Buildings - Employees - Traffic ??

[Dreadnought 8,226]

Yo, guys --

I'm not at all sure this is the right thread for this particular question -- but here goes....

I have been experimenting with the "lotplop" cheat, and I've come across some irregularities. 

There are pretty much three types of office or service commercial lots in the game -- LANDMARK, PLOP, and GROW. 

LANDMARK lots do not, as a rule have an employee count, nor do they generate commuter traffic if you query them.

GROW lots always have an employee count but only sometimes do they generate commuter traffic.  I have experienced this peculiarity in both custom download content and MAXIS lots -- but it is not consistent.

PLOP lots seem to be a mixed bag -- some have employees and commuters -- others do not.

(1) Can anyone explain to me why a Maxis grow lot would have an employee count but would not show commuter traffic when queried?

(2) Why would custom content lots show an employee count -- but no commuters -- and seem to have no effect on the actual employment figures in the city??  Usually your city count shows more jobs than people being employed.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated --

Thanx --

 

[rsc204 21,808]

Lot Plop might seem like a great way to build you city exactly as you want it, but it comes with some caveats you simply must factor in. A good guide to the limitations of such content is provided here.

[CorinaMarie 29,593]

12 hours ago, Dreadnought said:

(1) Can anyone explain to me why a Maxis grow lot would have an employee count but would not show commuter traffic when queried?

From what I've read, the display for a commercial (and industrial) building is the current demand for jobs / the total possible jobs that building could have. Neither number represents that actual number of workers in the building. The amount of workers could be zero and therefore you have no commuters. Use the traffic query tool to find the actual number of workers in the building.

[Dreadnought 8,226]

10 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

From what I've read, the display for a commercial (and industrial) building is the current demand for jobs / the total possible jobs that building could have. Neither number represents that actual number of workers in the building. The amount of workers could be zero and therefore you have no commuters. Use the traffic query tool to find the actual number of workers in the building.

Yo --

CorinaMarie -- Regarding employee count versus traffic count --

First - thank you for replying.

If the "building query" pop-up box shows you have "1480 / 1500" jobs -- I assumed that meant you actually had 1480 people employed by the building on that lot. 

Your explanation is that the "building query" dialog box expresses the statistical information specific to that building as a "demand system" percentile.  EXAMPLE:  "You MAY have up to 1480 of the 1500 desks available in this building" -- but that is not the actual job count of that specific building.  Yes - ??  Do I understand your hypothesis correctly?

Why would the game request office space, then grow a vanilla lot that shows 1480 / 1500, but then shows 0 workers when queried with the traffic tool several months later??

[CorinaMarie 29,593]

1 hour ago, Dreadnought said:

Your explanation is that the "building query" dialog box expresses the statistical information specific to that building as a "demand system" percentile.  EXAMPLE:  "You MAY have up to 1480 of the 1500 desks available in this building" -- but that is not the actual job count of that specific building.  Yes - ??  Do I understand your hypothesis correctly?

Yes, you have it exactly correct. I wish I could remember which post it was where I read this. I'm not the expert on this, but just relaying information I've seen by peeps who know much more than I do.

1 hour ago, Dreadnought said:

Why would the game request office space, then grow a vanilla lot that shows 1480 / 1500, but then shows 0 workers when queried with the traffic tool several months later??

I'll have to do some guessing on this so wait for a better explanation from the gurus. My understanding is the demand is a regional thing. Each building has a need for certain percentages of wealth levels of workers. So, my guess is that even tho there is an overall demand, it could be the sims close enough to this new building already have jobs or that the right wealth level of sims are not close enough to consider this the best place for their employment.

[Dreadnought 8,226]

12 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Lot Plop might seem like a great way to build you city exactly as you want it, but it comes with some caveats you simply must factor in. A good guide to the limitations of such content is provided here.

Yo, guy --

I went over and checked out the "speculative theory" in action.

Making a long story short --

Cheat-Plop residentials fail and degrade immediately (which we already knew) -- because they were lotted as residentials and they do not connect with the road / job system unless they are grown by the game mechanism.  No job = no house.

