NAM General Discussion Thread

[Sup3rbck 0]

Thank you so much.

[jimmy92233 0]

I have a question: why is it that under the ped mall option, I cycle through the different ped malls and I only have a "mountain trail- straight" piece when I know I used to have the rest of the mountain trail pieces?? How can I get them back?? Thanks!

[Andreas Roth 607]

@jimmy92233: Sounds like you have an older mod installed that is not compatible with the current NAM. Try removing everything from the plugins folder and see if it works then. If that's the case, slowly move back in your other mods, until you find the culprit.

[Frolius666 0]

Hello NAM-ers,

The 3x3 one-way roundabouts are blocking traffic.
They only allow pedestrians to cross.
Following pics illustrate...
Roads leaving the roundabout are:
Top and bottom: Ringroad around my town.
Left: City Centre
Right: Neighour connection and landfill
You can see that, without an additional street from the landfill to the ringroad the landfill has a "No Connection" zot.
Does anybody know how to solve this?

Thanx !!

[Andreas Roth 607]

No wonder that they block traffic - you've drawn them in the wrong way. For a right-hand drive game, you have to draw them counter-clockwise.

[Frolius666 0]

Ahaaaaa.... thanx Andreas...

Well yes, come to think of it, they all go CCW here indeed.

Why didn't I see that coming, I've been staring at it for hours trying everything but turning it around.

Maybe that last tequila sunrise last night wasn't such a good idea after all

But I'm glad I'm playing again.

[kassarc16 4]

I've got a question about a blast from the past. Has there been any progress on Turning Lanes lately? I know Tarkus is planning on a functional Center Turn Lane avenue using roads, but how about Road-Avenue and Ave-Ave three way?

[Tarkus 6,932]

kassarc16, that really is a blast from the past, and a very good question, I might add.  It's unlikely that anything on that end will happen with this next NAM release, but I think it is something that should be considered for the very near future. 

I'll probably be warmed up to do it when I get going again with the TLA Project, so I might investigate it.  Some of the textures ryanb_sc4 supplied me with might do the trick. 

-Tarkus

[SuperPenguin 0]

Okay, so I had the NAM installed. I wanted to go back and add in the 10x commute time, 10x commute speed option. Reinstalled with that option. (Unfortunately, I had to overwrite all of the other NAM files as well, because apparently there's no way to selectively add or modify features after the fact???). Anyway, I do that, start up SC4 again, and I get waves of no job zots sweeping all over my city, abandonment left and right, and 8 hour commutes.

What gives? It's basically destroyed my city.

[Andreas Roth 607]

I seems that you didn't uninstall the old traffic plugin, so it conflicts now with the newly installed 10x commute, 10x speed plugin. If you want to change your current NAM installation, it is advised to uninstall the NAM (either with the included uninstaller or by manually deleting the files), and then reinstall with the desired options.

[SuperPenguin 0]

The old traffic plugin, is there more to it than just the .dat file? I did manually remove that, but if the NAM installer placed something somewhere else, I may not have caught it.

[Andreas Roth 607]

Yes, the traffic plugin is a DAT file. Which one did you use before? If you make a drastic change in speeds and/or capacities, it's likely that it takes some time for the pathfinding engine to adjust to the new values. It also might be necessary that you open all cities in your region and run them for a few months, so the new settings can be calculated properly. Warning! Before you do this, it is wise to backup your region, so you can return to the previous state in case it doesn't work well.

[SuperPenguin 0]

I had the standard (no modification) traffic plugin before. So yes, it was a drastic change. I ran the city for about 10 game years after the swap, however, and my Sims never seemed to figure themselves out. I had full employment before the change, maybe one zot every now and then. After the change, the zots swept all over the city. The residential buildings would go abandoned for a while, come back with residents for a month or two, then get zots again, abandon, and repeat the process. A whole bunch of my industry and commercial also abandoned. *shrugs* I swapped out the new plugin for the old one, and it more or less resolved itself. Maybe my DAT was corrupted somehow?

