I've searched everywhere but I couldn't find an answer... when I was half through making this world I realized a whole chunk of it was unroutable, and I hadn't started working on the routing yet, just placing roads, lots and some objects. I can't do anything on the unroutable part obviously (no lots, terrain paint, mask, objects, roads etc... ), so it looks like I have to start all over again? Or is there a way to "restore" the routing?

I think maybe this happened because I placed the city walls over a road and it "broke" the routing? (though that's how they are in Monte Vista, so I don't know... )

I'm attaching a picture so you can see, the part surrounded with red is the borky one (of course I was going to add water around and it was going to be much nicer looking, I wanted to make something that looked a bit like Dubrovnik, using the Monte Vista rabbitholes... ah well...)

Oh, and sorry for the bad picture, I can't take screenshots (I use widows on a disk partition on my mac, it's complicated)

So you can't place anything in that area in CAW, which would add more routes? I've had it happen sometimes early in building a world where large areas are bypassed by routing like that, but I've always been able to fix it by plopping something in the middle of it and then rebuilding routing data o.O

No, it's like that whole area is... dead, I can't do anything there. I'll try again placing something as you suggest, but up to now I haven't been able to (maybe there a tiny spot somewhere in there where I can?). I tested it in game and the Sim disappears near the edge of this... twilight zone, and pops up somewhere else.

Oh, and sometimes in CAW I get like a big triangle in the the sky on the corner of the word near that area, like a "reflection" of the world and the sea... spooky.

That's really strange! (sorry, I know that's of no help)
Hopefully someone will have some insight.

It looks suspiciously to me like the wall objects are too close to the lots and roads. This can interrupt routing quite badly. You might need to tolerate a bigger gap between the objects and lots.

You need to do some experimentation to figure out what the problem is. Remove the city walls and see if that fixes it. If it does, then you know where to start working. If the problem remains, it may be something else. You just have to start removing stuff to find out where the problem is at.

Have you looked at the routing paint? It could be as simple as non-routable paint getting on your world somehow. If that's the case, maybe you can just erase the paint.

An intelligent guess is that it DOES have something to do with the city walls. Are you using the Monte Vista City walls.

I actually have a fair amount of experience with meta-objects like this, most of them being my own objects. I have never had this problem, perhaps because of the way I make my objects. Specifically, my objects don't have a footprint. They are invisible to the sims and apparently have no effect on the routing.

Another world which has many many objects is Manustyle/Daniel's New York project. At least, originally, his deco buildings did not have footprints. He faked it by painting non-routable paint under them. I don't know if I would agree with this approach for city buildings. I guess it does not drive me crazy if sims just walk through some of these buildings. It's six one way, half a dozen the other, I guess.

But you don't want sims walking th rough city walls, you can remake the walls without a footprint and then place non-routable paint under them. To remove the footprint, just clone one of Manustyle's buildings (I believe he has his custom content in a separate file, otherwise Daniel will almost certainly give you one to clone.) Then replace Manustyle's mesh with the mesh extracted from the walls. It's actually a lot easier than it sounds.

But see if the walls are the problem first.

I won't give more detail now. I am a flight simmer, as well, and I currently am on final in a B737 at Yakutat, Alaska, at night in a blizzard. It's pitch black out...

You might have to remake your city walls along these lines, which is why I asked if you were using the Monte Vista walls.

Thanks!!! It did have to do with the walls, I guess, but the problem remained even when I deleted them (and fixing or refreshing the routing, however you call that). I hadn't used routing paint at that point though, so... I'm unexperienced and CAW gets difficult sometimes, things happen... In any case I started again from scratch and it seems to be working now, I think there's a little more space between the lots closer to the wall and the wall itself so maybe that's helping. The wall does have a footprint so the Sims use the doors correctly, I still have to check if they can drive through the main gate though... *sigh*

The world is small and almost flat with (I think) no unaccessible points, do I still need to use routing paint? (since I don't seem to need it under the wall since it has a footprint and Sims won't go through it). Maybe on the cliffs, right?

It's turning out kind of pretty, I think, it still needs trees and stuff, and I'm not sure about that big square harbor thing...

I think you can get a lot of opinions about routing paint -- each with their advantages and disadvantages. I am in the school of doing as little as possible. There are several reasons for this approach, but others will disagree.

First, if you plan on uploading anywhere, other gamers will want to add their own lots. Often this is a big lot (60 x60 or larger). Often this lot placement is not where the world designer would place it. For example I might not want to place a large expensive mansion in an industrial area. I might not want to place a large downtown park in a rural area. The world builder should make it easy for the gamer.

