Is there a way to turn down the penalties for travel when moving from one region to the next???
For example, let's say a large grid city is mostly residential, can the adjacent regions be commercial and industrial without the 50% commute addition when moving??? that goes for rail and subway.. and road should be 25% at most for the slowest.
Why any penalty?
Completely unrealistic. Unless the simulator doesn't add the additional time spent in the new city.
Quote from: flame1396 on October 16, 2007, 07:44:01 AM
Why any penalty?
Completely unrealistic. Unless the simulator doesn't add the additional time spent in the new city.
I am not sure what you meant by that, but here is what I meant.. when leaving one region and going into the next.. there is a penalty added unto the time travelled which means many times your sim will not get to his jo and a no job zot appears over his home... I am asking if it can be significantly reduced for the transitions from one zone to the next.. at least for adjacent zones.. because it makes growth very difficult without job multipliers and the like.
The 'penalty' is there to simulate time traveled from the boarder to their job, as the simulator doesn't carry that information between cities.
Quote from: Diggis on October 16, 2007, 08:47:34 AM
The 'penalty' is there to simulate time traveled from the boarder to their job, as the simulator doesn't carry that information between cities.
Are we sure there's really a static penalty?
@mott, I am sure there is a penalty... I just dont remember where. Unless I saw a post about it, there has been soooo much information that has passed through these eyes.
OK... My take on this...
The penatly for crossing boarders is there for a reason. When sims goto a new city to find jobs, they are do not continue to "actively" look for a job in that city. What happens is, in a purely residential tile there are no jobs so the jobs are supplied by a neighboring tile. But these are not "real" jobs, they are fake jobs representing the real jobs within that city tile. When the sims reach teh city border, for all intensive purposes they are considered as employed. It doesnt matter whether they actually go and reach a job in the neighboring tile or not, they are still considered employed.
Now, what if you had a main Residential area in a large city tile and on two neighboring medium city tiles you had CO and I? Well if your downtown busniess district was centered in the middle of the tile and the Industrial was covering most of the other tile. And if your highway connection from the R to the CO city was close to the border between the C and the I cities with another connection that was a shorter distance compared to driving to the CO jobs downtown. Those sims are now almost considered "new sims" what will happen is it will recommpute the path cycle and attempt to look for jobs again, if it finds it is faster to goto the I city then they will. This is how eternal commuters start to become apparent. Now, because these sims are sorta, somewhat considered new sim they screw around with the demand, and it means that some sims will then take up two jobs or 3 jobs or more depending on the number of times they cross a city border. This is why eternal commuters are BAD because they will circle and circle and circle, never finding a job but eating your supplied work force. With too many of the same wealth sims circling, it causes the demand for the wealth of sim to be -6000 forever, almost, there are ways to get it back but very annoying and difficult.
How does the Inter-city Border cost come into this? Well it add a cost which MAXIS really intended for it to simulate the sims reaching their jobs in the adjacent city, well it also deters sims from wanting to cross the city border for new jobs. In my opinion if we want to diminish the effects of "eternal commuters" we have to raise this Cost Value, but first we must find it.
The algorithm is stupid. If SC4RH is a simulation of a real model, let's look at a real model.
How far will you travel for a good job? what about traffic? what about trains and subways?
Even with the modified pathfinding, they are still pretty stupid!!! they still take less efficient modes of transportation, and the whole R$$$ refuse to ride subway/train is ridiculous.
Sometimes this game is extremely frustrating.
QuoteThe algorithm is stupid.
Nice and constructive... lol
Anyway yep thats why we admire the NAM team soo much, they make it so much more realistic
Quote from: sobol on October 16, 2007, 12:49:37 PM
Sometimes this game is extremely frustrating.
Tss, tss. See it as challenging
LOL, only you sir wouanagaine ever sees it as "challenging" and you probably don' t at that lol
;D
I am not admonishing anyone. The NAM and other mod peeps are amazing. It's just frustrating... um, I meant challenging. I wish the algorithm was better, that's all.
Maybe you'll be one of those people who'll find this (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=2665.0) useful.
It might be a good solution. But it seems to only be dealing with travel within the city, as for the region... I don't know.
