KC Productions bat workshop

[Gn_leugim 858]

It's this here. I have made a few edits to it now, fixed some missing pictures and added a few lines of text, but is still fairly incomplete. but is enough to get you started!

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

thank you

[Gn_leugim 858]

no problem, any question fell free to ask

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

good morning

I will not be releasing any new work for quite a while.. I will still offer support for the files I have here online.... 

all other files i will be simply locating the dependencies so they work properly again.... RL has a way of keeping me busy these days.... I will still be checking in and checking for any posts I need to respond to......

 

[CorinaMarie 29,892]

You will be missed here, ofc. But, RL is way more important. I hope the things we talked about in chat go well for you.

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

thanks I do too... Still waiting for the call for the job.... everything else seems to be going well.... 

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

'

so here is the freight train station i was working on, this one will be transit enabled allowing trains to go through the lot.

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

is there anything i need to do to the lot to make it into a NAM lot?

[rsc204 21,866]

What do you mean by NAM lot? NAM certification is perhaps not ideal, if for no other reason, there is very limited resources right now to handle it.

If you just want to ensure it's well modded and the TE switches won't cause problems, chuck me a preview of the finished lot, I can handle that for you .

[CorinaMarie 29,892]

1 hour ago, rsc204 said:

If you just want to ensure it's well modded and the TE switches won't cause problems ...

Are there any particular well known Do's or Don'ts with regard to the TE-ness modding part?

[rsc204 21,866]

Depends really on the specifics of a given lot and how you want it to function, as such it's hard to generalise. In the case of a simple TE lot, where the rail just goes through straight, it's not hugely complex to make the rail part work.

Then the most important thing for lots that allow through-traffic, is ensuring they have correct TSEC values along with sufficient capacity to avoid potential issues with transit networks. Most of this is explained here:

That said, if you aren't looking to get into transit modding in a big way, a lot of that may be gobbledegook.

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

2 hours ago, rsc204 said:

What do you mean by NAM lot? NAM certification is perhaps not ideal, if for no other reason, there is very limited resources right now to handle it.

If you just want to ensure it's well modded and the TE switches won't cause problems, chuck me a preview of the finished lot, I can handle that for you .

ill get you the lot here shortly... i see trains going out of it but not going through it so i might have a TE set wrong. the freight trucks do go to it....i just wanted to make sure it would be compatable with NAM since i am uploading it in a few days soon as i am done testing it..

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

6 minutes ago, Mary Maurine Mayo said:

ill get you the lot here shortly... i see trains going out of it but not going through it so i might have a TE set wrong. the freight trucks do go to it....i just wanted to make sure it would be compatable with NAM since i am uploading it in a few days soon as i am done testing it..

i have attached the lot and the two other files needed. not all dependencys are included but should be enough to look at the lot.... thank you...

Utils5x5_KCP_wethyFreightStation_c50eadfc.zip

[rsc204 21,866]

20 hours ago, Mary Maurine Mayo said:

i have attached the lot and the two other files needed

Are you sure? I'm only getting a Model, Desc and SAV file inside.

The SAV file was no doubt created by SC4 Tools when you edited the lot using it. But since SAV files are backups from before such edits, I've no clue about which tiles should have the transit modding. Without knowing where to find the base textures used to lot it, it's very hard to do anything with this.

Any chance you could try again and ensure you enclose the modded SC4Lot file. If I can see your edits, I can list any changes I make, which might be helpful to you. It would also be helpful to know the dependencies, especially packs which have textures you've used upon the lot.

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

Ill do that tonight when I get home from work. Sorry thought it was the lot file.

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

14 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Are you sure? I'm only getting a Model, Desc and SAV file inside.

The SAV file was no doubt created by SC4 Tools when you edited the lot using it. But since SAV files are backups from before such edits, I've no clue about which tiles should have the transit modding. Without knowing where to find the base textures used to lot it, it's very hard to do anything with this.

Any chance you could try again and ensure you enclose the modded SC4Lot file. If I can see your edits, I can list any changes I make, which might be helpful to you. It would also be helpful to know the dependencies, especially packs which have textures you've used upon the lot.

