CAM - General Discussions

[MithSimCity]

Hi, first of all congratulations for this great mod  I would like to know about the editing of the demand of work force from comercial and industrial buildings. I read that in CAM - Workforce and Occupation Demands (Drives) . I would like to create a city that has for instance only R$$. The first that I thought of was to get functional landmarks that only give jobs to R$$ but it seems that jobs can't be 'configured' when making the lot in the loteditor or bat (I haven't work myself with these tools though). So I resort now to this mod. How can I modify the demand of workforce as well as the workforce drives?

Thanks for your help!

[Korot]

@Kitsune: Farm stages, like all stages, go by regional capacity. Thus to grow stage 7 farms your regional Industrial Capacity should exceed 250.000. Please note that I-AG capacity (Farms) is not included in the regional Industrial capacity.

@MithSimCity: The workforce drives can be edited using the Reader, but this will affect the drives for all buildings. Thus, if you alter the drives for CO$$ to only accept R$$ workers, all CO$$ will from here on end only employ R$$ workers. (Sadly) to the extent of my knowledge this can't be set for individual buildings. May I ask why you want only R$$ sims BTW?

Regards,
Korot

[MithSimCity]

@MithSimCity: The workforce drives can be edited using the Reader, but this will affect the drives for all buildings. Thus, if you alter the drives for CO$$ to only accept R$$ workers, all CO$$ will from here on end only employ R$$ workers. (Sadly) to the extent of my knowledge this can't be set for individual buildings. May I ask why you want only R$$ sims BTW?

Regards,
Korot

Thanks for your input. I downloaded ILive Reader and started working with it. I opened a copy of simcity_1.dat in the navigator and there I found in the tree view the part that deals with the working drives:



What I don't understand is the meaning of the value column. For instance in CS$ Census one of the values of the array 'Drives' is 0x00002010 (in hexadecimal) which equals 8208 in decimal but in the topic CAM - Workforce and Occupation Demands (Drives) it says that data should be in percentage. Moreover the array has 6 values when it should have 3 (for R$,R$$ and R$$$) What am I doing wrong?

PS: Concerning the R$$, I don't want only them but it was an example. But it would be good for the budget to have a city with only R$$$ residents since they pay more taxes (they demand more services but I give all services anyway. Another thing that I could do would be to raise the taxes to 20% for R$$ and R$ but won't OC $$$ decay since they can fill only 15% of their jobs?

[Korot]

The data column is build up as follows:
RES Type, percentage; RES Type, percentage; RES type, percentage.

Let's explain this, shall we? The game not only needs to know percentages of workers, it needs to know what kind of workers they are as well. For example: if you set a percentage of 50, the game needs to know whether this means 50% R$, 50% R$$ or 50% R$$$. Therefore, it needs two values per type of RES, one to define the type of RES, and another to say how many employees will be from this type. Thus, the values 0x2010, 0x2020 and 0x2030 (for ease of typing, I drop the first zeros) aren't percentages, they refer to a type of RES:
0x2010 = R$
0x2020 = R$$
0x2030 = R$$$

So now we know what the odd values/variables are for, now let's discuss the even ones. They simply refer to the percentage of RES employed by that building.
Going by your example, the first to values are 0x2010,0x64. Since 0x64 = 100 (%) this means that CS$ buildings will employ 100% R$ workers, or to put it another way: 100% of the workers employed by CS$ are R$ workers.

So if you want to, lets say, make CS$ buildings employ 50% R$, 30% R$$ and 20% R$$$ you need to alter the data-line to 0x2010,0x32,0x2020,0x1e,0x2030,0x14.

Understood? Good, then let's now look at another (potential) solution to your problem. The problem with the previous solution is that, if you want different cities to be composed of different types of RES, you need to sweep plugins. However, using the property Demand Created, you can just created a bunch of R$$ jobs with one building, and have another building create R$ jobs, to be used in another city. Dunno if these properties can be added to  growable buildings, and I'm not gonna try, since it's not needed: doing so would allow the R$ building to grow in the R$$ city, which we don't want. One problem is though that these jobs are neither COM or IND, and thus they aren't counted by the Census Repository, counting all your sims as unemployed. But whether or not this has actual effects on the game, I do not know. Perhaps Tage knows.
More about the Demand Satisfied property can be read here BTW.

