• Welcome to SC4 Devotion Forum Archives.

BAT Showcase

Started by mattb325, February 01, 2007, 04:07:43 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

mattb325

#1440
Thankyou for the additional info, it is much appreciated.

I agree on most of what you've shown. However, clicking a building individually with the route query (your 3rd bullet point) is just as fraught in trying to extrapolate trip types for the very reason that I said - those arrows can represent 'joined trips' from other directions which is evident when you click the destination rather than the source. Occasionally (very occasionally, I might add, you might just be in luck and have only passengers leaving a station working at a building, so you can say X number arrive here by Y means, but if any other sim who arrives by other means also works at the building the theory mostly falls flat.) In a tiny test like the Maxis one, it could well work, but the minute a city grows it is just as much extrapolation as any other method.

I do honestly think you have stumbled on something, and I sort of hinted at it in my post (buried as it is in text  :-\) ....but if you study your RCI graph rather than just focusing on the outward trip types that you are missing once strickland station is placed you'll see that this station has possibly helped you and helped you massively.

In my tests, placing these stations have increased RCI precisely because they allow cars (a quick and efficient transport mode that travels long distances) to exit the station.

Your region obviously has its own dynamics.

From what you have told me, your Nam is the same as mine and you don't believe that you have any radical type ordinances. I believe you 100% from seeing your RCI graph with industry and commercial so far in the negative when you have the 15m viaduct station operating.

Now here I am taking another guess: if you have plopped one or more tiles (or even a percentage of a city tile without the actual demand to back it up) with commercial offices/skyscrapers/industry in your region (i.e. to make it look like you have a city centre), you will experience negative effects with the simulator across the region; they are well known. Here is one such discussion http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=4297.0 outlining some of the effects. In some tiles this can manifest with huge numbers of commuters not really doing anything (possibly the 12K car traffic on a low density tile being attracted to the 140 civic - rather than RCI - jobs), in others it may not do exactly this, but overuse of RCI ploppables never has pretty effects.

Even if you haven't plopped any comm or industry (and I'm not trying to judge you even if you did) it is evident that your demand for it is very much in the negative, and there are of course obvious abandonment issues, meaning that something in your region is causing this to occur.

In your pictures, your start date with the 15m German station is 23 May 217 and you run it until 31 August 217. In that time your C and I graphs are negative and hover around the top part or the bottom squiggle of the § symbol. They don't really move at all (3 sim months) and your population isn't growing much at all staying at 121K.

When you plop strickland station on 19 October 217, look what happens to your demand on the next picture on 15 Jan 217.





The demand for C and I has ticked upwards to roughly the level of the circle on the § symbol, and fairly evenly remains there, at times even edging towards the top of the circle until the last date on the pictures 5 September 218 (11 sim months). By the end of your experiment your population has increased by ~9000 sims. And it's done so quite quickly. That's quite an achievement for one small station to recalibre demand.

It really looks to me that they are still using the North subway line, but it is difficult to tell from the arrows which become quite blurry. Even if the picture weren't blurry, it goes back to the same imprecision of trips being joined once they hit that subway stub in the centre of the station in the arrow/graphical representation.

That said, don't put too much credence on the arrows.

This is what another wall of text - the official prima guide says about the Route Query Tool on page 394  &dd: "NOTE: One arrow can represent several trips of the same kind. The darker and more opaque the arrow, the more trips it represents.".

The numbers are what the simulator is counting, the arrows are just pictures to convey some meaning for us. Just like cars don't actually stop at traffic lights at intersections in the simulator. It just appears that way for us with red and green lights and a row of vehicles, or that Taxis don't do anything even remotely taxi-like, they just appear at the station. The whole arrow thing could have been llamas, dinosaurs or my beer-helmet avatar as the graphical representation, it is indicative but in no way granular or absolute enough to definitively say one thing over another when looking at them in isolation.

With that in mind, in your region, replete with negative demand, that the sims are now no longer using the buses or walking is a good thing, because clearly buses and walking isn't quickest for your sims - in fact in your region, the sims leaving the station from cars, based on your short test - is the absolute best thing for your region as it is returning demand back in the right direction. It's not doing that in my test regions, possibly because 2 of the 3 RCI indicators are not in negative (there is some negative in some cities such as R$$$ in one or CO$$$ in another, but not all at once)

Rather than pointing to a flaw, that to me makes these stations a more valuable asset and confers the RCI increase that I experienced when I placed the stations.

