Has anyone thought of...

Cire360 · June 28, 2012, 09:13:59 AM

I'm kinda curious as to if anyone here has thought of doing an exe replacement for sc4. Of course the primary goals would be able to use sc4 data files but be a brand new exe that is community driven and can be enhanced with any 'additional' content and or options that may be needed.

There is some serious talent here and i think its more then doable. I myself have over 35 years of programing experience but lack the understanding of how the internals of the game works.

Any thoughts?

MandelSoft · June 28, 2012, 09:49:30 AM

The problem is that one does not simply build a new SimCity4. The coding is just way too complex to do that, or they can even break the game. Heck, we don't even know how the great majority, if not, all of the code works....

Cire360 · June 28, 2012, 11:19:52 AM

It seems to me that most aspects are understood by various people. Correct me if i'm wrong but people have written traffic simulators that mimic sc4's internal traffic, thus thats one area thats understood. I've also seen CAM that means people understands the growth, and how it occurs, including desirability, caps, ect.

The rest seems to be mostly about statistical data and probabilities, water, trash, and power seem fully understood. What isn't understood?

MandelSoft · June 28, 2012, 01:23:20 PM

Modding is a totally different field that programming. We understand the game, but most of us don't understand the code.

catty · June 28, 2012, 03:19:11 PM

Hi Guys

Sorry I'm putting on my moderator hat and locking this topic, back when SimCity 4 came out and we were given the keys to add to and mod SimCity 4, one of the things that we promised as a community was the EXE wasn't to be touched, and that includes replacing it.

And I know some of you have joined the community long after that agreement, and also most of the people that were around then have long since moved on to other things, but that doesn't change the fact that one of the founding principles of this site was the EXE is untouchable.

-catty (Global Moderator)

Tarkus · July 03, 2012, 10:35:36 PM

After some discussion among the staff over the past few days, this thread has been relocated to Other Games and unlocked.

-Tarkus (Admin)

Cire360 · July 04, 2012, 02:11:16 AM

Very nice, I want to thank the admins for giving me a chance to discuses this with SC4D users, and its my hopes that we can all come together, share our ideas, goals, and whatnot and create a new executable, one that will enable us to do everything we would like to do in SC4 now only perhaps a little bit better.

Over the past few weeks i've been very busy banging out code to create a crude but ever evolving simulation. At first it was just to see if i could mimic what was going on inside the exe, but slowly things have been changing, evolving, I found myself with others input, shaping the simulation to have different ground rules than what SC4 has right now. Things slowly started tieing together.

As its very late for me, I'd like to officially state that i am with YOUR help going to create a new executable, that will somewhat use SC4 data files, to create a 'different' simulation. What this will encompass, is totally up to us, I will take all the feedback, and support I can and tie it in where possible.

I've been made aware that others have tried, and fell to real life issues, and rest assured as long as support, and encouragement is present within the project i'm not going anywhere. This is not the first major project i've taking on in respects to older games, and probably won't be the last. All I ask is for your support, and input.

Tomorrow i will detail what I have done in respects to new zoning for the three types and detail how they are tied to each other. I'll also list all ideas, concepts and goals of the project in detail, as well I'll detail exactly what area i'm working on at the moment. I realize that many of you feel a project like this is a massive undertaking that should take years, but thats not the case, trust me developer tools have come ALONG ways since SC4 time, and you guys have done a good 70+ percent of the work for me via your game units. I'm hoping for a early primitive beta release in about 2 to 4 weeks, with simple 'sticking' support, and thou i've never been great with release schedules i'll do my best.

I will try to answer as many questions as I can, however right now this isn't about me answering questions, but more so picking your brains to see what ideas you all have kicking around that you have always wanted to see in SC4 but just was no way to implement it.

Once again thank you SC4D for giving me the chance, I won't let you down.

++Cire

catty · July 04, 2012, 03:57:43 AM

Hi Cire360

If you haven't already done so I would suggest you spend some time over at the old "CityMania - Open Source Sim City " project here on this site

http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?board=365.0

it pretty much covers everything we as a community wanted in a simcity replacement

-catty

FrankU · July 04, 2012, 04:34:15 AM

It's clear to me that you don't promise us anything except your perseverance in trying to finish this job, otherwise I'd have said: this sounds like a very good promise!

