Commute engine tweaking for NWM

dragonshardz · December 10, 2007, 05:12:07 PM

another question: In re:Monorail pollution, where would i go to modify that? one of the simcity base dats?

Filasimo · December 10, 2007, 05:15:34 PM

DS: again this is for discussing commute engine tweaking for the network widening mod, please if you have any questions unrelated to the topic please post your question here: http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?board=11.0 thanks and have a nice day!!

dragonshardz · December 10, 2007, 05:17:59 PM

all right, sorry. I think i'll just have to have a look around the SC4 dats and stuff.

testing and modding (slightly) the a03. just messing with the capacities of the networks as posed in a previous post.

Twalin · December 11, 2007, 06:08:21 PM

this question was prompted by the "distance penalties" thread but this seemed like a more appropriate place to ask.

Mott

can you clarify more what you were saying about the 5x commute engine in the NAM, I decided to reinstall the NAM based on the information you have presented in this thread and the distance penalties thread. I am specifically referencing

QuoteThe "2x/5x/10xSpeed" versions should not exist.

5x Commute is a *very* good choice though. The internals of this game are still working at SC3K scale, 255 tiles = 16 km. Raising the Max Commute by 4x, makes the simulators match the visual scale being presented to the user. The game gets a whole lot more intuitive, and playable, as "desirability" and "commute distance" is considered more at a neighborhood scale, consistent with other aspects of gameplay. 5x Commute is close enough for the magic to happen.

As a bonus, at "normal" speed, the "perfect" or "better' pathfinding actually works.

Although the NAM controller options are

Standard Pathfinding
Better Pathfinding
Perfect Pathfinding

each with variations of adding 2X or 5X capacity, 10X commute, or 10X speed.

I understand what you are saying about the speed mods being bad, but was hoping you would share your thoughts on the capacities, or which of the variations would be most beneficial.

P.S.... I should add... all you guys on the NAM team etc. are crazy... but thank you for doing what you do... you've reinvented one of my favorite games, and I love playing it again.

jplumbley · December 11, 2007, 06:37:45 PM

@Twalin

At the moment the one which I would choose is either the Standard or the 2x Capacities. It really depends on what the size of your city is. If your population is between 50k and 150k I would go with Standard, if it is between 150k and 300k I would go with 2x Capacity, if it is over 300k it may be a good idea to go with 2x capacity but I think you should still be able to get away with 2x Capacity if you keep adding different routes.

The reason for the lower capacities is because it will start forcing your sims to use different routes. But, I will try and upload an update of my Pathfinding Engine (similar to Motts) in the near future. After some testing.

theloolix · December 14, 2007, 02:46:09 PM

Quote from: jplumbley on December 10, 2007, 12:55:03 PM

Abandonment Issues with carless City:

The new Traffic Simulators in this thread are much more stable than the MAXIS and NAM created ones. It is advisable (even though only Alpha Stage) to use the ones from this thread.

thanks for your prompt reply!

in this case, this *was* with mott's new simulator; but i only had abandonment with the "park and ride" version; the one that also added pedestrian congestion. i suspected cpu because i think mott mentioned it would be more cpu intensive? i don't know for sure. also, i think i turned down the graphics options and that helped for maybe another 10k residents, but i don't remember exactly so can't say.

as for the subway capacities, i guess we'll have to agree to disagree there; 10k is way too low. the carfree book suggests that a good metro could actually provide for 57k per hour, per direction, so i've bumped up my metro capacity to 50k. perhaps i should bump up the cost as well.

i guess what i'd be most interested is a car-free ordinance. it'd disable cars (i've modified mott's plugin to do this already), disable metro fares, and maybe increase health a little bit?

one other comment for mott:

wrt. the radius changes for civic buildings, i feel like the radii are a little too big now, and it makes the game too easy. this is especially so for the higher capacity schools, which you'll never need to spend money on buses if you're zoning above low density. (although why i need buses when i spend so much on a metro i do not understand).

anyway, thanks and keep up the great work.

jplumbley · December 21, 2007, 05:20:22 AM

@theloolix

Sorry for the slow reply. I havent really come up with an answer and every so often when I had a chance tried to think about it.

