|
So I'm loving around in unlimited/unlocked city. I think once I've gone through the progression a few times it's nice not having to wait for money or unlocks. One thing I've done is some transit testing. I was previously fussy at how useless metros are since they can't cross over each other, but I did some experiments to see just how you could do this. First of all, metro "tracks" don't work like train tracks, there are no switches or actual rails. They actually function just like roads! So you can make a 90 degree 4-way intersection and trains handle it just like cars making all possible turns. This really surprised me as I was under the impression you had to lay them like actual tracks and make more complex junctions and this is where my jams were coming from. So, it's entirely possible to make a "grid" of metro lines just as long as routes don't share stations as that's where the jams really come from (or more to the point, trains ever turning left in front of each other trying to get into the same station). So now I'm making a grid of metro lines. Every 2nd or 3rd station has a buddy going the other direction near by and if the AI isn't too stupid it means anyone can get anywhere in 1-transfer transit journey. Metro trains often have to stop at "intersections" to let other trains pass, but it's never more than a second or two. It works fine, but why or why can't we pageup/down to raise/lower metro tunnels and even stations just like in CiM1 ?? Also Cims pick transit in an odd way, or maybe just random/closest. You can build a metro line exactly mirroring a bus line and the cims will pick them about 50/50, if anything they'll be more likely to pick the bus. So you'll have huge crowds waiting for that massive clump of full buses (come on CO, auto-space transit vehicles!) for months while a much faster metro is right there with each train at maybe 20% capacity. I hate to say it but Cities XL handled bus lines better in a lot of ways. Instead of a global funding level you could click on a line and it would actually tell you how many people the line was using vs the capacity of that line. There were no agents so no individual buses, but you could select between a mini-bus, a standard bus, and a double-decker bus. Each level of bus cost more to maintain but upgraded the capacity of the line. Simple, intuitive. We don't need CiM1/2 levels of control over transit, specially no time-table garbage, but 2-3 types of buses plus a low/med/high frequency control would be enough, per line. Or even have an "auto" button that would automatically set the correct number and type of bus for the line, that poo poo isn't hard to auto-detect and make a pretty safe guess. All that said, has anyone dug into how easy it would be to mod transit vehicle capacities? They seem a touch low, both from a gameplay perspective and a "realism" perspective. A city of 60k shouldn't need 6 metro lines running bumper to bumper trains to move people around, nor should a quiet suburban area need a parade of huge tour buses.
|
#
¿
Mar 16, 2015 17:45
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 11, 2024 21:22 |
|
|
SPACE HOMOS posted:So, is there a good ratio of commercial next to residential? Do offices work best next to residential? I always end up blobbing them in large swathes and wonder if there is a good way to disperse them. I like to make big blocks out of avenues which are lined with commercial, then inset from that a buffer of office, then residential in the creamy centre along with a clinic and elementary school.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 16, 2015 18:27
|
|
|
I'd so love a mod that made land value a bit more important, so it wasn't the natural end-result that every single house turns into a mansion so long as it has a school and hospital near it. And that water and elevation changes really added to land value. Also maybe have a wider range for industry being yucky to live next to. Right now you really only need 1-building buffer and they're good to build a glass mansion. Also there's no class in this game, it's a communist society. Everyone is equal and everyone simply works the best job they are qualified for. Your job has nothing to do with your housing, housing simply upgrades en-mass for everyone as communal services increase. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Mar 16, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Mar 16, 2015 20:01
|
|
|
I wish we had a traffic simulation mode where we could stress test intersections, maybe even generate some metrics from it. So then when people post interchanges on the workshop they'd post their metrics as well and you'd know how the intersection performs.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 16, 2015 21:04
|
|
|
xzzy posted:I haven't studied it exhaustively but traffic in the game seems to prefer a "straightest route" path if there isn't a large empty road to override that rule. I've watched many trucks zig-zag through neighborhoods just because it was nearer to an "as the crow flies" route than some other path I had built for them. I've seen the opposite happening too. Huge grid of 2 lane roads with absolutely no traffic on it, and my 6 lane going through town is absolutely jammed, even though in most cases it isn't even the most direct route. I'm sure though it's just calculating the "fastest" route taking into account speed limits of roads and intersections. I wonder though do people ever adjust routes for traffic? No necessarily dynamically but the game understands congestion via the traffic overlay. Do new trips correctly add in the "cost" of those congested tiles to take a faster route?
