CAM comes to Simtropolis

[InvisiChem 121]

The Colossus Addon Mod now comes to Simtropolis!!!!

I am proud to bring the CAM to Simtropolis finally. Get it here, 

The description and manuals have a lot of information about what this mod does. Any other questions or comments, I will be more than happy to hear. It is the people here and over at SC4D that make it possible to improve the CAM and what people want from it.

Cheers guys and enjoy gaming,

InvisiChem

[Cyclone Boom 16,852]

Bravo, thanks for your hard work. It's great to see the CAM here on the STEX!

This really caps off a fine few months for new SimCity 4 content.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

The CAM is my 2nd favorite mod for SimCity 4 (before NAM, of course). What are the noticeable changes between CAM 1.0 and the newest version? I remember it seeing no development for over a year the last time I used it.

[InvisiChem 121]

A lot more room for this here. lol. This is a lot of changes, so bear with me.

• IR is now totaled in the industrial totals, IR CAP removed from other developer types, IR CAP added to IR Developer type, IR CAP relief added to industrial connections.
• Parent cohort chain removed from IR Buildings and fields. (Easier future modding, especially with the revamp that's coming).
• Adjusted the pollution numbers for farm fields based on type of field
• Adjusted workers per field based on type of field (i.e. Lettuce fields are labor intensive, pasture land is not).
• Query now works on fields
• Traffic effect reduced on IR types
• Air pollution effect reduced on IR Types
• Minimum Desirability lowered from 50 to 30 for IR Types.
• Maximum total demand increased to 54,000. Allows for some of the max stage buildings to actually grow. Demand graph changed to reflect this change.
• Tax income based on difficulty changed from 1.2, 1.1, 1.0 to 1.2, 1.0, 0.8. This really does make hard mode hard.
• Desirability changed for CO$$$ to reduce chances of dilapidation. The area needs to be very desirable so it will grow and stay.
• Workforce drives have been completely changed to balance the demand created by residents.
• Census drives have been completely changed to take some pressure off R$$. R$$ is still the main workforce, but now R$ and R$$$ sims have a better chance to survive.
• Census drive changes fixed the IHT workforce bug.
• The addition of PlayStyles. This completely changes the way stage growth works. Rural settings almost no skyscrapers will grow, SkyScraper - well, the name says it all.
• A few building fixes for workforce issues - Nuclear Power Plant, Solar Power Plant and Medical Clinic.
• Utilized and modified the Workforce bug fix by Z to fix the doubled workforce and doubled C, I Demand bugs.
• With the city stages changed for larger populations, the rewards have been retimed to reflect these changes. For instance, the mayors house is now offered at 3450 pop.
• Median Tax rate per population changed for more difficult game play.
• Workforce per Life expectancy changed from 40-60 to 50-70. This reflects current life a lot better.
• Stages for IR increased to 10. IR is becoming more like normal industry.
• I even paid attention to detail. When loading the game, at the copyright screen, If CAM 2 is loaded, it will tell you which PlayStyle and from 2.1.0 on, which version.
• Loaded in the most previous folder, a__CAM. Not only for override reasons, but the changes are such high level, they need to be changed quickly in the loading order.
• CAM is becoming more modular to accept future plugins and addons.

Okay, these are the biggies. There is other minor changes here and there I'd have to go back through every exemplar to remember right now. Changes have been made to the installer to include Registry entries for windows users, SC4 Dat Packer at install for the IR Patch, and it runs Cleanitol automatically. SC4 Dat Packer and Cleanitol are automatically removed after installation. Windows uses NSIS for the installer.

I am reprogramming J Dat Packer to run from the command line to remove user interaction at all with the IR Patch. I am also working on a native JRE Based installer for Mac OSX to do the same thing. Mac installer will use IzPack. I will be building this in a VM, so bear with me with some glitches here and there.

This IR Patch is supposed to be permanent. The larger demands and other benefits from CAM are not included in the Patch, so this can be standalone for vanilla versions. All it fixes is IR being totaled and the Industrial Connections.

I already have an incremental 2.1.1 planned to come out soon. I am PIM-X'ing every growable building in the game, fixing installer glitches and will patch a minor piece I wanted in this version but forgot to hit save on the reader. This flaw is Dirt Road should have a CAP Relief of 100000 like maxis highways for the RHW. Streets will have a CAP relief of 1000 for those that do use the street connection tutorial (Difficult process, not worth it personally). 

Hopefully that answers a few questions. Anything you would like me to elaborate on, I will be more than happy.

[InvisiChem 121]

Alright guys, got a decent number of downloads now. Let see and hear about your experiences. The only way I can improve this for the communities is to get a lot of feedback

 

I know I love the mod. Don't get to play it so much now, but still have some fun with testing. Here is what I have planned for an incremental release, 2.1.1.

