CAM - General Discussions

[RippleJet]

Right now I have a ton of CS$ demand with not real way to satisfy it. I want to edit some of my lot with a increase of jobs, can this be done without causing the sim to have growth issues in the future?

Yes, if you increase the capacity of any lot in the game without increasing also its growth stage, you will be causing issues.
That lot would not upgrade to any higher stage, if that higher stage building has a capacity that's lower than the one you modfied.

It's quite normal that there's a huge CS§ demand as long as education levels are low.
And early on both R§ and CS§ will expand into large areas, before you'd start getting highrises.

Once you do get highrise CS§ (stages 7-8 and higher), those will be reducing the overall demand for CS§.
And do make sure you've got DragonAnime's CS§ CAMeLots.

Eventually, if you get education to rise, CS demand would to a large extent be replaced by CO demand though,
and those small CS§ buildings that you got early on would upgrade into offices.

[b22rian]

hi,

I hope this the right thread to ask a couple questions like this..
I think Ripple might be able to answer this but here goes...

I'm using Cam 1.0...

Anyways I started off with a couple larger agricultural cities..
But than decided to make them a bit more mixed in terms of having some agricultural sections and than some urban
areas.. Of course as many people know the problem with that is the farm population cap which is set at 30 K..
I did increase that to 60 K using the  "census repository vault"..

Eventually the 2 cities grew beyond 60 K even, which was fine, i was satisfied with the number of farms i had
been able to grow in these 2 cities in the agricultural areas i had planned.. To be honest and i'm not sure other
players get into this but I really enjoy the challenges of trying to create a mix sorta city like this where you can
have both some farming areas and also some urban areas in the same city tile.. I noticed roads with heavier traffic
and traffic noise seems to have the biggest effects on farms..Such that when you query a farm.. lets say its
"Barthelet stables" for example..If you had set it up with the proper conditions than you should see a current jobs
setting of 16/16 or hopefully 15/16 which would still be quite good.. Again the first number in that setting
represents the maximum number of workers given the conditions you have in place around the farm..Anyways as
development near the farm increases and traffic noise increases you will see this number start to drop off..
it will usually do so gradually.. Im not sure zone development near the farms itself is the culprit but as I said it
does seem to be more directly related to heavily used roads very near to the farm and traffic noise in general..
So you do have to be quite careful how you zone near farms and I think particularly how you handle traffic
patterns near them , if you dont want them to go abandoned..

so my first question is besides traffic noise which I have already identified.. does development and zone density in general have a negative effect also on existing farms or is it only traffic noise which effects them ?
It would seem perhaps the proximity of heavier development might to certain farms rather than there being some
sort of overall city tile effect..on all farming.. unless its just the traffic and traffic noise which is the culprit..


But My second question concerns EQ...
I will give the example of my larger agricultural city which currently has an average EQ of just 80..
If I were to work on gradually increasing the overall EQ ib the city now that I have the farms established in it
that i desire..would this have a negative effect on the farms already in place ?
So lets say I could eventually double the EQ in this city from 80 to 160 ?
as long as my overall population is quite high in the city, amd i still going to have plenty of farm workers with this
higher average EQ , same as i had before.. Or would raising the EQ this much have some kinda detrimental effect on the existing Farms which i have already built in this city ?


Thanks, Brian

[RippleJet]

I think Ripple might be able to answer this but here goes...

so my first question is besides traffic noise which I have already identified.. does development and zone density in general have a negative effect also on existing farms or is it only traffic noise which effects them ?
It would seem perhaps the proximity of heavier development might to certain farms rather than there being some sort of overall city tile effect..on all farming.. unless its just the traffic and traffic noise which is the culprit..

The neighbouring zones (proximity to other RCI types) have no effect on farming desirability.
Traffic, air pollution and garbage have the biggest desirability impact on farming.

I'm listing all desirability factors for IR below, with their maximum/minimum effects:

Land Value	0	+10	255	+0
Traffic Effect	0	+50	255	-50
Trip Length Effect	0	+15	255	-15
Crime Effect	0	+10	255	-10
Air Pollution Effect	0	+50	941	-50
Garbage Effect	0	+50	4096	-50
Radiation Effect	0	+0	1	-2000

Or would raising the EQ this much have some kinda detrimental effect on the existing Farms which i have already built in this city ?

Raising the EQ will reduce IR demand, which as such will not cause every existing farm to abandon right away (just like existing ID can continue to operate even if you raise their taxes to 20%). However, over time you will slowly realise that the farming capacity would be dropping.

