CAM - Colossus Addon Mod

[Jasoncw 11,841]

Jmyers, you copied and pasted from MS Word!! 

There is an icon on the reply/edit box that is a clipboard with a yellow sticky not and T on it.  Use that to paste things.  MS Word has formatting that creates strange results when posted on ST

[jmyers2043 5]

@ Jason. Thanks. One learns something new every day.

[PlannerTide 0]

So what exactly does this do for my city? I really haven't seen anything reading the manual was a bit confusing, can anyone help? Does it open up new buildings or just separate the building levels in to more levels so there is a wider diversity of buildings available from start to large cities?

[RippleJet 36]

You should read the manual and take a look at the CAM - General Discussion thread at the CAM board (link in my sig).

The picture below is from one of our (Japanese) beta testers, who tested the same city both without the CAM and with the CAM:

Note especially the difference in population growth as shown in the graphs.

The Rush Hour city grew quickly to 200,000 inhabitants (R$$), and then stopped.

The CAM city grew constantly up to 400,000 inhabitants (R$$), and never stopped.

[JanYpe 17]

The graphs actually make sense.

[GAT-X105 3]

The real difference between the CAM and Rush Hour will be how the game works with big cities. All of those stage 8 skyscrapers that you’ve downloaded over the years (by NDEX and others) will continue to grow at stage 8 whether you have the CAM or Rush Hour. But what is so fun about that?quote>

This is the one thing I don't like about CAM. I want to keep using the things I've downloaded over the past 5 or so years.

[RippleJet 36]

Originally posted by: GAT-X105 This is the one thing I don't like about CAM. I want to keep using the things I've downloaded over the past 5 or so years.quote>

The problem with most skyscrapers that have been batted and that you may have downloaded during the past 3 years or so, is that they have several properties that are set to values not in line with those set by Maxis in the in-game buildings.

Growth stage, occupancy, garbage pollution and water consumption are the most problematic ones.

T Wrecks made a superb job correcting several of those skyscrapers that existed 1½ years ago, but keeping up with changing building properties that way is not feasible in the long run.

The main goal with the CAM is to reinstate the functions of the supply/demand simulators and the development simulators. After all, SimCity 4 is foremost and all a simulator.

If you are satisfied with cheating for money and plopping your buildings, then the CAM is not for  you.

However, if you want a functional simulator, I do recommend considering the CAM.

And I do recommend downloading all available CAMeLots and removing all existing corresponding (mostly stage pre-CAM lots. The Cleanitol is a superb tool helping you in this otherwise rather boring process.

More and more CAMeLots are being released at the BSC LEX. Our goal is to make all high quality (and currently) stage 8 buildings CAMpatible, so that we eventually will have a situation where you will not have to discard those buildings you might have downloaded earlier.

[ssc4k 1]

well i never use farms in my cities so it seems like i dont need it considering your long explanation ws on farms.

i definatly wont be downloading it since alot of mods i use are n ot compatable

my view: interesiting idea but it interferes with to much adn does to little for me to download.

[BarbyW 40]

Where is there a mention of farms? RJ explained carefully about the stats for the skyscrapers uploaded in the past. Perhaps you should read his post above more carefully.

[Vandy 110]

Hello, All.

First, I would like to offer my congratulations to the creators of CAM.  Even though I don't know the intricacies and inner workings of SC4, I can appreciate all of the time and effort that went into writing this enoromous new Mod.

Personally, I will not be using it as I have no need or desire for such large communities in my regions.  (I'm quite happy with just creating landscaping and letting my peaceful little communites grow as they wish...  or not, as the case may be.)  Also, as my style of play tends to not be game-oriented (that is, I do use cheats and special mods and really don't do or care to do any real "mayoring), this mod would not be useful to me.

I do wish all on the CAM team the best as well as hope those who do use this new mod will grow to enjoy it and embrace all of the goodness it brings to their gaming.

I'd like to close with a simple comment.  It is really a shame that people's "feathers" get ruffled so easily over either a missunderstood comment or misconstrued statement.  I'd really like to think (and do stil hope for) that we -- the extended SC4 community -- could put the squabbling behind us and act like the responsible adults (and young adults) we are suppose to be.  Unfortunately, as long as there are diverse cultural and personal differences between members of the community, this will never happen.

Believe me, my friends, I've learned the hard way.  When I'm logged onto Simtropolis, I act as a member (and Moderator) of Simtropolis.  When I'm logged onto Pegasus Productions, I act as a member of Pegasus Productions (and avoid like the PLAGUE any comments concerning ST).  When I'm logged on to SC4D, I act as a member of SC4D (and pretend thatat there isn't another SC4 Fan Site in existance).  Now that last series of statements may be a bit "tongue-in-cheek" but I believe you get my drift.