Quote from: sobol on October 16, 2007, 03:46:09 PM
I am not admonishing anyone. The NAM and other mod peeps are amazing. It's just frustrating... um, I meant challenging. I wish the algorithm was better, that's all.
The algoirithm is the best one that can exist. Given sufficient information, it can and will find an optimum path every time, on the first try, and do it in the minimum RAM and CPU usage possible for *any* algorithm. The A* implementation is beautiful. The only problem is, it looks to me like it was re-tuned at some point, by someone who never sat through a Calculus class in his life, but decided to "improve" it by making the heuristic "bigger" so it would "run faster" anyway.
Quote from: mott on October 17, 2007, 02:12:56 PM
The algoirithm is the best one that can exist. Given sufficient information, it can and will find an optimum path every time, on the first try, and do it in the minimum RAM and CPU usage possible for *any* algorithm. The A* implementation is beautiful. The only problem is, it looks to me like it was re-tuned at some point, by someone who never sat through a Calculus class in his life, but decided to "improve" it by making the heuristic "bigger" so it would "run faster" anyway.
Can you fix it?
Here is my beef....
These stupid, just like myself sims prefer to travel slowly... they hate the train and subway... commercial vehicles would rather take a traffic impacted tiny road instead of a two lane avenue, or a frieght train which is shortest with the least amount of traffic...
Don't even get me started on buses... these stupid sims couldn't find a job of their life depended on it.. even if it is across the street.. some of their trips are mind boggling...
Quote from: sobol on October 19, 2007, 10:40:36 AM
Here is my beef....
These stupid, just like myself sims prefer to travel slowly... they hate the train and subway... commercial vehicles would rather take a traffic impacted tiny road instead of a two lane avenue, or a frieght train which is shortest with the least amount of traffic...
Don't even get me started on buses... these stupid sims couldn't find a job of their life depended on it.. even if it is across the street.. some of their trips are mind boggling...
Go check out the Commute Engine Tuning Thread. Mott and I have been re-tuning the Pathfinding Engine to work a little more realistically, now you still have to make sure the shortest physical path isnt using a lower speed street, but the Pathfinding Engine we are working on will prevent overcongested routes and spread traffic out more evenly amoungst the city's roads. We are not ready to release anything, but there are a couple of pre-alpha files posted in the thread for testing purposes, you could downloaded these and check them out to see how they effect your road systems. But beware these are not intended for widespread use yet as there are no formal tests done with them, just experimental tests.
Quote from: jplumbley on October 19, 2007, 10:54:46 AM
Go check out the Commute Engine Tuning Thread. Mott and I have been re-tuning the Pathfinding Engine to work a little more realistically, now you still have to make sure the shortest physical path isnt using a lower speed street, but the Pathfinding Engine we are working on will prevent overcongested routes and spread traffic out more evenly amoungst the city's roads. We are not ready to release anything, but there are a couple of pre-alpha files posted in the thread for testing purposes, you could downloaded these and check them out to see how they effect your road systems. But beware these are not intended for widespread use yet as there are no formal tests done with them, just experimental tests.
I will wait for an official release.. but I am definately interested.
Quote from: jplumbley on October 19, 2007, 10:54:46 AM
you still have to make sure the shortest physical path isnt using a lower speed street,
It'll figure that out eventually. When a city is first starting, the "a02" pathfinding prefers straight-line routes just because there's no other traffic so Sims can ignore the speed limits. Once the city starts to mature and congestion slows the traffic down toward the speed limits, the pathfinder gets smarter and smarter about avoiding the slower routes. The more trips and the more congestion on the map, the better it gets at finding the time-fastest, not distance-shortest, path. And the less CPU/RAM needed to do it, too.
The "a01" file I attached was a bit of a botch; that's why the "a02" followed so shortly behind it. My a02 file should be quite safe in existing cities - it's roughly equiivalent to a NAM "better pathfinding, 2x capacity, 2.5x commute" mod, if such a thing existed. Plus it makes buses and trucks hate driving on streets. They'll do it, but they'll avoid it if they can. The other neat thing about a02 is that you see real-life commute times on the Commute Time graph, but this is just a graph display hack, it doesn't mess with the underlying game engine. If you want to play with it, it should be quite safe in existing cities.
Avoid my a01, it eats too much CPU compared to a02.