• All growables run through PIM-X
• Ploppables run through PIM-X if I have time
• Inclusion of RippleJets fixes (i.e. Private Schools with sliders, CAMeLot counter, Central Repository Facility/Vault)
• Inclusion of other fixes (Opera House, Spaceport, Installers)

A small list, but it's just an incremental release. Now, up to you guys for some ideas. 

[vester_DK 477]

Did you ask RippleJet if it was okay with him to upload it here ?

He did work on the mods for a very long time, a would say more than a year or so....

[InvisiChem 121]

I have attempted to ask for more than 6 months. Unfortunately, he and the rest of the team seem to no longer be active. Instead, I went through the rest of the LEX Team to gain permission to reactivate this mod. 

Not only did RippleJet work on this mod for a long time, he created it and a lot of this version. However, years ago development stopped and I was given access to the Beta thread to speed the development I had already done. I completed his work and added to it. 

If RippleJet were to become active again, I would hope he would like what I have done with this. I reverse engineered his formulas for expanded stage tables, workforce tables, etc. all to keep true to his work. If he becomes active again, I will gladly get the highest level permission and comply with his wishes, even if it meant to remove all downloads. I would much rather have explicit permission instead of implicit permission. For now, I must operate on the faith he would agree with the mass release of this mod. 

Here on simtropolis, there is a thread where he attempted to bring the CAM to Simtropolis. The community did not agree with the method, therefore I chose to do a direct download instead. Again, a method I think he would agree with.

[IconicGoddess 1]

Hey @InvisiChem, I tried installing your mod "CAM" but it won't install at ALL, I get an error that tells me to check the logfile, so here it is.

 

SC4DatPacker.exe.log

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Thanks for working on this, I'm glad to see more development.  

[InvisiChem 121]

@IconicGoddess, A few people have gotten this same error. Very few, but unfortunately this is going to make this a much harder process. First, check to make sure it did not delete the SimCity_1.dat from your SimCity install directory. I have programmed some safeguards in case of SC4 Dat Packer failure, but better to be safe. Next, go to this thread for a manual install. https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=17318.msg505365#msg505365

Instead of SC4 Dat Packer, you could also use JDat Packer, but it runs a little different. We'll get into that if this fails. 

As stated in that thread, there has been a few install failures, so I am going to change a few things with the next release. Instead of switching to InstallShield, I'm reprogramming JDat Packer to accept arguments and become a part of the installer. 

I truly apologize for this problem. Again, only a very few systems have this problem. It is still very important to solve this issue and will be done. Until then, feel free to post here or PM me for more explicit instructions if need be.

[InvisiChem 121]

As promised, here are the new Census Tables as compared to the vanilla SimCity 4 Census Tables

Rush Hour
                                                                             Employer Type
Worker Type       CO$$$       CO$$        CS$$$       CS$$       CS$        IHT       IM        ID       IR
R$$$                    15%           10%            8%             5%            --            10%      5%        --         --
R$$                      65%           50%            30%           27%          --            80%      45%      --         --
R$                        20%           40%            62%           68%         100%      10%      50%    100%   20%

CAM 1.0 (With optional plugins) 
                                                                             Employer Type
Worker Type       CO$$$       CO$$        CS$$$       CS$$       CS$        IHT       IM        ID       IR
R$$$                    15%           10%            8%             5%            --            10%      5%        --         --
R$$                      65%           50%            30%           27%          5%         80%      45%     5%      1%
R$                        20%           40%            62%           68%          95%       10%      50%     95%    19%

CAM 2.1.0
                                                                             Employer Type
Worker Type       CO$$$       CO$$        CS$$$       CS$$       CS$        IHT       IM        ID       IR
R$$$                    25%           20%            18%           5%           2%          25%      8%        2%     2%
R$$                      55%           50%            30%           27%         4%          60%      50%     18%   23%
R$                        20%           30%            52%           68%         94%        15%      42%     80%   75%

As can be seen, R$$$ is much more represented and the values are based on the type of developer. This also fixes the IHT Bug fix without any other additions. Development in gameplay also seems much more balanced.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

I think there should only be 1% R$$$ for IR because plantation owners and agribusiness executives tend to be few while there are more heavy industry executives. I would also make CO$$$ have 12% R$ and 63% R$$ because it makes sense that everyone besides interns and janitors at the headquarters of ritzy businesses would be well paid. IHT should hire 10% R$ 65% R$$ for similar reasons.

 

However, I still love seeing your progress and look forward to playing CAM 2.1.0

[InvisiChem 121]

Makes sense and great to have another point of view on that. I'll try out those numbers and make sure I like how the cities grow with it.

