Question about CAM RCI demands.

[HappyDays]

I can only assume this is a question for Mister Tage...

Is there a technical reason why it was decided 24k was going to be the maximum for most RCI demands (IH, CO$$$, etc)? Same with 24k being the maximum amount of growth that can occur at once in a given grouping. As in, did the game become unstable if larger numbers were used? Did unusual things occur? Or, hopefully, was it a balance mechanism to prevent a city from literally exploding with growth?

I ask because I'm thinking about increasing my CAM's demand maximums, to enable easier growth of the massive stage 10 industrials and stage 15 CO$$$ buildings. The largest are at 22k capacity, resulting in demand quickly getting dragged below due to the cap, and upping the maximum demand would be an easy way to circumvent the issue without plopping >lots< of cap busters. This seems grossly unnecessary, and it is, unless you're trying to build an ultimate city with 10+ million population and enough workforce for them all without out and out cheating. A goal I almost achieved with the 2.0 beta, but...fell short.

Another question: Would the Census Repository Facility correctly reflect the new numbers if I increase maximum demand from 24,000 to, say, 30,000?

[Indisguise]

It is possible as when originally doing chart tests for the Cam there were 12K 24K and 36 K and/or 48K believe that was the max  ( though to get the charts to max out at 36 and 48K we used modds to inflate the demand charts), as memory serves me correctly you could go up to 64K. Believe the top number that could be used by the game is 65K and some change ( something like 65,365 it's an odd hexi-decimal number), same as max capasity of the roads. Believe this is the highest number the game will use in it calculations.

So you can raise the demand charts to go beyond 24K, but it would only help you to growing buildings that were larger than 24K, (could be 23,999) as I grown  buildings up to 22K with the 24K version. The buildings grew but demand was so high that the charts stayed at MAX even after it grew.


The falling demand away from 24K would be a drop off of the cities over all demand, if a city has higher demand than 24K and you grew a building that 22K the charts will still stay maxed if the city has demand for said catigory. If your growing tall buildings and you demand is dropping after they grow, that would be because the cities over all demand in that catigory was about 24K anyways, it dropping off is a sign and wouldn't have reached any higher anyways or that you reached a tax level cap or demand cap for the city.

Think 24K was decided on as a base, not sure if there actually any buildings beyond 24K, well ones that I come across with the Pim-X anyways. Ones reason is so that the charts will show more of a proper demand, at lower levels. Even at 24K the demand charts sometimes show inaccurate information when the demand is low on the charts, say about 0-2000 range, accidently spiking up higher than actual numbers. This can be noted if you check the CRF for the actual number sometimes. The game has trouble showing smaller demand on the chart after the chart has been stretch, currently at 4 times the original level of the game

As for CFR showing this numbers you'll have to check with Tage as the modding to show the  numbers there is a totally differnt beast.

[HappyDays]

Capital!

It is possible as when originally doing chart tests for the Cam there were 12K 24K and 36 K and/or 48K believe that was the max  ( though to get the charts to max out at 36 and 48K we used modds to inflate the demand charts), as memory serves me correctly you could go up to 64K. Believe the top number that could be used by the game is 65K and some change ( something like 65,365 it's an odd hexi-decimal number), same as max capasity of the roads. Believe this is the highest number the game will use in it calculations.

So the game uses a 2 byte integer for those numbers. Not surprised at all, and was suspecting 65535 was the limit. Thank you for confirming.

It is actually easy to hit very large demand numbers when you're megapolis engineering (Multi-millions). In CAM 1.0 unfixed, it's exceptionally easy because of the doubled residential capacity.

So you can raise the demand charts to go beyond 24K, but it would only help you to growing buildings that were larger than 24K, (could be 23,999) as I grown  buildings up to 22K with the 24K version. The buildings grew but demand was so high that the charts stayed at MAX even after it grew.


The falling demand away from 24K would be a drop off of the cities over all demand, if a city has higher demand than 24K and you grew a building that 22K the charts will still stay maxed if the city has demand for said catigory. If your growing tall buildings and you demand is dropping after they grow, that would be because the cities over all demand in that catigory was about 24K anyways, it dropping off is a sign and wouldn't have reached any higher anyways or that you reached a tax level cap or demand cap for the city.

There are multiple...quirks...with how the game uses demand. Elaboration:

1: The game decreases maximum demand based on the cap percentage. For example, if you have a CO$$$ building grow that increases cap by 10% from 0%, you'll see a noticeable decline of the maximum demand you can achieve for CO$$$ office buildings until you increase the cap.

