CAM - General Discussions

[flame1396]

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.

Its the hugest thing to hit sc4 since the NAM...

[Kitsune]

Cogeo's nuclear power plant lots, these ones: http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=12299

I need 8 of these to keep a my region of 2.5 humming, are there any bigger ones out there? Its a shame that modular nuclear project on ST died.

[willy88]

IT'S OVER NINE-THOUSAND!!!11 

[Kitsune]

IT'S OVER NINE-THOUSAND!!!11 

You should see it when you have demand mods on - and I'm realizing there not quite strong enough........

[willy88]

I need 8 of these to keep a my region of 2.5 humming, are there any bigger ones out there? Its a shame that modular nuclear project on ST died.

Not really a nuclear plant, but insanely powerful nonetheless:

http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=11118

Produces over 500,000 MWH.

[IanB]

I am brand new to SC4, although I did enjoy SC2 and SC3 a lot some years ago. I am going through quite a steep learning curve as I try to absorb all the information on multiple forums, much of which seems to be outdated and with many dead and broken links, and trying to keep track of all the acronyms flying around (NAM/CAM/LEX/PLEX/STEX/TGI and other stuff I haven't even found yet like ANT) is a bit of a nightmare. Anyway... since I am brand new to the game, it seems pointless wasting time on playing the "vanilla" version as the CAM looks to be such an improvement, and I'm trying to find out as much as I can before taking the plunge.

I have two Landmark questions:

1. From reading this thread, the Stage 7 farms in CAM seem to be exclusively landmarks. I realise that for some people it might be funny to have a Great Pyramid suddenly grow in among your farms, but if you want to plan a city with a little more natural look this is totally bizarre. Is there a CAM installation option to switch this behavour off? Either to use more "normal" Stage 7 farms if they exist or to ignore them completely?

2. One of the more useful mods is the functional landmarks one. Would it be possible to rework this making the job values and garbage/water usage stats assigned to these landmarks more CAMpatible? Since CAM is messing with the landmark usage anyway, by making some grow as farms and others grow as stage 15 lots, could this be built into the next version of CAM (perhaps as an option) just like the reworking of other inbuilt Maxis buildings? And if so, how about adding in barriers to plopping inappropriate landmarks before they would be available under CAM? Such as preventing the Empire State Building from being plopped before the stage that would normally develop, or a Planetarium before a certain IQ had been reached?

I'd also like to know if there are any plans to modify any of PEG's many wonderful lots to be more CAMpatible, and in particular fix the incompatability with his MTP-themed building replacements. I realise that might be best asked over at SimPeg, but this is the CAM forum and BarbyW seems highly active on both so might be aware of any such plans... Thanks for your replies.

[BarbyW]

Welcome to the crazy world of SC4 and in particular to the sanity at SC4Devotion.
To take your first question, you can delete any farms that you may not wish to grow in your city - from any stage or pack - providing you do not delete any fields. So you can delete the Great Pyramid stage 7 - as I have done
I shall let ripplejet answer the second question.
As for Pegasus lots, you would do better to ask on his site.

[RippleJet]

2. One of the more useful mods is the functional landmarks one. Would it be possible to rework this making the job values and garbage/water usage stats assigned to these landmarks more CAMpatible? Since CAM is messing with the landmark usage anyway, by making some grow as farms and others grow as stage 15 lots, could this be built into the next version of CAM (perhaps as an option) just like the reworking of other inbuilt Maxis buildings? And if so, how about adding in barriers to plopping inappropriate landmarks before they would be available under CAM? Such as preventing the Empire State Building from being plopped before the stage that would normally develop, or a Planetarium before a certain IQ had been reached?

The answer to all those questions is yes.
With the "X" Tool it would actually be pretty easy to make all in-game landmarks functional with appropriate capacities and proper values for all invovled properties. Making reward scripts for them is equally simple, blocking the Empire State Building from being ploppable until stage 14 CO§§§ is enabled (which is dependent on the regional CO§§§ population)

[the7train]

I am new to CAM and have some general questions about CAM, specifically regarding the capacities and populations.  I have looked around and not found enough detail to satisfy my questions but please let me know if they exist somewhere with a link, thanks.  So here we go, some region stats:
City                      Residential     Commercial          Industrial
Upton City              267,650           305,628              51,180
Rochedale                 18,290                2070                       0
Limsburgh                 19,556               1229                        0
West Lawson            69,662              18,287             10,136
East Lawson              26,933                1851                       0
Humberton                25,836                1016                    447   
Total                        427,927           330,081               61,763
CAM Capacities          898,456           339,928               64,181

What exactly does this mean?  My guess is that when you query a building, you get 2552/3113 for current jobs or people living there.  So 2552 would be part of the 330,081 and 3113 part of 339,928 for example in the commercial regional totals/capacities.  Am I doing well so far?  If so, I then have building with zero jobs when I query with the job route tool, specifically the 2552/3113 building (CAMeLot Golden Bank Stg 11).  This also happens with Maxis buildings (Hurt Enterprise Headquarters 5644/7146 with zero people working there).  I queried both buildings, ran the sim for one full year, queried again, and still recorded the same zero people working there.  So whats the deal saying 2552 people work there then in reality no one goes there?  Let me know if you need me to clarify this.