I don't even know how to write the word exe, so I cannot help in that respect, but I will surely follow your project as far as I can. And maybe I will be of some help now and then.

Greetings

Frank

Cire360 · July 04, 2012, 01:56:19 PM

Sweet thanks catty, I took a glancing look at a few of the threads there, and am pleased to report that I have some of those ideas already in play.

The exception to the rule is curvy roads, as I'm just not sure how to go abouts handling them. Its not a matter of actually coding or displaying a curvy road its more a matter of, whats touching them as well as intersections that connect to a curvy road while in the middle of a curve.

Another user suggested a new 'lane' road, Think of a lane as a one way road, with only one lane, there would be2 lane road, which would be identical to a one way road, as well as a 3 and 4 lane road. The beauty of this system is that they will 'combine', to form super roads, ie placing a 4 lane road, in one tile and on the next tile placing a 2 lane, would combine to form a 6 lane road. If a options were created, ie dividers, sidewalks ect, this would allow some pretty amazing results i think. I still need to give this some thought but I think it would scale, and work well. Especially since I allow users to set 'speed limits' on roads. (more on this later). This could be applied to highways as well.

As I mentioned in my previous post i already have the basic simulation running. I decided to work primarily with the simulation first, by using a simple console application I can simulate construction via console commands, and view simulation results without a GUI getting in the way of debugging. Though very clunky, bloated and crude I have the simulation running, and working well. Including zoning and growth of res, com, and ind, with primitive traffic and garbage simulation in place as well.

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So without further a due i'm going to discuss whats going to be different over sc4.

The first thing you are going to notice is that you will no longer be responsible for multiple cities. There is no 'region' anymore per say, instead you will be working with the entire city, of whatever size you want, limited only by the amount of memory and speed of a users computer. The format of the map I finished last night, it will be based off a greyscale image, which is more or less a height-map, white (255) being the highest point, and black being perhaps 25 feet below sea level, giving maps a high different of something like 200 feet, which seems reasonable. This allows slopes of 1 foot, which should be subtle enough. Each pixel in the hight-map will be 1 tile on the map, the size of the map again is limited only by the speed, and memory of a users computer. I'm going to include 4 different types of textures for different types of maps including, desert, green, rocky, and northern. I'am also hoping to implement various weather effects, which each type of map. Creators of maps should be able to set the weather types and control the frequency off, which will include fog, sunny, rain and snow.

When working on your city you will not be editing the entire city, instead you will be working on a smaller section of the city, but any changes taking place within the area you are working on may effect the entire city depending on what you do. Think of this as zooming in on a large image, and editing that area, you are still effecting the entire image, but working on a smaller portion of it.

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Zoning changes:

Zoning will change considerably in this new exe. When you lay-down a new zone you will have the 30 seconds to 'alter' the zone, If you don't alter the zone the game will develop the zone naturally, the type that develops will be based on the environment that is in its nearby surroundings. One MUST take great care with these types of zones, because as the environment changes, the zone may change from $ to $$$, when this happens all current $ RES are evicted, if they can not find new $ housing they will become homeless within your city. This will have a negative effect on the area they occupy, which could cause that new $$$ residence that just grew to change to $$, and from there it could spiral outa control. $ Citizens are the only ones who can become homeless. If no housing exists for $$$ they will drop in wealth level to $$, if no housing exists for $$ they will change to $, and finally to homeless. New homeless shelters will retrain and get homeless people off the streets. (Civic building) As the mayor you will be able to 'limit' new citizens arriving into your city by limiting incoming population. However this will NOT effect sims who are currently residing in your city from breeding.

