Yep, they are huge difference, 'New method' sure take lots of customer and tourists coming, especially from edge of map. And this sure solve sightseeing(number of tourists from edge of map and whole map). But when just with default 0.4x multiplier, goods consuming too fast, huge import request from this building(set to 'comhigh' in RICO "The Spring Shopping Mall"), and made "Building Net Asset and Building Money"(from "Real City" Mod) of this building got -2.267433E+7 because import. And I got "Adjustable Business Consumption" mod to slow down goods consuming speed for low and high commercial. And can't stop that 'FAST'. And after I set to 0.1x multiplier, the goods consuming speed slow down a little bit, but still fast.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2407322088&searchtext=

And 'Old method', almost can't feel there are customer and tourists to come, when with "Adjustable Business Consumption" mod, a low level 1 commercial building request to send goods average need 4-5 Real Time days. This good for me, I think this more realistic, but just feel almost got no tourists to.

The conclusion is 'New method' is good, it solved commercial for sightseeing problem. But there is other problem, this algorithm now only to find the largest commercial building. That's means I plopped 4 commercial buildings for test, two level 1 low commercial building only 4 works, one level 5 high commercial building 150 works, and the largest commercial building( "The Spring Shopping Mall") 500 works. The result 99.9% customer and tourists go to the largest one, and other 3 are plopped in residential area, they are more closed than the largest one and also I got "More Effective Transfer Manager" mod, it should be go to nearest, but they don't, only go to the largest one.

So, it may balance this If they are more closed, high probability go to the nearest shopping even it just a so small commercial building.

And when save game and loading the save, this huge import request jump to level 5 high commercial building 150 works, and no tourists to the largest commercial building.
It look like mod random to pick commercial building and make this huge import request only for single one high commercial building. And the huge import request followed how many tourists coming, and look like tourists buy one thing = buy series tons for a person, this is why commercial building need huge import request.

And when switch from 'New method' to 'Old method' in-game, this picked commercial building will closed and no anyone.

For goods consuming, I feel 'Old method' more rational. So combine 'New method' sightseeing way and 'Old method' goods consuming will be perfect.

(PS: Don't use "Rebalanced Industries", will made some unknow problems, Use "Customize It Extended" to change each Industry Building more good. I have gave up "Rebalanced Industries" long time. And slow down the produce speed mods with "Customize It Extended" are best choice.)

Originally posted by algernon:

And as a recent revelation - it turns outthat most of my testers are using the Rebalanced Industries mod to better balance goods transport and reduce the amount of truck traffic. Even with full multipliers, commercial cargo traffic hasn't been an issue with that mod in operation.

I highly recommend using that mod anyway, as it does a very good job of fixing base-game imbalances.

I used that mod a while ago, but stopped using it for some reason that I cannot remember. I think maybe I didn't like the workplace changes at the time? No idea.

Refreshing my memory of what it does though, I should definitely give it another shot.

Edit: I think I remember why I stopped using it at the time. I use some smaller custom warehouses with base trucks of 4-5. Rebalanced Industries dropped that to 2, which at the time I didn't like because sometimes it caused export issues. Doesn't seem like a big deal now, especially since I can use Customize It Extended to change that is I want.

I think the two different sliders is a good idea, but at this point I'll extend that to all commercial subsets, not just 'high' and 'low', and might as well make them individually selectable between old and new as well.

The thought occurred to me as well, but I wasn't sure if that'd be too complicated. Looking forward to seeing it!

Some observations on the Spring Shopping mall:
Set as high-density commercial level 2 with the default 'UK commercial', visitor count with the new calculations is 1,042(!) at 0.1(!), compared to 432 under the old method.

But, that is because of the 3,747 workplaces!

So the issue with large commercial buildings isn't so much the visit place calculations, but because the employment is too high. Reducing the employment will reduce the visitor count to more manageable levels.

Using the 'superstores' population preset, employment becomes a much more reasonable 673. Visitor count @ 0.1 becomes a much more manageable 201; you need to boost it to 0.25 to match the old method calculation.

So, the issue with very large visitor counts is actually the employment counts. The solution is to reduce the employment (most easily by changing the calculation pack used for larger commercial buildings).

That being said, I still think cargo demand is a bit high. I'm currently looking at what the options are to make that more manageable.

Thanks for the tip; sounds very reasonable to me. Those megamalls tend to have lots of floor space per employee.

My cargo issues have essentially been eliminated at this point for standard growable commercial, using ranges of 0.4-0.6. I started using Rebalanced Industries again, which likely helped, though I'm a bit unsure how Rebalanced Industries and AVO interact (as I mention here: https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/discussion/1548831935/5335049597115609033/ ). I ended up increasing the cargo capacities in AVO by the multipliers used in Rebalanced Industries.

So, I've been doing a lot of analysis and testing of what's going on, and I've finally found the issue:

There's a bug in the base game! Specifically, a uint16 overflow.