[InvisiChem 121]

Added a download for the now completed, fully PIM-X'ed Maxis R$ buildings. All building family ties have been broken, so staging is not skewed for other buildings in the family using the same lot. All buildings have been given their own lots and lot IID's, so a lot of conflicts should be solved with this. Maxis Blockers will no longer block this content, but see the description to see how to get rid of the buildings you don't want.

This file is mainly for those still using CAM 1.0 and not planning to update to the newer version and for those who want to run the newest buildings before the release of the next CAM version.

These can be found 
https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=3349 or
https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/30990-cam-r-maxis-building-replacements-full-pim-x/

[InvisiChem 121]

R$ buldings description update. Locked over at SC4D, but can't lock them here. Had some midrise buildings growing on low density zones. Not a hard fix, but a time consuming one with my hectic work schedule. Be back up in a few days. Also, gives me a new bug to watch out for while completing these. Thank you to gamzdude at simtropolis for catching this error.

[InvisiChem 121]

R$ buildings fixed and updated. Download away.

[TrickyMario76543 67]

Hey, I'm wondering if you could make the CAM buildings growable for people who don't use CAM?

[Ocram's Razr 963]

How do I get the CAM to install on SimCity 4 for Steam? It always fails to install.

 

When will 2.1.1 come out?

  Edited May 3, 2016 by OcramsRzr  

[APSMS 1,892]

On 4/25/2016 at 0:28 AM, TrickyMario76543 said:

Hey, I'm wondering if you could make the CAM buildings growable for people who don't use CAM?

CAM buildings are typically high-capacity buildings that occupy higher stages of growth. You can make these CAM-exclusive buildings (I guess there are some on the STEX and LEX?) grow on your own (non-CAM) region by opening the LOT file for each one and changing the growth stage to 8.

However, because the capacity of CAM buildings is typically higher than many Maxis Stage 8 buildings, and the range of capacities is also much wider, expect your late game simulation to be somewhat screwed up. because all of the buildings (incl. very-high population) will be available for the game to pick from when choosing a potential building, and higher capacity buildings generally have a greater likelihood of being chosen, even if it means over-satisfying your demand (i.e. causing negative demand from a newly built skyscraper's capacity exceeding the drives for that given RCI type) and causing negative demand as a result (usually a bad idea).

The scope of the CAM is primarily to create a more predictable building experience, with some included tweaks to improve other aspects of gameplay. What you are asking for is not only opposite to the CAM, but also beyond its scope, because the main goal is not to re-lot everything so that it will work with the CAM (else InvisiChem would be here for the next 5 years w/o a release).

[InvisiChem 121]

Thank you APSMS, you are very correct. Just relotting the basic buildings for the next release is taking a huge amount of time. More than I anticipated. 

The next release is coming as soon as I finish the relots guys. I was not expecting it to take this much time, but RL has a way of doing that. No exact date yet, but definitely before Thanksgiving. 

For many of the problems with the install, I have uploaded a patched file to ModDB. This is the Patch file created by SC4 Dat Packer during the install. It works with Vanilla SC4 and CAM 2.1.0. Get it Here. I'll be updating the descriptions to take care of this as well as updating the installers to use this as a temporary dependency. I'm at training for another week, so I just got internet long enough to help out a bit here and get this going. Once I get back home, back to the grindstone and get this stuff finished. A lot of ideas and plans to get going for the community. 

Cheers guys, 

InvisiChem

[Ocram's Razr 963]

What happened to @InvisiChem?

 

It has been over a year since his last post and he implied that 2.1.1 will be out soon?

[Sam4 22]

answer me 2.1.1 will be out soon?

because my game crashes when i installed CAM IR Fix + Mod_2.1.0 both

[Tarkus 6,932]

On 18/10/2018 at 12:59 AM, wes4 said:

answer me 2.1.1 will be out soon?

because my game crashes when i installed CAM IR Fix + Mod_2.1.0 both

The answer is no--InvisiChem hasn't logged on here or at SC4D in about 2 years, and he was the only one working on the mod after its most recent revival.

-Tarkus

[rsc204 21,806]

22 hours ago, Sam4 said:

my game crashes when i installed CAM IR Fix + Mod_2.1.0

I don't know of anything in the CAM mod that could lead to such behaviour, so either this is simply a coincidence. I.e., your game would crash regardless or perhaps you've not installed it properly. Without more details of how/when your game crashes, it's real hard to be more specific.

Do make sure you've disabled multi-core for SC4, by adding the command line switch to your shortcut:

-CPUCount:1

Otherwise SC4 will be very unstable on any modern computer with multiple core CPUs.

