CTD Alert and also looking for suggestions

[nickvon 161]

Having trouble finding a terminus passenger station that can handle raised viaduct heavy rail.  Ive spent hours searching through STEX and LEX and have yet to find anything that work on my Mac.  It seems as though there could even be a shortage of raised viaduct rail stations.  So far I've tried the following terminus stations:

 

 

 

 

NDEX ITS NAM Terminus and the Main Railway Station cause me to experience CTDs upon plopping, Winterton Station, however, only CTDs when i place the viaduct rail to link it with the rest of the line.  I am assuming this is all most likely due to the known transit bug with Macs.  I am hoping that someone else may have any suggestions of stations I may have missed that can handle raised viaduct heavy rail and are also a terminus and "Central/Main Station".

Thanks in advance for your time.

[rsc204 21,870]

I can certainly try to fix the ones you’ve shown so they work on a Mac, but no doubt others exist too. 

[nickvon 161]

2 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

I can certainly try to fix the ones you’ve shown so they work on a Mac, but no doubt others exist too. 

Incredible!  You always save me.  I can only really use one so if I had to pick I'd choose the NDEX one.  

[Tyberius06 12,280]

19 minutes ago, nickvon said:

Having trouble finding a terminus passenger station that can handle raised viaduct heavy rail.  Ive spent hours searching through STEX and LEX and have yet to find anything that work on my Mac.  It seems as though there could even be a shortage of raised viaduct rail stations.  So far I've tried the following terminus stations:

 

 

 

 

NDEX ITS NAM Terminus and the Main Railway Station cause me to experience CTDs upon plopping, Winterton Station, however, only CTDs when i place the viaduct rail to link it with the rest of the line.  I am assuming this is all most likely due to the known transit bug with Macs.  I am hoping that someone else may have any suggestions of stations I may have missed that can handle raised viaduct heavy rail and are also a terminus and "Central/Main Station".

Thanks in advance for your time.

14 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

I can certainly try to fix the ones you’ve shown so they work on a Mac, but no doubt others exist too. 

@nickvon
Do you have the SimCity4 dll fix installed? 
The Winterton station does NOT have the MAC TE incompatibilities, because I've already fixed it right after it was released and Debussyman replaced the buggy one with the fixed file within a few hours. Also I just downloaded it just to make it sure, and yepp, the fixed one is available currently.

The Rayfurke's Main Railway Station (HFB) (FROM STEX and from SCP) also does NOT have the regular MAC TE incompatibilities, because I just checked and it seems to be OK on that side.

The NDEX ITS NAM Elevated Termini however has the MAC TE incompatibility, but it's modded in a very basic way, so probably it would require a proper TE modding anyway.

But make sure that you have installed this patch:

https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/30883-sc4fix-third-party-patches-for-sc4/

- Tyberius

[rsc204 21,870]

48 minutes ago, Tyberius06 said:

Do you have the SimCity4 dll fix installed? 

Probably not, as a Mac user, assuming use of the latest 64-bit version, sadly this is no longer an option. Only the 32-bit version of SC4 and I believe pre-Catalina MacOS is able to use the DLL Loader required for DLLs to work on a Mac.

48 minutes ago, Tyberius06 said:

The Winterton station does NOT have the MAC TE incompatibilities

Indeed, I noticed the same when I first looked at it, not surprised since you did the modding . It does have a duplicate Buildings Exemplar though, which though harmless, is not ideal, the .SC4Desc file can be ditched, a copy exists in the SC4Lot file.

48 minutes ago, Tyberius06 said:

The Rayfurke's Main Railway Station (HFB) (FROM STEX and from SCP) also does NOT have the regular MAC TE incompatibilities

Again, quite correct, you may have noticed it was "fixed" by z1 (Z), who used to run the RTMT team, so no surprises there.

I've checked (on my Mac version) and both these stations function just fine, I'd recommend using the Winterton station, because it's a proper terminus, but also because it's modded for the newer E-RRW. If you are using NAM 36 or newer, you can now drag viaduct rail, avoiding the puzzle pieces. You can safely drag with the regular rail tool (ground level) all the way into the station for both lines, then away from the station safely connect it up to E-RRW and override the ground rail into Elevated.

The later station, because it pre-dates E-RRW was modded differently, you need to place Puzzle Pieces right up against the station, which requires a steady hand, but can be done.

A tip, drag ground rail as far as you can and overplop with Viaduct Rail pieces. Starting from the direction away from the station, move them very slowly towards the tile next to the station. Click to place and move the mouse back (away from the station), and repeat the process for all four lines on both sides. There is another, safer method though, drag E-RRW where the lines in the station will be, then mark out a gap for the station and use the RHW Disconnector tool, to remove all the tiles where the station will be. You should then be able to plop the station in the gap, which should work just fine. No risky puzzle pieces involved. Don't forget to drag with the regular DTR Rail Tool through the station to activate it afterwards.

