Commuting Confusion

[snowbordr17 7]

Hey all,

Confused about a commuting issue I've seemed to have with my city since its conception. No-job Zots have continually plagued random buildings across the tile, leading to consistent dilapidation, followed by quick revitalization. Looking deeper into the problem, it seems like it exists almost exclusively amongst R$$$ residents. Seems like a relatively routine issue, right?

 

The perplexing thing here is that these buildings all have prime access to both a dense commercial downtown, and plenty of high-tech jobs, via roads, avenues, subways, and elevated rail. Hell, there are a handful of these residences that are walkable from some of my largest commercial offices. However, sims don't seem to be utilizing those jobs like I would expect them to. Upon close inspection, it seemed one building had commuters traveling all the way across the tile just to work in a small iHT building, when a CS$$$ building just across the street offering 2,000 jobs only had 22 workers. If I throw the time into triple speed, I'll watch these residences become dilapidated due to long commute. After some time, seemingly randomly, they will remember the jobs are next door and begin working close to home. After MORE time, they'll hop back on their bullshit and begin whining about having no nearby jobs once again.

 

1. This doesn't seem to be a case of any infinite commuter bug. I have no looping connections between neighbors, only linear.

2. I have the NAM installed and have built several cities that don't seem to have this problem.

3. When I click the general query button and view a CS, CO, or iHT building, it will often give me a number like 1894/1900 jobs are filled. However, when I click the commuter query button and view that same building, it may tell me that only 22 sims are actually commuting to that job. Am I misreading this feature, or should those two statistics be lining up more accurately?

4. Does anybody have past experience with this issue, and does it seem to be bug related, or just related to my infrastructure? I can post pictures if folks would find it helpful! 

 

Thanks in advance!!

[CorinaMarie 29,566]

56 minutes ago, snowbordr17 said:

3. When I click the general query button and view a CS, CO, or iHT building, it will often give me a number like 1894/1900 jobs are filled. However, when I click the commuter query button and view that same building, it may tell me that only 22 sims are actually commuting to that job. Am I misreading this feature, or should those two statistics be lining up more accurately?

This is one thing which has tripped us all up (me included) until someone else explained it.

When you view that 1894/1900 jobs in the building query it's telling you that of the 1900 total jobs that it could support, that has been reduced to 1894 due to current economic conditions. It has never told how many Sims actually work there.

So when you use the route query and see 22 Sims going to it, that is indeed the true workforce.

Next, and equally important, is that jobs are offered by both wealth and education level. So of that 1,894 jobs currently offered there might only be 189 for R$$$ Sims and that might also be broken down into 4 brackets of education. There are charts and tables somewhere that explains this, but it's been so long ago when I was familiar with it, I'll leave this part to our current experts.

 

Now, from a play standpoint, you simply have to get the recurring No Job Zots under control. Any building that gets one should be de-zoned. Not bulldozed (tho you can do that first if you like so you can see the exact zone footprint). Keep de-zoning until everything stabilizes and once it's under control, slowly grow buildings with jobs and then residential which can fill those jobs.

[TheMurderousCricket 5,042]

23 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

There are charts and tables somewhere that explains this, but it's been so long ago when I was familiar with it, I'll leave this part to our current experts.

As per Rina's mention, the following charts, coming from SC4 Prima Guide, present some of the data that may help you understand workforce shortages and why no job zots appear in your city @snowbordr17.

This chart provides essential information as to which Sims work in certain developer types. As you can see, there are generally few vacancies for R$$$ Sims, so you need to plan for their wellbeing carefully. For example, CS$, Agriculture* and dirty industry never provide jobs for wealthiest citizens. Another example - CS$ only employs R$ citizens.

The following chart is the "holy grail" of employment policies in a city. This is a guide which tells you how many % of a given Sim level with a given education will take job in "x" workplace.

In other words...

• 25% of best-educated R$$$ Sims look for CS$$$ job
• 50% of best-educated R$$$ Sims look for CO$$$ job
• 25% of best-educated R$$$ Sims look for Hi-tech job

Another example...

• 25% of poorly educated R$ Sims look for CS$ jobs
• 50% of poorly educated R$ Sims look for dirty industrial jobs
• 25% of poorly educated R$ Sims look for manufacturing jobs

 

*This is different if you have SPAM or CAM installed - with these mods, agriculture is a desirable employment for all Sims, regardless if they are uneducated or college grads.

[Kel9509 1,357]

15 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

This chart provides essential information as to which Sims work in certain developer types. As you can see, there are generally few vacancies for R$$$ Sims, so you need to plan for their wellbeing carefully.

You really nailed it with that post.  I wish there was a way for this chart to be added in-game somehow.  It truly is the holy grail in terms of city planning.  It's why I always develop industrial lots even in my big cities, because I-HT is so important for R$$$ sims.

If I can add this info to a tooltip somehow, I'll try to bake it into a building.  It's a little hard because of the rows and columns, but it's small enough that it might be possible.

I am surprised at some of the choices Maxis made, though.  I'd have thought that CS$$$ would have a higher percentage of R$$$ sims also.  Unfortunately, it seems that Maxis thought that Commercial Services mostly entailed hotels at the high-end range.  I always thought Commercial Services involved more than that.

[TheMurderousCricket 5,042]

5 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

I wish there was a way for this chart to be added in-game somehow.

