NAM General Support

[Casper3141 60]

Ive been having alot of trouble with residentual abandoning due to commute times, even with Ultra traffic settings in NAM and the time sims will commute set to the maximum, and these are city's that are using things like NWM and RHW to their fullest, thought at first maybe its me and poor city planning until I did some tests, needless to say a portion of my sims usually the R$$ Think crossing the street to work, or driving 2 blocks away takes too long yet other sims will travel from literally the NW corner to the SE corner of a large map for their job.

 

This thing is making it extremely difficult to reproduce West Coast style cities of dense urban cores which in turn are surrounded by massive amounts of residential sprawl with occasional "Job zones" so any real attempt at recreating Citys like Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, or San Diego end up with alot of dilapidation.

 

Id hate to think that the only solution  to dilapidation would be visually with that mod that keeps them from turning black if that is even still around?

[Indiana Joe 1,750]

Ive been having alot of trouble with residentual abandoning due to commute times, even with Ultra traffic settings in NAM and the time sims will commute set to the maximum, and these are city's that are using things like NWM and RHW to their fullest, thought at first maybe its me and poor city planning until I did some tests, needless to say a portion of my sims usually the R$$ Think crossing the street to work, or driving 2 blocks away takes too long yet other sims will travel from literally the NW corner to the SE corner of a large map for their job.

 

This thing is making it extremely difficult to reproduce West Coast style cities of dense urban cores which in turn are surrounded by massive amounts of residential sprawl with occasional "Job zones" so any real attempt at recreating Citys like Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, or San Diego end up with alot of dilapidation.

 

Id hate to think that the only solution  to dilapidation would be visually with that mod that keeps them from turning black if that is even still around?

 

Sprawl cities shouldn't be a problem with the NAM.  You just have to strike the right balance of citizens and job wealth.  Be sure to have lots of commercial services and small industrial sectors along major roads.  That will provide plenty of extra jobs out in the suburbs for those who can't find work in the CBD.  It's also a realistic layout.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The other thing to watch is the ratio of jobs to Sims.  This needs to be in the order of 1 to 2.  Momma Sim doesn't work.

[Casper3141 60]

The other thing to watch is the ratio of jobs to Sims.  This needs to be in the order of 1 to 2.  Momma Sim doesn't work.

So there should be twice as many sims as jobs? If so the only place I ever have more jobs than sims is my city core and thats mainly because my downtown area will be built in a way where alot of sims commute directly too it from all its neighboring citys.

 

 

 

Ive been having alot of trouble with residentual abandoning due to commute times, even with Ultra traffic settings in NAM and the time sims will commute set to the maximum, and these are city's that are using things like NWM and RHW to their fullest, thought at first maybe its me and poor city planning until I did some tests, needless to say a portion of my sims usually the R$$ Think crossing the street to work, or driving 2 blocks away takes too long yet other sims will travel from literally the NW corner to the SE corner of a large map for their job.

 

This thing is making it extremely difficult to reproduce West Coast style cities of dense urban cores which in turn are surrounded by massive amounts of residential sprawl with occasional "Job zones" so any real attempt at recreating Citys like Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, or San Diego end up with alot of dilapidation.

 

Id hate to think that the only solution  to dilapidation would be visually with that mod that keeps them from turning black if that is even still around?

 

Sprawl cities shouldn't be a problem with the NAM.  You just have to strike the right balance of citizens and job wealth.  Be sure to have lots of commercial services and small industrial sectors along major roads.  That will provide plenty of extra jobs out in the suburbs for those who can't find work in the CBD.  It's also a realistic layout.

 

 

 

 

Large citys that are suberban sprawl in my regions that are built for nothing but housing usually have nothing but Commercial services, and a few CommercialOffice areas along all the major roads never used Industrial in that way, Industry built in that manner along with service jobs, Industry wouldnt destroy the demand for R$$ would it, unless it was D-I instead of M-I?

[Indiana Joe 1,750]

You can get away with a little dirty industry here and there.  With a few parks, schools and hospitals R$$ won't be bothered.  Industrial is an important part of the game; it is the prime source of employment for your lower classes.  The blue collar jobs are a necessary part of the balance.

 

You don't have to mix it in.  You can have dedicated, separated industrial sectors that are larger, if you want to keep all pollution out.  Just make sure there are several spotted around the city.

[Casper3141 60]

You can get away with a little dirty industry here and there.  With a few parks, schools and hospitals R$$ won't be bothered.  Industrial is an important part of the game; it is the prime source of employment for your lower classes.  The blue collar jobs are a necessary part of the balance.

 

You don't have to mix it in.  You can have dedicated, separated industrial sectors that are larger, if you want to keep all pollution out.  Just make sure there are several spotted around the city.