The main reason I frequent this forum is frustration over this issue. Usually I would rather make changes to an existing world rather than build my own from scratch. Any world builder who makes editing difficult gets cursed at -- this is also at the heart of my "player worlds are crap" argument. The one thing a player builder can give other gamers is an easy to edit world. If they fail to do so, I will choose an EA world every time.

Second, I believe too much routing paint causes routing problems. Where EA gets into trouble is where they slop routing paint all over the place, but leave a hole. Sims get stuck.

I tend to use one square lines -- lines that I don't want sims to cross -- like alongside my interstate highways.

I will also place some at the very very edges of the world. I make my own distant terrain and go to some pains to hide the border between the playable area and the distant terrain. I use non rout able paint to hide my optical tricks.

Other than that, it is reserved for problem areas.

Thanks again, yes, that makes sense. I know what you mean with worlds being easily editable, personally I find EA worlds are too big for me, I like playing with high graphic settings (I know, but for me nice graphics is part of the pleasure of it!) and... they're just too big for my gameplay style, that's why Im always looking for small or medium worlds I like, or like in this case making my own. I'm making it for myself, not really for sharing, I would need to test it first and place all the spawners and stuff that I never use, and I'm not sure it's really "professional" enough, though it might end up being nice if I even finish it...

So, those walls are giving me a hell of a time, but I can't complain because *ahem*... well, I can't, really. I'll try to finish this island, or otherwise just make something easier (what about a nice plain world or very soft valley with a walled city just plopped in the middle?)... or make a small city to use the Monte Vista rabbitholes and ditch the walls altogether (or use the retaining walls and the gates, maybe).

Thanks everyone for your help, looking at this form the bright side, I'm learning a lot. back to CAW!

I actually like the small world concept because it fits in my evolving view of a multiverse: playing a game which spans numerous worlds.

In a multiverse, one can take a vacation on a tropical island, a gambling vacation in Lucky Palms, a big city vacation, a vacation in the past or future (think time machine or Total Recall), or a vacation on a different planet.

Along the same lines, when a sim grows up from teenager to young adult, they can be moved to a different world.

In concept, it is the exact opposite of the everything world. Instead, worlds are limited to a specific purpose. It also means that each world can have a unique character.

For example, one idea I have been toying with is a big city world consisting of a single neighborhood in a small world. I envision it being built around a big park, like Central Park in NYC. The park itself could have a museum, a stage and similar venues (after all, the Met is located in Central Park.) City style homes and businesses would surround the park. Clubs and bars could be located here. Rabbit holes would be remeshed as subway stations, bus depots or train stations, so that sims would not go the the actual workplace, but to some sort of station where they would commute to work.

The surrounding distant terrain would be flat and filled with deco buildings, with "flats" in the distance.

By the way I would not be at all upset if someone took this idea and ran with it. It would save me a lot of work. I just would not want someone to make a hash of it.

Interesting... of course much more real, personally I like my game as realistic as possible, that's why I didn't really like Supernatural...

I tried making a small urban world, which was sort of like a neighborhood of a bigger city (I wanted it more like a "hip" soho-like neighborhood, maybe some old reconverted victorian warehouses, populated with artists, gays, hipsters, the occasional diva type, not too many kids) but since I wanted to make it on a a small or medium lot I was a bit drawn back by the fact that you would see the edges of the world in map view. Or who cares, right?

And did we go completely off topic?

The point is, if you do your own custom terrain, you wo't see any edges. This is pretty simple distant terrain -- basically flat. Then deco buildings are placed on the flat distant terrain.

Of course, this is what I mean by making a hash out of it. The lazy or incompetent world designer won't make the distant terrain. Or he won't make the custom rabbit holes ( or he will stick them in basements). Or he will fill up the world with EA shells, rather than make his own. And, in the end, he will end up with a world which looks like every other player made world. There really is no excuse for putting out such half baked work, but it does appear to be the norm.

alexpilgrim, did you get this solved? We had a thread similar to this some time ago:
http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=469471

And High Plains Gamer, the lazy or incompetent world designer is the one who criticizes everyone else's work and doesn't show any of his/her own. You always seem to be very critical of other's work, but I've seen little evidence that you can build a competent world. So please stop with the insults- there is nothing wrong with using EA assets. From what you are preaching, it seems that you are just encouraging people to rip off low poly boxy models from other games, anyway.