RCI Deep Down

[JoeLetaxi 1]

Hello everybody,

I have a big city running, 500000 sims; Nam installed, Cam installed, all dependencies completed; Then i had a big Plugins folder ' about 3Go, and i decided to Datpack it. Once it was done i continued to work in my city to improve it. I used no cheat , all constructions are watered and powered and nearby a network.

No brown box any and no conflicts as far as i can see. No traffic jams.no garbage, many schools, college, university....., many clinics, hospitals....., any kind of parks even raised or sunken ones, a big higway, quite no crimes, over 40 fire trucks, airport, army base, port, ferries, 5% landmarks only the rest is only growable stuff. I put metro, bus and elevated train.

All is (was) perfectly working EXCEPT the fact that population systematically decreases ( i m losing 1000people every 30mns); All items in RCI are pointing down (maximum down !). So i begin to destroy or erase residentials, commercial and industrial to make the city grow up again, no results. Then i wondered if it was reasonable to instal illegal plantations in a hidden part of city (hidden by big trees, lol) i too installed sex shops (from simgoober) and fukushima (from Somy) . If i can t have a solution to this problem i surely will move the "plugins compressed" folder and reinstall my genuine heavy plugin folder which was working perfectly. Could i have some help?

friendly .

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Sims do not live forever. It sounds like you are in a cyclic downturn due to your Sims aging out. Check your population by age graph and see if it is heavily skewed to the right. If so, your city has gone geriatric, and you need to do something to attract young Sims to your city.

Datpacker has to be used with care. Do not pack NAM or any of the related plugins as these are often updated and a nuisance to update if they are packed. All Datpacker does for you is speed up the game's initial load time. You also can't edit any of the packed lots with Lot Editor because when you do, the save will wind up at the main level of your Plugins file and the packed files will not be updated. If I do not expect to change a particular plugin and it is not already a .dat, I use ilive's Files2DAT to pack BAT plugins into a .dat, but other than that I don't see much advantage.

The other thing to check is your tax rates. If you have a big city and are still at 9% across the board, try cutting to 8.5% and run a while to see if this perks up your demand. For a fairly large city, someone has calculated that the threshold for taxes is at 8.9%.

Make a backup of your city before you do anything to it. Easiest way is to copy the whole region folder to someplace out of the game structure.

[JoeLetaxi 1]

Sims do not live forever. It sounds like you are in a cyclic downturn due to your Sims aging out. Check your population by age graph and see if it is heavily skewed to the right. If so, your city has gone geriatric, and you need to do something to attract young Sims to your city.

Datpacker has to be used with care. Do not pack NAM or any of the related plugins as these are often updated and a nuisance to update if they are packed. All Datpacker does for you is speed up the game's initial load time. You also can't edit any of the packed lots with Lot Editor because when you do, the save will wind up at the main level of your Plugins file and the packed files will not be updated. If I do not expect to change a particular plugin and it is not already a .dat, I use ilive's Files2DAT to pack BAT plugins into a .dat, but other than that I don't see much advantage.

The other thing to check is your tax rates. If you have a big city and are still at 9% across the board, try cutting to 8.5% and run a while to see if this perks up your demand. For a fairly large city, someone has calculated that the threshold for taxes is at 8.9%.

Make a backup of your city before you do anything to it. Easiest way is to copy the whole region folder to someplace out of the game structure.

hello Nonny Moose,

Thx for your fast reply.

My taxes are 9% for everything except the farms (7,2%), this is the first thing i m gonna try, lowering them. i checked up the age of population and i understand that sims get older but do they die ? (to make a place for youngers). About DatPacker, i d put Nam, simfox day and night , zzzterrain Mod, Slope Mod (the ennedi one), and a major part of my Bsc folder in Programs/Maxis/Simcity4/Plugins so they were not included in the datpacking. this was an advice from wouanagaine himself.

I tried to use Ilives before but i found Datpack easier to use, ill try again.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Sims do not live forever. It sounds like you are in a cyclic downturn due to your Sims aging out. Check your population by age graph and see if it is heavily skewed to the right. If so, your city has gone geriatric, and you need to do something to attract young Sims to your city.

Datpacker has to be used with care. Do not pack NAM or any of the related plugins as these are often updated and a nuisance to update if they are packed. All Datpacker does for you is speed up the game's initial load time. You also can't edit any of the packed lots with Lot Editor because when you do, the save will wind up at the main level of your Plugins file and the packed files will not be updated. If I do not expect to change a particular plugin and it is not already a .dat, I use ilive's Files2DAT to pack BAT plugins into a .dat, but other than that I don't see much advantage.

