Incompatible items

[Bumblegrum 0]

I am relatively new to the game and, in looking through the wonderful content available for this game, am somewhat in awe of those who have the ability to develop and produce specialised items for inclusion in the game.

Having said that, I note with some considerable concern, that some developers include in their readme files a note that their creation is not compatible with some other creation. Wny?

If someone develops an item surely they expect that others in the game may take advantage of it in their cityscape and yet, in my case, a developer publishing an item I would love to include in my city who tells me it is not compatible with "xyz" absolutely has the effect of either baulking me or telling me to give it the big miss and look for something else. If it baulks me, I then need to spend a lot of time working through everything I have in my game to establish whether or not I have incompatible items and from there make a decision whether to download it or not.

If the game is to be split between illegance to one "inompatible" party or another then it is not worth playing.

To be honest I am rapidly losing interest because I have to spend more time vetting content than I can allocate to playing the game.

  Edited September 9, 2012 by CaptCity  
Edited comments. Let's keep it polite.

[husher 18]

if stuff has loads of dependancies i useally ignore it, its too much hassle, but as i've found out about these clever people that build all the wonderful add on's they some times have to do some creative thinking, so something might not work properly until they come up with a fix for it, don't worry too much about it, when on the stex look for stuff with 'no dependancies' there's plenty of them and they wont cause hassle.

i agree that sometimes something that looks good will cause a heart stopping moment: the sim treasury was a case in point; you click on it and the the game crashes to desktop, i just learned NOT to click on it, and got on with the game.

Fustration is all part of the experience, once you get past it the game is a challenge to be enjoyed.

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

The only real game-breaking incompatibilities (that I can think of) are with CAM and SPAM, SPAM with NAM, and NAM with older versions of iteslf. In those cases, load SPAM after CAM, delete SPAM's own traffic simulator, and uninstall the older version of the NAM.

If it's an incompatibility between two different lots, it may be because one's outdated if it's by the same person.

If it's an incompatibility between two T21 or texture mods that mod the same thing, you definitely need to heed that warning. If not, the only possible outcome out of that is either having two conflicting T21s at once or having one T21 load after the other (or with textures).

  Edited September 7, 2012 by Ganaram Inukshuk  

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

The answers so far are a bit to technical. Let's say there is a limited number of slots that can be used to override some features of the game and that it is necessary for some builders to use the same ones. There are thousands of custom content features, and because of the limited size of the tables in some areas of the game (fixed in the .exe), conflicts are inevitable.

The fact that some developers note this is a courtesy. The trick is to avoid such issues by sticking to one team's developments as a base and to be very careful adding things. Each new plugin should be added then tested in a sandbox city to determine if it has either mashed something else or doesn't work at all. Plugins are not just casual things you can dump in.

There are ten years (thousands of man-years) of custom content development here in the various exchanges. Since these are all contributed free of charge, to complain is to lack understanding of both the intent and the process.

[chimeran 208]

The only real game-breaking incompatibilities (that I can think of) are with CAM and SPAM, SPAM with NAM, and NAM with older versions of iteslf. In those cases, load SPAM after CAM, delete SPAM's own traffic simulator, and uninstall the older version of the NAM.

If it's an incompatibility between two different lots, it may be because one's outdated if it's by the same person.

If it's an incompatibility between two T21 or texture mods that mod the same thing, you definitely need to heed that warning. If not, the only possible outcome out of that is either having two conflicting T21s at once or having one T21 load after the other (or with textures).

those are the biggies as far as content is concerned and the only conflicts i have seen are w/the terrain mods and automata. this can't be helped due to the limitations of the original programming of SC4. but conflicts w/mods will exist in ANY game that can be modded which i'm learning in skyrim and it's not even a year old. SC4 has been around nearly 10 years and most creators know what conflicts and give you a head's up and Nonny Moose is correct. like the old saying goes "caveat emptor"

  Edited September 7, 2012 by chimeran  

[His Divine Hand 244]

SC4 at its base is a technical game. Tbh, it is also a fairly easy game when it comes to adding mods as well. If you can't take the time to figure out that I can only use one terrain replacement mod, or automata replacement mod, or etc., then clearly you would have to lack the skills this game would need. You can't tell me that it is too hard to keep track of your mods when it is fairly obvious which categories will conflict. . .