What affects sequence when plotting?

Not sure from your language, but did you adjust this-

If so, I would start with a generic pltcfg, no pen table to test. The add stuff back one at a time.

I adjusted my work flow to make everything WYSIWYG (except linecodes 0-7, and weights, working on that) years ago, I won't go back. Of course that's not possible when you're forced to use other's configuration/standards.

Bob Rayner said:

If so, I would start with a generic pltcfg, no pen table to test.

I think Bob is on the right track here. I would go back and remove all priorities and pen table settings. Start from the beginning & keep it simple. Applying too many settings can cause just as many issues. Some of the settings can be cumulative as well. Best example of something I ran into when transparency was first introduced, I had some shading in a drawing and I hade the level set to 50% transparency. In my plot driver I had the color for that shading set to 50% transparent as well. When the file was printed there was no shading because the 2 separate transparency settings were added together to make the shading 100% transparent.

Once you are back to the beginning I would go to the container file of the nested reference and set all display priorities and reference sequences in that file. Create a plot and see what you get. I would not change any settings in the sheet file as the container file should control everything for the reference files attached to it.

It can be a tedious process, but once you figure it out you know what to look for in the future. Nested files can be tough to deal with. 

Bob Rayner said:

If so, I would start with a generic pltcfg, no pen table to test.

I think Bob is on the right track here. I would go back and remove all priorities and pen table settings. Start from the beginning & keep it simple. Applying too many settings can cause just as many issues. Some of the settings can be cumulative as well. Best example of something I ran into when transparency was first introduced, I had some shading in a drawing and I hade the level set to 50% transparency. In my plot driver I had the color for that shading set to 50% transparent as well. When the file was printed there was no shading because the 2 separate transparency settings were added together to make the shading 100% transparent.

Once you are back to the beginning I would go to the container file of the nested reference and set all display priorities and reference sequences in that file. Create a plot and see what you get. I would not change any settings in the sheet file as the container file should control everything for the reference files attached to it.

It can be a tedious process, but once you figure it out you know what to look for in the future. Nested files can be tough to deal with. 

Yes nesting can cause grief .. I found that transparency really screws with the layering priorities especially when you have a file with hatch patterning in the mix... the only solution for me that worked and i tried everything even now .. was to remove the hatched areas from the nesting and add it as a separate ref on top  so it forced the priority how I needed it .. but this defeated the benefit of a nested file as one source of truth for attachments.. but heck when you just have to get it  out to client as a deliverable by 430 pm on a Friday and its 4 pm now and you just " have to fake it till you make it"

.. by the way this is always when bad things always happen in MicroStation..