Making a Rail Station out of something else

[evarburg]

(Apologies for the weird title) I am learning to make Transit Enabled lots, and it works. Alas, I didn't use the original railway station, my base was a park lot. I managed to copy a few properties and have my T.E'd lot go back to the rail menu where it belongs, but it still has park properties. Is that as far as it can go or can I transform it, shazam, into a functional rail station ?

[Andreas]

Open your lot in the Reader, and a proper railway station lot in another instance of the Reader, and compare the properties in the Building Exemplar file one by one. Once you removed all traces of the park lot (occupant groups, query sound, query window, budget properties, etc.), it should be a proper railway station lot.

[evarburg]

Open your lot in the Reader, (...)

aHA ! THANK YOU !

[doug_w]

That looks so cool. Could be used as suburban stations. When you get it all going properly are you going to upload it ?

[evarburg]

Well, doug_w, if I manage to do it, I will, but...

Andreas, I am presently looking at the two windows in Reader, eyes slowly glazing over, with a question going round and round in ny head : how do I recognize the properties that are park properties

I already changed (i.e. copied & pasted) the ones that seemed obvious, and the station went back to the rail menu, as I said.

But now I am stuck with "Resource Key type, Query exemplar GUID, Exemplar Category, PluginPackID, Building Foundation..."
Etc.

Do I copy-paste all of them to replace the ones in my relot exemplar, or only some, and in that case which ones ? (I assume not Item Name, Description, Icon and Order)

PS : I tried replacing everything else but the station just disappeared from the rail menu altogether...

[Andreas]

Well, you can adjust basically everything with the Reader, since it presents the data (more or less) in "raw" form. This is very useful if you want to "fix" a lot that you've been tinkering with, but it also requires a good look, and comparing the various properties in order to learn what they mean. I know that the task seems to be a little daunting at first, but if you look at a proper railway station lot, and a proper park lot on the other hand, you can see which properties differ from each other.

For example, the Query exemplar GUID is the ID for the query window, which has a different ID for each type of lot. Now since you started with a park lot, the ID is the one that is used in park lots, but you need to change it to the one that is used by railway stations. Just look at the window where you opened a proper station lot, and copy that ID to your new lot. Repeat the same steps with all other properties, the obvious ones and the less obvious ones, too.

If you get stuck with something, feel free to send me your lot (along with the model and maybe a list of dependencies) via e-mail, then I'll see what might be wrong. Sometimes, it might be easier to start over and create a new lot of the right category in the first place, and then copy over the lot layout (placement of building, props, transit enabling etc.) manually. I think there's a tutorial how to do that, but in your case, both approaches might work with comparable effort.

[evarburg]

Thanks for clarifying a bit, Andreas. But I did just that -- opened both lots in the Reader, the original station and my relot on my park base, and copy-pasted the properties, using the Copy properties/Paste properties functions in the Building Exemplar window. I had then two similarly named properties and I deleted the park one, each time. Then I reindexed and saved. The lot did not show up in the rail menu as it did before. Obviously there is more to this than what I did  ; or I should have done it differently -- but I don't know how (I looked for tutorials but what I found doesn't cover that specific problem.) I will certainly use station lots originals for relots in the future, that's for sure ! But I'm like a dog with a bone when I encounter a problem in SC4 that I think can be solved  -- and this one can be, from what you are telling me. I just want to learn how

[matias93]

You can also use the PIM-X instead of the Lot Editor to create entirely new lots with the right type to avoid all this issues.

[Simmer2]

Eva.
I have done many "test lots" and once I'm satisfied I usually create a brand you one for the final lot to avoid "cross contamination"

Try doing this with 100 plus texture tiles and sometimes when I get carried away and start plopping props it gets even more complex but I always create a fresh lot with all the proper properties and then fill with with textures and props.

Simmer2/Nick

[evarburg]

O...K.... Meaning ? "Begin again from scratch ?" I can do that, it's not a big station... But I would have liked to know how to transform one kind of lot into another. I have a feeling it can be useful at som point...

[matias93]

I knew there was an easier way: This old program by Ilive allows you to change properties and types on existing lots:
https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/21350-leprop-162/

[Andreas]

LEProp is easier to use than the Reader, but it can't do all the magic, unfortunately. It is crucial for functional lots to have a working set of properties, and if the lot doesn't show up or doesn't work otherwise, something must be wrong. Unfortunately, it's hard to tell what's up from the distance. If you can't find the error manually, it might be the best to create an entire new lot with PIM-X alright, and then copy the lot layout from the old lot. IIRC, there's a tutorial in the included readme file, although not all steps that are mentioned there (like making an entirely new ID for the lot) are necessary (since you already created a new lot in the first place, you can use the ID of that one without a problem).

The workflow is like this in short: Put the desired building model into a subfolder, start PIM-X and select that folder. Click on "Models" in the left pane, and drag the model from the list on the upper right to the desired category. Adjust the "filling degree" as necessary to get proper stats. Then create a new lot in PIM-X that has the same size as the old one. Close PIM-X, start two instances of the Reader, open the Lot Exemplar file of the new lot, delete all "LotConfig..." lines except the one that starts with 0x0... (this is the building ID). Copy the ID, then remove the line as well. Now switch over to your old lot, find the 0x0... line and paste the building ID into the last REP field. Then select all "LotConfig" lines, copy them and insert them into the new lot. Right-click for ReIndex, then save the lot file.

[evarburg]

The Lot Config. I was dabbling with the building exemplar !!!

Back to the blackeboarde... :-)

[evarburg]

Let me see if I get this right : in any case -- new lot made from the right category in PIM, OR lot made from a whatever base lot, like, ahem, a park -- the properties to copy-paste are only the Lot Config's ? Or should some also be copied from the Building Exemplar ? (my lot did go back to the rail menu when I copied the most obvious ones...).

Meanwhile I'm going to (re)read PIM readme...