Total modding newbie, trying to fix names / descriptions in a dat file

[rsc204 21,857]

So as we've been troubleshooting, I've been going through the files myself to try and do much the same thing as you I suspect. Just getting the naming stuff tidy and organising the files such that I can make sense of them.

Three Buildings Exemplars in the DAT are completely redundant, they don't link to a LotConfiguration, which is handled by the Lot Resource Key property, two are set as a null key, 0x00000000 (0 in decimal), the other has two such Properties, but even the one with an actual ID present, doesn't link anywhere too. These three have the Instance IDs as follows:

• 0x7D1843FE
• 0x9CF34E20
• 0xBD16EF5B

In reader you can safely delete these Exemplars without causing any problems.

I also split the Lots from the Props/Models into distinct files, there are lots of other useless files in there. Have you used DATPacker yet?, if you DATPack a folder containing only one DAT, which might seem a bit pointless, it will take care of these automatically:

Essentially, create a new folder, give it the name of the DAT file within it. Select that folder in DATPacker, the click start. The optimised version is then created in the folder listed under 'Destination directory'. You can then replace the old file with your cleaner version, but do check files if doing this, just in case.

For this file, this process removes the following file types:

• BMP
  Part of the process of making models for SC4, but not used for anything.
• JIFF
  Same as BMPs
• PNG
  Not all PNG files are junk, but the Lot Preview Images are, they used to be part of Maxis' online community, if you uploaded an item there these previews were the images you'd see of the download. But that sites long dead and they are otherwise wasting space.
• XML
  Again a remnant of the Maxis tools, but functionally speaking a waste of space.
• LD
  When you save a Lot in the Lot Editor, this file lists the Dependencies needed for the Lot. Only, they are rarely correct and this functionality isn't really used any more, again it's really just gumming up the works.

DATPacking takes care of all these and more, ruthlessly culling anything that isn't specifically needed functionally. This should at least give you a cleaner file to work with.

5 minutes ago, DarkSoul said:

found the spawner, it is a prop not a building.  I put the spawner in the entrance lot and it doesn't spawn any vehicles. but on the open park area it spawns TONS of airport shuttles.

I can't instantly explain that, since it should be this particular prop's presence that triggers them vehicles, which isn't directly tied to any particular lot. Perhaps something specific in the modding for the entrace is preventing this from happening, I'll see what I can find. But it might be tomorrow before I can come back to you now.

[DarkSoul 3]

4 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

So as we've been troubleshooting, I've been going through the files myself to try and do much the same thing as you I suspect. Just getting the naming stuff tidy and organising the files such that I can make sense of them.

Three Buildings Exemplars in the DAT are completely redundant, they don't link to a LotConfiguration, which is handled by the Lot Resource Key property, two are set as a null key, 0x00000000 (0 in decimal), the other has two such Properties, but even the one with an actual ID present, doesn't link anywhere too. These three have the Instance IDs as follows:

• 0x7D1843FE
• 0x9CF34E20
• 0xBD16EF5B

In reader you can safely delete these Exemplars without causing any problems.

I also split the Lots from the Props/Models into distinct files, there are lots of other useless files in there. Have you used DATPacker yet?, if you DATPack a folder containing only one DAT, which might seem a bit pointless, it will take care of these automatically:

Essentially, create a new folder, give it the name of the DAT file within it. Select that folder in DATPacker, the click start. The optimised version is then created in the folder listed under 'Destination directory'. You can then replace the old file with your cleaner version, but do check files if doing this, just in case.

For this file, this process removes the following file types:

• BMP
  Part of the process of making models for SC4, but not used for anything.
• JIFF
  Same as BMPs
• PNG
  Not all PNG files are junk, but the Lot Preview Images are, they used to be part of Maxis' online community, if you uploaded an item there these previews were the images you'd see of the download. But that sites long dead and they are otherwise wasting space.
• XML
  Again a remnant of the Maxis tools, but functionally speaking a waste of space.
• LD
  When you save a Lot in the Lot Editor, this file lists the Dependencies needed for the Lot. Only, they are rarely correct and this functionality isn't really used any more, again it's really just gumming up the works.

DATPacking takes care of all these and more, ruthlessly culling anything that isn't specifically needed functionally. This should at least give you a cleaner file to work with.

I can't instantly explain that, since it should be this particular prop's presence that triggers them vehicles, which isn't directly tied to any particular lot. Perhaps something specific in the modding for the entrace is preventing this from happening, I'll see what I can find. But it might be tomorrow before I can come back to you now.

wow, thanks a ton man that's amazing stuff. I've used datpacker once but I'll run that single 8 level garage dat file through it and clean those things up then I guess.

No worries on trying to get back to me today if not possible. I'm just messing around and trying to learn what I can for now.
When I look at the lot editor for the "8 level shuttle spawner" lot(open park area tile) down under "Lots>Props" it has a bunch of props in there, like the garage level pieces. the entrance (8 lvl new entrance) doesn't.

