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NAM Issues Thread - PLEASE POST YOUR NAM QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS HERE

Started by jahu, June 03, 2007, 10:15:49 AM

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c0rnh0li0

Quote from: jplumbley on April 28, 2008, 10:46:03 PM
This is a problem that has been known for quite some time.  I think Ripplejet would probably knows the most about it.  But the game just simply doesnt count and keep track of the cars going through Neighbor Connections very well...  It actually isnt a problem limited to Neighbor Connections but also can be seen in Transit Enabled Lots as well.

So nothing can be done? There is no workaround or solution? I'm looking for the exact same commuters, but to have zilch is disappointing &, frankly, a buzzkill.

jplumbley

Quote from: c0rnh0li0 on April 28, 2008, 10:48:15 PM
So nothing can be done? There is no workaround or solution? I'm looking for the exact same commuters, but to have zilch is disappointing &, frankly, a buzzkill.

There is nothing in the Traffic Simulator that deals with this, that I have come across.  It is an error the game itself creates when reading data from the neighboring Cities.  This is something that we cannot fix because it is an error in the way they designed the game.
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c0rnh0li0

Quote from: jplumbley on April 28, 2008, 10:56:11 PM
There is nothing in the Traffic Simulator that deals with this, that I have come across.  It is an error the game itself creates when reading data from the neighboring Cities.  This is something that we cannot fix because it is an error in the way they designed the game.

So do I need to take the Simulator out of my plugins?

RippleJet

Eternal Commuters
This is extracted from the CAM Manual:




Eternal commuters are best visualized by the following example. Consider that you have a region with four cities. Each city has 200 inhabitants and 100 industrial jobs.

The residential areas are located close to the corner that all four cities share, and the industrial districts are located in the middle of each city (far away from the residential areas).



Consider playing city A for a while. The workforce (about 100 persons, 50% of the population) starts looking for jobs. They consider the industry in their own city to be farther away than the industrial jobs in city B. The jobs in city B are considered to be situated just across the border crossing from city A, so all 100 workers head for city B.

Now, consider playing city B for a while. That city has a workforce of 100 plus 100 commuters coming from city A. All these workers consider the industry in city B to be farther away than the industrial jobs in city C. The jobs in city C are considered to be situated just across the border crossing from city B, so all 200 workers head for city C.

Now, consider playing city C for a while. That city has a workforce of 100 plus 200 commuters coming from city B. All these workers consider the industry in city C to be farther away than the industrial jobs in city D. The jobs in city D are considered to be situated just across the border crossing from city C, so all 300 workers head for city D.

Now, consider playing city D for a while. That city has a workforce of 100 plus 300 commuters coming from city C. All these workers consider the industry in city D to be farther away than the industrial jobs in city A. The jobs in city A are considered to be situated just across the border crossing from city D, so all 400 workers head for city A.

Now we're coming back to city A to play for a while. And now you probably understand the problems we're seeing. The regional population is still only 400, but city A already sees a workforce of 500, 100 living in the city and 400 commuting from city D. These would once again commute to city B. However, sooner or later it will be obvious that there are less jobs available in city B than there are commuters going across the border.

This leads to a high job demand all around the region, and for quite a while the simulation will allow the situation to continue. However, the longer you play and the more skewed the situation becomes, the more difficult will it be to achieve a healthy development.

Those commuters going around in circles through cities A –> B -> C -> D -> A -> etc. will never disappear. Commuters only increase in numbers, they never decrease. Thus you will soon have traffic and pollution problems around that corner.

Before long, you will also face a situation where residential buildings start to dilapidate, since all jobs in the neighbouring cities are "taken" by the eternal commuters and those living in the city will suffer from unemployment.

Be sure not to build border crossing close to a corner shared by several cities. You may have border crossings from each city in one direction, but not connecting to two cities close to a corner.

