NAM Installation on Mac OS X tutorial

INSTALL INSTRUCTIONS FOR NAM 32.1 USING THE MAC WRAPPER
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1. Extract the 7zip archive using a capable program, such as "Keka"
Kekaosx.com
or "The Unarchiver"
Unarchiver.c3.cx (also available on the Mac App Store).

2. Double-click the file "NAM 32.1 Mac Wrapper.app" to execute the wrapped
NAM installer.

3. When you navigate through the installation process, the installer will
show a popup message asking whether you are trying to port the NAM to a
Mac. Select 'Yes'.

4. In custom installation, the installer allows you to change the default
path of the installation. DO NOT CHANGE THE DEFAULT PATH. The default
installation will end up in
"~/Documents/SimCity 4/Plugins/Network Addon Mod".
If that is where your plugins are located, everything is fine. Though, if
not, you will have to move the folders "Network Addon Mod" and "z___NAM"
into your actual plugins folder after the installation process finished.
(Advanced users will want to create a symlink at "~/Documents/SimCity 4".)

The reason why this is necessary is that, currently, some of the
installation paths of the NAM cannot be changed which therefore would
always end up in the default location. Hence, this approach ensures that
your installation does not miss essential files.

The location of the plugins folder is "~/Documents/SimCity 4/Plugins"
for the Steam and disk version, whereas it is
"~/Library/Containers/com.aspyr.simcity4.appstore/Data/Documents/SimCity 4/Plugins"
for the App Store version.

To reveal the Library folder in your home folder, in Finder, open the
"Go" menu and hold the Option (Alt) key. The Library folder will then
appear in that menu.

5. During the installation process, the installer will display a popup
message reporting that it failed to build a custom controller. Ignore
this. You will get a full-featured controller. The effect of a large
controller file is not as serious with the Mac rerelease as with the
original Windows release.

The reason why the controller compiler fails is that it is Java-based
and, even if you have Java installed on your system, it cannot interact
with the wrapped installer, at this point. Advanced users, who want a
custom controller, may run the stand-alone version of the compiler (see
point B below).

6. After the installation process finished, copy the folders "Network Addon
Mod" and "z___NAM" into your plugins folder, if it is not in the default
location, as discribed in point 4. Also take note of point A below.

7. Enjoy the NAM. :)

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APPENDIX

A. A note on Datpacking

Apparently, the Aspyr port has a bug that limits the maximum number of
plugin files, which seems to be significantly reduced if an internet
connection is not available. It makes the game crash every time! This
issue can be mitigated by datpacking the plugins folder using
SC4DatPacker
Sc4devotion.com
(via Wine) or JDatPacker
Sc4devotion.com .

B. How to run the controller compiler? (for advanced users)

If you know what you are doing, open the folder
"~/Documents/SimCity 4/NAM Auxiliary Files/Tools/Controller Compiler/"
and double-click the file "NAMControllerCompiler.jar". Select the 'input'
folder
"Network Addon Mod/Controller/"
from the current "Controller Compiler" directory, and the 'output' folder
"~/Documents/SimCity 4/Plugins/Network Addon Mod/"
inside your plugins. For the rest, follow the instructions of the
compiler.

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CREDITS

memo - Development
Jonathan, Sabretooth78, TEG24601 - Testing and Feedback

The wrapper used was produced through Wineskin by Urge Software, released under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL).
Wineskin.urgesoftware.com

WHY THE EXTRA STEPS?

Using the 7-Zip archive on top of the installer has allowed the NAM Team to further shrink the file size of the download (down to 352MB), while also allowing the installer itself to run much faster than the NAM 31.x series installers.

BUT NOTHING IS SHOWING UP IN GAME!

There's four possibilities here.

1. You did not complete all the necessary steps to install the mod. Simply unzipping the package to your Plugins, or just extracting the .7z file will not install the NAM to your Plugins.

2. You got a corrupt download. This happens from time to time, and is an issue between your internet connection and the server load, not an issue with the download itself. In this case, re-download the mod. It's possible that one of our other official mirrors may get along better with your internet connection, so it may be worthwhile to try another site.

The only three English-language sites that are authorized to distribute the NAM are ModDB (https://www.moddb.com), SC4 Devotion (http://www.sc4devotion.com), and Simtropolis (http://www.simtropolis.com). Downloads from other sites are not supported.

3. You selected the "Traffic Simulator Only" option in the installer. All this will do is install the NAM's traffic simulator plugin, which improves pathfinding and includes the option to change capacity levels, and will skip over all other addons to the transportation system that are included in the NAM.

4. Some users found that this problem is corrected when they switch to a different extraction utility for the .7z file. If you're using The UnArchiver and experiencing this issue, try Keka instead, and vice-versa.

WHERE TO GET HELP
The NAM Team is a small volunteer development team (and is presently smaller than in years past). Usually, we only have one developer checking the ModDB comments every once and awhile, so if you're really desperate to get technical support, your best bet is to head to the major SC4 forums. The NAM Team is officially based out of SC4 Devotion (http://www.sc4devotion.com), but also has a considerable presence on Simtropolis (http://www.simtropolis.com), a site which also has the most active SC4 Mac user community. There are many other experienced users around who can usually point you in the right direction with any NAM issues you might have.