Need Help

[Ltw 401]

Im sorry but i have registered to SC4 Devotion, and i still dont see a download link to the Mercy Hospital, or this Air purifier. I see the page, comments, pictures. nothing to click on to download though

I think you've registered to the forum. For sc4devotion you need two accounts, one for the forum and one for the exchange.

Try this link.

[EyeofMobius 27]

Never said you called me a cheater, said i thought you did when you said cheetah, cause i thought you were using it as slang lol.

On an aside because I laughed quite heartily over the thought of A Nonny Moose using slang, especially if it isn't something in Latin.

Back on Topic...

The first thing that struck me about your city and not having money is that you have three bridges to the other side of the river seemingly there for the sole purpose of filling in that last little bit of tile. Bridges are way too expensive in the early game and ferries are somewhat buggy so I usually find developing the other shore to be far too expensive when just starting out. Since you have commited a tonne of infrastructure to the other side already you may want to develop another tile or two on the other side so that each side can sustain themselves independently.

As far as mass transit networks go...try not to take a fishing mentality towards it by creating a literal net. It may be more helpful for you to picture a tree or a river where you have a main trunk with many offshooting branches. Also if stations are becoming clogged but the actual lines are within capacity then you will want to start offsetting your stations from the line by a single tile; A lower capacity station directly on a higher capacity line means that your line is limited to the station capacity making it very inefficient.

For environment the cheap and temporary solution is to fill all the empty land with mayor mode ploppable trees. I use cycledogg's trees from the STEX for this.

[Helepolis989 0]

How effective are trees though. Do i need to completely cover the entire map to make a dent? I understand what you mean about the fishing net, i tried to make all of them connect in some way so one can get to the other side of the map without a stop. and the bridges, I wanted to try and make a beach, and see if the beach makes the CO sprout up around it. Only problem was the beach covered all of the land so i couldnt make a rod go past it so i had to make an extra bridge. Then i made another to make traffic easier, then all three bridges were crammed full everyday so i made two more, both being a one way to help.

[jacksunny 741]

How effective are trees though. Do i need to completely cover the entire map to make a dent?

They are effective. You have quite a bit of space between your industry and other areas of the city, so I suggest filling that with trees. It will stop the pollution from spreading and increase the desirability in the rest of your city.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Im sorry but i have registered to SC4 Devotion, and i still dont see a download link to the Mercy Hospital, or this Air purifier. I see the page, comments, pictures. nothing to click on to download though

The site is in two parts. Forum is separate from the LEX. You have to register (free) for the LEX as well in order to see the download button.

[Helepolis989 0]

I registered, got the hospital and the air purification. Havent tried them out yet. Hope they are helpful.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Install and test each one in your sandbox by adding them, one at a time to your plugins suite. If you load both of them and something falls off the other end of the monkey, you want to be sure which is the guitly party.

[Helepolis989 0]

Ok Update and a few more questions. Firstly thank you all for your help, i am doing better than ever.

I know my income looks bad, i was making up to 5k a month. However i built a couple hospitals and colleges to help.

I am getting a ton of gifts, convention center, football stadiums, research centers. I am trying to get it all. I did a few of those air purifiers, it has helped alot as well. My desirability for everything is high, my mayor rating is high.

I do have a couple more questions though. How do you guys deal with trash. How do you guys do highways, i feel like if i put a highway in this city i would lose half of my city. I asked this before but i dont think anyone answered. Is it possible to not have any industry in the city, just slowly take it all out and change it to commercial?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I use PEG's trash dock, which ships the garbage out to sea.

If I need a high throughput road through a city, I first try putting a tram down the median of an avenue (AVE-4 + TRAM) usually connected to subway. Failing that, I use the wide avenues MAVE-4, MAVE-6 in the NWM.

Highways are limited access, and have to have ramps. You can't have properties facing a highway.

[Helepolis989 0]

Do you think you could show me the link for the PEG? and how do i get people to ride the tram if there is a road on each side of it?

Edit: Also, how do i use trains and railways. Are they useful? How do i use them effectively?

  Edited August 28, 2011 by Helepolis989  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Do you think you could show me the link for the PEG? and how do i get people to ride the tram if there is a road on each side of it?

Edit: Also, how do i use trains and railways. Are they useful? How do i use them effectively?

