

 

I'll ask Swamper to take a look at what you posted; maybe he will have some insight.  I will be out of touch for a few days, and will investigate some more when I return.

 

EDIT : T Wrecks, can you say that 5 times fast??  I can't...

[Zekumas 0]

Yeah, just like to say Excellent Work SG, but what if you don't want the growable lots, how do you remove them?

 

I prefer the plob lots myself.

[dev 47]

Well...I think I'm gonna get the heliport out of my plugins for safety...I don't think it's worth the chance of losing a city...or the trouble of testing, copying, etc. to see if it works right...

[kirgam 0]

I tried the heliport with swamper77's file and deleting the other 2 old ones before. Well, it didn't crash the game - but the Heliport got NO capacity at all (but still pollutes at 35). The other airports are still working (SWAP 2.2). What did I do wrong? Or to be more precise: why do I have neither crashes nor does it run properly?

[+Guest]

Goober it's a great concept of having a Heliport but it maybe to advance for Simcity 4.I hope ya get the kinks out it.Goodluck

[Swamper77 90]

I'm beginning to suspect the train station functions along with the transit switching properties are messing it up. There might be logic in Maxis not having transit switching (ie cars to peds) on their airport lots. I can't do any real testing of the airport as do not have any cities that would be able to support an airport. I can never get a city above 10K, so I can't test any of the big city stuff, such as this heliport.

-Swamper77

[SimGoober 2,351]

This is very odd.... We tested it in the BSC group and had no issues.  Now several people are reporting issues, so something must be going on.  And just my luck, I am going out of town for a few days.... dang it....

[SimGoober 2,351]

Ok all. After 2 hours of testing, tweaking, and crashing my cities, I have duplicated and resolved this issue.  There is no bug on the lot.  It has to do with file load order.

The Swamper77 Airport Support File, ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY needs to be in place, and in the RIGHT folder BEFORE you plop this lot.  If it is not, the city with crash and/or show the negative monster numbers on this lot.

 

Let me repeat that, as there are several key factors :

 

1) The mod has to be in place

2) The Mod has to be in the right place.

3) It has to be there before you plop this lot.

 

The right place is anywhere that the file loads AFTER any and all mods that use it.  I created a folder in my plugins called z_mods.  Anything in that folder should load last. I am going to recommend to Swamper he update the mod description to say that, and that he creates an installer for it to do just that.  It seems to be critical for this mod to work.

 

During testing, we had the mod file in the same folder as the test lot.  Since it starts with z it loaded last, and we never gave it a second thought.  As soon as the lot was released, it became appearant where the mod needs to be placed.

 

To fix a city with these problems, it is a little tricky.  First you must place the mod in the right place.  Then start that city and immedately PAUSE THE GAME.  Quickly go to where the heliport is, and bulldoze it.  Don't query it or give the game a chance to realise it is there.  Once you have bulldozed it, rebuild the avenue and railroad that get bulldozed with the lot and un-pause the game.  Let the game run a few months so it registers it is gone.  Then re-plop the lot, and it should perform fine.

 

In my tests, if you moved the file, or installed it AFTER the lot is plopped, it made no difference, and the city crashes.  Some info is always saved when you exit a city, even if you don't tell it to save.  Something to do with airports must be in that information.

 

I hope this fixes the issue for those that had it.  Unfortunately, I will be gone for the next 48 hours, and will not be able to check here to verify if it did until after that.

[turp 1]

I am having the same kind of problems if i put helicopter port in my city and then save it and leave game then i go back and it will crash everytime i try to get in

[dussin23 1]

So the file needs to load last, yet you say to put the mod in a z_mods folder (which will load last instead)?

[Swamper77 90]

Date: 2/13/2006 10:59:45 PM Author: dussin23 So the file needs to load last, yet you say to put the mod in a 'z_mods' folder (which will load last instead)?

quote>

What SG is saying is: put my Airport Support file in this z_mods folder so it loads last after all of the other plugins.