And with regards to CO$$$ decay because the can't find enough workers: both COM and IND are capable of surviving without workers. If anything, CAM 1 showed this, due to the double workforce demand bug. Put simply, each sims wanted 2 jobs, but could only work at one. However, two jobs did grow. CAM 2 (currently in beta-testing) fixes this issue though.
"But if COM and IND don't need workers to survive, then what do they need?" I hear you ask. Good question, and relative simple answers too.
For COM not to abandon, it simply needs commuters passing by for it to function. So as long as there is traffic on the road in front of the building, in either the morning or evening commute, COM will survive.
IND however, can survive without any humans at all, it just needs a way to get its freight shipped out, be it by truck, train, or boat (seaport).
Conclusion:  you don't have to worry about abandoning CO$$$, as long as you have commuters passing by.

I hope I've cleared up a thing or two for you.
Regards,
Korot

[MithSimCity]

Thank you a lot! Indeed it clarified most of my doubts

Good, then let's now look at another (potential) solution to your problem. The problem with the previous solution is that, if you want different cities to be composed of different types of RES, you need to sweep plugins. However, using the property Demand Created, you can just created a bunch of R$$ jobs with one building, and have another building create R$ jobs, to be used in another city. Dunno if these properties can be added to  growable buildings, and I'm not gonna try, since it's not needed: doing so would allow the R$ building to grow in the R$$ city, which we don't want. One problem is though that these jobs are neither COM or IND, and thus they aren't counted by the Census Repository, counting all your sims as unemployed. But whether or not this has actual effects on the game, I do not know. Perhaps Tage knows.
More about the Demand Satisfied property can be read here BTW.

I would also like to know that. According to the thread you linked the jobs from civic buildings also create demand for workforce:

In addition to these main means of creating demand, we can also create demand directly with the property Demand Created.
This is how buildings providing civic jobs are modded. Civic jobs are neither commercial, nor industrial.
They are just jobs, in the same way as commercial and industrial capacity is split up into §, §§ and §§§ jobs.

Civic jobs given this way do not create any demand for workforce though.
As noted above, only Commercial and Industrial Capacity leads to Workforce Demand.

Thus, Maxis circumvented this by Creating the same Demand on Amenities as on Jobs.
This will lead to the same residential growth as a corresponding increase in Workforce Demand would:

ID	Demand Created	ID	Demand Created
2010	Jobs §	1810	Amenities §
2020	Jobs §§	1820	Amenities §§
2030	Jobs §§§	1830	Amenities §§§

Those always appear together (2010+1810, 2020+1820, 2030+1830), with identical values for the Demand Created.

Demand Created can also be used to directly increase the demand for these:

ID	RCI Type
3110	CS§ Census
3120	CS§§ Census
3130	CS§§§ Census
3320	CO§§ Census
3330	CO§§§ Census
4100	IR Census
4200	ID Census
4300	IM Census
4400	IH Census

Maxis used this to have their Casino reward increase CS demand.
Instead of providing CS jobs, the Casino adds demand for 45 CS§, 21 CS§§ and 15 CS§§§ jobs.

This is also the easiest way to create cheat buildings, which artificially increase the demand for certain CI jobs...

But you said that unlike industrial or commercial buildings -which also create demand for workforce- they aren't counted in the regional census. I don't fully understand that part but I guess it can effect the regional demand and if so it would worry me. In any case, let's wait for Tage to clarify that  (who is him? RippleJet? I searched for Tage and RippleJet appeared)

And concerning modding buildings to have commercial and industrial jobs and to house residents: I read in a post whose link I can't seem to find that plopping residential buildings is useless cause they get abandoned because from them, the game can't find a route to work. And with industrial buildings it said it happens something similar: the game can't find a way for freights. How is that? 

For COM not to abandon, it simply needs commuters passing by for it to function. So as long as there is traffic on the road in front of the building, in either the morning or evening commute, COM will survive.

Oh that clarify a misunderstanding I had. You see, I like to do "planified" cities and I used to put 4 comercial blocks surrounded by twelve residential blocks because I interpreted that "clients: elevate" meant that there were many residents nearby. Some questions:

1)By traffic you mean also pedestrian and mass transit or just cars?
2)So the more traffic, the more desirable a zone is for COM to develop but traffic congestion wouldn't be a drawback for COM develop as it is for residents and commuters?

IND however, can survive without any humans at all, it just needs a way to get its freight shipped out, be it by truck, train, or boat (seaport).

