Commuters from/to SimNation

[CorinaMarie 29,888]

1 hour ago, CorinaMarie said:

#math.floor((game.g_tax_rate_neutral * 10) + 0.5) / 10 .. string.char(183)#

Ok. I've actually tested in the game. This one works, but the special character isn't exactly needed.

You can also do: #math.floor((game.g_tax_rate_neutral * 10) + 0.5) / 10 .. "%"#

However, when it is point zero that will then show as an integer such as 9%. With a function we can even cause that to show 9.0% which would look much cleaner. And since RJ already has Lua code in the mod, we can simply add to it.

[Kel9509 1,480]

1 minute ago, CorinaMarie said:

However, when it is point zero that will then show as an integer such as 9%. With a function we can even cause that to show 9.0% which would look much cleaner. And since RJ already has Lua code in the mod, we can simply add to it.

Even though the game only allows one decimal place when setting tax rates, do you think that showing two decimal places for the Neutral Tax Rate would make sense?  I kinda like seeing all of the details out to multiple decimal places.

[CorinaMarie 29,888]

1 minute ago, Kel9509 said:

This just comes back as 8.9.

That's what we want. No? When setting the taxes they are only to one decimal point. Does it have more places in the functions we wrote? (I haven't looked inside those in years.) If it's just more places you want we can fix that.

 

3 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

Why does the game do this chopping off?

Because that was easier for Maxis in their coding, I presume.

 

4 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

Is there no way to turn it off?

I developed workaround methods in our City Halls Lua code to be able to display however we want, but it takes fooling the UI into believing the info is a sacred string so then it doesn't alter it.

[Kel9509 1,480]

Just now, CorinaMarie said:

When setting the taxes they are only to one decimal point. Does it have more places in the functions we wrote? (I haven't looked inside those in years.) If it's just more places you want we can fix that.

Well, RIGHT NOW we can set the taxes at only one decimal place.  Not sure if modding in the future would ever change that or if there'd ever be a need for it.  But maybe I'm just excited to see more details than before, with all those extra decimal places.  I suppose 1 decimal place is enough.

[CorinaMarie 29,888]

1 minute ago, Kel9509 said:

But maybe I'm just excited to see more details than before, with all those extra decimal places.

Well, play around with it.

If you want two decimal places, change both 10s in the formula to 100. Or 1000 in both places for 3. Or you can just do 10 ^ (Number_Of_Decimal_Places_You_Want_To_See)

[Kel9509 1,480]

38 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

If you want two decimal places, change both 10s in the formula to 100. Or 1000 in both places for 3. Or you can just do 10 ^ (Number_Of_Decimal_Places_You_Want_To_See)

Thank you!  I think I will play around with it. 

A new version of the Census Repository DLL Upgrade Patch is officially in the works.  

1. I noticed a typo which accidentally tripled the query for the Actual Demand for Dirty Industry.  If you look at the screenshots of my upload, you can see a small number just above the words "Residential Capacity" and just above "Industrial Job Supply", corresponding to the number shown for ID (Dirty) demand.  I'm not sure how that happened but it needs to be fixed.

2. I will fix the Neutral Tax Rate using the method @CorinaMarie developed, at least for those in a non-CAM game.  I'm not sure if the function will be automatically incorporated with the CAM mod, so perhaps someone running a CAM game can help to test that out.  In addition, I'll see if I can make this number more prominent in the actual Census Repository UI itself.

3.  I will probably come up with some better explanation for Extrapolated Demand instead of using the term "Commuters", given the testing that was done in this thread, as well as RippleJet's own admission, that proves that those numbers bear no relation to any commuters in the game at all.  While I wish there was a way to show ACTUAL commuters in SimCity 4, I don't think there's a way right now unless @Null 45 or @memo can find way to do so with a DLL Mod.  In the meantime, I'll try to find an explanation that makes sense of these numbers.

[CorinaMarie 29,888]

17 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

I'm not sure if the function will be automatically incorporated with the CAM mod, ...

By using the game.g_tax_rate_neutral variable for the info it will apply to both CAM and non_CAM. The differences in the neutral tax rates are set in the Demand Simulator as Demand: Neutral Tax Rate vs. Population and that is in stages where it changes at various population levels. Any population in between the breakpoints is interpolated between them. (It's like a weighted sliding scale.) The game grabs that information and stuffs it into your variable so it'll always be what you want.

I believe now the only trouble will be for consistent formatting.

If the data happens to be 7.00000000000 internally, that will show as 7%. Same trouble if you pick two (or more) decimal places and there are ending zeroes. 6.73 would be fine, but 6.70 would show 6.7% This is something we can fix. I've written all the code to do it before so we'd just make a copy for the Repository and rename the functions so they won't interfere with any other mods and you'd be set to always show however many decimal places you decide on and then 5.000% could be displayed if that's the stored number.