Edit, I just copied two of your pictures over as we have flipped to a new page, saves pinging back and forth :D :P




bravesirkevin

I wouldn't place too much stock on the RCI Demand, or the impressive population spikes... This isn't actually the main copy of my city. I backed up my region a couple days ago when I started testing things and I cut off all the neighbour connections to test to see if I had an eternal commuters problem, and with all those neighbour connections severed, there was a massive swath of commerce and high tech industry on the western half of the map that went from being in a high customer zone, to being a ghost town. All the middle-wealth apartment blocks started freaking out because they couldn't find jobs any more, a lot of them had previously worked over the border in the adjacent town and had no interest in going to work in the ghost town and started downgrading to low wealth, but the mayor rating's really high and they live in a relatively good area with lots of parks and services so they kept upgrading back up only to realise that they couldn't find jobs due to the recession, and thus landed up getting poor again. The significant spikes in population are a result of all those nice middle-wealth condos filling up with low-wealth, and then drops are because someone cleaned up the building and nice middle-class families moved in again.

The real problem is that the severing of those border connections caused the commercial cap to drop significantly, and the cap is already filled by all the buildings down in ghost town. Not certain that I can attribute the minor bump to Strickland Station because it's been oscillating like that for a few game years while I've been testing various things out.

In the non-test version of city, there isn't really a recession going on because out-of-towners are flooding in and driving up the commercial demand, and the residents can see tons of employment prospects over the border so they aren't abandoning. There's also a lot more congestion and that train station is 5 times busier. Might run the same test in that city instead, but I'm not really certain that it would add any useful information

bravesirkevin

Sorry for the double post, there are just a couple things I meant to mention but had hit the post button in haste before typing them:

Quote from: mattb325 on March 27, 2018, 08:33:51 PM
In my tests, placing these stations have increased RCI precisely because they allow cars (a quick and efficient transport mode that travels long distances) to exit the station.

This seems like it might actually be true, and I'm willing to grant it. Perhaps rebrand this sort of station as a taxi rank rather than a commuter hub, and sell it on the point that it generates cars allowing commuters to finish long trips quickly. The name commuter hub suggests a behaviour that is exactly the opposite of the one this kind of station exhibits.


QuoteIt really looks to me that they are still using the North subway line, but it is difficult to tell from the arrows which become quite blurry. Even if the picture weren't blurry, it goes back to the same imprecision of trips being joined once they hit that subway stub in the centre of the station in the arrow/graphical representation.

You can't really tell much from the yellow arrows even when they are in focus because it's pretty crowded. What you can tell is that there are no arrows pointing at the station that aren't yellow, meaning that no one is entering the station to get on the subway. Those leaving by subway were already on the subway when they arrived.

mattb325

#1443
Quote from: bravesirkevin on March 28, 2018, 04:25:57 AM
I wouldn't place too much stock on the RCI Demand, or the impressive population spikes... This isn't actually the main copy of my city. I backed up my region a couple days ago when I started testing things and I cut off all the neighbour connections to test to see if I had an eternal commuters problem, and with all those neighbour connections severed, there was a massive swath of commerce and high tech industry on the western half of the map that went from being in a high customer zone, to being a ghost town. All the middle-wealth apartment blocks started freaking out because they couldn't find jobs any more, a lot of them had previously worked over the border in the adjacent town and had no interest in going to work in the ghost town and started downgrading to low wealth, but the mayor rating's really high and they live in a relatively good area with lots of parks and services so they kept upgrading back up only to realise that they couldn't find jobs due to the recession, and thus landed up getting poor again. The significant spikes in population are a result of all those nice middle-wealth condos filling up with low-wealth, and then drops are because someone cleaned up the building and nice middle-class families moved in again.

The real problem is that the severing of those border connections caused the commercial cap to drop significantly, and the cap is already filled by all the buildings down in ghost town. Not certain that I can attribute the minor bump to Strickland Station because it's been oscillating like that for a few game years while I've been testing various things out.

Did you not think to tell me that utterly crucial information at the start, or when I implored you for more information at any time over the last two pages?

Please understand that none of the following is written in anger, I don't really believe that you are trying to engage in disingenuous obfuscation for the purposes of a double jeopardy outcome, but some 'tough love' is now necessary.




