How do I fix this?

[thirstydeer 4]

I've started working on a region with the first city I started being a rural town.  As I started to lay out residential roads and let them grow, next thing I know the system is throwing high-occupancy buildings all over, including over the roads themselves.

I guess I can attribute this to the many downloads I've installed off the download exchange on this website.  Perhaps something is conflicting with something else...

Any help is appreciated.

[CorinaMarie 29,562]

1 hour ago, thirstydeer said:

the system is throwing high-occupancy buildings all over,

My guess is you have zoned for medium or high density instead of low density. I'd also guess you have one or more demand modifier mods installed.

 

1 hour ago, thirstydeer said:

including over the roads themselves

Just another guess, but isn't that the disconnector thinger in NAM?

[thirstydeer 4]

I've only used low density zones, as I am intentionally trying to grow a rural isolated community.   Your comment about having one or more demand modifier could be quite true.  I have installed several different files off the exchange, and quite possibly some aren't behaving together, or at all.  I'm just not sure how to isolate which one and fix it.

[Bryan623 94]

Looks like just one lot to me.  When did this start?  Sort your plugins folder by date modified, and move the most recent and/or relevant entry out of the plugins folder.  Specifically look for sc4lot files, looks like an amatuer mod to me.  If this helps let me know.

[CorinaMarie 29,562]

Ok, disclaimer first. I'm not much experienced with mods and the funny things they can do. (I'm still mostly learning vanilla so I'll know for sure what I want modified.) To track down one single plugin that's causing trouble you can use this method:

I would, ofc, back up the region folder too so you can get back to where you are if the testing goes awry. But, after you divide the plugins in half, then go into that city and bulldoze those big buildings and let the game run at full speed and see if they pop back up. If not, then it's in the half you isolated. If they do, then the mod is still in your plugins. Divide and conquer until you find which mod (plugin) is causing it.

 

[twalsh102 1,601]

The real key to the binary search is what you can see in the link Cori provided:  "this method assumes you have only one bad plugin that is causing trouble."

If that assumption is true, the binary search is often the only way to resolve a problem, such as you are experiencing.  In your case, the problem be one or more mods, or it could be the building itself.   If you can identify the building, analyzing it and removing it from the equation if it's not the problem could make a binary search (if it's necessary) that much more effective.  Hover your query tool over the building and see if it gives you a building name (it looks like you actually have two similar buildings involved) you can tie to one of your lots.  If this is possible, a look at the lot exemplar in Reader could prove to be revealing.  The lot exemplar specifically dictates at what stage a lot will grow, whether it is plopped or growable, and in which types (and densities) of zones it will grow

The following is especially true of older lots/buildings:  Some content creators specifically created lots with large building that would grow at Stage 1, in order to get larger buildings growing earlier.  Sometimes this happened because the creator wasn't sure of what they were doing.  It's entirely possible this was a landmark building that wasn't meant to grow, but because of the values entered in the lot exemplar, it could be one of those buildings that various people have reported over the years to "grow like weeds.  The fact that you have several of the same building all growing at the same time, might point to this hypothesis.  If everything looks good in the lot exemplar, then you are down to binary testing.

Tim

[MeMyself&I 379]

For what it's worth, I used this program to help me with a similar conflicting mod problem I had a couple weeks ago and it worked great.  It also helped me understand a little more about my plugins and how certain types of files work together in the plugins folder as well as finding the conflict that was causing the issue. 

I know that @twalsh102 has a lot more experience with this program than I do so maybe he can say more definitively if this is right for you and what you're experiencing.  One thing I've learned is to download and install mods, especially lots, one at a time and see how they work before adding a bunch more.  It's not a bad idea to have this on hand anyway if another plug in issue arises in the future.  It's actually pretty easy to use and very helpful sorting out conflicts and just seeing how things work together - or not.

[Prophet42 1,500]

Once you do find the issue and resolve it, I would highly recommend developing an organization scheme for your plugin folder (if you haven't already done so).  A well organized plugin folder will greatly assist you in any future troubleshooting endeavors .

[CorinaMarie 29,562]

20 minutes ago, Prophet42 said:

I would highly recommend developing an organization scheme for your plugin folder (if you haven't already done so). 

 

If you need any guidance for ^Prophet's suggestion, look in this thread:

 

[Tarkus 6,932]

The building in question here, in case anyone is wondering, is the Hamster Tenements.  In the default game, it's supposed to be a Stage 8 (the highest possible stage) that grows only in High-Density zones, on a 4x4 lot.  The CAM moves it up to Stage 10. 

Whatever file you've picked up seems to have re-modded those tenements to grow at a very low stage (probably Stage 1 or 2), in Low Density, and stuffed it onto a 3x4 lot with an overhang--that's the definition of poor modding practices.

-Tarkus

[twalsh102 1,601]

It would take a little sleuthing, but indeed, DataNode might be used to identify the offending lot.  But it depends!

Now that Tarkus has identified the building for us, we are looking for a building exemplar with an IID of 0x00700000, that overrides the same IID in SimCity_1.dat.  If one is found that is not part of CAM, we can look at the file path for the building exemplar to find where the associated lot is.  But this will only work if whoever created this actually included a file exemplar with the same IID in their upload.  The quickest way to check if there is an override is to switch to TGI View, click the Building List radio button (this list is ordered by IID) and scroll down until you find the above IID.  If the file path shows something other than SimCity_1.dat,  that is your likely culprit.  If it does show SimCity_1.dat, your job just got a lot harder.

Here's where the "It depends" comment comes into play:

Scenario 1:  It's entirely possible that this person only referenced the building exemplar in his lot exemplar, as opposed to creating an exemplar that overrides the Maxis building.

Scenario 2:  The person only used the model for this building to create a new building exemplar, and gave it a new IID (the proper way to do it!)

Scenario 3:  The person created or used an existing prop for the building, and the creator used one of the many "blank" building exemplars.

Scenario 4:  This building belongs to a family with 6 other buildings.  If the person creating this lot referencing the Family ID, instead of the IID for a particular building exemplar, things could get real ugly trying to track this down.

If any of these scenarios are true, and querying the building does not yield a unique name that can tie it to one of the lots in your Plugins folder, DataNode isn't going to be of any help, and you will be left doing the binary search.  If your Plugins folder happens to be organized such that all your residential buildings are in one subfolder, you could cut down your search time considerably by just doing the binary search on that folder.

[rsc204 21,805]

2 hours ago, twalsh102 said:

we are looking for a building exemplar with an IID of 0x00700000

Not necessarily, you could be looking for any buildings exemplar using an RTK that points to that model.

If you can't pinpoint the name of the files, you really are best off using the binary search method to find the affected file IMO. But of course being a growable file that will take some testing to identify the file. That's because you need to wait and see if it grows before each step of removing files.