2: While it very much is possible to grow, say, a 10k capacity building when you have a demand of 9,000, the odds of this building growing is less than nominal (In my opinion). When you have below the demand required for larger buildings to grow, the simulation will almost always grow lower stage buildings elsewhere in order to fill the gap rather than invest its demand into a single large building. This makes sense to an extent, but only if you don't take into consideration that the 9,000 demand is only the currently accessible demand. The actual demand for the given building type could be far higher. In other words, potential is being wasted.

3: (The following is based on observations, which may be flawed. Please correct me if I'm mistaken)

There are variables that determine how many buildings of a given type can be constructed at once (Or, perhaps, the maximum amount of growth that can occur at once citywide for all types). In CAM 2.0 beta, this number is set to 24,000. If a very large building, such as one of the legendary stage 15 CO$$$ offices with 20k+ jobs comes into existence, all the available potential for building office buildings is spent until the game finishes building the office. Or, more likely, if several smaller buildings come into existence the ability for a larger one to grow is temporarily stunted.

In combination with 1 and 2, it can become difficult in large, well developed cities to get higher level commercial office/industrial buildings to grow. Residential I've never had an issue with, interestingly.

Think 24K was decided on as a base, not sure if there actually any buildings beyond 24K, well ones that I come across with the Pim-X anyways. Ones reason is so that the charts will show more of a proper demand, at lower levels. Even at 24K the demand charts sometimes show inaccurate information when the demand is low on the charts, say about 0-2000 range, accidently spiking up higher than actual numbers. This can be noted if you check the CRF for the actual number sometimes. The game has trouble showing smaller demand on the chart after the chart has been stretch, currently at 4 times the original level of the game

Rush Hour also has that inaccuracy issue with demand, but it's harder to notice because of the small numbers involved. In CAM, I've encountered bizarre situations where my demand had to be something along the lines of -100k for CO$$$, yet the demand bar only showed demand at -1300. I don't understand what caused it, though it did manage to infect all its neighbors...

[RippleJet]

Another question: Would the Census Repository Facility correctly reflect the new numbers if I increase maximum demand from 24,000 to, say, 30,000?

Yes, provided that you mod all "Maximum Value" properties in all related RCI exemplars.
You should also change the max/min value in the demand graph accordingly.
My original post at BSC on the subject might help you in all that:

There are no less than 54 RCI exemplars (Group ID = 0xc7bb4816) having the properties Minimum Value (0x47bb3f10) and Maximum Value (0x47bb3f10). I'll list them here for reference (Note, IID's are hex, Values are decimal):

_IID_  _Value_ ExemplarName

01000   18000   Residential
01010   06000   R$
01020   06000   R$$
01030   06000   R$$$
02000   18000   Jobs
03000   30000   Commercial
03100   18000   CS
03110   06000   CS$
03120   06000   CS$$
03130   06000   CS$$$
03300   12000   CO
03320   06000   CO$$
03330   06000   CO$$$
04000   24000   Industrial
04100   06000   I-R
04200   06000   I-D
04300   06000   I-M
04400   06000   I-HT

11000   18000   Regional Residential
11010   06000   Regional R$
11020   06000   Regional R$$
11030   06000   Regional R$$$
12000   18000   Regional Jobs
13000   30000   Regional Commercial
13100   18000   Regional CS
13110   06000   Regional CS$
13120   06000   Regional CS$$
13130   06000   Regional CS$$$
13300   18000   Regional CO
13320   06000   Regional CO$$
13330   06000   Regional CO$$$
14000   24000   Regional Industrial
14100   06000   Regional I-R
14200   06000   Regional I-D
14300   06000   Regional I-M
14400   06000   Regional I-HT

21000   18000   Total Residential
21010   06000   Total R$
21020   06000   Total R$$
21030   06000   Total R$$$
22000   18000   Total Jobs
23000   30000   Total Commercial
23100   18000   Total CS
23110   06000   Total CS$
23120   06000   Total CS$$
23130   06000   Total CS$$$
23300   18000   Total CO
23320   06000   Total CO$$
23330   06000   Total CO$$$
24000   24000   Total Industrial
24100   06000   Total I-R
24200   06000   Total I-D
24300   06000   Total I-M
24400   06000   Total I-HT

As a side observation I think IID's 13300 and 23300 might be erroneously set by Maxis to 18000 instead of 12000 (compare them to IID 03300).

When changing these values I feel we'd better change them all in the same proportions, so that the summing exemplars still match the individual exemplars.

It is also important that R, C and I are changed equally much, otherwise the RCI demand graph becomes screwed up. The Graph maximum Y value (0x6a4aeded) and the Graph minimum Y value (0xea4aedc6) in the Demand Graph Exemplar need to match the values above.

So the game uses a 2 byte integer for those numbers. Not surprised at all, and was suspecting 65535 was the limit. Thank you for confirming.

