Buildings missing after installing B.A.T.

[Psiman 177]

I downloaded and installed B.A.T. and GMax today.

I've opened up a save I made a few days ago of plopped buildings and many of the Buildings are missing from the Lots, as seen in the screenshot.

Any ideas?

[CorinaMarie 29,776]

1 minute ago, Psiman said:

I've opened up a save I made a few days ago of plopped buildings and many of the Buildings are missing from the Lots

Maybe they didn't send in their mortgage payments and the bank repossessed them?

 

More seriously tho, were those building showing before when you plopped them the other day? And if so, is Datanode showing that they are being overwritten now?

[Psiman 177]

I've installed SC4 Data Node, but not used it yet, and don't know how to. I'll have to do that tomorrow.

[Cyclone Boom 17,016]

Perhaps check your game's Graphics Options haven't been reset by the BAT installation. I recall somewhere reading how this (or the EP1 Update) can cause these to get set back to default, or to their lowest values. Missing details on lots (along with other graphical effects) can be attributed to City Detail being on Low.

[Psiman 177]

Graphics Options all seem to be okay. It's entire skyscrapers that are missing, so I don't think it's anything to do with City Detail.

[CorinaMarie 29,776]

While it's not my area of expertise it seems like the real building models are being overwritten with teeny, tiny invisible ones. Otherwise if the models were missing I suspect you'd see brown boxes.

[Psiman 177]

There's some other stuff about missing buildings that might be useful in this thread. It might be "a serialization bug that could corrupt the savegame, particularly when mods are installed that modify existing exemplars (i.e. prop pox)".

[CorinaMarie 29,776]

2 minutes ago, Psiman said:

(i.e. prop pox)

(I'm guessing not.)

Before @simmaster07's fix for that in the latest version of SC4Fix.dll, it still required a very large city to exceed the file limit size for when it went from compressing the save to not compressing. That seems unlikely in a city where you've plopped a few things.

[Psiman 177]

I started a new city in the same region and the Lots were plopping with their Buildings as normal. That suggests it might be a game save issue.

[CorinaMarie 29,776]

13 minutes ago, Psiman said:

That suggests it might be a game save issue.

Yep. It sure sounds like that was the case. Keep in mind there are a handful of ways for a save to get borked that has nothing to do with prop pox.

[Cyclone Boom 17,016]

It does seem possible, and rules out any possible ill effects from mods to the game.

For corrupt saves, I'm aware a possible risk factor is by switching focus from the game while saving, such as by opening another program or navigating to a different window. Particularly in larger cities, one thing which can go wrong is the use of the Save and Exit function. For both exiting to region and also exiting the game, it's been known to not complete and then terminate the application, causing the saved city file to become corrupted. Additionally, there's potential for the neighbouring tiles as well since they get updated in the process (with regional demands, etc). Not that this is the guaranteed cause, and maybe the save function just didn't work properly on this occasion.

I do highly recommend performing saves as a 2-step process. First use of the dedicated Save function which can be done using the Ctrl+S keyboard command. Then once completed, there's the option to either exit to region, quit the game, or carry on in the current tile. Also of course, regular Regions folder backups are never a bad idea too.

On a related note given the risks, I've made a modification to the UI which formats and disables the button to prevent it being used.

As follows (and also for the Save and Quit):

(I'm planning to release this to the STEX at some stage.)

[rsc204 21,836]

gMax and SC4BAT do not modify the installation of the original game, these applications are simply additions that don't even use the same install locations as SC4. For example, SC4BAT is actually just a set of scripts for gMax, the entire thing is installed under the gMax/gamepacks/BAT folder.

So, I suspect what you are seeing here is some other problem, that's manifested itself at this time.

The first test you need to do, is simply to remove any custom content (Plugins/Mods) from your game. Find the Plugins folder and temporarily move that somewhere else, like the desktop. Now open SC4, note a new, blank Plugins folder will be created at this point, then create a totally new region. Open one of the cities, plop all the affected buildings and see if those now display properly or not.

If they do, whatever issue you are having, is either related to the Plugins (Mods) installed or your save file. Restore the Plugins folder, test again in a blank city, if the buildings still appear normally, then I'd have to conclude your save file is indeed broken (corrupted) in some way. Sadly there is no solution to that, bar restoring a working backup if you have one.

If the first test doesn't work, something is wrong and you're going to need to uninstall, then re-install SC4 to try and fix it. If the first test is fine, but after restoring the Plugins folder it is not, the only conclusion we can make is that some file/(s) there are behind your problem. In which case you'll need to go through those files and weed out the culprit/(s).

[Psiman 177]

Removing Plugins folder had no effect. I can plop the same Lots that have missing buildings on the same map that they are missing from, and the Buildings appear on the newly-plopped Lots, so I think something must have happened to the save. 

[rsc204 21,836]

If you modify something and it grows or is placed in a city. Then subsequently load that city without such modifications installed, and save it, this sort of problem will happen. Restoring the content will not fix the issue and this is not a bug per-se, but simply relates to how the SC4 saves work.

Some parts of the save file are dynamic, meaning if they change, those updates will be seen straight away. For example, if you alter the texture on a Lot, that change will always appear.

Some parts however are static, so once placed, the data for them is placed into the save file and will not change. An example of this is Props, if you change a prop in Lot Editor, those existing lots already placed, will not update to reflect the change. You must bulldoze all instances, only new ones will reflect the change. Likewise, Buildings pretty much work this way, for example, changing the properties of lots with sliders, can cause real problems, including CTDs when querying them. You should always bulldoze all instances, prior to introducing the changes.

For these reasons, if you are modding, I recommend having a throw-away testing region to hand, so you can mess about until your hearts content. Without ever risking problems that might have an impact on any cherished cities or regions.