Nuclear Radiation doesn't make sense and is a joke

[Zades 7]

First I have no idea why it melted down (twice) since my sims are educated and the plant does say 'Safe'.

 

I've had two nuclear meltdowns thus far in one of my cities.  Yet...nothing much has changed.  The first meltdown was so far away from my residential that despite the news flashing "MELTDOWN! EVACUATE!", there was only a 5k population drop (I had around 60k population at that time).  Sure some buildings suffered radiation and Sims don't live in them, but other than that my city operations had not really changed.

 

After the first meltdown I collected enough money to re-structure my city so my supply and production chain gets more effective and effectient, and during the re-structure I placed the new nuclear power plant closer to the residential area.  And now it melted down again.

 

This time it razed away quite a bit of my buildings.  My population fell from 55k to 28k.  After I demolished the radiated buildings though, the Sims build most of them back and my population jumped up again.

 

The one thing I have noticed is that the radiation gives my Sims a lot of germs.  Yes, germs.  Not toxicity.  Not cancer.  Not mutations.  Germs.  And since most of my city is powered by workers and shoppers from other cities, it still functions perfectly fine.

 

I actually think the radiation is a good thing since now I can build more trade ports and such to get even more income.

 

Radiation map

 

Health map

 

Population map

 

 

City

 

UI not showing for some reasons even though I had the checkbox unchecked in options.

[DrKing2020 8]

I had a meltdown too even though my population was well educated and it said education level was safe. 4 out of 5 graduation caps were green. But my tech level had only one out of three yellow gears. I think that was my problem. Radiation is no small problem. I think there should be more warning before a meltdown so we can safely shut it down.

[Yool 0]

This would not happen if you educate your sims.. Build a collage or university and your educated sims should be able to run a secure nuclear pp

[Zades 7]

This would not happen if you educate your sims.. Build a collage or university and your educated sims should be able to run a secure nuclear pp

 

They were educated.  I do have a university.  The plant plant said the level was 'safe' both times, still is.

[Yool 0]

hmm i don't like that then.. busy enough with the giant lizzy comming trough all the time..

[czNemesis 8]

This would not happen if you educate your sims.. Build a collage or university and your educated sims should be able to run a secure nuclear pp

Wrong. I had 4/5 education level and max tech level and still it melted down. And do you know why? Cause game thought it would be fun to place an earthquake right beneath my first and newly (1 day old) build nuclear plant. Was so fun that I had to leave that hightech, TV's producing city as it is and never play it again... (Sarkasm off) I tried to play that city for almost two weeks (in game) and the radiation didn't dissipate even a little bit. So there you go with nuclear plants and even the highest education won't help you at all.

[duxie 0]

Was your water supply maxed as this can cause a meltdown as well.

[Supertatane 0]

yep, same problem here... and I think for me it was effectively a water issue. But I had no warning at all, except at the last minute when it was too late, and I may have missed something but if a proper explanation about max water level and nuclear explosion is somewhere in the game, I don't know where.
With the radiations level which don't seems to change ever after the meltdown and my city who is now condemned to be definitly limited in his development since a quarter of the map is a nuclear wasteland, I think there is a severe lack of gameplay informations here.
I have luck in this, the city is still operationnal and the university continue to develope new technologies, so it still serve the original purpose for the region... but my city had great plans for the future, and this future is no more

[duxie 0]

I normally stick my water pump + sewage treatment plant right next to the nuclear plant to make sure it has the highest priority when it comes to water.

Secondly check that you have enough people working at the plant. As well as educated people you will need all three wealth groups working there.

 

Regarding the radiation: never had a plant explode so not sure how to get rid of it. Have you tried trees (to get rid of ground pollution) or hazmat from the firestation?

[Zades 7]

If you look at the picture multiple sewage dumps and water plants sit next to the power plant.  My water is always at the very least in the yellow since all my production advisers would yell at me since my smelters are always the first thing to go offline when water even drops a little bit.

 

I do have hazmat trucks in the city and it doesn't do anything.  Nothing seems to really effect the radiation.

