MEDIC! MEDIC! (or can ya teach me NOW!)

[SC4BOY]

Hehe.,.. pardon the "cutsie" title.. but all this is to lead to a question about SC4. As I play I get "alerts" about teachers being unhappy and/or doctors being unhappy. All of this is fine, but here is my question:

What controls the delay between when they first "express unhappiness" and when they strike? I find that I get one warning and almost before I can find the clinic and change the funding, they go on strike. This seems a bit crazy. They should give me  a month or so to find/change it.. (and I almost always play only on turtle speed)

While I'm typing, I'll ask another one: When I get the hospital or clinic alert about them being unhappy, there is a link to the problem building. It is almost always wrong.. it links to the wrong building. I have not done a study of this.. it may be that only certain warnings link wrong... I'll try to start tracking it to see if I can find out more details through more careful study.

Anyone have insight into these issues? I'm sure others must have been bothered by this over the years.

[wouanagaine]

I remember seeing properties which dictate the "strike" behavior, so I'm pretty sure you can mod them to better suit your gameplay style

Using Reader
Load the 'Virtual DAT'
click on the 'navigator' button ( the one with the netscape like icon )
browse the 'Simulator' category and try to mod the various properties that relate to 'strike' and 'funding'

About your second question, I've no answers and never had the same behavior on my game, it always point to the correct building.

Take care

[SC4BOY]

I remember seeing properties which dictate the "strike" behavior, so I'm pretty sure you can mod them to better suit your gameplay style

Using Reader
Load the 'Virtual DAT'
click on the 'navigator' button ( the one with the netscape like icon )
browse the 'Simulator' category and try to mod the various properties that relate to 'strike' and 'funding'

Thanks Wou.. I'll poke around to see what I can see..

About your second question, I've no answers and never had the same behavior on my game, it always point to the correct building.

This is odd.. this behaviour has been in my SC4 ever since the first install and with ZERO mods (ie "out of the box" install") .. I know there are two different "alert" notices and only one is wrong.. I'm guessing its off by a fixed offset .. like the one before or the one after ordinally  Thinking on it it almost has to be the 1st or one before.. otherwise it wouldn't point to one.. hmm.. . I'll have to run it a bit and identify more details.

Good to see you back on after your little rest..

[xxdita]

It sounds like maybe you're using Maxis clinics & hospitals with CAM?  It would seem that even one higher stage building going up could make the difference in the standard medical facilities, and rush the time between needing a funding boost and being completely overwhelmed. Maybe try the new SG civic lots, or the BSC Mercy Hospital http://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=121
Somy has a really nice, ultra capacity hospital on his site as well.
As for the second part of the question, no clue. I use RaphealNinja's Radical Ordinance v2.0 to give my medical centers a little boost, then just build when/where I see fit.

[SC4BOY]

I use a mix of lots.. and I'm not one of those folk who sneer at the maxis stuff.. I use it all where I think it fits..

It has occurred on any and all lots..

and I don't think its a "big surge" issue.. I am not a "megacity" type person and it happens in rather routine places.. I will admit I do trim the sliders often as I am averse to wasting money on them.. some people who use cash cheats just slam em all to wide open and let it run.. its not likely they will see it happen often.. but that only indicates that I probably see it more often.. thats not really the point. I think the situation would happen in either case (trimmed or full open) just less often in one case.

When the trigger happens (it isn't much either.. for example it may happen when you have it set to 200 patients and it goes to 220 or maybe less).. I've never looked.. I assume those triggers are set by parameters somewhere.. that's part of what Wou was encouraging me to look at..

I'm not actually complaining about anything here.. Ive played for 4 or 5 yrs now and just put up with it as part of the game.. but I'm curious about the mechanisms.

[SC4BOY]

hmmm.. I've documented this "pointing to the wrong building" .. in the past couple of weeks I've seen it occur 12 or 13 times and made pics.. I'll post em next time I get a chance.. I did learn one thing.. its NEVER the education, its ONLY the medical.. and I'd say it is probably very close to 50% of the time (I didn't count the ratio, but it was certainly not rare.. ) .. and it can be, asfaik ANY med building.. maxis or custom... and various lot'ers.. not just one..  I don't know why I thought it was also education... as I said, I'd just learned to take it as "part of playing the game" so wasn't really giving it much thought.

[xxdita]

Your first red alert notice should take you directly to the Health Budget Panel. If this isn't taken care of, then the second should take you to the building that is by that point seriously in need of a boost. Is it not linking to the budget view properly?

[HandsOn]

Actually I am with SC4Boy on his second question: I don't use CAM (yet) but once I have a mix of schools and hospitals (all non-Maxis stuff, except for the small libraries) I do get the error that a strike at clinic X is imminent, regardless of how much money is in the medical/educational kitty. Nowadays I almost always look at schools first, because that's usually where the problem lies, and invariably it is one of the smaller elementaries..wish I could figure out what causes this..

[xxdita]

Sounds like improper modding. Probably a radius set too high, the School Effectiveness vs age set incorrectly, School Population vs distance, or for hospitals, the radius, Hospital Effectiveness vs age, or the Hospital Population vs Distance.
Next time you catch it, let me know exactly which school(s) you're having this problem with (links would help), and I'll take a closer look.

[HandsOn]

Sounds like improper modding. Probably a radius set too high, the School Effectiveness vs age set incorrectly, School Population vs distance, or for hospitals, the radius, Hospital Effectiveness vs age, or the Hospital Population vs Distance.
Next time you catch it, let me know exactly which school(s) you're having this problem with (links would help), and I'll take a closer look.

I've sent you a pic (of the suddenly empty lot) once before, in your own thread. Unfortunately it does not help us because I cannot find the school on either STEX or LEX, and it's been too long (and I am going senile) to recall where I got it from..but I shall keep on trucking, eh, looking..

[xxdita]

Hmmm... Try using Reader to open up a city save file for which you've plopped that school. Arrange the files by entry, then check the Exemplars. All of the custom Plopables used in the city should show up there. Maybe we can track down the pesty lot.

[HandsOn]

Hmmm... Try using Reader to open up a city save file for which you've plopped that school. Arrange the files by entry, then check the Exemplars. All of the custom Plopables used in the city should show up there. Maybe we can track down the pesty lot.

Gee, seems a lot of effort at 5:22 am, still your perserverance is contagious -  and I think I found the file, because it just crashed SC4 Tool! But I'll try the reader next..

BTW: whose bright idea was it to "promote" me to councilman?? That don't come with any long hours and tons of pencil-pushing? Because they tried that on my last contract job - and I quit immediately..  

[CasperVg]

You get ranked as 'councilman' once you've made (i think) 150 posts.

[HandsOn]

You get ranked as 'councilman' once you've made (i think) 150 posts.

Whoa, there for a moment I thought I would actually have to do some work - as if tweaking cities wasn't keeping me busy enough..