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Notes about CAM (Colossus Addon Mod)

Started by fantozzi, March 11, 2019, 03:07:39 AM

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fantozzi

It seems to me many people don't understand the Colossus Addon Mod (CAM) very well and think it's something 'nice to have' but they don't need it .

This article tries to explain with (hopefully) easy examples why you will need the CAM at a certain point if you like to use custom made bats.

Let's imagine for a moment there would be only one grow stage in the game. So all buildings could grow at the same time. So 'time' was no classification component of city development but only space.

This would mean all buildings could grow quite from the start.

You would probably expect, now all different buildings there are in your plugin folder, tall and tiny, would grow at the same time all over your city tile.

But instead ... you would discover, they don't. Even if there weren't different grow stages buildings wouldn't grow that randomly - because there still would be the building size that makes a difference making certain buildings grow much more often while others wouldn't appear at all. So without grow stages from maybe 1000 bats in your plugin folder you would see maybe 100, maybe more. But never all 1000 at once. You would have to play many, many years in many different regions with different conditions until you would have seen them all.

So having different grow stages means you can distribute your custom content better during game time/city development: having 100 bats for stage one, 100 for stage 2 and so on. So organizing custom content along the time-axis will result in the fact, that you won't see only 100 bats from 1000 but on each grow stage 100 x 8 = 800 bats from 1000 during the time your city develops.

You can download as much content as you want - this (purely estimated) ratio between what is there in your plugin folder and what will grow in your game will only worse. So if you have 100 different residentials on stage 1 you will see most of them while you play a region but if you have 1000 skyscrapers all made for grow stage 8 - there will allways be a high amount you almost never see grow. So at a certain point it's waste of hard drive space to download always bats for the same grow stage. You may think - well I can plop them all. Right. Lets think about this a little later.

First let me mention what Colossus Add On Mod does here. It simply expandes the range of grow stages from 8 to 15. Which means - you get a much longer time-axis to sort all the custom content along it. You have 7 drawers in addition to sort your custom content in. Instead of having 1000 skyscrapers all at the same grow stage, stage 8, you can distribute them all on stages 9 to 15. And the chance they will really grow in your city is increased by factor 7! (100 x 15, now 1500 different buildings probably seen).

So if you are a skyscraper lover you WILL need the CAM. But still you have to sort your skyscrapers into the different drawers (stages). If you only install CAM but don't customize your buildings - well, than CAM can't do anything for you. You still will see only some of them all crowding one stage, stage 8.


&scl() &scl() &scl()

You may reply: what do I care about growables – most of this skyscrapers are offered as ploppable CS or CO.

Well, to plop them is one of the best methods to ruin your game. I ashure you - many of those ploppable sykscrapers you can download never ever will work with the base game.

This is because on demand there is a game limit. On none of the different RCI groups demand can be higher than 6000 sims at a time.

This is reflected by the RCI graph.




Whenever you plop a building with more than 6000 jobs into the unmodded base game, this is going to happen:
[/font]

(enlargable)

You'll destroy your demand for the next hundred years and block all development. As the game still will cap the residential demand on 6000 you'll get a difference of "dead jobs". They will always stay there and never will be occupied. The job-sims ratio will remain imbalanced.

Now, the CAM not only expands grow stages but also gives much more headroom for demand. Again this is reflected by the RCI graph.



With the CAM it will look like this. Now having the necessary demand you will be save to PLOP those mega towers with 8000 jobs and more. So even if your solution is to plopp those big things you'll need the CAM to keep your game in balance.

Greetings
Fantozzi


b22rian

Fantozzi,

thanks for your great posting here  :thumbsup:

I am using cam 1.0 still
I sometimes have trouble with the old cam demand bug...
Even though i have the fix for it installed in plugins,, , it still seems like my demand is still way to high all the time ( especially for commercial services). so matter how much I zone and zone and zone for commercial ...

So it looks like the fix does not work for me most of the time..
It is a bit strange for me though because after i have played a certain city for a very long time ( many game years go by)..
All of a sudden the cam fix dat file will suddenly kick in and my demand drops for commercials..
Of course i do not know what causes the cam dat fix to suddenly start working for me like it should..
The current city I have been working on for awhile, this still has not happened and so the commercial demand is still way too high all the time..