 

Also of note.  Sims will go in and out of the radiation zones to shop or work or visit places or whatever, all the radiation zones really give is a lot of germs, sick Sims, and make some buildings abandon once built on the radiation area.  Some because I still have high wealth high residential buildings in radiation zones for some reason.  And most lower wealth Sims seem not to care about radiation and would happily build their houses on the fringes.

[duxie 0]

The only thing that I would suggest is checking that you are not lacking workers of all wealth groups.

Nuclear Power Plant - $200 $$600 $$$240

[nafeasonto 18]

I had a meltdown too even though my population was well educated and it said education level was safe. 4 out of 5 graduation caps were green. But my tech level had only one out of three yellow gears. I think that was my problem. Radiation is no small problem. I think there should be more warning before a meltdown so we can safely shut it down.

 

 

You have to have a community college, if you don['t you do not get TECH points. (the gear levels below the hats) Needs to be at least 1.  You go to the GEAR map in the Education section and you will see the Tech level of the NUKE plant. Also you have to have at least ONE INDUSTRY zone, or your tech will not spread.  That is what I found out.  IT's dumb.

[Supertatane 0]

well problem is, with all the the news we have this days about pathfinding and how an agent only go to the nearer job each morning, I'm afraid that obtain such fine set of group workers at the reactor each day would be a real bet... a nuclear bet, with permanent waste land as penalty... I'm all about green energy now, wind or sun depend of the map, but no more nuclear.

PS: I tried the trees, they die in a matter of days, and no effect on radiations.

[MOWS 4 U 169]

I have nearly had a meltdown twice, but it was averted both times by quickly pausing and turning off the plant.  Both times only a small amount of radiation was released (light pink on map) which had no effect on anything.  I'm just hoping once the STEX for SC2013 is up that someone will make a new nuclear plant that doesn't meltdown or some alternative high output power plant.

[fieryflare 1]

There are no real educated sims though. I'll just leave this quote here, from http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/1a75te/how_it_came_to_this/

 

Sim AI as dumb as $%&^!. Quite literally, the sewage agents are no different in their one-track behaviors than the Sims themselves. There are no doctors, no engineers or scientists; no teachers or real police or firemen. There are only generic nomad agents which assume the first job they stumble into that day, and sleep in the closest available house that night. Not a thing about them resembles a real life. They are all as mindless and generic as the water, electricity and sewage that all travel the same streets.

[Toll 0]

The game is a city simulator not a Sim's simulator. The way the game works is all about the buildings. Having to track the individuals going from a specific building to a specific workplace would cost a great deal in CPU power and would not add too much more to the game.

The only reason why people care about it is because of the routing of agents, with tweaking that can be changed to reflect a more realistic approach.

 

This game hasn't finished cooking, EA publishes were happy enough that the game was playable, I bet the game designers were trying to say, not yet, but publishers always win.

[bpdubb 0]

Yup it does not matter if your sims are well educated. I had every single kid in my city of 85k attending school. I had the university built for years and all of the sudden the tech level takes a downward plunge with no explanation and causes the workforce at the plant to go unsafe giving you almost no time to react. Now I too, have a nuclear wasteland. So education it seems will not prevent a meltdown even if you have a ton of schools AND libraries throughout your city. Pretty annoying... maxis.

[tnobles 38]

Yep, I build oil and coal just to avoid that and then meteorites nuked me??? On/off button needed!

[Yaffle 29]

My poor city today had six meteor strikes over seven game years. Not even the dinosaurs had that kind of bad luck!

 

I too stick to coal and oil - for this game nuclear is too risky.

[morriswalters 16]

If you must use nuclear, I would put it in one corner as close in as you can get.  The effects are circular.  3/4 of the effect will happen off map if it goes up.  Radiation will never go away, and you can't clean it up.  38 game years for the lightest band to go away.  Or as has been suggested by others put it on another map, get it working and sharing power and never go back.  It's only saving grace is that it is compact.  Couple of other things.  Use them at your own risk, I don't know you if they don't work.   Put your trash dumps around the Station.  The Lizard goes for the trash.  Give him a target that is not you plant.  For him to get the station he has to spawn on it.  I've never seen an earthquake spawn in a corner, but I have seen them on an edge.  Same for meteor strikes.  But the random nature of these events makes nukes a bad choice.

[Yaffle 29]

I forgot...

