Technical problem with a mod that confuses me

[BOOST15673 6]

My problem is with "Marrast Underwater Cable Kit 1":
https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/16789-marrast-underwater-cable-kit/

Basically, it's supposed to be underwater aka invisible and obviously NOT obstructive to any naval units. I have never had problems with this before, where as I have had this mod for over a year. It decided to literally randomly happen out of the blue a few hours ago (in terms of posting this topic of course). It simply gets the (I think) infamous beach bug. Not sure if that's the right term, but as you will see in the pictures, the mod literally "eats" the water textures that are above each piece of it. Now you may think "Just a visual bug", nope, check out the third picture link. If I exit the game completely and reboot it, it's all good, but then It happens again when I choose "Power" in the "Data Views" tab, which one can obviously not simply avoid checking. Other ships and boats crash into it and sink aka vanish as well. Haven't noticed anything with ferries yet, but i'm 100% convinced that they are affected as well.

Anyways, here are the links to the three pics, in order:
#1:
s29.postimg.cc/6u7knm40n/image.png
#2:
i.imgur.com/sqrqFBH.jpg
#3:
s29.postimg.cc/wohdde40n/image.png

Reinstalling the mod didn't help, I can't find any comments on the mod's page that have the same problem and a fix as a reply, there is no update I am aware of, changing graphic settings or rendering modes doesn't effect it either. The funny thing is, I had these cables in my city for a while (at least 15 years+ game time, I play on turtle speed) and it only just now starting acting up. Destroying the cables and rebuilding them didn't work either *mumble*... Heck even destroying them, saving and rebooting the game, and THEN rebuilding them didn't help. Now you understand my topic title? It seriously confuses me. Haven't found any solutions google or ST-wise yet, and thus I rely on you smart people to possibly help? I use this mod because as seemingly quite a few people, I find dragging power line poles across the water very unattractive and really only want to use them on land.

[NKF5 15]

I have a very similar problem - not identical, however - when using SFBT rural power lines. All deps are installed correctly, terrain is flat but occasionally the base textures will fall out. In my limited troubleshooting I found that going into underground view exacerbates the problem. So my advice here would be try cycling through the pipes, subway (line build) and the subway (station build) views and see if that doesn't fix it.

Also worth an ask;

• Even though your water looks stock, is there a Mod on it? Cosmetic or functional? because Mod conflicts could do this
• Is the game running on hardware or software and does Marrast specify you need one or the other?
• Is your version of SC4 from steam? Mine is and I get all sorts of graphics bugs like this.

Thats about all I can offer from 5 or so years of lurking and learning. If that doesn't help you may need to call on Nonny Moose or TWreaks or someone...

Goodluck!

 

  Edited August 18, 2015 by NKF5  

[SimCoug 5,976]

If you have been running this set without any problems until now, I'm guessing this is a plugin conflict.  I've never used this mod, so I don't know exactly what is going on 'under the hood' with this set, but I did notice that the author admits that the water bug will show up on these lots.  That said, have you ever tried this work around?  They may be a better solution (I use them quite often without any problems).  

[BOOST15673 6]

@NKF5: The underground view, be it subways, pipes or anything else doesn't affect it by me, still broken afterwards. Besides, another thing I noticed is that even if the water's textures cover up the cables as they should, boats still crash when driving over them, literally like an invisible brick wall. So basically, the mod is completely broken on my personal SC4, obviously can't be by everybody this way, but hey, it certainly doesn't like my copy!
No water mods, have yet to install any, that I can guarantee you.
Hardware renderer, Marrast did not specify anything I know of, and as stated above, hardware or software rendering doesn't fix this.
Mine is retail, bought in 2014, version 641 (I believe that's the newest).
 

@SimCoug: I haven't installed any mods since then, and all I did was remove a mod for a "Methane Power Plant", but even right away after removal, the cables still worked fine, not like it would've affected them, but still. He also said that it wouldn't affect water transport, which it does by me. I would not prefer that mod as I am a realism freak, and in terms of mod design prefer US stuffs. So keeping both in mind, this mod would not suit me, unless of course there is a different reason I should give it a go? Also, thanks for the topic move, my bad.

  Edited August 19, 2015 by 15673  

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Sorry, I don't know anything about this package.

[BOOST15673 6]

Damn, well thanks anyways guys. I was hoping for a fix or an alternative underwater kit, but these seem to be the only underwater kits, hmm... Well unless a moderator here knows anything, he/she may go ahead and close the topic.

[rsc204 21,866]

The problem is simple, I'm guessing this uses textures as lots under the water to convey the appearance of power lines. When making such lots it would be undesirable to use a base texture, since then you'd also have grass or some "filler" texture appearing besides the wires themselves underwater looking out of place. It's very difficult to achieve the same mod with props, because you'd never get them to match up correctly without terraforming the land to a pre-set incline that works with the mod, other angles would cause the wires not to meet and many other potential problems besides, before you think about the effort required to make such props.

Thus the only practical way to realise such a mod is by using overlay textures with the wires and no base texture on each lot. When you make such a lot, a game bug appears which makes any transparent areas of the lot show the texture from the background scenery - this is only triggered after entering certain data views. If it activates, go to zone view and then exit and it's transparent once more, although it will not go away forever. This is an age old problem, there is no good solution to it either and in essence is a game limitation no one can work around.

Once possible fix would be to add a base texture to each lot that matched the underlying terrain, although that would be difficult to blend colour-wise with your terrain perfectly, but if you could do this it would in effect appear see through.