[Kel9509 1,480]

2 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

By using the game.g_tax_rate_neutral variable for the info it will apply to both CAM and non_CAM. The differences in the neutral tax rates are set in the Demand Simulator as Demand: Neutral Tax Rate vs. Population and that is in stages where it changes at various population levels. Any population in between the breakpoints is interpolated between them. (It's like a weighted sliding scale.) The game grabs that information and stuffs it into your variable so it'll always be what you want.

Excellent.  I'm so glad that this will work for both CAM and non-CAM games.  As far as the actual NTR itself, I personally find it odd that Maxis decided that one number could be "neutral" for each of the Residential, Commercial, and Industrial types.  You'd think there'd be 12 neutral tax rates (if you account for each type of zone, corresponding to the 12 different tax rates you can set).  I was wondering if there were actually more than just one NTR, but I guess not.

[CorinaMarie 29,888]

RippleJet said:

I'm pretty sure that in such a case, that extrapolation might occur over and over again, if you go back and play the first city over and over again.

This is correct.

In this screenshot, I ran time in the current city tile, saved then exited to the region. I then loaded the connected city tile and for all except the last spike, I did not run any time, but merely re-saved it. This was sufficient to re-propagate the extrapolated data. For the last spike I had let the connected city run and it grew more which explains the taller extrapolated spikes.

^ One thing to note: There is no growth in this city tile at the moment. Merely a neighborhood connection.

 

I've run multiple tests this morning and I can push any single type of extrapolated demand by what I zone and grow. When there is residential in connected city tiles then the extrapolated green data in our tile is the equivalent of Job Applications or Letters of Intent to seek a job in our local community. As such developers are just a wee bit more excited to consider new commercial or industrial development.

When adjacent tiles send over their extrapolated commercial and/or industrial data they are essentially saying: We have these job opportunities for y'all so if you want to grow more residential we'll help you out with potential jobs they could get.

What's a bit funny is that neither the external jobs available nor the Sim outsiders have to be able to actually cross the border and get to their destination. (That's separately modeled with the route query tool.)

So, maybe change the labels to:

• Neighboring Sim Job Seekers Announced
• Neighboring Commercial Job Openings Posted
• Neighboring Industrial Job Openings Posted

Or something along that line?

 

RippleJet said:

Since the monthly extrapolation is 0.00 in more than 90% of the cases, I never saw the need to specify it in any more detail ...

This would likely appear true from empirical evidence opening and closing the Repository screen a million times. As @DeeKayOut's graphs show: Any time there is not a spike going on, the current month data would be zero. However, just because that's somewhat uninteresting, I don't believe it's reason enough to fake it with highly inflated non-useful information. (As is the totals for all eternity.)  

If you do go with my suggestions for the CITY column of:

• #game.trend_value(game_trends.G_R_EXTRAP_OUT,0)#
• #game.trend_value(game_trends.G_C_EXTRAP_OUT,0)#
• #game.trend_value(game_trends.G_I_EXTRAP_OUT,0)#

Just keep that in mind that unless you pop open that screen for the month it's happening, it will indeed be zero a lot of the time. Then the 3 month and 1 year might need their hover over (tipres) to say 3 month accumulative total and 1 year accumulative total (or such).

[Kel9509 1,480]

I'm working on the Neutral Tax Rate right now.  If I add your formula to the tooltip, it works perfectly and I can get it to as many decimals as I like.  I started with 1 but 2 and 3 decimal places are possible.

But if I go into the LUA and replace the entire Neutral Tax rate function with your formula, things get broken.

In the LUA, I replaced this:

function RJCR_NeutralTax()
    if game.g_population < 150000 then return "9.0%" end
    if game.g_population < 450000 then return "8.9%" end
    .... (etc...)
    if game.g_population < 5700000 then return "5.4%" end
    if game.g_population < 5850000 then return "5.1%" end
    if game.g_population < 6000000 then return "4.8%" end
    if game.g_population >= 6000000 then return "4.0%" end
end

With this:

function RJCR_NeutralTax()
    #math.floor((game.g_tax_rate_neutral * 10) + 0.5) / 10 .. "%"#
end

And this was the result:

You'll see that all tax columns are messed up, as well as the calculations on total "commuters" (extrapolated demand).  The tooltip is still showing correctly, though. It seems that RippleJet's use of the Neutral Tax Rate extends beyond merely the tooltip number, and is used elsewhere in the Census Repository.

If you look at any of the Tax columns, they all have similar formulas in order to display the tax rates as an actual percentage, taking the game's "game.g_tax_rate" function for each specific zone type and converting it into a percentage by use of "RJCR_TaxRate" function from the LUA script.  One example is: #RJCR_TaxRate(game.g_tax_rate_co_med)#

But I don't understand why overriding the Neutral Tax Rate in the LUA script would break those.  The other functions relating to Taxes in his script are untouched.  And I'd like to use the game's function for the neutral tax rate throughout the entirety of the Census Repository, instead of merely the tooltip number.