Great idea. It would be super handy to have this. I wouldn't have to tab out and re-browse entire guide each time I wanted to diagnose the zots.

5 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

If I can add this info to a tooltip somehow, I'll try to bake it into a building.  It's a little hard because of the rows and columns, but it's small enough that it might be possible.

Wouldn't it be better to implement this through the news ticker window? This way one doesn't have to look for the relevant building but always have the information in one place.

[CorinaMarie 29,566]

8 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

I wish there was a way for this chart to be added in-game somehow.

The simplest way would be a unique building query and then simply add the image as the PNG background. Ideally clean up said image cause it's kind of fuzzy. The next best would be a background PNG with the light and dark alignment bars and then you set each and every variable with placeholders and LText just like the Census Repository has.

 

8 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

If I can add this info to a tooltip somehow, I'll try to bake it into a building.

Doesn't that run into width trouble which cannot be altered for said tooltips?

 

2 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

Wouldn't it be better to implement this through the news ticker window?

I like this idea, but the style of News UI would also have width trouble.

I believe someone has already made a mod which makes the news list box itself wider and taller, but also if you want the separate pop up for this then that would also be too narrow. When there is too much text for the current size, it does automatically get a vertical scroll bar. If we make the pop up wide enough for this chart then all others would look odd as they'd then take what used to be maybe 10 or 12 lines of text and become 3 or 4 and be much harder to read.

Additionally, there is the trouble of keeping the news version persistent. You either need to have it re-occur often (in case of being X'd) or you have to display it once (with a.Trigger = "1"), but also the rule to never close it within the news list box. (The latter is how I do my Cori Reports.)

[Kel9509 1,357]

38 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

The simplest way would be a unique building query and then simply add the image as the PNG background. Ideally clean up said image cause it's kind of fuzzy. The next best would be a background PNG with the light and dark alignment bars and then you set each and every variable with placeholders and LText just like the Census Repository has.

I was thinking of something like this.  My reference to tooltips was for the smaller table.  But with the right care, I think the larger table might also be possible as an image (or partial image).  I'll have to play around with it a bit to see what makes sense.  My next building after the Department of Transportation was going to be an education-type building.  I was looking at the variables to see what sort of stats might be useful.  But this chart might be a big part of it, maybe.

[CorinaMarie 29,566]

50 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

I was thinking of something like this.

Here's a quick down and dirty version you can work with if you like:

^ I made the Query for a Fire Station just to have someplace to pop it up, but you'll change that to whatever you create for it.

And the test file: Business Demand Chart - Fire Station Query.dat

[Simizen 1,086]

On 1/25/2025 at 8:42 AM, CorinaMarie said:

This is one thing which has tripped us all up (me included) until someone else explained it.

When you view that 1894/1900 jobs in the building query it's telling you that of the 1900 total jobs that it could support, that has been reduced to 1894 due to current economic conditions. It has never told how many Sims actually work there.

So when you use the route query and see 22 Sims going to it, that is indeed the true workforce.

okay, forgive me here, but, who the hell thought this was a good idea? like, what dev thought this was the way to do things, knowing how the average person would see these numbers?

imo, if  they wanted to adjust the numbers of jobs supplied by the building, why not just update the 2nd number to match, instead of the first?

Cause, that's extraordinarily bad, if you have a lot that can hold 2,000 people, and only 20 are going there (or coming from there). Like, nobody's going to sit there and intuitively read 1894/1900 as max capacity is 1894, they'll rightfully see that as 1,894 people employed in a building that's supplying 1900 positions.

So, whoever on the dev team thought this was a brilliant plan, made the game inherently broken with this logic.

I think at this point, we need to create a bug fix for this, that shows the correct number of positions filled, positions supplied, and then in parentheses somewhere, total positions typically supplied by said building. Same with residents, make sure everyone knows how many people are living there and how many are working (this can be sorted out by an extra stat showing a number based on the percentage of sims that are underage, since we know that ~17 and under won't be working)

This is a horribly unacceptable design, even for the time in which it was released. Of course, the other half of that equation requires NAM to bump up the travelers too, and, idk how they're going to want to solve that one (if it is solvable on their end).

8 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

I was thinking of something like this.  My reference to tooltips was for the smaller table.  But with the right care, I think the larger table might also be possible as an image (or partial image).  I'll have to play around with it a bit to see what makes sense.  My next building after the Department of Transportation was going to be an education-type building.  I was looking at the variables to see what sort of stats might be useful.  But this chart might be a big part of it, maybe.

if you do it in the news window, you could always link it to the City Planner. Would help to give him something that's actually under his domain, and maybe provide him with a bit of personality, lol

Or, actually, could give it to Bettina, since she's over Health & Education, and this chart seems to show what each education level's doing

Alternatively, if consolidation of the Charts and Graphs menu is pulled off, we could pop this into it's own option.

[Kel9509 1,357]

8 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

^ I made the Query for a Fire Station just to have someplace to pop it up, but you'll change that to whatever you create for it.

Woah!  Thank you!  I haven't really worked with images in my queries so far so this was going to be a big challenge, but you made things very simple to understand!  This is great!  I'll take a look and see how it is.  I'm not sure if I'll replace the text with in-game versions, or keep the picture text.

