A couple of questions about NAM's transit station updater.

[Edvarz 1,984]

Hello helpful people of Simtropolis!

I recently ran the NAM installer to get rid of a couple of things I wasn't using and to update some transit stations. One of the transit stations I updated was Sim Goober's Simtropolis Station, when I plopped it ingame it looked misplaced, It didn't have this problem before, I fired PIM-X and checked the lot that was located at the original installation place (i.e. MyDocs/Simcity4/Plugins/simgoober/etc...) it looked exactly as it should, like this.

So I deduced that there had to be a lot overriding that one, I traced such lot to the  the "z___NAM" folder, and into a subfolder called "MTA Station overrides" where all the stations that have been updated to NAM standards are located. When I opened that lot in PIM-X it displayed the misplaced building.

Now, the issue here seems to be that the original lot used a dummy building with a 60x60 occupant size and a prop for the actual station, and the file updated by NAM uses a normal building with a 90x81 occupant size, but positioned at the place where the original dummy building used to be. Now, this caused a couple of doubts on my mind.

1) Previously I assumed that NAM's station updater put the updated files where the original were located, and Cleanitol discarded the original file, it turns out that I ended up with two files, the original and the override one. is this how it is supposed to work? and, can I discard the original files and keep the overrides only?

2) This I have noticed when editing files before: If you change the Occupant size property of a building, it doesn't seem to be acknowledged in the lot file, why is this the case? can it be somehow fixed?

Regarding the station, I know there is a re-lot on the STEX, I'll download it later, but this situation just picked my curiosity.

P.S. I know I could post this on the NAM subforum, but my doubts were a bit more general, anyway, if a moderator thinks it should be moved, please do so.

[rsc204 21,804]

1 hour ago, Edvarz said:

1) Previously I assumed that NAM's station updater put the updated files where the original were located, and Cleanitol discarded the original file, it turns out that I ended up with two files, the original and the override one. is this how it is supposed to work? and, can I discard the original files and keep the overrides only?

The NAM just overrides the buildings exemplar in most cases to ensure the updated capacities and TSEC will work. However, depending on the lot itself, it's sometimes necessary to adjust the LotConfiguration also. There is a set of rules that such SLURP'd stations must adhere too, so what needs doing really varies from one item to the next. As such, you may be able to remove the existing files, but in some cases that could leave you without something needed for proper functionality. Overrides are a staple of how SC4 modding works, a few duplicate lot files are not gumming up the works, so unless you can check things yourself, I'd leave it alone.

1 hour ago, Edvarz said:

2) This I have noticed when editing files before: If you change the Occupant size property of a building, it doesn't seem to be acknowledged in the lot file, why is this the case? can it be somehow fixed?

It would seem that when a building is added onto a lot, that's when the occupant size is set. Changing this later, will not affect the lot file. Thinking about it, that's probably defined by the Hex strings in the line of the LotConfigurations exemplar's LotConfigPropertyLotObject for the building, i.e. the one beginning 0x00000000.

Adjusting the property in the Buildings Exemplar, wouldn't reflect those changes automatically elsewhere, such as the LotConfiguration. I'd hazard a guess replacing the building using Maxis' Lot Editor may update the value, so would adjusting it manually. But that last one would be a PITA using Reader, probably way simpler to replace the lot with a new one. You could then copy over all the LotConfigPropertyLotObject values that did not start 0x00000000, which would give you an identical lot without remaking it.

Honestly, without running tests, I couldn't even tell you which of the Reps would need to be modified, nor if my assumption is correct.

1 hour ago, Edvarz said:

Now, the issue here seems to be that the original lot used a dummy building with a 60x60 occupant size and a prop for the actual station, and the file updated by NAM uses a normal building with a 90x81 occupant size, but positioned at the place where the original dummy building used to be.

I'll look at the files, it would seem that there has been an error here, in which case I'll ensure it gets fixed. However, it's perhaps worth noting that the occupant size of the prop used in the original, is larger than that of the building used in the SLURP replacement. This makes the idea of using a dummy prop rather pointless, especially considering you can't realistically place MMPs where the station building would be. From a modding perspective, it makes no sense to use a smaller occupant size in such a scenario. The occupant size being correct, would help avoid MMPs invading the space taken up by the station, exactly as Maxis intended.

[z1 566]

I should also add that in general, the SLURP process modifies only the Buildings exemplar, and not the LotConfigurations exemplar. What you describe should not happen as a result of SLURP, yet it appears that it does.  A while ago we noticed some problems created by a bug in the NSIS compiler (which compiles the installer), and at some point I will need to track these down.  It's possible that this is what's causing your problem; unfortunately, it is nontrivial to fix.

[vortext 573]

17 minutes ago, z1 said:

I should also add that in general, the SLURP process modifies only the Buildings exemplar, and not the LotConfigurations exemplar. What you describe should not happen as a result of SLURP, yet it appears that it does.

It actually does make sense though since Building Exemplars contain the RKT for the building. In this case it appears the original Building Exemplar RKT pointed towards a dummy BAT and the SLURP process updated the Building Exemplar RKT to point towards the actual model.

[rsc204 21,804]

37 minutes ago, vortext said:

It actually does make sense though since Building Exemplars contain the RKT for the building. In this case it appears the original Building Exemplar RKT pointed towards a dummy BAT and the SLURP process updated the Building Exemplar RKT to point towards the actual model.

I'm guessing that when this change was made, no one checked the position of the model on the new lot. In any case, I was planning to handle this issue and update any necessary files, so you can consider me on it Steve .

[rsc204 21,804]

Quick update. This is definitely a bug, thanks for reporting the issue @Edvarz. Just fixing them now, so hopefully the issue will be resolved in the next NAM version.

Also, in the case of this lot, if you removed the original lot file, it would stop working. That's because the Icon is included in the original SC4Lot file, but not in the override in the NAM. Since this is SG's content, re-distribution is not usually acceptable. Of course if you copied that into the new lot file, it may solve the issue. But the NAM installer will wipe out this change every time it's run. So ultimately, it's probably more effort than it's worth.

[Edvarz 1,984]

Thanks for the answers!

@rsc204 Glad I could help in something!

As for the lot itself, you were right, replacing the building with Maxis' Lot Editor updated the occupant size. Should have tried that before, but I've gotten so used to the X-Tool that I forgot ye olde Lot Editor still has it's tricks.

And I'll keep both files then, It's just a few extra kilobytes anyway.

[rsc204 21,804]

In the case of the file with the problem, the actual fix I applied was to revert the station back to how SG originally made it. The reason for this, if you go into Subway view, the station shows up as a big green blob. Making it almost impossible to know where to connect the subway. So instead, I removed the Resource Key Type 1 property entirely and also removed the updated LotConfiguration exemplar, which you shouldn't need. File attached if you want to have this now.

Original patch for this problem has been moved, please see this post. It includes patches for two other affected SG stations also:

 

[Edvarz 1,984]

Oh, that's even better, thanks a lot!