To make things even more interesting, the residential demand is negative.  So the population is 427,927 and there are 391,844 jobs (com + ind) leaving 36,083 or 8.43% unemployed (children I'm guessing).  Yet the demand is negative for residential and ridiculously high for commercial as you can from my attached graph.  The taxes in my main city are at 9% for everything except 11 for Dirty Industry.  I guess one simple explanation is that the total residential population does not include kids and the unemployed, then it would make sense I suppose to have high demand for com and ind.  Then there is the whole capacity where only half of the res is satisfied and the com & ind are almost full, which doesn't really make sense to me.  Any explanations would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks!

[the7train]

I've also just found the census repository but have no idea what any of it means (i've attached my main city).  I've looked through RippleJet's thread on Sim Tropolis but doesn't really help.  Also, all lots a growing, none are plopable.  Any help appreciated thanks!

[IanB]

Thanks for your replies. Integrating a better CAMpatible functional landmarks mod into CAM itself would be a neat extra. I'm sure many other improvements could be integrated - for instance, since many of them are museums or art centres they should have museum effects as well as jobs.

I have one other question, having realised just how much modding is going on for the network side of things: how in-step with all the brand new features of NAM (RHW/GLR) is CAM? From what I can see, CAM installs after NAM therefore anything that is not updated in CAM will have default NAM settings for capacity and speed. That would make using RHW worse than using ordinary roads unless CAM has the boosted settings for this...

[the7train]

IanB: Page 5 of the CAM Manual has the revised traffic pathfinding.  Specifically, ANT (RHW) has capacity of 12,000 and speed of 110 km/hr (highways 120, roads 50, avenues 80).  It also compares to the NAM.  It says you can also choose not to install...hope this helps.

[Nealos101]

the7train...

So 2552 would be part of the 330,081 and 3113 part of 339,928 for example in the commercial regional totals/capacities. My guess is that when you query a building, you get 2552/3113 for current jobs or people living there.  So 2552 would be part of the 330,081 and 3113 part of 339,928 for example in the commercial regional totals/capacities.

2552 is what you have, 3113 is the maximum of what you can have.

Your total population for sims and jobs is based on the first number only, not the second.

If so, I then have building with zero jobs when I query with the job route tool, specifically the 2552/3113 building (CAMeLot Golden Bank Stg 11).  This also happens with Maxis buildings (Hurt Enterprise Headquarters 5644/7146 with zero people working there).  I queried both buildings, ran the sim for one full year, queried again, and still recorded the same zero people working there.  So whats the deal saying 2552 people work there then in reality no one goes there?  Let me know if you need me to clarify this.

This is your commuters coming from another city in the reigon, and thier routes may not appear.  It usually happens with 'Eternal Commuters' in a city tile with lots of unemployed people.  Read below.

So the population is 427,927 and there are 391,844 jobs (com + ind) leaving 36,083 or 8.43% unemployed (children I'm guessing).

The CAM manual mentions the issue of 'Eternal Commuters' with existing reigons, which means non-existent sims developed by the simulator to compensate a lack of developmental action within a neighboring reigon.  If you run your simulator for a humongous amount of time and demand is continuing to grow, the simulator fixes this and compensates.

Eventually demand t will shut down in another city, and if you do not catch up the problem will only get worse, it cannot be solved, but it'll just get worse.

It may be a case of going back into your cities and reworking the commuting and the zoning...

Or lowering your taxes so people flock to your cities...

To make things even more interesting, the residential demand is negative.  So the population is 427,927 and there are 391,844 jobs (com + ind) leaving 36,083 or 8.43% unemployed (children I'm guessing).

This could have happened for two reasons; Eternal Commuters or your reigon stats got messed up.  Go into every city tile, run them for a while, save and exit, and do it for them all and see what happens.  If worse comes to worse you may need to start working on those developments.

I hit a stagnation point with residential on a far worse scale - The problem you have is the need for jobs, I need a collosal amount of jobs!

Hope that helped!

[redguy]

Okay, I think I have a problem in my region. Check out my Census (would you kindly?):


This picture is from my central city. It has almost all the cap relievers: a zoo, which means that the R$$$ cap should be more than 24.560 and a stock exchange which means that the CO$$$ cap should be more than 897 (lol).

My region is linked as follows:


Here is a table with who lives/works where:

Name	Residential	Commercial	Industrial
Ryanville	1.194.148	1.209.412	117.677
Tenenbaum City	438.104	-	4.075
Suchong City	-	-	121.155
McDonagh Town	-	-	167.908
Wilkins Hole	-	-	177.369

Ryanville and Tenenbaum City are linked by subway, bus and highway. Towards the other 3 (industrial) cities I have highways and railroads. Those railroads are linked by my extensive public transit network in Ryanville and Tenenbaum City. I use the bus/subway tiles that go on top of the road.

So why is my CO$$$ so low? And does it look like I have that Eternal Commuters problem?

