Roadwolf's Blog

I recently went on a scouting trip to find and scout out a fairly large and well praised state park.  The state park was said by many to be ‘roughing it’.  After a long drive through a lot of native reserves and run down towns, I finally arrived at the state park.  The entrance road was not well kept,  large pot holes and a rusting guard rail led me up to the gatehouse.  The 16 year old (or there abouts) ‘gate keeper’ at the gate house gladly took my 15 dollars for a day pass, however could not offer any advice on where to go in the park to see good camp grounds.  She also neglected to give us any map.  Apparently state parks do not have much signage at all.  We drove for 2 hours in circles trying to find a camp site.  We passed many group camp grounds – wide open fields with a ‘comfort station’ in the center, and some pop machines, and basketball courts.  The ‘beach’ was quaint too,  sand trucked in and dumped at the side of a man made lake.  With swimming pools, water slides, and more basketball courts scattered around the beach.  But alas, there was no sign of any camp ground.  There were signs for many ‘cabin’ camp grounds.  These cabins were fully constructed cottages, with plumbing and gas heat / stove.  There were hundreds of cabins that we saw randomly through the park.  most of them numbered 1-50  We would come across various un named cabin camp grounds and they all said ‘cabins 1-31′  or ‘cabins 1-25′.  With all of these un-named branches of cabins, i am sure people get confused easily.

Eventually after driving for 2 hours, and not seeing any park employees, we came across another park entrance.  We stopped to talk to the 18 year old ‘gate keeper’ at this entrance.  She was kind enough to hand us a map, and pointed to a camp site which she claimed to be the best, with the most secluded sites.

With that in mind we traveled another 30 minutes to said camp site.  Upon reading the map apparently we only saw a few camp grounds, everything else appeared to be cabins.  Of course camping in a cabin is great, because it brings in more money for the park, and you can camp all year. That is if you call that camping.  Frankly it is more like ‘going to the cottage’.  When we got to this camp site we were greatly dissapointed.

In Canada, camp sites in parks are always located beside the water.  I have yet to be at a campsite in Canada where the sites were not within a minute or so walk from the water / beach area.  These camp sites in this state park were supposedly the closest campsite to one of the parks main bodies of water (another man made lake).  But they were 3 miles up a hill far from the lake.

Upon reaching the camp ground in question, I was dissapointed.  The sites were fairly close together, and fairly open.  most sites can accomidate 2 or 3 large RV’s side by side.  There was also almost no underbrush to speak of, and you could easily see neighbouring sites through the sides or back of each site.  Now for some people I suppose this might be ‘roughing it’  The washrooms were a stunning 250 meters from any camp site, and there were water taps every 3 or 4 camp sites.  This site however was similar to some Canadian sites in the facilities (bathroom, laundry station and water taps), and I did not see a basketball court anywhere.  But privacy wise it was no where close.  The worst Ontario park was likely still better then this.

Ya see,  My idea of camping is either:

A: A camp site which is completely closed in by trees and undergrowth, which has a narrow driveway which you can park your car to block passer bys from seeing into your site.  The site is small, but able to fit 3 tents and 2 cars with some ease.  Also it should be fairly close to a body of water and/or hiking trails or scenic overlooks

B: A camp site which you must use a canoe to paddle into.  You are remote and do not have the luxury of a bathroom or pre filtered water.  So you must filter / boil your water, and go to the bathroom in the undergrowth.

C: A camp site which you can Jeep into through off roading trails.  Also with no facilities, and no other people around.

Sadly it seems the American version of camping has turned into more of a RV fest then anything else.  Large mobile homes which are fully decked out with their own facilities.  In Ontario parks, they have special camp grounds for RV’s and they remain seperate from the normal camp sites (of which there are more of).  Which is smart.  Really you can park an RV anywhere to camp.  Why fill up booking spots in a popular camp ground with people who could just as easily park in the local Walmart parking lot, and drive into the park every day for day use?  Also, Algonquin park for example has maybe 60 cabins in total, scattered through out the park.  Usually old ranger cabins, these are fairly remote and you must take back roads to get to them.  In this case a cabin is cool, and worth the money.  You are out in the wilderness alone.  In the case of American park cabins, you are basically in a camp ground which has been turned into a cabin subdivision.  There is no privacy and you are always close to people.  Cabins are not for campers, they are for hunters, and perhaps that is the main attraction for american parks these days?  But none the less, I am saddened to not be able to find any decent parks in the WNY area.  If anyone reading this has any suggestions please let me know

Tags: Roadwolf's Rants by Roadwolf
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Depending on which report you look at, Buffalo hovers just above the bottom of the piggy bank, jostling spots with other perpetual bottom dwellers Miami, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and of course Detroit. As little as a week’s pay can raise or lower a city’s standing. According to the most recent surveys, Buffalo is second poorest city in the United States, a title that doesn’t boast quite the same excitement or good feeling the second richest city does. It’s best described as a shaky breath of relief, like paying the cell phone or cable bill just before it’s shut off.