1 hour ago, Ryuu Tenno said:

if you do it in the news window, you could always link it to the City Planner. Would help to give him something that's actually under his domain, and maybe provide him with a bit of personality, lol

Unfortunately, I have no experience yet in modding to create a news window item.  But based on what @CorinaMarie said above, it might not be so feasible due to the width of the window.  I also hate to say it, but the news ticker doesn't really fit my style of gameplay.  I'm always clicking on the Census Repository, or the ModPacc Zero Town Hall, for important stats about my city.  The news ticker never really approaches any of that detail and is largely irrelevant (also because I have the Fixed Underfunded Notices mod as well).  

I'll be testing out the query and posting any updates on the Custom Queries for Custom Buildings thread.

[Kel9509 1,357]

2 hours ago, Ryuu Tenno said:

I think at this point, we need to create a bug fix for this, that shows the correct number of positions filled, positions supplied, and then in parentheses somewhere, total positions typically supplied by said building. Same with residents, make sure everyone knows how many people are living there and how many are working (this can be sorted out by an extra stat showing a number based on the percentage of sims that are underage, since we know that ~17 and under won't be working)

As for this, I wonder if it can be done.  The number of actual workers is shown on the transit query hovertip, which displays workers and the way by which they commute.  The Prima Guide says that this shows the number of workers arriving in the morning or departing in the evening, and by what means they arrived (and for pedestrians, that's only for people who took the entire trip on foot).  But I'm not entirely sure of the amounts, because they're clearly duplicates.  For instance:

 

So the square commercial office in the upper left corner has workers of which 504 are pedestrians, 204 car, 28 bus, 28 train, and 687 subway.  But looking at the map, it's clear that what the Prima Guide says makes no sense.  The 504 pedestrians are all coming from subway stations, not from walking all the way.  And furthermore, some of the train passengers in orange in the lower corner then hop onto a yellow subway line at the NinjaBoulevard Kiosk (which has all transportation options) and get to the building that way.  So there is some duplication in those amounts.  If you add up all the amounts, you'd get 1,451.  But as the building query shows, the amount of workers is less than that:

The building holds a max of 1327 workers.  It says current jobs are 1274.  So the route hover query shows more overall than the building can hold.

But, even if those amounts could be pulled from the hover query by a DLL mod, like @Null 45 did for the Building Summary information in the regular query hover, I'm not sure what we'd do with them to address the duplication of the different modes of transport.  

I agree it would be nice to get a definitive idea of the number of workers from a residential building, and to a jobs building.  But I'm not sure it can be done even we could grab the route query numbers from the hover tooltip.

[CorinaMarie 29,566]

11 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

I'm not sure what we'd do with them to address the duplication of the different modes of transport.  

Isn't there something where you can hold Ctrl+Alt+Del and mouse over the building and get extra info about the type of jobs and/or workers? There's also a version that writes Query.txt with a bunch of info (maybe by clicking the building with the magic keys held)? If you get the text file you have to go move or rename it right away or the next time it gets overwritten.

I forget it there is anything useful, but if it is maybe that'd be a handle for Null to find them and allow them in your query panel?

[Cyclone Boom 16,846]

I believe Cori you're thinking of the Advanced Query tool which needs the Extra Cheats DLL to work.

There's some info in this thread from a few years ago:

 

[Kel9509 1,357]

18 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Isn't there something where you can hold Ctrl+Alt+Del and mouse over the building and get extra info about the type of jobs and/or workers? There's also a version that writes Query.txt with a bunch of info (maybe by clicking the building with the magic keys held)? If you get the text file you have to go move or rename it right away or the next time it gets overwritten.

I forget it there is anything useful, but if it is maybe that'd be a handle for Null to find them and allow them in your query panel?

I've not done the Query.txt method, so I'll give that a shot.  But yes, if you hold Ctrl+Shift+Alt, you can bring up some hidden stats.  Here's queries for that building and a separate residential building:

The office building shows the total capacity of 1327, which matches the regular query.  At the bottom it shows some job amount numbers, and they clearly do not match the route query.  Those amounts are 510, 637 and 127.  Add those up and you get 1,274, which matches the regular query on Current jobs.  

So maybe Current jobs in the query actually is correct?  

[CorinaMarie 29,566]

2 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

So maybe Current jobs in the query actually is correct?

It'd be the breakdown of which wealth level jobs are currently offered since that adds up to the 1274 part of the regular query.

[Kel9509 1,357]

15 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

It'd be the breakdown of which wealth level jobs are currently offered since that adds up to the 1274 part of the regular query.

I see.  So it's just a breakdown of the actual workforce demand from that building.  Not the actual number of workers.  Hmmm.

EDIT: I'm not sure what you mean by a Query.txt log.  I enabled the LogBuildingPluginPath option in the Query Tool UI Extensions DLL, but that just shows the file location of a building that you click on (which is frigging amazing and very useful) but not any additional information about the building's stats.

I wonder if the information that @Ryuu Tenno wants is actually stored anywhere in the game at all.

[CorinaMarie 29,566]

19 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

I'm not sure what you mean by a Query.txt log. 

Do the Ctrl+Shift+Alt and click the query tool on a building. Then go look in C:\GOG Games\SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition\Apps for the Query.txt file.

Use N++ to open it and use Linux (LF) for the EOL.

Query.txt

[Simizen 1,086]

12 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

I wonder if the information that @Ryuu Tenno wants is actually stored anywhere in the game at all.

honestly, that's a good question at this point, if everything's just showing the demand and not the actual.

