Oh, by the way ...

[Norm35]

The designers of this game have a unique sense of humor.

They provide details on some very trivial matters and then relegate a six million dollar charge to the "Other" category.

What! You charged how much? For what???

[Azeem]

What are you referring to specifically? Do you have a screenshot?

[Norm35]

My treasury balance. at one point. dropped from about 14 million to about eight million. There was no explanation of why. The breakdown for that day showed the expense and placed it in the "Other" category.

If there was a stock bubble on that day I missed it.

[Azeem]

Another event that may have occurred is a theft event. Sometimes you get a random event in which thieves whisk away a good chunk of your treasury. Random events are often unpreventable.

What does your news ticker log say?

[Norm35]

I did not check the messages log at the time.

I did after you suggested it but got a no significant messages caption.

Frankly, there is so much nonsense in the messages that I tend to ignore the ticker. I didn't realize until now that the replay was filtered.

I didn't realize that theft was a possibility here. Is there anything that can be done in the case of theft? I know it is much too late for that now but if it happens again, I would like to do more than shrug it off.

[MidrealmDM70]

I did not check the messages log at the time.

I did after you suggested it but got a no significant messages caption.

Frankly, there is so much nonsense in the messages that I tend to ignore the ticker. I didn't realize until now that the replay was filtered.

I didn't realize that theft was a possibility here. Is there anything that can be done in the case of theft? I know it is much too late for that now but if it happens again, I would like to do more than shrug it off.

unfortunately not -
Its one of those random events that makes the game more "challenging".

Some of the events are more or likely if you city has certain conditions,
"Heat Wave" and "Bad Fish" are more likely if you have alot of polution
The contageous "Outbreak" epidemic is more likely if you have a low percentage of healthcare venues.

That being said, it might (stress might) be the case that a theft is more likely if you have alot of crime.

I believe in game options you can change the ticker options so that only game relevant messages appear.

[Norm35]

unfortunately not -
Its one of those random events that makes the game more "challenging".

Some of the events are more or likely if you city has certain conditions,
"Heat Wave" and "Bad Fish" are more likely if you have alot of polution
The contageous "Outbreak" epidemic is more likely if you have a low percentage of healthcare venues.

That being said, it might (stress might) be the case that a theft is more likely if you have alot of crime.

I believe in game options you can change the ticker options so that only game relevant messages appear.

First, let me thank you for the offer of friendship. I accept gladly and make the same offer to you.

How do you clean up the ticker so only relevant messages are posted and no nonsense?

I really should put this on the correct thread but being here, I will mention it and maybe also post it on the correct thread, later. I did some detective work on your modified city. I followed two sad vineyard workers and found they just plodded back and forth to work day after day, barely making it over a period in which they rarely had time to visit any venues. It made me sad too. Then it occurred to me to follow a happy Sim who worked at the same vineyard. She got to work and also visited two venues a day! What was the difference? The sad ones used the subway which took forever to get them anywhere. The happy one used a car. Is there some perk that permits some Sims to use a car and others not?

[MidrealmDM70]

How do you clean up the ticker so only relevant messages are posted and no nonsense?


I believe it is in game settings.

During game play press the 'Esc' key to bring up options, then look for the icon that looks like a pipe-wrench. This should be game settings. If the option to change the ticker is not there, let me know I'll see if I can find it. I know it is an option somewhere.


I really should put this on the correct thread but being here, I will mention it and maybe also post it on the correct thread, later. I did some detective work on your modified city. I followed two sad vineyard workers and found they just plodded back and forth to work day after day, barely making it over a period in which they rarely had time to visit any venues. It made me sad too. Then it occurred to me to follow a happy Sim who worked at the same vineyard. She got to work and also visited two venues a day! What was the difference? The sad ones used the subway which took forever to get them anywhere. The happy one used a car. Is there some perk that permits some Sims to use a car and others not?

Assuming you have no venue that sells cars, it should be defined by the Sims home. A line listed as CarSet such as : <CarSet>UrbanPoor</CarSet>

From Midrealm's Modding Guide (Another Shameless Plug)
http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24179

"Lastly in this section is the Car Set which determines what kind of car the sims from this building will drive. This can be overridden if they purchase a car from certain venues. But for the most part it will remain the same.

