CAM - General Discussions

[mightygoose]

great to here about the first stg15 being grown... thanks for the clarification ripplejet and others.

[Indisguise]

well I've already grown several stage 15's....most ones I remoded from NDEX..the first was in beginning of April...Pan Pacifica 20,000 CO$$$ was the first 

I'll need to go through the models and remod the lots once the PIM-X is completed, as per public release ...until Sc4Mienster and DT get off their high horses I will be unable to relese the 200+ buildings I have done already for the CAM....but the Doozers are happy playing with them already...

[BarbyW]

Indisguise, you can release the modded lots to the CAM Testers via the private exchange. That would give more variety for testing.

[mightygoose]

it is good to see some numbers, pan pacific 20,000 CO$$$, was the first to grow.... well i would love to see somoe of the bigger stage 15's

[Zaphod]

What kind of effect does this have on a already built city?

[RippleJet]

Beta testing will have to show whatever effect it will have if used on existing, built-up cities/regions.

[thundercrack83]

Hope all is well with the project! Can't wait to see more development!

[RippleJet]

Beta testing is proceeding, but it's too early to reveale any details yet.

[Teddah]

Wow, this is really impressive!  I have a few questions, though.

1) How will this mod affect performance?  I'm playing on a slightly dated computer (512 MB RAM and a 2.4Ghz P4), and it works very hard to run the game as it is.

2) Will there be adjustments to network capacities/speeds to account for higher densities?  It'd be great to have a row of buildings with thousands upon thousands of sims in each, but if one stage 15 totally overloads the surrounding transportation, that won't be very useful.

3) How will zoning be affected by this?  Will low-density R cover stages 1-6, medium cover 7-12, and high cover 13-15, or something similar?  Or will high density simply go 7-15?  It would be nice if I wanted to restrict some zones to say, stage 10 or lower, if I don't have room for/feel like putting in the services necessary for a stage 14 that might grow instead.  Though it seems that the very high stages could be restricted simply by making smaller zones; would this be an effective tactic?

I'm waiting somewhat patiently for the release of this mod.  It really is an amazing effort on the part of everyone involved.

[RippleJet]

1) How will this mod affect performance?  I'm playing on a slightly dated computer (512 MB RAM and a 2.4Ghz P4), and it works very hard to run the game as it is.

Performance is always dependent on the size of your region and your cities and on the content of your plugins folder. As such, the CAM will not affect performance, you are able to cram a city full with skyscrapers both with and without the CAM.

2) Will there be adjustments to network capacities/speeds to account for higher densities?  It'd be great to have a row of buildings with thousands upon thousands of sims in each, but if one stage 15 totally overloads the surrounding transportation, that won't be very useful.

Yes, a new NAM/CAM pathfinding has been developed and is being tested, with higher network speeds and capacities.

3) How will zoning be affected by this?  Will low-density R cover stages 1-6, medium cover 7-12, and high cover 13-15, or something similar?  Or will high density simply go 7-15?  It would be nice if I wanted to restrict some zones to say, stage 10 or lower, if I don't have room for/feel like putting in the services necessary for a stage 14 that might grow instead.  Though it seems that the very high stages could be restricted simply by making smaller zones; would this be an effective tactic?

The lower densities will remain unchanged. Thus, high density is required for stages 7-15.

However, there will be other ways of controlling where the CAMeLots (lots made for CAM's higher stages) will grow:


CAM - Stage Caps

The CAM is bringing two basically unused stage caps into use, the Park Cap (which in RH is used only for R$$$, set at stage 3), and the Fire Cap (which is unused in RH).

The park cap means that, in order to grow past the stage set, the lot has to be within 20 tiles of any kind of park.
The fire cap means that, in order to grow past the stage set, the lot has to be within the coverage area of a fire station.

The table below summarizes all stage caps that are available and used in the CAM.
If an RCI type is capped at a certain stage, it cannot surpass that stage without getting what is capped.

RCI	Power	Water	Park	Fire	Max.
Type	Cap	Cap	Cap	Cap	Stage
R$	0	3	12	-	15
R$$	0	3	9	12	15
R$$$	0	0	3	9	15
CS$	0	3	-	-	15
CS$$	0	3	12	-	15
CS$$$	0	0	9	12	15
CO$$	0	3	12	-	15
CO$$$	0	0	9	12	15
I-R	0	3	6	4	7
I-D	0	1	-	5	10
I-M	0	1	-	5	10
I-HT	0	0	6	3	10

[mightygoose]

very interesting.