Do you have any idea what's going on here?

[CorinaMarie 29,888]

3 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

function RJCR_NeutralTax()
    #math.floor((game.g_tax_rate_neutral * 10) + 0.5) / 10 .. "%"#
end

Remember the # on each end is a special designation to make a token of the data. That's just a fancy way of saying it can be used in LText for display in a UI and whatever the data is in a variable (or the answer to a calculation) is what will be displayed.

However, within the function itself those #'s are interpreted literally and the Lua engine goes: Huh?!?

Additionally, after the function performs whatever calculation you've told it to do you also need to send the answer back.

So, try this:

function RJCR_NeutralTax()
    return math.floor((game.g_tax_rate_neutral * 10) + 0.5) / 10 .. "%"
end

And then in your LText you make a token of the function call as: #RJCR_NeutralTax()#

[CorinaMarie 29,888]

23 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

It seems that RippleJet's use of the Neutral Tax Rate extends beyond merely the tooltip number, and is used elsewhere in the Census Repository.

Oh. Yikes! If it's used in other calculations then we cannot return it with the % tacked on the end. That'll confuzzle the Lua code. This, too, can be fixed tho.

(And I edited my post above so be sure to re-check my last sentence.)

[Kel9509 1,480]

11 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Oh. Yikes! If it's used in other calculations then we cannot return it with the % tacked on the end. That'll confuzzle the Lua code. This, too, can be fixed tho.

Thank you!  Your new function worked.  Also, I take back what I said.  I don't think that the Neutral Tax Rate is used elsewhere in the Census Repository.  I think what happened is my incorrect use of LUA code broke the rest of the coding.  Once I added your correct function into it, everything worked perfectly again.  

I'm wondering if it's even possible to display the Neutral Tax Rate more prominently in the Census Repository.  The entire query is filled up.  And the tooltips are extensive.  I wonder if I'm just resigned to the fact that a lot of the Census Repository explanations are all embedded in the tooltips.  Even the stuff I quoted yesterday about Extrapolated Demand is in the tooltips.  

I like your idea of Job Postings Announced.  I'll need to fix all of that, as well as the 3-month and 1-year tooltips.  That's next on my list later tonight.

[CorinaMarie 29,888]

3 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

I'm wondering if it's even possible to display the Neutral Tax Rate more prominently in the Census Repository.

I did an edit in text source mode so I could do this quickly and precisely:

 

[Kel9509 1,480]

Here's how it looks so far with the Neutral Tax Rate in the green header, along with a tooltip.  For the tooltip text, I took from the existing Tax tooltip, and slightly augmented it with some words from the Prima Official Strategy Guide.

Tomorrow I'll work on the "commuters".

[CorinaMarie 29,888]

6 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

Here's how it looks so far with the Neutral Tax Rate in the green header, along with a tooltip.

Looks good.

[Kel9509 1,480]

I've been a bit busy recently but am now able to pick up work on the upgraded Census Repository again.  

On 11/5/2024 at 11:43 AM, CorinaMarie said:

I've run multiple tests this morning and I can push any single type of extrapolated demand by what I zone and grow. When there is residential in connected city tiles then the extrapolated green data in our tile is the equivalent of Job Applications or Letters of Intent to seek a job in our local community. As such developers are just a wee bit more excited to consider new commercial or industrial development.

When adjacent tiles send over their extrapolated commercial and/or industrial data they are essentially saying: We have these job opportunities for y'all so if you want to grow more residential we'll help you out with potential jobs they could get.

What's a bit funny is that neither the external jobs available nor the Sim outsiders have to be able to actually cross the border and get to their destination. (That's separately modeled with the route query tool.)

So, maybe change the labels to:

• Neighboring Sim Job Seekers Announced
• Neighboring Commercial Job Openings Posted
• Neighboring Industrial Job Openings Posted

Or something along that line?

Do you think we should be more technical and use the term "extrapolated residential demand", "extrapolated commercial demand", and "extrapolated industrial demand", instead of job seekers or job openings?  We can add as much explanation of the meanings in hover tooltips.  I'm leaning a bit towards a more "formal" or technical use of terminology because I think that if we try to make up a term for what the game is "essentially saying", it becomes the same sort of thinking that got RippleJet to use the term "commuters" which ended up confusing people.  If we have a data point, with numbers, that tells people there are job openings, there will naturally be confusion around that and people will ask where the heck the game is storing job openings, etc, just like people are wondering now where the heck the game can calculate commuters, etc.  