In the thread you linked to It mentions "Industrial CAP relief is given by each freight truck or freight train leaving town.
Freight exported through seaports does unfortunately not provide any CAP relief." So in order to survive it needs what you said but in order to grow -incredibly in my opinion- seaport activity does not contribute. So my question is: what's the point of using seaports? I thought they were like airports that increased COM demand but they don't increase IND demand. Are they only useful as an alternative to make connections to neighbours with train or roads?

And another question that arised from reading that thread: as I mentioned before, I like to make planified cities (with cheats obviously) in which I would put all the rewards at the beginning. I remember that in some cases cities' growth was stuck. Is it because as it is explained in Demand Simulator: Demand, Supply and CAPs that CAPs should be relieved progressibly? -like when you are told to build the mayor's house-

Another thing from that thread:

Commercial CAP relief is also provided by simply opening neighbour connections.
Below are listed the commercial CAP relieves from the first established neighbour connection.
Subsequent neighbour connections (to other cities) provide a percentually diminishing CAP relief.

Does that mean that if when setting up the transport infrastructure of my city I build a highway connecting to a neighbour it wouldn't provide a CAP relief? that is to say should I build a connection to a neighbour when I see that COM developing stagnates? or any connection made is 'remembered' to be considered as a CAP relief when it is needed eventually?

Also, do residents have CAPs? I didn't see that explained.

PS: Sorry if I went a bit offtopic with questions concerning that other thread but when I wanted to ask there It says that it has been over 90 days since the last reply so I thought I would include them here. Besides it's related to what I asked but I can ask in that other thread anyway.

[Korot]

Thank you a lot! Indeed it clarified most of my doubts

But you said that unlike industrial or commercial buildings -which also create demand for workforce- they aren't counted in the regional census. I don't fully understand that part but I guess it can effect the regional demand and if so it would worry me. In any case, let's wait for Tage to clarify that  (who is him? RippleJet? I searched for Tage and RippleJet appeared)

Yes, Tage is RippleJet's real name.
And by Census I mean this one. It's extremely useful for testing mods that affect development (such as CAM), since it gives you a lot of data about it.

And concerning modding buildings to have commercial and industrial jobs and to house residents: I read in a post whose link I can't seem to find that plopping residential buildings is useless cause they get abandoned because from them, the game can't find a route to work. And with industrial buildings it said it happens something similar: the game can't find a way for freights. How is that?

Hmm, I also remember reading something like that as well. Sadly, my memory is unable to recall whether or not these plopped IND buildings abandon or not. My gut says they don't. Which kinda throws the 'IND needs a way to get freight shipped to survive' statement out of the window, but the fact that you can create cities without a link to the outside world (seaport and/or neighbourhood connection) and yet still have working Industrials kinda did that already. Don't know what it is that they do need to survive then, sadly.

For COM not to abandon, it simply needs commuters passing by for it to function. So as long as there is traffic on the road in front of the building, in either the morning or evening commute, COM will survive.

Oh that clarify a misunderstanding I had. You see, I like to do "planified" cities and I used to put 4 comercial blocks surrounded by twelve residential blocks because I interpreted that "clients: elevate" meant that there were many residents nearby. Some questions:

1)By traffic you mean also pedestrian and mass transit or just cars?
2)So the more traffic, the more desirable a zone is for COM to develop but traffic congestion wouldn't be a drawback for COM develop as it is for residents and commuters?

1)Dunno for sure, and can't find an answer either. But I think it will simply call all traffic (Pedestrians, Cars and buses).
2)Traffic is good for COM, but bad for RES. Would you like to live next to a busy road? No, you (probably) wouldn't. Thus RES desirability goes down if traffic volumes go up. Now, if we talk about a store: Would you, as a store owner, would like to have your shop near a busy road, one with (obviously) many potential customers? Yes, of course you would. And thus COM desirability goes up, if traffic volumes rise.

IND however, can survive without any humans at all, it just needs a way to get its freight shipped out, be it by truck, train, or boat (seaport).

In the thread you linked to It mentions "Industrial CAP relief is given by each freight truck or freight train leaving town.
Freight exported through seaports does unfortunately not provide any CAP relief." So in order to survive it needs what you said but in order to grow -incredibly in my opinion- seaport activity does not contribute. So my question is: what's the point of using seaports? I thought they were like airports that increased COM demand but they don't increase IND demand. Are they only useful as an alternative to make connections to neighbours with train or roads?

