Noobish questions for high exalted nam ppls

[ramseyazad]

Beautiful work, love the NAM, always have.  I'm curious as to the nam/cam compatibility and have been meddling with the different simulators and I have discovered a few things I cannot understand.

The most basic is this - if there are jobs/residents listed in the building query, shouldn't they show up in the route query as well?  I have noticed, perhaps through my own botched attempts at using the NAMconfig tool, that many buildings are not represented in the traffic properly.  I.e.  The building has a population of 2573/3214 but shows only 300-500 car routes.  Does this mean I have configured something wrong, or my game is not working properly, or is this the way it's supposed to work?  Thanks again for all your valuable and fun-to-play-with products.

[Blue Lightning]

Hi Ramseyazad,

First off, welcome to SC4D!

Now, when you query a building, it does not actually tell you how many people are working/living there. The first number of the xxx/yyy is the buildings maxiumum capacity; the set limit of how much the building can hold. The second number tells you the current capacity; the maximum the building can hold right now. To find out how many sims work/live in a building, simply do a traffic query and total up everything.

Don't worry, you didn't do anything wrong, this is a common misunderstanding, as Maxis wasn't very clear in the manuel. This is the proper way the game runs.

Hope this clears things up,

Vince

[z]

It's actually a little more complicated than that.  Here's the definitive description from the thread TE Lots, Transit Switches, and You , with thanks to RippleJet for his assistance:

The second figure in the Current Occupancy (for residences) or Current Jobs (for commercial or industrial buildings) is the maximum potential occupancy of the building.  I think this has been pretty obvious to everybody.  For residences, the first figure in this field refers to the actual potential occupancy; this means the maximum number of Sims who are currently able to live in the building.  Normally, in a thriving city where the population is constantly growing, every residential building is fully occupied, and this first number corresponds to the population of the building.  However, in cities where the population is static or declining, the actual population of the building may be less than this first figure.  It is the actual population number that is used when determining a city's total population.  Unfortunately, there is no way to exactly determine what it is for a particular residential building.  Meanwhile, for commercial and industrial buildings, the first figure refers to the actual number of jobs available in the building; it does not indicate how many Sims are actually working there.  The first figure in all cases tends to be fairly close to the second number, unless the building is abandoned, in which case it is zero.  The Prima manual is incorrect in describing what these numbers mean.

Unfortunately, you can't simply add up the traffic queries, because Sims may appear in more than one travel type.  For example, if a Sim takes a bus to the subway, that Sim will show up in both the bus and subway totals.  To the extent you can figure out the number of Sims actually traveling to or from a building (which is often impossible), that number will tell you the number of jobs that are actually occupied in a commercial or industrial building, or the number of working Sims in a residential building.

[ramseyazad]

Thanks so much  -  it explains a lot.  I first disabled the traffic mod that comes with the CAM, to see what effect it would have, and it had the dramatic effect of reducing traffic almost completely, most buildings had "commuters - none" although the population of the cities (I did this on about 4 cities, letting the game run for around 10 game years) didn't change much.  So I put the z_cam "better pathfinding" traffic mod back in there, and messed a little with the namconfig tool and ran the simulation again, and traffic picked up again, but still nowhere near what I expected, especially for the ghsr lines and highways.  I've been trying to figure out why the highways and transit systems are not being used much.  Before I started messing with it, glr lines and subways were getting clogged in certain specific places, but hsr and highways were not being used hardly at all, even in a large 600k city.  I built one big test off to the side of the city, a whole bunch of industrial zones connected by a straight-shot of highway halfway across the city into the main residential area.  The industrial zones developed pretty quickly, but nobody drove on the highway for more than 10 or 20 tiles, and never more than one exit, except for the freight.  Similar thing was/still is happening with the hsr, which is a big bummer in a huge city with some nice dramatic bridges.  Does "netowrkaddonmod_traffic_plugin_betterpathfinding_CAM_promotenothing.dat"
override all the effects of whatever traffic simulator namconfig works on?  Is there a thread somewhere (because as maty puts it, I suck at google) that discusses how to properly configure nam and cam together?  Thanks again.

[Tarkus]

The old CAM traffic simulators, as I recall, were installed into a z-CAM folder by default, so it would be loading last, and as such, it would be overriding whatever you had installed in the NAM or with NAMConfig.  Whether or not it's overriding is ultimately a matter of the Plugins folder organization--the game loads everything by folder in alphabetical order, and if there's two copies of the same file (i.e. the Traffic Simulator Exemplar), whatever one is in a folder later in the alphabetical order will load last.  z-CAM would load after Network Addon Mod.