[Andreas Roth 607]

Hmm, page flip bug?

EDIT: Yeah, of course...

Anyway, I have no idea why it happened. I never used such radical plugins, but only a slightly modified "better pathfinding" plugin with tripled street capacity, which works perfectly with my playing style (one or two NJZ occasionally, but nothing too serious). On the other hand, if it worked well with the old plugin, why did you change it to something that radical anyway?

[SuperPenguin 0]

I guess I'm just a rebel.

I had experienced problems in a much larger city before. After doing some reading, I learned that Sims drive incredibly (and unrealistically) slow. So, I decided to give it a whirl in one of my newer cities, before it reached critical mass. Maybe I'll try a different plugin, or I'll just make due without. Thanks.

[scottandselina 0]

Hi, I'm pretty new to ST...still figuring out all the NAM stuff.  I had no idea you could download so much stuff here for SC4!!!!!!!!!  Where have I been?!  Anyways, I'm trying to find out how to get roundabouts with roads that have 4 exits  (like +)....all I can get is 3.  Where can I get the bigger roundabouts?  I thought they were in the recent NAM.

[Tarkus 6,932]

Hi scottandselina-

Welcome to ST!  Yes, there really is this much stuff out there for SC4--it's pretty incredible and took me by surprise when I stumbled onto it over a year ago.  You may want to try building a roundabout with One-Way Roads in a 3x3 pattern (with the center tile empty).  You should be able to get eight exits out of that.  And as far as getting 4 exits on the smaller (Road and Street) roundabouts, I can tell you that the four roads will not align in a straight manner.

Also, check out this tutorial by MiniMark--that should illustrate it a little better.

Hope that helps!

-Tarkus

[scottandselina 0]

Thanks, Tarkus, that helped a lot!!! It's working better now. I can see that my SC4 experience is going to get a lot more complicated from here on out..... but as I am seeing here, it will be worth it!

[Gecks_II 0]

Hey Tarkus, I've been having a very similar issue with NJZ. I've had the new NAM installed since it came out, but the problem I have just popped up in one of my cities when the population got high enough for high density sckyscrapers to be built ( +65k) It is a new area that I developped once I was able to get tall buildings, next to my commercial downtown. The thing, I dont understand, is that for the most part when they come up, after the figure out their commute route, they all go NJZ on me! and it is even when the job is just a block away!. I figured it might happen to the odd building, but it happens to 95% of the buildings that come up.

 I had my population skyrocket to over +100k and then drop down to 60-65 because of this. I even added combo subway/train stations after this started to happen to see if it was caused by too much traffic. But I still have NJZs. I have sims commuting 2/3rd through the map, no prob, and the these urban sims dont seem to want to walk out of their building, any ideas?( I have the 10x commute 10x speed) Im gona go try and un-install/re-install NAM.. see if that does anything.

[azninoverdrive 9]

I was just wondering if someone could develop the next release of the nam of left turn lanes from an avenue going onto a road with the road pieces having left turn lanes onto the avenue,

because right now, its only one of the two.

[pilotdaryl 25]

Excuse me if I just barge in here all of a sudden, but why is it that whenever I plop diagonal streets using the construction-lot method that I can't connect it to any other networks?  Yes, that is flat land.

I have Cogeo's Fenced GLR and the RHW v13 mod installed.  And as always, to ensure full compatibility, I deleted the NAM Override file included with Cogeo's Fenced GLR.  It could be one of these plugins messing with my streets.

[memo 1,444]

Yes, just uninstall RHW13. Obviously it isn't fully compatible with the latest NAM. Though, I haven't checked the files myself, but other people have already reported this issue.