Cheat-Plop Commercials will not degrade -- but not ALL of them seem to link into the job system unless they are GROWN by the game mechanism.  Some seem to work fine -- others simply swell the numbers of jobs, but they do not directly link into the system to cause changes in the numbers of unemployed.

So we're back to the "eye-candy" conundrum.

[CorinaMarie 29,593]

I found the linky to the post I was referring to earlier. It's this one.

[Dreadnought 8,226]

8 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

I'll have to do some guessing on this so wait for a better explanation from the gurus. My understanding is the demand is a regional thing. Each building has a need for certain percentages of wealth levels of workers. So, my guess is that even tho there is an overall demand, it could be the sims close enough to this new building already have jobs or that the right wealth level of sims are not close enough to consider this the best place for their employment.

OKAY -- !!

I will, of course, keep a look out for further word from "the gurus" -- but this makes a bit of sense.

The building could be built based on a "regional" demand -- but -- that means the game system is planning on filling that building with commuter works from another city.  And the traffic tool should show workers.

OTHERWISE -- that idea does not make sense.

The "Demand System" -- theoretically" -- should not grow a building unless there are employees to put into it.

[CorinaMarie 29,593]

1 hour ago, Dreadnought said:

The "Demand System" -- theoretically" -- should not grow a building unless there are employees to put into it.

More guesswork here: In a perfect SimWorld that would be true. I believe tho the game simply sees overall demand for the building and then says to itself "Here's a zoned spot I could grow one." not taking into account the spatial relationship to who might actually be able to get there to work.

Btw, did you notice my post above with the linky? (We may have overlapped in our posting and it could get missed.)

[Dreadnought 8,226]

4 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

More guesswork here: In a perfect SimWorld that would be true. I believe tho the game simply sees overall demand for the building and then says to itself "Here's a zoned spot I could grow one." not taking into account the spatial relationship to who might actually be able to get there to work.

Btw, did you notice my post above with the linky? (We may have overlapped in our posting and it could get missed.)

I think you're right -- a case of misdirected "AI" in action -- sort of "Build it and they will come". (lol)

Yes -- I checked the link.  But there does not seem to be anything much more than what you have already stated.  IMHO -- the numbers in the building query dialog boxes are rudimentary at best, and virtually useless at the worst.  If you have full employment, the numbers should match -- but the RCI charts already tell you there is room to build -- or not.   

[CorinaMarie 29,593]

1 hour ago, Dreadnought said:

I think you're right -- a case of misdirected "AI" in action -- sort of "Build it and they will come". (lol)

I'll say yes and no to this. I believe it's the mayor's job to zone in the appropriate place. The game AI just gets overly enthusiastic about growing buildings if there is a demand for that type. When growing the building it does not chat with the job destination thinger at all. That comes later and then the destination gizmo says "What a silly place for that building, I'm not sending any workers there."

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Well, that's key to the game - part of the challenge lies in designing a transportation infrastructure that works. Therefore, the game needs some limits and conditions under which vacancies in a building will not be filled.

First the game notices "hey, we could use some more industry or people will go out of work". That's your first challenge: Keep those demand bars under control, fill demand. Find suitable space and lay out those zones. Now the game checks for access to these zones, and if it can't get your Sims to that shiny new factory within the allowable parameters and limits, the factory will end up unused. There's your second challenge: bring supply and demand together.

Buildings ending up unused are a problem because these unfilled job vacancies are like empty calories: They decrease your commercial/industrial demand by the number of job vacancies, but they don't actually lead to more employment.

[Dreadnought 8,226]

3 hours ago, T Wrecks said:

Well, that's key to the game - part of the challenge lies in designing a transportation infrastructure that works. Therefore, the game needs some limits and conditions under which vacancies in a building will not be filled.

First the game notices "hey, we could use some more industry or people will go out of work". That's your first challenge: Keep those demand bars under control, fill demand. Find suitable space and lay out those zones. Now the game checks for access to these zones, and if it can't get your Sims to that shiny new factory within the allowable parameters and limits, the factory will end up unused. There's your second challenge: bring supply and demand together.

Buildings ending up unused are a problem because these unfilled job vacancies are like empty calories: They decrease your commercial/industrial demand by the number of job vacancies, but they don't actually lead to more employment.

