Hi
WIth our own LEX now in operation it is time to take a look at our old lots before we deploy them here. From posts by other BSC members and players it appears that many are using the BSC Farming EP.
During the latter part of 2006 I released an update to the BSC that made most of my farms and fields SF (Slope Friendly. Since then JMyers also started making his farms SF.
I think it is time that we give the farming EP a nice overall and with the great new buildings and tools available we can realy get this almost perfect now.
In my mind I would like to go to a place where we group our Farms properly so that a player can use the Startup Manager and get Grain Farming or Cattle farming or Timber farming selected per city or per region.
Please use this thread to post your comments and suggestions and wishes for the 2007 EP Upgrade.
Thanks.
Yes please! I was looking for farms when I signed up here. Downloaded more then that though. It would be great to have those redone. What will this be...the 4th redo of most of those things? Love it!
Joel
Wonderfull idea....I tend to build alot of rural areas that rely upon a farming economy...the more options and variable the better......I like the idea of being able to pic a general type of agriculture that would dominate an area....at the current time I'm building a very mountainous area (in British Columbia) and an agriculture economy that was heavily orchards and/or grazing animals would be perfect....don't know what my next project will be :-\ , but wouldn't be surprised if it was an area that would demand a different set of ag products....will follow this thread with great interest. Thanks for starting int
Colyn, that sounds like a great idea. I've done a lot of editing for my own use, but I'm sure that an official upgrade to the EP might be more comprehensive (and done properly).
I'd be more than happy to add any specific input/thoughts, if necessary. I'll keep my eyes open.
I've been getting together a comprehensive list of thoughts and will post them here in the next little bit. Thanks for starting this thread, Colyn.
David
I am actually hoping that Goober and jmyers2043 will post their farms on the LEX. I was just on Simtropolis and jmyers2043 took his down. I understand why, however, that would give him a good opportunity to post them here....<please> :)
Joel
Whats the start-up manager? However I am very exited about the possiblity of having lots of flower farms.
I eagerly await the upgrades to jmyers farms ;)
im no genius, specially with my plugins folder. so my thoughts here may already be acknowledged and sorted out.
since i live in a pretty much agricultural country (Philippines) where acres upon acres upon acres dominate what little land we have, i have grown to appreciate farmlands. when i started out playing sc4 just recently, i found out that i can add more variety of farms.
anyway, ill get to it. $%Grinno$% i've been downloading farm stuff like crazy and, as you said, the lots and dependencies are outdated. so it has me on a rollercoaster **installing something only to have it removed by cleanitol. --then repeat from **
it would truely and honestly unburden plugin newbies like me if there were more and more updated and diversified (say added variety?) farms with less files/downloads. :P like say a gazillion RL-like crops/produce with the least amount of files/downloads? an agricultural t-rex pack? $%Grinno$% a farming monster mega pack? :P
i hope i dont offend anyone with this post as it is done with the utmost sincerity and humility on my part.
I can understand your problems, zniehadajet, as there have been so many changes since the original Farming EP was released in March 2005. BSC has a number of projects on the go at the moment and the farming is one of them. Watch this space. :thumbsup:
i definitely will be doing that. thanks barbyw! :thumbsup:
hello to everyone! I appreciate so much your creations on the farming EP, especially the last SF addiction, that I wish I could collect them all!! but it's such a hard business!!
is there any way to have a list of all the stuff (lots, fields, dependency ecc. [with a link would be too much ::)] ) that you gods of BSC have made since 2005 in the farming category? (sounds like a greedy request -and it is!! :P)
IF someone tracked them, please, let it appear HERE!!! thank you!!!!!!!!!!!
Having the farms "grouped" would be very much appreciated. Is there any way to make the timber farms growable, and perhaps using c.p.'s trees?
Cheers,
Kevin
Quote from: ZonZaucker on June 20, 2007, 10:12:56 AM
hello to everyone! I appreciate so much your creations on the farming EP, especially the last SF addiction, that I wish I could collect them all!! but it's such a hard business!!
is there any way to have a list of all the stuff (lots, fields, dependency ecc. [with a link would be too much ::)] ) that you gods of BSC have made since 2005 in the farming category? (sounds like a greedy request -and it is!! :P)
IF someone tracked them, please, let it appear HERE!!! thank you!!!!!!!!!!!
Quote from: BigSlark on June 20, 2007, 09:18:17 PM
Having the farms "grouped" would be very much appreciated. Is there any way to make the timber farms growable, and perhaps using c.p.'s trees?
Cheers,
Kevin
Barby has uploaded on the LEX a fields pack that at least save you searching all various fields
A lot of new farms will be uploaded with the CAM, and I suggest you wait them, you can see some of them in the "Show us your rural town" thread
I am currently in the process of updating my farms. The occupancy is being adjusted to fit into the new CAM but I intend to try to make a new set with new IIDs so there will be no problems with cities crashing. It is a matter of time as there is a lot to do to get the CAM out.