The car sets are defined in the game directory here:
\Data\XMLDb\Game\Cultural Car Sets\Default.xml

You will also note several other defined car sets (eg. Cyberpunk.xml, Industrial.xml, etc.)
This is because when the society changes the cars in a set may change as well.
For example the Suburban Average set gains a chance to have a hearse in a haunted town. I do not know what happens if you leave out the car set for a home, the Sims living in this home may have to walk everywhere, or there may be a default set.

Some Car Sets you can choose from include the following
Future
Rural Average
Rural Poor
Rural Rich
Suburban [Average / Poor / Rich]
Urban [Average / Poor / Rich]"

I've never paid attention to it, but I suppose some homes might not have a car set assigned.

Another factor might be traffic
eg. The more cars that are already on the road the more likely a Sim is to use a form of mass transit. But that again is just a guess.

[Norm35]

A quick check shows that the Condo and the Hi Rise Apartment are the primary dwellings used in the city we are discussing.

The car sets specified for these buildings are Urban Average and Urban Rich, respectively.

There are cars specified in the default.xml for both of these sets.

Can you think of any other constraint that would prevent the Sad Sims from using a car?

I took a look at the settings screens. I saw nothing for turning off the nonsense messages.

[MidrealmDM70]

A quick check shows that the Condo and the Hi Rise Apartment are the primary dwellings used in the city we are discussing.

The car sets specified for these buildings are Urban Average and Urban Rich, respectively.

There are cars specified in the default.xml for both of these sets.

Can you think of any other constraint that would prevent the Sad Sims from using a car?

I took a look at the settings screens. I saw nothing for turning off the nonsense messages.

I know (in larger cities) if you remove all your mass transit stations you end up with traffic jams, which slow everyone and cause more polution.

By adding mass transit systems some Sims will use them instead of driving, which helps traffic and alleviates some polution.

But I have no idea what makes an individual Sim chose the subway over driving or why one sim has a car and another doesn't. Although from what you have observed it appears that once the decision is made to allow one Sim to dirve and another to use mass transit is made, that choice seems to stick with them. I had always assumed that a given Sim would switch betwen modes (driving one day, subway the next, etc).

Other Questions (That I haven't the answer to):
Do bus stops take as long as subways?
If not then adding bus stops as well as subway stops might help.

Are subway times affected by amount of use (the more Sims using them the longer it takes)?
If true, then this could also be aleviated by bus stops, giving Sims a choice between two types of mass transit.

Are subway times affected by distance?
I've always been curious to find out if a subway crossing 3 blocks takes more or less time than a subway trip crossing 20 blocks.

[Azeem]

I haven't tested this myself, but a few have mentioned quite some time ago that subways seem to have carrying capacity limits, which might account for the lag in transit speed. I usually use a combination of bus stops and subway; bus stops for "local" areas and subways for long distance travel only. I wonder if cars are used in the event that mass transit capacities are over limit? In either case, I haven't seen any of this in the XML files as of yet (except that there is a numerical limit on how many you can have in your city).

I think we'll need to keep a closer eye on subways in this case.

[MidrealmDM70]

I haven't tested this myself, but a few have mentioned quite some time ago that subways seem to have carrying capacity limits, which might account for the lag in transit speed. I usually use a combination of bus stops and subway; bus stops for "local" areas and subways for long distance travel only. I wonder if cars are used in the event that mass transit capacities are over limit? In either case, I haven't seen any of this in the XML files as of yet (except that there is a numerical limit on how many you can have in your city).

I think we'll need to keep a closer eye on subways in this case.

Interesting -
It could be that a Sim entering a subway enters a 'subway travel queue' and the game processes these Sims in the order they enter, requiring 'X' amount of time to move each one. As the subways get more and more use the queue gets longer and longer, requiring more and more time to travel.
Again all just conjecture.

Azeem:
Asid from limiting your subways to the four corners of the map so to speak, how do you keep them reserved for long distance travel. And how are you defining long distance?

I typically place subways and bus stops near intersections (so that Sims can quickly access them from across the street - since the little bastards won't cross except at crosswalks).*
I always plan to placing one or the other around every third intersection. Usually near or at intersections between a block of workplace buildings and a block of venue buildings. The idea being Sim takes subway to work, crosses street to visit venue or two, then takes subway back home.

