Absolutely.  What we've doing with shrinking of lots to allow walls at the edges is well ouside of normal game play.


Agreed.  However, that doesn't stop us from modding.  We just need to be careful to avoid doing things that the game can't handle.

Interesting hypothesis (that the compiler optimization is removing the bounds checking).  What do you base that on?  I've been assuming that the developers are using a language without bounds checking (nobody really writes software with C#, do they?) and that they are too rushed in development to add bounds checking on their own.

[Update:]

Did a quick check with friends in compiler development and game development and they agree.  Games are likely written in C / C++ and have no bounds checking unless the developers add it themselves.  Compiler optiimizations would never remove bounds checking unless they were fundamentally broken.  Let's not blame the compilers for the fact that the game developers are working too hard fast to do proper bounds checking.

(Sorry about the rant, but I work on program development tools for a living.)

For both of these, the answer is the same:  Until we know what's causing the problem, we just don't know what's safe and what isn't.

Again, I'm a newbie to modding, but are you sure that this would create holes?  My plan was to try to cut the roofs at the very edges of the lot, so that there would be no overhang, but the roofs would line up with the walls.

My primary concern since the beginning has been that the lot package is actually corrupted (based on the game code) and that this corruption may spread to the rest of the neighborhood.  I'm very sorry if I was unable to explain this adequately.  Sounds like dizzy has managed to explain it so that some people now understand the problem.  Thanks, dizzy!

However, people really want this feature, so I am willing to put some time into getting it to work.  The current LotExpander may be creating a lot package which the game is unable to handle, but that doesn't mean that we've run out of ideas.

My initial attempt at this feature was to shrink the various arrays without attempting to delete "off the lot" objects, or to keep objects on the shrunken lot.  When pbox put out her test lot, I was hoping that we might be able to narrow down the possible culprits (roofs, portals, foundations, ...).  Part of my problem is that I am completely new to modding and am unsure of what's possible.

Here are some of the things that I can try:
- Delete any roofs which go past the lot edge.
- Move any objects which are outside of the new shrunken lot, so that they are back on the lot.

If anyone else has any ideas, please let me know.


I don't believe that you understand.  An access violation occurs because the game became so confused that the corruption was completely out of control.  An access violation is the operating system's way of stopping a program which has become "insane" and is trying to change memory which doesn't even belong to the program.  IE, the Sims 2 is trying to write into your open Word document and Windows won't let it.

An access violation is absolute proof that the game has no inbuilt defences.

The reason that these lots do not become more and more corrupted is that the game never gets a chance to write the file after the corruption is completely out of control.

Not a problem.  Development is continuing.  I've implemented adding and removing roads, a brand new UI for the advanced features based on everyone's feedback, changed the name to LotAdjuster, and am working on displaying the lot rotation / sun location.  plasticbox is overseeing the crash issues on shrunken lots, so that I don't have to worry about the issue until there's something concrete that I can do.

The LotExpander needed new code for the new Pets roofs, as well.  I don't know about Uni.

Yes, this is one possibility.  I'm willing to admit that my understanding of the various arrays is imperfect, based on Andi's original code, the Sims2Wiki, and my own testing.  So, it's possible that the LotExpander is corrupting the arrays during shrinking.  It's also possible that the arrays are fine (based on the file specifications), but the game is still unable to handle various things, such as walls, roofs, etc, on the edge of lots.

However, if either of these things were true, I would expect the corruption and crashing to get worse as people play these lots, not better.  I think that it's very encouraging that people tend to get one crash, then everything is fine.

Well, if this mod is related to the portals, and if a visitor always arrives on the lot at 7pm (which is also related to portals), then I'm going to guess that this is a portal issue, not a puddle issue.

This has not been my experience with tests done with the lot expander (which changes many, but not all, of the record types within the lot package).  Here's what I've noticed:

1) Installing a new EP doesn't update existing lots.  I have verified this by doing a bitwise comparison of lots within neighborhoods with various EPs installed.   However, I believe that installing a new EP updates the neighborhood package.
2) When a lot is added to a neighborhood from the lot bin, the game "marks" the lot with the newest EP, but doesn't change anything else in the lot package internal structure.
3) When you modify a lot and then save, the actual internal structure of the lot is changed to the latest EP.