What's happening is that commercial buildings have two variables tracking goods: one tracking incoming goods received (equivalent of 'stored in the back'), one tracking goods available for sale (equivalent of 'on the shelf'). Every simulation step, some of these goods are transferred from the 'back room' to the 'shelf'. So far so good.

Each of these is recorded with a uint16 data type, which can have values in the range of 0...65535 (savvy readers will note that this is the hard limit of many things in the game - and that's because the indexes in those cases are uint16, which just can't go any further).

However, there's no bounds checking on these numbers. So, what happens when you have an inventory of 58,000 and a delivery truck arrives with a load of 8,000? 58,000 + 8,000 = 66,000. But because uint16 only goes to 65,535, the number wraps around to zero and starts counting up from that: so 58,000 + 8,000 = 464! Our delivery, instead of giving us 8,000 extra units, has actually taken away over 57,536!

At this point the building realises that it doesn't have enough inventory available - so orders another truck. And another... and another.... until the next wraparound is reached and the whole process starts again.

Normally this bug isn't exposed using the base-game capacities, as the buildings will stop ordering before that point. The bigger building sizes of this mod and/or Ploppable RICO are, however, exposing the bug.

I'm currently working out how to patch (or at least work around) this bug in this mod. It won't be the first game bug I've had to patch in a mod, although this one is a little more insidious than most.

Once the bug is fixed I think all the cargo issues will settle down, regardless of setting.

Awesome info! Sounds like using a mod that increases cargo truck capacity could actually make that issue worse in some instances, since dropping of, say, 16-32k units at a time makes it more likely that you'll overflow.

Yes, definitely - large cargo vehicle capacities can definitely trigger the same issue.

I've sucessfully developed a fix which has been working fine in private dev testing - I'll now implement in release-quality code with a view to releasing in the next day or so.

And the 'New method' look like only affect standard hight commercial consuming speed too fast, Specialization Commercial not change too much. Also don't feel it affected low commercial too much.

I plopped a Leisure Specialization and Tourism Specialization with 'New method', don't see huge truck flow and consuming speed fast, and change back 'Old method', it don't feel got clear difference. I think it's the bug for mod control to Specialization Commercial with 'New method'.

The fix has been implemented in BETA 13, just released.

In my testing, even the Spring Shopping Mall was (just) able to keep up with goods deliveries at the default multiplier, but please let me know of any observations or feedback, especially with any 'not enough goods' indications.

After updated, 'New method' very bad.

Now the consuming speed is low, but it's buged 'Goods' almost not consumed and income unnormal too less than 'Old method' 5 times, also got no too much customer and tourists coming even less then 'Old method'. And I have set to '80%' don't feel what clear happend. And I also try set "Adjustable Business Consumption" mod to 150%, it's nothing happend. And when changed new to old in-game, those commercial building closed forever again.

(By the way, "Zoning Adjuster" icon overed by "One Way Street Arrows" icon. You never can see and clicked "Zoning Adjuster" icon now.)

I'm not able to reproduce that issue; everything's working fine in my testing. Goods are certainly being consumed and income generated, and plenty of customers coming.

Try unsubscribing from Adjustable Business Consumption; it's highly likely that is throwing things off.

New updated more good. And next improvement is baseline of request.

That's means now, 'Goods' reserve of building under look like 70% will request to send. But it don't need to send, there are many here, and this will made more unneed traffic flow.

Check look with Real City mod, building inventory maxmuim value is 65,535, and request to fill from 48,000. That's no need, for example it should request to send like under 10,000 by player. And when 48,000 to send, in fact truck only sent like 25%-30% and take 70% back. So, if set under 10,000, maybe truck will send all 100% and back.

So, add a adjuster to request to send 'Goods' from industry, warehouse or import with under how many % to do.

The 48,000 is a cap, not a pre-set limit; the game will do its normal calculations and order up to a limit determined by its visitor count, so it's only at 48,000 for larger commercial buildings (smaller buildings will have lower caps).

For reference, the game's calculations work out at a maximum cap of 32,000 for a 4x4 L3 high-density commercial building. I originally tried that, then 40,000, then ultimately extended it to 48,000, as larger RICO buildings (Spring Shopping Mall again!) would run out of goods to sell if the cap was set lower. Note that the balancing was done with cargo vehicle capacities in line with the standard 2,000-8,000 per vehicle (any modded larger-capacity vehicles would obviously have different effects).

I can add that configuration, though.

OK, that's great for add the adjuster. And it will help for using like "Adjustable Business Consumption" mod, when used "Adjustable Business Consumption" mod, building can got enough time to wait for truck that just set a a low baseline it's fine. And also for don't use mods play they can set a high baseline.

(And, Your "Repaint" need to add color change for Warehuse, Unique Factory(Industry Area) and Varsity Sports. Now, those three type of buildings can't change color.)

For Repaint, all three of those are currently in testing - but there's some LOD illumination issues that I need to fix before I can release.