Quote from: BarbyW on June 21, 2007, 02:04:12 AM
I am currently in the process of updating my farms.
....
nice to see you're always at work... ;D can't wait this CAM to come!!
and thanks to wouanagaine (your name sounds like psicotrope...) for suggestion, N.B: DAT packer rulez!!!
@ BigSlark
Timber industry is on my to-do list and is something that Colyn (aka Vlakhaas) did a couple of years ago as part of the first Expansion Pack. The CAM gives me some opportunities to develop a viable timber industry that I didn't have with the Maxis Rush Hour. It will not be ready at the same time as the CAM but your idea and enthusiasm is an encouragement for me to keep working at it.
Here is a picture from a test city... Small Saw Mill.
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fhome.earthlink.net%2F%7Es1mj1m%2Fsitebuildercontent%2Fsitebuilderpictures%2Fredsawmillconceptlot.jpg&hash=fb10d0cca1524a33100662503c3e0519b352c6f0)
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fhome.earthlink.net%2F%7Es1mj1m%2Fsitebuildercontent%2Fsitebuilderpictures%2Fsawmillredsideview.jpg&hash=b5442b79fdd50ade016a42ab9939b8ab5e8dfa9c)
You knock me out!!! These are so fine, honestly Maxis should hang its head in shame. I would bet that before BSC and you in particular refined agriculture, no one ever built a city tile devoted to the rural aspect. Now it is one of the most enjoyable parts of this wonderful "game".
That is clearly a stage 6 farm! &apls
This is some really kool stuff. I am looking forward to this particular occurance. I love putting farms in my cities but find it somewhat difficult to deal with the randomness of them. Thanks for working on this guys/gals.
---Gaston
So, will ALL the old content be remade to be CAM compatible??
I love your farm lot/bat's, and I can't wait for the CAM to come out.. oh boy.... Rural owns and villages... It will own.
Oh yea...
Something I have been compiling..
I am looking for Horse, Elephant, Rhino, Giraffe, Lion, Bear, Dear, Antelope, Moose farms... ( for variety and Dr. Vu's guests) any of those exist?
QuoteElephant, Rhino, Giraffe
None that I know of and none planned (at least from me) :)
Nor me.
Thought I'd ask.... :-[
The Tea Cat asked an interesting question in his MD I thought I'd link it here, in case someone might know the answer. He wanted to know why farm/agriculture produces so much traffic. [ linkie (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=1346.140) ] Maybe someone looking at this forum can answer his query.
---Gaston
Quote from: Gaston on June 25, 2007, 08:04:06 PM
The Tea Cat asked an interesting question in his MD I thought I'd link it here, in case someone might know the answer. He wanted to know why farm/agriculture produces so much traffic. [ linkie (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=1346.140) ] Maybe someone looking at this forum can answer his query.
IIRC, Tropod wanted to change that once, but it also affected the other traffic (I can't remember if it was only the truck automata or the entire road vehicles). Maybe someone can play with the values in the NAM Automata Plugin to get some better values.
Here's what I posted to TTC in his MD:
QuoteTTC,
The amount of trucks produced by any industrial lot (Ag, ID, IM, IHT) is a percentage of the jobs at that particular lot. In the Traffic Exemplar (either the default or one of the NAM ones), there is a property called "Freight Traffic Scaling Factor" which has the description of "Percentage of industrial bldg. population that will generate freight trips" in the Reader and, I think, SC4Tool when you are modding. The default value of this property is "0.05". The game seems to round up every value to the next whole number. If it rounds some down, I haven't investigated this so I wouldn't know.
Now, your farm in your picture is adding up two numbers to get the "Building Population" value. It's adding the 10 jobs of the main building + 1 job/field tile this particular case (Jez Knight Acres = 10 jobs). So the more field tiles you have attached to the farm, the more trucks will be created by the farm.
Farley's Foundry has 9 jobs and with the calculation of 0.05*9, it should produce 0.45 trucks (mathematically). Since you can't have a partial truck, it rounds it up to 1 truck. If you add more industrial zoning for the non-agricultural industry near Farley's, you should see the number of trucks go up as the zone fills up with lots.
In regards to the number of trucks during the day and night, it is dependent on the actual game hour (0-24). The numbers of vehicles at the different times of day are controlled with the Automata Tuning file (either game default or one of the NAM files). There are several "clock" properties which control the number of vehicles that appear on the roadways at the different times of day.
The one for the trucks has 34 Reps (or 17 pairs) for the values. The first value of each pair is the time of day and the second value of each pair is the percentage (-1 to 0 to 1) of the traffic amount. The time of day has to be in 24 hour time (0-24) and decimal values are allowed (ie 9.5). A negative value for the traffic amount percentage indicates returning traffic. Don't try this with the freight traffic (trucks or trains) as the game only has the freight traffic leaving a city. It seems to be a hard-coded thing with the EXE.