That said, I do like the fact that we can see how much is being requested by each building. I didn't know we had an extended query like that. So, maybe adding those to the base query would be wonderful. At least then, we can kinda track some of it a little bit.

I think it'd also help people adjust their city designs too to better plan for potential and intended RCI demand.

Otherwise, i'm hoping the supplied fulfilled numbers are being tracked somewhere, cause then, if we expanded on the wealth levels being demanded by jobs, then we can see how things in the city stack up.

 

And, now I'm thinking the info might actually be kept somewhere, cause, I know if you have farms, you can get like 20+ people filling up a farm, even though it says there's only like 9 positions, lol. And that's in Vanilla. SPAM and the BSC farms really throw the numbers off for sure. So, I wonder if the special query shows how the farm jobs are supplied/filled, especially since everyone's pointed out that each farm tile requires 1 sim to work it. My thought is this is a game design quirk, as the grow-able lots would require at least 1 sim for it to grow properly, and so is set to have a self-creating sim, just to get it to show up properly. Note that, this wouldn't be a bug per se, but more of just a weird design with the coding at the time. Basically, everything might've been setup for it, before farming was brought in, and then after, it appears as a sort of bug, cause it wasn't initially planned out ahead of time. This would result in it inheriting from the object/class/group thing that helps to create all other grow-able lots for RCI.

Though, i'm wondering if this has maybe contributed to everyone thinking the numbers are off? So like, I know a common complaint has been that Industrial lots don't provide enough jobs, and that the residential lots don't provide enough workers (or maybe there's too much, icr what the issue with the housing is). And these weird number issues may be a contributing factor to it

[Kel9509 1,357]

21 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Do the Ctrl+Shift+Alt and click the query tool on a building. Then go look in C:\GOG Games\SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition\Apps for the Query.txt file.

Use N++ to open it and use Linux (LF) for the EOL.

I never knew that!  Ok, interesting!  So yes I got similar stats as your attached file:

Quote

|-----------------------------------------------------------
| Query info for cell (44, 65) on 3/29/2035
|-----------------------------------------------------------
| Lot: (43, 66) 3x3, south-facing, state: occupied new, configuration: 10HanoverSquareC_JTF2010_f9753546
| Jobs $509.6 $$637.0 $$$127.4 - Travel Jobs $510 $$637 $$$127
| Building: 10HanoverSquareC_JTF2010, 1327 $$
| Occupancy--building (tract): Co$$ 96% (100%), 
| Zoned: C###
| Altitude: 306.0
| Land value, intrinsic: 12, total: 255 (High)
| Slope: 1.2
| Powered: yes
| Watered: yes
| Traffic Volume: 255   Traffic Congestion: 0
| Edge Density Matrix for travel type 0 (total = 0):
| Edge Density Matrix for travel type 1 (total = 0):
| Edge Density Matrix for travel type 2 (total = 0):
| Edge Density Matrix for travel type 3 (total = 0):
| Edge Density Matrix for travel type 4 (total = 0):
| Edge Density Matrix for travel type 5 (total = 0):
| Edge Density Matrix for travel type 6 (total = 0):
| Edge Density Matrix for travel type 7 (total = 0):
| Edge Density Matrix for travel type 8 (total = 0):
| Edge Density Matrix for travel type 9 (total = 0):
|-----------------------------------------------------------

And then it went into a bunch of desirability calculations for various commercial building types.  So anyway, this seems to match the amount of "jobs" shown in the on-screen query, which appear to be a breakout of the Workforce Demand for each wealth type.  The benefit of this Query.txt file is that it now makes it explicit that "Jobs" and "Travel Jobs" are in fact breakouts according to wealth type.

Do you mind if I ask who told you that the route query lists the actual workers of a building?  I mean, it makes lots of basic sense.  But people have been wrong before about supposedly long-established things.  I don't necessarily doubt it's right, but I wonder if I'm missing something.  In particular, is there a proper way to understand the route query numbers and how to interpret them to understand the duplication or overlap of the numbers?  

[Simizen 1,086]

so... is this saying that the A/B values are filled/demand, or is it still current demand/max demand, and that the jobs vs travel jobs are just the current demand and how it's split up?

like, the jobs vs travel jobs seems kinda weird

 

also, I assume that the C### means high density commercial zone?

[Kel9509 1,357]

@CorinaMarie I think I've answered the question I asked of you, as to where you heard this.  After looking, I think it's very well established that the two values in the Current Jobs line in a building query represent Current Actual Capacity/Maximum Capacity.  They don't actually represent the number of workers.  Well established players like A Nonny Mouse and RippleJet have explained it.  However, they've also said that the Route Query shows the actual number of workers. 

From RippleJet:

Quote

July 12, 2010, 01:47:19 PMLast Edit: July 12, 2010, 01:48:59 PM by RippleJet

The ordinary query only shows the actual capacity and the maximum capacity.
It never shows the actual number of people living or working in the building.

The actual capacity is always smaller than the maximum capacity (except within a month after it grew or was plopped).
The reason for the smaller actual capacity is mainly due to desirability factors.
The higher the desirability for the RCI type that the building represents, the higher the actual capacity will be.

The route queries for commercial and industrial buildings show the actual number of people working in there.
It must be noted though, that commercial and industrial buildings never dilapidate even if they don't have a single worker.

The route queries for residential buildings show the actual number of workforce commuting from them.
Depending on the HQ, the workforce is between 40% and 60% of the actual population.

