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NAM: Development

Started by memo, April 29, 2007, 06:33:33 AM

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mott

I was just starting to roll together another test plugin for more general testing, and need an opinion:

In a default game, the player is penalized whenever a Sim who prefers transit is forced to drive, and vice-versa.   This is done by adding extra time to their commutes when forced to use alternate transportation.

The thing is, everyone seems to hate this aspect of the game.  The player has no way to know that it is happening, and it is impossible to build healthy car-only or transit-only cities. 

How do people feel about changing this part of the simulation entirely?  Some Sims would still choose to drive and others to take a bus, *first*.  But as long as they could get to work, somehow, they would use it and the player would not be penalized.  Then the "walking-distance-to-train" city becomes possible, and the "what's a bus?" city...

Seems like trading a poorly-implemented feature, for another one that people might enjoy more.  And the game would be more intuitive too.  Thoughts?

ScottFTL


I think this would be a good change.  I don't like the implementation of transit preference because it seems biased towards cars as the preferred mode of transit - almost no matter what you do.  I'm sure you could have a long debate about how realistic this is or is not - and the answer would depend on what part of the globe you call home.

I do have a question, though.  If you remove the transit preference penalty, would the game ignore transit preference completely?  Or would sims select the most efficient path first, then the preferred mode of transit if multiple paths of equal value are found?

This could add a new twist to the game, for sure.

mott

Quote from: ScottFTL on October 22, 2007, 01:49:10 PM
If you remove the transit preference penalty, would the game ignore transit preference completely?  Or would sims select the most efficient path first, then the preferred mode of transit if multiple paths of equal value are found?

Actually, they'd try to use their "preferred" transit first.  If it gets them to work within their "max commute time," nothing would change from the way that the game works now.  It's just when traffic congestion jams up the roads, so Sims who work far away can't get there any more by car like they wanted to, those Sims would try a mass-transit option instead, without penalty.  Only if that commute also failed, would the "no-job" zot appear.

As for what the initial choice settings should be, that's up for debate.  The initial settings aren't bad.   At least letting them try alternate routes "for free" gives the player some time to work during a "population explosion" before the city collapses on itself (which it will anyway, eventually).

BTW, there are three "preferences" for Sims: Transit, Drive, and whatever's fastest.  For each wealth level, we can set the proportions of how many prefer each.  The problem with a universal "Fastest" strategy is that all the Sims always do the same exact thing, until it gets congested, and then they all do the *other* thing, and so on.  Giving them preferences is a good idea.
   

mott

Just wanted to let everyone know that I incorporated a lot of the ideas that have been discussed, and there's an alpha "a03" now available in my "Commute Tweking for NWM" thread.

http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=2665.msg83692#msg83692

Details there.   "Park-and-Ride" mod is now included as an *option* for those who wanted to try it; I have included a full set of "patched" Maxis Transit buildings needed for proper "Park and Ride" operation.  These are of course optional also.  Testing "Park and Ride" is best done with a SC4 Startup Manager profile and new cities; it's just like the RH expansion in that all those buildings would have to be demolished and rebuilt...

All sorts of nifty stuff in there.  Have fun with it.  Playing on "hard" is actually challenging and fun, rather than frustrating and impossible.

mott

Sorry to triple-post...

While the board was down for maintenance I noticed that a lot of users would prefer not to change the existing path plugins too much.  So I combed over the existing NAM plugins to see which ones that already exist are "good."  That way people who prefer to stay with the familiar behavior of the "legacy" plugins could do so.

And by "good" I mean, they don't make gameplay any harder or more buggy, relative to the default.  "Good" means "no damage" and that's all.  The definition of "improved" is up to the player.

The purpose here, is just to report back, so users and the NAM team can make decisions.  Then I'm going to step off it, and work on something else, because I've taken this issue about as far as it can go. :)

"$Deal"$ REPORT:

* The "Maxis Default" pathfinding plugin version is neutral.  No problems with it.