[b22rian]

thanks a lot ripple..

You always get the best and most detailed answers to questions, posed here..

Happy Holidays !,

Brian

[mrochester]

Hi all,

I've had a hunt around to see if I can find a solution to my problem, but nothing has worked so far.  I'm playing a region where I have 1 large city, and 1 medium city.  When I start another new city, the residential demand in that city drops to -6000 immediately (for $, $$ and $$$).  This means that my city has a population of zero, as no houses are ever built on the residential areas I zone.  However, industry and commercial grows just fine. The same thing happens regardless of whether I start a new city next to my other cities, or on the other side of the map (so it's not the 'connections' between the cities causing external commuters, if I understand correctly).

Can anyone help?  I've spent about 2 years (no, literally) building up this region, and I want to continue playing it until it is full, but I cannot with this negative residential demand.

Please help!

Thanks,

Michael.

EDIT - Apologies, I should have mentioned that the problem goes away when I remove CAM from the plugins folder.  Does anyone know what it might be about CAM that causes this?

[RippleJet]

EDIT - Apologies, I should have mentioned that the problem goes away when I remove CAM from the plugins folder.  Does anyone know what it might be about CAM that causes this?

Yes, this is an annoyance with CAM.
Modifying the RCI exemplars for CAM for some reason results in the game thinking that the regional residential and workforce capacities are doubled, compared to the truth.

Thus, with CAM 1.0 you will need a lot more commercials and industrials than otherwise.
And, unfortunately, this will also lead to several of these work places not having any employees.

Since they don't require workers to function, these won't upset the simulators though.
But you will need to provide more jobs with CAM than without it.

CAM 2.0 will address this, but unfortunately the only way seems to be to patch SimCity_1.dat directly.
This will however also lead to CAM 2.0 not being fully CAMpatible with CAM 1.0.

[Bobsuga]

Just wanna say something about those civics RippleJet posted , some of those have too small capacity for huge cities. Still havent found anything that can replace  mercy general ( http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=121 ) or deadwoods Roadtop Subway Stops (http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=481)  , althrought those are also gettin crowded. Thought about making my own , but I lack skill to do it 

[RippleJet]

Just wanna say something about those civics RippleJet posted , some of those have too small capacity for huge cities. Still havent found anything that can replace  mercy general ( http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=121 )

Thanks for reminding me about Colyn's Mercy General.
However, the Mercy General's patient capacity is "only" 50,000.
The capacity of the Bywater Springs Medical Facility is 155,625.

or deadwoods Roadtop Subway Stops (http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=481)  , althrought those are also gettin crowded.

Cogeo's RTMT 3.50 includes versions with higher capacities, especially for CAM.

[Bobsuga]

Thx for those , but Bywater Springs Medical Facility  doesent work for me . It has ambulance funding 0 , and when i ploped one in my city it got 2xx,xxx patients (overcrowded) so i plooped another one and it got exactly same amount of patients. plopped 6 of those and they all had exactly same amount of patients and were overcrovded , while 6 mercy generals were working fine ...

p.s. deadwoods lots have 6k(subway+bus for road) and 13k(subway + bus for avenue) capacity , but they dont have so many options as Cogeo's RTMT 3.50 ...

[RippleJet]

but Bywater Springs Medical Facility  doesent work for me . It has ambulance funding 0 , and when i ploped one in my city it got 2xx,xxx patients (overcrowded) so i plooped another one and it got exactly same amount of patients. plopped 6 of those and they all had exactly same amount of patients and were overcrovded

Thanks, Bobsuga, for that info!

There do indeed seem to be some errors in the Bywater Springs... strange that nobody has reported about it before...
There is no Monthly Cost for the Ambulances, that's the reason for the zero funding.
The radius is thus fixed at the maximum of 8960 m, or 560 tiles, covering more than your complete city.

These errors are probably due to an error in PIM-X, which i will have to take a look at.
Thanks for bringing it up!

[z]

Just wanna say something about those civics RippleJet posted , some of those have too small capacity for huge cities. Still havent found anything that can replace  mercy general ( http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=121 ) or deadwoods Roadtop Subway Stops (http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=481)  , althrought those are also gettin crowded. Thought about making my own , but I lack skill to do it 

My favorite huge hospital is Newman Inc Memorial Hospital II, with a capacity of 150,000.  It covers most of a large tile.