Otherwise regardless to what type of zone you are placing be it RES, COM or IND you will have 30 seconds to specify and 'lock' the zone'. What this means is suppose I lay down a 4x4 tile of RES. For 30 seconds the game will not develop on it, waiting for me to 'specify' further details on the zone. Clicking on the zone once will cause the timer to reset giving me 30 more seconds to make further changes, You will now see a signal '$' placed over the zone, meaning that it has been locked to 'low wealth' development only, and will NOT change regardless what changes i make to the environment. Click on the zone again and it will place a '$$' on the zone, reset the timer, and its now locked to 'medium wealth residential', Another click and it changes to '$$$', finally 1 more click will remove specific type of zone and develop it naturally. For commercial and industrial, one can 'right' click to change the type, in case of commercial 'co/cs', industrial 'f/d/m/h', note that for industrial wealth level will effect its volume.

unhappy sims:
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Unhappy sims will cause crime to rise in your city, will have a negative effect in the area they reside, and may cause in them to move away.

RES Zones:
For RES to grow and develop you MUST meet certain demands, that are different for each wealth level. All RES sims require 4 basic needs, food (which they get from commercial services), water, power, and a job.

$, or low wealth Citizens will complain, and not be happy until they receive elementary school education. These citizens will tolerate traffic noise, and high levels of pollution, will use whatever means of transportation available to them, will not complain about heavy traffic and commute times. Will require commercial services at least 100 tiles from thier home. Will be happy if given standard television, and phone services ( new civic utilities).

$$ wealth Citizens, require elementary and will not be happy until they receive a high school education. These citizens will tolerate upto medium levels of traffic noise, and medium levels of pollution. They will use all means of mass transit transportation, whatever gets them there the fastest. Thier job can be no more then 400 tiles away. If thier job takes more then 1h to get to they will become upset and attempt to move closer. They require commercial services as well as commercial office at least 100 tiles from thier home. They require standard civic services television, phone, and will be happy with internet service, as well as cell phone services (new civic). They must have fire coverage.

$$$ wealth citizens require high school education, and will not be happy until both a collage is located at least 100 tiles from thier homes, and a university is located within the city. They tolerate only low levels of traffic noise, and pollution. They will NOT use mass transit at all. Thier job can be no more then 200 tiles away. They require commercial services and offices nearby at least 50 tiles. They require all standard civic services including television, phone, internet and cell phone carriers. They must have fire and police coverage, with max funding.

Unemployment: Any $ wealth citizen can remain unemployed and will be a drain on your cashflow, $$ classed citizens will remain unemployed for upto 6 months, and then move out of the city, $$$ citizens without a job will move after 1 month of not having a job. $$ will take $ jobs if no $$ jobs exists. $$ which takes $ jobs which remain employed with a $ job will change to $ wealth citizens and move into a $ wealth house after 1 year. $$ changing into $ wealth citizens with a job will evict $ with no job and create homeless people if no housing exists.

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COM development:

Like RES, COM needs to have a number of basic needs meet before growth and development takes place, thier basic needs are water, power, CS needs goods, CO produces office services, (more on goods/services in a bit), as well COM needs a workforce.

Commercial Services as mentioned needs a workforce, the workforce will consists of number of workers depending on the type of wealth level the zone has been created for. However most commercial will employ a number of each type of residential wealth level. Commercial services, provide goods to residential, these come primarily from industrial, but also can be acquired from trade( more on this later).

Commercial offices run industrial, and provide key commercial office to the public, such as lawyers, doctor offices, public works, ect. A city will need to meet commercial office demands, which will grow based on residential, commercial services and industrial sizes. There are high paying wealth jobs located in this sector.

Commercial services is influenced by high volume traffic areas, they prefer high volume areas, which depending on the wealth level is relatively pollution clear, as well as good police and fire coverage. Commercial is also influenced by landmarks, and also trucking distance from industrial, farms, ports, warehouses, with a commercial office being nearby.

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IND development.

All industrial zones require power and water (Except farming which can produce its own water). They all require a workforce, which is made up of mostly $ level, except high tech which mostly consists of $$ or $$$ wealth sims.

Farming will be needed, and will produce food, which will be sold to consumers via commercial services, you will need to carefully balance farming in this game revision, as residential zones will require a certain amount of food, the bigger the zone and density, the more food that will be required.