 

Utils5x5_KCP_wethyFreightStation_c50eadfc.zip

[rsc204 21,866]

I made a few modifications, I'll quickly run through them, hopefully it will help you if you make more such lots in future.

Firstly I opened the lot file in SC4 Tools. Here I added two new transit switches:

• Outside to Inside / All / Freight Train --> Freight Truck
• Inside to Outside / All / Freight Truck --> Freight Truck

I'd love to explain fully why I've added them, but the simple answer is that I looked at the NAM modifications to the Maxis Freight Train Station and copied these values. All of the original Maxis stations were updated to improve compatibility with changes made in the traffic simulator. You can find these updates inside the file "Maxis Stations, Tollbooths, and Transitions.dat" which is located in the z___NAM\Mass Transit Lots folder. The fact is that such switches are hugely complex and the best solution is to copy them from a known good source for a similar lot. NAM and RTMT switches are always what I use as templates.

I've then adjusted two further values (Transit Switch):

• Entry Cost
  Set at .0091 as per the previously linked thread.
• Capacity
  Set to 30,000, again based on the NAM's altered Maxis Freight station.

You may look at the vanilla game and think 30,000 is some sort of cheat or extremely high value. But if you think this way, you are missing a very important point. When a station reaches a certain capacity, approx. 4x it's capacity, it can trigger a bug which will switch off all freight rail traffic in the city. So to ensure your stations can not trigger a serious bug, I've set it at a value that should never be exceeded. Bear in mind, some users may have NAM's Ultra simulator and way more traffic than your cities, you need to account for such scenarios when choosing a value here.

Having saved the file in SC4Tools, we get a new file ending in .SAV. This file, along with the .DESC file from your .zip needs to be removed/deleted, they are not required and will conflict if you keep them installed. The DESC file is the buildings exemplar created with PIM. But, for ploppable lots, when you save your new lot, it embeds a copy of the Buildings Exemplar into the SC4Lot file. If you don't remove the redundant DESC file, any alterations, such as the ones made in SC4Tools, could easily be wiped out.

There is one more bit of cleaning up we must now do, this time a result of a bug in SC4Tools. Open the SC4Lot file in iLives Reader. The two properties Transit Switch Entry Cost & Transit Switch Traffic Capacity both need to be modified slightly. See in the column "Rep", both will have a value of 1 here. However, this value must be 0, otherwise users of the Mac version of SC4 may experience big problems using your lot. Every time you save a TE lot in SC4 Tools, it will once more revert these Rep values to 1, which is easy to forget/miss. So, it's important to remember to adjust them back to 0 using iLives reader, after every edit using SC4 Tools. Just open the property (double click) and in the Rep field enter 0.

One last thing I've done, although not strictly necessary is to add a new property, Catalog Capacity, the value of which is 30,000, i.e. the capacity of the station. This property is very useful when used in combination with LText files, whilst not the case here, I prefer to include it just in case.

I hope this information is somewhat useful to you. Please find the modified lot attached, I've tested this and Freight Traffic happily passes through the lot. Note however that as modded, Passenger trains will NOT be able to enter/pass through the lot. If you want this functionality, please let me know and I'll send you a further edited lot.

KCP_wethyFreightStation_Updated Transit Switch.zip

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

On 10/18/2016 at 4:33 AM, rsc204 said:

I made a few modifications, I'll quickly run through them, hopefully it will help you if you make more such lots in future.

Firstly I opened the lot file in SC4 Tools. Here I added two new transit switches:

• Outside to Inside / All / Freight Train --> Freight Truck
• Inside to Outside / All / Freight Truck --> Freight Truck

I'd love to explain fully why I've added them, but the simple answer is that I looked at the NAM modifications to the Maxis Freight Train Station and copied these values. All of the original Maxis stations were updated to improve compatibility with changes made in the traffic simulator. You can find these updates inside the file "Maxis Stations, Tollbooths, and Transitions.dat" which is located in the z___NAM\Mass Transit Lots folder. The fact is that such switches are hugely complex and the best solution is to copy them from a known good source for a similar lot. NAM and RTMT switches are always what I use as templates.

I've then adjusted two further values (Transit Switch):

• Entry Cost
  Set at .0091 as per the previously linked thread.
• Capacity
  Set to 30,000, again based on the NAM's altered Maxis Freight station.

