Functional Road Through Lots in PIM-X LE

[ncamferdam]

This is my first time posting, so hopefully I'm posting in the correct location.

I'm trying to use PIM-X to convert the Ping An Center model (linked below) into a growable. I'd like to recreate the lot as closely as possible, and that includes the road which passes through. This road can be attached to other roads, and u-drive-it vehicles can pass through. This leaves me with three questions.

1. How exactly do you include a functional road through your lot? Looking at the lot editor interface, it's not really clear. The tiles are empty of both texture and overlay, but I see alternating red arrows marking out where the road will be. What are these and what do they do? How do you add them in? I've attached a screenshot of what I'm seeing.

2. Is it possible to have a growable lot with a functional road? Obviously, it wouldn't work to have the lot grow around an existing road, since that would just be two separate lots. But is it possible to grow a lot with a road and then connect it later?

3. Can commuters actually pass through lots? I've tried to experiment with this by plopping the landmark version of Ping An and putting jobs on one side and residents on the other. They don't seem able to pass through, though the animation shows vehicles making the trip. Is there a way to make this work, or are roads through lots entirely for show?

Thanks in advance.

https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/26019-ping-an-center-part-1-by-dmscopio/

[Andreas]

I'm not entirely sure if this will work for growable lots. For functional roads through lots, you need to "transit-enable" them, which means you'll basically turn them into a station and assign paths for the vehicles. For activating the paths, you need to drag the network tool (i. e. road) through the lot. The road textures must be added in Maxis LE or PIM-X, and the transit-enabling is done in SC4Tool (be aware that you need to edit some properties in the exemplar file after that process, since SC4Tool has an unfortunate bug that will be triggered on Mac versions of the game). As for growables, I've only seen some "network enabled" lots so far, where a parking lot entrance or similar can be connected to a road visually. The downside is that those connections are pure eye-candy, though, and they basically make a lot "historically", as it can't be overgrown anymore.

[ncamferdam]

Alright, this may be drifting off the original topic, so let me know if I need to move it.

I wasn't really familiar with transit-enabled lots, but now that you mention them I've done a bit of reading, and have a different question. It looks like I can make growable lots transit enabled. At least, when I use the TE editor in SC4Tool, I can open up growable lots and add a network/transit switches. Maybe there will be some problem further down the line, but for now I have a different issue. Growable lots that I've created in PIM-X show up with a red marker in the TE editor (picture attached). This is green for other growable lots. In addition, I am not able to add transit switches to these lots. Does anyone know what this means?

EDIT: Ok, it looks like the red dot and the failure to add transit switches is a result of the separate lot and desc files. I'm able to add transit switches in every case where the lot file contains both the lot and building, and I'm not able to do it wherever the lot file is just the lot. So my new, new question is, is there a way to subsume the desc file I created with PIM-X into the associated lot file?

Sorry, this has drifted into a SC4Tool question.

[Andreas]

By default, the Maxis tools include only the Lot Exemplar file into the *.SC4Lot file, while ploppables also have a Building Exemplar file. For growables, this file is included in the *.SC4Desc file. TE properties are added to both exemplar files, and I think SC4Tool expects to see both exemplars in the *.SC4Lot file. You can open the *.SC4Desc file with the Reader, copy the Lot Exemplar file and then paste it into the *.SC4Lot file, save it and then remove the *.SC4Desc file. Now you might be able to edit the lot in the TE Editor properly.