Dirty industrial processes raw materials into materials. These are the heavy pollution hitters in your city.

The materials created by dirty industrial are then sold and shiped to either manufacturing buildings, or warehouses. Manufacturing in turn takes materials and produces consumer goods, which are sold to consumers via commercial services. Manufacturing does produce pollution but on a much smaller scale then dirty industrial.

Finally high tech produces high end goods, but requires materials from dirty industrial, and produces very little pollution.

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Trading:

Once a city establishes either a rail connection with the edge of the map, a seaport, or an airport, they will be able to open up trade negotiations with simcentral, and exchange one service for another. For example I could have extra 'co offices' in my city and trade additional office services for food, materials or goods. When trading one must have adequate warehouse storage, trades work on a 1 month supply.

Warehouses:
Each factory, and farm, will be able to store a number of produced goods based on its size, trucks will then ship these to warehouses, warehouses then will ship these to the correct destinations. Placement of warehouses is key to growth. If there is not enough storage the goods will be 'trashed'.

Police and fire protection changes:
Police and fire stations will now have three distinct rings that encircle the station in question, The first inner circle is green, and represents maximum response time and effectiveness. The next color past the green is yellow and is known as a medium response time and effectiveness. The final circle is red in color and represents its maximum range, where response and effectiveness is at its lowest. Alerts that happen within the green zone means that response is quick arriving moments after an incident occurs, within the yellow means some 10 to 15 mins may have passed before the response time arrives, and within the red is 20+ mins before they can arrive. Anything outside the red zone will be ignored.

Parks:
Parks will now absorb a certain amount of noise pollution.

Accidents:
The traffic simulation, allows users to 'set' speed limits on roads, depending on a number of factors accidents will happen, on slower roads, they will be minor bumper skirmishes and will delay traffic by approximately 10 to 15 mins, High speed crashes can delay traffic by more then 2h.

Unit LUA expansion:
I'll be adding LUA support for all custom units, units will be able to 'interface', with the game and query and adjust in game data at any given time. This should allow users who create units, much more diversity over what they can do now, for example, this means that those who created for example a house bat, could in thoery query in game time/date, and adjust thier unit to 'put up Christmas lights', or maybe put out Halloween directions. They will be able to query the type of map, and adjust props as needed. Another idea one might have is to be able to create a building that 'creates' power during the day via solar panels, but drains power at night, ect.

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Some users have requested that I add 'sewage' simulator to the system as well, I'm a bit worried about this as I understand that many don't like laying water pipes, and adding a new pipe to the mix may turn many off.

However one user mentioned creating a new type of 'utility line' where one could connect power, water and sewage lines to this utility line and then use the utility line where needed. Perhaps voting on this at a later time.

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Pollution :

It now makes your sims sick, sick sims can't work, or purchase any commercial services, and will require medical attention. Were sorry to report that your city has medicare, and that you will need to pay the doctor bills of your sicks sims.

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I apologize about the length of this post, but needed to put forth most of the ideas, for the game on the table. Many parts of this are already in play, albeit not many units in the game, and with no GUI. I hope i didn't forget anything.

Any comments, suggestions and ideas are welcome.

P.S. I am not solely responsible for these ideas, many of them are from other users on different forums, I am keeping a 'contrib.txt' within the project which will give everyone thier proper kudos.

vortext · July 04, 2012, 03:01:49 PM

This sounds very interesting!

However it's a lot of info to take in at once so only two questions for now. First what stood out to me is the regional aspect.

You say 1 pixel in the 'heightmap' corresponds to 1 tile in the region and/or city. So how big is this one tile? Also with simcity, I prefer to play 16 small tiles as opposed to 4 large tiles precisly because of computing power, or the lack thereoff. When you say there aren't going to be any citytiles that actually seems a disadvantage. Because as I read it, it won't be possible anymore to divide a region and/or city into manageable chuncks.

Now lets see if I got the big picture. You're in the proces of creating a brand new executable file with altered rci and traffic simulation which will tie into the already existing custom content and GUI?

Yes? No? Somewhat on target?