JPlumbley's attachment is an interesting alternative, just be warned that it doesn't support RHW/ANT networks, and probably won't do anything to fix problem with Sims not using bus stops that are behind them. It does have a beautiful congestion/speed curve, which I "borrowed" from him mostly unchanged. ;)
Guys, I will wait for you all to work out the bugs and download an official release... there has to be a way to force the retards to take a train/subway when it is the shortest and quickest path.. especially when a little walking is involved... isn't that better than never making it to the job due to distance/traffic??
They also need to stop using slow ass roads when they can use an avenue.. I haven't even put in freeways yet.. those are even worse.
What a bunch of stupid, just like myself sims.
Quote from: sobol on October 19, 2007, 05:38:18 PM
There has to be a way to force the retards to take a train/subway when it is the shortest and quickest path.. especially when a little walking is involved... isn't that better than never making it to the job due to distance/traffic?? They also need to stop using slow ass roads when they can use an avenue.. I haven't even put in freeways yet.. those are even worse.
All you have to do is use one of the NAM's "perfect pathfinding" plugins - there's one that's just the default game settings, with your requests satisfied. It's perfect every time. If you've got a modern computer, give it a try. It should work every time, even in the most pathological cases. By now it has millions of hours of play-testing behind it.
I am using it... and they are still dumber than dirt.
Quote from: sobol on October 20, 2007, 12:01:07 AM
I am using it... and they are still dumber than dirt.
If you're running one of the 2x, 5x, or 10x speed versions, try one of the Maxis-speed "Perfect" versions with the longer commute instead. If you were playing with 10x Speed then use the 10x Commute instead, and so on. I'll bet they get smarter and not much else changes... just a hunch. You can always not save.
Quote from: mott on October 19, 2007, 06:23:10 PM
All you have to do is use one of the NAM's "perfect pathfinding" plugins - there's one that's just the default game settings, with your requests satisfied. It's perfect every time. If you've got a modern computer, give it a try. It should work every time, even in the most pathological cases. By now it has millions of hours of play-testing behind it.
I am, I am using the perfect pathfinding.. and still I find weird routes and completely insane pathing... if I thought like that, I would never find work either.
Is there a way to force R$ to use rail/bus/subway and then road? R$$ subway/rail/road/bus? R$$$ Subway/rail/road/bus? etc... force them to use their brains and if they won't then mandate which they use first?? and another killer.. freight.. what da hell.. why use roads when the rail is faster and unobstructed and shortest as well?
Things like this.
@sobol Actually I think there is some sort of thing that can make the chances higher of how the sims choose their routes. But, we dont know much about it and how it works yet, but maybe we can learn. To be honest though I think you should atleast give one of the files Mott and I have made a test just to see how it will affect your city. If you give it a test then you can give us some much needed feedback on what else you would like to see or if there are some things we can do to make it better,
Quote from: sobol on October 20, 2007, 09:40:47 AM
I am, I am using the perfect pathfinding.. and still I find weird routes and completely insane pathing... if I thought like that, I would never find work either.
One of the fast-speed versions, by chance? I'm just trying to isolate... I actually believe everyone who says the NAM causes abandonment problems. Now that I know how this game really works, it wouldn't surprise me at all.
The "Nx-Speed" mods aren't being carried through the rest of the simulators. The process that decides what to build on a zone, is not aware that commutes are faster. The result can be development-stalling, and inappropriate building patterns that lead to serial-abandonment issues. Sims can go 10x farther, but the zone developer process does not know that. It is making optimal decisions based on junk data. Then people install the "demand mod" to make buildings grow anyway, and then the "abandonment mod" for when they inevitably go dark. And then all the simulators are being fed garbage and nothing makes any sense.
This is not how one solves the original problem of making sure Sims can get to their jobs. Speed mods also utterly defeat the pathfinding improvements that they are designed to make.
Max Commute Time is what you change to make sure the Sims reach work.. The other simulators *will* notice this and act rationally in accordance with it. Do not change the speeds from the Maxis-supplied range, you don't need to, and you don't want to. If you properly carry a speed change all the way through all the simulators affected, you arrive at the same result as if you'd simply upped the Max Commute Time and been done with it.
The "2x/5x/10xSpeed" versions should not exist.