|
|
#
¿
Mar 16, 2015 21:08
|
|
|
skooma512 posted:How do you even get tourists? I have like 60 in a city of 70000. Yeah I've 100% ignored the tourism angle, I don't quite get it. My train station linking off the map gets barely anyone. My cruise ship dock is a jammed mess of 5 cruise ships inside each other that just time-out and vanish after a while but I'm not sure I see anyone ever get on or off. I've got plenty of unique plops and parks, I don't know. Also freight terminals take a lot of uneducated workers! Keep this in mind guys. I started a new city with infinite money and started with a big ring of freight stations (seriously include a freight station in your shopping district and the shops will get goods via train!) and I didn't get any industrial buildings until it hit around 5-6k people because everyone just worked at the freight stations.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 16, 2015 22:18
|
|
|
Fish Fry Andy posted:That interchange would actually work pretty well with the pathing in this game, I think. I'm not at home so I can't test it, but if you split the perpendicular, merging highway into two off ramps for each direction that should force the AI to use different lanes. Yeah, good traffic design in this game is weirdly all about balancing left/right/centre lanes. I hope they make things better though because I'd love to just use real-life examples/intuition rather than game a weird AI.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 16, 2015 22:25
|
|
|
Google Butt posted:How difficult would this be to actually implement? Probably very, pathing AI isn't that hard, but pathing AI that dynamically responds to its environment is really hard to get right and on "budget"(which is why abstracted simulations with agents for decoration is the superior solution!)
|
|
#
¿
Mar 16, 2015 22:28
|
|
|
The Mantis posted:ravenous demand for industrial, but they're dying off like flies because no one is buying their poo poo. no other demand. Office
|
|
#
¿
Mar 17, 2015 04:48
|
|
|
Also just like in real life sometimes government stimulation is needed to get the economy going if it stagnates. Every building you plop needs workers, and R demand is entirely a function of demand for workers. Plop down a freight station? Bam you just generated a bunch of jobs, which stimulates residential demand, which grows enough to generate some I or C demand and suddenly the machine is running again. The big problem with the park bug is that it reduces demand for C but without providing jobs. Also C and I sort of share the same demand pool. To get a balanced economy you should always be trying to kill your R demand and only building the absolute minimum of shops and factories needed. You want as few shops or factories as possible as they generate a lions share of traffic. Build as much office as you can possibly get away with, only build as much industry as your local commercial zones need to supply them with goods, and at the same time build the minimum amount of commercial zones. Basically look at everything in the game existing in support of your residential zones. Maximize residential, minimize everything else. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Mar 17, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Mar 17, 2015 20:47
|
|
|
Badger of Basra posted:Is there any way to fix railroad congestion? I have two cargo stations hooked up to the outside connection, and if I hook up my passenger station the main railroad track just gets slammed with trains. Just like when fighting ghosts, never cross the streams. Off-map freight and passenger can share a network, just make sure to only have one or two passenger stations. Your in-city freight system should be totally isolated, sometimes you can share it with the outside world connection but only if your off-map freight traffic is fairly low. Your in-city passenger system should always be 100% isolated from everything else, SPECIALLY your outside connection. Every passenger station you build that is connected off the map will get a spam of off-map trains.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 17, 2015 20:54
|
|
|
Chard posted:I like the idea of a new map having dozens of homeless people already there waiting for you to zone R. They are the captains of industry that just left the parasitic "society" behind and are ready to build up your galt's gultch.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 17, 2015 21:10
|
|
|