I hope this information is useful....
-Jan
Hello Swamper.
One can add custom vehicles to a lot. Does this overwrite the Maxis vehicles that the lot spawns? Or merely add custom vehciles to the already existing Maxis ones?
@jmyers: The custom vehicles are added via an additional occupant group. I don't know if the default automata is also controlled by the occupant groups, but if you'd remove those (i. e. "I-R"), the lot won't work properly anymore. So you can only add custom automata, but not remove the default one (adding a museum OG to a building automatically makes it spawning school buses, for instance).
@Jan: Thanks for the insightful information. So I guess if I lower the value of the property you mentioned, I could lower the amount of trucks that is produced? I wouldn't mind if it also lowers the truck output in the industrial areas (I think it's highly unrealistic to have "truck traffic jams" there as well). Trucks in rural areas are somewhat unrealistic anyway, at least from what I am used to here in Germany. Usually, you only see tractors with trailers that transport the crops to the nearest mill or silo facility. One notable exception are trucks that transport sugar beets, since they go directly to the sugar factories.
Quote from: Andreas on June 26, 2007, 06:57:07 AM
I wouldn't mind if it also lowers the truck output in the industrial areas (I think it's highly unrealistic to have "truck traffic jams" there as well).
Agreed - I think there are waaaaay too many trucks spawned, both in industrial and farming areas.
About farms - what would be happen if I would use Traffic Control Addon by Frolius 666 (http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=14799) ? There is a street tile with dirt sidewalks in it. How it should be placed to remove the "Too Much Trucks" effect?
About industry - I used the BRF UrbanLegend Traffic Control Pack (http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=3199) to block freight traffic on roads and enforce it on railroads. My reason was no "too much trucks on roads", but "too little freight trains on railroads". But I think it can be a solution in this case. It is more realistic to have more freight trains instead of many trucks IMO, and I think the "Freight Traffic Scaling Factor" is different for trains. Improve me if I'm wrong.
Quote from: Ennedi on June 26, 2007, 07:38:27 AM
About farms - what would be happen if I would use Traffic Control Addon by Frolius 666 (http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=14799) ? There is a street tile with dirt sidewalks in it. How it should be placed to remove the "Too Much Trucks" effect?
About industry - I used the BRF UrbanLegend Traffic Control Pack (http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=3199) to block freight traffic on roads and enforce it on railroads. My reason was no "too much trucks on roads", but "too little freight trains on railroads". But I think it can be a solution in this case. It is more realistic to have more freight trains instead of many trucks IMO, and I think the "Freight Traffic Scaling Factor" is different for trains. Improve me if I'm wrong.
oooh, interesting.... I am downloading.. is there something similar to optimize bus traffic, because normally.. just WAAAAAAy to many buses are spawned.
@ Gaston Thank you mate for linking my question here :thumbsup: kudos to you on the way &apls
@ Swamper.
Wow what a quick and very informative answer. &apls &apls
Thank you very much. :thumbsup:
@ everybody else - I thank you for giving me ideas on how to solve my little problem. I didn't know there was a no freight truck mod ( I've found it got it and will try it out )
Wow generated a good little discussion there I'll put the kettle on ;D
:satisfied:
TTC
Quote from: Andreas on June 26, 2007, 06:57:07 AM
@jmyers: The custom vehicles are added via an additional occupant group. I don't know if the default automata is also controlled by the occupant groups, but if you'd remove those (i. e. "I-R"), the lot won't work properly anymore. So you can only add custom automata, but not remove the default one (adding a museum OG to a building automatically makes it spawning school buses, for instance).
Not necessarily, Andreas. Some of the custom freight trucks I have created are added to the existing Occupant Groups for freight trucks. So adding additional custom vehicles won't cause the problem of excessive freight traffic. It is the automata and traffic exemplars that the game uses that affect the numbers of the trucks.
The default freight trucks use OG's 0x4204 (Freight Truck) and 0x4222 (Semi Truck). My custom trucks use the same OG's so they will appear with the default trucks. The only way to reduce the numbers of the trucks is to edit the two files that I have mentioned earlier. There is also a "density curve" property for some of the various traffic types in one of the two files that affect the automata. I have no idea how these work though.
-Jan
QuoteTTC:
@ Gaston Thank you mate for linking my question here kudos to you on the way
No problem mate. Glad to help. Had to take a cuppa with me over there but it was in a
to go cup. So it is all good. ;D
I assume ya'll have to go cups over there. You know, the styrofoam cups with the plastic lids that let all the tea dribble down the front of your shirt. LOL
Thanks for posting in here as well Swamper. I really appreciate it.
That is what is so great about this site. People are always ready to help out each other. It is very kool. :satisfied:
I really didn't understand the answer but that's okay, I'm sure some one does. :D
Gaston
Go for it!!! The reason I went looking for mods was for the farms. Can't wait to see what you develop next.