Revisiting Prop Pox and Prop Theory

[Talla 2XLC 36]

Would it be posible to fix the Water Bug (Lots with a transparent Base Texture) with a dll?

[jaredh 195]

Another big one is the residential plopping abandonment bug.

[Wiimeiser 452]

2 hours ago, jaredh said:

Another big one is the residential plopping abandonment bug.

Not sure that can be fixed so easily... The game hardcodes a lot's state when it's plopped so it can't regenerate if it abandons, and also prevents sims from leaving the lot. Residential only allows sims to leave, not enter, and unless you're plopping on top of a lot with identical population values the game will abandon it immediately, it could possibly be discarding a discrepancy in doing this, because it can't handle changes in population that weren't programmed in...

[matias93 7,535]

20 minutes ago, Wiimeiser said:

Not sure that can be fixed so easily... The game hardcodes a lot's state when it's plopped so it can't regenerate if it abandons, and also prevents sims from leaving the lot. Residential only allows sims to leave, not enter, and unless you're plopping on top of a lot with identical population values the game will abandon it immediately, it could possibly be discarding a discrepancy in doing this, because it can't handle changes in population that weren't programmed in...

Probably it would require rewriting the entire code for spawning and receiving sims on lots, so it's much more than fixing a small bug. On the other hand, Simmaster has mentioned that the DLLs can override the executable's code, and change that would also allow many other improvements to the simulation (like mixed use lots or internal consumption of industrial outputs)

[simmytu 605]

9 hours ago, Wiimeiser said:

Not sure that can be fixed so easily... The game hardcodes a lot's state when it's plopped so it can't regenerate if it abandons, and also prevents sims from leaving the lot. Residential only allows sims to leave, not enter, and unless you're plopping on top of a lot with identical population values the game will abandon it immediately, it could possibly be discarding a discrepancy in doing this, because it can't handle changes in population that weren't programmed in...

There's a way to plop residential buildings without suffering from abandonment. It involves zoning an area and after residential buildings have established, you plop down the desired residential building.

@simmaster07 Impressive work, especially with tacking the infamous proppox. Heh, your username really fits your amazing creations here

[Wiimeiser 452]

7 minutes ago, simmytu said:

There's a way to plop residential buildings without suffering from abandonment. It involves zoning an area and after residential buildings have established, you plop down the desired residential building.

I did read about that, that's why I mentioned the game could be experiencing a discrepancy.

[Cyclone Boom 17,031]

I was going to post this sooner, but got caught up with a few things...

Just over a month ago I replied to this status posted by @Artimus. They mentioned about returning to the game and had a previous city affected by Prop Pox which would need to be redeveloped. Given how it's already proven to be a solution, I recommended giving the SC4Fix a try. Maybe it could be salvaged when all hope would've been lost. Then as another case in point of how useful the fix is to cure Prop Pox, a couple of weeks back I received a reply to confirm it did just that.

As follows:

On 02/07/2018 at 9:16 PM, Artimus said:

Nice. I just tried this fix and holy mackerels it does work! That saves me a lot of redevelopment time and I feel free from the worries of prop pox dread. Wonderful fix indeed!

How wonderful, and I was absolutely delighted to hear this good news.

So seeing as it hasn't been active for a little while, I'm bumping in reply here to spread the word and hopefully make others aware of @simmaster07's sensational achievement. To whoever is reading, whether a returning member or someone who's discovered ST from Google searching a Prop Pox fix, this is the one.

(The file can be downloaded from the STEX, and see the initial post for additional info.)

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

Seriously?   

I am astounded.

[Belfastsocrates 1,753]

I must try this to see if it can assist my city tile that keeps corrupting at 12.5mb. Might not work in the same way but worth a try.

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

I have just come back to game after a few years.   I got caught by the TE hover bug just the other night...  CTD - BOOM!   Then I found out about this fix...

Installed the patch - opened tile, got the SAM starter piece and hovered over every TE enabled lot I could find.

I. am. amazed.

And to think that I have been playing those ridiculous pay to win phone games where you have to keep buying expensive packs to get anywhere...

Time to run home to Mama, and play this great game again.

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

I have added a page to the Screwpile.    I do still seem to get a few site referrals directly from the Steam forums and a couple of other places.

https://screwpiledevelopments.com/screw-pile-exchange-spex/sc4fix/

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

Lookie at meeeeeee Mawwww....   I'm waftin, that big ole SAM curve right over that TE enabled Skeweel Bus Garage...    I ain't not gettin' no CeeTeeDee!

[z1 566]

Like everyone else, I am thrilled by the fixes offered by this patch.  However, once I installed it, I found that it did not in fact fix my poxed city.  I followed the directions on the download page multiple times, very carefully each time.  Each time, the problem would be temporarily fixed, but the next time I opened the city, it was back.

This city was one of the first to be identified as poxed, and I had many people from the BSC Team working with me to try to fix it.  It's clear that it's a classically poxed city.

Any suggestions?

[CorinaMarie 29,877]

7 hours ago, z1 said:

Any suggestions?

We could beep @smf_16. I'm not certain, but I believe he has a way to fix a badly poxed city.

[z1 566]

7 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

We could beep @smf_16. I'm not certain, but I believe he has a way to fix a badly poxed city.

That sounds good to me.  What's the best way to proceed?

[rsc204 21,865]

3 hours ago, z1 said:

What's the best way to proceed?

Well Corina already did the 'beeping'. If you put an @ before typing a user name, you get something like this @z1. This should trigger a notification that someone has mentioned you, a great tool for trying to draw a particular member's attention to something relevant.

[z1 566]

I found out why I couldn't fix my prop pox.  This particular city also suffered from two versions of the phantom slider bug - one in which the sliders of all the police stations would gradually drop to zero (along with their coverage), and one in which the health facilities didn't have their individual sliders drop, but the global slider dropped over time.  This led to complaints that my health facilities were underfunded, even though the individual facilities had sufficient funding and coverage.

As the way I got to this situation was a bit different from the standard way of generating phantom slider problems, I had to generate my own solution, which was actually a bit simpler than most solutions for dealing with these problems.  Once the phantom slider problems were fixed, the standard fix for the prop pox worked, and the city has been running completely healthy for many decades now.

From my experience, both here and in one other case, it appears that the phantom sliders can affect the prop pox.  In cities where both problems are present, fixing the phantom sliders first and then the prop pox should end up fixing both problems permanently.