Not sure if that's relevant, but really the only other change I want to make here is to move that spawner after that I think I've got everything about this one covered in terms of naming things "properly" etc.

 

[DarkSoul 3]

did you ever end up taking a look at the airport spawner? I'd like to try and sort that out if possible but I have no idea what I'm doing in that regard lol.

Also I noticed that the police kiosk tile will send out cars that will then immediately drive right into the garage entrance.
I think this only happens if the kiosk is too close to the entrance though but I'm not really sure as I haven't actually sat there to test it all that much.

[rsc204 21,857]

First impressions are that the spawner requires some special OccupantGroups in addition to the Prop. Although I’ve yet to propagate that functionally to another lot. Been a bit sick yesterday so this kind of work took a back seat.

As for vehicles of all types driving into the garage, that’s just what happens when you Transit Enabled (TE) a lot, since it makes it a viable path for traffic, you’ll find automata drive there. But they have nowhere to go. It can be solved by removing the TE Properties, effectively making it a Network Enabled (NE) lot, but that would kill the functional parking element.

I’ve made a bunch of tweaks to the set and also the 2 level versions on my end. I’ll probably upload the lots when I’m done because there are quite a few elements to the modding of these that I think need tweaking. Not least that every piece provides Park and Landmark effects in addition the Cap Relief, which is frankly a bit too ‘cheaty’ for my liking. 

[DarkSoul 3]

40 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

First impressions are that the spawner requires some special OccupantGroups in addition to the Prop. Although I’ve yet to propagate that functionally to another lot. Been a bit sick yesterday so this kind of work took a back seat.

As for vehicles of all types driving into the garage, that’s just what happens when you Transit Enabled (TE) a lot, since it makes it a viable path for traffic, you’ll find automata drive there. But they have nowhere to go. It can be solved by removing the TE Properties, effectively making it a Network Enabled (NE) lot, but that would kill the functional parking element.

I’ve made a bunch of tweaks to the set and also the 2 level versions on my end. I’ll probably upload the lots when I’m done because there are quite a few elements to the modding of these that I think need tweaking. Not least that every piece provides Park and Landmark effects in addition the Cap Relief, which is frankly a bit too ‘cheaty’ for my liking. 

again, no worries man, I was just curious if you'd found anything, I wasn't aware that you'd gone that far into it though lol.

I'd definitely be interested in it though because that's why I'm trying to "fix" it for my game, and yeah I agree, it is a bit cheaty and I didn't want that myself. I used to like that sort of thing but I want to try and build a little more realistically now and being able to construct custom sized parking lots that are functional is a great mod but it doesn't make sense for it to be providing such a park effect for every tile. it's a parking garage lol.

[rsc204 21,857]

Yeah I'll probably be able to come back on this in a few days, just juggling a lot of things at once right now, but I'm planning on a total refresh of these otherwise excellent mods, just to tidy everything up and better balance the modding. I'm pretty sure I know what's going on with the Spawn function, I've just not had a chance to test things out yet, so watch this space.

[DarkSoul 3]

37 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

Yeah I'll probably be able to come back on this in a few days, just juggling a lot of things at once right now, but I'm planning on a total refresh of these otherwise excellent mods, just to tidy everything up and better balance the modding. I'm pretty sure I know what's going on with the Spawn function, I've just not had a chance to test things out yet, so watch this space.

Also wanted to clear up the driving into the garage thing. I didn't mean all traffic, but specifically the police kiosk garage tile.
If it's placed near'ish the garage entrance then the cop cars leave the kiosk in droves and just drive immediately to the garage entrance. It's weird not only in that they're only going from kiosk to entrance, but also the sheer amount of cars generated that are driving directly to the garage and only the garage.
I don't know how far this "effect" applies and if it stops if the kiosk-garage is placed X distance away from the entrance.

 

I know what you mean about balancing stuff though, I too am in the middle of other things lol. I've stepped away from this briefly since the airport spawner "bug" came to light and I can't figure it out. 

I'll keep checking in here for sure though, overall I'm still going through my plugins from my old game and cleaning things up and/or updating them as necessary. I want things nice and organized this time around

[rsc204 21,857]

17 hours ago, DarkSoul said:

Also wanted to clear up the driving into the garage thing. I didn't mean all traffic, but specifically the police kiosk garage tile.

Yeah, although it might seem like it, the problem isn’t unique to the police kiosk. Automata like cars don’t actually follow a specific path anywhere, they just spawn and randomly drive around. But if they spawn nearby a TE lot, they are ‘attracted’ to it. This isn’t a bug per-se, just related to the way TE lots work, in essence such lots are stations, which allow for one type of transit to switch to another. You can either disable the transit switches, but then as mentioned the parking wouldn’t be functional. You can keep the connection so the street connects either way, generally speaking I prefer to use a visual/fake connection when making regular lots, because automata do weird things when they drive into lots, especially cars. There are two tricks you can use to make these visual connections without the TE properties, as shown here. But in this case I would leave it for functional purposes. 