I just checked the CAM manual. I did link all cities together into one big region, afaik that is the only way to commute right? How else can you make one big region?

[RippleJet]

What exactly does this mean?  My guess is that when you query a building, you get 2552/3113 for current jobs or people living there.  So 2552 would be part of the 330,081 and 3113 part of 339,928 for example in the commercial regional totals/capacities.  Am I doing well so far?  If so, I then have building with zero jobs when I query with the job route tool, specifically the 2552/3113 building (CAMeLot Golden Bank Stg 11).  This also happens with Maxis buildings (Hurt Enterprise Headquarters 5644/7146 with zero people working there).  I queried both buildings, ran the sim for one full year, queried again, and still recorded the same zero people working there.  So whats the deal saying 2552 people work there then in reality no one goes there?  Let me know if you need me to clarify this.

The numbers shown by your queries are always capacities, never actual population or workforce. In the example with 2552/3113 the latter number is the building's maximum capacity (as given in the property Capacity Satisfied). Due to desirability factors the actual capacity is reduced, in this case to 2552.

The actual number of people living or working in a building is not reported in any queries. The only way to estimate those numbers is through the route query. The number of people actually working in a building is reported by that. The number of people living in a residential building is roughly twice the number of people going to work from it (from the Census Repository Facility's query you can see how large the workforce is compared to the residential capacity).

It must be noted that a building can actually contain zero residents or zero workers. This is especially common for industrial buildings. And this has nothing with dilapidation to do. A building is dilapidated when, due to low desirability, the actual capacity is below 50%.

[RippleJet]

I've also just found the census repository but have no idea what any of it means (i've attached my main city).  I've looked through RippleJet's thread on Sim Tropolis but doesn't really help.  Also, all lots a growing, none are plopable.  Any help appreciated thanks!

You get more help with each number in that query by hovering with your mouse above them.

The reason your residential demand is negative can be found in the actual regional capacity (897,816), which currently is larger than the long-term projected demand (884,018). The projected demand is based on the number of jobs in your region.

The reason for the capacity being that high, can almost certainly be explained with commuters, just like Nealos explained. This particular city has in that respect a residential capacity of well above 300,000. I am not 100% sure how it is calculated on a regional level, but I might imagine the following principle for it:

The total workforce is 153,973 + 20,353 = 174,326 (including commuters).
The capacity in relation to the workforce is 285,895/153,973 = 1.86
Total seen capacity would in that case be 174,326 × 1.86 = 323,686.

Especially eternal commuters are bound to screw up the reported regional residential capacity (read the manual about them). The commuters are extremely annoying in SC4, since they never decrease in numbers. Thus, if you've managed to get them to such a high level, that the regional residential capacity hits the long-term projected demand, all residential development will come to a halt.

The only way for you to increase the residential demand is by adding more jobs. However, be sure to add them close enough to where the sims are living. Otherwise those new jobs might once again me taken by commuters from neighbouring cities, and further more screw up your supply/demand balance.

[RippleJet]

So why is my CO$$$ so low? And does it look like I have that Eternal Commuters problem?

Your Census Repository Facility shows a huge demand for CO§§§. Thus, if they are not growing, you might simply not have enough desirability for them in your city. Check the dataview for CO§§§ desirability to see if that would tell you something. In order to increase CO§§§ desirability, increase the city's EQ level (should be high enough already since the demand is high), build plazas or landmarks, reduce pollution and increase traffic. Also make sure you have a good police coverage with a minimum of crimes. Most of these factors increase the land value, which must be high for CO§§§ to grow. One final way to increase their desirability is to reduce their taxation.

One good way to check if you have eternal commuters is to route query the border crossings that are located close to the corner between Ryanville, Suchong City and McDonagh Town.

I just checked the CAM manual. I did link all cities together into one big region, afaik that is the only way to commute right? How else can you make one big region?

Yes, all cities need to be connected. Just don't build the crossings too close to corners where several cities meet.

[redguy]

Okay, I checked some things:

• The desirability of CO$$$ in the commercial district is 4/6 to 6/6
• The airpollution is over the top. I think all my Sims have either astma, bronchitis or are wearing breating masks
• The land value is 0/6 to 2/6
• The tax is already at 4.9%

So I guess I have to do some remodeling of my city centre

And indeed, I have commuters from Ryanville that commute over the border, but don't actually work there. The bus stream in McDonagh Town and Suchong City go back again towards Ryanville...

Last question, when is a crossing near the border? 50 tiles? 100?

[RippleJet]

Last question, when is a crossing near the border? 50 tiles? 100?

That depends on how close to the crossing your jobs in that city are located.
When coming across the border, sims start looking for the closest work place. If that is within the city they just came to, all is OK. However, if the closest place is the border crossing to the third city, they will take that route and start commuting forever...

[redguy]

That depends on how close to the crossing your jobs in that city are located.
When coming across the border, sims start looking for the closest work place. If that is within the city they just came to, all is OK. However, if the closest place is the border crossing to the third city, they will take that route and start commuting forever...

I demolished the border crossings, but I still have busses passing over the non-existent crossing .

I'll run if for a while, I've got to restructure my city centre anyway .