Daeleys Custom Query Stuff

[Guinnessmonkey 0]

Date: 5/28/2005 7:28:09 AM
Author: Daeley

yes, but only the one you selected (if you selected one). You only get the choice dialog once.

and 'squares' is quite correct

quote>
Actually, now that I think on it, it might have only stayed in the news for cities where it didn't work (i.e. the ones with apostrophe's pre-fix). Or maybe it randomly happened once... Who knows. *shrug*

[pauld 0]

Date: 5/28/2005 1:34:33 AM
Author: gwyned

Date: 5/27/2005 6:50:37 PM Author: Daeley

no I'm not writing to the registry I'm just writing to a small text file...

and I'm not quite sure what a complete reinstaal could do, if anything. I'd say only do this if you really want to do it yourself, because I personally don't think it will matter much...

as a sidenote, where is Simcity installed? just C:program filesMaxis?

and do you run the .exe from the main directory (or with a link, that's the same) or did you place it somewhere else? It's very important that the .exe is in a path that has Apps as a subfolder.

I am using the default installation directories for Simcity 4. I also directly access the .exe file from the Apps subfolder. Good luck, and thanks for all your help!

quote>

Took your advice and didn't reinstal WinXP.

I have reinstalled SC deluxe though and this time put it in the default drive C:

Reinstalled your mod and it still refuses to work. It doesn't write the two files BSCfields.dat and popfile.dat to the apps folder.

It does install BSC_RegionalCounter.dat to the C:\Documents and Settings\Paul\My Documents\SimCity 4\Plugins.

I do hope you manage to find a solution to this annoying bug in time, while at the same time I appreciate that the problem may well lie at my end with my setup...at the moment I've run out of ideas!

Regards

[Daeley 46]

after your reinstall, you do still have the BSC_essentials_OG.dat file installed, right?

if it still doesn't work we'll have to look at other things... your setup is the same as mine now.

[pauld 0]

Date: 5/30/2005 4:01:08 AM
Author: Daeley

after your reinstall, you do still have the BSC_essentials_OG.dat file installed, right?

if it still doesn't work we'll have to look at other things... your setup is the same as mine now.

quote>

I reinstalled the BSC_InstallEssentials101.zip as this is the latest updated version. Also downloaded and used the latest version of your mod.

Still no popup I'm afraid and the other two files BSCfields.dat and popfile.dat are still missing.

Regards

[vadvaro 2]

with the new bsc tracking lots, will you release a query that show ones progress in getting rewards?
# of farms,
# of markets,
# of this or that, etc?

i know that the farm lots had a farm management building with this sort of query, but what about non farm rewards?

also, i am a huge fan of the csx planning lots, any word on updates?

not that they need any, but just checking.

and one more request, what about a urban set of the old bsc dae forest lots?  i LOVE the querys those produce.

 

[CycleDogg 130]

I don't know if this could have any effect on what you're talking about, but I was poking around a bit in the essentials files (trying to figure out occupant groups) and noticed a few lines in BLS GA Farm Field Essentials_v2.dat that look like they might have problems.  The text of some of the messages has apostrophes, and for those lines, it appears the statement end may be mangled into the text. (Don't know much about LUA though).

[Daeley 46]

vadvareo, a lot of that information is already on the queries of several BTE reward buildings, but more will probably come in the future anyway  For example, Simgoober made a farming reward which shows you a lot of the numbers for the BTE fields.
I'm sure more buildings willc ome in the future.

 

And Cycledogg, there's no problem with that code... it's rather a small problem of the reader's syntax highlighting. You see, in LUA if a string is contained between ... it can contain apostrophe's without problem. It seems however the reader will highlight strings in blue contained by ... or ' ... '  but doesn't check what started it... so ... ' gets recognised as a string even though it's not complete.

 

 

to those still having problems with the BSC tracking: could you move the BSC_RegionalCounter.dat file in a folder called zzz_RegionalCounter. This way the file will get loaded last... so if there are still problems we can rule out certain conflicts.

[vadvaro 2]

yea, i know the reward you are talking about.  it was that one that got me to thinking about markets and pubs but then the mansions tell me what i need to knwo in that respect.

[pauld 0]

to those still having problems with the BSC tracking: could you move the BSC_RegionalCounter.dat file in a folder called 'zzz_RegionalCounter'. This way the file will get loaded last... so if there are still problems we can rule out certain conflicts.

quote>


Reinstalled regional tracking mod to new folder (zzz_RegionalCounter).

My problem seems to be that the mod refuses to create/write the two files BSCfields.dat and popfile.dat to the apps folder.