I'd actually recommend not using any of the CAM Simulators, as they're quite outdated and we've learned a lot since they were made.  I'd instead recommend trying out one of the more modern simulators (A, B or Z) included with the NAM. There's a variety of different capacity options for all of them, which you should choose depending on your needs and your city size.  These more modern simulators are also necessary if you ever plan on using the Rural Highway Mod (RHW) or the as-of-yet-unreleased Network Widening Mod (NWM). 

-Alex

[ramseyazad]

I am not entirely sure that the nam is causing this - but at the moment, as I have disabled the CAM traffic plugin, I have a  little island city with virtually no commuters (at least none on the route query) in the industrial area or the commercial area, although they are not far apart.  The population says about 15k right now, and there aren't any abandoned buildings unless I demolish the road connection to them.  Almost every single house shows "commuters:none" and the industrial lots all show "workers:none."  The industrial lots do generate freight traffic, but no one seems to be going to work.  This persists to some degree depending on what I set in the NAMconfig.  It's convenient that I can build and grow whatever I want but not very fun, since there seems to be virtually no traffic in comparison to the population.  I'd appreciate any insight into what might be causing this.   

[Tarkus]

Sometimes, it takes a few in-game months for the game to adjust to the new traffic simulator.

Also, which simulator are you currently using now that you've removed the CAM one?

-Alex

[ramseyazad]

I've been letting it run for 5-10 in-game years every time I changed it.  I re-installed the march 09 NAM and used the z-traffic mod, high capacity, which seemed to completely fix the situation in the small city, commuting seemed more or less normal, people in houses were traveling to places with jobs.  I've loaded and ran 2 larger 200k-or-so cities, and the first seemed to correct itself pretty well, the second is not correcting itself much.  I purposely wanted to jam up the roads and force people to ride the glr, since I just installed it and wanted to see how it worked, but after about 3 in-game years traffic was still pretty light on all the streets and roads.  It *did* CTD just now when I queried a certain water-taxi thing that I haven't liked at all yet, so I'm going to try it again.  I'm beginning to suspect that namconfig hasn't been doing what it's supposed to for some reason.  Either that or my puter (AMD3200, 2gigs ram, nvidia9600) is failing at some critical point.  It hiccups every now and then, freezes the screen while the music skips a few times, which makes me wonder if perhaps there is a slightly-faulty piece of ram in there.  I wish I could find current nam simulator files themselves, so I could change the simulator without un-installing nam and re-installing nam.  Gonna run a few more cities and see if they start acting properly.   

[Swamper77]

I wish I could find current nam simulator files themselves, so I could change the simulator without un-installing nam and re-installing nam.  Gonna run a few more cities and see if they start acting properly.   

You could install the MAC version. It is exactly the same as the Windows version, but all the files are loose in folders and there is no installer.

-Swamper

[z]

I purposely wanted to jam up the roads and force people to ride the glr, since I just installed it and wanted to see how it worked, but after about 3 in-game years traffic was still pretty light on all the streets and roads.

As the author of Simulator Z, I think I can help you here.  If you're interested, please post a picture of your Traffic Volume Graph for the last 5-year period, along with your RCI Demand Graph.

[ramseyazad]

Could loading and re-loading the city have a dramitic effect on the traffic simulator?  When I gave up last night, the biggest city was missing *all* the commuters from a 100k-pop city I build last night.  When I loaded it up today, they were all there.   Here's the requested graphs and some other views:


















I can see clearly in the traffic volume graph where the traffic volume drops, but it hasn't gotten back up.  I'm going to try letting it run for 30 or 40 years to see if it will do anything different.   It *seems* like if I build a new city, it works right, it's only the cities existing when I changed the traffic simulator that are doing this.  Thanks and thanks and thanks for looking at this!

Update - After I looked in on this city and let it run for a while a couple times, the traffic volume graph bumped right up to its previous levels.  It seems like the traffic simulator is doing what it is supposed to do now, but I don't understand how I can have so much developed commercial zone without any workers in so much of it.  I have been having trouble in my other cities with having lots of industrial development but no workers or very few workers in the industrial lots.  It's as if the sims would just rather leave the city and find a job elsewhere than stay in the city and work in any of  the worker-less ID or IM lots.  I didn't think that lots could develop, much less develop at higher stages, without enough workers in them.   Mayhaps I need to read more about CAM or something.  I definitely need to read more about the census repository thingie, which seems to have the answers if I could only decipher them.

[z]

Thanks for your detailed response.  It makes it a lot clearer what's happening in your city.

Could loading and re-loading the city have a dramitic effect on the traffic simulator?  When I gave up last night, the biggest city was missing *all* the commuters from a 100k-pop city I build last night.  When I loaded it up today, they were all there.