5x Commute is a *very* good choice though. The internals of this game are still working at SC3K scale, 255 tiles = 16 km. Raising the Max Commute by 4x, makes the simulators match the visual scale being presented to the user. The game gets a whole lot more intuitive, and playable, as "desirability" and "commute distance" is considered more at a neighborhood scale, consistent with other aspects of gameplay. 5x Commute is close enough for the magic to happen.
As a bonus, at "normal" speed, the "perfect" or "better' pathfinding actually works.
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Quote
Is there a way to force R$ to use rail/bus/subway and then road? R$$ subway/rail/road/bus? R$$$ Subway/rail/road/bus? etc... force them to use their brains and if they won't then mandate which they use first?? and another killer.. freight.. what da hell.. why use roads when the rail is faster and unobstructed and shortest as well?
Yes, yes, and yes. Last problem's fixed when you use a "perfect pathfinding" mod at "normal" speed.
Be aware that industry will try to ship freight to the neighbor connection that is physically closest to the industry, will accept any other connection to that neighbor it finds along the way, will travel all over the map to do this rather than choose another neighbor. If it is forced to accept a different neighbor, the player is penalized.
QuoteThe "Nx-Speed" mods aren't being carried through the rest of the simulators. The process that decides what to build on a zone, is not aware that commutes are faster. The result can be development-stalling, and inappropriate building patterns that lead to serial-abandonment issues.
That seems to explain the problems I have had with developing the last bit of a large city tile in my previous cities. Maybe your pathfinding mod will fix this issue, and finally, I don't have to artificially stimulate demand (ie. planting trees for desirability) in order to get things to grow.
Quote from: Shadow Assassin on October 20, 2007, 06:01:05 PM
That seems to explain the problems I have had with developing the last bit of a large city tile in my previous cities. Maybe your pathfinding mod will fix this issue, and finally, I don't have to artificially stimulate demand (ie. planting trees for desirability) in order to get things to grow.
I sure hope so. The NAM's pathfinding-option tree needs pruning.
You don't need 50 options, you need one that makes the game work intuitively. And maybe a few capacity mods - properly carried through - to support the CAM and NWM-related adjustments. There's really only one correct balance point for the rest of it all. If the version you're testing allows all the Sims to get to their jobs on most maps, we're already very close to it.
One baseline plugin that works well will solve so many ongoing support issues... I strongly urge dropping the speed-increased versions in the next release, and cautioning against their continued use, no matter how the rest of this work plays out though.
Whoa...... lots of info there.. good info.. when my brain works I will read it closely and figure it out..... and add input if I can... help even.
So, what I am trying to do is 5x commute length and normal speeds and perfect pathfinding, and the rest I can get rid of?
Quote from: sobol on October 21, 2007, 10:48:20 AM
So, what I am trying to do is 5x commute length and normal speeds and perfect pathfinding, and the rest I can get rid of?
I'd recommend cleaning out any demand mods and such, and trying the Normal-Speed, 5x-Commute, "Better" Pathfinding version first. It's the closest to what the rest of the game is expecting.
I'm looking at it like this: Everything I learned from my brief interaction with wouzingame (sp?) says that the simulator's algorithms *are* "perfect." They reach an optimum decision based on the information presented to them, every time.
Therefore: "Bad" decisions are caused by "bad" information. Feeding in more lies (like 10x speed increases) will not correct anything, ever. That can only cause more problems.
Now, the following information in the game as supplied is wrong, and is causing most of people's problems:
1) The "pathfinding heuristic" is set too high. Will Wright did this intentionally, so the game would still play well on "worst-case" maps with many diagonal streets and obstacles (like rivers) preventing straight-line paths. The problem is, it doesn't play as well in the more common case of a reasonably-sane city. The same adjustment made to avoid penalizing stupidity, makes it fail to reward intelligence. [The "better pathfinding" has the best value of any out there, including the default, IMO.]
2) The internal calculations about distance were not scaled to match the "new" SC4 scale of 16m/tile. This is easily corrected by simply increasing Max Commute by 4 (the other simulators refer to this value, so they re-scale themselves also). The problem is, the Civic buildings are also SC3K scale, in effect radius vs. cost. They need to be either 4x larger in effect radius, or 4x cheaper to compensate, to match what the demand simulator will then expect of them. "Larger" is probably what was intended. The 5x Commute is close enough to 4x that it works well.
