Inter-city connections with NAM (using RD6 but I guess common)

[dnc77]

Hi there!

I'm finding it difficult getting NWM RH-6 connections working as expected across cities.
To set up the connections, on both cities; I use the correct (I would think) process of:
a) Extend one RH-6 from one city to the edge to create a neighbourhood connection 'request' which I accept.
b) Put an RH-6 neighborhood connection item at the edge of the street on top of the established connection.

I would think the sims have reasons to drive to the other city so I am not really to worried about that.
What basically happens is that the sims complain about commute and effectively don't go to work to the other city.

Freight trucks from the industrial city to my residential city travel ok.
Some sims (at one point I had 6000 actually) decide to walk along RH-6 to the other city.
They actually prefer to walk along the wide RH-6 over long distances than to take a care.

I've given them ample time to realize that driving is more efficient.


If the RH-6 connection is replaced by a normal avenue connection, everything works fine.
Attaching some screen shots of a simple city I am trying to just give an idea.

I really would love to see this working but couldn't get it moving.
Any help; would be greatly appreciated.

Am using NAM35.

Thank you!

Duncan

Edited title for the sake of clarity. -Tarkus/Admin

[APSMS]

I think some users have had this problem before but identifying it and/or reproducing it reliably is difficult.

For not the best advice I can offer you is the solution that you already came up with, namely that replacing the RD-6 with an Avenue works just fine.

FWIW, you only accept to create the neighbor connection in one city, right? And then from the other side you simply drag out the road stubs, place a starter to convert back to RD-6, and then plop the connection piece over the neighbor connection w/o bulldozing anything more?

The pedestrians are using the road because ped paths are bi-directional, and therefore valid commute routes, whereas a 2-tile road with an improperly setup neighbor connection won't be because the game always needs an immediately valid return path; it cannot depend on having a possible connection somewhere else on the border which is why OWR can't make neighbor connections.

All commutes to neighboring cities are classified as LONG so in theory if you can get your Sims to walk to the city edge and they all have valid jobs in the next city over, it shouldn't be a huge problem.

As another work around you can always use buses located near the edge of the city tile to speed up their walk. If the neighbor connection isn't working properly then the Sims will always end up walking across the border but can then take the bus to their workplace once on the other side. Also, in theory, Sims can walk across an entire large city tile to get to work if necessary. They might not be happy about it, but the simulator gives them that flexibility.

[Tarkus]

There is an issue with the NWM's neighbor connectors, but we presently have no idea why, as the pathing trickery used is virtually identical to what the RHW uses.  My working theory is it's actually related to network speed, but it's going to require a lot of further investigation, and probably a new implementation.

The new NWM documentation will actually advise that users convert to Avenue for the TLA-5, RD-4, and RD-6 neighbor connections instead of using the NC pieces.  With the triple-tile NWM networks (TLA-7 and AVE-6), the options are to transition to the RHW-6C and use its NC piece, or to grin and bear it as traffic collects in the center tile at the city edge (as the center tile does create a fully-functioning neighbor connection).

I've also gone ahead and edited the title to specify RD-6, as RH-6 could be confused for an RHW network.

-Alex

[Wiimeiser]

Is it specifically this one instance that makes connections stop working? It doesn't happen if a road terminates at a road or street running right against the edge of the tile? No other puzzle piece causes it?

[dnc77]

Hi All;

Hope you are all well; Thanks for all the feedback!

@APSMS: Thanks that clarifies so much actually! The connection is being done by doing the same thing in both cities. The connector is placed on both ends and I might not have needed a starter as it's done on the other end. I will try your recommendation as well as I don't think I tried your exact approach. I'll give it a shot - thanks heaps! Do I understand correctly that you think the connection is made right because the peds are walking across and can walk back? Also, thanks for clarifying that all external city jobs are marked as long! That helped me understand a lot of things! Thanks! Would they have a specific industry they go to or is it just that if they cross the city; it does not matter where their job is any more so that the distance won't matter on the other side of the city! I have just an industrial city with all the people from one city going there for their job. So would it matter if the employer is at the other end of the city?