Not quite... all numbers for demand are 32-bit DWORDs throughout the game.
However, the capacity for individual buildings is saved in 16-bit WORDs in the savegame.

This means that you need to make sure that the capacity of any building never exceeds 65,536.
And most importantly, this is also true for any dilapidated stage.

When an R$$$ building dilapidates to R$, the capacity increases by a factor of 4.15.
When a CS$$$ building dilapidates to CS$, the capacity increases by a factor of 10.0.
When a CO$$$ building dilapidates to CO$$, the capacity increases by a factor of 1.43.

Thus, in order for the dilapidate stage not to have a capacity exceeding 64k, the base capacity shouldn't be higher than

• 15,800 for R$$$
• 6,500 for CS$$$
• 45,800 for CO$$$ (which is way over what could actually grow)

[HappyDays]

Yes, provided that you mod all Sums properties in all related RCI exemplars.
You should also change the max/min value in the demand graph accordingly.
My original post at BSC on the subject might help you in all that:

You are exceptionally awesome. Thank you SO much! I was about to go through the entirety of CAM in iLive to catalog everything. You've saved me many hours of work! I'll need to reread what you wrote about "Jobs", however, since that concept is still a little confusing to me.

As a side observation I think IID's 13300 and 23300 might be erroneously set by Maxis to 18000 instead of 12000 (compare them to IID 03300).

I concur with your observation. Perhaps they were planning CO$? If the idea seems silly to us...

Not quite... all numbers for demand are 32-bit DWORDs throughout the game.
However, the capacity for individual buildings is saved in 16-bit WORDs in the savegame.

Huh...well, thank you for correcting me!

Thus, in order for the dilapidate stage not to have a capacity exceeding 64k, the base capacity shouldn't be higher than
15,800 for R$$$
6,500 for CS$$$
45,800 for CO$$$ (which is way over what could actually grow)

Ah. Random thought: The only one that can even reasonably have that the issue would be CS$$$, as one of the epic United Arab Emirates buildings has over 10k CS$$$ jobs. I don't think it's set to dilapidate all the way down to $, though.

By the way, what's the capacity of Petronas as provided on the LEX disk? And is it CO$$$ or CS$$$?

[RippleJet]

By the way, what's the capacity of Petronas as provided on the LEX disk? And is it CO$$$ or CS$$$?

14,718 CO$$$ and 21,042 CO$$ as dilapidated.

[HappyDays]

One more question.

I found the following variable in CAM 1.3.0 simulators, and I've learned it's the one that determines how much can be built at the same time. My question is, how have these numbers been calculated, and what is the importance of the first number?

Construction Resources Min/Max

1 0x00002000
2 0x00006000

The second one makes sense, since it's just about 24,000. The first one doesn't make much sense at the moment, and I don't want to alter either until I understand its purpose.

Edit: Interesting. The Maxis values are the following:

1 0x00002000
2 0x00005000

While this gives me comfort in editing the second value, it does give me pause at what the first number does...certainly doesn't seem to be the minimum amount of growth allowed.

[RippleJet]

While this gives me comfort in editing the second value, it does give me pause at what the first number does...certainly doesn't seem to be the minimum amount of growth allowed.

We're talking about the Building Development Simulator, which is in CAM Simulators, latest version being CAM 1.3.0 - Simulators.dat.
I honestly don't know what the "Min" value is for... I have myself no idea if it's even used by the simulator.

[xxdita]

You shouldn't play with things better left to monkeys.

I believe you're looking for something like this? XX_Turbo

[HappyDays]

I was a bit confused at first, because the XX_Turbo linked to in your post links to a map of Darwin, Australia.

Yes, I agree, messing around is better left to monkeys, but I'll never learn if I don't do it myself...guess I'm one of those little monkeys you can hold in one's hand. <_< Not even sure those are monkeys...

Anyway.

Or have you ever wanted the elusive SOMY Stage 10 IHT's to grow?

:D:D

It always comes down to those Somys...

Since massive growth is the goal, perhaps I can suggest an improvement, having looked at XX_Turbo in Ilives? Instance e8da7677 contains a variable (Construction Resources Min/Max) that controls how much demand can be used for construction as the same time. The Maxis default is 20480. CAM 2.0 ups this to 24576. In my own personal tweaking, I increased it to 49152. While I haven't done extensive testing, I have noticed that more large skyscrapers will grow at once versus what they did before. 2 Pan Pacifics bursting out of the ground at once? Yes, please!

With that out of the way, a question.

I was under the impression that in order to properly increase the maximum demands, all 54 related RCI exemplars had to be increased from their Maxis defaults, while in XX_Turbo only the Totals have been. Since, inevitably, you know the inner workings of the game better than I do, I am left to ask what the other two large chucks of RCI exemplars are meant to do (1000-4400 and 11000-14400).

