"Farm Field" Desirability

[westamastaflash]

So some of the custom farms that I've obtained (LEX DVD/CD, STEX CDS) have farm fields with 3 jobs. However, I-R desirability quickly diminshes away from the main building on large farms, and causes the number of farm workers in most fields to be reduced to 2/3 jobs. As an example, take the SimGoober Seasonal Fields. Desirability in my fields is very low, reducing the number of jobs available. I build my farms away from roads to prevent freight traffic from killing demand (drawing 1 road to the edge of the farm).

How can I increase farm field desirability, to prevent this job loss?

Really, I'm even more confused about farming "Jobs" themsevles. They don't seem to reflect the capacity of the buildings. When i query with Ctrl-Alt-Shift, the job numbers reported here don't match the capacities in the queries, and even if i were to add all the fields jobs up, it still doesn't seem to match.

Edit - scratch that. It appears the Ctrl-Alt-Shift numbers change with the desirability... but it's still really odd. Is there a full explanation for how farm desirability works anywhere?

I just installed the SFBT Rural Paths Plugin, and adding them around my fields majorly boosted desirability.

No go. It works ok for a bit, then the desirability drops right back to brown again!!!

Please refrain from making quadruple postings over a 1 hour period.  If you feel you need to add more, please use the "Modify Post" option and edit your existing post. -Tarkus, Admin **Sorry about that! Won't do it again.

[jmyers2043]

I'm not sure what the main question is but I see two quotes that I think sum up your concern.

I build my farms away from roads to prevent freight traffic from killing demand (drawing 1 road to the edge of the farm).

Generally speaking – Traffic lowers desirability for farms to grow along certain stretches of road. In this picture you can see I-AG desirability as it is affected by freight rail and road traffic. The farms in the below picture grew before traffic became a problem. BUT - There are a couple of things you can do if a plot of land will not develop. (1) re-route traffic and (2) plant some trees all over the area you hope will to grow as a farm.  Those two things usually work for me.



Generally speadking - Freight traffic above 250 vehicles can cause fields to dilapidate. The farms themselves in this picture have turned crispy black from too much traffic.



I've dealt with this in the past by creating traffic zones. By designing roads and streets to funnel specific amount of traffic to nearby Freight rail.



I am currently testing CAM 2. And an improvement has been made so that more freight traffic can travel down a street without causing field dilapidation. So there is some hope.

How can I increase farm field desirability, to prevent this job loss?

I'm not sure why you're concerned about job field loss. The number of R$ Sims and their education level are the two greatest factors that determine how much demand for farming jobs you have. And I'm speaking of both the robustness of farm growth and Sims actually traveling to work on those farms. As an example: There is a 1600% probability that a Sim will want to work on a farm when the EQ level of the city is 0-50. There is a 16% chance a R$ Sim will want to work on a farm when the EQ level is 100-150.  A significant drop.

Read this thread for more information.

http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=1878.0


A typical shot of my rural city. . . The Timber farm you see is a stage 3 farm and the lot offers 52 Jobs. Each timber field tile offers 1 job. The farm is 15X15 square. That would be 225 jobs. A query shows that 119 Sims drive to work and 20 more Sims are walking from the nearby village to work on that timber farm. I don't think there is a problem. Other Sims are driving past the timber farm to work at the corn farm just down the road. 



I don't know if any of the above answers your question or concern. Suffice to say that Sims will work in the fields if the conditions are right e.g. Wealth of your Sims and Education level of your Sims. Desirability of the field or farm doesn't have much to do with it, at least from my experience.

Hope this helps

- Jim Myers

[westamastaflash]

Thanks a lot! Lots of good info there.

I think pictures may be better than words here.

Here's a picture farm desirability with SimGoober's wheat fields, which supposedly provide 3 jobs per field.


You can barely tell, but there are slightly less areas of green in the middle of the farm. JPEG kinda of wiped out the green granularity here.

Here's a route query to/from the farm. According to it, 52 sims work here, 35 walk, 17 drive.