3) None of the default transit stations has a "Entry Cost," which makes them take zero time to traverse. Sims walk through bus stops as a result, and prefer to get off the bus, walk through, and get back on, rather than remain on the bus. This is just the pathfinder making the best choice (teleport!) from the information presented. The solution to this is in the bus stops, not in the pathfinder.
4) Sims preferring transit are penalized if they must drive (their trips actually take longer), and I think the other way around to a lesser extent. The problem here is, it randomly changes the "commute time" guesses that the zone developer makes, and we need those as accurate as possible. I see what they were trying to do with this, but it ends up just producing inexplicable no-job zots that confuse end-users because they have no way of knowing what exactly is causing the problem.
Just fixing those small things, to improve the information fed to the simulators, improves gameplay so much that it would probably solve 90% of the problems people have.
Mott: I will make those changes as you mentioned... the only MODS I am running are the double/quadruple of water pipe radius.. and low dilapidation on buildings.. because it was abandoning them like crazy. I am going to get rid of the extra stuff on the pathfinding and speeds that comes with nam and leave it under "Normal" "5x commute", and "perfect pathfinding". I hope that works.
Should I try the other one you guys mentioned 02a or whatever it was...
Update #1: I switched to the prescribed conditions, and so far so good. The no jobs zots that plagued certain regions disappeared. I am going to have to check the whole map to see if it's good all over. I will also start monitoring traffic patterns to see how they were affected.
Quote from: sobol on October 22, 2007, 08:16:19 AM
Update #1: I switched to the prescribed conditions, and so far so good. The no jobs zots that plagued certain regions disappeared.
:thumbsup: Thanks for the report. Looks like another alpha-test is imminent, then.
This topic is about "DISTANCE PENALTIES" so I thought I'd report back findings so far:
When a Sim first commutes off-map, the traffic simulator doesn't know if he can really get to work in the other city or not, so it assigns a temporary "max commute" time to his trip. When you play the other city, the trip can finish. Then, when you play the first city again, that Sim's "commute time" will be replaced (with the amount of time it takes the Sim to reach the map edge? Note to self, check some Savegame files to see what it's keeping track of).
If there's a place where I can change that temporary "Maximum" assignment, I haven't found it yet. I'll change it to something more like 10 minutes if I ever do. Sounds a lot like an EXE constant to me, but I'm keeping an open mind about it.
Mott: Thank you so very much. I wish I knew how to give ya some positive rep.. you and the other fellows that responded definately deserve it.
:thumbsup:
My "no job zots" cleared within a few game months.. Passenger rail usage is up.. road traffic is down. Subway use and ferry use are off the charts. Even freight rails and their respective stations are being used. I am very happy. Your parameters work great. Now I will start testing to see where the sims go. I wish there was a way to have a "my sim" tracked through several different squares as they go to/fro work.
Now, the distance stuff... let me know how I can help.
Oh yea.. the 01a and 02a programs you all wrote.. do they help??
Quote
Oh yea.. the 01a and 02a programs you all wrote.. do they help??
I just upped an alpha "a03" that formalizes all the settings... if changing to the old NAM plugin I recommended helped, then the a03 will rock you. ;)
Best thing people can do is just verify that these things are working. Now that I know what the algorithms are doing, I can predict the behavior of them. Every report tells me how good/bad my predictions are so I can refine further. There isn't a lot of work; there are only about three numbers that really "tune" this thing. WHICH numbers, though... Intuitive guesswork, test results, and Calculus tell me that. :)
And if anyone finds the commute time being assigned to off-map trips; PLEASE tell me where the heck it is. I believe people who say they saw it, I just can't find it! &hlp
Mott: link me to the A03 download if you want me to try it and please include detailed instructions on what I need to do with it.
How are you with the custom airports (vers 2.2?)
Hey Mott...
Something weird happened. I hit the 750k people over three regions and all hell broke loose.. everyone completely forgot how to function... I got really mad and zapped the whole region.. I am starting over.. each time I get better at it.... but it was weird.
@Sobol: You didn't happen to take any pics before you nuked it, did you?
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Idea #1:
If you think the fast-speed demand problems are bad, wait 'till you find out what can happen across regions, even in a default game.
Imagine a region of 3 cities, A, B, and C.