Anyhow, looking forward to learn more.

Cire360 · July 04, 2012, 03:31:28 PM

1 tile is the same as it is in SC4, where its one unit. If your hight-map was 20,000x20,000 pixels, then your city size would have 20,000 by 20,000 tiles in it. Think entire region in this aspect.

Now based on your configuration settings as you move your mouse over this map you'll see an outline of the area your going to be editing or working with, this can be any size you want, so if in SC4 you like to work with smaller cities, then you'd set your editing zone to something like maybe 160x160 tiles. And your are correct there is no region anymore, its one massive city which you edit at any given location you wish, effectively altering the city on a global scale.

This allows you to per say place a hospital at the corner of the area your working on, and that the hospital coverage extents into the neighboring area even thou you can't at this point in time see it.

Right now my simulation is running on a 200,000 by 200,000 grid, and is populated by more then 6million sims, and using up a total cpu power of 35%, which I might add is bloated and not optimized and in DEBUG mode. You have to remember that SC4 was written almost a decade ago, if it was to be recompiled today in a modern compiler, with slight tweaks to allow it to work with multi-core cpus, and hyper-threading models, it would run sooooooooooo much more efficient then it currently does.

As for tieing in the GUI, no, a new GUI has to be created, and all existing custom content obviously will not all work, I won't really know what will and won't work until I start importing but for the most part models and properties there off should be readable by the new application.

Hope this clears things up.

NCGAIO · July 04, 2012, 05:34:04 PM

Quote from: Cire360 on July 04, 2012, 01:56:19 PM

Unit LUA expansion:
I'll be adding LUA support for all custom units, units will be able to 'interface', with the game and query and adjust in game data at any given time. This should allow users who create units, much more diversity over what they can do now, for example, this means that those who created for example a house bat, could in thoery query in game time/date, and adjust thier unit to 'put up Christmas lights', or maybe put out Halloween directions. They will be able to query the type of map, and adjust props as needed. Another idea one might have is to be able to create a building that 'creates' power during the day via solar panels, but drains power at night, ect.

I must say I am very impressed considering what you posted yesterday on another forum ...

Quote

quote name='Cire360' timestamp='1341352561' post='1259949'

Does anyone have a list of functions that SC4 calls in LUA scripts? .........

I'm just curious as to what type of LUA support SC4 has. Is there a set of function callbacks that SC4 supports into LUA and visa versa.Thanks in advance.

Really develop this feature with which you did not count that fast and that upon becoming aware of the information only yesterday ... deserves congratulations.

I'm anxious to see the first information on the code development. Let's wait

whatevermind · July 04, 2012, 07:28:21 PM

I..um...WOW! When I first saw this, I got you were trying to create a whole new game that can import existing SC4 content, saw it locked and figured, well there goes another one, saw it unlocked (cheers to free speech!), and then read your update. This is amazing work. As you've gathered, there's been momentum behind something like this for a long time, but a lack of anyone with the time and knowledge to tackle the challenge, so it's great to see that you're doing this.

I think so far I agree with nearly everything you've proposed in you posts. Some thoughts I picked up along the way:

Do I gather that there is now noise pollution? What about light pollution?
Sewers. The great question of what exactly happens when a Sim flushes a toilet. I like the idea of a bundled utility pipe - especially for ease of gameplay. On the other hand, one thing none of the SimCities have ever had is a sewage system. SC4 has by far the most developed utility concepts, but it still ignored sewage. I wouldn't be opposed to the addition of a sewage utility, but I worry about it's added value.
More on Bundled Utility Pipes (BUP). The more I think of this, the more it sounds like a great idea, especially as you increase the number of utilities. In new development, all the utilities are buried, and often in a relatively compact space underneath the streets. For a game, simulating this with a single network would make sense. You might also consider having utility-specific alternatives though, for those that only want certain utilities in certain places. Keeping to realism, you might have: water pipes (underground), sewer pipes (underground), electric wires (above), phone wires (above), cable/fiber/telecom (above or below), cell phone (radius). These can share the same tile, for example you could drag telephone wires over your existing power lines to add to the current network, or place your sewer and water pipes on the same tile. The BUP would be more expensive than any one of these options, but cheaper than the sum of them - attractive if you're building a dense area and need most or all of the services, overkill if you just want to power a farm.
I would keep the SC4 concept though of effective areas for utilities, either by way of 1) zones carrying utilities, so you merely need to attach zones (ie Power in SC4), or 2) utility lines being required, but simply dispersing their effect over so many tiles in all directions (ie Water in SC4).
CS should have an impact on Happiness. Depending on just how detailed your Sim's preferences are getting in your simulation, they can even have mixed effects (ie NIMBY vs love of shopping).
I would like the option to not have to oversee warehouses. I like the concept of needing them, but how often are they really owned/managed by the city? Instead perhaps there is a warehouse demand and they are able to grow on any D/M/H industrial lot, and are simply overseen - maybe you have the option to use a Warehouse Slider to "subsidize" their development, or maybe you have some "public" warehouses that you can plop if the private sector isn't able to keep up with demand.
Military. This has always been an afterthought in SimCities, and I think most people just ignore it, but it's an area you could expand upon, or even build unused functionality for into the game, leaving it as an expansion for those who want to use it.
There is a lot that can be done on the transportation side of things, as you seem to be getting into - I'd take a good look at how to integrate NAM, HSR, RTMT, and the functional airport and seaport projects into the simulator.

On the big picture side of things, I gather that you are creating this to accept existing SC4 content, but you will probably need to make some hard choices about just what exactly will work. For buildings and other essentially aesthetic addons, this might be minor. Mods will be where the biggest conflicts arise, especially as you integrate things into this simulation that require a mod in SC4, and add new features (such as the changes to utilities, pollution, resident wants and needs, etc.) I guess a lot of it comes down to how you code for each of these items within the simulation, and whether this allows you to take an SC4 plugin and load it into the game, or whether it will require modifying the plugins first (similar to those who relot their downloads, or CAMpatablize them). I would be interested to hear more on how you intend to handle this, and if you are using the current file system and types that SC4 uses for plugins so that the existing suite of modding programs would still be useable.

To this end, and also tackling the graphics side of things, you could probably set up the game to be more black box, requiring certain plugins to be installed before anything can be done. For example, you release the simulator without any default graphics (not GUI, you'll need those, but game graphics), and the game prompts you to install a terrain mod, some buildings (ideally released as packs so you don't miss any components), a flora pack, etc. As an exception to this, you may wish to have things like some basic utilities and civics and transportation built in. Something to think about as you move forward.

Cire360 · July 04, 2012, 10:22:53 PM

NCAGIO, As I mentioned before In that other thread LUA has been something that I have worked with before. I was just kinda supprised at how little LUA support game units actually use it. In another game I have worked on every unit how detailed LUA support, including animations, custom inputs, which had bi-direction communication layers, Allowing units to query and act, and the set data.

Suppose just for fun someone wanted to create a game unit called the weathernator something silly, that would query the game for what the current weather is, and then provide the user with a menu, where they can click a button and suddenly it starts raining, ect. This will be possible with LUA, in essence if you can dream it, and the game supports it, it should be doable.

As for custom content, I doubt that 'mods' suchs as NAM, HSR, NWM will be able to use, this mods I truely don't understand nor to be honest have i really looked at, even cam mod. I really won't know until I get that far, but for the most part the game should be able to read most of the simple units with properties and act upon them. However down the road I may add utility that will read in units, and write out a new version that this game will understand and be able to use at a more efficient level. I can't make any promises as to what level this will go at this point in time.

Truth is at this point in time its just toooo early to set anything in stone, i'm still working hard on prefecting the core simulation. Theres alot going on under the hood, and i want to get that right before i move into implementing the GUI, and start expanding by implementing various models, objects, props and what not. Oh and i've already made the game 'cam' style, so the maximum growth level is 15. However I've yet to even mention density, which i'm very supprised no one has noticed yet. Density will increase as surrounding land becomes 'used up'. You can lock densities, but generally its not need as a city grows outwards its inwards zones become higher density.

