CAM comes to Simtropolis

[xxdita 1,097]

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

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.

It seems I am going to have to go under the hood to figure out exactly what's what myself. With CAM 1.0, we datpacked it all into SC1.dat. RippleJet started the work on 2.1, but then InvisiChem finished it with his permission. I know that a considerable amount of testing was done while RippleJet headed the project, including the various playstyles, but I have no idea what changes were made once InvisiChem took over, or why, aside from his Extended playstyle. I also have no way of knowing who doublechecked the work involved, if anyone. 

Just examining the file z_CAM_2.1.0_Stand_Permanent Merge.dat from the MAC version download, I note that a number of exemplars I would have expected to see are not included. Whether they were added to one of the Plugins files or not, I haven't checked. They may have been proven not to have been needed at all, but I have my doubts on that. So investigation and testing are required. 

In theory, there should be no issues going from vanilla to CAM, or between any of the various playstyles CAM includes, from city to city within a region. But I can't guarantee that at this time. 

In its purest form, CAM is simply an extension of the normal stage progression Maxis gave us. Every growth stage for every RCI type requires a certain amount of total regional capacity before if will begin. CAM 1.0 and the Standard Playstyle should mimic the Maxis standard exactly, and then continue with the logical steps as the stages progress through the newly added 7 stages for each RCI type. This would require a minimal amount of exemplars, with no need to DatPack to SC_1.dat. 

That said, even doing this may cause balance issues that need to be recalibrated by other exemplars. That's the possibility of any mod. So I'm going to need to examine each and every exemplar other than those to see exactly what its intended purpose might be, whether it lives up to that, what side effects it creates, and how best to manage those. I have already found the Building Developer exemplar to be extraneous, by examining the changes and comparing it to @CorinaMarie's No Kickout Lower Wealth mod, using the same exemplar. And while I have yet to do any testing of her mod in terms of its effects on overall gameplay, I have ruled that for those that choose to use it with CAM, there will be no true problems of compatibility with CAM. Whereas with the SPAM mod, the compatibility issues are more obvious and real. I do commend @CorinaMarie for erring on the side of caution, because without either an intimate working knowledge of CAM, or taking on the efforts of testing required, there is simply no way to rule out compatibility issues. 

Granted, it doesn't have to be me that does all this. But no one else has yet, so I am likely the logical successor, having worked directly with RippleJet through various stages of testing and development. 

What's held me back from doing all this so far is that I just don't believe I have anything distinctly new to add yet. I don't have ideas about new playstyles that are just gonna rock people's worlds. So by taking over the project as it is, at this point, I feel like a teacher with a red pen grading someone else's homework. As a LEX Admin, during the days of it being a moderated exchange, this was certainly one of my duties. But then I could give feedback to the creator of the project and let them redo things as necessary. As InvisiChem hasn't been active in quite some time, that's not an option. 

I have absolutely no problem correcting minor issues with available content and then just updating the original file, whether on the LEX or the STEX. But at the point that I have to put in a considerable amount of effort to research, test, and fix things, that the named creator of any work did not do, then the end result will be released under my own name, as a new version, though their contributions along the way will be noted. 

I had already planned to do a critical examination of most currently available mods in my Nate plays the game (and probably breaks stuff) thread at SC4D, but I was hoping to start off with something a bit less intense, and honestly more fun. Like some oldschool ordinances. 

[BartonThinks 3,416]

5 hours ago, jeffryfisher said:

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).

 

24 minutes ago, xxdita said:

 

It seems I am going to have to go under the hood to figure out exactly what's what myself. With CAM 1.0, we datpacked it all into SC1.dat. RippleJet started the work on 2.1, but then InvisiChem finished it with his permission. I know that a considerable amount of testing was done while RippleJet headed the project, including the various playstyles, but I have no idea what changes were made once InvisiChem took over, or why, aside from his Extended playstyle. I also have no way of knowing who doublechecked the work involved, if anyone. 

Just examining the file z_CAM_2.1.0_Stand_Permanent Merge.dat from the MAC version download, I note that a number of exemplars I would have expected to see are not included. Whether they were added to one of the Plugins files or not, I haven't checked. They may have been proven not to have been needed at all, but I have my doubts on that. So investigation and testing are required. 

In theory, there should be no issues going from vanilla to CAM, or between any of the various playstyles CAM includes, from city to city within a region. But I can't guarantee that at this time. 