 

The ITS NDEX El Rail Terminus is not actually modded for Elevated (Viaduct) Rail, rather El-Rail (Elevated Rail), so won't actually be much use to you here. I've attached a fix for the Mac problems for now, but I'll probably touch up the modding at some point. Note, once more this contains an erroneous SC4Desc file, which you should delete, to prevent it reversing the fix (it shouldn't - load order - but Macs seem to have a habit of doing that oddly, so best to be safe).

ITS_NDEX_El_Rail_Terminus_517f93b0.SC4Lot

[nickvon 161]

55 minutes ago, Tyberius06 said:

@nickvon
Do you have the SimCity4 dll fix installed? 
The Winterton station does NOT have the MAC TE incompatibilities, because I've already fixed it right after it was released and Debussyman replaced the buggy one with the fixed file within a few hours. Also I just downloaded it just to make it sure, and yepp, the fixed one is available currently.

The Rayfurke's Main Railway Station (HFB) (FROM STEX and from SCP) also does NOT have the regular MAC TE incompatibilities, because I just checked and it seems to be OK on that side.

The NDEX ITS NAM Elevated Termini however has the MAC TE incompatibility, but it's modded in a very basic way, so probably it would require a proper TE modding anyway.

But make sure that you have installed this patch:

https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/30883-sc4fix-third-party-patches-for-sc4/

- Tyberius

Just installed the patch.  Unfortunately nothing changed with being able to place Winterton Station.

I actually just learned a new tip from rsc204 that I have to try with Winterton Station.

 

8 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

I've checked (on my Mac version) and both these stations function just fine, I'd recommend using the Winterton station, because it's a proper terminus, but also because it's modded for the newer E-RRW. If you are using NAM 36 or newer, you can now drag viaduct rail, avoiding the puzzle pieces. You can safely drag with the regular rail tool (ground level) all the way into the station for both lines, then away from the station safely connect it up to E-RRW and override the ground rail into Elevated.

The later station, because it pre-dates E-RRW was modded differently, you need to place Puzzle Pieces right up against the station, which requires a steady hand, but can be done.

A tip, drag ground rail as far as you can and overplop with Viaduct Rail pieces. Starting from the direction away from the station, move them very slowly towards the tile next to the station. Click to place and move the mouse back (away from the station), and repeat the process for all four lines on both sides. There is another, safer method though, drag E-RRW where the lines in the station will be, then mark out a gap for the station and use the RHW Disconnector tool, to remove all the tiles where the station will be. You should then be able to plop the station in the gap, which should work just fine. No risky puzzle pieces involved. Don't forget to drag with the regular DTR Rail Tool through the station to activate it afterwards.

OK Thanks for the draggable tip.  I'm going to try this right now!

[nickvon 161]

9 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

The ITS NDEX El Rail Terminus is not actually modded for Elevated (Viaduct) Rail, rather El-Rail (Elevated Rail), so won't actually be much use to you here. I've attached a fix for the Mac problems for now, but I'll probably touch up the modding at some point. Note, once more this contains an erroneous SC4Desc file, which you should delete, to prevent it reversing the fix (it shouldn't - load order - but Macs seem to have a habit of doing that oddly, so best to be safe).

Ah shoot!  I misread it and thought it worked for heavy rail.  Thanks for the fix though!  

[rsc204 21,870]

3 minutes ago, nickvon said:

Just installed the patch.

Just to stress again, it won't work if you have the new version of SC4 (64-bit), nor Catalina or newer MacOS (security restrictions) I believe. But if that's not an issue for you, you need a special additional tool to be able to load DLLs on the Mac:

[Tyberius06 12,280]

25 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

A tip, drag ground rail as far as you can and overplop with Viaduct Rail pieces. Starting from the direction away from the station, move them very slowly towards the tile next to the station. Click to place and move the mouse back (away from the station), and repeat the process for all four lines on both sides. There is another, safer method though, drag E-RRW where the lines in the station will be, then mark out a gap for the station and use the RHW Disconnector tool, to remove all the tiles where the station will be. You should then be able to plop the station in the gap, which should work just fine. No risky puzzle pieces involved. Don't forget to drag with the regular DTR Rail Tool through the station to activate it afterwards.

 

The ITS NDEX El Rail Terminus is not actually modded for Elevated (Viaduct) Rail, rather El-Rail (Elevated Rail), so won't actually be much use to you here. I've attached a fix for the Mac problems for now, but I'll probably touch up the modding at some point. Note, once more this contains an erroneous SC4Desc file, which you should delete, to prevent it reversing the fix (it shouldn't - load order - but Macs seem to have a habit of doing that oddly, so best to be safe).

