my power plants keep fully funding themselves

[Lochtiel 0]

I'll query a power plant and reduce the funding to about 70% of capacity. I'll go on my way but then I notice that on the first day of each in-game month all the power plants will get their funding reset to maximum and capacity will drop to like 24%. For the town I was working on this ended up costing me an extra $200 each month unless I continually went in to re-adjust funding every other minute.

The only reason I noticed this was because I got the mod to double the output of power plants so while I was checking to see if it had worked I noticed this quirk. 

In summary, I added the mod, opened my city, bulldozed the plants, built new ones, then checked to see if they worked (they did, output was 2x). I reduced funding since I now had more than enough power and I noticed they kept altering their own funding each month, so thinking it was the mod's fault, I closed SC4, removed the mod, opened my city, tore down and re-built the plants, yet they still had the problem, so I don't think it was the mod's fault afterall.

The only other power related mods I have are the methane power plant and PEG's Geothermal plant. Other than that I don't think I messed with anything that could cause this funding problem. All my other utilities and services remain funded at what I set them to.

[CaptCity 4,669]

Lochtiel... Welcome to Simtropolis...

Sounds like you may be experiencing the 'Phantom Funding Sliders Bug'. You might want to check this thread (scroll to Ripplejet's post) to see if it's fixable. He has explained it way better than I ever could. You may need to have deleted the methane geothermal plants before applying the mod. Good luck...

[Lochtiel 0]

Thanks. I tried what he said, by demolishing some of the power plants, and I removed both that I had downloaded, but it still does not fix the problem.

I noticed now that not only is it power plants, but also the sanitation bar keeps jumping to maximum each month. I also downloaded a new trash center but even when I removed it the problem remained. In fact I even went so far as to remove ALL my files from the Plugins folder and it still didn't fix it.

The only other thing I can think of is that I downloaded the patch (not sure which one) from Maxis' site yesterday, though it's official so I don't think it would be the problem but who knows.

I guess what I'll have to do is just uninstall all of SC4 and reinstall it and start all over :/

[nickjbor 0]

I had this happen to be when I personally edited a power plant I downloaded from the STEX. I just improvised to fix it and it worked.

What I did was delete all my power plants and run the game for 2 months (the city begged for power!) Note that my only plants were these downloaded modded ones.

After the 2 months I placed the power plant back, and everything seemed to work fine.

[CaptCity 4,669]

Lochtiel...

Do you have the problem in all your regions/cities? If it's only one in particular, you may only need to replace the affected region file rather than reinstall the whole game (if you haven't yet). If it's a Maxis region, you can copy it from the Program Files\SimCity 4/Regions folder. Just a thought...

[Lochtiel 0]

Hmm, not sure what you mean by replace the region file. I'm not sure exactly how widespread the problem was. I had two cities going, and my roommate had about three. I think they all were affected except for one. See the problem was I don't know what he's been doing as far as building power plants in his cities (though I know he's not adding any mods). Turns out we decided it'd just be easier to reinstall the whole thing and now it's back to normal. I couldn't save the cities but his were practice anyway and mine was too more or less so it's okay. I did put back the geothermal plant and the 2x power output and it still works fine, so I still don't think it was either of those.

Let me know about the region trick in case this happens again. Also I'll try your suggestion, Nick, about letting it run power-free for 2 months if this somehow pops up again. 

I'm just nervous now about adding any new mods.

[CaptCity 4,669]

Originally posted by: Lochtiel Let me know about the region trick in case this happens again... 

I'm just nervous now about adding any new mods.

quote>

 

Not really a 'trick'. You can find copies of Maxis region files in the C:\Program Files\Maxis\SimCity 4\Regions folder. If for some reason your city files become corrupted or messed up because of the budget issue, you can copy them from that folder into your My Documents\SimCity 4\Regions folder. The copied files will appear in their original state without any development that you may have done previously. This can be done instead of reinstalling the game.

As for using mods, just be sure any previously built unmodded buildings are deleted before applying any modded ones.

Hope this helps...

[Lochtiel 0]

Thanks, I'll remember that for if something weird happens again. So far so good though, 3 cities in and everything is running fine.