* All the "Maxis-Speed, Maxis-Pathfinding" variations are fine too, except that the Maxis pathfinding heuristic isn't as good for gameplay as the one the "Better Pathfinding" version uses.  The Maxis number makes the zone developer very conservative, so R$$$ especially is harder to grow than maybe it should be, and harder to keep from downgrading to R$$.  That's a player's choice issue, though, not a technical problem per se. 

* All the "Better Pathfinding, Default Speed" variations are rather good as they are.  Users should see a more sane job-distance vs. commute time calculation, nothing too radical but it definitely helps compared to the default values.  What's really "Better" is not the pathfinding itself, but the zone developer's estimate of the actual commute times that the pathfinder will eventually discover after Sims move into a new building.  This lets the zone developer make better decisions about what to build and where.  The person who made this plugin, if I understand the old threads correctly, seemed to have an intuitive sense that the solution being sought was around here somewhere. 

* The ones that increase "Max Commute" also expand the "short/medim/long" commute distances that zones see.  As a result, the circle in which Sims see a "short" commute gets bigger, and demand/desirability improves.  The default game is very difficult in this regard, the 2x Commute helps a lot, and the 5x Commute produces the kind of (much easier) game behavior that SC3K exhibited.  At 5x Commute pretty much any Sim on a large map can get anywhere else on it, and most of the map sees a short or medium commute time.  The 10x Commute is pretty radical in this regard, almost everyone's commute is short, and demand/desirablity really can skyrocket.  Some people might like that, and there's nothing technically wrong with doing it - this is real demand, based on how the simulators naturally react.  Player's choice again.

* I looked into Capacity variations also.  The amount of traffic required to annoy residents with noise and please businesses with customers, does not change when you change the capacities.  There's also a limit to how bad/good the noise/customers number can get.  If these variations are working for people, there's no compelling reason to change them.

CONCLUSION:
Therefore, to solve the Commute Time/Abandonment problems, without confusing and angering players with existing regions, just drop the "Radical Custom Special," and all the increased speed and "perfect pathfinding" ones from the next release.  That will greatly reduce the number of plugins to support.  The remainder range from neutral to beneficial in a predictable manner, and existing users will at least see names they recognize to help them migrate. 

Again, just trying to sum up research to users and the Team here, so I can move on to more interesting things. 

Andreas

Thanks for the in-depth research, this is certainly much appreciated. :) For my personal use, I modified the "better pathfinding, Maxis speeds and capacities", where I doubled the commute time value, and I tripled the capacity of the Maxis streets. This has greatly improved my gameplay, I rarely have any abandonment anymore, but of course this also requires careful city planning, it's definitely not acting like a cheat. The tripled capacity for streets is a personal preference, since I like to use streets for low and certain mid density developments, such as row houses. It won't prevent overcrowded streets if they are used at inappropriate places, but it surely helps to reduce the overall congestion of the transportation network.
Andreas

Shadow Assassin

Include your pathfinding mod too. It'll give people another choice to see which one they would prefer.
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Kellydale2003

Ohh. I finally found the place where you can contribute.
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jplumbley

Quote from: Kellydale2003 on November 24, 2007, 01:48:43 PM
Ohh. I finally found the place where you can contribute.

Do you actually have something to contribute?  Or are you going to show the same waste of time you sent me in PMs?
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toxicpiano

Quote from: Kellydale2003 on November 24, 2007, 01:48:43 PM
Ohh. I finally found the place where you can contribute.
Superchad? Is that you?  $%Grinno$%
But seriously, show us some proof. You keep mentioning these amazing things you are doing but never show anything.
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mr.v

nam suggestion  :)



there's 2 tile under sydney bridge.
how possible to make avenue under bridge in this 2 tile?


one more request

every bridge has no pedestrain walk way.
it might be good if you have space for people walk on the bridge over the river or canal(real canal, maxis water not plop canal).

Lollo

Just an hypotesis: wouldn't be possible to use the same technology applied for the heavy rail under road puzzle pieces to make road/avenue/anything under something else ones??

Keep an eye on the Lair!

