My (failed) Attempt to Correct an Empty Lot Problem

[CorinaMarie 29,577]

In this post by @RippleJet we find that HAVOC Baby Chicks Free Range Eggs has that empty lot syndrome as a growable.

On 12/8/2006 at 1:12 PM, RippleJet said:

Havoc Baby Chicks Eggs  85   Havoc_Babychickseggs_4d9f2087.SC4Lot   morhavoc

 

Here's how it looks when grown:

 

Works fine as a ploppable landmark:

 

Using the more complete Growing Empty Lots and How to Correct them guide on Devotion's site (ours here on ST is missing section 3b) I've poked around in the related exemplar using iLive's Reader:

 

First thing I did was zero out the Parent Cohort:

 

Then deleted the Building/prop Family:

 

Added Exemplar Type as value 2 (Buildings):

 

Added Purpose as value 5 (Agriculture):

 

Refreshed it to see the affect of my changes:

 

Then I saved it, closed Reader, re-opened it in Reader to be sure the changes were there. (And they were.) Now the silly thing won't grow in my game at all. It's still ploppable as a landmark tho.

Here's what SC4DataNode has to say about it:

 

I suspect what DataNode is showing is for the missing Random Billboards props mentioned in the lot file's ReadMe. (I've tried every Billboard download on the STEX, but that's a separate issue I'm not concerned about if I can't get the building to grow.)

So, what steps have I missed? I felt like I followed the guide and made all the needed changes, but all I did was make it go away and not grow at all. I could've done that easier by just deleting the whole thing.

[twalsh102 1,601]

Hi Cori,

Given the title of the topic:  Growing Empty Lots and How to Correct them, I'm making an assumption that empty lots means unzoned lots.

So part of the problem is that this is either a malformed Growable, or a malformed LM with jobs.

The Lot exemplar properties involved:

Growth Stage:    Stage 3  (This obviously states that this is supposedly a Stage 3 lot.)
LotConfigPropertZoneTypes:     This is supposed to show what zone types the lot will grow in.
 

PIM-X and Reader both show no value.  SC4DataNode shows 00 or unzoned (I think this was an assumption on Rivit's part that the game assigned a default value of 0 when no values was entered).  So no value or a value of zero might mean that the lot will never grow, or the lot will grow on only unzoned lots.  Given the topic, I would guess the latter, which would reinforce Rivit's assumption.

Since the direction of the topic was how to fix Landmark lots so that they would NOT grow, and not so they would grow correctly, I would say you aren't missing anything, and are getting the desired results.  This goal could have been easier achieved by just changing the Growth Stage to 0xFF.  Or changing the LotConfigPropertZoneTypes to 0x07 (I - Low Density), and LotConfigPropertyPurposeTypes to 0x05 (I - R) would have made it growable, while still showing up in the Landmark menu. 

I don't think the missing props are billboards based on what the PIM-X LE is showing for size and location of the missing props, and what the picture included with the download shows.  One of the missing props appears to be a split-rail fence, and the other is something I can't positively identify, but is definitely not billboards.

[SimCoug 5,972]

My experience with reader tells me it could be any number of things... sometimes it takes going through every value with a fine tooth comb.  Rather than pull your hair out, I would suggest making a new growable lot (same size as the old one), and then just copying all the lot object values in the lotconfiguration exemplar over from the old lot (all the properties after the 'LotConfigPropertyLotObject')

EDIT:  Or try twash's idea 

[CorinaMarie 29,577]

On 6/27/2017 at 8:54 AM, twalsh102 said:

Since the direction of the topic was how to fix Landmark lots so that they would NOT grow, and not so they would grow correctly, I would say you aren't missing anything, and are getting the desired results.

Thanks, Tim.

Having slept on this and mulled it around in my subconscious, I kind of came to a similar conclusion that the lots in question where really intended to be ploppable only and due to a quirk of the game and the way the lots where made at the time they mysteriously started growing sans the building.

 

On 6/27/2017 at 8:57 AM, SimCoug said:

Rather than pull your hair out, I would suggest making a new growable lot (same size as the old one), and then just copying all the lot object values in the lotconfiguration exemplar over from the old lot (all the properties after the 'LotConfigPropertyLotObject')

Alrighty. I'll keep that in mind for maybe in the future. It's beyond my understanding level atm.