Reloading a city has a minor effect on the traffic simulator, in that once you restart the city, it may be a year or more before the traffic simulator runs the first time, whereas it normally runs once every few months.  But nothing I know of should cause the results you describe.

Your Traffic Volume Graph is exactly what I would expect to see, and what I have seen countless times during testing, when you switch simulators, or even modify the parameters in a given simulator.  The traffic simulator has to recalculate the routes of lots of Sims (in your case, most of them), and until then, they don't show up on this graph.  Hence the huge drop.  But notice that your jobs and population were increasing during this period - that's a clue that the actual traffic hadn't dropped off, but simply that the routes were in an indeterminate state.  This state lasts a little under a year, and then the simulator is able to reroute some of the Sims.  But due to the built-in anti-herding feature, it can only reroute a fraction of them.  So you see the various traffic volumes jump up by a certain amount and immediately level off (more or less) until a little less than a year later, when the process repeats.  The process continues until all the Sims have been rerouted, which typically takes about five or six years, although in drastic cases like yours, it might take a little longer.  You end up with a climbing stairstep pattern, which I'm sure you noticed.  And since the traffic hasn't actually decreased (it's just the routes that are indeterminate), this has no negative effect on the game.  So as you gathered, the traffic simulator is doing its job correctly.

Your problem lies somewhere else.  The big clue is the RCI demand graph, which looks very unhealthy.  In a healthy city, no demand bar should be negative, unless you've intentionally made it that way for some reason (e.g., to eliminate dirty industry).  Also, on this graph, only the top number of 24,000 is correct; the graph is actually exponential, and not linear.  This means that lower demand is actually lower, and possibly much lower, than the numbers say.

So the real question is, What's the cause of your lower demand?  The first thing I would ask is, What is the size of your city, and what are your tax rates?  A city where the tax rates are set too high will have an RCI demand graph that looks much like yours.  But of course, that's not the only possible cause.  You hit the nail on the head when you said you needed to learn more about the Census Repository, as that will definitely give more insight into what's going on here.  You can download the Census Repository from here; unless you feel strongly otherwise, I recommend that you install the Vault version for your case.  Then just click on it, capture the results, and paste them in this thread.  Between the information here and what I requested at the beginning of this paragraph it should be quite clear what's going on.

Finally, to answer a question you asked, commercial and industrial lots don't need workers to develop.  If there's sufficient demand, plus enough desirability and aura (the last of which you can see in the Mayor Rating), these lots will develop, with or without workers.

[ramseyazad]

I have a sort of a theory, after reading quite a bit - although I don't really grok it:  at an early stage in this region's development (and this is the first region I've ever had CAM and NAM, and the first region I've played in a number of years) I discovered the eternal commuter problem, so just one city over, the caps are all out of whack, thus giving the whole region an unreasonable demand for commercial jobs, thus making my whole city full of commercial buildings with no people in them.  I haven't read of a good solution for the commuting problem, but in concert with the cam's doubled something-or-other-demand, I get unlimited growth in my commercial districts, regardless of residential population.  I can't make heads or tails of this "Drive" much less understand the relationship between city population and traffic network usage.  I found something that may make it so I can tell how many jobs are *actually* filled at a commercial/industrial lot, but I'm not too bothered unless I get an entire metropolis with hardly any traffic.  I feel like the CAM has made the game ridiculously easy, as this city and most of my other cities are on the hard level, and the income is literally more than I can spend.  I rendered a couple new regions today, I'll see if I can dodge the urge to put residents in a corner, avoiding the commuter issue.  I kept reading about a forthcoming CAM improvement, or a fix for the demand doubling, but I haven't been able to find out about either of those.  I did try and fix the city a little with taxes, which did have the dramatic effect on demand you mentioned.  All my old SC4 instincts tell me not to mess with the tax rates, ever, but I did try for a while to correct for the issue in a different city by lowering residential taxes to 3%, and raising commercial taxes a little bit, to try and get residents in jobs at all the empty buildings. 
   With regards to the NAM specifically, I have begun to see them travel longer distances on the highway, but not on the monorail.  They will not cross one bridge at all, and in fact mostly don't ride on the monorail except for short hops.  Also, does the NAM affect the way airports are routed?  Are airports just like commercial buildings, in that they don't tell you actual usage, but capacity and potential capacity?  Because this city here has a big airport that shows like 160k commuters, and route query at the airport shows around 500 or so on the different networks.  I do understand that the different network types listed in the route query don't need to add up to the number of commuters, but I don't see how 160k commuters can magically turn into 500 or so pedestrians. 
   In my newest city, which connects to this city, the residents really want to commute before they'll take a job at the ID or IM lots, which I don't understand, I guess they are just too educated and healthy?  Do I have to create neighborhoods of uneducated, unhealthy residents to fill those jobs?
   And yet again, thank you so much for your expert advice.