[DarkSoul 3]

I want functional purposes for sure, I just wasn't sure if this was "normal" or not, so now I know.  I think it can be mitigated if the kiosk is placed on a different road from the entrance.

[rsc204 21,857]

So just a quick update on adding the Airport Shuttle Spawner, you need to add the relevant Prop to the Lot, but additionally you must also add the OccGroup "0x1961AA11" to the Buildings Exemplar. The original also adds "0x00001903", which spawns Taxis.

I'm personally not really using this functionality and I also warn you if adding the Spawn to the Entrance, all those vehicles are going to use it a lot. Here is the custom modified file for that, but it's also setup with all my other changes, so you might want to wait for the remaining set before using it full-time.

8 Level Garages_Entrance_ShuttleSpawn.dat

I should have the remaining fixes in place in the next few days.

[DarkSoul 3]

On 2/22/2022 at 9:33 AM, rsc204 said:

So just a quick update on adding the Airport Shuttle Spawner, you need to add the relevant Prop to the Lot, but additionally you must also add the OccGroup "0x1961AA11" to the Buildings Exemplar. The original also adds "0x00001903", which spawns Taxis.

I'm personally not really using this functionality and I also warn you if adding the Spawn to the Entrance, all those vehicles are going to use it a lot. Here is the custom modified file for that, but it's also setup with all my other changes, so you might want to wait for the remaining set before using it full-time.

8 Level Garages_Entrance_ShuttleSpawn.dat

I should have the remaining fixes in place in the next few days.

Does the vehicles using it a lot have an actual effect on it or is it just a visual thing?

[rsc204 21,857]

5 hours ago, DarkSoul said:

Does the vehicles using it a lot have an actual effect on it or is it just a visual thing?

All automata (vehicles) are purely visual. They do represent what's going on in the sense that an area with more cars is busier that one with less, but ultimately nothing you are seeing is actually happening for real.

[rsc204 21,857]

So I finally found a moment to upload all my changes for these lots, sorry it took a bit longer than intended. You'd be surprised how much additional work/checking is needed before something can be passed on to others, but I'm reasonably confident I've got everything sorted. Anyhow, if you still want a copy, check them out here:

https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/761517-mgbs-lil-bits/?do=findComment&comment=1767404

[DarkSoul 3]

On 3/3/2022 at 6:58 AM, rsc204 said:

So I finally found a moment to upload all my changes for these lots, sorry it took a bit longer than intended. You'd be surprised how much additional work/checking is needed before something can be passed on to others, but I'm reasonably confident I've got everything sorted. Anyhow, if you still want a copy, check them out here:

https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/761517-mgbs-lil-bits/?do=findComment&comment=1767404

Thanks for all this man, I was going to figure out and how to do it all myself but as usual I ended up diverting my attentions elsewhere lol so no worries about it taking long haha.
Appreciate the work you've put in to fix this lot because it's a really damn cool mod.

I still haven't tested the other piece with the airport spawner in the garage entrance so I don't know how that will behave, but if I understand right there is that version above, and then what you posted now which will have the airport spawner on the park tile like it originally was?

 

[rsc204 21,857]

2 hours ago, DarkSoul said:

but if I understand right there is that version above, and then what you posted now which will have the airport spawner on the park tile like it originally was?

Spot on... I hardly touched that one, since personally I don't use it at all, so the custom one should be loaded after both the original and my other fixes to ensure it's the one in use.

[DarkSoul 3]

3 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

Spot on... I hardly touched that one, since personally I don't use it at all, so the custom one should be loaded after both the original and my other fixes to ensure it's the one in use.

Wouldn't the one you fixed just overwrite the original mod?

[rsc204 21,857]

Only if it loaded later either alphabetically or as a result of the folders used... are you familiar with SC4's Load Order system?

Of course, if you DATPack them, that will only keep the 'last to load' of any conflicting/duplicate files, but even then you must get the order right before you pack the files, to ensure the correct files remain.

[DarkSoul 3]

2 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Only if it loaded later either alphabetically or as a result of the folders used... are you familiar with SC4's Load Order system?

Of course, if you DATPack them, that will only keep the 'last to load' of any conflicting/duplicate files, but even then you must get the order right before you pack the files, to ensure the correct files remain.

Yeah I'm familiar with the load order stuff, but what I meant was, why wouldn't the original version just be deleted, and then replaced by one of the two versions above?

[rsc204 21,857]

You can do that, but all the files are inside a DAT and most users wouldn't know how to remove the individual components that way. Hence my advice, but if you are comfortable modifying the original DAT's contents, then that works just as well.