And A Nonny Mouse:

On 9/24/2015 at 3:53 PM, A Nonny Moose said:

The straight query operator on a commercial or factory building does not say anything about the number of employees.  The ratio given m/n is "There are n jobs in this building, but conditions only warrant having m employees."

If you improve conditions for the building you will find that m goes up.  Conditions such as pollution, traffic noise, water, power, education level, etc.

To get a categorical breakdown of n, you hold down CTRL+ALT+DELETE and move the query operator (/) over the building.  Requires a successful load of the extra cheats dll package.

Only the route query will tell you what is really going on in a building.

RippleJet also discussed Query.txt (note the 2009 date, earlier than his post above):

Quote

September 15, 2009, 02:45:42 AMLast Edit: September 15, 2009, 02:50:28 AM by RippleJet

Jobs:
This is the actual job count for the building. These numbers are decimal numbers.
For residential buildings, landmarks, etc. there are no jobs.
For civic buildings these numbers are as given by the property "Demand Created".

For commercial and industrial buildings these numbers are based on the actual capacity.
That capacity is distributed between §, §§ and §§§ in accordance with the Census Drives.


Travel Jobs:
These are the actual number of commuters coming to this lot.
It is rounded down from the corresponding Jobs (above) to a whole integer value.
Industrial anchor buildings also include the commuters to "filler lots" (mechanic and out) surrounding it.

So in 2010, RippleJet said the route query showed the amounts.  In 2009, he said it was from the Travel Jobs from Query.txt.  It's hard to say what the real answer is.  Perhaps "Travel Jobs" are the actual workers?  In my case, they equaled the Actual Capacity.  But perhaps in the case of Farm jobs or other buildings that are undergoing dilapidation or less demand, they won't.  Perhaps it really is the route query.  This needs to be looked into more closely.

As for the Route Query, this is discussed in the internal NAM discussions on the Traffic Simulator: A Guide to the Operation of the Traffic Simulator (which is itself a fantastic read):

Quote

February 20, 2010, 07:48:37 PMLast Edit: January 04, 2014, 12:52:25 AM by z

First of all, it is important to note that despite its name, the traffic simulator isn't actually the part of the game that simulates traffic, at least as it is visible to the players.  Visible traffic is generated by the automata controller, which is only loosely influenced by the traffic simulator.  Aside from the automata, there is no actual traffic in the game.  Instead, the traffic simulator runs about once every four game months, and calculates routes for the Sims to take to and from work.  This is why if you use the Route Query Tool on various networks, the numbers will always remain constant for months at a time.  No one travels the morning commute routes in the morning, and no one travels the evening commute routes in the evening (other than the automata).  These routes are calculated mainly for their side effects, which are used by many other aspects of the game.  Most importantly, they are a key factor in determining desirability, which is one of the most important factors in deciding how the growth of cities will proceed.  To a very large extent, then, the traffic simulator is actually a desirability generator.

Ignoring for now the desirability implications of the traffic simulator, as "z" said, the Route Query represents the routes the traffic simulator calculates approximately every 4 months.  This is consistent with the details in the Prima Strategy Guide, which explains on Page 378 that Rush Hour totally changed the way the residents looked for jobs.  Since Rush Hour, traffic routes are held and basically recalculated only once every 4 months in order to assess if a faster route is available. So these amounts sometimes are months old, by design.

But the Prima Guide also says this about the hover text: 

Quote

When reading the Route Query pop-ups, note that Sims arriving or leaving as pedestrians are the ones who took the entire trip on foot. If they walk to or from mass transit, they show up in the pop-up as having taken whatever mass transit they walked from.

I'm not 100% certain that's always the case, because in my cities sometimes pedestrians arrive who NEVER take the entire trip on foot.  Instead, I'm wondering if the route query hover shows the longest of any commute a resident took.  So if it walked a small bit to a subway, which it took across the city, and then walked a  bit after that, the route query would show the subway.  But if they mostly walked, and only took the subway for a little bit, perhaps the route query will show the walking?  I can't be sure. 

@Null 45 or @memo have either of you looked into what the route query "worker" numbers represent, particularly the calculations as to the method of transportation?

[CorinaMarie 29,566]

6 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

Instead, I'm wondering if the route query hover shows the longest of any commute a resident took.

Seems like as good of a guess as any. Ofc, we can't rule out mistakes in their code like when they add up to more than the building is supposed to employ.

I did a quick test myself. (Ignore that UI frame as my plugins are really set for a different project I'm in the middle of.)

For certain we can see that those taking the bus or subway also do a lot of their journey on foot.

I suspect in larger cities where the routes get more complicated is when the data might be less and less useful. From a play standpoint I've generally only been concerned if the route query shows no Sims going to work at any given building. (And I deal with No Job Zots immediately so I maintain a very steady population which means I almost never need to peek at what the little buggers are doing.)

[Kel9509 1,357]

I have done testing to determine how the game counts the Workforce, aka: the actual jobs in the city.  I used a small Farm City that is the only city in a new region.

There are 10 farms in the city.  I should note that I'm not running any Farm mods other than memo's I-R fix to incorporate farm numbers in demand calculations and capacity counts.