In its purest form, CAM is simply an extension of the normal stage progression Maxis gave us. Every growth stage for every RCI type requires a certain amount of total regional capacity before if will begin. CAM 1.0 and the Standard Playstyle should mimic the Maxis standard exactly, and then continue with the logical steps as the stages progress through the newly added 7 stages for each RCI type. This would require a minimal amount of exemplars, with no need to DatPack to SC_1.dat. 

That said, even doing this may cause balance issues that need to be recalibrated by other exemplars. That's the possibility of any mod. So I'm going to need to examine each and every exemplar other than those to see exactly what its intended purpose might be, whether it lives up to that, what side effects it creates, and how best to manage those. I have already found the Building Developer exemplar to be extraneous, by examining the changes and comparing it to @CorinaMarie's No Kickout Lower Wealth mod, using the same exemplar. And while I have yet to do any testing of her mod in terms of its effects on overall gameplay, I have ruled that for those that choose to use it with CAM, there will be no true problems of compatibility with CAM. Whereas with the SPAM mod, the compatibility issues are more obvious and real. I do commend @CorinaMarie for erring on the side of caution, because without either an intimate working knowledge of CAM, or taking on the efforts of testing required, there is simply no way to rule out compatibility issues. 

Granted, it doesn't have to be me that does all this. But no one else has yet, so I am likely the logical successor, having worked directly with RippleJet through various stages of testing and development. 

What's held me back from doing all this so far is that I just don't believe I have anything distinctly new to add yet. I don't have ideas about new playstyles that are just gonna rock people's worlds. So by taking over the project as it is, at this point, I feel like a teacher with a red pen grading someone else's homework. As a LEX Admin, during the days of it being a moderated exchange, this was certainly one of my duties. But then I could give feedback to the creator of the project and let them redo things as necessary. As InvisiChem hasn't been active in quite some time, that's not an option. 

I have absolutely no problem correcting minor issues with available content and then just updating the original file, whether on the LEX or the STEX. But at the point that I have to put in a considerable amount of effort to research, test, and fix things, that the named creator of any work did not do, then the end result will be released under my own name, as a new version, though their contributions along the way will be noted. 

I had already planned to do a critical examination of most currently available mods in my Nate plays the game (and probably breaks stuff) thread at SC4D, but I was hoping to start off with something a bit less intense, and honestly more fun. Like some oldschool ordinances. 

Thanks, guys. This helps a fair bit. I suppose it's worth mentioning that part of the reason I'm asking is that there are a bunch of CAM elements that I'd like to include in my STAMP project, but I'd also like to make STAMP usable by players who don't normally play with CAM.

The way I'm planning to handle the STAMP installation is to set up an entirely separate directory from the usual /My Documents/SimCity 4 location, then use a Startup Manager or Launcher program to open STAMP regions from the second directory. That way, players could have STAMP installed without giving up the standard SimCity 4 play experience. Instead, they could switch back and forth between the standard version of the game and the STAMP version. The STAMP version would run entirely parallel to the standard SimCity 4 game.

Since there's no way to install the current version of CAM without making changes to the standard game, I'm trying to figure out which aspects of CAM can be made to work in this framework.

I'm still extremely new to modding, and trying to figure this stuff out right now is probably biting off more than I can chew. And this might be a case where I just need to work my way up to these kinds of questions. But for now, I'm just trying to get a sense of what will actually be possible, and where I'm going to run into major limitations. Certainly not something where I'd expect other players to do a ton of grunt work on my behalf.

[xxdita 1,097]

I think most modders would agree with me here. You absolutely cannot worry about all of the possible conflicts of what you're trying to do with your mod with anything else at such an early stage of development. You've bitten off enough to chew on as it is. 

So first and foremost, develop your STAMP for the way you want to play the game. When it comes time, I have no doubt that it can be adapted to work with CAM, or anything else. 

[rsc204 21,866]

On 12/02/2020 at 5:36 AM, BartonThinks said:

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.

Everything that get's patched into SimCity_1.dat during installation should be inside the file z_CAM_2.1.0_Stand_Permanent Merge.dat. This will be pretty invisible to an end user if the installer ran successfully, since the process happens invisible to the user.

To my knowledge, this simply updates some of the Census Exemplars and is very much doing the same sort of thing as the I-HT fix. Very recently, it's come to light that where it was previously thought necessary to patch such a fix into the original SimCity_1.dat file, this in fact seems not to be the case.