@Alex: Thanks! I must have made a mistake with the title myself! Thanks for fixing it!
Interesting you mention network speed because the scenario above is just two empty city with two big roads! The speed should be reliable in that instance. Interestingly enough; in terms of speed, I struggle to understand how I have a few roads that handle about 4000 (or more) cars but then, as they get to 2000-3000, their traffic is red! I don't understand that... It's also interesting how freight manages to get through but cars don't. I've seen similar oddities in the game so I'm still a bit unsure in this space... So I'm understanding the RHW-6C works? I can try transition to that perhaps...


@Wiimeiser: Thanks. This is just a sample reproduction of my actual cities. The scenario is similar in that I have an RD-6 crossing different cities! THanks


Thanks all for the feedback!
Love this game!

[APSMS]

All jobs in neighboring cities can be as far away from the border as necessary, provided there's adequate transportation (walking counts).

The Sims will pick specific jobs that they want, but it's generalized mostly as Neighboring city has X number of valid jobs, send Y number of commuters across and we'll employ them as needed.
Then when you enter the neighboring city the simulator then actually finds jobs for the Sims. If you don't have enough, the Sims should either continue onwards to another city where you do have the jobs, or the simulator will update the information at the border indicating that there aren't enough jobs and there shouldn't be so many commuters.

For whatever reason the process isn't very accurate, and you end up with discrepancies and left over commuters, etc.

But yes, once the Sim reaches the edge of the city, it's considered to have found a job that is a long distance away, and it doesn't (mostly) matter where in the neighboring city that job actually is.

As for the connector being placed on both ends, YES, it is actually needed, although as Alex stated we've been getting reports that they aren't working as intended recently, for unknown reasons.
I was concerned that you might be bulldozing the stubs in the neighboring city to redraw the connection but having said that I realize it's sort of a ridiculous thing to claim? Since if you bulldoze one side it would show on the other city and then you'd have to redraw everything again and it's just a big loop.

So, to CLARIFY, you need connector pieces on both sides of the connection. It's just that you only need to drag the network across the border to make the initial seed connection once. Then you can just plop the connection on both neighbor connection tiles (once in each city), though of course I'd recommend that you plop the connection piece in the second city after you drag out the stubs a bit and convert it to the right network using starters just to make sure that everything looks like it should.

[Wiimeiser]

Has this only been a problem recently? If so, it could be connected to the workaround SC4Fix uses. It's a stretch, but a possibility. (Specifically it would affect Road specifically due to it being the default network)

I wonder if cars are even allowed to turn on an arrow tile at all... I'll have to investigate...

[eagle74]

I have several TLA-5 connections in the region I am currently working on, & they appear to be functioning as intended.

[Wiimeiser]

That's probably because they're bidirectional in a sort of way. What does the route query show?

[Tarkus]

That's probably because they're bidirectional in a sort of way. What does the route query show?

Having made the NWM NC pieces, there's very little difference between the RD-6 and TLA-5 pieces.  I have also gotten the TLA-5 piece to work, but traffic volume increased upon replacing the TLA-5 NC with a standard Avenue connection, so there is something deficient with the pieces at the very least.

The game sees the Avenue as a two-tile network, so it isn't bothered by the fact that traffic isn't entering and existing on the same tile--it knows to look right next door.  That limitation is the reason why NC pieces are required in the first place for many multi-tile override networks.  The RHW NCs have no real problems, but the additional lateral movement along Road-based NCs (which is what the NWM NCs are) seems to be enough to negatively impact flow, and network speed would seem to be the variable.

Likely, this is going to require second round of research into how neighbor connections operate.