Thats usually what ive done, dedicate larger Industrial sectors but with the commute time problem, I think Ill try your suggestion and see what happens

[Belfastsocrates 1,753]

Not entirely sure if this is a NAM related issue but I thought I'd check. 

 

Does anyone know why my traffic lights are appearing on the wrong side of the road? My traffic flows correctly as shown in the image below, but traffic lights don't correspond to traffic movement. I selected the LHD option when installing NAM. 

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The Sims to Jobs ratio is for the tile overall.  Local clustering doesn't matter.  This is why you use the NAM.

[Indiana Joe 1,750]

Not entirely sure if this is a NAM related issue but I thought I'd check.

Hard to see in your pic, but if you're using custom traffic lights, make sure they support LHD.

And was your game originally LHD, or did you change the driving side?

[jdenm8 362]

By default, in an LHT game, cars will change sides, but the traffic lights won't. This is Maxis' fault.

 

As for mods that support LHT, the only one I can think of is Mandelsoft's.

[Belfastsocrates 1,753]

Thank you both. I'm going to download Mandelsoft's stoplight mod and hopefully that resolves the issue. I wasn't aware there was an in-game fault regarding stoplights.

[JessiLaurn 183]

In something of an afterward to my previous reporting on bridges vs ferries, it appears that the various diagonal road bridges do interact properly with ferries.  Haven't tried avenue/highway (since that'd require installing RHW).

 

I finally broke down and installed RHW.  On a happy note, all of the RHW-based bridges (both RHW2-based and Ground Highway-based) work perfectly with ferry routes.  So the dysfunction list I've provided until now is complete.  Here's hoping it's something that can be fixed in a future release.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Thanks for that reassurance and the monumental amount of work.

[Xander Dax 310]

A quick question, i have the lates NAM installed including the Bullet Train Mod included with it, but i am still also using HSR so do i still need to have the BTM HSR patch?, or can i not worry about it and leave it out?.

Also in my menu i see curve pieces with there own look but not any other pieces with the same look?.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I believe the two are incompatible.  They are both based on the monorail are they not?  AFAIK you can only have one re-skin at a time.

[Tarkus 6,932]

I believe the two are incompatible.  They are both based on the monorail are they not?  AFAIK you can only have one re-skin at a time.

 

HSRP, at least in its NAM Team incarnation (since 2008) is a Monorail-based override network, not a re-skin.  The "patch" is included in the NAM, and should be installed if you select both options.

 

-Tarkus

[Xander Dax 310]

Ah thank you for that Gentlemen.

[ChromeNine 1]

Any hints on the next NAM release? 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Only if you look at the dev threads at SC4Devotion.  And no guarantees on anything.  It all depends on what passes quality assurance.  The unexpected arrival of a NEW version of the NAM is always a major event.

[ChromeNine 1]

Only if you look at the dev threads at SC4Devotion.  And no guarantees on anything.  It all depends on what passes quality assurance.  The unexpected arrival of a NEW version of the NAM is always a major event.

Is SC4Devotion more looked at than Simtropolis? Like the NAM team usually posts there more often than here?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

 

Only if you look at the dev threads at SC4Devotion.  And no guarantees on anything.  It all depends on what passes quality assurance.  The unexpected arrival of a NEW version of the NAM is always a major event.

Is SC4Devotion more looked at than Simtropolis? Like the NAM team usually posts there more often than here?

 

It is a matter of personal preference.  ST is more like the store front whereas SC4Devotion is more like a factory site.

[Tarkus 6,932]

 

 

Only if you look at the dev threads at SC4Devotion.  And no guarantees on anything.  It all depends on what passes quality assurance.  The unexpected arrival of a NEW version of the NAM is always a major event.

Is SC4Devotion more looked at than Simtropolis? Like the NAM team usually posts there more often than here?

 

It is a matter of personal preference.  ST is more like the store front whereas SC4Devotion is more like a factory site.

 

 

We check both sites, but we're more active at SC4D, as all of our development activity (both public and private--the exception being some of the German Tram modders who used SimForum.de) has been based over there for the past 7 years.  Here, we mostly just answer questions and provide tech support.

 

-Tarkus

[ChromeNine 1]

So the NAM Installer kept asking me to update my SimCity 4 to 1.1.638.0, so I followed the link to the updater at SC4Devotion, ran the program, but the NAM Installer keeps saying my SC4 is out of date.

 

The patchlog seems to be stating that the files already exist in the game directory.

"Applying MODIFY File Patch for 'SimCity_#.dat'

    New Version of File 'SimCity_#.dat' already exists."

[fredrik001 9]

Is there something i'm doing wrong with the following?

 

Blue on the upper side is going around the corners of four tiles. When I change between the city tiles following the traffic flow it just keeps increasing. Currently around 50k cars just goung around in a circle.