So....this is what we have


  • You started with a large region that you suspected already had serious problems - i.e. eternal commuters, which always indicates existing plugin, transport or playing style problems;
  • You made a copy of the region and then proceeded to  trash network connections, thus destroying your demand thereby throwing the simulator into complete disarray and every city tile as well;
  • Into this deliberately f.u.b.a.r. mess, you place my station and then expect me to troubleshoot obscure, obtuse issues, that stem from your having trashed your own region, coupled with an inability to accurately interpret the data presented all the while maintaining that all of your settings are the same as mine and only drip-feeding me important information about your region and actually withholding crucial information until the last moment.




The station works.

My tests in a full plugins prove it. My tests are also concise and there is transparent information as to the size of the tiles/region and conditions within each.

My test without plugins prove it. That test is also concise and the methodology is listed and shown and is easily repeatable (and therefore expandable) by anyone else.

Your last test, despite your misinterpreting some of the data proves it. Your pictures don't lie. Your trashed, broken region is starting to repair within 3 sim months of placing the station. Transport and RCI demand are two interlinked cogs in the simulator. Their fortunes are inextricably tied. Your population increases by a large number of sims within a ridiculously short period and abandonment diminishes as the station provides new pathing (which includes cars) to fix the issues you created.

As for your assertion that sims aren't using the station to get on the subway, I suggest that you read pages 393 to 396 of the SC4 prima guide, re-read mgb204's posts and re-read my explanation about the arrows and simulator numbers. If, after reacquainting yourself with the information, you still believe that this is happening, then, the answer, looking at your pictures, is abundantly obvious. Hint: while there is more than one piece to puzzle, an easy part of the answer is found in the top right hand corner of any (and all) of your screen shots.

Quote from: bravesirkevin on March 28, 2018, 04:55:57 AM
Quote from: mattb325 on March 27, 2018, 08:33:51 PM
In my tests, placing these stations have increased RCI precisely because they allow cars (a quick and efficient transport mode that travels long distances) to exit the station.

This seems like it might actually be true, and I'm willing to grant it. Perhaps rebrand this sort of station as a taxi rank rather than a commuter hub, and sell it on the point that it generates cars allowing commuters to finish long trips quickly. The name commuter hub suggests a behavior that is exactly the opposite of the one this kind of station exhibits. 

Well I suppose I should acknowledge a generously back-handed concession on the efficacy of the station, but given the fundamental flaws in your testing methodologies, I most certainly will not be renaming it as a taxi rank.
It is a transit hub, and works perfectly, even from what I have seen (but who knows what other information is being withheld) correcting deliberate attempts to break it and the region it sits in which is far beyond anything it was ever intended to do. And, the fact that mgb204 added the passenger > car switch is - until proven otherwise...and there is only one potential flaw I can postulate in very specific circumstances, coming from having this switch - shown by your tests to be a stroke of genius. This station, and others modded like it can actually be used to correct completely borked city tiles and regions where users have either deliberately or inadvertently messed up the simulator through faulty plugins, mods or game-play style.




Reluctantly, I am going to lock this thread for a little while.

Given the fundamental, deliberately induced, pre-existing problems within your region and every broken city tile therein, your tests are not reliable and you are, by continuing with your line of reasoning based on unreliable tests, casting doubt in the minds of other players as to the efficacy of this station (and other stations within the pack).

Additionally, despite being asked on a number of occasions to advise what was going on in your region, by only drip feeding information that is crucial to me to help troubleshoot your issues, this has dragged on for over two pages which forces this thread to the top of every feed and therefore sucks oxygen from other content creators' work, other forums and other people's posts, which is not fair to them.

Lastly, also reluctantly (but clear for the reasons listed above) mine, for the moment, will be the final word on this station. If another NAM team member wants to test the station to prove or disprove either your or my position on the station, then I am happy to revisit these findings.

I will reopen the thread when I have something else - which won't be station related - to post.




mattb325

Vivo Apartments is uploaded



Get it here: http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=3601

Also, another one grew for me - 'Merdique' (just rolls off the tongue doesn't it?  :P) while conducting other testing. I'll get the readme sorted soon, and make that one available, too...


noahclem

Lovely buildings  &apls  I really enjoy the architecture and it seems they'll be equally home in central W2W areas and less dense apartment zones--very nice  :thumbsup:

Seaman

#1446
I can remember to have read a post of Tarkus quite some time ago in my first days here at SC4D. Back then, he responded to an unpolite BAT-request of a random forum member. In order to remind the guy to express his request in a more decent manner, Tarkus stated that BATing takes a lot of effort and it is not uncommon for BATers to finish only just a few BATs in their entire SC4 career (thus making a rude request with a selfish intend even more ridiculus).