Duncan, in the interim, I'd say a transition to Avenue would be the best solution for the RD-6 situation.  The RHW-6C is a triple-tile network, instead of a dual-tile network like the RD-6, so you'd have to go through a rather convoluted series of transitions to get to it.  The RHW-6S, however, could potentially work (dual-tile with overhangs), and can directly transition to the RD-6.

-Alex

[eagle74]

Here is the morning & evening commutes on the same connection. 

[dnc77]

Hi Guys,

Thanks so much for the feedback.

@APSMS: Thanks a lot - very informative...
@eagle74: Thanks - I use TLA5 often, I'll give them a try too...
@Tarkus: Seems like since freight and peds work, I don't see why the cars and buses shouldn't. I think I agree with you and in my eyes it seems the connection is actually established but somehow, it will/may be picked up later by cars and buses. Might have one interlink set up to see how it works in the future.

This is a great game which I'll keep re-visiting. Incidentally, is NAM a separate program which modifies simcity files or does it load simcity libraries?
I'm a C/C++ programmer and am happy to help in my own time. I am actually looking for a plugin to support labelling of sections of the city. The built in label features do not look the best on the city. The street labels are great but I heard they can disappear. I'm looking for something which allows me to give names to streets/sections of the city which is not visible unless you have a mouseover or something of the likes.

Anyway - thank you all for the feedback!


Regards

Duncan

[APSMS]

Duncan,

Freight works because it doesn't actually go anywhere once it reaches the city border. It goes away and never ever comes back. It's exported to a fictional consumer at the city limits.

Pedestrians use the road because sidewalk paths are always bidirectional, so Sims that walk across are always guaranteed a way back home.

The issue is with roads, since technically the NWM networks are single-tile networks stretched across 2 or 3 tiles and therefore the game lets you make the connection initially but doesn't actually recognize it as a valid travel route until you plop the connector piece.

If you drag just one side of the road (outgoing) to the city border, and DON'T plop a NC, you'll see that freight and walking Sims will still use the route, for the reasons described above.

The NAM is not a separate program. It's just a mod using game libraries, meaning that the game limitations that you're familiar with are very much in place with the NAM, and most of the NAM dev's work involves creative use of the game's logic rules regarding transit. Starter pieces, for instance, are dummy intersections that trigger unique behavior in the game's traffic code, and they were exploited to create all of the various networks that we're familiar with.
Although it's in a legal grey area, work being done on the .DLL modding front involves C/C++ I think, along with knowledge of GZCOM. I believe this work was being done by Simmaster07 but he's been very busy as of late, and my understanding is that the work is fairly dense since there's no documentation and MAXIS did stuff in non-standard ways.

The NAM appears in a separate installer due to the incredible number of options. The only real piece of software there is the controller compiler which is needed to make sure all of your selected options work together. No separate NAM program is run when you play the game.

[dnc77]

Thanks APSMS

Yes you did mention the pedestrians bit earlier on... Thanks...
Cool - this makes a lot of sense... Thanks for your help!!


Regards

Duncan

[mgb204]

If you want to try your hand at modding the source code, the only proper solution is .dll modding, creating/distribution of such a plug-in module is not a legal grey area. But depending on local laws, simply extracting the game's source code so you can work on such a thing may be. Either way, if that's something you think you might want to do, take a look here, as Simmaster07 has documented and open-sourced the code that allows the .dlls to function, which is where you'll need to start.

[dnc77]

Thanks mgb204!

[dnc77]

Hi All,

Just letting you know I found a partial solution.
I simply made the connection without any connector pieces and it partially worked.

Partially, because on the other side, I don't see any buses and not as many cars; yet the connection seems to be made.

Any ideas?

Please note image attached... (buses.jpg)!


Thanks

duncan

[mgb204]

It won't work without the neighbour connection pieces. Because each tile only has traffic in one direction, so whilst it may look OK, it will never function as intended.

[dnc77]

Thanks!
Am using a transition to RHW6S and using RHW connections. I think that's the better alternative to go!

Thanks a lot..

Duncan