Fortuitous Bumble posted:Is not-enough-workers abandonment connected to location or type of industry? I have a bunch of industrial zones that basically stay abandoned, but I don't have any problem filling more offices. I'm not sure if it's connected to my new industrial zones being out of the city where farmland is. The only distant industrial zone I had that was successful was for oil but I ran out of oil after a few months. Something that trips people up is that employment is NOT agent based, it's entirely statistical. So if a building is missing workers it's not because of distance or transport, it's simply because there physically are not enough people in the city to work all the jobs. Jobs are assigned though by distance first, so it's usually always the zones at the edge of your city that get abandoned first. Worker agents going to their job successfully just gives the business some insignificantly tiny bonus to profitability or something. Basically if you have any R demand it means someone is missing workers. Lack of education can limit employment but contrary to what many of us previously though, over-educated workers slum it if they have to.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 17, 2015 21:38
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:Doesn't industry generate income from exports? I thought the entire point was to make shitloads of money from exporting all the wood. Industry generates income but also tons of traffic. I have no problem with money in the game, by the time you unlock offices you're probably sitting on millions in the bank and might as well be playing in unlimited money mode. Traffic on the other hand... Depends on your goals. If you want tons and tons of money then more industry is good, but eventually the main bottleneck to your success is traffic, not money.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 17, 2015 22:07
|
|
|
Shibawanko posted:A lot of the screenshots posted so far make this game come off to me as something where you build one giant highway intersection with a bunch of buildings surrounding it as an afterthought. Can you get creative the way you could with SC4? I don't use highways at all on my maps, other than the little stub coming in and maybe an extra ramp or two, nothing. I specially make maps too that don't have much in the way of highways.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 18, 2015 15:14
|
|
|
Here my stupid city, I finally broke 100k pop. The skyline looks like a city of many million to me anyways. Reminds me a bit of Toyko or a glassier Sao Paolo. Just a sort of even spread of skyscrapers of similar height and design... oh well. Pedestrian paths really get used. I'm fairly happy with this "City Hall" One of two roundabouts in the city, this was my initial highway stub. There are two metro stations here so the area is always a swarm of peds. On the left is the tourist train station and main freight line, on the right is a local rail loop I made, mostly for fun but people do use it. Well, that's my boring mostly a grid city. But almost no highway use. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 17:31 on Mar 18, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Mar 18, 2015 17:22
|
|
|
Yeah this round-about is my most busy intersection, but it never gets jammed, never more than a block's worth of cars lined up. Certainly never any vanishing cars. It's red but it flows.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 18, 2015 18:01
|
|
|
CO needs to not only fix the icon problem but allow us to create sub-menus and poo poo to organize things better.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 18, 2015 18:25
|
|
|
deadly_pudding posted:Have any of you traffic scientists been able to make note of all the things pedestrians can route through? I know they'll traverse sidewalks, crosswalks, and pedestrian paths. Will they cut through parks and the parking lot parts of buildings, too? I'm trying to figure out how many of my paths, if any, are superfluous. They will only walk on things that are able to connect to the sidewalk textures. Some of the parks are well designed and have built-in paths that extend to the edges, but most parks cims will NOT walk through because the jerks who designed them made them dead-ends. Most of the paved squares look as if a cim could walk through but they can't because there are no actual "paths" included. What we need is an invisible path tool in the lot editor that provides path routes without actually laying down a path so cims can actually cut through squares or between buildings.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 18, 2015 18:39
|
|
|