All three are connected to each other in a triangle pattern, so there is a "loop," and Sims can travel A-B-C-A, or A-C-B-A.
Sims live in A. B and C each have 100 jobs available, for a total of 200 jobs in the region.
A Sim living in A looks at B, and sees 100 jobs there. City B also advertises access to the 100 jobs in C, for a total of 200 jobs.
The Sim then looks at C, and sees 100 jobs there. City C also advertises access to the 100 jobs in B, for a total of 200 jobs.
The demand simulator in city A has no way to know that those are the same 200 jobs both ways. It thinks there are 400 jobs, and acts accordingly.
(Think about what happens if there's a fourth city involved in the "loop," or what could happen across large regions!)
Neighbor deals do this, too. It's why garbage demands seem to grow out of control as a region develops - each city counts its garbage needs, plus the needs of all the other cities it touches. The other cities do the same thing. They have no way to know that they are double- or triple-counting the same garbage that the other city just counted.
Same goes for everything. There's no such thing as a "region," just a bunch of independent cities that have no idea where they are on the map in relation to each other, or how they are connected. There is no regional pathfinding at all.
The only way to beat it, is to intentionally lay out your regions so that there's only one way to travel between any two cities. If there's no "loop," there's no problem.
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Idea #2:
Remember, this game has its own process scheduler. (That's why it appears to the system as one process that uses 100% CPU, and it can't spread across cores.) The UI is always getting a certain (generous) amount of CPU time no matter what. The UI won't lag even if the rest of the game has overloaded and ground to a halt.
The game engine "freezes" at some point, and Sims "go crazy," no matter what - it's just a matter of how many Sims can move in before the amount of data to be calculated exceeds the CPU time available, and "Simulator Lag" kicks in. Then you start seeing no-car zots on new zones that clearly have road access, and new Sims abandon because they can't find their jobs. Once it takes more than six game-months before the pathfinder gets enough CPU time to calculate all the new trips, you've hit the wall. The inevitability of this should be obvious enough.
Computers are faster now, but they're not THAT much faster. You can keep cities small and have neat pathfinding mods and lots of complex custom BATs, and burn your extra clock time on that. Or you can go CAM-style and try to pack them in like Sardines, buring your CPU time that way, and let everything else rot. Can't do both. I don't care how fast your computer is. Not even NASA has the kind of power needed to fully simulate a city of 1.25 million people in real-time, with graphics.
Finally!! Someone else who understands.. Our computers are not built to do everything we want, we just physically cannot make everything work as it would in real life. We can do our best but at this point in time it will never happen.
You can either have 3D Graphics or a somewhat decent Simulator, not both. This is the reason SC: S and CU and CL all are 3D Games first with "crappy" simulators, because you cannot have both. 3D Games are the way of the future and in about 10 years you might see a City Simulation that has 3D Graphics of today with the Simulator of SC4 with a few fixes due to the learning curve. You wont see a computer that can handle both until that time, if we are lucky.
My thoughts exactly. :) The Maxis developers have done a pretty damn good job with SC4, actually. It's likely that only the tight deadlines that prevented them from doing all the fine-tuning for the simulator (and many other stuff as well), and it constantly amazes me what the community is able to do with a game that is almost five years old. :)
There's a lot of talent here... as soon as someone solves the size-of-electron and speed-of-light problems, we've got the true 3D SimCity everyone always wanted!
(Cue someone asking for a release date in 5... 4... 3...)
Interesting.. so I musn't despair then...
Okay... than what is the trick?? keep the cities to small or keep super demand up.. or minimize the connections???
Question: I'm reinstalling the NAM and I can't find the 5x commute, perfect/better pathfinding options. What gives?
DS this thread is for discussing distance penalties not for asking help in the future please post in the right thread which is this: http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=1444.0 mmmkay?? and the answer to your problem is at one point in the NAM installer, there is a place where u can select what features u want...make sure to go through allll of them. hope this helps and have a nice day :thumbsup:
1) sorry
2) i know it's in the NAM installer, i couldn't fingd the option. i went with the 10x commute down at the bottom anyhow.
anyway, i grabbed the NWM RealTimeTraffic mod a03 and i'm editing it to my preferences now. This should help with the distance penalties and no car zots, etc.