As anyone who has farms in a city knows, the Current Jobs in most farm queries show very little jobs.  Here's a representative example that shows 4 current jobs, with a maximum of 6:

Most of the other 9 farms in this city are similar.  In fact, to be precise, the Queries shows the following for each of the Farms (going counter-clockwise from the middle):

1. Llama Ag: 4/6
2. Farhan's Farms: 4/4
3. Pumpkin Acres: 2/2
4. Farhan's Farms: 4/4
5. Farhan's Farms: 3/4
6. Jez Knight Acres: 9/10
7. Jez Knight Acres: 9/10
8. Pumpkin Acres: 2/2
9. Llama Ag: 6/6
10. Llama Ag: 6/6

If you add those up, you'd think that the total jobs/maximum jobs would be 49/54 jobs.  But in fact, that is entirely not the case.  In fact, there are over 300 jobs in this little farm town of almost 800 residents:

 

In fact, there are exactly 339 jobs, with a capacity of 354 jobs.  There are 15 (or 14 according to the Census Repository, a rounding error) jobs vacant:

So that's what the game stats report.  Can we see them?  Yes we can, in the Query and in the Additional Cheats Query.  Here's the first Llama Ag farm that reported Current Jobs of 4/6:

The Route Query shows 22 pedestrians and 24 cars going there for work.  A total of 46.

The Additional Cheats Query also shows, in the bottom right corner, 46 low wealth jobs (and also 0 medium and 0 high wealth jobs).  So it matches the Route Query. 

What about Query.txt?  Here it is:

Quote

|-----------------------------------------------------------
| Query info for cell (28, 29) on 11/2/2000
|-----------------------------------------------------------
| Lot: (28, 27) 3x2, west-facing, state: occupied new, configuration: I-r1_3x2_90001380
| Jobs $1.0 $$0.0 $$$0.0 - Travel Jobs $46 $$0 $$$0
| Building: IR24x24_1Farm7_0853, 6 $
| Occupancy--building (tract): Ir 83% (76%), 
| Zoned: Ir
| Altitude: 360.0
| Land value, intrinsic: 11, total: 231 (High)
| Slope: 0.0
| Powered: yes
| Watered: yes
| Traffic Volume: 39   Traffic Congestion: 0
| Edge Density Matrix for travel type 0 (total = 0):
| Edge Density Matrix for travel type 1 (total = 0):
| Edge Density Matrix for travel type 2 (total = 0):
| Edge Density Matrix for travel type 3 (total = 0):
| Edge Density Matrix for travel type 4 (total = 0):
| Edge Density Matrix for travel type 5 (total = 0):
| Edge Density Matrix for travel type 6 (total = 0):
| Edge Density Matrix for travel type 7 (total = 0):
| Edge Density Matrix for travel type 8 (total = 0):
| Edge Density Matrix for travel type 9 (total = 0):
|-----------------------------------------------------------

Query.txt reports "Jobs $1.0 $$0.0 $$$0.0 - Travel Jobs $46 $$0 $$$0".  So 1 low wealth job in the regular "jobs" report, and 46 low wealth jobs as "Travel jobs."  Travel Jobs seems to align with the Route Query here.

And 46 is a hell of a lot more jobs than 4 or 6 Current Jobs, that the regular Query shows.

Since there are only 10 farms in this entire city, I queried all of them.  I've already shown the first Llama Ag.  So here are the rest:

2. Farhan's Farm Route Query shows 16+30=46 jobs. 

3. Pumpkin Acres: 17 jobs:

4. Farhan's Farm: 15 jobs

5. This Farhan's Farm had 52 jobs (2 pedestrian and 50 cars): 

6. Here's where it's interesting. Jez Knight Acres has the Route Query reporting 6 jobs:

But the Additional Cheats query (and Query.txt) reports 58 jobs!

7. The second Jez Knight acres reports only 2 jobs in the Route Query:

But in the Additional Cheats Query (and Query.txt) reports 36 jobs:

Here's the remaining farms.

8. Pumpkin Acres: 32 jobs.

9. Llama Ag:  7 jobs in the Route Query:

But 46 in the Additional Cheats Query:

10. The last Llama Ag showed 0 jobs in the Route Query, only exporting Freight:

But the Additional Cheats Query showed 41 jobs:

So here's the difference summarized:

Farm, and Route Query Jobs/Additional Query Jobs:

1. Llama Ag: 46/46
2. Farhan's Farms: 46/46
3. Pumpkin Acres: 17/17
4. Farhan's Farms: 15/15
5. Farhan's Farms: 52/52
6. Jez Knight Acres: 6/58
7. Jez Knight Acres: 2/36
8. Pumpkin Acres: 32/32
9. Llama Ag: 7/46
10. Llama Ag: 0/41

This adds up to 223 jobs total from the Route Query, and 389 jobs from the Additional Cheats Query (and Query.txt).

Of those, the Additional Cheats Query of 389 jobs is closer to reported workforce of 339 workers than the Route Query jobs.

These numbers were all gathered in a paused game on November 2.  I wanted to see if running time would make a difference, and it turns out it did - very much so.  I ran the game until November 26th.  Most items remained the same, but some changed:

The first Jez Knight Acres, listed as #6 above, reported new Route Query info.  Instead of reporting 6 jobs in the Route Query, it now reported 9.  This changed happened within 24 days, in the same game month.

The additional cheats query remained the same, at 58 jobs reported.  

One other farm, the last Pumpkin's Acres, had Route Query job amounts changed down to 28 but its Additional Cheats Query remained the same.  

