SWAP, SimWings Airport Pack: Support/General Disussion Thread

[luker91 0]

hey sorry if this has already benn mentioned (i kind of skipped through pages 3 and 4) but my textures on the runways of most of my airport packs are screwed up... just wondering if there is a quick fix for this problem.

[luker91 0]

hey sorry if this has already been mentioned (i kind of skipped through pages 3 and 4) but my textures on the runways of most of my airport packs are screwed up... just wondering if there is a quick fix for this problem.

oops sorry...... my computer was running slow and it showed up i hadnt posted

[SC4BOY 21]

I dl'd your SWAP pack a couple of weeks ago. I know this material is OLD to all of you, and I'm certainly glad I didn't get involved in the "CRASH" problem..

I want to say it is a GREAT addition to the SIM4 material. I suppose this stuff is all dead and you're all probably all sick of it now, but I'd like to add a couple of 
comments.

First let me say that I have made a modest airport in a trial city (the Maxis RUSHHOUR tutorial) since I was playing around with it anyways. It works GREAT and is very inspirational to see an item like this work nicely. I want to say that all the big fancy stuff is probably very nice, but to me they are impractical unless your goal is just to model airports ( which of course is a fine objective if you like it ). But I like the flexibility of building more modest airports. I note that on page 1 of this forum topic, the small terminal is shown lighted. I built a smallish airport and neither the terminal building nor the control tower are lighted.. in fact they seem rather dull and look "abandoned" compaired to the normal SC4 appearance. I only dl'd this form the STEX about 2 wks ago.. Do I have an old version somehow? My police station, runway and landing lights, fire station, etc are lighted and planes take off and land.. looks great in daytime..   Is this my problem or is it just that noone wants to bother with it now its done?

Another thing is that I have a LOT of trouble placing the pieces, even thought I have familiarized myself with the parts and their use. I note that some items have little placement hints in the mouseover (thanks for that) but I can find no logic in figureing out how to place the other pieces like tarmac fills, etc that have directional properties. I always have to plop it somewhere else on the map, then rotate and put in my airport after I see how it's going to go. The "arrows" on the blue "placement shadow" seems to have no relationship to the orientation as far as I can figure it out.. and the mini-pic in the menu doesn't seem to relater to the directional properties of the item's plop. Am I just thickheaded, or is there something I'm missing?

However you answer this, thanks again for a nice addition to SC4

Here's my pic of my airport so you can see some of what I mean.. I know its boring and probably has many errors form a "real airport" standpoint, but I don't much care.. I'm just playing around with it.. But I can see that the POTENTIAL is there for people who DO CARE and that is sweet. 



This is a closer look showing what I think  is pretty drab looks at the airport. Maybe small town airports close at night?



This is an overview of the airport which is primarily aimed at filing a "spot" free to play with when the city demanded an airport. This was my first opertunity to use the SWAP pack

[xiziz 11]

SC4BOY: You probably need to go to Maxis site(Simcity4.com) and download the bat-files, there is a patch there that allows bats to light up, as it seems that none of your other bats(the trainstation) is lighting up eather.

The problem with abandonment is probably due to lack of funding, as its the only way to get an airport abandoned as far as i know, or undermaintained is a better word ^^

[SC4BOY 21]

XIZIZ.. WOW.. I would have sworn that I dl'd that.. will do right away. Hope that's it. Thx... *feels silly* WRT abadonment, I was only referring to its sad appearance with no lighting.. it is quite active and productive.. works great .. 

I thought that since all the other lights worked that it was ok.. sry

EDIT: Hmm.. Still no deal.. Here is an updated pic. Note that rail, bus, subway, fire, police etc are all lighted. There is still no terminal lighting. I deleted the terminal, etc and re-placed them after the patches were applied just in case that was the problem. The small terminal, small tower, and small hangers and fuel depot.. none have lights.. All other lighting seems fine.. runways, ramps, landing lights, etc.. any other ideas?

VERY LATE EDIT!! Although I have not tested this city (my plugins config is now significantly different) but I MAY have goofed up on this.. I found out recently that for a building to be truly "replaced" that one must DELETE THE BUILDING, THEN SAVE THE CITY, THEN RELOAD AND THEN PLACE THE NEW BUILDING.. I only mention this in that it may help someone else reading this thread. This should be considered carefully for those who read the next page or so of my posts on this subject..

[Meastro444 1]

do you have all the patches dfrom sc4 official site? if you dont, that is the reason it doenst show up.

Meastro444

[SC4BOY 21]

Yes I do have all patches of which I am aware (in fact I am not SURE that I didn' t have the one mentioned above, but I was willing to assume I was at fault and I re-applied it).. Those from simcity.ea.com if that is what you mean. And if I am lacking patches, why do all the other items work? I am thinking that they just aren't night-lighted. The only thing leading me to think they either are or were at one time is the pic (last pic in the series) from the first post of this thread which seems to be the same terminal that I used in the picture above.