On 12/02/2020 at 5:36 AM, BartonThinks said:

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?

As per the above, if you find this file (you can use 7zip to open the installer for CAM 2.0, find it in the SimCity_1 directory), you can compare it to the original Exemplars in SimCity_1.dat. From there it should be pretty easy to see what has been changed. Even in the event you were sticking with the old-thinking and switching between setups which both used an identically patched SimCity_1.dat file, I'm fairly certain it wouldn't be a problem.

However there are probably two other working options if that isn't the case or you wanted more control:

1. Use an unpatched SimCity_1.DAT and just include either the I-HT fix (IH_census_10_78_12.dat) or z_CAM_2.1.0_Stand_Permanent Merge.dat file as appropriate, depending on the scenario in use.
2. Patch two separate copies of SimCity_1.dat, one with IH_census_10_78_12.dat and the other with z_CAM_2.1.0_Stand_Permanent Merge.dat. Then your mod can handle switching these out as needed.

I think I'd swing towards option 1, since it's less clunky and less redundancy is involved. Everything else in CAM and the entire SPAM mod, is handled by the files which are installed into the Plugins folder. In other words, to switch setups you just need to make sure the appropriate files are present, whilst all the inappropriate ones were not to prevent issues.

[twalsh102 1,601]

@BartonThinks
Other than the SimCity _1,dat patch, everything else that CAM installs is by default placed in a folder at the root of your Plugins folder titled A__CAM.  Its contents are 2 sub-folders and 3 total files.  There is a Core file that includes all the Exemplars that don't change with PlayStyle.  There is is another Exemplar that includes the Exemplars related to the PlayStyle chosen at installation (these are the Exemplars related to Growth Stages as each Playstyle has somewhat different Growth Stage triggers and percentages).  The third file contains many of the Maxis-created buildings with modified Growth Stages and increased capacities

CAM is much more than just an expansion of Growth Stages.  There are changes to Max / Min Demand values for all developer types; changes to Neutral Tax Rates and how these affect Demand; changes to how Demand is created; fixes the parts of Agricultural growth broken by Maxis; and more.  Overall CAM includes overrides for 111 different exemplars.

As far as learning how CAM works, you're sort of putting the cart before the horse.  You will never understand how CAM works "under the hood" without understanding how the basic game works "under the hood" first.  All CAM does is modify some of the basic game mechanics.  You will need to understand these mechanics as they relate to the vanilla game, before you can really understand everything CAM changes.

There is really no one place to point you to about CAM and how it changes the basic game.  Like many aspects of game mechanics, knowledge gained is scattered across a multitude of posts and forums, most of which aren't specifically tied to CAM.

A good place to start (if you don't already have is) is the Prima Official Strategy Guide for SimCity 4 Deluxe.  If you don't have it, it's a free download at  https://archive.org/details/SimCity_4_Rush_Hour_Prima_Official_eGuide/mode/2up .  You'll want the PDF version.  This explains most of the game's mechanics in simple to understand language

What it doesn't do is differentiate between what aspects of the mechanics are hard-coded into the game executable, and which aspects are governed by Exemplars which we can read (and modify).  There is some suspicion that some aspects of the game are affected by both Exemplars and the game executable, thus denying us a full understanding of everything.  You can look at the Exemplars using ILives Reader.  The problem is that you have to know what you're looking for in order to find it, and many of the values are by default in Hex.  My tool of choice would be SC4DataNode by @rivit, as you can sort to only show Simulation Exemplars, it will show you the The Maxis version and the CAM versions of the Exemplars (for comparison), and all values are in plain English.  Once you figure how the various tools work, you can start looking at the Exemplars.  Unfortunately, that's the only way to get a true understanding of what's "under the hood" of CAM, and how it changes the default game.  Otherwise, it's like trying to learn what's going on under the hood of your car by reading the owners manual.

As far as switching back and forth between CAM and no-CAM in the same region one of the primary issues I see is Demand.  Don't forget that Demand is regional.  The default Maxis values for Max and Min Demand is +/- 6,000 for all developer types.  CAM changes these values to +54,000 and -10,000 for all developer types.  Changing Regional Demand when changing between CAM and no CAM probably can't help but to de-stabilize Demand considerably across the region.

Issues related forgetting to remove CAM or or forgetting to add it back, and possibly not realizing it before saving a city, should be self-evident.

