Yes, it [the purchase price of a lot] could. However, it would significantly slow down the game. So, any reasonable programmer would add the price to the neighborhood package.

Plus, I believe that I've seen the old price of a lot reflected in the neighborhood view after the lot was expanded... you need to edit and save the lot for the price to be adjusted. This would imply that EA did the right thing and is storing the price somewhere in the neighborhood package.

[Update:]
On re-reading this, I realized that your question is ambiguous: Are you asking about the purchase price of a lot, or are you asking about the "surrounding community value" for a lot?

I'm guessing that the "surrounding community value" would be completely dependent upon the purchase price of the surrounding lots, for "purchasable lots". If a nearby lot is an apartment building, then the best value to use would be the rental price range of the apartments within the building.

My primary reason for believing this is that I can't imagine what else EA could be using to determine this value. If I'm right, it could be easily calculated, as long as the purchase price of each lot is stored in the neighborhood package.

I was just talking about purchase price. I smiled at your reason why that's probably not the way it's done, though. Here we are with a slow juddering game, and yet you don't think the programmers would do things a slow juddering way?

I actually had two reasons: "no reasonable programmer ..." and "I believe that I've seen ...". I'm perfectly willing to admit that some programmers write very inefficient code. I'm even willing to admit that many EA/Maxis Sims programmers may fall into that category. But, my own experience points to a lack of this particular inefficiency ... either that, or a poor memory on my part.

[Update:]
I just had another thought about calculating the "surrounding community value":

If I were designing this feature, I would place a lower "neighborhood" value on community lots than on residential lots, and on apartment buildings than on single-family dwellings. This is something that would be easy to calculate and is based on real-life... community lots tend to be noisier than residential lots and apartment buildings generate more noise and traffic than single-family homes.

The only place that this logic breaks down is for parks... people tend to pay more to live near parks, rather than paying less.

Hi again! I am myself just trying to learn the new lot stuff in AL, so I am sorry if I got something wrong. Anyway, as I understand it, the "lot value" (high, medium, low) is calculated on the value of the lot, and attracts the social groups accordingly. I also understand there is a cheat to change the lot value. Its more described in detail in this thread at Simbology:
http://www.simbology.com/smf/index....pic,1401.0.html

What I was thinking is that the data may be in changeable easier with somehing like the lot adjuster, as the cheats seem a little complicated.

As I understand it, its not only the apartment lots that are affected by lot value, but also community lots.

Could you summarize the pertinent points, so that I don't have to create an account at yet another site?

Must be a private discussion? The link that you gave me requires a logon.

Oh sorry! I thought it was open . Ok, here it comes:

THIS discussion on Sleepycats (the thread starter at Simbology) IS open, as I dont have a login there and can see it:
http://www.the-isz.com/theisz/index...t=0&#entry10645

Quoting Sleepycat at Simbology:

"There is a cheat to check a lots class ( "printLotClass" ) but I don't see one in the guide about changing it.

I did find a chart that says if the residential lot is valued at

$0 - $30,000 - then apt value would be $0 - $60,000 - which is supposed to be low class

$30,000 - $70,000 - apt value would be $60,000 - $100,000 - which is supposed to be middle class

$70,000+ - apt value would be $100,000+ - which would be high class


I'll have to go in-game to check to see if that is true. I hope it is (so I can be careful building) but it still doesn't make sense. How can you build a large low class apt building for res lot price of under $30,000? I'm good at building houses for under $20,000 but geez.."

"I did some testing (and then we lost our power so I couldn't report back sooner).

Pescado's magic wand works great for lowering the lot value, best used while the lot is zoned as residential. That helps lower the rent when you re-zone it.

"changelotclassification low/middle/high" does work to change the class. Best to use before you move any sims in so you get the correct class of social townies. If a apartment is classed as High, it may take a few tries to get it down to low, even with help from Pescado's magic wand.


As an example: I had a res lot that was valued at $85,751, I used Pescado's magic wand and that lowered the value to $59,728 so you can see it made a big difference and was worth doing. I then re-zoned the lot to a apartment lot and changed the lot class to low. The rent was lower and once I moved a test sim in, it filled up with low class social townies just as I wanted

I found the "printlotclass" cheat to be very handy. I was able to check to make sure the class change 'took' before moving a sim in. In one case, I had to change it right after a sim moved in (from middle to low) so I ended up with the first few middle class ST's but the rest were lower class.


Now, I just need to test changing the class of commercial lots so that my dives will get the right ST's."