Does the SMALL terminal and the SMALL control tower light for you? (see pics if in doubt about which one it is)

EDIT: Ok, now I re-entered the city and just placed a bunch of the stuff.. None of the terminals that I tried (didn't have room for the BIG stuff) but tried a LOT of the terminals, parking stuff, towers, etc... All of the animations and props  and all runway and landing lights worked properly, but none of the terminals lit up. 

The parking garage, the parking lot, the tram center (only "terminal" that I tried that lit up), the firehouse, the police station, and maybe a couple of other items worked fine with night-lights, but very few other items had working nitelights..  now I can't imagine what patch I left out that would make some things work and others not work. 

I certainly may have something wrong, but I sure can't figure it out.

[xiziz 11]

SC4BOY: I cant check the exact name of the patch right now, since im not home(im at an Anime Convent) but i will once i get home, the patch im referring to is downloaded from the same page as you download the BAT from, not the ordinary patch page so to speak.

All Default buildings will light up without the patch, but all bats wont. i can nearly bet my life that you are missing this one bat-patch.

Try searching the forums here, there is probably tons of explanations. try searhing for things like nitelights on bats not showing and such. or just Nightlights, and hope for the best.

[SC4BOY 21]

I HAVE the patches from SC4... I have checked many of the buildings.. MOST are lighted, but the small terminal is not lighted.. I did find that the Small control tower IS lighted.. but it is odd.. lol.. Their night lights GO OFF at 1am SC time!! They close early.. I am SURE that the SMALL TERMINAL DOES NOT HAVE nightlights (really I swear!! I've checked it many times and nver seen a light.. even when other things lighted fine ) If it does it is almost the only building that is "broken" by this fictitious patch I am supposed to have.. Even the hangers light.. Now explain to me why they would work but the small terminal would not? Aren't they BAT's too? Also I am assuming taht the "grass lots" give power conduction? if it has no power it doesn't show a "no power zot"... Thanks for checking in on this... 

Also the small "hub" and the small ploppable extensions .. forget what they are labeled.. the "fingers" that go out to other stuff.. none of these light.. this is just weird.. hate to be annoying.. lol

Never seen anything like it.

[xiziz 11]

The Towers(exept Muzzys) and Hangars are buildings from SC4-Vanilla, hece the lights work without the patch.

The name of the patch is: "SC4Update4BAT.exe"

the URL is: http://simcity.ea.com/downloads/getfile_pri.php?filename=SC4Update4BAT.exe

from the frame: http://simcity.ea.com/coolstuff/bat/index.php?

Hope that helps, you need to be loged in to actually se the downloads, the link just says: "SimCity 4 Update" And the filesize: "(14.4MB)"

Is this the patch you have? Because all the buildings light for me, and for numerous other people ingame, so its noting wrong with the buildings, but if your missing this patch all of your bats will not show any nightlights.

Grasspatches do convey electrisity, as most airports do have all power subsystems beryed so that there not in the way of the aircraft. also because sc4 automaticly dose this ^^

[SC4BOY 21]

Welp in order to try to answer this question to my satisfaction, I removed ALL mod's and REINSTALLED SC4 RH from the ground up, step by step following Greyveils guide here, Then restoring my mod's in groups. .

I have found that the NIGHT LIGHT in BATS has some sensitivity to certain MOD's .. I have not refined it yet to EXACTLY WHICH mods I am using the MOD's listed below. 

I started out WITHOUT any mods except the SWAP airport and the most updated SC4RH with simcity.com updates and tools. The lighting worked fine. 

As I install certain mods I find the lights either do or don't work.. (of course this distroyed all the cities I used them on,, not a problem as I had planned on that and backed up my work. And as I kind of expected I still had to delete and re-plop the affected buildings in most cases) 

This mod dependency seems very odd behaviour and I don't know why. I will probably post this info in the MOD section to see if anyone knows why after I figure out exactly which mods make a diff. This btw affects not only BAT nitelites, but sometimes what you call "default buildings" also don't light (such as the hangers which you said were Maxis). Very interesting and explains why we seemed to be at cross-purposes.. I don't think this is quite as simple as some believe, and probably explains why even doing (and even re-doing) the patching you directed me to, it still didn't work.