When I query the farm, it says that there are 56/72 "jobs" available. I think this is based on desirability of the area for AG, and is not necessarily reflective of the actual number of sims working here.


Then I query a wheat field. Because these have a SimGoober custom query, I can see the number of jobs the field provides.

Most of these have 2/3 jobs available, whereas the fields right next to the farmhouse have 3/3 available.

Finally, using the ExtraCheats DLL, I do a Ctrl-Alt-Shift query on the farm, to see the "Jobs" stats.

Here, it says that this farm employs 46 R$ sims, and 3 R$$ sims.

One of these numbers has to be wrong. What's also interesting is that when I put down parks next to the fields, Desirability shoots up and my Census Repository Facility indicates more I-R capacity, but then desirability falls again (with the park there!) and it goes back down.

Here's my Census:


One other intersting thing. I have 3 cities in this region populated (all very small towns). Why do I have "commuters"? I don't have any roads connecting these cities.


Edit...
To summarize, then, I'm not sure there's a big issue, it was just bugging me. I have other farms for which when I query the lot, it indicates that people *are* working in the fields. I wonder if its something to do with fields that have more than one job??

[RippleJet]

Most of these have 2/3 jobs available, whereas the fields right next to the farmhouse have 3/3 available.

All jobs that the simulator uses inside the game are actually decimal numbers.
The ones shown in the queries are always truncated (not rounded) integers.
2 available jobs might actually be anything between 2.00 and 2.99.
To get the full 3.00 jobs on a field with a maximum of 3, would require very good desirability...

Here, it says that this farm employs 46 R$ sims, and 3 R$$ sims.

Are you running CAM 1.0?
Did you in that case install the file CAM_5%_R$$_Working_in_IR.dat?
If you did, you would find it in the a_CAM folder, and you would in that case have 5% R$$ working on farms.

What's also interesting is that when I put down parks next to the fields, Desirability shoots up and my Census Repository Facility indicates more I-R capacity, but then desirability falls again (with the park there!) and it goes back down.

The capacities (as shown in the queries) are linearily dependent on the desirability.
But Park Effect has no effect on the desirability for farms...

However, whenever you plop parks (providing Mayor Effect) or civic buildings, you get a transient aura effect,
which, for a short while, will increase the desirability for all types of RCI in the neighbourhood.

One other intersting thing. I have 3 cities in this region populated (all very small towns). Why do I have "commuters"? I don't have any roads connecting these cities.

Bad naming by me. Those commuters are actually extrapolated demand.
That can be seen as the maximum number of commuters you can get, if you allow them to commute.

[westamastaflash]

Thanks RippleJet, that's fantastic information to know. I did also install the 5% CAM dats - I wasn't concerned about the R$$ working there, just thought it was odd that the numbers didnt add up.

And I never knew about the transient aura effect. Thanks much for the info!

[RippleJet]

just thought it was odd that the numbers didnt add up.

Oh, they never do... mainly due to the way decimal numbers are truncated.

Also, the numbers reported by the route query are not updated as often as the capacities.
The pathfinders are known to run only every few months, whenever they have time to be run, and never the complete city at once.

[jmyers2043]

When I query the farm, it says that there are 56/72 "jobs" available. I think this is based on desirability of the area for AG, and is not necessarily reflective of the actual number of sims working here.

What you just wrote about reminds me of a couple of pictures I took in the city I am currently working on.   

Goeff's Texture studio is an I-HT stage 5 building. I noticed it because is looked all crispy and dark. RippleJet knows how I feel about darkened buidlings    But I digress. Look at the numbers. Yikes 225 out of 551 is not good! About half. The desirability factors seem ok. What do you think I should do? Pollution, garbage, and crime are already low. How about build a rail station next door to shorten the freight time?

I planted a strip of grass beside the lot and - presto - possible job openings increased a lot. It does not necessarily follow that Sims will actually work there. But the studio is cabable of handling a few more than before which makes the strip of grass a worth while investment.






BTW - don't expect to see me plopping parks all over my rural countryside.