NAM Issues Thread - PLEASE POST YOUR NAM QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS HERE

[peace4ever]

I installed NAM .
But there is no ground tram station ?
And i also cant build elevated train station while there is road under the rail ?

Pls help me ...

[joelyboy911]

You must download stations seperately, the NAM team only makes networks and puzzle pieces. Search the STEX and LEX to find stations, and I reccommend the RTMT (Road top mass transit).

[AlRed]

Is a One-Way Street possible? If it is, will it be just like streets but one-way?

[z]

No, that would require a separate network, and we don't have any more.

[kassarc16]

Well, could it be done similar to the RHW? Taking a base 2-way network (ANT) and using starter pieces to change to a one-way (RHW 4+)?

[nothelle]

I got a newly discovered problem with NAM simulator Z.  I was previously using the 'Z' in my other city without any problem at all.  I started out a new city with network of sunken highway in it, except this time I have no CO$$$ development at all (zero growth and zero people working in CO$$$).  Other jobs seems to be fine (CO$, CO$$, CS$, CS$$, CS$$$, I-D, I-HT, I-M). 
My current condition:

1.  I'm using Census Repository Facility, indication of demand, cap, supply, etc., etc., are fine, show no abnormality like my other cities
2.  Normal to low tax level to increase CO$$$ demand (@ 24,000)
3.  Enough composition of R$, R$$, R$$$
4.  Education level is max @ 200, Health Level is Good @ >90
5.  Desirability is high, land value also high
6.  I'm also using CAM and growth stage of R, CO and I are showing just fine (except for CO$$$ which is non-existence for CO$$$ CAM building of any type)
7.  Traffic is normal throughout the stage (from residential of 0 to its latest growth of 700,000), congestion is minimal and mass transit are working just fine
8.  Enough CAP relieve (fire, police, parks, all within distance)

I tried to isolate the problem to my newly installed plugins (wall for sunken highways, enyati urban school and college by SG, private schools with sliders and hole digger) by eliminating them and still no result.  Even going further by doing trial and error of each my old plugins.

When i tried the NAM again, with different setting other than the Z, it worked like a charm.  My CO$$$ wass back and showed strong growth.  WIthin a year it jumped up to almost 100,000 and high-rise CO$$$ were popping everywhere.    I tried using standard, A, B it showed no problems.  But when I tried to use the Z again, CO$$$ back to zero.

Does anyone has any idea why it is doing this or maybe it is conflicting with other plugins that I am not aware of?  My only answer is that the Z configuration created this problem, but I don't want to use others as all of my roads and mass transits get congested even @ 500,000 population. 

Any input is really apreciated guys... thanks a bunch   

[z]

I haven't heard of this particular problem before, and without seeing your city and knowing a lot more, there are many possible explanations.  But the easiest solution would be to lower the tax rate on your CO$$$ by just a bit - that almost always works.  (And remember that it takes three to four months for a tax rate reduction to take effect.)  Give that a try, and let us know how it works. 

[RippleJet]

nothelle, if you are using Buggi's Extra Cheat DLL, can I ask you to check the following?

Ctrl-Alt-Shift-query some commercial buildings in an area where CO$$$ desirability is really high.
It can be any commercial building, CO or CS. That would bring up a query similar to the right one of these:


(this image is from a comparison of an old version and a newly camified version of the same building)...

Can you check the Co demand figures for the same building when using simulator Z and when using other traffic plugins?
There shouldn't be any differences... but if there are, then we would have something to look at...

[choco]

Well, could it be done similar to the RHW? Taking a base 2-way network (ANT) and using starter pieces to change to a one-way (RHW 4+)?

technically, it could.  but it would have the capacity of the network used for the override.....so at best, it would be a OWR texture variation...

[nothelle]

Well, i already tried different tax scenarios with no result and wait for years for CO$$$ to pop-up, but still zero.  I tried to search every possible solution on the forum:
1.  Landmark near CO zones - no result
2.  Park or plaza - abundant within 20 tiles radius
3.  Commute time: very low with network of avenues, sunken highways and mass transits with neighborhood connections
4.  Pollution - minimal
5.  Desirability & Land Value for CO$$$ - high
6.  Enough population composition of R$, R$$, R$$$
7.  Presence of airport & seaport

Just to be clear.. I used super demand ordinance 2.0 to test my NAM Z vs. NAM others in my previous post.. it's already very late so I'll just post this one (Nam Z vs. RH during early years of my city) just to show the problem that I'm facing


nam z ultra (left), RH (right)

EQ and population in RH might be lower due some road connection and HWY connection missing from NAM removal, but nevertheless just within few months I can see 4000+ CO$$$ vs. 0 in NAM Z.  And believe me I could let this go on until my pop and eq increases on NAM Z, but still 0 CO$$$

Hope this is sufficient... I'll post more info if needed...

