Mayor Remote Dashboard Mod

[BeagleBug 10]

Hello, this is my first post here.

I'm developing a mod for a "remote mayor dashboard". Currently it's under early staging of development but I included a screenshot below.

The mod will collect as many info as I can't make it extract from inside the game and will feed this data to a server. From there the user can view all the data from the city. The interface updates every few seconds with the data provided by the mod. With this data I'm thinking about creating a raking from all the cities from the users and other functionalities.

Just to let you know how I came up with this idea. I usually go to work and leave the game running in my computer at home. I wanted to have a way to at least get a glimpse of what was going on in the city while I'm away from the computer. While I'm at work I use team viewer to access my home computer and do some emergency fixes to the city along the day. That's how I decided to come up with this mod. I already have a demo version running and it works pretty well right now and maybe sometime in the future I can host it on a public server and share it here.

What do you guys think about it ? Would it be something interesting to use?

Dashboard Ui - https://imgur.com/a/4srAp

[Tim The Terrible 586]

I think it's a great idea, especially for the more casual player, and it looks really good already! Personally I wouldn't dare to leave my city (baby) unattended for to long 

[BeagleBug 10]

33 minutes ago, Tim The Terrible said:

I think it's a great idea, especially for the more casual player, and it looks really good already! Personally I wouldn't dare to leave my city (baby) unattended for to long 

That's why I came up with this idea. I didn't want to leave my city  100% unattended, I wanted at least to be able to know what's going on there. 

I don't want it to be just a simple dashboard but I would also like to make it a social platform in some way (that I haven't figure out yet ) 

[Miccrosshill 367]

Hi Beaglebug

nice done - i was also thinking about exporting stats to the web and having some kind of "social media experience" .. i know this from my Battlefield2 times - there was the bf-stats site which was well visited

lacking c# skills to get data outside the game - i put this project aside.

 

i had some ideas and concepts how to "prop" up the stats

to get a more usefull "interface" you could code a warning - like when in a certain period(lets say last 3 data samples) the value of citizens drop more then 10% there is a warning indicator and the pic with the Residents tab begin to flash (some kind like that)

same for Demands .. if the demand for more Industries is +10% - on the website it shows a indicator ..

It would be nice to have the name of the owner of the city at the top or at least the cityname.

Later it would be possible to work also with Texts like:

"The City Arrowhead Junction is well grown [no demands over 10%] but has a problem with criminals [crime over 10%] and also a lack of Firestations [less than 5 firestations per tile]. It is X-Tiles big ..."

I don´t know exactly what data you can export so some won´t be possible.

It would be superb to have a screenshot of the city as background - i don´t belive its possible via c# but you can make an upload for the picture so the user can upload it periodically.

Most Citiesbuilder like special details in their city - so maybe some kind of small gallery would be fine?

And when i check your city for example - and i want to know what kind of Mod or Assets you are using - it would be great to have two buttons [Mods] [Assets] to get them listed - i saw already mods that do the list - so it must be possible.

at the end a area where you can ask the owner [comments] - like what Metrostation do you use on this screenshot or general comments.

 

you have to setup a usermanagment (user&password) for this - but i think this can be a valueable asset to this game and also interesting for Youtubers - like the "Arrowhead Junction Stream with Strictocatser, Flux and freshpopcorn. A link on their Video to the stats of the city provide all viewers with the stats and assets/mod list with a click

maybe this helps you a little in your project

 

i had also some kind of design in mind :

[BeagleBug 10]

45 minutes ago, Miccrosshill said:

Hi Beaglebug

[...]

Wow!! That was such a great response, thank you very much.

Another user also suggested the possibility to list the mods the player is using. Do you know the name of the MOD that lists it ? Maybe I can check it's source code and find out how it works and develop a similar functionality.

About the demands, I believe I can get if directly from the game and show it on the UI easily.

I`m not sure about the possibility to take screenshots in game and post directly to the API for the service, but I could let the users upload it directly from their account the same way I could let them add other information to their profile: Links, Avatar, etc.

Once again, thank you very much for your feedback and for this nice little UI design! I'll add those suggestions to my list and see what I can add to the prototype.

I'm looking for a way to have a demo available online so other people can see it working. Whenever it's ready, I'll post a link here.