But as with most plans, it oftentimes gets shoved aside because the city buildings get in the way. In which case I simply place them wherever there is room. :o

* What this game needs as a 'walkway' that crosses over the road to allow sims to cross from one side to the other. (MidrealmDM70 has an idea that just might work ....)

[Azeem]

I think I've seen Sims jaywalk before. Probably a rare thing...

What I do with subways is only confine them to distant regions of the city and in the most high-density areas. Usually, I separate "downtown" and "suburban" areas across a river. What I'd do is I'd build a Subway station near the densest and busiest part of the suburbs (usually apartment clusters near an adjacent venue cluster) and then build the other in "downtown" where there are high-capacity workplaces and high-capacity venues. Ocassionally, sim jobs seem to reallocate much later into the game so this is to mitigate the distance issues. Bus stops are at the corner of most city blocks whereas subways are highly limited.

[MidrealmDM70]

Bus stops are at the corner of most city blocks whereas subways are highly limited.

Have you seen the slow down issue at bus stops?

[Norm35]

I am following sad Sims again.

This one works at a Federal bank.

She goes to work on the subway and generally takes about two hours to walk to the subway an hour on the subway and another hour to walk from the subway to the bank (5 Hours to get to work).

After work, if she goes straight home, she takes an hour to walk to the subway, 4 hours on the subway, and 2 hours walk from subway to home (7 hours to return home from work). She had two hours at home before leaving for work again.

After work, if she visits a venue (Flea Market), she takes a car to the venue (1 hour), Spends 5 hours at the venue, spends 4 hours walking to a bus stop, 1 hour on the bus, takes a car from the bus stop to home (1 hour). It took 6 hours to return home from the venue, arriving there at 9AM, the time she had left for work on the previous two days.

She visited the same Flea Market every other day. Needless to say the visit to this venue was not enough to improve her state of mind to better than sad.

Not being well versed in what it takes to make a Sim happy, I cannot say much about the effect of living this way.

At the moment, I am following an Ecstatic Vineyard worker. Amazing enough, she is following the same routine as the sad one. Home to work, back home after work, every other day or so a visit to the Flea Market. And she is Ecstatically happy! So far, I have watched her through four work days and she is still ecstatic. I will continue to follow this one for a while to see if time takes a toll. No subway or Bus involved with this one.

She has visited the vineyard eight times. Her mood dropped to Elated once but a visit to a Strip Mall where she bought a pair of cargo pants seemed to restore her to Ecstatic. She seems to spend a good deal of time standing on the sidewalk waiting for someone or something but no-one shows up.

There has to be an explanation for the wide difference in mood of the two Sims, one sad and one ecstatically happy but both following the same routine under approximately the same conditions. It may have to do with other activities, not so readily apparent. A human might have a personal life, a wife or girlfriend, a hobby, be basically optimistic or pessimistic. How much of this is built into the Sims that we are unaware of? I still haven't found a file that like the buildings, describes the characteristics of the individual (Normal) Sims. This information is somewhere. If it can be examined, it might explain a lot!

[Azeem]

I wonder if a Specialist Sim might have influenced the happiness issue with that sim earlier? Preachers or street performers have a chance of either positively or negatively affecting Sim happiness. Certain little modifiers from decorations buildings can effect the happiness bonuses from housing as well. One other thing to consider is whether or not the Sim had been able to visit high-happiness venues on such as Landmarks or Worship venues on prior days.

SCS isn't as detailed to the point that individuals have actual personal lives; again, this game has to have something of a "larger picture" so that the developers have not put that into consideration [otherwise it'd just be another "The Sims" game with only a handful of individualized sims]. There are no files available for individual sims, except for the behavior (or "Brain") patterns of specialist sims.

@MidRealm: There seems to be a "queue" effect with Bus Stops too. Maybe the building's size also determines how many Sims can enter at a given time? Haven't really yet looked into this.

[Norm35]

Something I have noted enough times for me to consider it a relatively common problem. A Sim enters a Subway station and three hours later, exits at the same point, goes to a Bus station and continues its trip from there. It has apparently been unable to get a subway train and had to find alternative transportation. I observed this happen on several days to a particular Sim and was impressed by the fact that the Sim stopped using the Subway to return home from work and started using the Bus instead. It continued to use the Subway to go to work, there was no such delay going in that direction.