So -- to cut to the chase --

The Maxis buildings grew and remain unoccupied because the game system is having trouble getting residents to their work. 

I have extensive road networks, obviously -- a highway system -- a heavy rail system for long distance travel -- and the subway system is a spaghetti monster !!  So there is easy access to the buildings.

I have not -- yet -- checked the travel time on the residentials.  I will do that. 

Three possibilities -- ??

(1) Need to increase population on the off chance that there are more jobs than Sims.

(2) Distance may be the problem on a LARGE map tile.

(3) Wasn't there a Mod (patch -- bug fix) that improved the game's ability to find routes to jobs for the Sims?  I seem to have some vague memory of that.  Something to do with traffic -- Nam 32 ??

[CorinaMarie 29,593]

1 hour ago, Dreadnought said:

(3) Wasn't there a Mod (patch -- bug fix) that improved the game's ability to find routes to jobs for the Sims?  I seem to have some vague memory of that.  Something to do with traffic -- Nam 32 ??

Indeed there is. It's the Simulator Z of NAM 34 which vastly improves that aspect of the game.

And, if you are curious, I wrote a basic Freight Path Mini Tutorial over in the discussion section. It illustrates a concept in plain vanilla. The same basic idea applies to commercial buildings. The sims need to see the building as the best place to go.

Or, just get NAM and it'll magically fix a lot of the pathing troubles for you.

[rsc204 21,808]

Just to clarify, simulator Z has been included with the NAM for many versions, it's not been changed for a while either. So whilst the NAM team would prefer everyone use version 34 (i.e., the latest), it's not like it will work better in this respect than older versions.

[Dreadnought 8,226]

1 hour ago, rsc204 said:

Just to clarify, simulator Z has been included with the NAM for many versions, it's not been changed for a while either. So whilst the NAM team would prefer everyone use version 34 (i.e., the latest), it's not like it will work better in this respect than older versions.

Yo, guy --

I'm pretty sure I have installed the traffic simulator Z in the Nam 32 version that runs on my machine.  Though it might not be properly installed (I did a partial installation so I could include some other options as well -- I could easily have botched the job.)

Is there any way to check and see what has been installed without doing an uninstall / re-install ??  (I hesitate to mess with it without understanding fully.)

[Dreadnought 8,226]

1 hour ago, CorinaMarie said:

Indeed there is. It's the Simulator Z of NAM 34 which vastly improves that aspect of the game.

And, if you are curious, I wrote a basic Freight Path Mini Tutorial over in the discussion section. It illustrates a concept in plain vanilla. The same basic idea applies to commercial buildings. The sims need to see the building as the best place to go.

Or, just get NAM and it'll magically fix a lot of the pathing troubles for you.

Yo, Cori --

Yes -- I'm familiar with the "channeling freight" concept and use it as much as possible. 

I generally design my industrial zones so that there is a railway freight station on the outbound lane of a single road that exits the industrial area.  This forces the freight trucks to (mostly) stop at the freight station.

I rarely ever have freight traffic outside of the industrial zones and my freight trips are usually "short".

The PROBLEM is getting the Sims to go to work in the Maxis commercial buildings.  One building shows "307 subway" when queried.  The building right next door shows "zero workers".  Both buildings have -- more or less -- the same road and subway connections.  I'm at a loss the explain why two buildings -- things being more or less equal -- show such extreme results.

[CorinaMarie 29,593]

1 hour ago, Dreadnought said:

... that runs on my machine

What are the specs for your machine?

As an example I have a 2.8ghz single core with a 128 meg video card and 2gb total ram running under Windoze XP Pro. It handles NAM 34 just fine. I've played with various installation options. Using the custom install I selected everything I could and my initial game load time (to be in a city tile) was 4 minutes 32 seconds. That's with NAM 34 only and no other mods. Compare that to 35 seconds with plain vanilla. I also tested NAM with a selected minimum of options and initial load time was 1 minute 48 seconds.

So, unless your comp is even more antique than mine, the latest version of NAM should be just fine. You could make a backup copy of your plugins before installing the newer version just in case 34 does something you don't care for. I feel it's unlikely you'd have any trouble with the latest version.