E.g. in the example above you could have had border crossings between A and B, as well as between C and D, but not between B and C, nor between D and A in those cases.

jplumbley

Quote from: c0rnh0li0 on April 28, 2008, 11:01:16 PM
So do I need to take the Simulator out of my plugins?

No its not the Simulator that is causing this... It is the game itself.  The problem lies in what MAXIS did when they designed the game.  We cannot fix this.
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Street Addon Mod - SAM

c0rnh0li0

I read that. That's what I thought of @ 1st, ripple. So I went back & looked up the CAM manual. But I don't have circulating traffic. I've barely stared this region. The traffic from Blue Haven is from Blue Haven alone. Same w/Aaronburg. So the sims aren't getting a chance to go Larkins>Aaronburg>Blue Haven>Larkins. They just get to the Larkins city limits & *poof* gone. There's no problem w/Larkins' commuters if I go into Blue Haven.

RippleJet

And I didn't read your first post carefully enough... &ops

The commuters on either side of a neighbour connection very seldom match up.
The main reason to this is that you're never playing on the regional level, only on a city level.

The game never knows exactly what happens on the other side of the border.
It only knows the latest work/workforce balance when the neighbouring city was latest saved.

Based on this information the game makes some assumptions on how the neighbouring cities would continue to develop while the city you are playing is developing.
Based on these the number of commuters crossing the city borders is always a rough estimate.

The simulator only sees the residential capacity available in the region, and the commercial/industrial capacity available in the region.
These numbers form the basis for what each city sees as additional capacities in itself, due to capacity elsewhere in the region.
These extrapolated capacitites are what the number of commuters are based upon.

Let's take a residential city as an example.
Its neighbouring city has a large industrial capacity that is unused.

Just in the same way as industries within a city can have a capacity (which is seen in the query), the route query may not show anybody actually working in that industry. The industrial capacity seen across the border is there for the simulator to take into consideration, but it is no guarantee that anybody will actually be crossing that border if you query it with the route query.

Since neighbouring cities are never syncronized, you will never have matching numbers of commuters in the route queries on both sides of the border.
Switching cities often and playing each a short period of time is the only way to get them closer to each other. But they will probably never be exactly the same.

c0rnh0li0

I think you're still not getting me. &ops The problem is not conflicting numbers, ripple. The problem is no one getting through into the city. 1900 leave Blue Haven for Larkins. Zero get to Larkins. 500 leave Aaronburg for Larkins. Zero get to Larkins. Its like the freight traffic. They leave the city, but you don't see them when you open the border town. I'm getting the same thing from my sims going to work.

RippleJet

Could you get a snapshot of the Census Repository Facility's query window for Larkin?

Tarkus

It's possible the neighbor connection just might not be working--I've run across this myself.  Have you tried rebuilding the neighbor connection?  Sometimes that works.  Which network is used for each neighbor connection?  Have you upgraded these networks from 1-tile to 2-tile recently?  Both of those situations can cause this sort of result due to pathing and the way in which the game handles neighbor connections.

-Alex (Tarkus)

c0rnh0li0

Quote from: Tarkus on April 29, 2008, 12:17:56 AM
It's possible the neighbor connection just might not be working--I've run across this myself.  Have you tried rebuilding the neighbor connection?  Sometimes that works.  Which network is used for each neighbor connection?  Have you upgraded these networks from 1-tile to 2-tile recently?  Both of those situations can cause this sort of result due to pathing and the way in which the game handles neighbor connections.

-Alex (Tarkus)

The Blue Haven connection is a ground highway. For Aaronburg, I have one tile ground hwy, 1 tile one-way, then RHW.

And Ripp, I don't know how to post a pic. And excuse my ignorance, but what the heck is a Supository Faculty?

Tarkus

c0rnh0li0, the two-tile networks sometimes have a tendency to be a bit finicky with neighbor connections--it has to do with the way in which the .exe handles paths and neighbor connections for those networks.  Try re-building them from both sides.