Another problem is that Sims on foot simply travel too slowly. It takes a Sim two hours to get from its home to the nearest Subway station. The distance involves passing two Hi Rise Apartments and crossing two streets at an intersection; the Subway station is on the diagonally opposite corner.

I monitored the Sim in question for about seven days. In that time, it got virtually no sleep and visited no venues. It was all it could do to get to work and back. At the end of that period, it changed from Sad to Angry. I don't blame it a bit.

I noticed that the vineyard where this Sim worked had two other Sad Sims as well. They all used the same Subway station.

Azeem,
You commented that, "There are no files available for individual sims, except for the behavior (or "Brain") patterns of specialist sims." There may be no files but the characteristics of the ordinary Sim has to be defined somewhere. There has to be a base brain for all the Sims to start with. I don't see that defined anywhere.

[MidrealmDM70]

Something I have noted enough times for me to consider it a relatively common problem. A Sim enters a Subway station and three hours later, exits at the same point, goes to a Bus station and continues its trip from there. It has apparently been unable to get a subway train and had to find alternative transportation. I observed this happen on several days to a particular Sim and was impressed by the fact that the Sim stopped using the Subway to return home from work and started using the Bus instead. It continued to use the Subway to go to work, there was no such delay going in that direction.

Another problem is that Sims on foot simply travel too slowly. It takes a Sim two hours to get from its home to the nearest Subway station. The distance involves passing two Hi Rise Apartments and crossing two streets at an intersection; the Subway station is on the diagonally opposite corner.

I monitored the Sim in question for about seven days. In that time, it got virtually no sleep and visited no venues. It was all it could do to get to work and back. At the end of that period, it changed from Sad to Angry. I don't blame it a bit.

I noticed that the vineyard where this Sim worked had two other Sad Sims as well. They all used the same Subway station.

I agree with Azeem it may be that a previous factor boosted the happy sim, plus the happy sim may not be trying to go to the high happiness venues that it can't reach and settles for a mediocre venue nearby just to maintain its level. Another factor might be homes, do both of their homes offer the same happiness benefit? A final factor might be accessories, you mentioned the cargo pants, they may offer a better happiness benefit than whatever the sad sim bought, in this case the sad sim could be stuck with an 'inferior' accessory for a while and ended up with a much lower happiness level.

There is a brain file (I believe called Tgoal_gotovenue.cs) that determines how a sim selects the venue to go to. I looked at it and could see some numbers that I recognised (a limit on how many venues a Sim must pick from, a limit on range a sim will check for a venue, etc) But I didn't clearly see how all the numbers came together in the formulas.

If you check the building.xml file for the Subway there is a maximum capacity, so it may be that the subway can indeed only handle so many sims at the same time. When too many sims try to use it at once, they end up delayed, or unable to go anywhere, Not sure what the solution is.

You could try removing the offending subway stop to force them to try another option (such as driving)
You could add a second subway stop nearby
You could add a bus stop (make sure you have more than one bus stop so they have somewhere to go - I would put the second one near some high happiness venues)

RE: News Ticker
While the game is running on the bottom of the screen next to the ticker is a small triangular arrow. Clicking on this pulls up all the recent ticker messages, at the top of the window showing all the recent ticker messages is a check box labeled 'Show only relevant message' (or something like that) checking that should eliminate the nonsense messages.

Mind you some relevant messages may appear nonsense at first glance-
A report that a Sim has lost their wallet on the street and police suspect foul play may indicate you have a pickpocket.
A report that an apartment building has a new space available may indicate a slum lord.
etc.

[MidrealmDM70]

I think I've seen Sims jaywalk before. Probably a rare thing...

What I do with subways is only confine them to distant regions of the city and in the most high-density areas. Usually, I separate "downtown" and "suburban" areas across a river. What I'd do is I'd build a Subway station near the densest and busiest part of the suburbs (usually apartment clusters near an adjacent venue cluster) and then build the other in "downtown" where there are high-capacity workplaces and high-capacity venues. Ocassionally, sim jobs seem to reallocate much later into the game so this is to mitigate the distance issues. Bus stops are at the corner of most city blocks whereas subways are highly limited.