 

Yellow is 120 000k cars and 40 000 bus commuters, of which about half of the cars just disappears when going into the next city tile. When going into the next tile after that (the CBD) there are only 30 000 buses and 10 000 cars left. 

 

The red circled area dilapidates due to commuting times, even though there are 300 000 jobs in the area (the region has 1.5:1 people:jobs). 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

 

So the NAM Installer kept asking me to update my SimCity 4 to 1.1.638.0, so I followed the link to the updater at SC4Devotion, ran the program, but the NAM Installer keeps saying my SC4 is out of date.

 

The patchlog seems to be stating that the files already exist in the game directory.

"Applying MODIFY File Patch for 'SimCity_#.dat'

    New Version of File 'SimCity_#.dat' already exists."

 

The patch only applies to fresh installs from CD.  Is that what you have?

[Tarkus 6,932]

 

So the NAM Installer kept asking me to update my SimCity 4 to 1.1.638.0, so I followed the link to the updater at SC4Devotion, ran the program, but the NAM Installer keeps saying my SC4 is out of date.

 

The patchlog seems to be stating that the files already exist in the game directory.

"Applying MODIFY File Patch for 'SimCity_#.dat'

    New Version of File 'SimCity_#.dat' already exists."

 

 

It's possible you don't have the right SKU version of the patch.  As far as I know, they apply the same changes to the SimCity_#.dat files, but differ with the .exe.  Try the others to see if they work.  More recent disc copies may be from a point of origin quite distant from where you actually bought it.  I know of quite a few users in Indonesia who have British copies, complete with Left-Hand Traffic by default.

 

If you're running the digital version from Origin, there are reports that they're selling an unpatchable version at present.

 

Is there something i'm doing wrong with the following?

 

Blue on the upper side is going around the corners of four tiles. When I change between the city tiles following the traffic flow it just keeps increasing. Currently around 50k cars just goung around in a circle.

 

Yellow is 120 000k cars and 40 000 bus commuters, of which about half of the cars just disappears when going into the next city tile. When going into the next tile after that (the CBD) there are only 30 000 buses and 10 000 cars left. 

 

The red circled area dilapidates due to commuting times, even though there are 300 000 jobs in the area (the region has 1.5:1 people:jobs). 

 

What you've described is an Eternal Commuter Loop.  The game is incapable of remembering which city tile traffic came from, beyond the first border crossing, and if the job count of another neighboring city is high enough, and the route to the next border is shorter than to a job within that city, it'll start to become recursive.  Each time you open and save a city in the loop, the issue grows larger.  You can curb it to an extent by changing your layout or temporarily closing off part of the loop (though sometimes, they'll just find a slightly longer loop), or trying to get enough jobs at one of the corners of the city to sop up the commuters and break the cycle, but it is very pesky.  It's something that exists in the base game without any mods.  The CAM developers have noted that their mod does in fact exacerbate Eternal Commute Loops as well.

 

This from 2006 describes it.

 

-Tarkus

[ChromeNine 1]

 

 

So the NAM Installer kept asking me to update my SimCity 4 to 1.1.638.0, so I followed the link to the updater at SC4Devotion, ran the program, but the NAM Installer keeps saying my SC4 is out of date.

 

The patchlog seems to be stating that the files already exist in the game directory.

"Applying MODIFY File Patch for 'SimCity_#.dat'

    New Version of File 'SimCity_#.dat' already exists."

 

 

It's possible you don't have the right SKU version of the patch.  As far as I know, they apply the same changes to the SimCity_#.dat files, but differ with the .exe.  Try the others to see if they work.  More recent disc copies may be from a point of origin quite distant from where you actually bought it.  I know of quite a few users in Indonesia who have British copies, complete with Left-Hand Traffic by default.

 

If you're running the digital version from Origin, there are reports that they're selling an unpatchable version at present.

The SKU I got was the North American version, which is the one of the game. Is there a certain place I should get the correct patcher from? The one I got was from SC4Devotion. (and then when it didn't work, I tried the one here on Simtropolis)

[konokonokono 0]

Hello all.

 

I've been trying to follow Haljackey's tutorial on building directional T-interchanges with RHW, but I can't complete a certain step. This picture in particular is what I can't complete. The game won't allow me to build the left half of the ground RH4 beneath the elevated RH4. I followed everything in Haljackey's photos, and I still don't know whats going wrong. Tips?

 

So far, this is all I've been able to complete.

[Indiana Joe 1,750]

Instead of dragging all the way under the overpass, just drag up to one tile underneath on both sides

[konokonokono 0]

I've tried. I've already dragged halfway from the right side, but when I try to complete it from the other side, the game tells me it's an invalid move.