My thinking is that no matter what we call it, the hover tooltip will need to be heavily re-written to explain to everyone what's going on here.  

One more thing I plan to fix: In many tooltips, RippleJet uses the term "SimNation", but there's an LTEXT code for the region name and SimNation should be replaced with the actual region name.  I think I will do that in every instance.  

Finally, I notice your ModPaccZero City Hall v1.1 file includes an Employment percentage.  I wonder if people would want that in the Census Repository as well?  I don't like duplicating information in other useful Queries (and since it's your code, you'd need to provide permission), so perhaps not.  But if not, I encourage you to formally post your City Hall mod in the downloads.  I've used it for the longest time and frankly, it is a much needed addition for Mayors who want to be successful and fully complements the Census Repository.

[Kel9509 1,480]

I also should mention that your dataview, Extrapolated Commuters, is very similar to Tropod's Graphmod v2 (as edited by Cogeo in this download), which I've had in my game for a while.  I never understood it until this thread when you posted your graph and I recognized how similar it was to one in my game.  I like yours better because it explains more and has better colors.  But see them both to compare:

Yours:

Tropod's (and Cogeo):

His Graphmod v2 actually creates some new graphs for the game, like RCI total, Radiation and his Extrapolation graph.  I didn't understand what it meant prior to this thread, though, as your graph did a much better job of showing things.  I'd like to keep his new dataviews, but overlay yours on top of his in the its current location so I can still use "Funds" in my graph.  Do you know how I can use your graph to essentially replace Tropod's version?

[CorinaMarie 29,888]

8 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

Do you think we should be more technical and use the term "extrapolated residential demand", "extrapolated commercial demand", and "extrapolated industrial demand", instead of job seekers or job openings?  <snip>.  If we have a data point, with numbers, that tells people there are job openings, there will naturally be confusion around that and people will ask where the heck the game is storing job openings, etc, just like people are wondering now where the heck the game can calculate commuters, etc.

Ah, yes. That's a very good point.

Let's start with what we think we know. (Or at least how I feel about it.) In my tests with a Jobs City and a connected Workers City where each are built up a wee bit, it was when I restarted time with a bunch of empty residential zoning suddenly sprouting houses en mass I started seeing a slew of Extrapolated (External?) Industrial.

This is pretend job openings outside of our current city tile. It works the same for external commercial in response to local residential growth, but does seem to be based on the connected city tiles having at least some jobs in the category for which it creates the fake data. And, ofc, the opposite when growing commercial or industrial shows make-believe residential.

Since it doesn't actually relate to any real demand nor any real external growth maybe use Anticipated for the adjective instead of Extrapolated or in addition to External?

 

9 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

One more thing I plan to fix: In many tooltips, RippleJet uses the term "SimNation", but there's an LTEXT code for the region name and SimNation should be replaced with the actual region name.  I think I will do that in every instance.

Good call! I very much support this.

 

9 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

Finally, I notice your ModPaccZero City Hall v1.1 file includes an Employment percentage.  I wonder if people would want that in the Census Repository as well?

They might indeed want it there as it would save them from locating a City Hall to open to then view it. If they are already in the Census Repository that'd be way more convenient. (And it's no different than a multitude of news sites reporting on the same event.)

 

9 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

(and since it's your code, you'd need to provide permission)

(You have my permission. I look at it from the perspective of what is best for the SC4 community.)

The key thing is to make sure to use your own variable and function names so we never step on each other's toes. Ideally tho, there could be a Lua toolbox with common functions which anyone could call from their own code without duplicating them.

 

9 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

I encourage you to formally post your City Hall mod in the downloads.

We hit a couple of snags with it.

The first was how we really wanted a slight change in @simmaster07's City Hall DLL so our code could account for it, but they never replied to our PM request and then there was the whole language translation which was in the works but I got bogged down with some RL stuff and then everything was set aside for a couple of years.

 

7 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

I also should mention that your dataview, Extrapolated Commuters, is very similar to Tropod's Graphmod v2 (as edited by Cogeo in this download), which I've had in my game for a while.

That's cool. I wasn't aware of that particular graph tho I seem to recall having other Dataviews from Tropod. Or it's quite possible I saw it long ago, didn't understand it, and then moved on.

 

7 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

Do you know how I can use your graph to essentially replace Tropod's version?

I'm sure I can figure it out. And you already know how to change the LText for the labels if we go with some other verbiage.

[CorinaMarie 29,888]

9 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

Do you know how I can use your graph to essentially replace Tropod's version?

Turns out to be very easy. Just change the Exemplar IID of mine to 0x00000021 and then name (and place) my file where it will load after his.

 

Edit: And delete my second LText (2026960B-6A231EAA-6A551DFC) so it doesn't replace the Funds label.