SimPeg

Of course trams have to have stations, and they are on the STEX. Tram is also known as GLR or Ground Light Rail, which is a modified version of elevated rail or EL. Subway, EL, and GLR can all be interconnected. The connector between Subway and EL is standard and the ones for GLR are on the STEX.

Now just looking at light rail it can be very useful for getting people quickly into the downtown or to work. If you run EL lines from your suburban residential (several stations) into the city where the lines can converge, merge, and or dive into the subway or attach to GLR in the main downtown, or both, you can pretty much eliminate long jump pedestrian traffic. The one drawback to these is that there is no parking at any of the stations unless you get a combined station off the STEX. So you also have to lay down parking garages and/or bus lines in your residential, and perhaps in your industrial. Downtown, use buses for openers, then GLR, then add subway when things get overloaded.

You need to eliminate road routes to places where you don't want residential car traffic, but you do need downtown roads for freight and deliveries. R$$$ in general prefer monorail to EL.

Heavy rail can also be used for commuters, and the stations are cheap and have parking. You can have a station every few blocks in the residential area. You have a choice with heavy rail of combined passenger/freight lines, or passenger only and freight only lines. The latter approach needs two sets of tracks that never merge, but only cross (using overpasses or underpasses). The freight has to run off the edge of the city to act as a freight sink. Freight goes to the big bit bucket in the sky and does not continue into the next city.

If rail spurs run into an industrial area, any plant within four grids can put its freight directly on the trains. Others can use freight trucks to access a freight station on the periphery which also touches the tracks. With this scenario, you can keep freight trucks off the neighbor connection roads, even if you have to use toll gates.

Toll gates are good, anyway. Income, you know.

If you like playing with model trains, this can be a lot of fun. If you use UDI, you can drive the trains, too.

[Helepolis989 0]

Ok i have another quick question. What is the BSC Mega Prop packs. Are these buildings that you put down yourself, like fire stations and what not, or are they residential buildings that will be built randomly like any other house?

[Ltw 401]

The BSC mega prop packs are files you need to download in order to let lots work. Basically it's a dependency. It doesn't contain any buildings or such, so installing only this doesn't add anything. It's recommended to use this though, a lot of BAT's (and certainly on sc4devotion) are using these dependencies. Most of the times there is a list of dependencies you need on the download page of the lot you're looking for.

[Helepolis989 0]

So is there a file that has a lot of RCI buildings in there? So it just gives you more buildings to look at?

[Ltw 401]

So is there a file that has a lot of RCI buildings in there? So it just gives you more buildings to look at?

For as far as I know you have to download every building separate. I haven't found these packs but maybe someone else knows a pack with all sorts of buildings. There are packs though with more than one building but these packs contain a few buildings which belongs to each other. If you look to growable buildings your city should get some more variety.

[EyeofMobius 27]

Prop Packs and dependency packs are mostly used to prevent two things from happening...lots looking unfinished and the heinous brown box. Occasionally they also can prevent the occasional black hole CTD from happening.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

A prop pack is a collection of accessory graphics items that are used to complete lots that usually have a BAT building. When you make a BAT Building, it is naked. You have the choice of what kind of lot to put it on, base textures, and then the props or properties. The term prop is borrowed from the theater. The guys at BSC among others are very good at introducing new items such as fancy bushes, benches, and other decorative items. Making a prop pack is also a BAT task, and the idea is that you download this once and it is used in many lots. It follows the principles of Object Oriented Design and Object Oriented Programming. Object reuse is one of the cardinal principles.

[Helepolis989 0]

Ok i feel like im dragging along this thread, but i feel people would rather me just ask my questions in one long thread then 100 different threads

So this is what i want to ask, i will show you a few pictures, and i want to see what YOU guys would do, not what you want me to do. I am having a tough time knowing what to work on, so i want your guys opinions on what you guys would do for yourself

Over View

Closer View

Income

Streets

Crime

Education

Water Pollution

Edit: Also a quick question, what do landmarks do? Do they help with building CO around them> I remember reading somewhere if you build the Empire State Building, and put CO lots around it, they will grow rapidly because they want to be next to that. Is this true for all of them? Some of them? Do they all do different things?

  Edited August 29, 2011 by Helepolis989  

[Ltw 401]

The big problem is your water pollution. I would solve that first. Normally I build two different water systems, so one pump with one or more water treatment plants for industry and a different pump (most of the times more than one) with one water treatment plant. Industry pollutes your water very quickly, if you build two different systems it stays controllable and you have less pollution.