I have Simgoober's Flower market in my city and notice that when querying this lot it does say BSC regional tracking is currently unavailable. I'm wondering whether this is related.

Regards

[vadvaro 2]

now that regional tracking is possible, could a real regional money transfer system be in the works?  i like the bank, but find it easy to cheat. 

[Guinnessmonkey 0]

Date: 6/8/2005 4:39:40 AM
Author: vadvaro
now that regional tracking is possible, could a real regional money transfer system be in the works? i like the bank, but find it easy to cheat.

quote>
My bet is no (though who knows what Daeley really has up his sleeve ), as it's one thing to TRACK how much money neighboring cities have (assuming that it is even possible to do that, as I dunno if there's a preexisting way to do that in LUA code (unlike counting examples of specific lot types or counting populations).... If not than even tracking money could be difficult...), but something else entirely to actually ALTER what other cities have through dialogue choices.... The tracker could track how many, say, ports you have in your region, but it couldn't delete ports.




Though... I wonder if you COULD set it up so that (particularly after we have a series of buildings which utilize the tracking info) you have a bank building where you could choose to deduct $100,000 from your city. The tracker could be set up to track how many times you do that throughout the region. Later, in another city, you could use the same bank building to deduct $100,000 from the account. In tracker terms one might just delete a count from the file (i.e. if you have put in $100k 5 times the count will be 5. Pull out $100k and the count drops to 4). I guess the trick would just be setting it up so that you can't get the dialogue which allows you to withdraw funds unless the count is greater than or equal to 1....


Daeley knows a lot more (well, obviously ) than I do about how this kinda thing works, so he'll know much better.

[Daeley 46]

if you want the short version... yes, it's possible

unfortunatly it'll take a while to do it and I don't have that amount of time free at the moment.

[Pheonix Rising 2]

heres a nice puzzle for the tracking mod.

 

I have SC4 deluxe.. fully updated. Now, as I have not activated this copy of windows yet (bought it around x-mas) I have to resinstall every 30 days.. Before my last reinstall I had this mod working nicely. I think this might have also been before the file was updated i cant remember if it was or if I updated before the reinstall.

 

Now, it WAS working. After the reinstall of windows though.. well now it doesnt work. Everything has stayed the same except for all the mods/lots I had installed.

 

SC4 installed to D:\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe

 

So, SC4 path has not changed. I am about to reinstall sc4 again and see what happens.. maybe reinstall windows as well, down to 18 days anyway I have to repartition my drive anyway (250gb drive) so I will have a 128mb linux boot partition before the main windows partition. Anyway, it worked once and now it wont work...

 

Win XP Pro SP2 SC4 deluxe updated to build 640... and actually... now that im thinking about it.. it worked until I switched out my mobo/cpu... was running an Athlong XP 2800/nForce2 now im running AMD 64 3200/nForce3 Doubt that has anything to do with it.. but who knows

 

10/10 evil bunnies for the support though

[Daeley 46]

well did you reinstall the BSC_essentials_OG.dat file?

if you did... well...

 

I've stared myself blind at this problem

[Pheonix Rising 2]

ok, in the old plugins folder i saved prior to last reinstall. essentials file is from Jan 1 7:36pm 1.15kb and the tracker is May 26 2:09pm 13.7kb Thats the new file i think. Though as I stated before I dont remember if I had played after I updated or not.. Does anyone have a copy of the counter dat prior to the update? If you can send it to me I can test both files when i reinstall tonight.

 

Ill have more info in.. probably 4 or 5 hours.

 

BTW is there an order to load up the files in the plugin folder that will speed up load times?? I know GA did a topic on organising the plugin folder.. but didnt see anything mentioned.. ive had over 3500 files being loaded, though im down to a hair under 3k now.. may be less after next install, though the folder size went up almost 50mb even with fewer files

[Pheonix Rising 2]

ok, current results after a fresh windows and sc4 install. The mod still didnt work. BUT, that was also using a shortcut created directly from copy/paste of the sc4/apps exe.

Funny thing though.. I also did a fresh install on another machine but did not create a desktop shortcut, I only used the maxis provided shortcut.. and THAT worked. Now, after trying this I went back to my other machine and tried both shortcuts. Now the crazy thing works.. though also on my gaming rig when using the maxis provided shortcut.. havent tried the other..