[Dreadnought 8,226]

2 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

What are the specs for your machine?

As an example I have a 2.8ghz single core with a 128 meg video card and 2gb total ram running under Windoze XP Pro. It handles NAM 34 just fine. I've played with various installation options. Using the custom install I selected everything I could and my initial game load time (to be in a city tile) was 4 minutes 32 seconds. That's with NAM 34 only and no other mods. Compare that to 35 seconds with plain vanilla. I also tested NAM with a selected minimum of options and initial load time was 1 minute 48 seconds.

So, unless your comp is even more antique than mine, the latest version of NAM should be just fine. You could make a backup copy of your plugins before installing the newer version just in case 34 does something you don't care for. I feel it's unlikely you'd have any trouble with the latest version.

Yo, Cori --

First -- I run Windows 2000 , Professional version.  (VERY antique!!)

Processor -- AMD 2.4 ghz

RAM -- 2.0 Gb

Nvidia GeForce 6200 video card (old)

I've never checked the time it actually takes to load the game -- but it takes waaaaay tooooo long!  Just switching between street mode and subway mode allows me time to get a cup of coffee!

The system runs very "jerky" (lots of starts and stops) -- so I think I'm pushing it to the limit.  Possibly due to all the Mods and custom downloads.  It ran quicker without NAM -- but the advantages of NAM were too tempting to turn down.

I added a bunch of stuff to the system (water Mod, Terrain Controllers, Tree Controllers) and started a new region a while back.  The city I'm working on now is my first shot at a LARGE map tile -- I may not even be able to finish the city (not sure about that).

 

[CorinaMarie 29,593]

1 hour ago, Dreadnought said:

The PROBLEM is getting the Sims to go to work in the Maxis commercial buildings.  One building shows "307 subway" when queried.  The building right next door shows "zero workers".  Both buildings have -- more or less -- the same road and subway connections.  I'm at a loss the explain why two buildings -- things being more or less equal -- show such extreme results.

^This part I'll have to leave to the experts. I'm still quite new to the game and I haven't built any mega cities. (I'm more of a rural developer with mostly small towns of 500 - 3k population with one city of like 100k in my region.) So, I've not yet experienced a similar problem.

1 hour ago, Dreadnought said:

It ran quicker without NAM -- but the advantages of NAM were too tempting to turn down.

Yeah, I believe that's how it has to be for the sheer number of cool features NAM adds. I've never used any prior version of NAM. I'll guess tho that the difference between versions would not add a significant amount to the load time. Take that with a grain of salt since I'm merely speculating based on no facts.

1 hour ago, Dreadnought said:

I generally design my industrial zones so that there is a railway freight station on the outbound lane of a single road that exits the industrial area.  This forces the freight trucks to (mostly) stop at the freight station.

If you have the time and inclination, it'd be nice if you could post a screenshot or two over in that thread of how you've done yours.  The peeps I've been chatting with are learning the basic concepts and none of us are likely to be as experienced as you are.

[Dreadnought 8,226]

15 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

^This part I'll have to leave to the experts. I'm still quite new to the game and I haven't built any mega cities. (I'm more of a rural developer with mostly small towns of 500 - 3k population with one city of like 100k in my region.) So, I've not yet experienced a similar problem.

If you have the time and inclination, it'd be nice if you could post a screenshot or two over in that thread of how you've done yours.  The peeps I've been chatting with are learning the basic concepts and none of us are likely to be as experienced as you are.

Yo, Cori --

The Jade Bight -- my new region with all the controllers -- has several cities of "30K plus".  And my last city in my CJ -- Nuenberg -- was 205K.  I plan to work on a couple of "more rural" cities in the near future.  I want more space on the map and fewer structures -- my sense of "space and scale" needs feeding.  Close packed cities are not my goal, but they have been the result of all my experiments with landscaping and new custom content downloads.  The more custom content you plop -- the more people you need to keep the RCI numbers in balance.

I really want to build smaller city centers with outlaying suburbs for the Sims and specified industrial zones -- all with some space between them for scenery and highway and railroads, etc.