Thanks

[RippleJet]

nothelle, I think you are providing a lot of help here...

It's rather interesting to see the difference...
The numbers given at the Co demand line are most likely the desirability.

With Rush Hour there's a CO$$$ desirability of 123.
With Simulator Z there's a CO$$$ desirability of 92.

Since the abandonment mod that's included with CAM sets the Growth Desirability Threshold at 120,
it's obvious you cannot get any CO$$$ growing in this area...

Now, the question is... would the higher network capacities in simulator Z lead to a much lower number of customers for the commercials...
The traffic effect is given in the CO$$$ developer exemplar to be from -24 if there's no traffic to +24 if traffic is 256 (probably on a relative scale 0...256 to the max capacity)...
Those values (-24...24) are absolute desirability figures, so a difference of 31 might indeed be achievable.

There have been lots of questions about CO$$$ not growing properly in CAM, and the reason might indeed have been found here tonight...
Since Simulator Z wasn't available when CAM was made, this could never have been encountered back then...

I think Steve and I will have to look a bit closer into this...

I'll post more info if needed...

It might help us even further if you could post the same queries without changing anything else between them, except the traffic plugin.
Keep the game in pause when you save, and don't start it again after you've replaced the traffic plugin... just to get fully comparable results.
Maybe also for other traffic plugins, if you feel you want to check them as well...

[z]

I've had another idea here.  The increased efficiency of Simulator Z perversely increases the likelihood of an Eternal Commuter Loop arising.  This is a Maxis game bug, which is fully described in the CAM Manual, along with ways to avoid and/or fix it.  An Eternal Commuter Loop has the effect of taking residential Sims out of circulation, and this would logically reduce job demand.  To see if you have an Eternal Commuter Loop, look at your city in the various Traffic Volume Views, and see if you have an abnormally high volume of traffic (of any kind) heading for the border.  If you do, open the city where the traffic is going, and see where it goes from there.  If it heads for another border, repeat the last step, and keep doing this until you find out where the traffic ends up.  If it ends up in the first city, you've got an Eternal Commuter Loop.  You would then need to break all the connections between one of the pairs of cities that are making this loop possible.  This would fix your problem.

Another possibility is that under Simulator Z, your Sims find it is simply faster to go to another city to work.  I believe that this in itself would reduce job demand in the original city.

[nothelle]

Wow.. I was hoping that this is more of a bad plugin issue and it could be fixed instantly.  Anyway SC4 just became interesting after I found out about NAM, CAM and other mod in this forum.  Haven't played SC4 again since first it came out.

Anyway.. here's more detailed comparison data and hope it helps you guys to develop a solution (files are rather large for readibility)

I made two comparison between NAM Z Ultra (Left Images) and NAM Standard (Right Images).  No changes were made in any variables (taxes, ordinance) or any structural (roads, transits, etc.) or zoning. 

Overview of the zoning of the city:
what's not included is a spider web of subway below the surface which basically almost intersect between 1-2 blocks of zones.  And I only used subway to avoid road congestion



Intial Captured Data: (initial data are the same between 2 traffic plugins).  I'm not putting other details, but sure enough desirability and land value are extremely high across city.  Water, Power, Police, Fire and Education coverage are well spread to ensure all areas are well covered and all CAPS are met according to CAM standard


I think i miscaptured the left images, but nevertheless other than traffic volume, query data are exactly identical






Now I ran both plugins for exactly two years and these are the differences:



NAM Z Ultra Census


NAM Standard Census


query of Tucson buildings are the same with initial data, added Query of Mitsui which is not included in the initial


notice the jump in CO$$$ on the right (NAM Standard)





Z: to answer your question, supposedly I don't have eternal commuter since this is the only city in the region.  I connect it to all neighbours on 4 sides with highway.  Since this map is on the center edge, one side is bordering with the edge and supposedly neighbours from other region?  while other 3 sides are bordering with empty maps within my region.

Now this is a bit OOT, but I always wonder in the census repository, why is my region residential capacity always twice the current population?  This is a newly build map and region with this single city in existence in the entire region.  I started it from ground up, not recycled region from previously played region. 