 

My best guess is either

a. There is a BSCFields.dat that was installed in the doc plugins folder that this mod cant read

b. You will need to copy the maxis shortcut to your desktop

or...

c. This mod is kinda screwy

 

Dont know yet.. ill have more info after I get all my plugins reinstalled over the coarse of the day.. all 3000 of them

 

EDIT:

 

It seems that I was right above on count b. I tried with a copy/paste shortcut direct from the apps exe both name SimCity 4 and SimCity 4 Deluxe and neither worked, but if I copied the maxis shortcut the tracker works.

 

So, for those having problems try using the maxis provided link in the start menu. Lets see if this works 100% or if poor Daeley is going to have kittens over this bug. Though as odd as this is so far id say more like have elephants

[Daeley 46]

when I first read you PM on this I thought huh? that can't be it... but if you say your testing proves it... man... that's one weird bug I'm completely confused now

To everybody: please test this!  If the mod doesn't work, try the Maxis shortcut icon. If the mod works for you, backup and delete the popfile.dat and BSCfields.dat files and run the game with a self-created link, and please report here.

 

well I would be glad in a way if that's it... at least we'd have found the bug... even though it is confusing... thank you Pheonix Rising for investigating so hard into this

[pauld 0]

Hi,
I started SC using the Maxis short cut icon in the Start/all programs/maxis/SC Deluxe. Opened city and for the first time the pop up appeared...Success!!

The two files popfile.dat and BSCfields.dat have finally been written to the apps folder plus the file beer.dat.

Tried starting SC again using my original desk top shortcut and the pop up doesn't appear even though the files popfile.dat and BSCfields.dat are still in the apps folder.

Created a desktop short cut from the original Maxis shortcut and everything works fine. Seems the mod only works using the maxis short cut.

With my limited knowledge I haven't a clue what's going on so I'll leave you experts to scratch your heads...

I have to add a big thank you to Pheonix Rising for spending your time, having a brain wave and providing the solution which works for me.

Regards

[BarbyW 40]

I did the test as suggested, Daeley, and guess what!? No pop up, no tracking, no BSCFields.dat, popfiles.dat or beerlist.dat.

So as I have never had problems before but always used the Maxis shortcut it seems as though that is the answer.

Barby

[Daeley 46]

[:0] whoa!! excellent!! even though I'm completely stunned about the nature of this bug, I'm glad it's fixed!

I can move on and make more regional mods at last

 

next stop: regional rewards

[gwyned 0]

Date: 6/16/2005 4:15:32 AM Author: Daeley

when I first read you PM on this I thought 'huh? that can't be it...' but if you say your testing proves it... man... that's one weird bug I'm completely confused now

To everybody: please test this!  If the mod doesn't work, try the Maxis shortcut icon. If the mod works for you, backup and delete the popfile.dat and BSCfields.dat files and run the game with a self-created link, and please report here.

well I would be glad in a way if that's it... at least we'd have found the bug... even though it is confusing... thank you Pheonix Rising for investigating so hard into this

quote>

 

This has gotta be the strangest thing I have encountered yet with this game...but I can also verify that this worked.  I had to reinstall the game in order to get my original shortcut back (I usually just delete them and make my own), but amazingly enough, as soon as I got done with the reinstall and opened my first city, the window popped up and the file was written.  Amazing!

 

Great troubleshooting!!

[scorer 11]

The explanation is probably the following, though i wouldnt have combined these informations to solve the problem:

A Windows shortcut contains two important informations:

 

1. The actual link to an file, in most cases an executable file (.exe). This is a must.

2. A working path entry which tells windows where to execute the file. This is optional.

 

It can contain additional tags and informations, but these are not essential to our case here.

 

In your self-made shortcuts, only the first information is correct, but not the second. In the Maxis default shortcut, both is set to the correct values. Some applications cannot access used data correctly, if the second info is missing or incorrect.

 

It is possible to recreate the Maxis shortcuts on your own, but I'm currently not at my homedesk. I haven't the Maxis link available here.

 

Reviewing the shortcuts is often a way to solve problems with applications not loading at all or incomplete. To sort out this specific error just start the application directly, without a shortcut. This on the other hand can lead to some missing startup parameters, like the -introff switch for Simcity. To combine both you have to use your commandline.

[Guinnessmonkey 0]

Hooray! The bug was fixed!


Though how very, very wierd... Looking at the shortcut I use (which COULD be the Maxis one... I can't remember) I don't see anything special on it... Maybe all those who were having problems had something added to their shortcut to remove the intro movie or something.... (I just deleted my intro... Game just skips it and goes on to the menu) I don't use any command line modifications to simcity, nor does my shortcut...