Jonathan

t wouldn't be possible to make a road network under a different road network, say Avenue under highway becuase you would either have a low capacity highway and a high speed Avenue or a high capacity avenue and a low speed Highway. but road over road would be possible and monorail over avenue wold be possible

Chrisim

Nobody says that the two networks must run in parallel.
Over at the German SimForum, Nardo69 suggested more general road underpasses with NAM puzzle pieces: a Marrast ramp to go underground and NAM puzzle pieces of street/road/avenue/1way/tram-avenue below all networks (and open space).
This approach would overcome the rigidity of the popular Marrast underpasses and would be much better than the present practise of converting car (but no bus) passengers to underground passengers (as e.g., in Buddybuds underpasses and also, I believe, the Big Dig, never tested the latter one).

@Warrior, the restriction (same speed/capacity for both networks on a tile) does also apply for the Marrast underpasses. Nothing we can do about it, and no reason not to use road underpasses ...

Lollo

Quotea Marrast ramp to go underground and NAM puzzle pieces of street/road/avenue/1way/tram-avenue below all networks

Ta-Dah..... Exactly what I meant ;D... Hope he'll realize them...

Keep an eye on the Lair!

Jonathan

Right sorry  &ops
So If I understand right exactly like the over passes in the NAM except they go under not over?

Chrisim

Quote from: Warrior on January 06, 2008, 03:44:34 AM
So If I understand right exactly like the over passes in the NAM except they go under not over?
In principle yes. In addition to the equivalents of road overpass puzzle pieces, underpass pieces would also be required below pedestrian zones and tram-in-avenue.


jplumbley

I am not 100% clear on this.  But I will give my two cents anyways, so forgive my ignorance if I say something that is already said.

First off, it is IMPOSSIBLE to drag or enable a drag under any portion of a bridge.  This is not a possibility.  The only way possible to get "Under Bridge Scenary" is by offsetting lots.

Alrighty, the Marrast underpasses are actually an interesting thought to bring to this topic.  I have never thought about implmenting a Marrast Underpass in this situation.  Depending on how they work, it may just be feasible to make a "ground level" over hanging model that goes under the bridge and give us "functional" under bridge roads.  But, of course this would take much experimenting and time to develope, if it is even possible.
__________________________________________________________________

Now, you guys have also brought up a question about Blahdy's Boston Big Dig and Buddybud's Underpasses.  Currently, they make Road Traffic turn into Subway traffic and you must drag a subway between the two lots.

What if...  What if we enabled Road Traffic to be added to the subway system?

Well, you would have two separate Traffic types on the same system which works within the issues of dual networking.  Subways will never cross a 3rd party network and therefore will only ever have 2 Traffic Types on the system. 

With this we will be able to keep Road traffic from the Boston Big Dig lots separate from the actual subway traffic and control the access with the Station lots.  Subway traffic will only be able to leave Subway Stations, Road Traffic will only be allowed to leave through Boston Big Dig lots.

Also, this will get around the issue of Road traffic having an advantage in speed by taking the under ground "road".  Currently, when converted to subway traffic the cars will be travelling at Subway speeds of 225 km/h, whereas we can set the new speed to 100 km/h equal to that of a highway.

These are the three biggest areas that make underground highways not entirely functional in game.  But, with a simple update and a patch to all the Boston Big Dig and Buddybud Lots we can get under ground traffic more functional.

Now, in the experiments that Warrior and I had worked on we ran into one issue.  An issue the can probably be fixed fairly easily.  When we had a road moving in a parrallel fashion directly above the subway the cars would suddenly jump from underground to above ground.  This would probably have to do with the pathing that we did.  What we did was copy the road network paths into the subway path files and left them alone.  Because the road paths were still set at height 0m then they would technically be "touching" the paths for the actualy road, this may be confusing to some, but the game would essentially see them as intersecting paths and would treat it as an intersection and allow cars to choose which path to take.  We should be able to overcome this issue by setting the paths at a negative height so the paths are set underground and cannot be in contact with other surface paths.

So, technically, in a theoretical aspect.  We should be able to get functional Underground highways.  Which would allow for underbridge traffic... (semi dual networking aswell)...
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Street Addon Mod - SAM