I was working on an idea and it almost worked - but not quite.

Do you (Or anybody reading this) know what tag if any allows a Sim to pass through a building object?

I found and tried all of the following:

PathingObstacle = False
IsCriticalColisionObject = False
PathThrough = True

Does anyone have any ideas?

=-=-=-

At best I was able to get the Sim to choose to walk through the building, but could not do so. So they just walked in place against the side of the building for hours before something odd and interesting happened

Aparently the game has a method to deal with stuck Sims, the Sim bent over, and looked as if it dropped to its knees, and then slowly sank into the ground. It then respawned back at its home.

[Azeem]

The Subway does have a carrying capacity. So the queue effect does occur, lowering efficiency. I suppose this is done to create a challenge and to encourage a combination of bus and subway. The subway's max capacity is 10 and the bus stop's max capacity is 5. Perhaps one can simply bump up their respective capacities, but that'd make the game too easy, wouldn't it? ;)

I don't know of any tag that allows sims to pass through things; not even the ghost sims can do that! :o

[MidrealmDM70]

I don't know of any tag that allows sims to pass through things; not even the ghost sims can do that! :o

Well regular sims can pass through trees - but those are 'Ambient' objects. I thought copying the tags from that would work, but apparently not. The only thing I have found that works is reducing the footprint of the placed building to 0. But this allows it to be placed overlapping other buildings as well.

That might be the lesser of two evils if I want to make this work (The alternative is Sims getting stuck trying to pass through the building I am working on).

Anyone interested in Alpha testing a venue and/or decoration for Destinations?

[MidrealmDM70]

I think I've seen Sims jaywalk before. Probably a rare thing...


It seems dependant on how far away the intersection is.

If you make a road with no cross streets they will cross the road anywhere.

Add a cross street and they will walk further in one direction just to cross the street and then come back towards their destination. No testing done to determine how far they will detour out of the way like this.

Another thought that occured to me -
when a Sim chooses a path to take, since they can't really know how long the journey will take (because of traffic, mass transit delays, etc) they must be choosing based on the shortest distance only (taking 'short cuts' through mass transit systems into account). This means they may be choosing a short distance that has a long delay over a medium distance with relatively no delay.

Having looked at the brain files for these poor Sims I know there is a maximum distance they will consider.

An overabundance of subway stops may make it shorter distance to EVERYWHERE - resulting in more sims using the subway system as they try to reach extreme locations. This leads to more delays in the subways and thus requires the poor sims spend more time to travel the shorter distance.

Perhaps, and this seems contrary to logic, the better solution might be to remove the mass transit systems. This would force the sims to stick to local venues or (hopefully) travel by car.

But since I am not sure what a Sims range is for determining to visit a venue, this may simply make it worse as they attempt to walk to far away venues. Or cause traffic problems as all Sims in the city attempt to drive at once.

If traffic jams become a problem or if the unhappy Sims' condition does not improve then the mass transit locations can be added back in.

EDIT: I made a test bed with an extremely long street, I put the venues as close to the exact middle as I could, the homes at one end, and the workplaces at the other. I connected the two ends via subway stops.

Some Sims chose to drive to work, some took the subway, and some walked the entire length of the street (arriving at work well after 12 noon). Knowing that the subway has a 'capacity' I can only guess that sims chose to walk because the subway was 'full' - But why did they not drive?
Conjecture: A sim who decides to take the subway (or other mass transit), but cannot do so for some reason will walk instead.

When the weekend rolled around I was curious to see if they would walk or drive to the venues.
Again some chose drive, some chose walk, and some took the subway to the opposite end of the street and walked back to venues (this shouldn't surpris me as their homes and the subway stops were relatively equidistant from the venues.)
Since the subway trip took additional time, they saved no time by doing so, and it was about the same distance. This seems to confirm that they do not take time into consideration when determining which route to take to reach their detination.

Lastly - I observed a Sim enter a subway, I was tracking her to see how long the trip took, after two hours, she emerged from the subway at the same point where she entered it. I cannot say if this was an isolated incendent, or something that happens often.

[Norm35]

Did you see my story about the Sad Sim who spent three hours at a subway station before giving up and taking a bus home?