I ran time again until February and Route Query jobs went up and down slightly for some farms, but the total never got close to the reported job amounts of ~340.  In February, the Route Query reported 247 jobs but the total workforce then was 373 jobs, with 25 unemployed residents (there were no neighbor connections so the Census Repository correctly reported them as unemployed).  In this time frame, the Additional Cheats Query amounts never changed, even after saving and re-loading the city. 

Also, the last farm with 0 reported jobs in the Route Query (but with 41 travel jobs in the Additional Cheats Query) seemed to hum along just fine, even after running time for a while.  It never showed any signs of a problem at all.

So at least as far as I can tell, the Route Query doesn't really report the correct amount of jobs in the city.  I think that the Additional Cheats Query (and Query.txt) comes closer to the amount of jobs than the Route Query.

And if that's the case, I wonder of those items can be reported somehow in my RCI DLL Query Mod.

I'd still like to do some further testing with more advanced jobs, like commercial lots.  I'll do that tomorrow.  But these findings are promising!

[Kel9509 1,357]

I just realized I forgot to query the Civic jobs in that city.  So I did so.  The Route Query shows 70 jobs from Civic Buildings.  If you add them to the 247 jobs from February where I ended up, it gets to 317 total Route Query Jobs.  The total Workforce at that time was 373, with 25 unemployed residents.

The Additional Cheats Query shows varying amounts:

1. JasonCW McDonalds Police Station: 21, 3, 0 (so 21 low wealth, 3 medium wealth, and 0 high wealth jobs): 24 total.
2. Maxis Elementary School: 12, 4, 0 for a total of 16.
3. Census Repository Vault: 0, 5, 0 for a total of 5.
4. ModPacc Zero Village Hall: 1, 5, 0 for a total of 6.
5. Brita Water Filtration Plant: 2, 10, 4 for a total of 16.
6. Brita Water Filtration Plant #2: 2, 10, 4 for a total of 16

Power plants added zero in the Route Query and Additional Cheats Query.

So the Additional Cheats Query adds 83 civic jobs, whereas the Route Query added 70 civic jobs.

If you add 83 to the prior Additional Cheats Queries, you get 389+83 = 472 total jobs.  

So total Route Query Jobs were 317.  Total Additional Query Jobs were 472.  The reported workforce was 373 (which per the Census Repository includes civic jobs).

Maybe, after including civic jobs, the Route Query is closer to the reported workforce after all?  It's a difference of 56 for the Route Query, versus a difference of 99 for the Additional Cheats Query.

Thoughts?

[CorinaMarie 29,566]

7 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

Thoughts?

That's very thorough testing.

One thing which troubled my little test was just when I thought I was learning something a tiny house or two would upgrade to a bungalow or such and that'd throw things off for a month or two while the game had to re-figure out where those Sims would work.

I wonder if growing residential with the Auto-Historical turned on would help keep the data more consistent from month to month?

[Kel9509 1,357]

4 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

I wonder if growing residential with the Auto-Historical turned on would help keep the data more consistent from month to month?

I think that night help.  Essentially, I'd like to control the number of variables that might affect things if possible.  One other thing is, I was wondering if the number of farm jobs depends on the size of the lot, and not what building is there. Farms are a bit unique so while it was a good test I'm hopeful regular zones might provide better data.  I have a suspicion that Travel Jobs may be established when the lot grows because I never saw those amounts change. 

I'll move to commercial or regular industrial lots next, in a smaller control city.  

Ultimately, if possible I'd like to put a more accurate job count for a lot in my building query. What's there now is basically capacity levels relative to desirability.  It makes me wonder why Maxis decided to call that "Current  Jobs" and if there was a reason for it.

[Simizen 1,086]

19 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

One other thing is, I was wondering if the number of farm jobs depends on the size of the lot, and not what building is there. Farms are a bit unique so while it was a good test I'm hopeful regular zones might provide better data.

I was actually about to address this: A couple months ago when I was messing around with some stuff, and I setup a thing where I removed the power cap for stage 1 farms and homes (I mention it briefly over in my rambling thread, lol), that the number of sims going to a farm, do seem to be based on the farm size. And I think it does depend on the farm as well, but from what I found, it seems to be roughly 1 sim per 2 tiles. And that is, I tested with the smallest size farm (4x4 tiles, or 1 acre) and then a few larger farms as well, but none of the massive ones.

But, it does seem that it's setup to run with 1 sim working a minimum of 1.5 tiles and a max of 3 tiles. Not entirely sure on the accuracy, but that seemed to have been the case when i was messing around with it a couple months ago. Granted, this could also be affected by the fact that these were also growing without power too, so there's that. And overall, the game was vanilla otherwise (save for some minor bug fixes), so, not even NAM was used there.

Oh, and idk if this changes anything, but, the sims have to travel at least 1 tile. So, the lots can't really be "next to each other". Basically, if they are, then a tile of road needs to be positioned so they can just take a 90º turn. Which, coincidentally means that intermixed zoning can be better planned for anyone attempting the more classic mid-rise downtown styles

I'd have to go back and double check the setup with the farms and such, but that's what I could remember from the tests, and I wasn't even originally testing for that, that was just an interesting side thing I discovered, lol

[Simizen 1,086]

Okay, wanna update stuff:

on a 1 acre farm, you get the Pumpkin Acres lot (and whatever crazy crop it grows).