[thundercrack83]

Glad to see more progress coming along!

[Teddah]

Very good news!  Thanks for the quick reply!

[bat]

This is a great project! Also great to see some progress!

[shoreman905]

CAM6 testing report for May 26,2007. Basic test setup: Standard Maxis content, CAM test lots, CAMeLot counter, NAM+Traffic_Plugin_Better_PathFinding_CAM_Beta03_Ped10, CAM Demand Range -300_+15000, Maxis Growable Landmarks, CAM WorkForceDrives_160%, ColossusAddonMod_Beta6, Census Repository Complete and Columbus Terrain (cosmetic mod).
Methodology: Four medium city tiles, 2 mixed development (RCI no Agriculture) 1 heavy industrial, no Agriculture, I heavy Agriculture.

Census figures:




Of the Maxis Landmark Growables, Coit Tower and Smith Tower were the only to appear. However, in large numbers. CAM6_1 had low growth, mainly due to non-inclusion of a critical file, once inserted, growth matches cities incorporated with the file in place. CAM6_4 was incorporated after stage 4 & 5 farms became available, so little time has advanced to properly observe. I will say,however, these farms are very good, with realistic detail and will be a must have when released. My style of play is normally midsized cities with seaports and rural (basically reflecting my home area) so building skyscraper cities is somewhat foreign to me, however, I really got into the swing of this. I believe that the basic player will truely enjoy the competitive edge CAM gives. Though I only have grown Stage 12 lots at this point, I really, really want to see a 15, so the drive to play has returned in a big way. I am patiently waiting for the word to play with custom content rather than vanilla Maxis, the possibilities there are mind boggling. Overall, I enjoyed this testing and look forward to more. To Ripplejet and all the CAM team 

[mightygoose]

fascinating data... one question.... why is the total workforce demand 45,000 in all cases???

[shoreman905]

I will have to let Ripplejet answer that for you, I am just a CAMster. I test run the various CAM setups and report.

[shoreman905]

But, in the meantime, I have a few screenies laying about.

[RippleJet]

Thank you Shoreman!
I am especially grateful for the graph you've made. Helps seeing how fast the development goes with the 160% workforce drives.

fascinating data... one question.... why is the total workforce demand 45,000 in all cases???

The workforce demand is set by Maxis to be 3 times the maximum individual demand for different RCI types (which is 6,000). If you have used the Census Repository Facility, you may have noticed that the workforce demand soon gets up to a maximum value of 18,000, and stays there for the remainder of the game. In Shoreman's case, the maximum workforce demand is 3 × 15,000 = 45,000.

We have been using different extended demand ranges throughout the beta testing. The picture in the first post shows a demand range of ±20,000. The early beta versions also had a ±12,000 demand range. The first assymmetric demand range we tested was -3,000 to +9,000. Beta 6 had two demand ranges, -3,000 to +15,000 (which is the one Shoreman has been using) and -6,000 to +24,000 (which is the only one that will remain in Beta version 7).

The reason we need to include an extended demand range, is to enable the highest stage buildings to grow. With Maxis default demand range of ±6,000 you will hardly be able to grow anything bigger than 9,000-10,000 inhabitants/workers.

Every time the demand range has been extended we have been facing demand problems, especially early in the game, when there is only one city in an empty region. These problems have been smoothed out by carefully modding the workforce drives. Beta 6 has been concentrating on a mod that increases the workforce drives to 160% for all wealth/education levels, instead of 148%-149% by Maxis.

CAM Beta 7 will see a modified version of this, where low wealth/education will give an increased drive (up to 170%), whereas high wealth/education will give a smaller drive (down to 140%). We don't want to make the start of a new region too difficult, and we also do not want to have the development exploding when you get higher up in education and wealth, which has especially been seen in Mas'71's experiments with large dilapidating R$$$/CO$$$ cities.

[mightygoose]

thank you for the informative answer... so you are saying you are gradually pushing the demand limit up wish each beta to take into account early stage developement speed issues.