Okay.  Enough politicizing.

Again, to the CAM Team and all involved, congratulations on the release of your enormous undertaking.  Enjoy the fruit of your labors.

Regards,

Gary

[RippleJet 36]

Thank you, Gary!

MayorTim, was there something you wanted to tell me or ask me?

[chocolate_city 93]

Personally I love CAM... it does all that is say it does... as I stated in an earlier message... I've read the manual and installed all the necessary files and deleted the necessary files. My computer has more than enough power to run the game because I have played it with for years without much problem in the past.... The CAM has increased my populations in my cities.. i have almost no NO JOB zots, my people get to work , and I can play the game for hours... then I save the game and later repoen to play the city again.. it will crash to desktop.. Has anyone else had this problem is this a bug.. any and all help will greatly be appreciated

[BarbyW 40]

I have had no CTD at all and I have been testing this from the start. I also have used regions from before CAM and new regions with the latter also being reused over and over when I have been testing CAM and also to test out lots etc that I have been working on. I have also dat packed my plugins, re packed them and gone into regions with a combination of packed and none packed stuff and never had a CTD yet.

[Za 164]

You said before I believe that one should remove all pre-cam stage 8 buildings. Does this include all other buildings from the stages before? I mostly just have Vanderaap (amsterdam stuff), Peg (skyfarms), and Bixel (HK stuff) growables. (I know, weird combo isn't it) Also, should you also remove ploppable buildings to?

My only problem with it is that you might not be able to use all the stuff you wasted a lot of time to download.

If anyone could help me it would be greatly apreciated.

Thanks- Zach

[RippleJet 36]

Vanderaap's buildings are all lower stage and will work with CAM.

Peg's skyfarms should be made into stage 5 farms for the CAM.

As such they are too big for stage 3 industrials.

The farm versions of them are less problematic though, since farms won't upgrade and having stage 3 farms with more jobs than other stage 3 farms won't block any upgrading.

Bixel's towers should generally be removed. They are simply far too huge for stage 8.

They are being remodded for the CAM and have been or will be uploaded to the LEX very soon.

So even if you remove them from your plugins folders now, they will probably be available for download before your cities have reached the stages that Bixel's monster would grow at.

Ploppable buildings are not affected in any way by the CAM, so you can leave them if you like.

The only thing you need to remember is that the capacities of ploppable offices usually are smaller than the corresponding capacity of growable CAMeLots of the same size. And in some cases the garbage pollutions and water consumption may be set too high.

[RippleJet 36]

Originally posted by: chocolate_city Personally I love CAM... it does all that is say it does... as I stated in an earlier message... I've read the manual and installed all the necessary files and deleted the necessary files. My computer has more than enough power to run the game because I have played it with for years without much problem in the past.... The CAM has increased my populations in my cities.. i have almost no NO JOB zots, my people get to work , and I can play the game for hours... then I save the game and later repoen to play the city again.. it will crash to desktop.. Has anyone else had this problem is this a bug.. any and all help will greatly be appreciatedquote>

I gave a reply to this in the other thread you started, and I asked a Moderator to merge that thread with this one. Now I can't find the other thread anywhere...

In short, Patfirefghtr also reported a CTD with the CAM and managed to solve it by moving the CAMeLots into a folder starting with zzz. You might be interested in trying that for yourself. Check the discussion about it here: https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=1177.msg57764;topicseen#msg57764.

It seems like there is something non-CAM conflicting with the CAM, but we haven't managed to pinpoint it yet. Any input you could give would be highly appreciated.

[Za 164]

Thanks RippleJet, what you said helps a lot.

[GlobalHaze 1]

I have a question, if I wanted a certain BAT from a CAMeLOT such as Yelluzha Technologies, would I mandatorily need the CAM for that certain building to grow, or just the essential files required for that one building without the CAM.

[RippleJet 36]

A CAMeLot is a lot that has been given a growth stage beyond those supported by Rush Hour.

Thus, a CAMeLot would grow only if you have the CAM installed.

[GlobalHaze 1]

ok thanks.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

So the SimPEG SkyFarms should be modded to be stage 5? Is this going to be done by Pegasus and/or BSC or will I have to use the Lot editor or iLive reader to fix my downloads?

[BarbyW 40]

The best thing to do would be to ask Pegasus to mod them to stage 5 or to do it yourself in Reader.