[Ulisse Wolf 4,459]

1 hour ago, CorinaMarie said:

The first was how we really wanted a slight change in @simmaster07's City Hall DLL so our code could account for it, but they never replied to our PM request and then there was the whole language translation which was in the works but I got bogged down with some RL stuff and then everything was set aside for a couple of years.

I am working on CAM translations and consequently Modpack Zero. Once I finish the merge and fix the education for the RC2 release I can complete the translation

[Kel9509 1,480]

11 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Turns out to be very easy.

Thank you!  It worked perfectly!  Now I have a nice Extrapolation Graph, which franky I'm thinking is really, really important now that I understand what it means.  I also use your Jobs & Population Bar Graph, but I didn't like that it replaced Education by Age.  So after some tweaks and additional instance edits, I've created a new line in Tropod's new column for your Jobs & Population Bar graph, and restored Education by Age.

You've opened up a door and I might want to make a consolidated Graph mod as well for all these awesome edits.  It's hard to find all of this stuff since a lot of it is buried in posts.

11 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Since it doesn't actually relate to any real demand nor any real external growth maybe use Anticipated for the adjective instead of Extrapolated or in addition to External?

I agree, "extrapolated" is such a ridiculous and confusing word.  It means nothing to a real person. Extrapolated literally means: "extend the application of (a method or conclusion, especially one based on statistics) to an unknown situation by assuming that existing trends will continue or similar methods will be applicable."  How many people are thinking like that when they're trying to build farms or a little downtown district?

But "anticipated" is good.  Much better.  To be clear, I'm referring to the wording in the Query that you see.  I plan on writing a pretty detailed hover tooltip that tries to explain it all to everyone.  And since RippleJet used the Prima Official Guide as a basis for a lot of his explanations and work, I took another look at it.  And this "anticipated" demand does have a downside, as it turns out, for according to Prima:

Quote

GROWTH EXTRAPOLATION
Because inactive cities can’t grow when you’re playing a different city, how does the inactive city impact RCI demand over the long term? Answer: extrapolation.

When you save and exit a city, all information about it saves. The demand simulator extrapolates (or projects) this growth into the future. How could this develop to its maximum potential? In other words, it presumes how the city will grow and adds that projected demand into Region-wide RCI demand. This creates the illusion that the city is growing in your absence. The simulator does this by looking at the city’s current state and presuming 10% growth for extrapolation purposes. Thus a city with 20,000 R§, 10,000 R§§, and 5,000 R§§§ will, when exited, toss out extrapolated growth of 2,000 R§, 1,000 R§§, and 500 R§§§. In other words, the city says to all other regional cities, “expect me to grow my population by 10% in the immediate future."

When you enter a neighboring city, it gradually adds this extrapolated growth (and demand extrapolated from all other inactive cities) to its own and satisfies as much of it as it can with its available zone capacity.

EXPORTING DEMAND
When you’re playing an active city, inactive connected cities can satisfy the active city’s demand with their unused zone capacity, but only to the tune of 10% of their existing populations and only if the demand can’t be satisfied in the open city.
At the end of a month, demand not satisfied by building construction in the active city is tossed to other cities in the Region. The active city looks at the inactive cities, analyzes their
presumed growth, and decides how much of the active city’s demand each could satisfy if they were simultaneously running.
Demand falls as the buildings that satisfy it “grow” in the inactive cities. They aren’t growing because the cities are frozen in time, but your active city thinks they are. What you have is demand satisfaction without any construction. 

This process, however, can only last to the extent of the extrapolated growth. Once the 10% growth has been used up, your active city will eventually stagnate if you let it run long
enough. Successful regional play and creation of specialized cities requires you, for this reason, to switch cities frequently.

RETURNING TO EXTRAPOLATED CITIES
When you load a city in which extrapolation has occurred, the growth we presume was occurring while the city was inactive sprouts. Give it some time to grow before leaving or dire
consequences could befall you.

If you enter a city that's been extrapolated and exit it before the pent-up growth is finished, the extrapolated growth is lost forever. As far as other cities are concerned, the city that lost its extrapolated growth has actually shrunk in size. This could trigger a small recession and cause other cities to suffer some abandonment. To avoid this, give your city a chance to catch up on its extrapolation before exiting.

"Extrapolation" is really "anticipated projected growth" of region-wide demand, on a monthly basis.  The shocking thing is that this happens MONTHLY.  If you don't build enough in your own active city, then internal demand in the city will fall and instead it will be given to the regional cities externally.  "What you have is demand satisfaction without any construction."  Wow.  The only way to deal with this is to "switch cities frequently".  That is a big deal.  I don't know if anyone really understands this core concept. 