My mistake has been trying to do all of this on a single map tile.  I need to do this on a "regional" scale.  I have been treating each map tile much like other players treat an entire region.  And I need to try doing it the other way round.  There simply is not enough space on a single map tile for EVERYTHING.  Wilhelmshaven -- my current city -- will be my last city built on this "all in" principle.  (The main reason I have not started over -- is because I wanted to showcase a naval base.)

My next city will be far less ambitious and will be built on a "regional concept"

I have not yet sufficiently developed the industrial zones -- but I will try to remember to drop a couple "arrow pics" over on the traffic thread you mentioned.

In the meantime -- I'm hoping someone can explain the traffic / employment irregularities.

[CorinaMarie 29,593]

1 hour ago, Dreadnought said:

The system runs very "jerky" (lots of starts and stops) -- so I think I'm pushing it to the limit.  Possibly due to all the Mods and custom downloads.

I forgot I wanted to comment on this. Or, rather, ask a question. Are you familiar with DAT Packing? My understanding is that can cut load times and glitchiness in the game significantly. The idea being that you create one (or a few) .dat files containing all the mods except NAM that the game loads rather than it having to load hundreds of smaller files and this speeds things up. (I haven't done it myself, but I do read the threads when they pop up.)

[rsc204 21,808]

1 hour ago, Dreadnought said:

I'm pretty sure I have installed the traffic simulator Z in the Nam 32 version that runs on my machine.  Though it might not be properly installed (I did a partial installation so I could include some other options as well -- I could easily have botched the job.)

When you install the NAM, it will always install the Traffic Simulator, that's pretty much the basic install. Regardless of the customisation options selected, I believe there is no way to not install this component, since it's considered a bug fix, rather than a mod.

Note: There is an option in custom install "Keep my previous traffic simulator". But I believe that relates to previous NAM installs.

55 minutes ago, Dreadnought said:

One building shows "307 subway" when queried.  The building right next door shows "zero workers"

One building will inevitably be "nearer" for the commuting sims than the other. It could simply be that there are sufficient sims to occupy the first buildings jobs, but not the second.

34 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

I've never used any prior version of NAM. I'll guess tho that the difference between versions would not add a significant amount to the load time.

Load time is irrelevant really, provided you have the patience to see it out. What really matters is performance in-game, the two are loosely linked, but not absolutely. Beyond a certain point, a system may not be able to cope with a number of areas relating to the game. Whilst RAM can be a factor, it's really the CPU that is the biggest limitation. CPU use grows exponentially as the size of cities get larger. So regardless of the CPU you have, at a certain point the number of calculations will become too much to sustain optimal performance.

16 minutes ago, Dreadnought said:

My next city will be far less ambitious and will be built on a "regional concept"

Since SC4 only sees the city you are in, keeping things regional can work better on a number of levels. For example, why not just make a huge naval base on single tile. Then perhaps on the next tile an industrial port? Don't think of the city border as the end of your city, it's just that it continues on a tile that needs to be loaded separately. This can be an issue for people wanting to show off their cities, since a couple borders slicing them up doesn't look as good. What you can do is combine cities on borders in something like Photoshop, (I know you won't buddy ). This is probably the reason you see each tile as one city. But with a little planning and care, you can always make a large park, woods, golf course or whatever, be in the area of the border, rather than the centre of the city itself.

[CorinaMarie 29,593]

1 hour ago, rsc204 said:

What really matters is performance in-game, ...

With that in mind and since you are one of the experts of the NAM team, do you know how 34 would run vs @Dreadnought 's current 32 version? I know in programming sometimes later versions are streamlined such that they run faster. Might that be a possibility?

[rsc204 21,808]

Honestly, the opposite is more likely. For example, let's take RRW (Real Railway). Assuming everything else is the same, technically the code base and amount of textures, models etc have all been increased with NAM 34. In reality, is that going to be the difference between your computer running well or not?, unlikely.

For most users the real "enemy" is somewhere between the size of their cities populations and the sheer amount of content installed.

DATPacking has only one real benefit, loading times. Since the same amount of content is loaded either way, just that SC4 can process (index) large DATs more efficiently. Not surprising really, see the difference of copying a large file from one disk to another v.s. many small files with a much lower overall size. This is really more about how hard drives work than anything else.