About your question according to landmarks. Normally landmarks are just for the eye. There are BAT's though which have more options, you can have landmarks which have an effect on the demand or anything. There are a lot of options in give the landmarks functions. It's a bit like the parks you can download here and on sc4devotion, they have an effect on the desirability of the neighborhood, but also on the air pollution. It all depends on whatever the programmer adds to the lot.

EDIT: bridges function as power lines too. I like seeing as less maxis power lines as possible so if you could connect your bridges to your power net that would be nice. You could use the map which shows your energy for that.

  Edited August 30, 2011 by Ltw  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Good advice. Your traffic congestion display shows little to do on that front. Next time post the traffic flow display instead, It is clearer as to just where the hot spots are.

You don't show the air pollution display, but I am sure it is as bad as the water. The only in-game things to help with that are trees, parks, and cemeteries. However, there are lots on the STEX that will help this quite a bit.

I only use power lines as a temporary measure when necessary. I demolish them as soon as I can make alternate connections. The point about bridges being power conduits is well made.

[Helepolis989 0]

Here is my Air pollution..

And here is my traffic volume

Is everything ok? Do i need more roads, i plan on adding another water treatment plant.

Also i keep searching or buildings on this site and devotion but most of the time when i search, it just says search is invalid, then when i make the criteria more exact it shows up a ton more. Italy, nothing is on this search, Italian Buildings, here is 150 matches.

I am just trying to find stuff i recognize, Vatican city, few things in Indianapolis, like the Indy 500, just some random stuff. Cant seem to find anything. Seems like the Vatican would be something someone would of made.

Also, my game is having a hard time starting up. Ill click the game to start up, itll bring up the small box of the bridge, and thats where it stays, just sits there on that bridge and doesnt start the game. Do you guys know if there is a way to fix this?

[Ltw 401]

Could you upload a closer shot of that road or avenue which is all red? Maybe I could give you an advice according to that road, because that one is the most congested.

According to your loading problem, it could be that your pc isn't powerful enough to run simcity on full resolution, although the game is 8 years old. 1600*1280 or anything like that is still a very high resolution which could lead to problems. You could try a lower resolution and see how long it takes to start up then.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I wouldn't worry about the traffic-caused air pollution as it is only yellow. When you get around to it, plant a few trees around the residential areas and commercial areas where it occurs. You'll find that god mode and mayor mode trees can be plopped on some lots. Parks are also a good idea.

[Helepolis989 0]

Here ya go, i tried to get as much of the road as i could but still being close.

[Ltw 401]

Here ya go, i tried to get as much of the road as i could but still being close.

The problem is that it is a one way road. If it was a road I would recommend to make one way roads. Since you've already done that we have to look at another option.

I guess you don't want to demolish all those large buildings so upgrading the one way road to a avenue is out of the question.

There is another option though. You've got the luck that there is a bit of space south of the road. You could demolish the football stadium and place it somewhere else. This way you could build an avenue at the place which is cleared. You will have to connect the one way road with this avenue. Since your sims choose the shortest route you will have to downgrade the one way road to a regular road and make cul de sacs in the west-east direction. This way you force the sims to use the avenue. Furthermore you could connect the avenue at the end to one way roads, this way you save the Freytag buildings, since these buildings are less tall than the other buildings you could also choose to demolish them and connect the avenue to another avenue.

If this avenue is still to congested you could look het the NWM (Network Widening Mod). This mod gives you access to avenue's which can handle more traffic, it is really cool.

[Helepolis989 0]

Well i do have NAM and NWM. But im not sure on how to use all of these new roads properly so i am just sticking with my normal roads. Plus i was already half way through this city, before added those mods, and anytime i tried to do something it built roads next to the main road and destoryed buildings, so i just didnt mess with it. I do have bus's and subways all up and down these roads. I am considering doing some kind of highway or something, cause i havent had nothing but complaints since the beginning of the game

[Ltw 401]

Well i do have NAM and NWM. But im not sure on how to use all of these new roads properly so i am just sticking with my normal roads. Plus i was already half way through this city, before added those mods, and anytime i tried to do something it built roads next to the main road and destoryed buildings, so i just didnt mess with it. I do have bus's and subways all up and down these roads. I am considering doing some kind of highway or something, cause i havent had nothing but complaints since the beginning of the game

The city isn't bad at all, so I wouldn't worry about that. A hint is to turn off the pop-ups of the advisors, that is really irritating and useless.