You may look at the vanilla game and think 30,000 is some sort of cheat or extremely high value. But if you think this way, you are missing a very important point. When a station reaches a certain capacity, approx. 4x it's capacity, it can trigger a bug which will switch off all freight rail traffic in the city. So to ensure your stations can not trigger a serious bug, I've set it at a value that should never be exceeded. Bear in mind, some users may have NAM's Ultra simulator and way more traffic than your cities, you need to account for such scenarios when choosing a value here.

Having saved the file in SC4Tools, we get a new file ending in .SAV. This file, along with the .DESC file from your .zip needs to be removed/deleted, they are not required and will conflict if you keep them installed. The DESC file is the buildings exemplar created with PIM. But, for ploppable lots, when you save your new lot, it embeds a copy of the Buildings Exemplar into the SC4Lot file. If you don't remove the redundant DESC file, any alterations, such as the ones made in SC4Tools, could easily be wiped out.

There is one more bit of cleaning up we must now do, this time a result of a bug in SC4Tools. Open the SC4Lot file in iLives Reader. The two properties Transit Switch Entry Cost & Transit Switch Traffic Capacity both need to be modified slightly. See in the column "Rep", both will have a value of 1 here. However, this value must be 0, otherwise users of the Mac version of SC4 may experience big problems using your lot. Every time you save a TE lot in SC4 Tools, it will once more revert these Rep values to 1, which is easy to forget/miss. So, it's important to remember to adjust them back to 0 using iLives reader, after every edit using SC4 Tools. Just open the property (double click) and in the Rep field enter 0.

One last thing I've done, although not strictly necessary is to add a new property, Catalog Capacity, the value of which is 30,000, i.e. the capacity of the station. This property is very useful when used in combination with LText files, whilst not the case here, I prefer to include it just in case.

I hope this information is somewhat useful to you. Please find the modified lot attached, I've tested this and Freight Traffic happily passes through the lot. Note however that as modded, Passenger trains will NOT be able to enter/pass through the lot. If you want this functionality, please let me know and I'll send you a further edited lot.

KCP_wethyFreightStation_Updated Transit Switch.zip

sorry for not responding... thank you so much ill try to have this lot released soon.... @rsc204 thank you so much for fixing the transportation stuff... no just the freight trains i want to pass through... 

 

ill be offline soon due to cutting back on bills. i hope to be back online by January... 

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

sorry i have not gotton this lot released yet. got married a week ago and then had an accident. I will try to get it released before my wifi gets shut off. 

[T Wrecks 10,210]

How dare you let your petty RL issues interfere with your work here?

But seriously, don't you think getting married (congratulations, by the way!) and recovering from an accident (get well soon, by the way!) are so much more important that keeping us updated and releasing stuff should really have lowest priority right now? Just take your time - the STEX is not on fire, and we'll be ready when you are.

[rsc204 21,866]

I second T Wrecks. You aren't letting anyone down by taking a breather, especially with your circumstances. Congratulations on the marriage, along with a get well soon from me also.

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

Thanks guys....

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

Hello everyone. Just got my xp machine back up and running. I will be doing more work on my lots and creating more custom content. 

 

Wow ive been gone a long time. Things have finally settled down so I have more time to do things. 

 

Missed you all.

[CorinaMarie 29,892]

19 minutes ago, Mary Maurine Mayo said:

I have more time to do things.

Does that mean you'll be going batty again?

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

Yes

[Jasoncw 11,949]

I missed your marriage post, congratulations! 

And I hope getting married wasn't the accident that you had!  

But congratulations on getting married, and it's good to hear you've got your computer back in action. 

[T Wrecks 10,210]

7 hours ago, Jasoncw said:

And I hope getting married wasn't the accident that you had!

Hahaha, I never thought of that! But isn't that something you normally discover at a later point?

Anyway, I hope that both indidences have been unrelated in this case, and I'm looking forward to seeing this thread back in action!

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

My accident was falling down a flight of stairs. And now im batling health issues.

 

Thanks for the congrats.

 

Working on a new model. 

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

Starting work on my mars tower that I attempted to do years ago. I will also have an earth version of it. 

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

I was able to get some of the tower done. Ill try to post an update pic soon.