[Miccrosshill 367]

you are welcome

 

here some links to the list mods :

Mods Listing - http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=588691634

AssetsLisdts - http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=588691634

the "loading Screen Mod" has also an logfile with all mods & assets - http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=667342976

 

 

btw. when searching for the mods i got another ideas - maybe you can use the Cimtographer (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=549792340&searchtext=list) to make a Streetmap from the city - kind of extra feature - it might be a nice gimick !

 

implementing CSL Show More Limits and outputting thes values - that would be valueble information too ... - http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=667342976&searchtext=list

 

found this one CityWebserver - maybe some coding help - http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=436756433

 

and this one :

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=411836742

[BeagleBug 10]

1 minute ago, Miccrosshill said:

you are welcome

here some links to the list mods 

Wow! 

Seems I've got a whole lot of work to do analysing the source code from those mods. Thank you very much for the help! I'm really excited about it. I wasn't hopping for such good feedbacks from the Cities community. 

I'll release the source code for the UI whenever I think it's ready to go, so anyone can contribute.

[Miccrosshill 367]

no way .. thank you for your work

[BeagleBug 10]

Here is a prototype of the UI. This is not a realtime application, it's just a static page with mockup data that I extracted from my game.

https://citiesreport.github.io/

Let me know what you think.

[alborzka 66]

Nice! As a bit of a transit nerd it would be cool if you could somehow include a map of the city's bus / tram / metro routes. If not, maybe some more info about the busiest routes, or overall ridership, breakdown between transit types, etc? Something along those lines Maybe something talking about traffic as well, e.g. if there's a line-up how long is it (vehicle length) and how long has it been there etc. I don't know if demand is especially important, but I really do like the ability to add screenshots and comments as well. Anyway, I'm excited to see how this develops, great idea!

[Bolduck91 54]

I would say that with what you've done for now. The only thing missing is the Total of income and expense to see if I'm on the Green or the Red.  Also data divided by districts would be good to have an idea where is could be the problem if you don't have the game in visual. RCI demand would be a nice addition too. Anyways, great start ! Keep on ! 

[BeagleBug 10]

@Bolduck91 I'm not sure if I can split the data by district, but I'll look into it. About the RCI demand indicator, this is something I'll add soon to the UI. I already have the total income/expenses I'm just not sure where I'm going to place it on the dashboard yet.

I'll be releasing a new version of the prototype soon with some additions. Now I have  dedicated server to hold the application data, I was using my personal computer for testing and now I moved to the cloud as the first step in making it accessible for other people to see. Maybe in a few weeks I'll try to start an Alpha testing program to find out if it will really work the way it is now.

[Bolduck91 54]

I think those mod were aiming to do more or less what you are doing here. One of them as a github link, maybe there is something there that can help you. 

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=411836742

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=436756433&searchtext=web

 

They are not working anymore, so I hope you will still be able to take something from them. Anyways good luck with the next steps. 

[Tim The Terrible 586]

8 minutes ago, BeagleBug said:

 I'm just not sure where I'm going to place it on the dashboard yet.

Well essentially you want to monitor the things that can damage your city (permanently) like utilities, which can cause sickness and create abandoned buildings etc. A sudden spike in RCI demand could indicate something bad happened (eg. industry demand because all industry closed due to water shortage). Of course your balance and income are a necessity, to see whether or not your city is doing good or going bankrupt.

Another reason why industry and commercial could shut shop is because they are not receiving good,  caused by traffic jams. So if you can find a way to provide feedback on how the (rail)road network is doing, that would be sweet.

Maybe 'stream' Chirpy messages, since they often refer to problems in the city?

With all this I think you still have room to spare, so the rest can be filled with whatever people want, unless I missed something...

PS: I noticed all these numbers on your first post, but they don't tell me much. Putting these numbers in graphs provides an instant feedback on whether things are as usual or stuff is going bad. 

[BeagleBug 10]

@Tim The Terrible thank you for the feedback . I'm not skilled in UI design but I see that there's a lot of work to be done to make this UI better. For now I'm collecting feedback from all the users and list the features they want. I'm going to improve the UI as I work on both the MOD and the server.

I'm pushing the updates to this web page so people can follow up with what's new https://citiesreport.github.io/

[BeagleBug 10]

@Bolduck91 wow! These mods are perfect! Just what I need to get some more ideas. I really like their interface, much better then mine right now!