If you want to place a highway it is important to think about how to place it. Highways have limited access so you have to look where all those sims are coming from. Since it is a neighborhood which has tall buildings I guess that the people traveling at that one way road aren't traveling through this neighborhood because it is between work and another residential zone. My guess is that the congestion is from the people that live in this neighborhood. In this case, building a highway is useless. You will spend a lot of money on that highway and it will not be used.

If you want to read more about highways and avenues I recommend to read the highways vs. avenues topic in this forum. You will see that making a decision between avenues and highways isn't as easy as it looks.

[EyeofMobius 27]

For that Avenue are you using the NWM (Network widening mod)? One thing to do would be to upgrade the 2 lanes of OWR to a three lane OWR but this would likely only ease a little bit. A mass transit bypass may be in order. use the route query tool to see if there is a large source area for the traffic here and then link a subway line with parking from a point just before the congestion gets heavy to a point at the end of the congestion. If there is a great deal of traffic in the residential that is easy to capture at bus stops and easy to pick back up from work then implementing a really good bus network will help over many tiles.

That one orange traffic heavy bridge could definitely benefit from some mass transit park and ride facilities as well.

Other things I have seen from you screenshots...

Garbage and power seem to chase you on the news ticker. For your next power plant you may want to stomach a waste to energy plant in your dirty manufacturing area. Also All the solar plants are not really meant to support large populations and this adds up to a lot of used space and fees for your budget.

Taxes...to me your tax figures are upside down. This is unfortunately a tough thing to change at this time but not impossible. Very slowly you could reverse the taxes mainly on the wealthy. The theory I run my cities by is that the lowest incomes pay the least taxes and the highest incomes pay the most taxes. Yes the R$$$ whine the loudest about taxes but adjusting the tax scale for them provides the most return on all the other nice things you are providing them. R$ won't really complain about taxes much but they offer the least amount of return for a tax increase but they make you money based on sheer volume they can be provided in.

I currently have a tile where the population is divided to roughly these percentages R$=3%, R$$=81%, R$$$=15%. However the Taxes being paid by percentage is roughly like this R$=1%, R$$=71%, R$$$=27% Every tax bracket is at the same 9% default but the proprotion of how much the tax ratio differs from the population ratio is very significant.

If you find the current tax system works for you then feel free to keep it. If you do decide to change the taxes do it very slowly by only a button click per month or so other wise your population may behave in a way that will send you economy back to the stone age. Your have to give everyone time to get used to taxes changes before they will accept more tax changes. This also goes both ways because if you drop the R$ taxes too fast the population may well decend into a crime riddled city of unemployed unemployable R$ masses.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

There are a lot of choices with NWM. An ordinary two lane road can be overlaied with a TLA-3 with appropriate connecting pieces. After that, you get into dual tile roads, and some urban renewal is needed.

Don't be shy. Urban renewal goes on all the time in cities. Even the most elaborate sky scraper is doomed if the city planners so decree. Use your god-like powers and let the chips fall where they may. Cleaning up after one of these can be fun.

MAVE-6s will often solve a bad traffic problem, but you can always lay down a couple of wide OWRs, one in each direction. They don't have to be adjacent, and can be a couple of blocks apart if you want to arrange things for easy access.

The upcoming revision to the NWM (and the NAM, I hope) will make it easier to use and provide even more fancy roads.

[Helepolis989 0]

Ok im not sure how to widen an avenue. But i do have some problems with it, everytime i try to use one of the new road builds my game crashes. Im not sure why, i have been trying to figure out how to put a tram on my avenues, cant figure that out either. I am losing alot of my buildings as well, nearly half my buildings are being half used. I cant figure out what. I took a picture of one to see if you guys could figure it out.

When i first read stuff on SC4, back in 05 or something, it said if you want sky scrapers to put your tax for high level houses really low, that way itll increase the potential for higher houses..

What exactly are the buttons to use the tram in the middle of the avenue? Cause i have tried alot and none of them seem to build on them.

Also, i am wanting to increase my airport size, will this help things out at all? Or should i just keep it the same size.

  Edited August 30, 2011 by Helepolis989