With this statement in mind, I found myself a few times wondering, wether matttb325 is in fact the name of a whole team of BATers, considering the sheer amount of high quality BATs (and LOTs) one can find under this name. And despite knowing it better now, I am still stunned by your pace. Stations, Apartments and buros left and right, every single one with breathtaking quality and incredibly detailled.

Please consider my old, now overturned doubt, that you are a single person, as a big compliment. And thank you so much for making SC4 cities (including my own) so much more heterogenous and nice looking!

fantozzi

#1447
And bureaus of bureaucracy, and police stations and fire stations and car dealers and an alternative tourist trap, colleges, retirement homes and schools and ...

... you know, with the maxis buildings and mattb325 - my plugin folder is a little bit like central europe and the wolves. Civilsation made them almost disappear. And nowadays if a single wolf is seen somewhere the whole country panics - mothers take their children inside and they aren't allowed to play outside, the newspaper are filled for a whole week with experts interviews and letters to the editor from worried farmers, the people are afraid to walk outside after dark, they close themselves into their houses. It's sheer horror - a wolf, a wolf!

And the same now in my plugin folder with maxis buildings. During the years they slowly disappeared and where I can I use mattb325's bats instead - and like some nostaliga I think: isn't it a little sad, that civilisation superseded them all? And then it happens one of them grows again for real - and instead feeling happy about it, what happens for real, I feel disturbed. Ah, that's mankind - whatever you do, you do wrong. They are sad about the wolves being gone but when they come back, they feel horrified. They want to have wolves but not in their own forrest, where they use to take a walk.

Well, what I think I try to say with this skew-whiff analogy - I love those residentials. And I think the name 'Merdique' is wrong for such a straightforward, detailled, usable and welcomed bat. Whenever Merdique will grow it will rule out a maxis bat at this place. Where this bat grows no other bat can grow. Is this something good, something bad? Where humand culture grows it's hard time for the wolves. Good, bad?

Reminds me of the Rolling Stones Song "You can't always get what you want." And I think, some 'Merdique' is exactly what my city needs.
 

brick_mortimer

Thanks for two new beautiful appartments &apls
Although I must say that Merdique sounds like a French curseword  :D

Quote from: noahclem on April 03, 2018, 08:37:20 AM
...it seems they'll be equally home in central W2W areas and less dense apartment zones--very nice...
Indeed, put some parking en green zones around it and they'll surely hold up well in a suburban area :thumbsup:
Busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest
Me no coffee function without so good

manga rivotra

Thank you for this beautiful little modern building.  :thumbsup:
This is exactly what you can see in any European city, and thanks to its discreet facade, I can see it fit into even an older neighborhood ; may not be facing a Gothic cathedral, but in W2W alignment with much older buildings.
And about the BoB, I'm a little late to comment but, i really love what you have made with it : clearly realistic and useful but it also has a monumentality that can highlight an entire neighborhood in any of our cities : a true creator of inspiration.  &apls &apls &apls

mattb325

#1450
Thanks guys for the lovely words. I'm glad you like all of the little bits and pieces that I've made over the years. I'm not sure of the exact number that I've released, but it's somewhere in the vicinity of 270 ish %confuso. Still some way to go to get to the level of the great batters (honestly I don't know how they churned out so many in just a few years!!!), but I still enjoy batting, so I guess there should be more to come.  :D

I still like many of Maxis' stuff. The lotwork is terrible and lets some otherwise good bats down, but that can be fixed  ;D

About Merdique apartments...I do run out of names to call these things.   ::)
I was in Melbourne a few weekends ago looking at a small central pied-à-terre as it is likely I'll be spending some time there with my business and renting is cheaper than staying in a hotel room and it's also beneficial to have a permanent mailing address.
I was quite horrified that most of the 1 bedroom flats have no windows in the bedroom. An airless, dark box for sleeping in. Yuck. And many of these are in otherwise reasonable, purpose built buildings. In Sydney, this practice is illegal, so I don't know how they can be approved. Here's an example of one for instance (this one is for sale, I'm only looking to rent something): https://www.domain.com.au/305-108-flinders-street-melbourne-vic-3000-2014243664.

