CAM - General Discussions

[RippleJet]

So I've been using CAM. I started a new region and began growing cities. My regional population is now about 400,000. However my commercial population is greater than my residential population. I have cities where I have more jobs than people. Is anybody else getting this??

It is actually possible to have a job capacity that exceeds the population.
The number of actual workers is always smaller than the capacity.

The demand for more jobs should be coming down though, unless you have commuters coming in from SimNation...

With a total population of 400,000, your workforce is in the region of just 200,000 though...
It would be interesting to see the Census Repository Report for your cities...

[bixel]

funny you mention the Census Repository Report, I just downloaded. I will post a screenie.

[gumbie]

I'm not getting a query on the paloma tower. I have both of the above files.

[M4346]

I think you might need the RNP Essentials -> Click!

[gumbie]

That was awesomely fast and awesomely helpful.  Thank you.

[M4346]

No problem! 

[RippleJet]

CAM 1.1 entering Beta Stage

The first beta version, CAM 1.0.1 is now being tested.
This time we will keep most of the development discussion here in the public thread, so that everybody will be able to comment.

Below is a list of features added so far and now being tested:



Maximum I-HT demand range has been increased from 12,000 to 24,000
Following a request by Mister Giggles, this is required in order to be able to grow Somy's tall, stage 10, high-tech industrials.

Somy 1 and Somy 2 are actually far too big to fit into the current I-HT stages.
The density of those two lots is well over 500, and stage 10 I-HT only require 135...
Maybe I-HT should be extended up to stage 15 after all... and maybe be added as an option for those who want to be able to grow I-HT skyscrapers... suggestions?



Amount of Capacity that can be under construction at any one time increased from 20,480 to 24,576
This property is included in the Building Development Simulator.

This property might be one reason for the Empire State Building, with a capacity of 19,565 CO§§§, being so hard to get growing.
In order not to increase the speed of development too much, I do not want to increase the property more than this.



Neutral Tax vs. Population reduced in order to make it more difficult to make money
This property is included in the Demand Simulator.

There have been several complaints that it's too easy to make money with CAM, once the city has become large enough.
The graph below shows how this property has been changed for this beta release.

It gives the maximum tax level (depending on city population) that you can set without having a negative effect on your demand.
The bigger your city becomes, the more you will need to reduce your taxes. Otherwise you will see a drop in demand.





Maximum Slope of Zoning increased from 16/16/16 to 16/20/24 ($/$$/$$$)
This property is included in the Zone Manager Simulator.

This idea is something I've been playing with for quite some time.
Today you cannot zone anything if a tile is sloped more than 16 m from the highest to lowest point.
With the changes above, you can zone medium density on slopes up to 20 m and high density on slopes up to 24 m.

This might be extended into more options and lifted out of CAM and made into its own mod if there's interest in it.



Stage 15 R§§§
Finally, there is one new CAMeLot added, based on an in-game building,
the Empire State Building as a stage 15 R§§§ with a capacity of 15,902.

I don't suppose anybody has been wanting this...

[Mister Giggles]

Excellent...

<Taps fingers together>

From the onset, it looks to elliminate the biggest 'bug' with the original release, while filling in a minor gap AND elliminating all that extra money I end up earning that does no good (If you can't use it, why have it, eh?).

As for the optionalality (New word!) suggestion concerning Somy 1 and Somy 2...personally, it doesn't matter to me. Why people wouldn't want their High Tech skycrapering (Another new word!) as well as their city is beyond me, but to each his own. As for more High Tech stages...yes, I think that'd be good, if you can round up enough buildings to make 15 stages full of goodness.

Other than that...two questions.

1: Can you give a timeline for release?

2: Can I beta test? ^_^

Please and thank you for your response.

[Rayden]

OK, I didn't had as much time as I thougth, but still did played sometime.


1 - I started with a small town, mostly low/medium density.
2 - At the same time, I start a Industrial area, again, mixed up, medium and high density (taxes - 5% for low wealth/all RCI types; 7% for medium wealth/all RCI types and 9% for high wealth/all RCI types. In the begining, it was a bit difficult for industry to grow, a couple of ID lots. When population reach 5000, then I could see the some real growth.
3 - When i had areas 1 and 2 filled up, I started this big residential/commercial area connecting to the Industrial area on the north. This areas where zoned, mostly hogh density.

Here is the 2 pictures with some census.




So far, it's the only city on my region being developed. I'll post some more info later on.

PS: That 14 stage 10 Commercial CAM lots, must be one buggy lot somewhere on my plugins that I still couldn't track it. It is still too soon for any stage 10 lot, specially when not even a stage 9 grew

[RippleJet]

PS: That 14 stage 10 Commercial CAM lots, must be one buggy lot somewhere on my plugins that I still couldn't track it. It is still too soon for any stage 10 lot, specially when not even a stage 9 grew

Indeed, with a regional commercial capacity of 7,021, it's got to be a stage 6 or lower CS§§ building that's got the Occupant Group 0xB5C00AB2, but not the Occupant Group 0xB5C00AB0, since it isn't summing up to the right.

It would be great if you could find out which lot/building it is!

[M4346]

I for one would like to see the higher IHT stages as an optional extra as I never saw the use of those unrealistic towering 'high-tech' industries. Maybe in a world far from now, but not in the one I live in and especially not on the continent I reside.