"the only good news I can say about the testing I did this morning is the cheat "clearlotclassvalue" comes in handy when you want to change an apartment lots class. It sets it back to low at 0 (it won't stay there so set it to low/middle/high afterwards)


the bad news - community lots - I could not get the new lot class change to stick! I mainly tested it on the Sin Bar and Sintastic... The value of the Sin Bar is less then $40,000 yet the damn games insists on having it set High!!! I couldn't even get it down to middle! I checked some of my other community lots and they are also set High. the only Low one is my fishing park Even my simple 2x2 roller skating park is classed High! It only has a small bathroom, the small skating rink, a food stand and a couple benches (it's a outdoor park)


Plus, more bad news. It seems like the game will spawn new social townies instead of re-using them and before using all the available ones... (this is with Pescado's notownieregen hack in)


I moved the sim out of my low class apartment lot. I then bulldozed it and some others. I then placed a new apartment to test... don't try putting a low class apartment lot next to a high class apartment lot, the low class setting will change to High. Anyway once I got a new one placed next to another low one, I moved a sim in and watched it fill up. NONE of the social townies that were on my old one moved in and the game spawned some new ones even though I know there were still plenty of Gearheads and Bohemians in my social townie pool. "

Sleepycat seems to have done a lot of testing of this, in game.

OK, this information gives me somewhere to start. Thanks!

I gather that the difficulty with the existing cheats is that the values don't seem to stick?

[Update:]
Just some other information about what might make a difference to the value:

From the thread at MATY:
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s....html#msg375011

Hmm.. interesting. Then maybe other hood decos give other results for the lot class? Should be possible to clone and make nice medieval/victorian stuff of those, for the clever object creators. Reminds me of the decos used in city planning games like Caesar IV and such.

I think that I've found two values associated with the Lot Class in the neighborhood package. There are 5 previously unknown bytes in the LTXT/DESC (Lot Description) record for Version2 = 11 (Apartment Life), immediately after the Apartment Price Range:
http://www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?title=DESC

I believe that these 5 bytes can be parsed as an integer for the Lot Class Value (4 bytes), followed by one byte for the override flag.

My guess is that a Low / Middle / High Lot Class is calculated based on the Lot Class Value, according to the formula stated in the post above. The override flag is normally 0, which means to recalculate the value. An override flag of 1 means to use the value specified. If I'm right, then the problem that people are seeing with the Lot Class may be that the override flag is never set, which means that the Lot Class Value is ignored and the Lot Class is recalculated right after using the changeLotClassification cheat.

I'm still researching this, but I thought that I'd document my findings so far, in case someone else wants to pursue this.

[Update:]
Verified. Updated the wiki with this new information.

Notes:
The override flag may stop the "changeLotClassification" cheat from updating the lot package with the new Lot Class Value.

The "clearLotClassValue" cheat clears both the Lot Class Value and the override flag. At this time, the only way that I know to reset the override flag is to edit the value using SimPE.

Nice info

Yes, the LotAdjuster in test mode (available only with a C# compiler) is a wonderful tool for quickly determining the actual values for a particular field, since I can quickly scan every lot in every neighborhood.

Next step: update the LotAdjuster with these selectable options:

Lot Class:
Default (does anyone have a better name for this? Perhaps "Clear" to match the cheat?)
Low
Middle
High

Default will set the override flag to 0; all of the other options set the override flag to 1 and set the value to whatever the cheat uses (yet to be determined).

I don't know that it's necessary for people to actually set the value itself, although I suppose that it couldn't hurt. We don't know the algorithm that EA is using to determine community value, but it's possible that a high Middle value can produce different results than a low Middle value for the same lot.

I assume that Peter will update SimPE as well. By the way, I just love what Peter has done with the Lot Description plugin.

I still need to investigate those elevations for him, but I'm assuming that they are a copy of the relevant portion of the NHTG record.

Hmmm! I wonder if they might have something to do with the ocean floating in mid air when you have an apartment block by the sea? It is a new bit of data, after all.

TY Mootilda for all your great work! I knew you would be the right person to ask :D

It was actually documented in the readme that came with the game that there would be problems trying to zone a beach lot as an apartment baselot! I wonder if you can solve it where EA (with their high reputation for bugfree code) failed?

I can certainly try. No guarantees.

Am I talking to myself? Is that allowed?

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that I was completely wrong. Looks like EA may be using a completely different philosophy. Lots which are clustered densely near community lots may be seen as "downtown" and therefore the property values are higher, not lower as I first imagined.

Hmm well I thought it was to do with neighborhood objects used as "hints". I got the impression from either an interview or a chat that they would detect things like dumpsters nearby to lower the tone and therefore the class.

So far in my testing, the neighborhood objects haven't made any difference to the lot class value at all. I tried many, but not all, of the new AL neighborhood decorations. None had any effect on the lot class value. However, the value of nearby lots make a difference.

By moving the low class lots away from Sentinel Apartments, I was able to increase the lot class value from 56,665 to 75,048. Moving the two high class lots 340 Audrey Ave (High=312,659) and 400 Audrey Ave (High=297,700) next door increased the value again, to 139,235. Interestingly, the lot is still showing up as low class.