 

Your University is a "tech pump" just as your power stations are a "power pump". It could be that in this map all the tech "agents" pumped were assimilated by sinks before that plant.

 

Sims are not educated per se, it's the University that "pumps" it to the building.

 

I have no idea why it would show "safe" before an incident, however!

[xoxide 377]

I forgot...

 

Your University is a "tech pump" just as your power stations are a "power pump". It could be that in this map all the tech "agents" pumped were assimilated by sinks before that plant.

 

Sims are not educated per se, it's the University that "pumps" it to the building.

 

I have no idea why it would show "safe" before an incident, however!

 

You know I ran a test last weekend on the nuke reactor because I finally got a SCRAM report and shut down before it had a problem

 

my university wasn't that close but not far

 

I went to the data layer and noticed a trend

 

They would go home, Got to school.. go the nuke plant .. go home

 

did not realize that they were acting like sinks and agents until last week myself

[nataniels3 61]

Use the build outside city box mod. While I have yet to see a meltdown, it would happen outside of the city.

[Screwballl 196]

Simply having a University is not enough. Do not use the Nuclear plant until your industrial gear thing has all 3 yellow (or 3rd mostly yellow). Even then Build a chunk of industrial. If they keep going abandoned after a while complaining about uneducated workers, then its not time to build the Nuke plant yet. Build at least 2-3 Dorms for the University AND Community College each in order to keep the education levels up. If not then you will keep having meltdown after meltdown.

 

In the residential areas, make sure you are using a ton of high wealth parks that have to be added to at least once to enable the highest wealth level.

 

I have several cities that have run with a nuke plant using these tips for at least 6-7 game years without a problem.

[Eriseley 4]

I've sat watching the Tech data layer and my nuke plant can consume max Tech down to zero over one night. This might have to do with how many and how advanced the additional plants are, not sure. Also wondering if nuke plant extensions might experience a similar thing to electronics factory extensions not getting the purple stuff if they aren't close enough to a road. Anyway, it's something else to look at/experiment with.

[DumplingPod 0]

First I have no idea why it melted down (twice) since my sims are educated and the plant does say 'Safe'.

 

I've had two nuclear meltdowns thus far in one of my cities.  Yet...nothing much has changed.  The first meltdown was so far away from my residential that despite the news flashing "MELTDOWN! EVACUATE!", there was only a 5k population drop (I had around 60k population at that time).  Sure some buildings suffered radiation and Sims don't live in them, but other than that my city operations had not really changed.

 

After the first meltdown I collected enough money to re-structure my city so my supply and production chain gets more effective and effectient, and during the re-structure I placed the new nuclear power plant closer to the residential area.  And now it melted down again.

 

This time it razed away quite a bit of my buildings.  My population fell from 55k to 28k.  After I demolished the radiated buildings though, the Sims build most of them back and my population jumped up again.

 

The one thing I have noticed is that the radiation gives my Sims a lot of germs.  Yes, germs.  Not toxicity.  Not cancer.  Not mutations.  Germs.  And since most of my city is powered by workers and shoppers from other cities, it still functions perfectly fine.

 

I actually think the radiation is a good thing since now I can build more trade ports and such to get even more income.

 

I've also noticed that the radius in which is affected by radiation is very small based on what the developers have to say about city size. Here in South Central Pennsylvania, we have a nuclear power plant by the name of Three Mile Island. You may know about this power plant. The partial meltdown caused a lot of panic in the area. Luckily, this place is still habitable. When there's a nuclear emergency, they have a guide that is mailed to us every year that tells us where we should evacuate to, what radio stations to listen to, etc. You can see the packet here: http://www.exeloncorp.com/assets/energy/powerplants/docs/TMI/bro_TMI_PIB.pdf

 

They tell us to evacuate at least 10 miles (16 km) and they even provide a map with the radius. The radius includes part of Harrisburg, the entirety of Hershey (Yes, the chocolate Hershey) and many surrounding communities. When a reactor melts down in SimCity 5, however, it only covers a radius that is barely 1 km. Not only would the city the power plant is in would be deserted, but many surrounding cities. An entire region could get destroyed by that meltdown.

 

I thought that this was pretty interesting.