Sh... I totally forgot about that ITS NDEX El Rail Terminus is an El-Rail station (by mistake). Which is actually a modding error what was made back then (2006). Because the original TE switches are suggesting heavy rail, while the tiles are TE'd for EL-Rail. It's a bit mix-matching. That station is a total mess. So actually there is an "El-Rail fixed" version of this station modded by @gitbi in 2008. The original station was lost for a long time (with the model), I recovered it after Brian found it on his HDD a few years ago, but haven't modified anything on it. 

Hm... take a look onto the original modding of the lot: 

Gitbi's version fixed the modding for El-Rail (instead of passanger rail), but also suffers from the TE MAC incompatibility. I think I might do a full remodding on this (the original version) for L2 Heavy Passanger Rail and patch Gitbi's version up agains the MAC bug. 

52 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

Again, quite correct, you may have noticed it was "fixed" by z1 (Z), who used to run the RTMT team, so no surprises there.

Yepp, I've noticed Z modding on that lot  Although I'm thinking about updating this one as well, as an UDI-able L2 ERRW (using the ERRW paths from NAM) station, while I'm doing the Polska Restoration later on in 2021. It's a bit trial and error, but in SC4 Tool it's easy adding the ERRW paths. 

- Tyberius

[rsc204 21,870]

10 hours ago, Tyberius06 said:

I totally forgot about that ITS NDEX El Rail Terminus is an El-Rail station (by mistake). Which is actually a modding error what was made back then (2006)

I don't know how reliably we can say this, I mean was Viaduct Rail even a thing in 2006?, I certainly couldn't tell you.

What I can say is that the state of most stations made before 2009/10 is usually pretty bad, requiring as you state a lot of modding to get them to today's standards. But the point being, without too much more effort, we could provide both E-RRW/El-Rail support, by making two versions of the lot with different switches/TEing.

However, all three of the linked stations suffer from something that is worse (IMO), the rail seems to be at 15m, which does NOT match most Elevated Rail networks, where the network itself sits at 15.5m high. Again, not an uncommon mistake and likely because people think of L2 as 15m, but in reality it's not. Suitable models exist already, so you could simply leave this area blank on your model and then add the E-RRW as a Prop, doing so enables custom Rail Textures to appear automatically too. It just requires really good LODs to ensure there is space for the additional Props. However, no matter how nice a station looks, such obvious visual issues would stop me from using them entirely.

But indeed, the jump to E-RRW raises a bit of a conundrum, do we convert all Elevated (Viaduct) Rail stations to the new dragable standard? I would argue no we shouldn't, just fixing the modding is better, if we want to convert it to E-RRW, that should be provided as an optional version. Why?, well even though RRW is now the default rail, when NAM Lite comes, it will not support E-RRW, meaning the older Viaduct Rail stations would still be needed by some players, not just the old-NAM-version hold outs.

Either way if you are working on fixing stations, we should coordinate our efforts, so eventually these fixes are included in the SLURP program.

[Tyberius06 12,280]

6 hours ago, rsc204 said:

I don't know how reliably we can say this, I mean was Viaduct Rail even a thing in 2006?, I certainly couldn't tell you.

Hm... I've digged a little bit into this thing. This model was created in may 2006, and the later used/current stone arch based viaducts (how we know them) were created in the second half of 2007 by ArkenbergeJoe. But this version (by AJ) is a redesign, so there was an older version of NAM Rail Viaduct before this. Funny thing is, that even Goaskin wasn't really aware of this ITS NAM Terminus according to this post. Anyhow it's a bit confusing, why it was modded as passanger rail station and TE'd for El-Rail, while if it was meant to be an El-Rail terminus the necessary modding was available for that one at least since RH or Deluxe as el-rail by default a maxis network and not a NAM addition. So I have the assumption, that there was some kind of confusion about the NAM Rail Viaducts around 2006 as the first ancient version was released.

6 hours ago, rsc204 said:

However, all three of the linked stations suffer from something that is worse (IMO), the rail seems to be at 15m, which does NOT match most Elevated Rail networks, where the network itself sits at 15.5m high.

Yepp, I haven't noticed it with the Winterton until now, but I knew about the ITS Terminus was off. I totally agree on this one. By the way, I guess there is a way making a viaduct piece without the pilons/arch/walls having only the elevated rail tracks part, out of the original S3D models and then creating a new prop  I could use a model/prop like that. 

6 hours ago, rsc204 said:

But indeed, the jump to E-RRW raises a bit of a conundrum, do we convert all Elevated (Viaduct) Rail stations to the new dragable standard? I would argue no we shouldn't, just fixing the modding is better, if we want to convert it to E-RRW, that should be provided as an optional version. Why?, well even though RRW is now the default rail, when NAM Lite comes, it will not support E-RRW, meaning the older Viaduct Rail stations would still be needed by some players, not just the old-NAM-version hold outs.