[itsbernie81 1]

Hi there,

First and foremost, thanks to the BSC team for CAM.  It has basically changed completely the way I play SC4 and has made the development of large, sustainable cities with no unemployment a lot easier.  It seems to me that the CAM does so by significantly boosting the demand for commercial and industrial development (or perhaps repressing residential development).  Whatever it is, SC4 with CAM makes the game much more enjoyable.
However, after playing the game with CAM for a few weeks now, I have noticed some strange developments.  I am not suggesting that CAM caused them, though I would be interested in any comments and suggestions:

• Big drops in resident average income each time I load a city.  A typically established city in SC4 with a reasonable mix of citizens of the three wealth types, in my experience, has an average income of about 70,000 simoleons.  Recently, I have noticed that when I load my cities, the average income halves immediately.  And it continues to halve again every time I load.  This is not accompanied by a change in wealth type distribution (i.e. the change in average income seems to have no correlation with the composition of wealth types).  This has obviously been triggered by something only recently as I have been playing with CAM for a few months now and this has not affected my cities during the early stages of the region’s development.  For the record, my largest city, with a reasonable mix of citizens of the three wealth types, has an average income of 10,000 after successive falls.
• Sudden changes in demand.  In my biggest city, I noticed something extremely bizarre.  I have been building that city (without building up its neighbours) for several sim decades.  One time, I load the city, and residential demand suddenly plummets.  I am used to this happening when I play neighbour cities that may absorb too much demand, but this is a case where I have not touched the neighbour cities for years.  The residential plummet was immediate.  My city lost 70,000 (about 10% of its population) overnight.  Since then, it was been struggling to grow smoothly (as it usually does under CAM).  After a few wild swings, it has recovered the lost population, however.

And on a totally different (and I know, sensitive) topic unrelated to CAM, I have also seen the first sign of the so called "Prop Pox”, though I want to note something.  It should not be called “Prop Pox”.  Model files are affected too.  I have seen props go missing, as well as entire SC4Model files.  One of my Maxis industrial buildings has suddenly just gone.

I would have posted this on sc4devotion, but the website is currently down.

Best regards,
Bernie

[Ryusuke516 1]

I had a problem that up until recently have i been told that CAM was the problem.

There was a mod that i downloaded that would replace and overwrite the Maxis lots. Well with the CAM installed, the Maxis lots will continue to show up and the mod will not take effect. A link to what i was talking about tokyo-urbanlab.jpn.org/Sim-Jpn-R-003-Info.htm for example. It shows what replaces what.

So i removed the CAM and then these mods started to work. But upon removal, the economy pretty much crashed, which was the cost of removing the CAM.

So really, in any future versions of CAM, can whoever is developing it, make it to where mods that overwrite maxis buildings work with the CAM installed.

Sorry if this does not make any sence and is a bunch of jiberish(if it is), I am tired and will go to bed shortly from this post.

[His Divine Hand 244]

Originally posted by: Ryusuke516

I had a problem that up until recently have i been told that CAM was the problem.

There was a mod that i downloaded that would replace and overwrite the Maxis lots. Well with the CAM installed, the Maxis lots will continue to show up and the mod will not take effect. A link to what i was talking about tokyo-urbanlab.jpn.org/Sim-Jpn-R-003-Info.htm for example. It shows what replaces what.

So i removed the CAM and then these mods started to work. But upon removal, the economy pretty much crashed, which was the cost of removing the CAM.

So really, in any future versions of CAM, can whoever is developing it, make it to where mods that overwrite maxis buildings work with the CAM installed.

Sorry if this does not make any sence and is a bunch of jiberish(if it is), I am tired and will go to bed shortly from this post.

quote>

Actually, your request is an impossibility.  The CAM radically alters growth stages, occupancy, and a slew of other important parameters for every Maxis lot in the game to work as it does.  Since any mod that overwrites maxis buildings is trying to replace these same things (or just the appearance of the lot and building) was probably not made with CAM capacities and requirements in mind, there is no way that they could work simultaneously with the CAM.  

On the other hand, a mod could be made with CAMpacties in mind (haha, a CAM joke!) to replace Maxis buildings, but it would have to use the CAM versions of the Maxis lots. 

[secret_punisher 0]

hi... if i'm going to play with the CAM , do i have to reinstall simcity 4 .. or remove any plugins i may have download before ?? thanks.

[Jeffmaster223 24]

Is it possible to download the CAM from here? it won't allow me to go on the LEX in SC4 devotion.

[TekindusT 3,809]

Be careful because maybe you have registered for SC4Devotion Forums and not on the LEX; they have independent registres.

About the CAM, you can't download it from the STEX, it is a LEX exclusive.

[ajaxboy 1]

jay were to download sim city 4 cam adon ??

[ajaxboy 1]

jay were to download sim city 4 cam adon ??