Load order weirdness... it's all about underscores!

[rsc204 21,808]

Playing SC4 recently with NAM 39, I came across the following problem:

The rail texture in use under the OWR viaduct reverts to Maxis Rail. Not a big deal, but today I decided to try and track down the cause and came across an interesting discovery.

First I jumped over to my Windows machine, using an identical copy of the NAM, the problem doesn't appear. Having hunted down the exact texture ID in use for this piece, I then used Plugins Analyser to find all instances of it in my Plugins folder.

• NetworkAddonMod_BaseContent.dat
  Inside folder 1_Core
  This contains the original Maxis texture that appears by default on the Mac.
• RealRailway_Textures_Legacy.dat
  Inside folder 2_Additional Network Features\Rail (RealRailway)\0_Rail_Legacy\5_Legacy_Textures_RRW
  This contains the override for RRW, the texture you correctly see by default in Windows.

Now I can't explain why a folder named 1_Core is loading later than one 2_Additional Network Features, but clearly this is what happens when playing the Mac version. Here is the Root of the NAM folder:

For no reason I can pinpoint better than a hunch, I decided to remove the underscores from these folder names:

And whaddya know:

Now the intended load order is preserved and the RRW texture appears.

It might be too early for sweeping statements, but I have the feeling if we remove special characters like underscores, Mac users will resolve a number of load order issues that result in little annoyances like this. I tried switching them for Hyphens, but that just reversed the texture to the wrong one again.

I simply don't know anything much about Apple/Linux file systems and how they interpret the order of characters. But certainly, underscores and hyphens do odd things.

I hope this helps some others to resolve some issues with NAM and other content. If we can be confident of the exact behaviour, I'm hoping we can find a way to name the NAM folders/files, such that they just work on either Windows or Mac, without any further effort.

@Tarkus: Just wanted to alert you to this development .

[countermoon 46]

This is interesting, and it may be helpful. Thanks.

[countermoon 46]

I believe this made a difference. Mac users having trouble should try it after datpacking. Those are the two solutions which allowed me to play the game. They were given to me here by generous people. I still have crashes occasionally, maybe once a week, but these two tips made a big difference.