I cant really comment on your specific situation because, I dont know what is going on. I can guess what is happening but, I need a few pictures to show me a few things, such as, the area of abandonment, the Traffic Data maps, information about mass transit, etc.

If I were to guess.

"Park and Ride" forces the sims to be pedestrians when they enter their work. Every TE Lot has a maximum capacity, so if the designed maximum capacity for a TE Lot is 1000, then the actual maximum capacity is 10,000 because TE Lots allow upto 10x the maximum capacity defined. So, lets say you have 1 parking lot servicing a densely populated downtown area that holds more than 20,000 but your parking lot can only service 10,000 at max. Due to this shortage of parking spaces you will get abandonment because the sims cannot reach work.

Another scenario might be that you have sufficient parking, but the parking lots are spaced too far apart in your downtown area and the radius of the walking Sims from their cars to their work is too great. Due to this some Sims will refuse to goto work due to the fact that its too long of a walk.

But you are using subway systems. So, this likley isnt the case. I dont know for sure but I dont think that the CPU is being over worked. There are too many things to think about with this Simulator. Its not just NAM, its everything.

Man, looking back at your pictures now, I just noticed something important. You 17 tile blocks are cool. There is one fatal flaw in the design though. Mott based his "Park and Ride" mod off the original MAXIS distances. MAXIS allowed Sims to walk approximately 7 tiles to reach thier destination (the Monorail Station). If you count only the middle stage buildings are within that radius but the others within that area are the only ones able to reach the Monorail station within 7 tiles of walking. Everything else is not connected because the sims cannot reach the Station in their determined walk time.

A way to fix this is by putting a parking lot next to the station so it becomes a true park and ride. OR by upping the "speed" of the pedestrian (not suggested). OR by allowing the Monrail Station to have Car to Monorail and Monorail to Car transit switches. I would go with option 1... less hassles, no modification, etc.

LunarMongoose · December 31, 2007, 09:36:20 AM

I just discovered this thread earlier tonight, so first of all want to say thank you for all the fantastic work that's been done here.

That being said, something to mention if no one has considered it yet. The DemandCreated exemplar field -- which I finally became clear on the functioning of thanks to a thread over on Simtropolis about making an entire region with zero C or I zoning, just residential plus tons of civic buildings -- gives buildings "Civic Jobs" that sims work at but which aren't taxed and don't really show up anywhere. The quantities are generally small and only present on civic and some reward buildings in vanilla, but could still lead to some extra NJZs with your ParkAndRide setup as ppl don't normally realize civic buildings *have* jobs (at least I didn't) and thus won't think to put parking garages near their police stations, etc.

One easy thing you could do would be to add car-to-ped TEing on the vanilla civic buildings that alrdy show as having distinct parking lots, or else remove all the DemandCreated stats though that'll affect game balance a little.

Starmanw402007 · January 13, 2008, 08:08:14 AM

Just Curious, how are u guys coming along with the NWM? Havent heard anything at all from this project LOL.

Your Friend;
Mayor Of Steven's Point & Maxiston
(Proud To Be Cities Of Sim Nation!)

jplumbley · January 13, 2008, 08:14:05 AM

We released RHW v20 and MIS.

Currently an ALPHA of my RTL Plugin is in a test run. TLA-3 and TLA-5 currently depend on the new RTL Plugin being released.

kassarc16 · January 13, 2008, 02:46:17 PM

Mott,

Since you asked awhile back, I've got some feedback on your RealTime version of the mod. I've noticed a lack of automata being spawned. I don't have huge traffic levels yet, but a road with 1000+ cars on it seems a bit empty now.

Great job on this folks! Can't wait for the TL mods!

grudy · January 24, 2008, 01:54:54 PM

I'm new to this thread, but I can't wait to try Alpha 03! Anyway, I currently have the NAM, and was wondering which files I need to delete from it and which I should keep. Aka is there only one pathfinding file to be deleted, or others too?

jplumbley · January 24, 2008, 02:01:23 PM

Quote from: grudy on January 24, 2008, 01:54:54 PM
I'm new to this thread, but I can't wait to try Alpha 03! Anyway, I currently have the NAM, and was wondering which files I need to delete from it and which I should keep. Aka is there only one pathfinding file to be deleted, or others too?