[z]

Sure enough, the trusty Census Repository tells us a lot more about what's going on.  Most of your guesses are correct.  The eternal commuter problem can break things really badly - it is essential to correct it.  The simplest thing to do is break connections between cities until it goes away.  And the most surefire way to do this is to break all connections between any two cities involved in the loop.  That's not strictly necessary (I personally don't do it), if you don't, you have to keep an eye out for the eternal commuter loop forming in different places.  And with Simulator Z, the Sims are really smart - you'd be amazed to see what they will do to get out of work by traveling around all day long.

The Traffic Volume Graph is not quite what I expected, but that's probably due to the combination of the eternal commuter loop and the CAM Demand Bug (yes, you are afflicted by it).  As you can see, your Total Workforce for the region is 2,148,298.  It also says that your total Residential Capacity is 4,221,298; my guess is that the game itself, in the Region view, is giving you a figure that's half that.  If you add up your Commercial Jobs plus your Industrial Jobs (both for the region), you get a number that's less than your total workforce (which has erroneously been doubled) by 108,418 - which is your available vacant jobs.  The fact that this number is negative depresses your residential demand.

Taxes are another problem, as expected.  For a city of 384,162 the neutral tax rate is 8.9%.  Notice that in your jobs, wherever you have negative demand, your tax rate is 9%.  Being over the neutral tax rate by just 0.1% can make a big difference in this game.  Your tax rates alone are enough to explain why your Sims aren't taking ID and IM jobs.  Whenever an RCI category has negative demand, it won't grow, which in this case means "accept new workers."  You need to find a list of the neutral tax rates (the Prima Guide has them on page 76) and observe them strictly for largger cities.  And sometimes the neutral tax rate for your city is lower than what's listed.

So knock those 9% job tax rates down, and you should see a big improvement.  A rate of 8.9% should be sufficient for now; lower rates produce very little positive effect.

Residential tax rates are a bit more difficult.  When afflicted by the CAM Demand Bug, you may have to cut them way down to get decent demand.  Sometimes you have to go down as low as 2% for R-$$ and R-$$$, although you'll notice that R-$ always seems to be fine.  This, of course, can throw your budget way out of whack.  Since this is all due to a bug, I feel that in these circumstances it is permissible to invoke a cheat and call on Cousin Vinnie, who will give you up to §200,000 per month.  You can find him on the STEX. 

A fix for the CAM Demand Bug has been under development for quite a while now.  It has been particularly difficult to implement, however.  You can try asking the CAM folks about the status of this fix.  If you find out any useful information, please let me know.

The monorail is much more finicky than other forms of mass transit.  I spent a lot of time with Simulator Z getting monorail usage to significantly exceed the previous generation of simulators.  Restrictions imposed by the RHW compatibility requirements are one of the limiting factors here.  Spending some time tweaking your monorail setup can make a big difference here, though.

The traffic to the airports has nothing to do with how much capacity is used, which instead is based largely on commercial activity, with a little bit from industrial activity.  Residents in SC4 don't fly anywhere for fun. 

I think if you take the advice here, your city should improve significantly.  Good luck!

[mightygoose]

z, man you covered it all great work, i'll second the above...

[ramseyazad]

At one point, I did have quite a bit of monorail usage, but I learned later it was part of the commuter loop. 

Thank you so much for the help and the advice, I will go hassle the cam people now. . .

[gn_leugim]

your issue reminds me one I had a few time ago.. that sudden drop on commuters and depilations and so on, was due to roundabout which was incomplete (the paths were not there, so people could not use it) check all you one way roundabouts with the "drawpaths" cheat active and see if all of them have the full green circle drawn, if not just need to rebuild it

just my two cents

[z]

your issue reminds me one I had a few time ago.. that sudden drop on commuters and depilations and so on...

Main Entry:depilation
Function:noun
Etymology:Middle French or Medieval Latin; Middle French, from Medieval Latin depilation-, depilatio, from Latin depilare, from de- + pilus hair — more at  PILE
Date:1547

: the removal of hair, wool, or bristles by chemical or mechanical methods

[krbe]

I think we're looking for dilapidation (which my Dictionary Thesaurus actually claims is archaic?).

[z]

Yes, that makes much more sense than a bunch of overly hairy commuters.

As for dilapidate, my dictionary says that only the definition meaning "to squander" is archaic.