This tutorial will teach you how to effectively copy lot designs from one type of lot to another one entirely, without too much hassle. I have created a different thread for this other than Toroca's converting ploppable BATs to growables thread because this method - in my humble opinion - is a bit easier, but more importantly, is much more flexible. You can use this tutorial to copy lot designs from a growable lot to a ploppable utility building, or from a ploppable landmark to a seaport, or whatever the case is. -------------------- First, a bit of background information to get you familiar with what we're doing and why it works. Lot files are comprised of two exemplars: the building (statistics and building properties as set in the Plugin Manager), and the LotConfig. The LotConfig is comprised of a few statistics, such as the lot's growth stage, exemplar name, maximum slope placement, and a few other things, but the primary function of the LC is what SC4 reads to create the lot. Each of the LotConfigObjectData lines contains placement instructions for one piece of a lot. They are numbered sequentially, as you see if you look in the property ID column. Order does not matter (you can have #1 be a prop, #2 a texture, #3 a prop, and so on), so long as there is a continuous string of sequential property IDs (e.g. 1,2,3,4 is good, but you can't have 1,2,4,5 - that crashes the Lot Editor and probably the game, too). How to tell the difference between each type of placement property is important, too, as you'll see in a bit. Properties with the first value being 0x00000000 are the ones we're interested in - there will only be one of these per lot file, but there always will be one, never zero - it is the placement instructions for the Building, as set in the Building tab of the LE. The rest are either textures, props, or transit-enabled tile code (those have 2 more reps than the rest, should you ever need to know which ones control transit enabling). With all this said, you know pretty much what I knew when I thought of how to copy lot designs. Alrighty, so, let's say you have a lot downloaded from the STEX that's a landmark. You want to make it a CS$$$. You make the sc4desc file in the Plugin Manager, open the lot editor, throw together a lot with no effort (random base textures, no props, just a building), making sure it is the same dimensions as the downloaded version in terms of tile size. Now save it as a new file and exit the Lot Editor. Open the new lot in the Reader and go to the LotConfig exemplar. Find the LotConfigObjetData property that begins with 0x00000000 and double-click on it. Now, in the Values as Text field, select everything, and copy it to the clipboard. Open up Windows Notepad or some simple word processing program and paste those values. Back in the Reader, now select all LotConfigObjectData properties by clicking once on the first one, then holding shift and clicking on the last one. Right-click and select Delete Properties. Now you should have a LotConfig exemplar with no LotConfigObjectData properties! Open up another instance of the Reader and load the original lot file that you want to copy the designs from. Again, go to the LotConfig exemplar and click on the first LotConfigObjectData property, hold shift, then click on the last. Now, right-click and select Copy Properties. See where we're going with this? Now, switch back to the new lot file you threw together, go to the LotConfig exemplar, right-click, and select Paste Properties. Only one more step! Find the 0x00000000 property again and double-click on it. Select the text in the Values as Text field and press Delete. Now, go back to your word processing document, select all the text you pasted, and copy it back to the clipboard (the LotConfigObjectData lines overwrote it in the system clipboard). Paste it in the Values as Text field, press the Apply button immediately to the right of the text area, then click on OK. Save the file and load the Lot Editor, re-loading the file you earlier threw together. Tada; you should have a duplicate of the original lot, except for the Building's placement, which you can obviously then adjust. -------------------- I hope this was a relatively coherent tutorial; I threw it together during the last half of my lunch, originally for T Wrecks. If you have any questions, please post here. I know there are ways I could improve this.