• It has a maximum of 2 jobs
• when you build a small 1x2 home, it supplies 1 sim
• the farm lot itself (the building) only shows 1 sim
• the route query, only shows 1 sim

when viewing another farm (same basic lot, different crop), you get:

• 1.25 acre farm
• requires 2 sims
• 1x2 home provides 2 sims
• route query shows 2 sims

I could share the city (I believe the save file is in KB) and the mod file if that's needed/allowed. Icr if it's a medium or small city tile, but it's not too bad whatever it is, lol

But, it's interesting cause it does seem to be setup to run with ~1 sim per acre, and not the 1 sim per 1.5 to 3 tiles like I was originally thinking (not sure why I thought that either tbh).

So, now it feels like there's this weird disconnect with what we know and what we're seeing. Cause, now I'm wondering if maybe the understanding of S/M (supplied/max) positions is even accurate, and that maybe it is the F/M (filled/max). Unless...
 

Spoiler

 

A game like SC4 is pretty big. I mean, now, it's "small" compared to other games (Skyrim, Minecraft, etc), but, it still requires a decently sized team to make this. So, I'm wondering, if maybe there's a weird discrepancy on the dev team side. Like, maybe one group was given one piece of info, and another was given a different piece (or, both were given the same, but the understandings were different). This would mean that one side was working off of a formula, where we're seeing current potential positions in a business, and the maximum potential positions, but then, whoever was working on the farms, may have thought/been told, that the numbers mean jobs filled/total number of jobs.

Farms are the least developed aspect of this game, and the way it's been dealt with, part of it makes me think it was actually a later addition, rather than actually planned out ahead of time. And if it was a later addition, that would explain some of the weirdness, as well as how they're contending with the jobs. But, I do know that it was basically given the shaft in comparison to the rest of the game anyway, given that the focus when playing is always, bigger, bigger, bigger, until you get a towering metropolis, regardless of the actual city size.

This also makes me wonder if the farms may have been added, after the change in lot tile sizes. Cause in 1 (not explicitly mentioned), 2K, and 3K, all the lot tiles are 1x1 acre (so yeah, you'd get some ridiculously sized lots in those games, such as having an entire acre dedicated to a bus stop, lol). But, in SC4, the scale is drastically changed. Now, you'd need 4x4 tiles to equate to 1 acre in the game. Small cities are ~1km x  1km, medium 2x2km, and large 4x4km. So, this makes me think that some of the devs may have understood that the smaller city sizes were just too small to reasonably build up a towering metropolis, prompting the introduction of farms as it's own thing, just so the regional map could be filled out at least. But, given that the game was axed before being properly completed, would leave the farms in this awkward state that we've got.

If this is the case, then that means that there's always going to be some weird discrepancy between different parts of the game, no matter what we do with it. And I imagine this is also likely why the farming is just generally weird, even under both CAM (BSC Farms), and SPAM.

And, I'll pretty much die on this hill, but my understanding is that each of the farm field tiles supplies 1 sim, simply because it's required for it to show up. Given this, and the above, it's actually quite possible that the farms were added in at a later time, thus the weirdness here, seeing that this could've easily been bypassed pretty early on, had it been planned for ahead of time. But all of these weird quirks regarding farms is making me think that it wasn't originally planned for.

Of course, I could be wrong, and it'd be neat to see what they initially had in mind for everything, but I wouldn't know who was in charge of planning for the game to be able to chat with them about it.

 

 

[CorinaMarie 29,566]

I never really looked into how may farm workers, but I often used the soft limit of 18 x 18 cells for the size of a farm with its field. (This is the maximum before the game suggests adding streets.) I do know the total workers is the base building plus some amount for the fields. I seem to recall about 46 in my game as the max I'd get for one farm which is covering 324 cells, but more often in the mid to upper thirties.

If there were one worker per (4 cell) acre we'd expect 81 Sims. I've never seen that in vanilla.

(I haven't used CAM or SPAM, but I do know that latter uses a specialize farm query which supposedly reports all the workers.)

[Simizen 1,086]

Yeah, I knew SPAM reported it for sure. Not sure bout CAM though (gonna check soonish cause I've setup a new thing to check out the latest CAM RC). But, SPAM and the BSC Farms, do have a weird thing to them that kind of breaks the game to some degree. And, I think it has to do with the reporting stats. But, BSC Farms seems to actually require a bunch of people for all the farms which really skews things it seems.

Granted, I'm not too knowledgable about how the farms should actually work as they would irl, so it's hard to say.

But, the reason for the acre existing, is cause that's the amount of land 1 person could work in 1 day. I remember looking it up when I was in middle and high school, because of SimCity 3000, where I had wondered about it. I forget the numbers I got at the time, but eventually I found later that 1 acre's roughly 208x208 feet (I think it's something like 207.xyz, but icr the full number, so, I've always rounded it up, and it seems Maxis did too with SC4). But the original size was a rectangle of some kind (probably roughly equivalent to 3x5 tiles in the game).

But, if 1 acre is how much could be plowed/worked in 1 day by 1 person, that at least makes sense that a small 4x4 tile farm in the game would only need 1 sim. But, idk how many people would be needed around harvest, or for help around the property for other things, and such. Of course, the problem with the info I've got is, idk what the era is for when those numbers were established. I mean, that could've been way back when we were still using horses/oxen for plowing fields, or could be post WW2 where we've got gas powered tractors, lol