That was the inspiration for Merdique....pied-à-terre is far too kind and I know I would be cussing if I had to live there permanently!

At any rate, I saw yet another senseless, bitter, angry person with a gun shooting innocent people on the news this afternoon from the US, so I made a start on the building. The sad reality is, if I did all of the buildings that have had this happen within their walls - mostly schools - I would never be finished  :'(



It is likely the curved green roof won't make it into game...it is probably going to look quite silly. It will easily be replaced with a metal roof. But we'll see as it progresses. It will be a large building (probably 5x12 tiles) so I'll look at making it a reward of some kind.

reddonquixote

Ick.. my friend lives in an apartment like that. Its like sleeping in a broom closet :(

The rest of the apt looks pretty nice though, its a bit of shame about the bedroom.

Is that the You Tube office? Looks amazing already. Sad about the news though.
Pay heed to the tales of old wives. It may well be that they alone keep in memory what it was once needful for the wise to know.

belfastsocrates

Shame the green roof may not survive, I do love a sedum roof, but understandable the difficulties with translating those features into a game version.

I do like the overall style though and always great to see more curves in-game! Looking forwarding to seeing this and using it :D
A unique nation fusing technological prowess and unparalleled grandeur

"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination" - Oscar Wilde

bombardiere

Oh, yes @Seaman and @Fantozzi said it so well. I feel the same. Thank you for all the marvellous Bats you have made.  &apls

In fact, it looks like my sims love your Bats, too.  :D Especially your Kensington Apartments. It looks like one third of my sims wants to live in Kensington Apartments.  ::) Luxury I guess.  :D Only those pesky Brink Real Estates breaks almost a perfect Matt City view.  :P

QuoteI was quite horrified that most of the 1 bedroom flats have no windows in the bedroom. An airless, dark box for sleeping in. Yuck

Oh I might like it.  :D I need a quiet and dark place to sleep. I am a light sleeper. So a cave would be a right place for me  :D And a Finnish summer is coming. We have so much light ... so much light... ()what()

art128

Come on now, those are not merdique at all, Matt. ;)
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

Props & Texture Catalog

Ramona Brie

Somewhere I had made some designs (sketches) for additional modern-style elementary and high schools in a JBSimio vein. If you wanted them, I could send them along.

brick_mortimer

Quote from: mattb325 on April 04, 2018, 01:44:58 AM
...
but I still enjoy batting, so I guess there should be more to come.  :D
...
Me happy!  :thumbsup:

Quote from: mattb325 on April 04, 2018, 01:44:58 AM
...
At any rate, I saw yet another senseless, bitter, angry person with a gun shooting innocent people on the news this afternoon from the US, so I made a start on the building. The sad reality is, if I did all of the buildings that have had this happen within their walls - mostly schools - I would never be finished  :'(
...
The sad truth indeed  ()sad()
Busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest
Me no coffee function without so good

mattb325

#1457
Thanks for the comments and likes  :thumbsup:

Nice pics, bombardiere! Those flats do like that spot...almost too much  ::)

So this new bat is 'sort of' the you-tube offices.  ::) As I suspected the green roof just didn't work with the curve and the game angles. The plants ended up looking like a blobby mess. So I changed it to a metal roof which looks way better, but of course meant that I no longer felt compelled to make reasonable attempts at a recreation. Let's just call it 'inspired by'  :D ;)

With the little hill, I gave it a custom LOD so you can landscape on the hill and into to the building. The original tight LOD caused some rendering issues, so this one is looser. It works for two angles, but on one side, it does cut off a little bit. You can see it on the 4th picture down. It isn't much and it's not something that bothers me: using the mix of CP's shaded and non-shaded props that change subtly through the seasons is far nicer.













It's been made into a reward, I'll tweak the stats to get it along the lines of the movie-studio and upload it shortly.

Ramona Brie

The YouTube logo doesn't look the greatest (it's also actually out of date). Otherwise, it's unfortunate that the inspiration had to occur how it did, but it's excellently done from a technical standpoint and a great addition to your reward replacement series.

mattb325

Thanks.

Re the logo: it looks a bit blurred in the picture, but it's just jpeg compression and where I plopped it on the map (it's the same phenomenon as getting the join lines that go through a model at certain snapshots). It is 12 tiles long, but you can see from the reader that the logo is fine:




I'm not too concerned whether the logo is up to date. Companies change branding all the time.....