What I think I'd like to do for the Census Repository is to display the new values of anticipated projected growth in Residential, Commercial, and Industrial values that happen when you first load up a city after playing a different one.  There's no point in showing historical totals here, since those are lost if you don't use them and mean literally nothing for your growth.  The 3-month and 1-year numbers are ok to keep, but what we need are the initial values correctly displayed upon loading, which frankly are probably the immediate monthly values once you load a city (I think):

• #game.trend_value(game_trends.G_R_EXTRAP_OUT,0)#
• #game.trend_value(game_trends.G_C_EXTRAP_OUT,0)#
• #game.trend_value(game_trends.G_I_EXTRAP_OUT,0)#

If that is correct, then the total column absolutely needs to be replaced.  It is entirely useless.  And like I said, your Extrapolation Graph is very important, because unlike the Census Repository it can show the spikes you get in loading a city if you happen to miss the month the spike happens in the Census Repository (although it might be in the 3-month data).

I'll see what I can come up with.

[CorinaMarie 29,888]

I'm out of time tonight so I'll only make a quick comment on one part:

35 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

You've opened up a door and I might want to make a consolidated Graph mod as well for all these awesome edits.

What about taking over the City Opinion Polls panel for all the extra Graphs? Then the regular one can stay the same and the new one need not be all cluttered.

Additionally, feel free to edit the LText of my Extrapolated Graph to have a new, proper name above the graph and change the line labels. You can then include it in your graph mod project whenever you are ready to release it. (You'll be the one spending all the time explaining it and that's the harder part. Creating a new graph like that is fairly easy.)

[Kel9509 1,480]

Coming up with a new explanation for this concept is very difficult.  I've been writing it out prior to editing the actual query and LTEXT.  Here's what I have to replace "Commuters from Simnation" (there's some text in brackets that I'm still considering):

Quote

Anticipated Regional Residential Demand [or replace Demand with just Growth?] [or, as an alternate title, "Anticipated Growth of Residents in Region"]

Hovertip for the title: This shows the projected anticipated regional residential demand, which in CITY creates a demand for jobs and stimulates industrial and commercial zones.  It does NOT represent a demand for residential zones within CITY.  This data represents anticipated residential growth in the region outside of CITY.  The anticipated growth of residents in other cities in REGION means that those expected new residents will try to find jobs in CITY, stimulating industrial or commercial growth in CITY.  Under normal conditions this amount will be zero while you satisfy commercial and industrial demand within CITY and create job growth.  If you see a spike of Anticipated Regional Residential Demand [Growth], then you may want to develop commercial or industrial zones within CITY to satisfy that new demand for jobs.  If you do not, that demand may be lost in time and growth of commercial and industrial zones in CITY may stagnate until you play another city in REGION again. (For those with a little history knowledge, this entry was formerly known as Commuters from SimNation despite it not really being actual commuters, and is otherwise called Extrapolated Residential Demand).

Hovertip for the CITY entry: The change in immediate (or one month) anticipated regional residential demand.
Hovertip for the 3-month entry: The change in anticipated regional residential demand over the last 3 months.
Hovertip for the 1-year entry: The change anticipated regional residential demand over the last year.

 

I was going to include more details of how demand works, but instead I think I may augment the hover tooltip for "Demand" to add the following:

Quote

At the end of a month, demand not satisfied by building construction in CITY is given to other cities in the Region. CITY looks at the inactive cities in REGION, analyzes their presumed growth, and decides how much of CITY’s demand other cities in REGION could satisfy if they were simultaneously running. Within CITY, demand falls steadily as the simulator anticipates growth in cities within REGION. This can create demand satisfaction within CITY without any construction. This process lasts to the extent of anticipated regional demand (or projected city growth of 10% of its population). Once the 10% growth has been used up, your active city will eventually stagnate if you let it run long enough. Successful regional play and creation of specialized cities requires you, for this reason, to switch cities frequently.

I feel like overall this is very wordy in general, but it's a hard concept to explain and hard to cut out a lot of details.

[CorinaMarie 29,888]

13 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

There's no point in showing historical totals here, since those are lost if you don't use them and mean literally nothing for your growth.

Agreed.

With all the investigation in this thread (and the old info you dug up) that total is not only worthless, but is completely misleading. It has actually caused innumerable cases of peeps bulldozing all connections and obliterating entire city tiles trying to eliminate phantom commuters who were never actually there.

Your work to rectify this complete misrepresentation of data will help everyone enjoy the game so much more.

 

13 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

If that is correct, then the total column absolutely needs to be replaced.

Yep. That is correct. The comma zero in each of those code lines simply means how many months ago so zero is the current month. Now, as RJ correctly stated, that will often produce a zero result for the display. IMO, that's fine. When there is no info to show then simply report the zero and move on.

 

13 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

(although it might be in the 3-month data)

(It will be. And in the 1-year too.)

