Alternative waterfront lots to PEG

[westy177 203]

As it says in the title recently lost a region to PROP-POX and im looking to delete all of my pegasus stuff.

Looking for a alternative waterfront development mod to pegasus, I know it easy to just tap away and search up in the STEX but I thought it would be easier to ask here.

Pretty guttered as the peg lots are really good but id rather live a stress free life building knowing there gone.

Cheers team

[SimCoug 5,973]

Well, it seems to me you are throwing out the baby with the bath water with that approach.  To the best of my knowledge, there is only one file from Pegasus that is reported to cause prop pox.  The culprit seems to be some altered maxis props in the PEG OWW2 BDK Beach Development Kit 1.  Take a look at this thread over on SC4D, and you can find a way to fix the problem while still using all the PEG waterfront lots.  Alternatively, you could just avoid the PEG_OWW2_BDK_RESOURCE.DAT file (a large number of the PEG waterfront lots don't require this dependency).  Just to be clear though, this file is not the only way to infect your cities with prop pox -
From bap

Quote

Any other modding of Maxis prop which changes (=increases) the prop exemplar file size will equally lead to Prop Pox

Other files are floating around and can cause prop pox, this Pegasus file is just the most  popular.
Hope this helps. 

[rsc204 21,836]

2 hours ago, SimCoug said:

the culprit seems to be some altered maxis props in the PEG OWW2 BDK Beach Development Kit 1

Absolutely 100% correct. If you want to avoid Prop Pox, just ditch the BDK and the one or two addons that require it to work. The rest of the set is problem free, although a great deal of misunderstanding still pervades all these years later .

Interestingly, looking on the SC4D thread, a number of people get Prop Pox symptoms, but don't and never had the BDK installed. What does this mean: likely there are other causes for prop pox which remain unknown to this day. In short, removing the BDK is no guarantee you'll prevent the problem, neither is removing all the fantastic works by Pegasus, which really is totally unnecessary.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

Yikes, the file is still available for download at STEX. Does that mean that the 2015 update I see there is a patched (safe) version of this notorious mod (@bap  appears to have identified the cause* back in 2009)? If not, then shouldn't an admin disable or delete it?

* Cause: Adding time-dependent display info to an existing prop sometimes results in a later mismatch between data allocated and data written. Writing beyond the prop's allocated bytes randomly overwrites other props' data; chaos ensues.

[westy177 203]

4 hours ago, SimCoug said:

Well, it seems to me you are throwing out the baby with the bath water with that approach.  To the best of my knowledge, there is only one file from Pegasus that is reported to cause prop pox.  The culprit seems to be some altered maxis props in the PEG OWW2 BDK Beach Development Kit 1.  Take a look at this thread over on SC4D, and you can find a way to fix the problem while still using all the PEG waterfront lots.  Alternatively, you could just avoid the PEG_OWW2_BDK_RESOURCE.DAT file (a large number of the PEG waterfront lots don't require this dependency).  Just to be clear though, this file is not the only way to infect your cities with prop pox -
From bap

Other files are floating around and can cause prop pox, this Pegasus file is just the most  popular.
Hope this helps. 

Yeah I realised after this post that what I should do instead is keep them because they look damn good really set off my last region, and just backup saves regularly.

[rsc204 21,836]

14 minutes ago, westy177 said:

Yeah I realised after this post that what I should do instead is keep them because they look damn good really set off my last region, and just backup saves regularly.

That won't help I'm afraid. If this problem does occur, restoring an older backup would just lead to the same results eventually. So your two choices are really:

1. Use the file as-is and hope for the best.
   Actually it's less simple. Note how the issue tends to occur in large cities with lots of small residential buildings. If this isn't your setup, there is a high percentage Prop Pox is not actually your problem. But if you don't build that type of city, there is a lot less to worry about.
2. Modify the files to prevent the issue.
3. Remove the affected plugin from your system altogether.

1 hour ago, jeffryfisher said:

Yikes, the file is still available for download at STEX. Does that mean that the 2015 update I see there is a patched (safe) version of this notorious mod (@bap  appears to have identified the cause* back in 2009)? If not, then shouldn't an admin disable or delete it?

The file on the site has not been patched.

Should we remove it? I don't agree we should. For starters installing it does not mean you will get Prop Pox, there is so much more to the problem than that. The chances are, even with it, you will not experience prop pox. It's simple to fix yourself, if you want to, full instructions are provided on the SC4D thread. Otherwise I firmly believe people should have the right to choose whether to install it or not.

I tried to get the version on the STEX patched earlier this year, with no success, since I'm told I need the express permission of Pegasus, which simply isn't going to happen. Frankly the whole mess over prop pox just will not die, yet the facts speak for themselves:

2 hours ago, rsc204 said:

interestingly, looking on the SC4D thread, a number of people get Prop Pox symptoms, but don't and never had the BDK installed. What does this mean: likely there are other causes for prop pox which remain unknown to this day.

Could it be the wrong file was fingered all this time? Could it be the wrong cause was all too quickly taken as gospel, preventing further investigation into the cause? Honestly, anyone who thinks it's as simple as Pegasus' files are faulty, either doesn't understand the problem or is unable to see the situation as a whole objectively. Sure we could pander to that and lock the file, but to what end? To save people from the scourge that is prop pox, that argument is starting to make me weary.

Clearly there is much more to prop pox, but the simplest solution here and now would be to patch it (the BDK, just to be safe) and move on. In a land where copyright is constantly used as a barrier to improving things, that is not going to happen. When actually copyright doesn't apply to anything on the STEX. In fact, even the EULAs included are unenforceable for the most part. A simple rule change to say we as guardians of the content have the right to modify it, for the betterment of all, is sufficient to undertake such tasks. But I'm done flogging that dead horse frankly. But this absolute insistence that nothing can be changed, is doing our dwindling community more harm than good.