[Pheonix Rising 2]

The only real difference I could find between a user created link and the maxis link was for the start in item. This: C:\PROGRA~1\Maxis\SIMCIT~1\  the Maxis link does 2 things. First, the start in folder in the MAIN SC4 folder, not the apps folder. Second, it uses 8.3 naming not the long files names under winxp which a user created link uses. In addition a user created link also goes directly to the apps folder. Exactly what the problem is i dont think we will ever know.. thats the nature of some bugs sadly.

 

Glad this seems to have fixed the problem for everyone

[Guinnessmonkey 0]

Date: 6/16/2005 12:44:46 PM
Author: Pheonix Rising

The only real difference I could find between a user created link and the maxis link was for the start in item. This: CROGRA~1MaxisSIMCIT~1 the Maxis link does 2 things. First, the start in folder in the MAIN SC4 folder, not the apps folder. Second, it uses 8.3 naming not the long files names under winxp which a user created link uses. In addition a user created link also goes directly to the apps folder. Exactly what the problem is i dont think we will ever know.. thats the nature of some bugs sadly.

Glad this seems to have fixed the problem for everyone

quote>
Yhea... That seems to be the only difference I see as well.

I reckon' we should probably put a maxis-style shortcut in the installer for the mod... Might solve lots of problems down the line.

[Daeley 46]

actually, that might be that much of a good idea, as people tend to place their game in the weirdest places

you'd have to make an installer that searches the install directory of Simcity, then creates an icon accordingly... probably easy for somebody who knows more about it

[Guinnessmonkey 0]

Indeed, that was what I had in mind... I just didn't wanna go into specifics because I'm similarly clueless on how to do installers.

[scorer 11]

Date: 6/16/2005 12:44:46 PM
Author: Pheonix Rising

The only real difference I could find between a user created link and the maxis link was for the start in item.

quote>

Exactly here lies the problem: The OS starts the game in a different folder, thus the mod cannot find its files.

This Start in-Folder means that a program looks for needed files here and nowhere else (in some cases, depends on configuration and way of programming). If you run the program manually by using no shortcut the start-in folder is the one where the .exe-file is.

Is the location of simcity.exe the Apps-Folder? Then an interesting experiment would be the following: Does daeley's plugin work if you dont use the shortcut and start the game by using simcity.exe (or whatever its called) in your simcity-folder? If it does not, then this bug is produced by the start-in-folder. If it does, then I don't know.

Unfortunately, I currently dont have access to a PC with a Simcity-installation, so I can't test this now...

Daeley, if this experiment would work for you, then you'd have killed the bug forever. If not, then we have a lucky combination of coincidences, and the bug could reoccur on another system.

[Pheonix Rising 2]

Date: 6/16/2005 5:43:51 PM Author: scorer

Date: 6/16/2005 12:44:46 PM Author: Pheonix Rising

The only real difference I could find between a user created link and the maxis link was for the start in item.

Exactly here lies the problem: The OS starts the game in a different folder, thus the mod cannot find its files. This 'Start in'-Folder means that a program looks for needed files here and nowhere else (in some cases, depends on configuration and way of programming). If you run the program manually by using no shortcut the start-in folder is the one where the .exe-file is. An interesting experiment would be the following: Does daeley's plugin work if you dont use the shortcut and start the game by using simcity.exe (or whatever its called) in your simcity-folder? If it does not, then this bug is produced by the 'start-in'-folder. If it does, then I don't know. Unfortunately, I currently dont have access to a PC with a Simcity-installation, so I can't test this now... Daeley, if this experiment would work for you, then you'd have killed the bug forever. If not, then we have a lucky combination of coincidences, and the bug could reoccur on another system.

 

The problems lies in this. A user created link uses long filenames and the apps folder as the value for start in while the maxis link uses the main sc4 directory and 8.3 DOS file naming structures.

 

ie

C: \Program Files\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Apps (user) vs. C: \PROGRA~1\Maxis\SIMCIT~1\ (Maxis)

 

So the question really is, which is the problem. The use of long filenames or the actual start poine (main dir. vs apps).

 

Some programs dont read long filenames well.

 

Now, as far as installing a custom link... i;ll see if i cant determine the real cause and create something appropriate. A question for everyone though. How many of you actually delete the simcity program group from the start menu??

 

EDIT: If you use a custom link, be sure to change the start in line to read like this C: \Program Files\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\ (w/o the space between : and \) Now.. as far as a desktop shortcut... just stick this tidbit of info in the readme and whoever else uses it has no room to complain about this oddity of a bug

[Tidalpool 0]

Can this be used with SimCity 4 Startup Manager?