Crazy terrain holes plague custom made lots

[TheMurderousCricket 5,097]

Hi Everyone. I was wondering if anyone can shed some light on this...

I am trying to create several large lots, the largest of which is 13x20 tiles across. The lot is supposed to be slope-conformant and follow the terrain form. I already made such lots to create forest spaces for example.

However, this time, when I place my lots onto the slopes, I get abominable holes and basins like in the picture below. As you can clearly see they always appear in a different portion of the lot. I don't understand what might be causing this... The test lots you see below are completely empty - there are no objects that could potentially cause levelling out of certain portions of the terrain and textures alone don't have such properties! Do they?

 

Below you can also find the settings that I use in order to get a slope-conformant lot (something which worked before).

 

EDIT: I also checked a couple of items that are supposed to be slope-conformant made by other creators and these lots also experience this strange behavior. Whenever they are placed on slopes, even gentle slopes, they instantly trigger this "toilet bowl bug". 

I believe this is the kind of problem worthy of the CoriBoom team intervention... Something certainly isn't right here.

[CorinaMarie 29,881]

6 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

I believe this is the kind of problem worthy of the CoriBoom team intervention...

I could put it on our list of eventually, maybe someday to look at. 

RL is interfering too much right now to take on any project other than the one I keep trying to work on for something else. Hopefully our ST experts will pop in with a solution.

[TheMurderousCricket 5,097]

2 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

I could put it on our list of eventually, maybe someday to look at. 

It's just a suggestion based on the fact that you made numerous interesting discoveries and remedies over the years. Given the track record, I instantly thought that this is a very CoriBoomish type of thing.

This is a strange issue. Maybe it has to do with the lot size. Smaller ones that are 3x3, 4x4 can be put in exact, same places without triggering the toilet bowl effect.

[CorinaMarie 29,881]

43 minutes ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

It's just a suggestion based on the fact that you made numerous interesting discoveries and remedies over the years.

Yep. It is certainly the sort of thing I'd've prolly jumped on in the past and maybe can again someday in the future.

 

43 minutes ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

Maybe it has to do with the lot size.

That seems very likely. I'd even wonder if covering too many tracts makes a difference. I'm sure you'll recall that a lot of the underlying data works on 4 x 4 cell tracts. Perhaps any lot plopped which is all within a tract or at most is part of adjacent ones is ok.

[smf_16 1,838]

I was wondering recently what was causing this as well when playing around with some golf courts. I can't really remember which ones, but they were very large lots as well.

I'm inclined to say that this is something hard coded in the exe, which hence might need a DLL mod in order to get it fixed. However, you say that the lots are completely empty, but as I recall, a lot always needs at least a building. Those kinds of empty lots just have an invisible building, but perhaps that the building is interfering somehow with the terrain. I suggest playing around a little with the building exemplar of the building on the lot, and see if you can find something in its properties that might be causing it.

Another thing that might be causing it is the "Elevation Change" as shown in your picture from the lot editor. The LotMax is set to 90m, but from you in-game screenshots it looks like the terrain might actually be higher than 90m (or at least the difference in height across the lot is more than 90m). Could you perhaps check if it changes something?

[TheMurderousCricket 5,097]

7 hours ago, smf_16 said:

I was wondering recently what was causing this as well when playing around with some golf courts. I can't really remember which ones, but they were very large lots as well.

Thank you for chiming in @smf_16.  I admit, it's a relief that I'm not the only one who experiences this problem. It's a strange and puzzling issue nonetheless...

7 hours ago, smf_16 said:

However, you say that the lots are completely empty, but as I recall, a lot always needs at least a building.

I'm sorry - a bit of imprecision on my part. Of course, the lot does have a building object.  I meant "empty" in the sense that there is nothing else in there except for the mandatory parts.

7 hours ago, smf_16 said:

Another thing that might be causing it is the "Elevation Change" as shown in your picture from the lot editor. The LotMax is set to 90m, but from you in-game screenshots it looks like the terrain might actually be higher than 90m (or at least the difference in height across the lot is more than 90m). Could you perhaps check if it changes something?

I thought that the "elevation change" is a value that is also represented in degrees. Thanks for clearing that up. I followed your advice and increased the "lot max" value to 225 but sadly it did not solve the issue.  The elevation difference between the lot's lowest point and the "bowl horizon" is about 50m. It seems that this value does not affect the lot's behavior in the sense that would be of interest to us - game generates the flat basin regardless.

Huh... It seems that we are dealing with a bug after all...