Brown box problems

[Darkstar30 8]

Hey y'all,  So I went and got a couple of mods.  Usually I install one at time but this time I didnt.  I have 4 here that all have various issues.  I am 99% sure I got all the dependencies.

The Bio mass power has invisible buildings

Trump tower looks fine but does not come with any jobs when plopped.

The cooling towers get brown boxes when the view angle is just right.

Everyone of the gas stations has a brown box

I posted a picture of what the files are doing.  Like I said I have looked through all the dependence and read me files but I cant figure out why they would be doing this.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

The screen shot shows missing props.  Did you get the default set of lot dependencies from Maxis?  There are two sets:

https://www.sc4devotion.com/maxis/bldgprop_vol1.zip

and

https://www.sc4devotion.com/maxis/bldgprop_vol2.zip

If you have these, then you have missed at least one prop collection with respect to the others.  Absent buildings indicate you did not put the model file in your plugins.  A BAT can have up to three files: *.SC4LOT, *.SC4DESC, *.SC4MODEL.  Sometimes these are combined in various ways, sometimes into a single *.DAT file.

There is a lot more to custom content than meets the eye.  Remember that a lot of early BATters, like me, are also programmers and sometimes expect a complementary skill set when they package things.  So you have to carefully examine the contents of the archive (usually *.zip) that comes in.  It might have a README file with instructions, or it might not.  You can't just unpack these and jam the contents into your plugins.  Some of the stuff in the archive is pure documentation that doesn't need to go into Plugins and clutter it up.

These days, it really is a shame that many computer users have such little technical knowledge of that black box they are using.  At the time this game was release, 2003, the great burgeoning of computer use had not occurred.  Most users were hobbyists.

[Darkstar30 8]

Hey those props worked for the bio mass plant.  I still cant figure out which files to download to fix the other ones.  Ive read through all the read me files the places I downloaded them.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Take a look at the dates of submission of those lots.  If they are by a group, look for later editions of any packages of dependencies.  You might have to back out to earlier ones, or maybe the contents of some of the packages has changed.  A couple of them are from 2004 and the site has been though several convulsions since then.  It is possible that some items have been either moved or lost.  Not all the authors are still around, but you could try a PM to the active ones, Paeng for example, to see if something has gone amiss.

[His Divine Hand 244]

I cannot say for sure without looking through the files of it, but the cooling tower looks like an un-named invisible building prop which you are missing.  Likely, the cooling tower is only a prop, so rather than go to the effort of changing it, Paeng used an invisible building located in his plugins folder to make the lot.  Unfortunately these get forgotten when the lot is uploaded.  

Mind you, without looking through the files I couldn't say for sure.