Editing train station capacity

[costanzajpg 3]

This is my first time experimenting with changing building properties in the ireader. In particular, I'm trying to modify a number of train stations to have capacity that matches NAM standards. As an example, I'm using giomedicci's Old Train Station, with a natural capacity of 2000. I intend to increase it to 20000.

Here's what I did. I go to my plugins folder and open the station folder. Inside are three files, the SC4Lot, SC4Model, and SC4Desc. I open the SC4Desc file and look at the exemplar file. I see the Transit Switch Traffic Capacity, exemplar value 0xe90e25a3, is at 2000.

So, I double click on this and it opens up a dialogue window to edit this value. I replace it with 20000, click apply, close this, and then click save. After this, I exit ireader.

Now, here's where things don't work. I go into my test region, plop down the train station, and see that it still has a maximum capacity of 2000.

What did I screw up? Did I edit the wrong file or something? 

[Tyberius06 12,189]

I was about to send a nice detailed reply, when for some reason this page got updated or some other ST related bugs occured and I lost all the things I had written.   

So in short, yes you try to edit the wrong file. With ploppable lots the lot config exemplar and the building exemplar (this is essentially the *.sc4desc file) are inbuilt to the same *.sc4lot file. The desc file what you tried to edit is the original desc file, when the LOT was saved by its creator in Lot Editor, a copy of this DESC file got paired with the lot config examplar under a new Instance ID (techy detail) and got built into the *.sc4lot file. Since now the lot is referenced to this "copy" which is in the LOT file, the extra DESC file is a redundant unused junk. Most of the BATters who created lots and had less experience or knowladge about how these things are working they simply left these desc files in the uploaded package, but with ploppable lots (ONLY WITH PLOPPABLE LOTS) these extra desc files can be deleted without any risk. 

Open the OldTrainStation_7cfa739d.SC4Lot file and edit the building examplar in that file according to your taste. 

Bear in mind that increasing the capacity won't be enough make the station properly functional. Please, take a few minutes and read the following post/tutorial about transit modding: 

You need to edit the Transit Switch Entry Cost (TSEC) property to make the station properly functional (hint: the proper value will be 0.0071). Also I would change the capacity to 30k if it is just a train station. 

I hope it helps.

- Tyberius06

EDIT: Additional information: IF the *.sc4desc file is a PROP file, then you need to keep it. 

  Edited December 29, 2022 by Tyberius06  
additional information

[costanzajpg 3]

Thank you so much. I'll go ahead and do that, and modify the TSEC so things function properly.

If I understand you correctly, here's how things work. The original BATer created an SC4desc data file containing the necessary properties of the building. When they used the lot editor, it created a new SC4lot file pulling data from the DESC file, as well as an associated SC4model file and stuff. The game itself only looks at the SC4lot file to see the specific building properties, which were fixed at the time of creation. To modify the building now, I need to directly change the exemplar values within the SC4lot file.

You mention that this only works for Plopable lots. How does this work for growable lots?

If you don't mind, I'm going to show a few growable RCI lot files, in increased order of complexity, and ask which files I should change with ireader. I'll link the building files in case anyone wants to look at them.

First, nofunk's Fein Bros. There are only two files here, so I assume it's the SC4lot file for changing any exemplar.

Next, Odainsaker's Tower Life Building. Now we have both a SC4desc and an SC4lot file in a growable. What should I change?

Finally, Mattb325's 890 Park Ave. It's a growable, and it has two SC4desc files and an SC4lot. What should I modify here?

[rsc204 21,808]

What is an SC4Desc File?, What is an SC4Lot file?, whilst they may seem like regular file types, that can not be 100% relied upon, often you need to double-check things. Ultimately any file, regardless of its file type that is present in the Plugin folder will be checked on starting the game, if it includes data in the SC4 format, it will be read, internally everything works on IDs (Type, Group and Instance).

So let's look at your example (the first one above), the contents of the SC4Desc file in this case is a Buildings Exemplar. In Reader its entry is noted as an Exemplar (list of properties), if we then look for the Item Type property, you can see it's a Buildings Exemplar. Now if you open the corresponding SC4Lot file, if it too has a Buildings Exemplar, then we can be pretty certain the SC4Desc file is junk, but it's not always the case. It is possible that more than one Buildings Exemplar is needed for a given lot, for example if a Buildings Family is in use. Likewise what if the SC4Desc file contained a Prop or other Exemplar?, that may well be something you need to keep. Sadly it's not as simple as saying all SC4Desc files are junk, although many are duplicates which serve no purpose or worse could screw things up. But some care needs to be taken to cross-reference the data because as you've seen with your later examples, it's not always so simple in practise.

6 hours ago, costanzajpg said:

First, nofunk's Fein Bros. There are only two files here, so I assume it's the SC4lot file for changing any exemplar.

In theory an SC4Model file should contain a model only, so I would simply open the SC4Lot and verify it indeed contains a Buildings and LotConfigurations Exemplar, both are needed for a functioning lot. Note that Ploppable lots also require a PNG icon or they won't work, but other files can be present too.

6 hours ago, costanzajpg said:

Next, Odainsaker's Tower Life Building. Now we have both a SC4desc and an SC4lot file in a growable. What should I change?

In these cases, open both the SC4Lot and SC4Desc file in separate windows of Reader, verify if the SC4Lot contains both Exemplars as before, if it does I would delete the SC4Desc file, if not I would copy the Buildings Exemplar into the SC4Lot file, then delete the SC4Desc file.

Bear in mind this is a Growable as well, so it is pretty typical to keep the LotConfigurations and Buildings Exemplars separate, although technically either method works.

6 hours ago, costanzajpg said:

Finally, Mattb325's 890 Park Ave. It's a growable, and it has two SC4desc files and an SC4lot. What should I modify here?

Again you can't assume anything, open the files in question and verify what is where. I would imagine this is a growable, therefore the SC4Lot would contain one or maybe more LotConfigurations files and inside each SC4Desc file was either a Prop or a Buildings Exemplar. I'd also assume in this scenario, you probably need all the files present, however depending on the modder, this isn't always the case.

Sadly this whole thing gets much more complex, sometimes you may need to check the links between the Buildings and LotConfigurations Exemplars to be sure. As a quick example, again look at the image from your first post, see how the Lot Resource Key property is 0x00000000 (i.e. a Null Key), essentially it doesn't link to a LotConfigurations Exemplar, the IID (Instance ID) of which would otherwise be present. That's a perfect example of an obviously junk Exemplar, because it doesn't link to anything else. Now again with the file from your original example, check the same property in the Buildings Exemplar, the IID should match that of the actual LotConfig Exemplar within the same SC4Lot file.