Airports don't increase COM demand, they increase their CAP, allowing you to build more COM. Specifically, CO. CS isn't capped, for some reason.
Anyway, Seaports were supposed to increase the IND cap, but for some reason they didn't. A fix is added in the BSC functional seaports, but not exactly like originally intended (The seaports just give you the max boost, instead of a boost based on usage). So, quite frankly, the original Seaports serve no real purpose.

And another question that arised from reading that thread: as I mentioned before, I like to make planified cities (with cheats obviously) in which I would put all the rewards at the beginning. I remember that in some cases cities' growth was stuck. Is it because as it is explained in Demand Simulator: Demand, Supply and CAPs that CAPs should be relieved progressively? -like when you are told to build the mayor's house-

Well, for starters, the Mayor's house doesn't provide CAP relief, if I recall correctly.
But that's not the point. What's probably the case is that the first sims coming into town aren't educated enough to fulfil the jobs you provide, and that they jobs they are smart enough to do, aren't available. Another thing is that these reward don't provide (much) jobs, which is another reason sims don't flood the town en-masse.
Not that you should now resort to plopping COM and IND at the start of your game. This thread should tell you why not.

Another thing from that thread:

Commercial CAP relief is also provided by simply opening neighbour connections.
Below are listed the commercial CAP relieves from the first established neighbour connection.
Subsequent neighbour connections (to other cities) provide a percentually diminishing CAP relief.

Does that mean that if when setting up the transport infrastructure of my city I build a highway connecting to a neighbour it wouldn't provide a CAP relief? that is to say should I build a connection to a neighbour when I see that COM developing stagnates? or any connection made is 'remembered' to be considered as a CAP relief when it is needed eventually?

Yes, the total amount of CAP relief is stored somewhere. More exactly, the maximal capacity is stored and when you build something that provides a certain amount of cap relief, the stored maximal capacity is raised to this new level.

Also, do residents have CAPs? I didn't see that explained.

Yes, they do. Everything but CS has a maximal capacity, that has to be raised by providing CAP relief.

PS: Sorry if I went a bit offtopic with questions concerning that other thread but when I wanted to ask there It says that it has been over 90 days since the last reply so I thought I would include them here. Besides it's related to what I asked but I can ask in that other thread anyway.

I don't think anyone minds you posting in that thread, if you have questions about it. If it were, the thread would simply be locked, instead of giving you the warning. There is a reason for this warning though, which I knew once, but now forgot.
Anyway, it's not a problem asking them here (at least not to me), since they indeed have something to do with your subject, and we're all here to help. Be it in this thread, or another one. 

Regards,
Korot

[z]

1)By traffic you mean also pedestrian and mass transit or just cars?

Road traffic in this case specifically means cars, buses, trucks, and pedestrians, but nothing else.

2)So the more traffic, the more desirable a zone is for COM to develop but traffic congestion wouldn't be a drawback for COM develop as it is for residents and commuters?

I'm assuming you're using the NAM here.

The answer to your question is "Yes".  COM loves traffic - the more, the better.  Furthermore, the negative effect of traffic on residentials is typically less than half the positive effect that it has on commercials.  In practice, this negative effect is generally undetectable, even for R$$$ Sims.  Traffic congestion has its own negative effects, but again, these tend to be minor in comparison to the positive effects on COM.  However, it you're starting to see red all over you're traffic congestion map, it's time to take corrective action.

[MithSimCity]

@Korot: Thanks for your help  . It clarified a lot of issues I had.

2)So the more traffic, the more desirable a zone is for COM to develop but traffic congestion wouldn't be a drawback for COM develop as it is for residents and commuters?

I'm assuming you're using the NAM here.

The answer to your question is "Yes".  COM loves traffic - the more, the better.  Furthermore, the negative effect of traffic on residentials is typically less than half the positive effect that it has on commercials.  In practice, this negative effect is generally undetectable, even for R$$$ Sims.  Traffic congestion has its own negative effects, but again, these tend to be minor in comparison to the positive effects on COM.  However, it you're starting to see red all over you're traffic congestion map, it's time to take corrective action.

Ok. I used to worry because the urban assistant used to warn me about 'roads taking the place of peaceful streets' and I thought that it lowered desirability. From what I have read, it seems we should not believe blindly what the assistants tell us, they don't know the bugs of the game neither they have used ilive reader

z, If you can, I would appreciate your input in this thread .

PS: I indeed use the NAM (version 29 with Ultra capacities)

[gamzdude]

Hi is cam 2.0 out yet because if it is not i would love to test this super duper mod if you can fit me in ripple jet sadly i got school so i want have that much time to test   can you please reply to this thanks PS i would love to test the cam 2.0 skyscraper pack love sky skyscrapers.

[jmyers2043]

Hi Kitsune

does the farm stages go by regional capacity or city capacity?

Goes by the industrial capacity of the region.

[adiutrix]

Hi people,
I am back after being off for a while because of some health problems, just to see this great new SC4...but I can't found the CAM 2.0 bêta subforums anymore... is the project aborted? that would be very sad...

[Korot]

Well, the sub-fora for testing is a private one, you can only see it, if you are invited to test CAM 2.0. Since you have just one post, I doubt that you are invited.

The project also isn't aborted, however, it is sorta on hold, due to new testers being active right now. 

Regards,
Korot

[Pharaon-Kheops]

oh, you're right.... I was on the wrong ID.... sorry

[z]

oh, you're right.... I was on the wrong ID.... sorry

From the site rules:

Any member who is found to have created a "sock puppet" (i.e.: a second or otherwise multiple user that is actually the same member under another nic) for any purpose will have membership immediately and permanently terminated, and will lose privileges on the LEX.

I assume you didn't know about this, but I would recommend deleting your other ID immediately.

[hyno111]

I'm wondering,will cam 2.0 compatible with regions built in 1.0?I have to restart my region for the infamous double workforce bug, and I don't want to rebuild another one when 2.0 is out.
So,will cam 2.0 ruin my underbuilt region? or,will it bring my original buggy region back to life? I want to make sure I am not wasting time.
By the way,is it nearly finished,or I have to wait several more months?(or both) I can use that time to rebuild my region if it takes too long.
Thank you for answering!

[Korot]

If you have already patched your CAM 1.0 install, than 2.0 Standard will be fully compatible. The other versions don't need a restart either, but their demand and CAP simulators/thingies have been altered, to allow for other modes of gameplay (rural and sky-scraper galore), so your cities might not be build for these kinds of play.

As to when it is released, it will be released when it is ready, and I have no clue as to when that is. Considering the deafening silence in the beta-areas, I don't think release is anything close to imminent, and that's not likely to change either.

Regards,
Korot

[Stephan_Spitti]

How does CAM affect performance?

With the ton of dependencies, textures, probs, lots and models needed I can predict a huge impact on loading time and game speed.

More specifically, I want to know if my performance issues are caused by CAM, dual plugin files, or if it is really necessary for me to start a new region.


I'm quite excited about trying out CAM. =)

[Lowkee33]

CAM actually has no dependencies.  The most basic thing it does is makes 15 density stages while vanilla only has 8.  Maxis buildings and lots have been modified to deal with this change, but the options are pretty sparse once you get past stage 8.  Those lots come with the download.  If you do feel your city is repetitive, you will need to download things, but that would be the case anyway.

As far as game mechanics, the only thing I've dealt with is that since there are more lower density lots, people are more spread out from work.  Sometimes this means you have to change your network plans.

It isn't necessary to restart a region.  Basically, what will happen is that your region will drop down a couple stages, so you wont have the same density growing.  Given enough time, your city will catch up.

[MVS82]

I have downloaded all CameLots and their dependencies, but I have still been getting boxes for certain R and CO.

Ones I find with boxes include:

Andover Tower
Sidfeldt Tower One
Five Ways Tower
SkyChase Plaza
Tibererian Thane First
One Exchange Plaza
Lyre Plaza
Golden Bank
Frogface HQ
Shiner Tower

More might be on the way

[jmyers2043]

I have downloaded all CameLots and their dependencies, but I have still been getting boxes for certain R and CO.

Ones I find with boxes include:

Andover Tower
Sidfeldt Tower One
Five Ways Tower
SkyChase Plaza
Tibererian Thane First
One Exchange Plaza
Lyre Plaza
Golden Bank
Frogface HQ
Shiner Tower

More might be on the way

OK ... go here first. I've always found what I needed.   http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=2039.0


Second - Simtropolis links all died when they upgraded the site. Use this application. It converts the old link to the new link system

http://twoninersix.multigamemods.com/STlinkconverter/

Come back here if these two resources don't find everything and I'll go on a quest.

Good Luck - Jim