Ihmemies posted:Not having commercial because of no demand is a bit silly. Now my industrial is dying too - they don't have raw materials to manufacture stuff. They keep closing, abandoning, and reopening. I don't wan to to go full office. I have done nothing to my routes, I have two train depots, lots of outside connections and no congestion. I don't produce wood or food myself - I've tried to, but my city area is not really good for that. Do they not have raw materials or do they not have customers to sell to? I think you can only export so many goods, eventually the outside world doesn't want your stuff. I try to only make as many goods as my local commercial needs plus a little extra for export.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 18, 2015 18:56
|
|
|
I'm closing in on about 150k and still having fun. I keep running into actual challenges. I'm finally getting enough traffic on my highways that the lovely little avenues with 4 off-ramps are getting backed up due to them being based on 2 traffic lights, so I'm making real interchanges. I'm having a hard time making them pretty/realistic though, but getting there. I love it when there is an obvious problem/challenge. Freight rail depot is backed up so fix the road situation. Trucks are clogging a road, so build a freight station on the opposite side. Man freight rail is awesome. I have freight between all my industrial areas and 4 stops downtown just to service commercial buildings (it really gets used!). I banned trucked from the city centre, I'm not sure how it works though as the freight terminals still barf out tons of trucks even in areas where its banned, but there seems to be no cross-town truck traffic anymore. I think the heavy vehicle ban might only block trucks at the border, but trucks originating and ending within the zone are allowed. Quite often my freight system looks more like a conveyor belt, it's just bumper to bumper freight trains, usually always 100% full. Does anyone know why money can fluctuate so much? One moment I'm at +12k the next I'm losing 8k. Population is stable, so I'm guessing the reason is to do with imports/exports? I wish there was per-building info on this. I hope CO adds way more stats and more specific feed back. What isn't fun is when everything is going to poo poo and you have no idea why so you don't have any idea how to fix it. I still feel that way with level 3 offices, where and when I get them seems like some sort of voodoo. I had a big area of offices with a train station, multiple metros, bus, police, fire, parks, hospital, university, the works. Every single service building that exists in the game was within a few block. "not enough services to upgrade". Oh god tell me which one. Show me the points, show me that education is at 9/10 possible points, just tell me anything.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 19, 2015 02:39
|
|
|
When I open some of these buildings in the asset editor the only stat is construction time. Where are modders setting stuff like the population? Or even the level or just any stats at all?
|
|
#
¿
Mar 19, 2015 21:03
|
|
|
I'm still having some odd problems with employment. I've got 12% unemployment but still tons of factories will abandon due to lack of workers, but only level 1 factories. If they survive long enough to upgrade they do fine. The same with low density commercial, I basically can't build it anymore because it will abandon due to lack of workers, yet high density is fine. Why aren't any of these 12% unemployed people working these jobs? The moment the building upgrades it gets flooded with workers, and it's not workers moving in from other jobs as there simply are not other level 1 buildings in the city to work at. When my city is 100% no level 1 buildings I'll have no buildings complaining about employment, it's but when I build a new work area I have to do it very slowly as the level 1 buildings will abandon. Do we know for sure how employment works? It seems educated people will maybe only work a level or two below, but a highly educated person perhaps will never work at an uneducated job?
|
|
#
¿
Mar 19, 2015 21:24
|
|
|
deadly_pudding posted:Employees aren't required to necessarily actually arrive at work, but they have to be able to route to work to try and get there. I have a feeling there is a combination of maximum distance they are willing to travel and the fact that already employed cims won't quit their job in order to make room for people who live closer. The constantly abandoning industrial area is a block away from the new mega-slum that just added about 10,000 uneducated workers 
|
|
#
¿
Mar 19, 2015 21:30
|
|
|
Noyemi K posted:I had ideas for stuff like enclave gates (like chinatown gates; since you can run roads through parks it should be doable but I'm not sure) and a bazaar of some kind like the one we had in another town. Though the bazaar would be a lot of work since it'd be loads of stuff crammed onto one texture. How do you assign stats to buildings? Are stats per-building or based on a formula in the game based on the level and tiles?