SC4RH with latest auto-patch (E1 I think its called)

Bat Nightlight fix

SC4 & RH buildings as props 

Lot Editor

Landscape Designer

My MOD set:

050930NAM with

   NAM

   ANT plugin

   AUTOMATA24 plugin

   CUSTOM HIGHWAY menu

   DIAGONAL streets

   Roundabouts.. streets, roads, one-way

   PERFECTPATHFINDING, 2XCapacity, 10xSpeed, 10XCommute

  TURNING LANES Avenues, Roads

ROADTOP TRANSIT STOPS  (RoadTopMT.dat)

SWAP2.2 Airport Pack

DIGGER LOTS (SImoncrie)

REPORTING MODS

   DATAVIEWS

   EXPANDED QUERY

   GRAPHMOD V2

bldgprops_vol1 and bldgprops_vol2 x from maxis (the "props" plugins)

OperaHouse and U2Patch maxis "correction" dats

The region I am playing is just the Timbuktu default region in the "RUSHOUR TUTORIAL" city but I have tested other regions too just to see. 

Welp, thanks for your time.. later

[xiziz 11]

I did test them, latest yeasterday, and they do all function entirely correct, no problems whatsoever, try downloading the patch refferd to in my post above, since IT is the ONLY thing that can be missing if you dont have nightlights, unless some graphal setting in your game is turned off or something.

(Edit, read your updated post)

weird, though there could be a conflic, or maby just a lack of processing power to light everything up :S this is weird indeed

[Fischbob 9]

Hmm, have you tried letting the simulator run for a few sim months and then checking for lighting again? I find it sometimes takes a while in the game for ploppable BATs to light up, even with the Maxis patch. And this probably goes without saying, but the lots do need to be powered (just making sure).

I love the flexibility of the modular terminals, and with all the bugs ironed out, SWAP is running fine on my end. Thanks once again, xiziz, for your persistence in trying to fix the problems people were having, even when you were stumped yourself. That is, in my opinion, one of the best qulities a custom content provider can have.

[SC4BOY 21]

Hi.. yes lots are powered.. and the "simulation city" is EXTREMELY SPARSE.. about 50 sims and AIRPORTS GALORE and a few squares of com and ind and a single road that sort of loops around ... In fact in playing with it, I find that for certain for the CONTROL TOWERS small and "medium" .. ie not muzzi's that they will actually SOMETIMES work and sometimes not..the hangers behave differently depending on which city I try them in! In some they work properly and in some they don't work at all.. lol. And I was closely watching the SC4 CLOCK to be sure it was not time related.. Once in a while (rarely) they just come on.. but MOSTLY are OFF all the time..and I've also tried to position them in various locations and orientations without it seeming to make a difference. The ones intergrated into the Maxis units (ie "built-in") to the 2 "commercial" airports ALWAYS work exactly correctly while the "cut out" units that are in the SWAP package don't work properly.. No idea why.. also they don't behove the same as the other units with regard to the "DAY/NIGHT cycle" vs forcing "NIGHT" with the button. very peculiar.. And regarding time.. the cities have been running about 10-20 game years while I play around. Thanks for your enquiry. If ya get a stroke of genius and have something for me to look at, let me know..

WRT the issue of modular airports, I couldn't agree more. I assume you are following progress on the ACE airport package.. it is looking VERY good, but is not released.

Originally posted by: xiziz I did test them, latest yeasterday, and they do all function entirely correct, no problems whatsoever, try downloading the patch refferd to in my post above, since IT is the ONLY thing that can be missing if you dont have nightlights, unless some graphal setting in your game is turned off or something.

(Edit, read your updated post)

weird, though there could be a conflic, or maby just a lack of processing power to light everything up :S this is weird indeedquote>

 

Although I appreciate your taking your valuable time to post here.. (up til today you're the only person who even bothered to post), but really you are sounding a bit like a worn record. I have repeatedly explained that I have installed ALL PATCHES unless you have some magic one you HAVE NOT MENTIONED... I even gave you the link to EXACTLY WHAT PROCEDURE I followed.. also.. Your terminal building and (small and medium and hub and etc) work properly.. Perhaps you might explain why SOME WORK AND SOME DON'T if I'm so stupid I can't apply a patch? I already told you I re-installed MY ENTIRE SC4 GAME only because of your comments. As you probably know this takes hours to get completely done and reset up your cities.. I don't want to be told the same thing again.. so if you have nothing constructive to add, I'm sorry. I do appreciate that you did retest them in light of my comments and took up your valuable time too.

I understand your probable frustration at not knowing why I am having the problems and I am off trying to figure out exactly under what conditions these things happen and exactly  what does or doesn't  happen, but if ya don't know why, just say so and that's that.  But trust me that when I say there is an issue, there is an issue of either mechanics or compatibility. Whether you find it or not is not important to me, but I am  interested for my own curiousity. 

My postings here are not because I am demanding some action, but rather just to present info as I find it so that if anyone has constructive things for me to try or test that I can include it as I proceed. 