I have considered installing CAM 2. , but have not done so as yet.. Really not knowing what effect this will have on my city tiles well established already with using CAM 1.0..

fantozzi

#2
To my knowledge on the development curve of Residentials and Commercials InvisChem did only small changes and smoothed the curve a little bit and did different 'flavors'. He did changes heavier on farming by expanding it to 10 grow stages (imho too much!), so the curve is different now and on farming you may run into problems if you have farms maybe stage 5 or higher.

Also CAM 2.1 comes in different 'flavors' of city development (which are hard to compare because testing would require a team, each one playing with same content but different curves) and one of them should have the same curves as 1.0 So from my point of view there shouldn't be much trouble to switch from 1.0 to 2.1.

I didn't do this switch myself. I played with 1.0 in the first years. And I didn't really know what I was doing by this time. Then I played some years without CAM noticing many bats didn't grow anymore or rarely. So I came back when 2.1 was released. Therefore I can't tell you from my own experience if it's save. But from theory  ::) it should work.


On the other hand with 2.1 you get rid of quite some old bugs and in return you get a few new ones.

See note by Corina Marie here: https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/30956-colossus-addon-mod/.

PIM-X never was updated and if you are strict then PIM-X is only compatible with CAM 1.0.

I use CAM 2.1 because of it's moderate curve you can play your region for a while without it becomes plastered by skyscrapers. But also I modded all the stuff I downloaded correctly - so put all the big skyscrapers on stage 10 and higher. So I get a development much more realistic for european cities.

CAM is an orphan that really could need a nurturing hand. It isn't a perfect mod. But from my point of view if you play with buildings hosting more than 7000 sims it is a necessary requirement. When I switched to 2.1 it was a supported mod. Today between 1.0 and 2.1 this important difference is gone. Both are abandoned. Imho this is the point that makes a decission difficult. You're looking for a pet and can choose between a dead parrot and another dead parrot.  &mmm

But still, you need the pet.



twalsh102

b22rian,
One of the things InvisiChem mentions in the beginning pages of the User Manual for Cam 2.1.0 is that it is highly recommended to use Cam 2.1.0 with new city squares/regions.

He goes on to basically say that though CAM 2.1.0 has been tested with already existing cities, there may be unintended consequences.  There are sufficient differences between versions that this MAY be true when changing between CAM 1.0 and CAM 2.1.0.  Note that the CAM 2.1.0 manual mentions that CAM 1.0 "provided far too much demand" and that because of this, the relevant exemplars in CAM 2.1.0 have been changed to further balance demand.

Demand issues are ALWAYS difficult to resolve.  Since every player's SC4 environment is different, it is almost impossible to give you anything more than the most generic of suggestions based on the information provided.

As a potential provider of help, one can always make an assumption that everyone needing help has read, and understood all available documentation, and heeded all suggestions, but my experience tells me that this is often an incorrect assumption.  Therefore, the following questions arise in my mind:
1.  Are you / have you been using CAM 1.0 with pre-existing cities, or only with new city squares/regions?
2.  Are you using ANY other mods that affect demand?
3.  Please define "many game years."  This could mean 20 or 200.
4.  A look at your demand graphs when you are experiencing the issue might provide us some clues.
5.  Is it safe to assume that all of your commercial zoning is actually being filled?
6.  If all your non-residential zones are being filled, and since the jobs actually created by these buildings (as determined by the relevant RCI Census Exemplars for each developer type/wealth level) are what drive Residential demand, it would follow that Residential demand should also be high!  Is it?

jeffryfisher

I have installed CAM 2.1, but my demand graph still tops at 6000. Is it broken?
Modding PC games since 1993 (back when we needed hex-editors)

b22rian

Really excellent replies by both you guys !  :thumbsup:

It is really nice to see this kinda activity can still happen in the threads here and it reminds me a lot of the "old days"

I think based on Twalsh's advice in particular, I would be wise to wait until I start up a new city if I am going to try out CAM 2.1.. :-\

Although perhaps staying with the same region I have been working on for so long would still be okay it sounds like..

It would be interesting to see what kinda demand i get with the commercial services from cam 2.1 , compared to what I have been getting with CAM 1.0

I am sure you guys agree !!