The other thing to check is your tax rates. If you have a big city and are still at 9% across the board, try cutting to 8.5% and run a while to see if this perks up your demand. For a fairly large city, someone has calculated that the threshold for taxes is at 8.9%.

Make a backup of your city before you do anything to it. Easiest way is to copy the whole region folder to someplace out of the game structure.

hello Nonny Moose,

Thx for your fast reply.

My taxes are 9% for everything except the farms (7,2%), this is the first thing i m gonna try, lowering them.

i checked up the age of population and i understand that Sims get older but do they die ? (to make a place for youngers).

About DatPacker, i d put Nam, simfox day and night , zzzterrain Mod, Slope Mod (the ennedi one), and a major part of my Bsc folder in Programs/Maxis/Simcity4/Plugins so they were not included in the datpacking. this was an advice from wouanagaine himself.

I tried to use Ilives before but i found Datpack easier to use, ill try again.

It was nothing, my friend. Yes, Sims do die. Your plugin organization seems fine. If your graph is off to the right, find a way to attract new Sims as immigrants.

BTW, I edited the quote to add a little white space. See how much easier it reads if you separate subjects.

[Mister Giggles 310]

While sims do age, and do die, they do not remove themselves from the population when they do so. They are immediately reincarnated into younger, less educated sims of the same wealth group. This, in an instance where it occurs in large numbers, can change demands.

The cause of the population loss is something else, assuming the Datpacking itself wasn't the cause.

The neutral tax rate (The rate at which there is no benefit and no disadvantages to demand) is about 8.7 at 500,000 population. Thanks to RippleJet for making the demand curve.

I'm not sure, however, if it's the cause of your problems. I've had over a million sims before demand cratered while at 9.0. Then again, each occupancy group has its own neutral tax rate that changes based on how many of that given type is in a city...then again, again, they may be interlinked.

  Edited February 19, 2012 by Mister Giggles  

[JoeLetaxi 1]

While sims do age, and do die, they do not remove themselves from the population when they do so. They are immediately reincarnated into younger, less educated sims of the same wealth group. This, in an instance where it occurs in large numbers, can change demands.

The cause of the population loss is something else, assuming the Datpacking itself wasn't the cause.

The neutral tax rate (The rate at which there is no benefit and no disadvantages to demand) is about 8.7 at 500,000 population. Thanks to RippleJet for making the demand curve.

I'm not sure, however, if it's the cause of your problems. I've had over a million sims before demand cratered while at 9.0. Then again, each occupancy group has its own neutral tax rate that changes based on how many of that given type is in a city...then again, again, they may be interlinked.

Hello, again

Correct RCI is back in my city. I just lower the tax to 8,6; 8,5; 8,4 and it takes 20mns to get my 500000 sims back in town. i dunno who has calculated this but it works (for the moment). So my illegal plantations were not the cause (lol) neither Simgoober's Sex shops. For those who have installed SOMY's fukushima plant, be careful with it. If u don t watch it frequently it explodes, generatin radio activity on 25 square tiles and this for a long time, if it happens, don t sa&ve, quit game and restart, build a brand new one fukushima and it s ok.

Thx again, i m thinking to write a thread listing all the good advices i ve got here.

[Mister Giggles 310]

The Microwave Rectenna Plant by Somy won't explode if you keep it watered and keep it within range of a fire station. Thus, you avert nuclear apocalypse.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The Microwave Rectenna Plant by Somy won't explode if you keep it watered and keep it within range of a fire station. Thus, you avert nuclear apocalypse.

This plant: Antimatter power won't explode as long as it is watered also. Uses a lot of water, though, so I also recommend this water plant.

[Dreadnought 8,226]

 

 

 

 

Hello, again

For those who have installed SOMY's fukushima plant, be careful with it. If u don t watch it frequently it explodes, generatin radio activity on 25 square tiles and this for a long time, if it happens, don t sa&ve, quit game and restart, build a brand new one fukushima and it s ok.

 

Thx again, i m thinking to write a thread listing all the good advices i ve got here.

Speaking of which -- does anybody have a link to Somy's Fukushima Plant??  I found something in Japanese, but couldn't guess how to download.

[Mister Giggles 310]

http://members3.jcom.home.ne.jp/somy000/index.htm

Scroll down until you get to smaller, clickable pictures. Fukushima is the first one.

[rsc204 21,805]

I wouldn't worry too much about nuclear exploding, so long as you replace it before it's knackered and keep water/fire protection in range there should be nothing to worry about. Glad to see Somy's site is still around, I was getting nothing but time outs and 404's last night and began to worry that had gone into the either too.