 

9 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

Anticipated Regional Residential Demand [or replace Demand with just Growth?] [or, as an alternate title, "Anticipated Growth of Residents in Region"]

Definitely on the right track now. Maybe closer to your first one? Such as: Anticipated Regional Residential Growth

 

10 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

Hovertip for the [Residential] title:

Or:

This Anticipated Regional Residential Growth will manifest itself as additional Residential Demand in a connected city tile the first time you load it after saving your current one. If there is sufficient unfulfilled zoning in that connected city tile then the growth (whether new or upgrading) can take place when you run time. Note: If the conditions are not conducive to using that extra demand during the current play session it will be lost. However, even tho the Prima Guide makes that sound devastating to your region, it is not a big deal. If you keep your city's demands and growth in balance the minor difference will not be missed.

 

10 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

Hovertip for the CITY entry: The change in immediate (or one month) anticipated regional residential demand.

To me the word change makes it sound like the result of an ongoing calculation. Like if it were related to population I would expect either a positive or negative number for the growth that month.

I'm wondering about: Single month quantity of anticipated regional residential growth.

 

10 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

Hovertip for the 3-month entry: The change in anticipated regional residential demand over the last 3 months.

Then along the same line: Cumulative 3-month total of anticipated regional residential growth.

And, by now, you can guess what I'd say for the 1-year number.

[Kel9509 1,480]

7 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

This Anticipated Regional Residential Growth will manifest itself as additional Residential Demand in a connected city tile the first time you load it after saving your current one. If there is sufficient unfulfilled zoning in that connected city tile then the growth (whether new or upgrading) can take place when you run time. Note: If the conditions are not conducive to using that extra demand during the current play session it will be lost. However, even tho the Prima Guide makes that sound devastating to your region, it is not a big deal. If you keep your city's demands and growth in balance the minor difference will not be missed.

Hmmm.  I didn't to actual testing.  You did.  And based on what you said, when you got a green spike in R on your graphs, that meant for your city that your industrial sector developed.  That's why in my paragraph, I discussed zoning industrial or commercial, to provide jobs for those external extrapolated residential demand.  But your discussion of the impact of this Anticipated Regional Residential Growth on other cities is not incorrect also, and has the benefit of explaining the name better.  

I'm wondering, was my initial explanation incorrect?  This stuff really can be hard to figure out.    

[CorinaMarie 29,888]

24 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

I'm wondering, was my initial explanation incorrect?

I can't say with certainty that it was wrong.

But it just didn't feel like what I've experienced with years of regional play and experiments. I sometimes go way in depth for what I test. I once proved (and documented) it's possible to create a 22 (iirc) city tile infinite commuter loop. (And it's also not possible to create a 3 tile loop. The minimum is 4.)

So, all I'm suggesting is the verbiage I wrote might explain what Maxis calls extrapolated R, C, and I better. Ofc, it's no guarantee I'm even remotely close to correct.   I do know from experience the Prima Guide blows it way out of proportion for its actual effects.

I'd also like to address your Demand hovertip sometime as I feel it could use some tweaking too. (But, not tonight.)

[Kel9509 1,480]

I've revised the Census Repository to incorporate the following fixes:

1. Replace all references with SimNation or "this region" with the actual region name.
2. Fix the reference of "Commuters" to instead use the concept of extrapolation, simplified using the term "Anticipated Regional Growth" of Residential, Commercial or Industrial growth, as shown in the screenshots.  This likely is as RippleJet meant to do once others noticed the problem, based on archived discussions in the SC4D forums with others, linked above in this thread.
3. Fix the calculation of "Commuters" under the City column to replace its total extrapolation count, with the current (or monthly) Anticipated Regional Residential, Commercial or Industrial Growth.
4.  Added tooltips to Anticipated Regional Residential, Commercial and Industrial demand.
5.  Added tooltips to the current, 3-month, and 1-year Anticipated Regional Residential, Commercial and Industrial demand.

For the tooltip, upon reflection, I decided to use the explanation Cori provided with some slight edits.  I think it's a better explanation, and moreover it is consistent with the Prima Guide.  My initial explanation, that Residential Extrapolation will result in an increase in Commercial and Industrial Growth within the played city, is possibly also correct.  Or better said, it might be correct upon a series of assumptions.  The problem is, it is only true if Residential Extrapolation results in a sprout of growth in a connected city, and those new residents then travel back to the original city to find jobs.  So it MAY be true that Residential Extrapolation might result in increase Industrial and Commercial demand in the original  city, but ONLY after you save and exit, and ONLY after you load up a connected city to run it, sprout the growth there, and then ONLY if that city cannot satisfy those residents with jobs on its own, and THEN will they travel back to the original city and produce growth in industry and commercial demand.

Sample screenshots are below.  This is still technically a patch to the original census repository, so the version is still 3.5.  I'll upload it if there's no other comments or criticism.