The lot class cheats really seem to be broken. The following sequence of cheats and results shows just how important the "clearLotClassValue" cheat is:

changeLotClassification high
printLotClass (result: high 375,000)

changeLotClassification middle
printLotClass (result: high 225,000)

changeLotClassification low
printLotClass (result: high 75,000)

To fix this, just clear the value before changing it:

clearLotClassValue (result: low 0)
changeLotClassification high
printLotClass (result: high 375,000)

clearLotClassValue (result: low 0)
changeLotClassification middle
printLotClass (result: middle 225,000)

clearLotClassValue (result: low 0)
changeLotClassification low
printLotClass (result: low 75,000)

Note that these values are for apartments only:
High = 375,000
Middle = 225,000
Low = 75,000
Testing shows that middle class for apartments seems to start around 150,000.

The values required for residential properties are 1/3 of the apartment values:
High = 125,000
Middle = 75,000
Low = 25,000

I am still working on community properties, although they seem to default to high class with a very low lot class value.

Here I am quoting myself again...

Additional testing shows that the value is actually important. If I move a lot with lower high-class value (241 Desmond Dr, High=182,157) next to Sentinel Apts, it reduces the value of Sentinel Apts to 128,922 (down from the current value of 139,235).

Since the actual lot class values are used to determine the surrounding community value for a lot, this implies that it should be much easier to create a high-class single-family property, than to create a high-class apartment building.

Hmmm... this brings up an interesting point: we should also test changing the lot class value for all but one apartment within an apartment building, and seeing how that affects the remaining apartment.
-------------------------------------

Another interesting observation... which I'm having problems figuring out:
I set the value of Central Park to 360,000 with override in SimPE. But, when I check out the value using printLotClass in the game, it show as High=78,000... I can't seem to get the lot class value (78,000) to change, even though the Lot Class (low / middle / high) is obviously being determined by the value (360,000) that I typed in.

Because of this, moving the park next to Sentinel Apts lowers the value of the apartment building.
-------------------------------------

I also experimented with distance. The value of Sentinel Apts remains at the same heightened value as I move the two next-door high-class lots away, until there are 6 spaces between each lot. At that point, Sentinel Apts drops down to its original value. So, the "surrounding community value" effect is either on or off, and 6 spaces seems to be the cut off point.

Hope people don't mind, but I split this topic off into a separate post. Until someone else posts, I'll continue to update both of these posts with additional information from my research.

As a part of the lot class testing, I had to move several occupied apartment buildings. I have now verified that you can move an occupied apartment by just changing the Top and Left values in the Lot Description for the apartment base and all associated sublots. If you want to rotate the lot, just change the Orientation. My moved-and-rotated occupied apartments continued to function as expected.

Be sure to change all of the clones to the same value.

I'm not sure that it's worth changing the LotAdjuster to do this, since it's pretty simple using SimPE, but I'd consider adding this feature if people were interested. At least, the LA can ensure that the same values are used for all clones.

I found the field for the number of apartments in the lot description record. Updated wiki:
http://www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?title=DESC

Since this is a byte, the maximum number of apartments on a lot is likely 255.

Not all of us are good at Simpe, I am sure I could learn how, but I love the simplicity of LA, and as I use it often for other purposes it would be a great help :D.

OK, I'll have to reenable occupied apartments and disable specific changes instead.

Unfortunately, the LA won't normally be able to tell you what your current lot class is, since it isn't stored unless the override flag is set.

So far, I haven't had any problems with beach apartments. Can you explain what I should be looking for?

I added a residential beach lot to my neighborhood, designed a duplex, then used the cheat "changeLotZoning apartmentbase". Haven't played the apartment yet, but everything looks fine to me so far.

Does the problem occur later; for example, when a sim moves in, or when the lot is packaged and then placed into a neighborhood? Or, was I just lucky and I need to try again? Does the rotation (U11) value make any difference?

[Update:]
Tried packaging the lot, installing and placing the lot into a neighborhood. Everything OK.

Then, I moved a sim into the duplex. The ground dropped by about 6.0 (two full stories). I fixed it using SimPE, by replacing the elevation for the apartment sublot (within the lot description) with the elevation from the apartment base. If this is the only problem, then it is very easy to fix.

There's really no excuse for EA not fixing such a tiny problem.

I'll try playing the duplex some more to see whether I can find any other problems.

[Another Update:]
Moved a second sim into the second apartment, land dropped for the second tenant, but the first apartment is still fine. Made the same fix as the first apartment sublot; everything seems fine after that.

BTW, Inge, the array values (that I believe are neighborhood elevations) look just fine to me... there's no difference between the apartment base and the sublots for a beach apartment. Just that one Z-value float that's being changed for no reason.

That's great, Mootilda, - can that really be all that is wrong with beach apartments? Don't EA use SimPE?!?! Amazing.

Hahaha this is amazing! What is the matter with that Sims team? I mean, we're all human, and to miss a bug is something I think we've all done. But to know about the bug, and document it in the readme, and yet do so little about fixing it, is just plain "???"