Perhaps I can get permission to use a poll to see how people feel about a sewage system.

In respects to communication lines, like phone and cable and what not I doubt that any lines will be required, as I'm not a modeler, nor do i have any graphic artists abilities what so ever, unless you consider drawing stickmen an artist

Right now I have one person doing additional models for me that I will need in the game, covering cell phone towers, and cable tv provers, internet providers ect, I can't weight him down too heavily with too many else may scare him off.

If sewage did end up being passed then an additional model would be needed, a sewage treatment plant, perhaps grow-able as the city grows.

One user made an excellent suggestion that utility lines could be set down under a road before the road construction begins, when you ready to place the road instead of left click dragging the road, you would right click drag the road which would also do the utility lines under the road.

In respects to black box, i think most things can be done this way but if 'lane technology' was used that would probably have to be hardcoded, as these are special as they need to 'bind' to each other. Will need to think about this some first.

Hope I covered all your questions, comments and concerns.

Back to the code window, cyas soon.

Cire360 · July 05, 2012, 02:25:12 AM

So a pretty productive night last night.

Managed to write command line parser, which will read arguments passed on the command line.

Wrote Mutex for thread locking, where critical data alters must be thread locked.

Laid support for error handling.

Ripped the simulation apart and placed it in two distinct threads, laid support for hyper threading if its available. Growth and development now occurs in one thread, while traffic simulator runs within its own thread.

Laid early support for various platforms. First version will probably be written to use Direct 3D, since its my mode of choice, however later versions I will add Open GL to, which should work on most platforms, with not much changes to the source. Thus it should run under linux and mac once GL support is implemented. Windows users will eventually have a choice to which GHandler they wish to use D3D or OpenGL.

Tweaked the simulation, reducing loads from 35 to 38%, to around 24 to 26%. Still lots of room for improvement here, This is also a 'debug' version, I haven't had a chance to check a retail build yet.

Made changes to the traffic simulator, in that those working in 'industrial' except high-tech now leave for work at 7 and finish at 5. Those working in CO, and high tech ind leave for work at 9 and finish at 5. Those working at farms leave for work at 4 and finish at 7. Those working in CS, leave for work at 6 and finish at 8. $$ in CS leave at 7 and finish at 5, $$$ in CS leave at 9 and finish at 5. Buses pick kids up going to elementary and high schools at 8 and arrive at 3. 30% of population will do shopping 2 hours after work. 50% population will be shopping on saturday. 20% will visit some attraction in city each night it a library, museum, watch a sports game, ect. These numbers are NOT set in stone yet, just numbers i'm plugging into the traffic simulator, hopefully soon i'll have some statistical data that i can dump here soon for analysis. During shopping 10% will buy goods, 25% will buy food. Trucks restalk CS with goods and food when A) stalk falls below 35%, or each night at 12am traveling from nearest warehouse.

Accidents at high speeds, now have a 50% chance of killing those involved in the accident. It is always a 'working' member who is killed, as well depending on the volume at the time, accidents now involve multiple vehicles.

It is now assumed that 70% of the population is 'married' or living with a spouse. All immigrants arriving into the city are now given an age of 20 + random 10, and paired 70% of the time with a mate. $ wealth will have 1 to 4 children during their live span, $$ will have 1 to 3 children during their lifespan, $$$ will have 1 to 2 kids during their lifespan. Kids aged 6 begin 'elementary' school, and remain there until completing grade 8, where they will begin attending high school till they graduate with grade 12. Attending school only if its available to them. $ at age 19 to 20 will move out on their own. Citizens retire at age 65, and are no longer considered part of the workforce. Citizens die of old age between the ages of 70 and 90. Citizens can now be killed if crime levels in the area they are located in rises to extreme levels. All citizens work even if they have kids. Citizens under the age of 20 do NOT work. $$ and $$$ citizens attend collage at age 20 to 22, at 22 $$ citizens enter the workforce, $$$ spends an additional 2 years in university and enter the work force.

I think that about does it for tonight.