[Yarahi 1,816]

1 hour ago, jeffryfisher said:

Does that mean that the 2015 update I see there is a patched (safe) version

That info does not necessarily have to be related to the file itself. The "upadte" you see is affected by any changes on the download page (such as fixing formating issues)

[Tyberius06 12,209]

I can tell (among others), that not only the BDK kit cause Prop Pox. The first time when I've met with this nice thing, yes, I used the BDK kit on large city with... basicly everything what I had downloaded since than. The secound city failiure was actually when I made the first attempts to lotting and I opened several times the city with the LE/PIMX plugins, not the original ones, so I got a nice save file corruption. The third one was hurting me very badly (because it killed a nearly fully developed city - the original Noir City North Harbour - about 15 months ago), and I don't know for sure what caused the Prop Pox (yes, that was Prop Pox), because I didn't use the BDK kit, but what I could figure it out, probably I did modify one or more of my custom lots in a very messed up, stupid way and the game didn't like that. And of course there are other effects, which causes similiar things like PP, but they are not PP, just some kind of save file corruptions. 

By the way, I occasionly check the under development cities of mine with SC4 Save tool, and back the whole target region folder up into a flashdrive. This way I could save my city (more or less) so I didn't have to start the city from the begining.

 

- Tyberius

[rsc204 21,836]

5 minutes ago, Tyberius06 said:

The secound city failiure was actually when I made the first attempts to lotting and I opened several times the city with the LE/PIMX plugins, not the original ones, so I got a nice save file corruption. The third one was hurting me very badly (because it killed a nearly fully developed city - the original Noir City North Harbour - about 15 months ago), and I don't know for sure what caused the Prop Pox (yes, that was Prop Pox), because I didn't use the BDK kit, but what I could figure it out, probably I did modify one or more of my custom lots in a very messed up, stupid way and the game didn't like that.

But here is the difference between Prop Pox and those scenarios... In those cases, restoring your cities from a backup would likely have fixed the problems. You know, computers have bad days, things go wrong, having a backup is your safeguard against data loss. That's why the way the Prop Pox works, which is a extremely specific set of corruption, is such a problem. The loss is catastrophic, even if you had a backup of your cities/region. Those backups will when restored ultimately fail in the same way.

Which is why it's super important (not just me nit picking) to not call general missing props Prop Pox. Because there are other ways to corrupt a save file, but every last one that's well documented, can be recovered from, provided you keep backups.

[Tyberius06 12,209]

3 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

Those backups will when restored ultimately fail in the same way.

Not neccesarily, but yes, I had to go back from level 11 (level 11 means the back-up level - I had 11 separete back-up from the same region) to level 2.5, because level 3 still contained some disabled props (4) even if I didn't have any development apart from roads and highways in the region. That was a Prop Pox issue definitely, it was discussed over at SC4D in a thread which was opened for this specific issue. But since last august I've rebuilt the city, now its size is 25 mb and no disabled props in it. So I think it's working now. And with the new cities I reduced the amount of plugins, I making the lots a much organized way more carefully.

But yes, I had a few times when I got a CTD and when I went back to game it wiped out some props, but reloading some previous version from the back up folder solved those problems. 

[westy177 203]

5 hours ago, rsc204 said:

That won't help I'm afraid. If this problem does occur, restoring an older backup would just lead to the same results eventually. So your two choices are really:

1. Use the file as-is and hope for the best.
   Actually it's less simple. Note how the issue tends to occur in large cities with lots of small residential buildings. If this isn't your setup, there is a high percentage Prop Pox is not actually your problem. But if you don't build that type of city, there is a lot less to worry about.
2. Modify the files to prevent the issue.
3. Remove the affected plugin from your system altogether.

The file on the site has not been patched.

Should we remove it? I don't agree we should. For starters installing it does not mean you will get Prop Pox, there is so much more to the problem than that. The chances are, even with it, you will not experience prop pox. It's simple to fix yourself, if you want to, full instructions are provided on the SC4D thread. Otherwise I firmly believe people should have the right to choose whether to install it or not.

I tried to get the version on the STEX patched earlier this year, with no success, since I'm told I need the express permission of Pegasus, which simply isn't going to happen. Frankly the whole mess over prop pox just will not die, yet the facts speak for themselves:

Could it be the wrong file was fingered all this time? Could it be the wrong cause was all too quickly taken as gospel, preventing further investigation into the cause? Honestly, anyone who thinks it's as simple as Pegasus' files are faulty, either doesn't understand the problem or is unable to see the situation as a whole objectively. Sure we could pander to that and lock the file, but to what end? To save people from the scourge that is prop pox, that argument is starting to make me weary.

Clearly there is much more to prop pox, but the simplest solution here and now would be to patch it (the BDK, just to be safe) and move on. In a land where copyright is constantly used as a barrier to improving things, that is not going to happen. When actually copyright doesn't apply to anything on the STEX. In fact, even the EULAs included are unenforceable for the most part. A simple rule change to say we as guardians of the content have the right to modify it, for the betterment of all, is sufficient to undertake such tasks. But I'm done flogging that dead horse frankly. But this absolute insistence that nothing can be changed, is doing our dwindling community more harm than good.

it actually did occur on my large suburb tile got 75 percent developed and boom entire apartments on housing lots vanished cars trees everything. im at the crucial point in my new region where i can delete corrupting plugins as i havent zoned yet. wouldnt know how to go about finding the culprits. 

still have the infected region on hand for research purposes.