Another issue in the same city with NAM Z Ultra before I restarted to get these data, EQ levels dropped significantly after population reached 400-500K +, always fell below 160 and having hard time to get it back up.  I tried different tax level to alter different wealth level population amount (low R$, high R$$$, high R$, etc., you named it I tried different combo) and different school (from standard SC4 to downloaded custom), but EQ could hardly increase above 160.  Anything to do with this issue?

Again thanks a lot for the feedback... you guys certainly bring new life to this old game

[RippleJet]

Thank you for an excellent report, nothelle!

I'm glad you included the query for the Mitsui building, where the difference in surrounding congestion is more apparent.
With simulator Z you only have green congestion data, whereas NAM standard gives different shades of blue, orange and red in the surrounding roads.

To me it's rather obvious that it's the congestion, not the actual volume of traffic, that determines the number of customers.
If you'd query the Mitsui building the normal way, you would probably get Customers: High when using the Standard NAM, but not if using simulator Z.

Now, is there any chance you could run this same test with simulator Z Low as well (or continue from the point where you left the testing with simulator Z Ultra)?
If you'd get CO$$$ growing with that, I'd say you've solved the problem.

And maybe a note about it should be included in the NAM readme for Z Ultra...

Now this is a bit OOT, but I always wonder in the census repository, why is my region residential capacity always twice the current population?  This is a newly build map and region with this single city in existence in the entire region.  I started it from ground up, not recycled region from previously played region. 

This is an unfortunate bug that appeared with CAM. If you modify certain RCI exemplars (by placing new, overwriting exemplars in your plugins folder), the regional residental capacity and regional workforce capacity will be doubled. This also affects the simulator, and is the reason for more jobs being needed in a region where CAM is running than would be the case with only Rush Hour.

A lot more about this can be found in the CAM Board, e.g. this topic: Where are my residents!!!
That topic also includes a discussion about the only known solution, to merge CAM with SimCity_1.dat...

[z]

To me it's rather obvious that it's the congestion, not the actual volume of traffic, that determines the number of customers.

That's what you're supposed to think.   Basically, the number of customers is determined by the traffic volume, mediated by the "Customers/Traffic Noise Coefficient" property in the traffic simulator.  If this property is set too high, housing becomes undesirable due to noise.  If it's set too low, businesses see too few customers.  So it seemed to make sense (and I still think it does) that different capacity levels of the simulator need different values for this property.  So that's what Simulator Z has done since the beginning.  But the value may not be set exactly right.  I haven't had any problems up until now, but of course that doesn't mean the values I picked were perfect.

Nothelle, I've created a modified version of Simulator Z Ultra with a higher value of this parameter, which will result in more customers.  However, it will also result in your residents being more sensitive to noise (although not as much as in the NAM simulator.)  Please try out the attached version of the simulator and let us know what happens to both your residential and commercial demand and population.  Thanks!

[nothelle]

Allright.. thanks a lot ripple!   I was trying to avoid congestion, while in we do need it for commercial growth.  I was impatience in using the Z low since congestion was still low, so I tried different NAM A, E, B plugins.  Just like you said, any traffic plugin that could create some congestion instantly boost up the desirability, hence the growth of CO$$$ buildings.

Z: Thanks for the update    After trying out the new Z Ultra, There was decrease in R$$$ demand from 300 to -3000, but everything else remains about the same (+/- a couple hundreds) and still no CO$$$ and traffic volume does not increase dramatically, still in lighter shade of blue all accross.  But I think that my population is still too low for the traffic to spread out with the Z Ultra road capacity.  Let me try to grow the city gradually using lower capacity NAM traffic plugin until it get to a size that I can try your new Z Ultra and report it back here.

Thanks guys

[joelyboy911]

On the topic of these commuters, with the NAM simulator Z will sims be willing to cross a larger number of cities to get to their workplace? I ask because I presently use simulator A, and I would like to build my region with large tracts of Commercial, Industry and Residential in certain areas, and I want them to be willing to travel by train and on the motorway to the CBD and industrial areas.

[z]

Yes; that was one of the original reasons I built Simulator Z.  Blue Lightning reported being able to get Sims to commute across either three or four cities (I've forgotten which) with Simulator Z.  But it's still a bit tricky to do, as the underlying Maxis engine always wants Sims to take the first available jobs.

[joelyboy911]

That will be good, I'll be changing the simulator very, very soon.

[SC4BOY]

I'm wondering if this relates to the post I started
http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=8618.msg268229#msg268229

It seems to relate to the same thing.. basically the customers/trafficnoise thing

No one has responded to my post.. I may have chosen a bad place to post it, but it looked like the "right place" to me at the time..