Apart from all that, I'll be able to test this come Friday as I finish with my exams on Thursday.  I will get back to you then, and thanks for the effort and revision Tage. 

[Rayden]

Indeed, with a regional commercial capacity of 7,021, it's got to be a stage 6 or lower CS§§ building that's got the Occupant Group 0xB5C00AB2, but not the Occupant Group 0xB5C00AB0, since it isn't summing up to the right.

It would be great if you could find out which lot/building it is!

Any clues to how to track the bugger?

[D66]

Not sure if this would work for the CAM but take out 1/2 of your plugins, check to see if you still have the bugged lot.  If you do, you know it's in that half..if not..it's the other half.  Keep halving it till you narrow it down to just a few lots to go through. This method works for normal play so hopefully it does for CAM.

[xxdita]

RippleJet, I would also be glad to beta test, if you need guinea pigs. I'm playing between 1 and 2 hours a day right now.
I for one would want the additional Industry stages, hopefully not limited to IHT. The construction cap tweak should be enough of a boost to keep everything growing properly. Taxes don't bother me, if I get stuck there's always CTRL X. 
I'm thinking the slopes should probably be a seperate thing entirely. I think it would be helpful to even the non-Cammers out there.
And YAY!!! A stage 15 R$$$. Empire's a very good choice. Hopefully there will be more to follow soon.

[Mister Giggles]

M4346: Skyscraper High-Tech allows you to stuff more High-Tech overall into a city, which is extremely helpful for increasing city size. Of course, this only means something to you if you enjoy pumping the numbers so high they lose all meaning...which I do.

With said increase to High-Tech, I plan on making myself a city so large people are stupified just looking at the numbers.

Yes...

[M4346]

Yeah, well, to me a city is more than just numbers. It's a plethora of things, ranging from architectural styles to individual identities as expressed in, say, neighbourhoods.

I just don't play to get those towering metropolises, I find no satisfaction in that. And accordingly the CAM extends my game and adds to its realism.

[BigSlark]

Last night I played with CAM 1.0.1 for a good hour in a city of 450,000 residents. When it first loaded, I immediately dropped R$$ and R$$$ taxes from 5% to 3%, I-M and I-HT taxes from 7% to 4%, and CS$$$, CO$$, CO$$$ taxes down to 3%. I had MASSIVE abandonment within the R$$ portion of the city, so I dropped the R$$ down to 2.5% and demand rebounded a bit. A few I-HT's were abandoning, so I had to drop taxes down to 2.5% for them in order to keep demand in the positive.

I noticed the increased development cap, I had more CO$$$ towers growing at once than I did before.

This city has an extensive GLR and bus system, no subways, BSC-only landmarks/rewards, and a high education level. The current monthly expenses are $75000 and income before CAM 1.0.1 was $125000 a month, now its $95000 a month.

While I don't see a problem for new cities with the tax change, I foresee players who have spent an inordinate amount of time on developing a massive city be very unhappy when they don't crank down the tax rates before un-pausing the game.

Cheers,
Kevin

[jplumbley]

It sounds to me either, there should be more funding used up or the building values are set too high.  $20,000 is a big monthly profit...  Ripplejet, do you think there is a way to better use schools and hospitals 

[RippleJet]

Based on Kevin's report it seems like the neutral tax rate was dropped too much...
On the other hand your tax rate is well below what it should be to cause abandonment...

It sounds to me either, there should be more funding used up or the building values are set too high.  $20,000 is a big monthly profit...

That is something we did anticipate when extrapolating the building values from stage 8 upwards.
We did make the extrapolation depending on the square root of the capacity, but it still seems we are overshooting.

To change the building values at this stage is not feasible. All CAMeLots would be affected.
Instead CAM 1.0.2 will be tweaking the following properties in the Budget Tuning Parameters Simulator:

Budget: TaxRateOccWeight_R$
Budget: TaxRateOccWeight_R$$
Budget: TaxRateOccWeight_R$$$
Budget: TaxRateOccWeight_Cs$
Budget: TaxRateOccWeight_Cs$$
Budget: TaxRateOccWeight_Cs$$$
Budget: TaxRateOccWeight_Co$$
Budget: TaxRateOccWeight_Co$$$
Budget: TaxRateOccWeight_IResource
Budget: TaxRateOccWeight_IDirty
Budget: TaxRateOccWeight_IManufacturing
Budget: TaxRateOccWeight_IHighTech

They are all set at 1.0 for Rush Hour. Reducing any of them to e.g. 0.5 would halve the tax income from that RCI type.
Is there any particular RCI type that contributes too much to the tax income?
I assume R§§§, CO§§§ and I-HT could be reduced more than the others, since these come into play later than the low-wealth types.


We also have the property that sets the difficulty between easy/medium/hard difficulty types:

Budget: Difficulty Tax Multiplier = 1.2, 1.1, 1.0

That property increases tax income by 20% for easy difficulty and by 10% for medium difficulty.
Nothing stops us from e.g. changing it to:

Budget: Difficulty Tax Multiplier = 1.0, 0.8, 0.6


I would like all CAMsters to report which difficulty they are playing on as well.
And I would like to see your budget panels (for different city sizes) posted here!

[M4346]

You sound like a drill sergeant.

Sir, yes sir! *salut!*