 

 

Note: After this post, I noticed some typos and fixed them.  Also, I'm still considering whether to include an additional line about how the anticipation of regional growth also includes the Prima Guide's concept of "Exporting Demand".  The idea is, if  you play the same city too much without playing other regional cities, your city will experience too much Anticipated Regional Growth and your city will have its demands satisfied by that presumed regional growth and the existing city's  growth will stagnate as the city will experience "demand satisfaction without any construction."

  Edited December 9, 2024 by Kel9509  
added additional note

[CorinaMarie 29,888]

Looks good overall. That was a massive amount of tweaking. I admire your dedication to the project.

Little nitpicks:

• In the 2nd image, I believe the Anticipated Regional Residential Growth over the past 3 months is based on the past three months of industrial and/or commercial in #city#.
• In the 3rd image, I'm thinking "between" isn't the best word as I believe that's a comparison of two quantities. Maybe: These numbers include the anticipated growth of neighbouring cities added to #region#'s total.

11 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

This is still technically a patch to the original census repository, so the version is still 3.5.

Patch or not, I believe there should be some way to distinguish it from the 3.5 which has been around for a few eons. Not only in the title on the download page, but in the file names as well. Otherwise it'll become a nightmare for peeps trying to see if they are up-to-date or not. Even in game it should have some way to tell. (Many peeps, myself included, have like twenty zillion copies of various stages and types of plugin folders and we'll need an easy way to check which we have updated or not.)

If you feel strongly about the number 3.5 itself then go with Kel's 3.5 (or 3.5 Revised) or something so we can tell.

[Kel9509 1,480]

10 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

In the 2nd image, I believe the Anticipated Regional Residential Growth over the past 3 months is based on the past three months of industrial and/or commercial in #city#.

It was hard to tell, but once again I think you're right.  The Prima Guide isn't clear, of course, and is little help.  It only really says: "Thus a city with 20,000 R§, 10,000 R§§, and 5,000 R§§§ will, when exited, toss out extrapolated growth of 2,000 R§, 1,000 R§§, and 500 R§§§."  It made me think that R extrapolation corresponds to R residential growth, and likewise with the other zones.  But now that you mention the distinction I believe it's true.  In my example, I had new extrapolation of R and C, but no extrapolation of I.  There was significant industrial growth right before the extrapolation lines appeared in the graph, so you're probably right that a growth of one type does not mean extrapolation of the same type.  Instead, I think growth of Industry or Commerce will lead to Residential extrapolation, and growth of Residents may lead to Commercial or Industrial Extrapolation - if demand for either isn't satisfied within the city itself.  

And that leads me to my note about demand being satisfied with extrapolation and not within the city limits.  If your Anticipated Regional Growth is too large over too short a time, your city will stagnate as demand will be satisfied outside of the city.  I've gotta get that in there somehow.

10 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

In the 3rd image, I'm thinking "between" isn't the best word as I believe that's a comparison of two quantities. Maybe: These numbers include the anticipated growth of neighbouring cities added to #region#'s total.

That is definitely correct.  Before, it used to say "These numbers include commuters to industrial jobs elsewhere in SimNation."  So it's definitely a total figure.

10 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Patch or not, I believe there should be some way to distinguish it from the 3.5 which has been around for a few eons. Not only in the title on the download page, but in the file names as well.

Well, here's my thoughts on that although @Tyberius06, @Tarkus or others at SC4Evermore which currently host the Census Repository may have different ideas.  But my view is, consistent with the use of new modern methods like fixing errors, adding submenus and the possibility of a NAM DLL in the future, this version of the Census Repository should also be treated as an upgrade just like some dependencies and lots are being upgraded to fix errors and other issues, and also to expand capabilities.  Now, I'm not sure how things will be approached if ever the NAM decides to use a DLL and if that will be an option or a requirement.  But generally, the idea is that older versions are no longer supported.  This patch to the Census Repository requires DLLs.   So maybe v3.5 can still be hosted somewhere for those who don't use DLLs, but unsupported.  And this newer version, whatever it's called, should be the preferred or default version.  That's because I actually think that these changes to replace the concept of "commuters" with extrapolated demand are even more important than the DLL fixes to fill in some of the missing #s from the original Census Repository.  

I can't tell you how often I struggled to deal with Commuters showing up in the Census Repository.  I was confused by the term, and wondered if eternal commuters would show up there.  I thought that the # of commuters meant my demand was all messed up, and that I was building things all wrong.  It is entirely correct to cast that concept aside for the better and more accurate terminology, to make players understand things better.

Call it version 4.0 or call it the DLL Patch, but it should be the preferred download.  Right now I only include the file I edited, since it's still a patch.  But if it's made into a default download, the rest of the remaining files should also be included.  If so, I can probably work on a new version of the Readme.