Can you explain what you mean by "it was too close to some other stuff when expanded"?

Do you have the text of the error message available?  I'd like to try to resolve the issue, if possible.

Inge has a set of buyable portals available at modthesims2.  With these, your connected yards can work by adding pedestrian portals near the gates in the fences.

Bon Voyage adds the ability to walk to another lot.  So, a no-road community garden will still be accessible.  If you don't have BV, then you can create a winding dirt "road" and move the car portals to appropriate spots on the lot - your community garden will be accessible by car, but won't look like it is on a main road.

This is all do-able right now.  I am currently adding logic to the LotExpander so that it will delete the roads for you, but the research thread at modthesims2 has a tutorial for adding and removing roads from your lot.

I've skimmed through all of the posts.

If the crashes occur with lots made without BV and never occur with lots made with BV, then there is a possibility that there is an older record version which the LotExpander is not handling correctly.  Has anyone tried loading a lot which crashes in BV, making a build change to convince the game to regenerate all of the information in the lot package, and then saving?  This should change the record version to the latest one and might help to narrow down the problem.  If the BV-saved lot continues to crash, then it's unlikely to be an unknown record version.  However, if this fixes the crash permanently, then it may help point to the problem.

FYI: When a record type has multiple versions, it is usually because the data in the record is stored somewhat differently.  So, the LE might be trying to handle an X, Y coordinate in a record which actually has a string.

One thing that I can do is to provide a version of the LotExpander with some debugging code.  In order to help track down an unrelated crash in the LotExpander, I put code into the OBJT processing which prints out a hex and character dump (similar to the one that you see in the Hex Editor in SimPE), and then prints out each field in the record as it is processed.

This basically shows everything that the LotExpander "knows" about the OBJT records.  Someone would have to look over these records to see whether they could see anything anomalous - odd X and Y coordinates, truncated strings or strings which don't contain character data, etc.

Let me warn you that this would be a huge log file.  If people had specific objects that they wanted to check out (such as the trashcan), I could create a verion of the LE which would only print a log for specific OBJT instances; you would need to provide me with the instances that you want to look at.

I don't know whether this would be helpful or not, but if someone would like to try it, please let me know.  The OBJT record is one of the least-understood records that the LE is modifying, so I wouldn't be surprised to find some problem in the code.

If an alternative record type is suspected, I could probably do something similar for other records types, such as the roofs.

I will try to visit this thread again later today, or you can PM me at modthesims2.

I would be wary of using a non-test neighborhood at this time.  We have seen more than one example of the game expanding any corruption that it finds to other sims and other houses within the neighborhood.  The Ottomas family is a example - Maxis warned people not to play the Ottomas family because it might corrupt your entire neighborhood.

From the reading that I've done, it doesn't sound like there is only one crash here.  Unless I'm reading incorrectly, some people are experiencing another crash which occurs when they first attempt to play the house, which cannot be a 7PM issue.

Also, everyone please remember - an intermittent crash means that many people can play this house without any problem - the fact that you manage to play without a problem is no guarantee that the problem won't occur the next time that you play.

I believe that pbox posted here in the hope that someone would be able to do some debugging based on the mini-dumps.

Some additional information:

I am not deleting any objects during the shrinking process.  If an object, such as the window, disappears after shrinking, then this is being done by the game itself.

I am hoping that these crashes are issues with something in the lot file, and not with the game's inability to deal with walls at the edges of the lot.

Inge, until we have officially changed the name of the LotExpander to LotAdjuster, I think that it's just confusing to use this new term.

Someone had some success shrinking a beach lot on the side, but (as far as I know) no one has tried shrinking the depth of a beach lot yet. If anyone would like to try this, I'd be happy to help in whatever way I can.

Update:
Inge Jones just succeeded in shrinking the depth of a beach lot:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showpost.php?p=1804821&postcount=630

The released version of the LotExpander (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1747180) has an advanced "over the road" option which will allow you to place an upper floor over the road.

The LotExpander isn't wrong.  It says that it is including the space for the road.  Thus, a 3x2 lot becomes a 3x3 lot, including the road.