I always thought that the first group determined how much demand you had available, while the second had something to do with the regional extrapolated demand, the third being...well, no idea what the third does, but since CAM increased it I figure I better do the same.

Any enlightenment would be appreciated.

(By the way, thanks for the mod. Too bad it came one day too late. >_< Already modded everything. Not quite as high as you did, though...increased things by a "mere" 6k)

[RippleJet]

I was a bit confused at first, because the XX_Turbo linked to in your post links to a map of Darwin, Australia.

Never trust a monkey...
It's good to finally see the XX_Turbo uploaded... here.

I always thought that the first group determined how much demand you had available, while the second had something to do with the regional extrapolated demand, the third being...well, no idea what the third does, but since CAM increased it I figure I better do the same.

The third one would be the total regional demand, which in the Census Repository Query can be seen in the last column to the right, called "PROJECTED".

[xxdita]

I didn't change the Building Simulator at all, only the Demand Simulator. I believe that increasing the Construction Resources Min/Max could ultimately lead to more abandonment issues. As it is, Turbo allows for more sustainable growth in a much faster period, especially when used with CAM.

[RaTheGreat]

Hi guys,

I've got a small question regarding Instance e8da7677 and super-growth. I've recently tried altering the "vanilla" value for Instance e8da7677 to 49152, as HappyDays did. However, once I did that I was no longer able to even start SC4 (it starts loading and then just crashes, which is rather boring -.-). Any ideas why this might be happening? Or maybe suggestions for me to get super-growth ...

[HappyDays]

I would wager you deleted/changed something that was not meant to be altered, as changing that specific value should have no negative effect on game stability. What concerns me is that Construction Resources Min/Max is located, initially, in the SimCity_1.dat file. By chance did you save your changes to an external .dat file you've put into your plug-ins folder? If so, just delete it and try again. I'm afraid you may need to re-install the game if you saved SimCity_1.dat itself...

[RaTheGreat]

I did not change anything else. Just that value. And yes I changed it on the CAM-SimCity_1.dat datpacked file, which is in the SC4 folder, but I've got a backup so that's not the problem. The thing is that I want to have even more growth than what I have now with CAM and XX Turbo mod. I wanna reach those elusive SOMY stage 10 IHT buildings and those wonderful CAMpatible stage 15 CO$$$ buildings.

[Indisguise]

no matter what you have the demand setting at, the real thing you need to get the high stage buildings is high region population wityh a combanation of lower and mid-range buildings, as far as I know you can not eliminate  the lower stages, even with radical setting some will be required.
The higher the region population is the greater % chance you have of the higher stage buildings growing and in numbers while at the same time lowering the % of lower and mid-ranges required. Best to check the stage growth charts provided by ripplejet in the pinned post section for the actual %. Even with high populations the charts still require a lot of low and midrange buildings in the region or you will run into stagnation.

http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=3578.0


I found that as you do grow a region in population the % chance of higher stage buildings does go up, but low and midrange stage buildings are still required.  If you hit the % of high stage buildings for the region without you filling out the lower level % of buildings needed, you will stagnat the regions growth til you ful-fill the % of lower stage buildings needed by the cities population. It all about keeping balance in the region.

It is a good  idea to have section of cities that contain a lot of buildings of lower stages buildings to fill out the % of lower stage buildings needed in a region. These cities can be played and left or as I like to do, push these cities to outer edges of the region and expand the lower stage building to outlaying areas.

Remeber it is almost impossible even with mods to build cities with nothing but high stage buildings. Most of the regions I have that have dence high stage areas are ussually surrounded by a lot of  cities that contain farms, dirty IND, Manf IND, with a lot of cities that also contain low to mid rise COM and RES sections, the more of them you have the more high stage dence cities you can build.. The CAM builds cities much more like a way a real city grows, which if you look at most cities the downtown core of tall building is actually in most cases the smallest part of the city.

[ivo_su]

And what would happen if I do R$$$ building with about 30 000 and excluding the dilapidates of $$ and $ - type.
So the building should not discolor, and if the stage is lower as stage 10-12 then you know that the building will grow easily

- Ivaylo

[RippleJet]

And what would happen if I do R$$$ building with about 30 000 and excluding the dilapidates of $$ and $ - type.
So the building should not discolor

It wouldn't go down from $$$ to $$ or $, but it could still become completely abandonded.

[ivo_su]

It wouldn't go down from $$$ to $$ or $, but it could still become completely abandonded.

this is good because it still may remain $ $ $ without the dim and deserted

[RippleJet]

this is good because it still may remain $ $ $ without the dim and deserted

I wouldn't count on it...
If desirability drops below the threshold, it will dilapidate.
If it cannot go down in wealth, then it will abandon instead.