[MidrealmDM70]

Did you see my story about the Sad Sim who spent three hours at a subway station before giving up and taking a bus home?

I do remember reading that now -

I've seen Sims give up going places and head home, I wonder if they can give up waiting for a subway ride a nd decide to just go home some other way.

In both cases (yours and mine) the Sim in question went home after giving up.

[Azeem]

@MidRealm:

Have you attempted raising the Subway and Bus capacities? I wonder if that would reduce the "queue" effect?

[MidrealmDM70]

@MidRealm:

Have you attempted raising the Subway and Bus capacities? I wonder if that would reduce the "queue" effect?

Not yet, I'm hesitant to make changes like that without knowing what I am doing.

[rizzla]

I have the distinct feeling that public transport doesn't save any time unless you have a huge city (and people want to get to the other side of the map). It's probably only useful for environmental reasons. Though subway stations especially need a lot of electricity - if you provide it with a coal power plant, it probably won't help your CO2 bill.

[Norm35]

I have the distinct feeling that public transport doesn't save any time unless you have a huge city (and people want to get to the other side of the map). It's probably only useful for environmental reasons. Though subway stations especially need a lot of electricity - if you provide it with a coal power plant, it probably won't help your CO2 bill.

I am inclined to agree with you.

I am totally unimpressed with both the bus and subway systems. They are unpredictable, the same trip can take anywhere from 2 to 7 hours. It is almost certain to cause unhappy Sims.

I may have solved the problem by my layout.

I just finished my second resort city. The first one wound up with the Sims so unhappy, I would grade the thing "F".

This one is much better. Lots of tourists, without advertising. Very happy Sims. Money just rolling in!

I even watched a bridge turn into a suspension bridge, first one I've seen with this game. It started out as an ordinary bridge and after a couple of game weeks, I looked at at it and it had the suspension towers and all. Don't ask me what I did, nothing so far as I know.

I am not counting on it happening again on my next city. I'm getting used to inconsistency.

[Azeem]

I have the distinct feeling that public transport doesn't save any time unless you have a huge city (and people want to get to the other side of the map). It's probably only useful for environmental reasons. Though subway stations especially need a lot of electricity - if you provide it with a coal power plant, it probably won't help your CO2 bill.

It makes sense. If you're just going to go to the next block, taking public transport would take longer than just driving or even walking there (especially true in Los Angeles :rolleyes: ); taking public transit would mean you'd have to go to the stop, wait for the bus, wait for other people to get on, wait for some idiot to pull out nickels and dimes, wait for the bus driver to wait for people to let him through, and so on.

In SCS it seems that the developers try to get you to use public transport only when your city starts spreading out much more.

[MidrealmDM70]

I even watched a bridge turn into a suspension bridge, first one I've seen with this game. It started out as an ordinary bridge and after a couple of game weeks, I looked at at it and it had the suspension towers and all. Don't ask me what I did, nothing so far as I know.

I am not counting on it happening again on my next city. I'm getting used to inconsistency.

I've seen it only once too, highly capatalist society and the bridge was fairly long. A shorter bridge in the same socieity did not change. I've always avoided maps with huge stretchs of water that I have to build bridges over, noe I am inclined to seek them out and see if I can repeat the event.

[Azeem]

Bridges can change with the change in the city's societal theme.

[MidrealmDM70]

Bridges can change with the change in the city's societal theme.

Yep - I've seen them change appearance, but never get the full-on suspension rigging (except the one time)

[rizzla]

In SCS it seems that the developers try to get you to use public transport only when your city starts spreading out much more.

I agree. Do busses and subways take the same amount of time of "waiting around" (getting from A to B)? It would make sense if you could build bus stops more closely to each other and subway stations further apart. Looking at my home city (Berlin) I'd say on average there are three bus stops between each underground station.

By the way, there once was a fairly cool German game by the title of "traffic giant" where all you could do was place bus stops, trams, etc. Good idea was always: Small buses would collect people in suburbia and load them off them off at subway stations which would take them into the centre. Maybe this approach can be tried in SCS.

[Norm35]

Yep - I've seen them change appearance, but never get the full-on suspension rigging (except the one time)

I had to tear down the suspension bridge. Broke my heart but I wanted to add a seaport and the ship could not fit under the bridge.