[CorinaMarie 29,593]

1 hour ago, rsc204 said:

DATPacking has only one real benefit, loading times.

Ah. Thanks! This clarifies my misunderstanding of its purpose.

[Dreadnought 8,226]

39 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

One building will inevitably be "nearer" for the commuting sims than the other. It could simply be that there are sufficient sims to occupy the first buildings jobs, but not the second.

Whilst RAM can be a factor, it's really the CPU that is the biggest limitation. CPU use grows exponentially as the size of cities get larger. So regardless of the CPU you have, at a certain point the number of calculations will become too much to sustain optimal performance.

Since SC4 only sees the city you are in, keeping things regional can work better on a number of levels. For example, why not just make a huge naval base on single tile. Then perhaps on the next tile an industrial port? Don't think of the city border as the end of your city, it's just that it continues on a tile that needs to be loaded separately. This can be an issue for people wanting to show off their cities, since a couple borders slicing them up doesn't look as good. What you can do is combine cities on borders in something like Photoshop, (I know you won't buddy ). This is probably the reason you see each tile as one city. But with a little planning and care, you can always make a large park, woods, golf course or whatever, be in the area of the border, rather than the centre of the city itself.

Yo, guy --

Very simple -- and quite plausible explanation !!  I have already started working on the theory that I needed more Sims in the city to fill out the wokrforce in the buildings.  The game keeps calling "willy-nilly" for more office space -- but I think I need to double the population.  I'm going to run with that theory for a while and see what happens.

IF the situation ever occurs that requires me to replace the processor -- I will part with the cash and see about getting a faster one.  I think that would solve a lot of problems for me.

YES -- !!  I need to stop looking at single map tiles as a city.  I need to START looking at a REGION as a whole city with neighborhoods and outlaying suburbs.  That will take a bit more planning and a shift in my concept thinking -- but that is what I want to do.

[rsc204 21,808]

Honestly Larry, don't waste your money on a new processor. Realistically, you are better off with a new (not necessarily brand new) computer altogether.

Ideal PC for SC4, at least a Core2Duo, ideally around 3GHz, 4GB RAM, GPU doesn't matter terribly, just make sure it's got a dedicated board. I came across ex-business IBM machines with this spec for less than 100€ here, sans monitor/keyboard/mouse, but including Windows. You'll struggle to buy anything as reliable as an IBM, not to mention these "ThinkCentre" machines were small form factor, so quiet and space saving too. They would have cost a corporation many thousands back in the day, (at least twice the cost of most competitor machines), but are basically "in the way" by the time they are finished with, usually because the business needs to refresh their PCs. So they give them away for peanuts to specialist outfits who refurbish and sell them cheap. Can't do better IMO. provided you buy from a reputable source. Of course it doesn't have to be an IBM, but seriously, don't discount the reliability of something built above and beyond the average trash that is consumer electronics.

[Dreadnought 8,226]

1 hour ago, rsc204 said:

Honestly Larry, don't waste your money on a new processor. Realistically, you are better off with a new (not necessarily brand new) computer altogether.

Ideal PC for SC4, at least a Core2Duo, ideally around 3GHz, 4GB RAM, GPU doesn't matter terribly, just make sure it's got a dedicated board.

Yo --

I will look into it.  I've got a local guy that builds pretty good stuff.

Would you recommend continuing with Win 2000 Professional ?? (I have many games that run on that.)

[CorinaMarie 29,593]

2 hours ago, Dreadnought said:

Would you recommend continuing with Win 2000 Professional ?? (I have many games that run on that.)

FWIW, I would continue with what you have that is already working well. According to my physical disc versions of the games (I have both SC4 + RH and SC4D) the OS requirements are XP, ME, 2000, or 98. Why move on to another OS if everything you have currently runs your games? Once you get to Vista and beyond you might have to deal with the MS Borking patch for DRM. Or any number of other incompatibilities. Not that there aren't workarounds, but do you need the extra hassle?

The cynical side of me believes that while most of the OS programming team was working to add improvements, there was a small group who deliberately added little tweaks so older games would not run well (if at all) in an effort to cause peeps to have to buy new games.