As for the RTMT stations, while RTMT V3.50 has a whole set of high capacity stations, testing has shown that they needed even higher capacities for all the high capacity simulators.  So for RTMT V4, there will be new, higher capacities.  Meanwhile, since the changes are all in a single file, I've attached a copy here; it's the same file I distribute with Simulator Z.

[LoneRanger]

RJ, why are there buildings/models included to the CAM with no nightlights like Maybush?
It strikes me as odd that a BSC mod lets in a building/moddel that has no nightlightning or am I doing something wrong?
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the CAM and can't live play without it but it's bugging me to see those dark buildings at night.
The models however are very good, don't get me wrong at that. 

[RippleJet]

RJ, why are there buildings/models included to the CAM with no nightlights like Maybush?

They are very old models, which have never been nightlighted.
They were simply CAMified as such, in order to keep them available for the game.

[Bobsuga]

No problem RippleJet, always glad to help  . Can you post here when u fix it ?

Thanks Z , those highier capacity stations where exactly what I needed . Now only if I could see where I want to plop they..... Stupid skyscrapers  . Anyway , this made me think a bit. Is it possible to replace  half underground view maxis put for ploping subway stations for something like zone view, cos it s hard (read impossible) to see roads from all those skyscrapers ?

Newman Inc Memorial Hospital II has capacity I need , but it is huge , I just dont have room for it ...

[z]

Is it possible to replace  half underground view maxis put for ploping subway stations for something like zone view, cos it s hard (read impossible) to see roads from all those skyscrapers ?

This is a common problem.  The best solution I've found is to go into zones view, see where you want to put your station, click on the station, and move your mouse to where you were looking.  The game takes a second or two to leave zones view, so you have plenty of time.  For verification that you're in the right place, check the price of the station; if you're over a building by mistake, the price will be way too high.  But if it's not, just click to plop.  And if you want to plop another one of the same stations nearby on the same road, just move your mouse where you think the road is, and use the pricing to make sure you're centered properly.  Intersections show up as "Already occupied."

[Bobsuga]

Yeah , I am doing it like this , but it s long and I usually spend half play time to plop stations 

[z]

The other way to go about things, which is the way I build most of my stations, is to plan the city beore hand (or at least a section of it), lay out the streets and roads, and even the zoning if you wish.  But before you let the Sims start building away, plop all the stations you know you'll need, right in the regular view.  This is very quick.

[shovelmonkey]

Hello, I'm new here, though I have CAM, and all the dependencies installed. Great package, I must say. I hadn't played sc4 in about 3 years up until I found my copy of the game in some boxes in our storage unit about two weeks ago. When I first played the game I hadn't realized the custom content potential that you guys have so excellently exploited! I'm very glad I decided to take a crack at the game again.

My question, for some of you veterans, is how do you lay out your industrial zones for maximum success? I try to avoid just filling areas with blank high density industrial zones (I hate all the little 1x1 lots that pop up), and try to ctrl drag my zones instead to attract larger industries to those parcels. I've been having mixed success, however. Generally, starting out and into a moderately sized industrial city I'll try to lay out my zones in 3x6, or larger patterns. I have problems with getting all the lots to fill, though. I'll get some to populate while other similarly sized zones just sit stagnate. I have no such problem with residential or commercial zones, so this frustrates me abit. 

A second question while I have your attention: what methods do you use to control pollution in your industrial cities, will the high pollution even affect anything long term in a purely industrial city? Barring taxing out dirty industry, I have found no solution to this.

Any tips, comments, etc., would be greatly appreciated.

[Bobsuga]

Here is how I do it: I first plan main avenues and neiberhood connections , and i simply lay high density zones normally ( I know i should start smaller , but I just want to do it fast as possible  ). Only if I want special larger factory to grow , I zone with ctrl. About stagnate zones , check demand and freight trip time. If freight trip time is long simply create  neiberhood connections or some freight train stations, or seaport....

Pollution control can be though in a ID and IM city (IHT doestn have those problems  ). When I create an industrial city i dont worry about air pollution for ID and IM ( again not too much of a problem with pure IHT city). Only thing u need to worry about is water pollution. Water pumps need to be placed as far as possible from industries , and as you fill tile with zones , u should consider plopping a couple of water treatment plants in order to keep pumps running.

Pollution doesent have any long term  effectand it is gone as soon as factorys are gone.Often when I want to expand my cities I just rezone industrial citys to commercial or residential without problems.

[shovelmonkey]

Thank you for the response. Here comes the extreme noob question : How do I check freight trip times?