 

I have found that the grown, empty lot does generate freight trucks whereas the ploppable IR landmark does not. However, if I plop the real building next to the empty lot I can get the appearance of it working correctly. So, it seems I can just use these with the unintended mysterious lots appearing and make it look ok in my game.

 

[SimCoug 5,972]

Yeah,  plopped lots don't generate sims leaving a lot, which is why ploppable residential won't work in game (unless you plop the lot on top of an existing growable lot, exactly like you did here).  

[rsc204 21,806]

A quick look at the exemplar shows some potential causes.

Firstly that the Buildings exemplar is linked via the Parent Cohorts, or put another way, without a linked parent cohort, it won't work as a buildings exemplar because the property only exists in the linked cohort. Said buildings exemplar needs a property Resource Key Type X (probably where X = 1), which is the ID of the model for this building. So when you zero out the cohorts, you actually stop the exemplar from being read as a Building completely, but still there is no model linked to any of this.

Rather than get into the complexities of fixing this, you should just junk the exemplar entirely. Most likely this lot was made by copy/pasting some Maxis or other lot file, but the person doing this didn't really understand what they were doing. By far the easiest solution is to make a brand new buildings exemplar using PIM, then in the LE, change the building on the lot to your new Building (i.e. Buildings Exemplar). This will keep the lot file and alter only the building upon it, saving you remaking everything. Getting the properties correct for a Farm building is not an easy task, a tool like PIM-X would make this easier.

[CorinaMarie 29,577]

On 6/28/2017 at 3:56 AM, rsc204 said:

By far the easiest solution is to make a brand new buildings exemplar using PIM, then in the LE, change the building on the lot to your new Building (i.e. Buildings Exemplar). This will keep the lot file and alter only the building upon it, saving you remaking everything.

Now that I understand that Rivit's guide is to only stop the random empty lots from developing this makes perfect sense.

 

On 6/28/2017 at 3:56 AM, rsc204 said:

Getting the properties correct for a Farm building is not an easy task, a tool like PIM-X would make this easier.

With that in mind, I'd prolly be better off starting out with something more basic if/when I want to learn how to create these.

 

For simplicity I've decided to just let the empty lots grow and then plop one of the landmark farms nearby.

 

Basically I want additional stage 3 farms to compete with Pedriana's Plants (which I've now stopped from growing).

As a separate question: Can I make the Tobacco Farm and Tobacco Processing Plant from Shmails Tobacco Farm Set spawn 4x4 empty lots instead of the larger one? (The Tobacco Farm pictured above is plopped next to the Egg Farm lot.) Both of the tobacco ones have the LotConfigPropertySize set to 0x05,0x07 whereas the Baby Chicks Eggs has 0x04,0x04.  The 4x4 would be preferable.

I suspect changing the Tobacco ones to the smaller lot size would mess up the landmark versions since they, themself are larger.

[rsc204 21,806]

1 hour ago, CorinaMarie said:

Basically I want additional stage 3 farms to compete with Pedriana's Plants (which I've now stopped from growing).

If that's what you're after, I'd try to copy the buildings exemplar from Pedriana's Plants, to make identical ones which point to your new lot instead. You can bypass the building exemplar part by simply using the RTK value 0,0,0 (you must null all three Type, Group and Instance IDs for a null object), it should work, even if you have Parent Cohorts involved. You'll also need to convert the building itself to a prop (make a prop exemplar for it in PIM), so you can add the building as a prop onto the new lots.

You need to give each copy a unique instance for the main buildings exemplar, cohorts stay the same, since they are linked to other Maxis content that is reused for the same settings. It's probably important to know how a Parent Cohort works before continuing, it's not complex, think of them as templates for properties that are re-used for similar content. Maxis used them a lot, modders though rarely do so.

https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=2808.0

http://www.wiki.sc4devotion.com/index.php?title=Cohort

Those links should help.

You need also to make sure the final rep of the LotPropertyConfigLotObject line that starts with 0x00000000 (the building upon the lot) is linked to the instance ID of the buildings exemplar. But otherwise the lot exemplar can remain unchanged.

1 hour ago, CorinaMarie said:

As a separate question: Can I make the Tobacco Farm and Tobacco Processing Plant from Shmails Tobacco Farm Set spawn 4x4 empty lots instead of the larger one?

You can alter the lot size, but if the lot has objects for a larger or smaller footprint, this will lead to random weirdness in game. Just fire up the LE, remove all the bits that would not be needed and re-size the lot, it's a much easier method that simply adjusting the property in reader.