[Tarkus 6,932]

pilotdaryl and memo:  I just found out about this glitch yesterday myself.  I have, however, found the issue, and it's an old copy of the RUL at IID 0x10000001 dating back to September 18, 2005, which was used in the previous NAM (v19) and the previous RHW (v12).  For anyone not familiar with it (memo is probably more familiar with it than I am) particular RUL deals with intersections between different networks.  Originally, I thought it may have been the texture override RUL (0x10000002), but that's not the case. 

I should have a new version up in the next few hours (if not sooner) which will solve that problem, and I've also fixed another issue which will greatly speed up the ANT-to-RHW conversion.

Edit as of 8:42pm PDT:  The "new" version has been uploaded to the STEX.

-Tarkus

[shinkansen1 84]

I've got a question about re-installing the NAM when it is currently in use. In one of my cities called New Goldton, the commute time and travel distance is such that buildings are being abandoned due to commute time. Here's the thing: I noticed that when I installed the NAM, there were several options to go with it, such as reduced commute time, traffic congestion, etc. Now, in New Goldton, residents are commuting to neighbor cities using vital arterial routes that are always clogged up because of this. Not only that, the route they use runs so far to the edge of the city that the average commute time is nearly 120. Even with the monorail network connecting to the same city, and a highway network going there as well, there doesn't seem to be any relief from the abandonment. Now, my questions: If the NAM is already in use in New Goldton, do I have to uninstall and re-install it with the new options? And which of the options would best benefit a city like New Goldton?

[androidboi 57]

HI I'm a Simtrop NEWB and I gots a question: Why does my game crash when I use the Rail Puzzle Pieces tool?

[Tarkus 6,932]

shinkansen1:  Well, there's a few options.  First of all, which NAM Traffic Plugin are you using?  That would help me to recommend a different one to you.  If you want the most radical options which drastically improve things, I'd suggest the Perfect Pathfinidng/5x Capacity/10x Speeds/10x Commute option, which would definitely solve your problems. 

As far as installing a new Traffic Plugin, the installer is setup such that you can't deselect installing the core NAM files.  Theoretically, you could do things this way, but it's a little more complicated, and I'd suggest uninstalling/reinstalling with the new Traffic Plugin just to be on the safe side.  As long as you don't open your cities up while the NAM is uninstalled, it won't disrupt anything.

truflip99:  Welcome to Simtropolis!  Well, as far as that crash goes, the puzzle pieces tend to conflict with any sort of Transit-Enabled Lots such that if you hover a puzzle piece over it (or vice-versa sometimes), the game will crash.   Transit-Enabled Lots range from the in-game ferries, tollbooths, to a multitude of custom ones--in fact, it's more likely with custom ones. 

Also, make sure you're not using any outdated Transit Mods, like any of the ones by redlotus, the7trumpets or darkmatter that are still available in the Modds & Downloads section, or any sort of old version of the NAM.

Hope that answers your question!

-Tarkus

[shinkansen1 84]

So, you're saying that I can use all four of those options at once without having any problems in New Goldton? I haven't used any of the options yet, and I'm not quite sure where to find the uninstall option for the NAM.

[Tarkus 6,932]

shinkansen1:  Well, actually, there's just one file that does all of that.  If you go down toward the bottom, below where it says "Perfect Pathfinding", you'll find on option called "5x Capacity 10x Speeds 10x Commute".  It'll be the fifth from the bottom. 

As far as uninstalling goes, I believe there should be an uninstall program ("uninst.exe") in your NAM directory.  If not, you can (assuming you're running a PC with Windows) go to the Control Panel, under "Add or Remove Programs", and the NAM should be listed under there as well, as "NetworkAddonMod Beta Version 2006.12.24". 

Hope that helps!

-Tarkus

[owenluby 1]

Are there going to be GLR slope-to-elevated pieces?

[Andreas Roth 607]

@owenluby: Yes, memo finally managed to create the missing GLR-on-slope puzzle piece - and even the highway-on-slope puzzle piece! There are some minor things to work out, but they should work as expected.