Either way if you are working on fixing stations, we should coordinate our efforts, so eventually these fixes are included in the SLURP program.

Hm... I didn't know about this plan with Lite. Ah, sorry, yepp it's my fault, I haven't checked whether the HFB is using Elevated Heavy Rail paths or just using the touch and go technique. Now, checking it, it is UDI compatible already, in which case it's totally compatible with both E-RRW and Legacy Viaducts. Yepp, that was my missunderstanding. Although you just pointed out something about lot supports. I already made some progress moving some of the models and the El-Props into the Core NAM, so they don't get lost during custom installs, but now I'm thinking about coping all the necessary and commonly used NAM network paths (GLR, E-RRW, Viaduct Rail etc...) into the same NetworkAddonMod_Station_Dependencies.dat. I think it would be useful for lotters too on the long run. 

About SLURP, you're right we should coordinate those updates for sure, because it already came up few months ago, when Pierre became a bit more active to restart and update the SLURP again (but then I got super busy with Project ZIP and other resotration stuffs) so it got shelved again.  

- Tyberius

[nickvon 161]

16 hours ago, rsc204 said:

A tip, drag ground rail as far as you can and overplop with Viaduct Rail pieces. Starting from the direction away from the station, move them very slowly towards the tile next to the station. Click to place and move the mouse back (away from the station), and repeat the process for all four lines on both sides. There is another, safer method though, drag E-RRW where the lines in the station will be, then mark out a gap for the station and use the RHW Disconnector tool, to remove all the tiles where the station will be. You should then be able to plop the station in the gap, which should work just fine. No risky puzzle pieces involved. Don't forget to drag with the regular DTR Rail Tool through the station to activate it afterwards.

It works!  I am now able to use Winterton Station.  Thanks so much!  I'll post a photo of the built up area when it becomes developed.

[rsc204 21,870]

1 hour ago, Tyberius06 said:

Yepp, I haven't noticed it with the Winterton until now, but I knew about the ITS Terminus was off. I totally agree on this one. By the way, I guess there is a way making a viaduct piece without the pilons/arch/walls having only the elevated rail tracks part, out of the original S3D models and then creating a new prop  I could use a model/prop like that. 

2 hours ago, Tyberius06 said:

I already made some progress moving some of the models and the El-Props into the Core NAM, so they don't get lost during custom installs

Those are the models I'm talking about, but indeed you could adapt a custom S3D model to handle it quite differently. The problem there is that every station might be slightly different, so it's never going to be as simple as one model fits all. That said, the models exist and if you make your model with the intention of using them, you've the best chance of making it work. A simple flat plane might work better in some cases.

For example, I made a version of the ElRail model for users of ML's ElRail mod, but ML's override is much less flexible, a typical example of something unintended gumming up the works. But quite a few of the NAM stations don't have baked-in textures and are all the more flexible for those who make use of customised transit networks.

1 hour ago, Tyberius06 said:

I'm thinking about coping all the necessary and commonly used NAM network paths (GLR, E-RRW, Viaduct Rail etc...) into the same NetworkAddonMod_Station_Dependencies.dat. I think it would be useful for lotters too on the long run. 

Couldn't we just as simply make a list of the IDs in a readme? I really, really hate redundancy and having duplicate files is never good practise. Honestly, it's not like we've oodles of transit modders out there, this is certainly something that would have saved me a lot of time though. Perhaps we can do something on the RTMT side, I would like to provide some official Transit Modding tutorials at some point, apart from basic TE'ing, I don't know of a single tutorial for this out there. That would tie in nicely I think.

[Tyberius06 12,280]

2 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Couldn't we just as simply make a list of the IDs in a readme?

Or we can do that!  I actually started writing some of the path IIDs out (specially after you gave me those split island type GLR paths, I always lost them somewhere in my dev folders) into an excel sheet. Though I was just reminded by the HBF station, that the old viaduct rail has different IID, then the E-RRW, and that one wasn't in my list. 

2 hours ago, rsc204 said:

I don't know of a single tutorial for this out there. That would tie in nicely I think.

Hm... the only TE "tutorial" what I know of is Z's TSEC and Station Capacities writing, but I need to read it a few more times through, because there are confusing stuffs in it specially regarding different type of terminal stations. Anyway, so yepp an overall tutorial would be great eventually.

2 hours ago, rsc204 said:

but indeed you could adapt a custom S3D model to handle it quite differently.

I was actually talking about creating more EL (rail) network props in general for future lotting projects etc, not so much patching up older contents. Anyway I return to this topic, when I actually have time to deal with it.

[nickvon 161]

21 hours ago, rsc204 said:

I would like to provide some official Transit Modding tutorials at some point, apart from basic TE'ing, I don't know of a single tutorial for this out there. That would tie in nicely I think.

This, would be most excellent.  Once I get a PC going and I'm able to mod I would love to have a reference/tutorial like this.