[robdragon 167]

I just installed the CAM for the first time.

I haven't noticed any changes in game play. Do you have to start a new city for it to work or will it work on existing cities?

How can you tell it's working?

The install went flawlessly so I can only guess it's working.

I may plan on installing the starter packs but that may be awhile since there are a whole bunch of dependencies for them.

[rsc204 21,806]

11 hours ago, robdragon said:

I haven't noticed any changes in game play. Do you have to start a new city for it to work or will it work on existing cities?

I would advise you to read the included manual. But generally speaking you won't notice any difference because the changes are all under the hood. However, it's really not recommended to use CAM with Pre-existing regions. It may work, but equally your regions/cities may never fully adapt to everything.

11 hours ago, robdragon said:

How can you tell it's working?

You have the files for CAM installed, there is no quick visual reference. Given sufficient time, you'd probably notice the difference in terms of the speed of development in terms of density.

11 hours ago, robdragon said:

I may plan on installing the starter packs but that may be awhile since there are a whole bunch of dependencies for them.

Yes indeed there are a lot of dependencies, but then there are also a lot of buildings. However, the important thing here is that if you only have the base game content, CAM works just fine. But, if you have a lot of non-CAM modded lots, then the benefits of CAM will mostly be lost, because your content doesn't utilise the extended growth stages. That's what makes the start packs so useful, it's the quickest way to expand your content with a good haul of lots that conform to the CAM mod.

Frankly, there is a lot of confusion and misunderstanding with regards to what CAM actually does. Many players install it mistakenly thinking it's a must have for everyone, or that it helps to get skyscrappers quicker (actually the opposite is true). Perhaps a bit late, but this article by Tarkus does a really fine job of explaining what CAM really does.

[robdragon 167]

I see then in my case it would be useless unless I start with a clean plugins then install the starter packs. As of now I  have non CAM lots installed.

I just read Tarkus manual so yes this will be an experiment for me.

What I'll do is uninstall the CAM, start with a clean plugins except for all my dependencies and the NAM then start downloading and installing of CAM and all the packs.

[xxdita 1,097]

I made my first cities using this new Skyscraper version of CAM last night, with a total lack of success. Capacity absolutely would not budge at all for R$$ or R$$$, and the only lots able to boost R$ capacity were the Maxis Major & Minor League Stadiums. For normal play, all parks and rewards provide at least some boost to population capacity. 

It's too early to tell just what was going on, but I do plan on looking into it more. I didn't have any other mods in my Plugins, so nothing could conflict. None of the Maxis parks or rewards seem to have been modded at all. 

The Demand Graph also seems a bit wonky to me. Negative demand isn't shown, and positive demand numbers are like 19,000 or 49,000, which just seems weird. I prefer even numbers of 10k per step. 

Perhaps I'm missing something, but with the inability to raise population capacities, this version is unplayable. 

 

[BartonThinks 3,416]

Does anyone know where I can find more information about how individual elements of the CAM installation work and where these elements are installed? I'm a little unclear on which elements are part of the SimCity_1.dat patch, and which ones get installed in the plugins folder.

If it helps to clarify things, I'm trying to figure out if there's a way to play with the CAM in one region, but also play without the CAM in another region by juggling one's plugin files.

For example, if I have a region that's been developed using Maxis values, is there a way to keep playing this region with the vanilla settings after the CAM has been installed? Alternatively, if I want to use CAM when playing one region, but use SPAM when playing another, is there a way to manage this? Or does the CAM's patch to the SimCity_1.dat file make both of these scenarios impossible?

I'd be interested in learning more about how the CAM functions under the hood, so if anyone can point me to the right place to learn, that'd be great. I've read through the manual and other recommended documentation, and I've dug around a bit on the SC4Devotion forums, but 98% of what I'm finding is troubleshooting requests, and the other 2% is written for people who already understand most of the CAM's inner workings.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

On 2/11/2020 at 8:36 PM, BartonThinks said:

I'm trying to figure out if there's a way to play with the CAM in one region, but also play without the CAM in another region by juggling one's plugin files.

Juggling plugins is fraught with risk, so I highly recommend that you not go that route. If your PC has a modern HD with tons of space, the dirt-easy solution is to create a new windows user login for the new mode of play. It will have its own user\documents\SC4 tree, so it can have entirely different plugins, regions in play etc. You can seed the plugins there with a bulk drag-drop (no need to rerun installers).

Where the exe is installed, there is also a plugins folder where you can put a handful of essential "fix" type mods that you want always everywhere just to make the game playable. Just know that if/when the game is reinstalled, the documents folders survive, but the programs folder is replaced (along with patches, its plugins, anything packed into the original dat files etc etc).