Thanks again, Brian

fantozzi

Quote from: jeffryfisher on March 11, 2019, 09:26:53 AM
I have installed CAM 2.1, but my demand graph still tops at 6000. Is it broken?

Well the parameters for the graph is in the folder a_CAM and the file name is "CAM_2.1.0_Main_Controller.dat". If the file is present in your plugin folder I guess it's something overwriting those values - a conflict.



b22rian

Fantozzi,

I did not mean to present my original posting here as a big issue,... this  high demand i seem to almost have all the time for the commercial services.
I have always been very happy with the CAM mod since I installed it in 2007  :thumbsup:
and I could not thank the developers enough really for what they have accomplished with it.. ( this of course also includes in recent times what InvisChem has done for many people by finishing the work started on the CAM 2.1 Mod..)

And although i still have yet to try it, I did keep up with most of the postings in the threads related to Cam 2.1 , and it all sounds great, really..  ;)

Most of the time in my cities my residential demand is high also..So I still get a nice balance between jobs and residents when I play usually..
So as i said in the earlier postings, I only classify this constant high demand for commercial services a a smaller issue at best ..

I never have figured out really why and when the cam fix dat kicks in and lowers that commercial services demand suddenly..
But it is clear ( at least in my cities), it does not have any effect on my cities for at least hundreds of game years playing with it. And it some cities I have played it never seemed to get initialized..

This dat cam fix is named - ColossusAddonMod_1.0z.dat.. I think its the small (z) after 1.0 that lets me know its the cam fix rather than the regular cam mod dat..
and i keep this file in a folder called A_CAM

fantozzi

#8
This note is for lotters/content creators.

You will know that development of growth is not linear in SC4 but dynamic. This means if everything runs fine and there is demand first your city grows smoothly but then faster and faster and finally skyscrapers explode everywhere and you get in troubles to handle traffic and so on.

This dynamic growth is mainly driven by density limits which depends on your regions development. Density is defined as the number of sims than can live on a tile.

Each grow stage has a certain range of density. This is how SC4 picks up RCI lots. Let's say your region is in the beginning of development and there is so far only one city - so denisity limit will be quite low, maybe 4 Sims for each tile (there are precise tables about this in the wiki, I use fictional values here for simplification).

On grow stage 1 you have small buildings ranging from maybe 2 to 12 sims. Depending on the lot size this building sits upon they will all be able to grow. On grow stage 2 the buildings may host 13  to 20 Sims. Not all of them will grow, again depending on the lot size. Grow stage 3 may host bats between 21 and 40 sims. Some may grow but many not. Grow stage 4 may range from 40 to 100 Sims - for now none of them can grow. Your region will need more development first.

Let's call this range of densitiy that can grow on each grow stage a Delta (Δ). Grow stages aren't defined exclusively by this Delta of occupants per tile but there are other factors. For now let's focus on this Delta.

Because there's something interesting to understand about – this Delta is dynamic too if growth is dynamic and on highest CAM stages it is even dramaticly high.



So on the lowest grow stages the Delta is tiny and you must mod your lots very precicely. You have a Delta of maybe 5 habitants. Means: if you add more than 5 habitants to your lot on a grow stage it may never grow because you already moded it out of range. Pay attention that you can't circumvent this with the 'density' feature of PIM-X. Still density of the lot and grow stage have to match and PIM-X will suggest higher grow stages if you raise density.

But on higher grow stages of CAM, let's say Stage 11, 12 and more this Delta explodes. It's not 5 or 10 Sims but 500 or 5000 Sims. Believe it or not the same lot can be the same stage 12 with 4000 sims or 5500 sims.
This means you have great freedom to vary the amount of occupants.

Now the important thing about this:  this makes growth not easier. Still SC4 core will calculate which lot fits best and chose it dependend on demand. If your demand isn't high enough you rarely will see those lots grow. So with the big Delta  it's worth to consider on which part of this delta you settle your lot. Do I mod it with maximum density for rare growth on highest demand or do I lot it on the lower end of the delta, so the chances to grow are better when demand is only average.

In any case guiding principle should be - be strict with the stats when lotting on the lower grow stages while you can be more generous on the higher grow stages.