|
|
#
¿
Mar 19, 2015 21:42
|
|
|
I'm having trouble with dams. I've made a couple custom maps now with the idea being to make huge awesome dams. Steep river valley with a bunch of high and powerful water sources up river. I'll build a dam well lower than the tops of the water sources and then wait and wait for the valley to fill up. Even though there's 5 spawners at max power feeding the river, the dam will just turn on and off sporadically as if it's not getting enough water. It will turn on for a while and spray water out the bottom, the water level up top will go down too far, then it will shut down as the water level behind the drat fills up again and repeat. Am I doing something wrong? The spawners are a good distance off the map, do they need to be closer to the dam? I'm guessing the water physics are just taking too long for the new water to get to the dam and that the drat empties water faster than the new water can travel to it. Also does drat width have any influence on power or only dam height? Or is it actually by water flow? Also about garbage and corpses: Once you have incinerators for both, you can stop using dumps and graveyards. Empty them out and demolish them if you want. I still have some decorative graveyards in my city but every few generations once the yards are full they get emptied for a new batch.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 20, 2015 19:56
|
|
|
Is there any way to edit what roads you can build in the editor? For instance what if you don't want a highway connection, maybe just an avenue or something? Also only the 2 default T and cloverleaf highway intersections are available, I'd love to use some of the intersections I've downloaded within the map editor.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 20, 2015 20:43
|
|
|
Sydin posted:Honestly, I'm not even sure where offices fit in on that chain. This is a game primarily about traffic, dealing with it, minimizing it. Office creates the least amount of traffic in the game, which makes it very precious. It can be mixed into residential areas too for minimum commutes,and it can live in the most polluted hell for some reason too. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 21:59 on Mar 20, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Mar 20, 2015 21:56
|
|
|
So I've been working on a map for hours, played it once and wanted to make some tweaked. Tweaked the map, saved it, started a new city and the game locked up on loading the new city. I started a new city on another map no problem. I tried to then load the map up in the map editor and I get the same never-ending loading screen. Is there any work-around for this? This is my first technical problem I've ever had. I don't want to lose my map
|
|
#
¿
Mar 20, 2015 23:08
|
|
|
So I just got the infinite ore/oil mod but if I apply it to an existing city the city will not load. Is there any way to apply a mod like that to an existing save or do I have to start a new city every time I turn on a new mod? I even had to do this for the one-way upgrade/direction mod.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 21, 2015 23:22
|
|
|
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=410535198 Closest thing to marking a building "historical". What I'd love to see is a max level policy in districts, something more fine tuned than the highrise ban.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 22, 2015 03:06
|
|
|
I'm still having some trouble figuring out demand/employment. I've made a mostly farming city, which then branched out into mining and forestry too (thanks to the infinite resources mod). Nice little collection of linked small towns rather than one mega city. Anyways, the problem is, I'm always hovering at 1% unemployment, no residential demand, huge C and I demand, and my workplaces are all constantly abandoning due to not enough workers. If there's a shortage of workers why do I have almost no residential demand? If I build more commercial or industrial I'll get more residential demand, but it's never enough, I'm always short nearly 10%. If there's 20,000 jobs I'll have 18,000 people, always. I've never chased after resource extraction before, I always go straight to offices. Do they just not generate enough demand or something? Shouldn't R demand just be a function of employment demand?