Thanks

[xiziz 11]

Hehe,

Fischbob; Thanks, i never actually was able to even replicate the problem, and it was Swamper77 that finaly fixed it, not me, though i did make a few valliant attempts, and just the day before Swamper77 PM'ed me that he was nearing a fix, i had already started making all the peices into Eye-candy peices.

SC4Boy, sorry, i know its repeditive, and that last post i actually wrote before you updated your previous(to that post) post. i had to drive my brother though and the post got posted about 40 minutes after i wrote it, by that time you had updated the post, and i really had to get to bed(im working 40 hour weeks all summer, so i get up at 0500(CET) in the morning).

Well, it could be compability, but since you did try to have only SWAP installed, this should not be a problem, it could be a graphical setting, but i highly doubt it(unless you against all odds have modified the graphicsconfig).

Could you state the speed and type of processor you have? might be a lack of processing power, that the game just dosent get enough cream to light the entire city up, sounds weird i know, but it happend to me on my old rig(a P4 2.53ghz overclocked to ~2.80ghz). Could also be a lack of sufficient memory.

What i mean is that it might just not be a Software problem at all, could just aswell be an OS or Hardware related problem.

Hope im making any sence

(Edit, forgot to mention that ACE-Pack is out, and you need RMIP by Volitare too if you downlod it, as i sugest everyone dose, since there a lot nicer(altough eyecandy, which i recomended them to do, even if i think they both decided on it before i recomended them it. just because Airports(as the SWAP-Bug showed) are extremly hard to mod and its very easy to make a miss and its becomes a huge bug). Also, dont forget to save your work often, since sc4 is and has allways been prone to error making it jump to windows.

[ilikehotdogsalot 311]

Whenever I put something from the Airport Menu my game crashes

[Swamper77 90]

Do you have the Airport Support Pack that I released installed. If not, you will need it to use the SWAP/RIMP airport files.

-Swamper77

[alimosh 0]

hello.

quick question: anyone have any idea why i can't see any airplanes when i plop airplane lots:

example: i plop '707 static' lot, but i can only see the ground pavement... no airplane...

help...

thanks

[ACEfanatic 7]

The lot needs to be powered for the planes to show up.

If that doesn't help, let the game run for a few minutes - the planes appear and disappear randomly as time goes on.

-ACE

[GoldenKevin 0]

Does anyone here have a link for Maxis Buildingpropvol1.dat prop pack, Maxis Buildingpropvol2.dat prop pack, BAT-Patch(For Nightlights) that's not on the simcity.ea.com site? For some reason, my Product ID Code doesn't let me Product Register and I can't download anything from their official site. Someone, please upload it somewhere or please e-mail me the files to Go1denKevin@hotmail.com, thanks in advance.

[pilotdaryl 25]

Sorry, GoldenKevin, but that would be infringing copyright and will get you banned and the person that sent it to you.  However, you can contact EA for a new serial number or maybe you made a mistake.

[toxicpiano 125]

pilotdaryl, GoldenKevin, no, actually it wouldnt. It has been said on the mac thread that EA only thinks it is copyright infringement if you sell those items, however it is perfectly legal to distribute it for free. Check out the mac thread.

https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=105&threadid=80054&enterthread=y

[GoldenKevin 0]

Okay, whatever, but does anyone have a Windows Building Prop and BAT-Patch files???

[ilikehotdogsalot 311]

Swamper : I had the file downloaded, Then it started to crash, Unistalled it, Didn't crash, Installed it again, Crash, So yeah

[GoldenKevin 0]

Okay, my friend finally lent his Maxis account to me, now, where do I install the files in (I mean which folder???)

[qwerty_sim 0]

I need help designing a airport out of the airport pack

[bakercity 270]

there is a version 2.3 and the stex, but read carefully what it reads.

[gmavignier 3]

I have been having problems with the V2.3 pack. I had the pack and used it before but after reorganizing my plugins folder the game will crash to desktop every time I try to use the grass lots.

"PRIOR TO INSTALLATION OF V2.3, ALL TERMINAL BUILDINGS FROM V 2.2 OR EARLIER WILL HAVE TO DE DESTROYED, THIS TO PREVENT CRASHES!

These are the affacted buildings:

-Swap Medium terminal

-Swap Small terminal

-Muzzy's ATCT

-All Joerg Terminals including the Tram"

I don't have any of these in my city but I do have grass lots. Could they be crashing my computer?

Thanks for the help.

[The boy formerly known as Evil Muzz 27]

Possibly, the best option would be to make a simple 1x1 or 2x2 or whatever combination of lot you want with the LE with that grass texture on and use those instead!

[gmavignier 3]

True. But how could this happen all of a suden. Also could some one do that for me real quick? I don't know how to use the LE (shame on me)