FrankU · July 05, 2012, 04:47:23 AM

I am truly impressed.

Is it really possible that one person can build a complete game simulator? I never knew. But who am I. I know what a computer looks like. On the outside.

I have not very many remarks.

The sewage system. I don't like the idea of laying water and power lines in SC4, because I always need them everywhere. So it's not really a choice that is to be made and hence the result is that I have to do extra things that consume time, but give me no useful game fun.
If the presence of certain systems does not make a difference in the game I'd say: leave it out. If the choice has effects on the game, then it may be useful.

Please don't think the farmers are only stupid. In fact a contemporary farmer is playing a kind of RL-simcity in his ofice with cattle, food, food prices, manure, mineral deposits, mineral emissions, product shipping etc.... It requires at least medium knowledge. So I'd say that education level of higher stage farms should be something like you need for manufacturing industries.

And another thing: what we miss in SC4 is the ability to make our own menus and submenus for ploppable items. It would be very practical if you could think of a system where everyone would be able to add extra menus in some kind of way.

You keep me on the edge of my seat!

NCGAIO · July 05, 2012, 09:36:28 AM

Quote from: FrankU on July 05, 2012, 04:47:23 AM
I am truly impressed...
Is it really possible that one person can build a complete game simulator? I never knew. But who am I. I know what a computer looks like. On the outside.

If you're referring to things like this... OpenCity - or maybe this... Lincity - maybe is possible despite being a selfless work then has to have same vocation for it.

Now when it comes to a simulator such as SC4 and all its complex graphical representation only if it had all the time in the world available for this and don't have to do anything else to survive. Calculation about one to two years to have something plausible working based on the same characteristics of the game and working around 4-6 hours per day.

Now the question is... there is this selfless?

Quote from: FrankU on July 05, 2012, 04:47:23 AM
And another thing: what we miss in SC4 is the ability to make our own menus and submenus for ploppable items. It would be very practical if you could think of a system where everyone would be able to add extra menus in some kind of way.

That would be the best news it will affect everyone who play regardless of their particular tastes. But unfortunately it has become impossible to make without modifications in the game executable ... modficiações who also became impossible without access to original exe ( for RH on Windows ) as you can understand by reading this topic... Adding features to the exe

NCGAIO · July 05, 2012, 10:19:50 AM

Quote from: Cire360 on July 04, 2012, 10:22:53 PM

but for the most part the game should be able to read most of the simple units with properties and act upon them....

How make this ?? ... this would be the response of one million dollars buddy.

Cire360 · July 05, 2012, 11:47:44 AM

SC4's internal simulation isn't that complex. For example kids in sc4 is just a percentage of the total population.

In respects to the comment for 'one man creating' comments, thats just not true, you guys have already done all the hard work for me, the models or game units is what takes the time, art, and modeling is a good 50% if not more of the game, and that part is mostly done.

Quote from: FrankUPlease don't think the farmers are only stupid.

First please forgive me, I in no way consider anyone 'stupid'. There is a lot to farming, I know as when I was younger i used to work on a farm, way back. However lets face it the farmer himself maybe knowledgeable but most of the workforce he employes are just general labors.

Moving on to 'in game menus', using LUA you should easilly be able to handle this, Units will receive in game notifications when the mouse moves over the unit, and when the unit is clicked on. Then can register themselves with the game for timer interrupt calls, more details on what LUA functions units will support will be added once i actually begin on GUI.

In respects to water and sewage pipes, including power lines, I think i'm going to have this as an option. If you don't want to run the pipes you'll be able to set an option and distribution will be 'automatically' global to the map.

Anyhow I left the simulator running last night, and while city growth took place at expected paces, i'm having some serious problems replicating SC4 traffic, even with 200,000 sims running amunk, traffic doesn't seem to get as 'bad' as it gets within SC4. I'm only using avenues and roads right now, and can't seem to get the serious overloading of traffic. At certain times of the day it can get heavy, especially at 5pm when a good chunk of the city gets off work, but for the most part it remains relatively calm. I may need to think of some ways to add traffic during other times of the day.