-Alex (Tarkus)

c0rnh0li0

Quote from: Tarkus on April 29, 2008, 01:28:18 AM
c0rnh0li0, the two-tile networks sometimes have a tendency to be a bit finicky with neighbor connections--it has to do with the way in which the .exe handles paths and neighbor connections for those networks.  Try re-building them from both sides.

-Alex (Tarkus)

Ok. I just got finished redoing things from Larkins' end. I got 13 people from Blue Haven @ 1st, then they disappeared, then 1 car, then nothing. Still nobody arriving from Aaronburg. I'll try from the neighbor cities next. I have to get back to work though. :'( So I won't be able to try it until I get off later this AM. Thanks for everyone's help so far though.

HandsOn

Quote from: c0rnh0li0 on April 29, 2008, 01:22:30 AM
And Ripp, I don't know how to post a pic. And excuse my ignorance, but what the heck is a Supository Faculty?
He's refering to the Census Repository - a mod by RippleJet found on the BSC Exchange. It allows you to plop a single tile tower building in every city (found on the reqards menu). When you query that building you get the best darn reports & statsd about the cities population, workforce, commuters, et al. One you have tha up on the screen (city level) click on the odd little bitton with the three dots on the bottom of the screen then click on the first camara, and when the white border appears, click again. This whil save a PNG file under \Albums\City Name - best to convert it to JPG, if you can, which you can then attach to your posts. Just use the Power Search (Hah!) and select RippleJet, it'll come up.

I had a similar situation a while back when I started this new region: what did it for me was an alternate transit: in this case rail + Hway. Solved the problem as far as I can see.


Why not visit The Empire MD
Just updated on July 2nd, 2008
And after the game's done.. - The Storyteller's Logbook

RippleJet

Quote from: HandsOn on April 29, 2008, 01:59:38 AM
He's refering to the Census Repository - a mod by RippleJet found on the BSC Exchange.

Unfortunately I still haven't got version 3 finished and uploaded on the LEX. &ops :-[ &ops

Version 2 is still only available attached to the first post here:
http://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=41&threadid=84816&enterthread=y

Be sure to read that first post and get RalphaelNinja's model file from STEX as well. ;)

HandsOn

Quote from: RippleJet on April 29, 2008, 02:25:44 AM
Unfortunately I still haven't got version 3 finished and uploaded on the LEX. &ops :-[ &ops

Version 2 is still only available attached to the first post here:
http://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=41&threadid=84816&enterthread=y

Be sure to read that first post and get RalphaelNinja's model file from STEX as well. ;)

Oops, you're right - I did get it there. Mea culpa, mea culpa. But since you're doing V3 - I'd like to make a request: would a different type of building be possible - like a statue or a town hall? I know, Ralph's building is easi;y spotted, but it does stick out a bit much in small towns, and gets lost in metropolis..just checking.. :thumbsup:


Why not visit The Empire MD
Just updated on July 2nd, 2008
And after the game's done.. - The Storyteller's Logbook


RippleJet

Version 3 will have two alternative buildings.
The one for rural/small town settings is based on an unreleased bat by Colyn. ::)

As a teaser, it can be seen in the upper right-hand corner of this picture:


HandsOn

Quote from: RippleJet on April 29, 2008, 04:05:36 AM
As a teaser, it can be seen in the upper right-hand corner of this picture:

Teasing is not nice, young man, not nice at all! Now ve vill haff to drum our fingers impatiently. But - did I spot a two or three story brownstone with a stoop? Can Woody Allen be far from that scene..?

Seriously, though: since the repository saves its data - could that be in CSV format? Or is it already??


Why not visit The Empire MD
Just updated on July 2nd, 2008
And after the game's done.. - The Storyteller's Logbook

Anthony

Quote from: RippleJet on April 29, 2008, 04:05:36 AM
Version 3 will have two alternative buildings.
The one for rural/small town settings is based on an unreleased bat by Colyn. ::)

yay!!!  :thumbsup: