CAM - General Discussions

[cammo2003]

It will function, no question about it. Then, it is up to yourself if you want to mod it and increase its capacity.

ssc4k: I'll tell you what's colossal about this thing: you try tweaking nearly ALL of the game's lots, plus make new ones. It's a doozy. Then you consider testing, re-tweaking, etc. It's quite a bit of work. To be fair, they didn't modify the game lots visually, but even if you're just modding them... There's thousands of lots to modify.

Also want to relay from a point of view of someone who's currently using the CAM that stations do indeed work properly. Of course, my stations are *highly* tweaked (Helsinki Central Station @ 350,000  ).

Also, I've done this already, but a big THANKYOU to everyone who has contributed to this great addition to the game. I'm a very happy camper.

[mistershnerples]

I bet this question's been answered, but I'm new to what this CAM thing is all about. But I had one specific question. I've recently been downloading modds and such and I have a region that I've been playing off and on for about 2 years. The region is about to hit its 6 million people mark. Is CAM worth  downloading for old regions such as mine? Thanks!

[Rayden]

NYM1980 no you dont need to delete your plugins folder just make a back up of it before installing the cam... Just so you know there is alot to download but once you have it is well worth it......\

Rayden dont ya's think you was a little harsh on ssc4k.... ssc4k CAM can be explained like this....
CAM improves what EA made. CAM makes it easier to grow all stages and allows for continuning growth
of all stages and adds new stages for the event as it was felt that the current stages wasnt enough...
But i do agree ssc4k you also was a little harsh with how you asked your question it was more or like you
was putting down the CAM instead of asking what it reallly does.... Now im certian if you asked what CAM
does and left it at that would have been a better way of putting it....

Is it me being Portuguese and English my second language, that I completely misunderstood that guy's post? Nah, I thing you're being too kind and naive and don't want to see the real implication of his words. But I accept that, what I don't agree it's my post post being harsh, harsh was the second part of my post, that I deleted before I hit the post button

C'mon Pat, even some of our members that have troubles with the english language can ask help to their problems with manners.

[jmyers2043]

I had commitments yesterday and was not on line so please forgive me if I am answering an already answered question. Here it is ... behind the scenes of the BSC. 

How did CAM come to be named? Well – the original name was Titan Stage Mod. But those working on the alpha version were not totally happy with the name and asked what us other people thought. A couple of suggestions were made. I decided to go to a thesaurus to look up the word Titan and contributed ten synonyms to the thread. Fairly soon thereafter, everyone was referring to it as Colossus ... and so it stuck. Regarding the A and the M. There were several ideas ... the one that comes back to my mind is "Colossus Stage Mod – or CSM" along with others. CSM really didn't 'roll of the tongue' hence, CAM was the acronym that stuck. 

But that's just the name. The mod itself? Well, it's pretty big if not colossal.

[Indisguise]

what he said,...

the CAM doesn't change the pathfinding, or any of the transit, they still function the same, older buildings that you downloaded still work with the CAM

what the CAM does is expand the stages the buildings grown on and with Woug's X-tool reasigns the stats for the buildings to be more in-line with proper growth for a simulation (water consumption, electical consumption, pollution values, and occupactional values.

the old way (just 3 or 8 stages depending on the zoning type) there were many buildings with very odd stats, that were outside the game original stats (garbage produced being one major problems, groups releasing buildings with stage 8 stats and editing them to stage 1 or 2 etc etc). these buildings would upset the simulator and cause all sorts of problems for ppl who are running the game in a simulation mode.
A lot of building that were all stuck at stage 3 or 8 even though the size of the building and it's stats should be higher. This created a log jam of buildings at these stages, and once a top stage building grew, it would never re-grow into a higher capasity building, even if you had higher stats building in your plugins folder. cause as the game grows only a higher wealth and/or higher stage building
so once these building grew they stay. And in most cases the smaller stat buildings would grow first, and sort of blocked the ability of larger buildings from growing.

CAM expands the stages , so some of the larger buildings that should have higher stats and stage level, making them able to grow and over take buildings with lower stats. This makes the buildings appear when they should and spreads them out so when your playing you get  a lot more variaty in buildings (depending on your plugins folder size and buildings you choose to play with.)

Now any former building that is set below stage 3 or 8 (depending on the zoning type), the CAM is not needed for it to grow, even if the buildings stats have be re-done with the X-Tool. As the original simulator will reconize this building. Only buildings with stages set higher than 3 or 8 ( depending on the type) will the Cam be needed. If you have higher stage buildings in your plugins folder without the CAM, the game will never select the buildng to grow because it won't reconize the stage level and will skip the building. The CAM tells the game that there is higher stages.

Now the mod does re-asign some of the values of the original building so even with just the CAM mod , you will have some higher stage buildings right from the start. without the need to download anything.

CAM also gives the player the ability to customize and choose what buildings they want and what stages they feel comfortable to play with. (eg you want to have a rural comunity and  don't want stage 9-15  CO buildings in your region, don't put any high stage buildings in your plugins, just put in the farming buildings in your plugins folder while playing that region). As except for a few re-assigned Maxis buildings, the buildings themselves are downloaded and installed independantly.

the Stats that are now fixed by the X-Tool with help the simulator run better and will inable the ganme to run more smoothly in a progression type manner (sorry farmers the mod doesn't change the fact that farms are still at the lower end, even though in real life this isn't true, it's just the way Maxis set the game up)

also CAM is an optional mod to be used for players that want to expand their game to higher levels. don't like it, don't use it.



ps...you can change the stats of growable buildings, so the next time you open an older city, the game will assign the new stats to the buildings. this may cause a few problems to the simulator as the game ajusts to the new stats, but after 5- 10 yr of playing ( sometime less in smaller cites or cities where the stats change is not dramatic) the simulator settles down to the new stats.

[RippleJet]

Hello all!

Just returned from being away since saturday morning. I'll read through the thread and post replies to questions that haven't been answered yet. Starting with:

its a good thing to add to the manual/readme. as people may wonder why its adding it to more than one palce

The placement of the files into a_CAM and z_CAM is mentioned in the Installation Readme, as well as the reasons for this:

The CAM will by default be installed in the folder "a_CAM" under "My Documents\SimCity 4\Plugins".

CAM should be the first mod to load when starting SimCity 4.

Any mods changing any of the developer exemplars within CAM need to be loaded after the CAM.

The Pathfinding will by default be loaded in the folder "z_CAM" under "My Documents\SimCity 4\Plugins".

Note that the Pathfinding needs to be loaded after NAM, if you have the Network Addon Mod installed.

[RippleJet]

can someone tell me how having more growth stage levels helps me in any way?

The best way to answer that question is to test the CAM yourself.
It's not so easy to explain the experience felt when playing with the CAM in words.

Lots of replies to that question have already been given by several people in this thread.
The best visual proof of a better simulation I can think of is the first picture in the Show us your CAM Cities thread.
If you understand the graphs going with those pictures, you should be able to see the advantage of the CAM.

[Pat]

Is it me being Portuguese and English my second language, that I completely misunderstood that guy's post? Nah, I thing you're being too kind and naive and don't want to see the real implication of his words. But I accept that, what I don't agree it's my post post being harsh, harsh was the second part of my post, that I deleted before I hit the post button

C'mon Pat, even some of our members that have troubles with the english language can ask help to their problems with manners.

thank you rayden for explaining i didn't know that english was your second language and I'm reallly glad you let the real harshness out lol... Too me it sounded kinda harsh and for that i apologize for misunderstanding what you said - pat the nice guy

[RippleJet]

I bet this question's been answered, but I'm new to what this CAM thing is all about. But I had one specific question. I've recently been downloading modds and such and I have a region that I've been playing off and on for about 2 years. The region is about to hit its 6 million people mark. Is CAM worth  downloading for old regions such as mine? Thanks!

I recommend reading the manual carefully first, and especially check for possible eternal commuters. If you have lots of them, it might be difficult to get such a large region to bahave properly again. At least Indisguise had problems with her region, which was even larger than yours.

If you decide to give it a try, please backup you entire region and your plugins folders first.
And please report whatever problems you might encounter. That could be valuabe for others considering to install the CAM with an existing, large region.

[dioangel]

I'm having.. sort of trouble. After deleting all plugins due to the game crash (I have them packed so I don't know what caused it) and re downloading and install the cam lots and the cam itself.... didn't download the custom made lots yet. I had maybe 12,000 sims. Weird is the year is 20, all the lots still in low wealth first stage. Didn't add any farms or nothing like that..

what's going on?

[RippleJet]

When starting on a fresh region, it will take a little longer for stage 2 to start appearing, compared to Vanilla and Rush Hour.
However, it won't take till 12,000 inhabitants for stage 2 to appear...
With a regional residential population of that size, you should already get quite a few stage 5 residential houses.

Linda, did you start on a completely new region? Or are you playing in a region that you have been playing in before?

R§§ won't start to appear until your education has come up a bit.
Unless you use one of the optional plugins that cause CS§, ID and IR to employ 5% R§§.

[dioangel]

starting on the fresh new one.. Yes I used the 5% thingy..

[RippleJet]

Did you zone low, medium or high density (just have to ask, in order to rule out all possibilities)?

What are the demand bars showing for your city?
Establishing neighbouring cities increases demand as well...

A picture of your city might help...

[dioangel]

I zone only high so far... Let me take of the 5% and I'll see what happen. I'm still going to take a picture of it.

[ssc4k]

SSC4K:
  Not colossal you say well I ain't seeing anyone else doing something this awesome.If you like the old way then good for you but some like me enjoy adding a twist to this game.
   This community has done more for this game then EA will ever dream of doing and I think we owe the folks of SC4D a big thanx.

i never said i didnt think the community wasnt doing things for the game i just said i dont get this projects point

[NYM1980]

ssc4k: I'll tell you what's colossal about this thing: you try tweaking nearly ALL of the game's lots, plus make new ones. It's a doozy. Then you consider testing, re-tweaking, etc. It's quite a bit of work. To be fair, they didn't modify the game lots visually, but even if you're just modding them... There's thousands of lots to modify.

Also want to relay from a point of view of someone who's currently using the CAM that stations do indeed work properly. Of course, my stations are *highly* tweaked (Helsinki Central Station @ 350,000  ).

Also, I've done this already, but a big THANKYOU to everyone who has contributed to this great addition to the game. I'm a very happy camper.

Thanks for the help!  So, if I read this correctly, all or most of the BAT content has already been modified to work with this?  Do they need to be redownloaded, or does the CAM's download do it automatically?

[Pat]

ssc4k: Well see that would have been a better way of asking your question instead of this

can someone tell me how having more growth stage levels helps me in any way?
why not jsut have it the old way?and why was it calle dcam instead of something like  "SLAM stage level addon mod"?

its not like its adding on a expansion pack, its not exactly colossal.

Cause this statement did sound very rude...  So in starting fresh, to answer the points of the CAM are these
in what Indisguise said today 8/5... i suggest reading that post as it is very informative of what CAM is. - pat

[dioangel]

well said pat! 

[RippleJet]

So, if I read this correctly, all or most of the BAT content has already been modified to work with this?  Do they need to be redownloaded, or does the CAM's download do it automatically?

They have been and are being uploaded to the LEX and you will have to download the new lots.
Shoreman905 is working on a list which will show all available CAMeLots and I hope he will be able to post it soon.

For the time being, do a power search on the LEX for the LEX Categories starting with CAM...

[Pat]

OK im having a weird problem with CAM i cant get my game to load now that im almost done installing all the stages i only have 15 left to finish unpacking and i know i dont have anything else installed that would conflict
CAM... The game loads upto the EA then crashes i have the exemption report if that helps or any other info - pat