-Swamper77

[SoulStealer 12]

What a great addition to the game. tyvm for making it.

I have one minor problem though. After installing the heliport I can no longer plop 4ms Airport signs, it causes my game to crash. When I remove the support file I can plop the signs successfully. Any way around this?

 

4ms Aiport billboards: https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=13032

[Swamper77 90]

I guess I might have to add them as well. I had crashes while trying to place the SFBT Construction lots. I ended up moving them to the Landmarks Menu.

-Swamper77

[+Guest]

So in order to fix the problem I gotta create a z-mod folder then place the airport file into this folder and then all should be ok or did I miss a step?.Thanx

[Shinkiller 2]

Done all that, still not registering any capacity or people, and only 35 pollution...

 

Dang it... I like this heliport as it will satisfy airport needs in a smaller area... Maybe it needs to be airport only, and take the train part out?

 

M.

[pnorrell 4]

Date: 2/14/2006 8:18:18 AM
Author: Shinkiller

Done all that, still not registering any capacity or people, and only 35 pollution...

Dang it... I like this heliport as it will satisfy airport needs in a smaller area... Maybe it needs to be airport only, and take the train part out?

M.

quote>

No - it's the trickiness of the airport part that's the problem. Be aware that any new airport (and port) lots may take some tinkering to get working correctly and without conflicts.

[The_Family_Guy 2]

Perhaps you should try uploading it without the train station, and see what happens, because I still can't even get into my city.

[SoulStealer 12]

Date: 2/13/2006 11:45:17 PM Author: Swamper77 I guess I might have to add them as well. I had crashes while trying to place the SFBT Construction lots. I ended up moving them to the Landmarks Menu. -Swamper77

So, if I understand it correctly changing the signs OccupantGroups from Airport to Park or Landmark should solve the problem?

[The_Family_Guy 2]

Yeah, I'm going to have to pass on your heliport, SG. I did what you said, but the capacity just went to 0, and then my residential demand all went to zero! Yikes...I deleted all the files, and I await your return to tell me what to do next, because I really like that heliport.

Again, maybe you could temporarily upload one without a rail station, or maybe swamper could make a new support file? A longshot, but it's worth a yell.

[MrCynical 0]

I was also having trouble with the heliport causing crashes until I tried moving the support file to a z_mods folder (it was originally filed in a folder called airports, so presumably had a very high chance of loading in the wrong order). Now the crashes have stopped, but I'm getting the strange numbers for maintenance and capacity. The maintenance numbers display incorrectly (usually reading several million), but do actually seem to work correctly in the city budget. The capacity however does seem to be using these strange numbers, since the heliport does nothing if it happens to hit choose a negative value. I don't know if the heliport actually works with a capacity of millions if it chooses a really high number when the city is loaded.

Does anyone know of a way to retrieve (prevent crashing on loading) a city which once had the heliport while the support file was in the wrong folder. It wasn't a very important city, but it would be nice to have it back.

[SoulStealer 12]

I don't think there is a way to load a faulty city. Once it's saved with the bug in it, it's usually gone for good. I was able to restore an older version of my faulty city with an unerase tool like norton unerase. But you need to have it installed prior to making changes in your files. Norton keeps the older versions of over-writen and deleted files, (even files changed/deleted by applications not just by you). which you can restore or preeminently delete later. A very handy tool when it comes to simcity and experimenting with the custom bats.

Unfortunately, I will avoid using the helliport until the problems are resolved.

[SimGoober 2,351]

I have withdrawn this lot until I can figure out why it is working for some people, and completely screwing up for others.  I will keep it in testing until I am as sure as possible it won't screw up any more cities.

[pnorrell 4]

Date: 2/16/2006 9:20:19 AM Author: SimGoober I have withdrawn this lot until I can figure out why it is working for some people, and completely screwing up for others.  I will keep it in testing until I am as sure as possible it won't screw up any more cities.

quote>

Always prompt and responsible customer service from you, SimGoober.  I, for one, really appreciate that.