|
|
#
¿
Mar 23, 2015 02:22
|
|
|
So basically any time I use more than a few mods eventually my game gets "corrupted" or something. Eventually saves won't load, I won't be able to make a new game. I can load assets but not make new ones, but even then loading an asset will stop working. I don't get a crash so no logs, the game just sits there loading. The little chirpy loading screen keeps spinning and spinning but no progress. Gets about 5% done then stops. The mods I'm using: Infinite oil and ore No Pillars Zonable ped paths Fill The Houses Slow Citizen Aging Slow Trash Production I had a bunch more but I've stripped them down. Even without activating or de-activating or subscribing to anything new the game will just suddenly start doing this and the only fix is a re-install. Is it the mods some how doing this or just my game? gently caress it, I've stripped out a bunch more mods now, down to only Infinite Oil and Ore. I just want to play the game
|
|
#
¿
Mar 23, 2015 04:59
|
|
|
VotGs posted:What park/statue is that? Statue of death in front of hall of oppression (which is the closest thing to a city hall we have)
|
|
#
¿
Mar 23, 2015 06:51
|
|
|
I'm having a very strange problem that I'm surprised no one has ever run into So I made a round-about specifically for placing two metro stations in to link lines. Every other stop is in a circle like this, but I noticed something strange, people were only using every other stop. Absolutely no usage. Tons of pedestrials walking THROUGH the square to get to the next closest metro stop, but no one actually using it other than an employee working at the stop sometimes. Here is the next station up the road, this time not placed on a one-way. Extremely busy. And the next station, absolutely no usage. Here's where you can really see it. Massive crowds get off the subway at the right on the avenue even though all their jobs at the stop on the left. And the very last stop is not in one of these special round-abouts nor is it a cross-over station, it's just a normal station that happens to be on a one-way street. 0 usage despite being around many jobs. Some cims will walk all the way from the metro station 2 stops down to reach here. The metro its self is functioning fine, following the trains they stop at every station. I've tried re-making the routes, re-building the stations, nothing. It honestly seems like metros simply will not work when placed on a one-way street or at least a one-way street forming any part of a circle. Is there something wrong with my specific game or was such a huge bug missed?
|
|
#
¿
Mar 23, 2015 17:19
|
|
|
I think I figured out my metro problem. Every stop that isn't being used isn't just on a one-way street, it's on the end of a T junction Can anyone else replicate this? Are metros not working when placed on T junctions a known issue? I just built a whole city based around it
|
|
#
¿
Mar 23, 2015 18:00
|
|
|
smoobles posted:This Mars map made me wonder: Yeah an amazing one called "Outpost". And they never made any more for some odd reason.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 23, 2015 18:23
|
|
|
Have you never met a rich/educated person? They waste nothing and consume less than the uneducated working class, flicking their cigs on the pavement and tossing their fast food wrappers in the park. Their betters recycle and sort their trash of course.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 23, 2015 18:32
|
|
|
cthulhoo posted:Anything in this game related to eco-related stuff is absolutely hilarious in its naivety. Yeah I don't know if they actually did any research or just pulled numbers out of their butts. But actually by the way pollution works, noise pollution is just as bad as ground pollution, except windmills and poo poo have a bigger radius and you need a ton of them. You pay more for fossil fuels or nuclear but they save space as they don't create as much polllution. Like a single oil plant pollutes a tiny bit around its self but you just need the one. Wind makes a huge circle of noise pollution and you need a million of them. So in a sense of a mindless need for "game balance" it makes sense. Basically their pollution model is pretty bad. Air pollution should effect huge areas and be carried by the wind.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 23, 2015 18:46
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 11, 2024 21:22 |
|
|
So I finally have a "layout" I'm liking. It's a city centrerd around subway transfer round-abouts. What's a subway transfer roundabout? It's two subway stops placed about as close together as possible to actually cross-over the tunnels, and on angles so the tracks don't look tooooo stupid. It works very well. It also has a custom park in the middle to make it pretty. To make an X shaped park I just made a 6x16 park and a 4x3 park and you plop 3 of them to make a fat X shape in the middle. They get flooded with people transferring between subways and the benches and fountains are popular places for people to chill out and chat. Here's how it works underneath. It simply allows a north-south metro and east-west metro to cross over in an efficient and ok-looking way. Here's a version with a fountain. I like these little squares and want to make a few styles, one that looks ok in an awful heavy industry area too. Thanks for looking! Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 04:03 on Mar 24, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Mar 24, 2015 03:58
|
|