TESTERS *Needed* - Traffic Simulator

That thread is where all the work from this thread is being implemented. A new Simulator File will be released sometime in the coming weeks or so and it will be a replacement for all the current ones in NAM. This new file will be a NAM supported Simulator and there will be a few versions to choose from like the original NAM files, but will be much more balanced. Be patient and you will recieve the greatest gift of all, a balanced Simulator.

Starmanw402007 · February 02, 2008, 04:48:32 PM

Hey Jp, whats in this nwm anyways? I've always been curious about that LOL.

JoeST · February 03, 2008, 01:34:57 AM

Network Widening Mod...

Joe

SC4BOY · February 03, 2008, 03:33:48 AM

I am not sure whether this is an appropriate forum, but my question deals with the interactions of the engine tweaking (which I am a fan of) and also the old High Speed Rail Project (HSRP beta). I have the following plugins in my folder as I use the HSRP in some of my regions (in many respects for the same reasons people play with the engine tweaking.. hehe)

What is the proper way to use this HSRP mod AND to toy with the engine tweaking mods too? If you wish to know the contents of any of these files, I'll be happy to attach them or email them.. I'm pretty sure only one of the files contains the "speed/commute" mods.. the rest are for appearance, slopes, and the track mechanics I think. Thanks

If this belongs on the Plumbley "Testers Needed" thread or its own thread, feel free to move it.. sorry.

Starmanw402007 · February 03, 2008, 08:35:36 AM

Joe, I know that. I meant; what will be in the modd itself LOL.

jplumbley · February 03, 2008, 08:42:57 AM

Quote from: SC4BOY on February 03, 2008, 03:33:48 AM
I am not sure whether this is an appropriate forum, but my question deals with the interactions of the engine tweaking (which I am a fan of) and also the old High Speed Rail Project (HSRP beta). I have the following plugins in my folder as I use the HSRP in some of my regions (in many respects for the same reasons people play with the engine tweaking.. hehe)

What is the proper way to use this HSRP mod AND to toy with the engine tweaking mods too? If you wish to know the contents of any of these files, I'll be happy to attach them or email them.. I'm pretty sure only one of the files contains the "speed/commute" mods.. the rest are for appearance, slopes, and the track mechanics I think. Thanks

If this belongs on the Plumbley "Testers Needed" thread or its own thread, feel free to move it.. sorry.

I am not totally sure which file it would be in, but my guess from the looks of it would be in the main DAT, which is a bad thing. Basically, you are going to want to take my file and put it in the main directory and put a z_ in front of it for now.

If you can post a link to the HSRP Beta file, I can tell you for sure.

JoeST · February 03, 2008, 08:50:13 AM

I believe it is the widening of the selections of the networks, it includes the RHW and SAM and other new networks

SC4BOY · February 03, 2008, 11:07:22 AM

Quote from: jplumbley on February 03, 2008, 08:42:57 AM
I am not totally sure which file it would be in, but my guess from the looks of it would be in the main DAT, which is a bad thing. Basically, you are going to want to take my file and put it in the main directory and put a z_ in front of it for now.

If you can post a link to the HSRP Beta file, I can tell you for sure.

Well for now I've simply taken them out. While I was doing your "test thread" I found it clearly overrode the test. I didn't feel like sorting through it to test as the city I am testing the engine on does not have an HSRP.

HSRP Beta 1 Download

I'm pretty sure it is the HSRP.dat file. As I recall the only major impact they made on the parameters werre to set the speed to rather high level and the commute distance too (maybe not this? forgot).. the number that I recall from the thread (the full thread is available on ST) was 6000 for speed.. however that translates.. I recall it was rather high.. it was not for city travel but rather intercity.. the goal to allow 4 tile commutes via the HSRP.. it is quite impractical for short hops for a number of reasons.