Note that all the buildings included with CAM are Maxis buildings that have had their Growth Stages, and in most cases, capacities changed.  This could cause many problems in the case of the scenario in the previous paragraph. 

Even the CAM manual suggests that there are no guarantees that everything would work seamlessly if you inserted CAM into an existing Region (which would suggest that the common wisdom would be to use CAM in a new Region.  The creator of CAM never contemplated that people would want to pick and choose between CAM and no CAM between cities in the same Region. 

Switching back and forth between CAM and SPAM:  A couple of Exemplars created by Maxis related to Farming in the vanilla game are simply broken.  One prevents anything more than 20% of IR demand from ever being met.  Both SPAM and CAM fix this.  The other relates to how demand is created for IR.  In the vanilla game IR Demand is only provided for low-wealth SIMs.  There is no demand created for mid- and hi-wealth Sims.  CAM fixes this.  SPAM does not.  CAM expands all IND Growth Stages to 10.  SPAM keeps this at the vanilla game default of 5.  CAM expands the max / min Demand numbers as discussed above.  SPAM keeps this at the default Maxis values for IR.  The one thing that SPAM does that CAM does not is allow IR growth to use demand from all IND developer types.  This fine if you have a purely agricultural city tile, but obviously could affect growth of other IND types in a mixed tile.  Obviously, SPAM would not include all the other changes that CAM includes, as it only affects agriculture.  CAM can use all buildings created for SPAM.

[xxdita 1,097]

20 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Everything that get's patched into SimCity_1.dat during installation should be inside the file z_CAM_2.1.0_Stand_Permanent Merge.dat. This will be pretty invisible to an end user if the installer ran successfully, since the process happens invisible to the user.

To my knowledge, this simply updates some of the Census Exemplars and is very much doing the same sort of thing as the I-HT fix. Very recently, it's come to light that where it was previously thought necessary to patch such a fix into the original SimCity_1.dat file, this in fact seems not to be the case.

As per the above, if you find this file (you can use 7zip to open the installer for CAM 2.0, find it in the SimCity_1 directory), you can compare it to the original Exemplars in SimCity_1.dat. From there it should be pretty easy to see what has been changed. Even in the event you were sticking with the old-thinking and switching between setups which both used an identically patched SimCity_1.dat file, I'm fairly certain it wouldn't be a problem.

However there are probably two other working options if that isn't the case or you wanted more control:

1. Use an unpatched SimCity_1.DAT and just include either the I-HT fix (IH_census_10_78_12.dat) or z_CAM_2.1.0_Stand_Permanent Merge.dat file as appropriate, depending on the scenario in use.
2. Patch two separate copies of SimCity_1.dat, one with IH_census_10_78_12.dat and the other with z_CAM_2.1.0_Stand_Permanent Merge.dat. Then your mod can handle switching these out as needed.

I think I'd swing towards option 1, since it's less clunky and less redundancy is involved. Everything else in CAM and the entire SPAM mod, is handled by the files which are installed into the Plugins folder. In other words, to switch setups you just need to make sure the appropriate files are present, whilst all the inappropriate ones were not to prevent issues.

Using z_CAM_2.1.0_Stand_Permanent Merge.dat as a plugin will guarantee a doubled regional capacity bug, which causes all sorts of problems, so that should really never be recommended to anyone. 

The IHT fix, as it is now, does not need to be patched into SC_1.dat at all. But it does not use the same problematic exemplars as the CAM merge file either. 

Since it's been mentioned here, I will again point out that SPAM actually does include some of the same exemplars we found to cause the doubled regional capacity bug in CAM 1.0. As such, I do believe that proper installation would likewise require being DatPacked into the SC_1.dat. 

[Propfam 2,307]

Sorry for necroing this topic, but @Ulisse Wolf has been working on this:

 

[kSlank 153]

CAM is great. Nice to see your mod here

[Rob89 0]

Thank you so much for this much needed update, i've been having a problem with growth, my city is just stucked in leves 1-3 i have middle and high density for residential and no growth, all needs are met, but growth went stagnet, i dont know if the graph is supposed to look like the one on the image,

or if im doing something wrong, i have NAM49 and various other CAM-buildings, did the city growth stages changed, is there a number of population i have to hit to kick star middle density building growth on my city? thank you. 

i removed it and my there was some acelerated growth from 3k to 5k and then i installed it again and growth stagnated again... 

Thank you for you anwers and sorry for the bad inglish (not my first language).