Texture sets & Prop packs (dangerous)

[Cougar2004 127]

Texture sets and Prop packs are often dependencies of other lots downloaded from the STEX.  What are the risks and dangers of downloading and installing tons of texture sets and prop packs? 

Could it cause:

*  Instability

*  Game load slowing

*  Crashing

*  Game functionality breaking

*  Conflicts with other game items

Its tempting for many new users to want to download and install all the most popular downloads.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

What really is dangerous is not knowing what you are doing and brainlessly downloading stuff, ignoring the readmes, and slapping it all into a big, chaotic heap of files that was once known as "plugins folder".

As long as people learn the basics first, build up slowly, and read the enclosed readmes carefully, there is actually not much danger.

It is also a smart idea to dteer clear of more complicated mods that affect the game mechanisms themselves at first and become accustomed to handling custom content with simple addons like some park lots first.

Every single bit and byte inside your plugins folder causes slowdown because the game reads it at startup - this is as inevitable as consuming gas when you take your car to reach your holiday destination. The farther you want to take it, the more you will consume.

Prop and texture packs for use as dependencies have thoroughly indexed and reserved ID values made with the goal of preventing crashes and conflicts in the first place.

On some computers, the game just doesn't run well, and a crash can never be ruled out entirely. However, I have more than a gigabyte of plugins installed, and my SimCity simply doesn't crash. Ever.

What's much more dangeraous than all prop and texture packs together is:

- old ploppable lots based on Ralphaelninja's RCI Blank Lots

- misconfiguration of complex mods like the NAM and/or terrain mods due to not reading the readme thoroughly enough

- overwriting files with older instances.

I hope this helps a bit...

[Cougar2004 127]

Okay, understood. It sounds like prop packs and textures are pretty safe to add to a game, then.

As i search the forums, I find hundreds of threads all saying how the user removed some mod or plugin, and their city was severely damaged, or the game won't even run.

I guess testing should occur in a NEW blank region, in a NEW city, and then once a user has tested something there, take it to their live game. A bit more work than I had hoped, but id hate to lose my cities and regions by loading a bad plugin, or removing a plugin because i really wanted to try a different one.

[wouanagaine 83]

make backup, so even if you have not tested the lot, and it ruins your city, you'll have a copy to replace it

it is also a good move, because if you look at prematuraly dead CJs, corrupted savegame city is the main reason. And corrupted city can occurs even if you have not downloading anything. sometimes the game crash will saving, and your city is gone forever.

and I second TWreck, read the readme

[T Wrecks 10,209]

One thing you should never do is have something grow (or plop something), save the city, exit, and then delete the responsible files while the item is still in the city. This can cause conflicts and crashes.

The way to go when removing anything from the plugins folder is:

1. Make sure that no city needs the item. If you find instances of the item in question, bulldoze them all.

2. Having made sure that the respective item is gone, save your city and exit

3. Move the item out of your plugins folder, but don't delete it yet.

4. Reload the city in question, see if everything works.

If you get a crash or any other weird stuff now, you know you screwed up somewhere. In that case, exit without saving and move the removed item back to your plugins, then try again.

If everything works ok, you did it right, and now you can delete the item you moved out.

This applies to lot and desc files, and you need to be especially careful with civic lots!

In contrast to this, the only problem that can happen to you if you accidentally remove a model file (.sc4model) or a prop dat although at least one lot in your city needs it, is the ominous brown box.

Moving mods in and out that affect gameplay (NAM, industry quadrupler etc) should be done carefully and after consulting the readme.

In general, it is never a bad idea to have a "sandbox" city (or even region) where you can fool around and test stuff before you add it to your actual region.

[Cougar2004 127]

Thanks, a backup sounds appropriate. And i really like the steps laid out clearly by T Wrecks in the post above. I printed that out, since i intend to eventually do more STEX downloads.

But this still leaves one question in mind..... How can you know in advance if its worth to try a lot/download, etc? Are there certain things in the STEX description that ensure is it 100% compatible and safe? Are there certain people we can trust to build perfectly stable SC4 additions? A newbie is looking at the STEX, wondering what to download... if we can help safen (is that a word?) the experience, to ensure things will always work, then that would be a benefit to Simtropolis and every one here. Ideas? Thoughts?

[Indisguise 0]

1. always set up a few  test or sandbox regions  with several cites to test new stuff out, this will be throw away cities that just in case of a problem losing these particular cities won't really matter and test them several times under different circumstances ...copy and paste  cities to your downloads and import them to the test regions...I often save these test cities and reopen them several times just to be sure things are working, and then delete the city I use as a test when I'm satified things are working ok
2. add things slowly like suggested about by the gurus there
3. never trust the computer ...murphy's laws...if something can go wrong, it most likely will go wrong,  when you can least excpect or afford it to go wrong.

I have several differnt regions for this myself and really test things out in different situation before allowing new content into my favorite regions, as most cases I spent too much time on them to take a chance that everything will go right.....with user created custom content, you never know what could possible conflict with what, it's ALL BETA STUFF

and like said above...if a city and/or region is worth keeping...back it up on CD or DVD or external HD from time to time and include the plugins folder that goes with the region at that time on the cd or dvd is made ...mark such things both on the cover of the sleve and mark the plugins and region as well

have to admit...never had a propblem with any texture or prop pack as a malicious thing on ST...closest thing was I had some textures overwriteing  another textures and make the buildins or lots appear incorrectly, that be about it heard of the incorrect props appearing on lots too....modded buildings on the other hand....the Ireader in the hands of a $%&^! can be a dangerous thing if they don't know how to mod a building  or make a mod correctly.

to error is human...to really screw up you need the Ireader...