Commuting to work is a 20 minute trip, taking me five and a half miles through the streets of Buffalo. On Friday I did a count; in the 5.5 miles it took for me to get home from work (entirely within city limits), I counted 80 abandoned buildings including business and residential. This was taking my normal route. If you think that number is high, consider this: Buffalo has somewhere around 18,000 abandoned houses.  That’s more than all of the McDonald’s in the United States. Who knows how many abandoned businesses there are.  It’s interesting to note that the city of Buffalo is the largest owner of residential property, having picked up properties people discard. The current tally is around 4,000-5,000, or a quarter the vacancy. They do fix up homes to resell to first time home owners, but this practice is done half-heartedly, a generous descriptor. The majority of houses sit until fire or natural decay seals their fate with an emergency demolition order in the amount of $20,000. I used to explore and photograph similar abandoned buildings. Used to. Seeing an abandoned structure no longer has a thrill for me. Maybe because I see 80 of them twice a day five times a week. Maybe I’ve just become desensitized; viewing each building as another piece of Buffalo nobody gives a shit about, not even city officials. They’re just happy to have a job, unlike a quarter of the people that live here.

Almost all forms of crime here are at least one and a half times the national average. Murder is 2.86 times the national. 28 people have had their life cut short this year so far. It’s often stated that crime can happen anywhere at any time. In Buffalo does this play out most clearly. Dusk, late night, early morning, mid day people have been robbed, beaten, shot at, raped, stabbed, or assaulted. Homes have been broken into or set ablaze, not one part of the city is considered safe from crime. An unspoken rule exists here, if you happen to be white and driving through any part of the east side, the poorest and most unsavory part of the city, you do not have to stop for red lights after dark. Anecdotally, I’ve hear more than one story of the lost or wandering encountering police and being told to “just keep going and get out”.  I’ve been lucky, in a sense  that I’ve only had a car window broken and not met a worse fate. That unfortunate fate is what keeps me at home most of the time, though I would rather be walking through a park or riding my bike along the river and through the city. Buffalo has started installing surveillance cameras in the most crime ridden and high potential areas; it does nothing to reassure me.

If you were to ever visit downtown in the morning or at the lunch hour, you would scarcely believe your eyes. Daytime shows a busy, bustling metropolis which surely must be growing. Come 9pm or later however, the workers have gone back to their suburbs and the businesses are closed, a veritable ghost town it becomes. It’s common to travel through half the downtown section without seeing a single person, apart from an occasional homeless individual making their way to the shelter or park. I once had the misfortune to arrive at the bus terminal after the closing hours. I had nowhere to go and there are no establishments within view of the bus station. A lone woman on a desolate street is not a situation I wanted to put myself into, so I hunkered down for the night in the brightly lit terminal, kept company with a few travelers waiting for later busses, and armed police security. As I left the next morning, several cops where arresting someone for dealing drugs in the restroom.  Not to be completely bleak, Buffalo does have something of nightlife. The entertainment district is located about a half dozen blocks from the core.  Consisting of a handful of bars and catering to the under 30 crowd, it lives in a narrow three block area, bordered by a mix of low-income and historic homes and shuttered businesses. The Elmwood strip is further from downtown, a mile and a half of shops and restaurants segmented every few blocks by churches and homes. This area generally shuts down earlier than the entertainment district.

After living here a while I’ve tried to justify the regressive and oppressive nature of things, to tell myself it’s not that bad living in Buffalo. But every time I visit another city, reality slaps me in face and reminds me that yes, it is THAT bad. Most people I’ve met here call Buffalo their hometown. Those that don’t rarely stay long enough to put down roots.  To illustrate statistics, it’s said that every day seven people leave Buffalo. I’m resigned in my fate that I must live here for a few more years, but I look forward to the day that I’m one of those seven and say goodbye.

Tags: Buffalo Life by Roadwolf
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I have been spending a lot of time working on a Trainz route recently.  Trainz is a Railway simulator program which is very realistic and fairly easy to build prototypical routes with.  In the past I have attempted to create the CP Mainline from Vancouver to Edmonton, but I gave up half way…  (i hadn’t even put any scenery in so it wasnt a big loss).  Now that I have taught myself quite a bit more about the program, I have decided to try to make another large route.  It will be a mountain pass similar to the Calgary / Edmonton corridor, but it will likely be shorter.

If anyone has any names which they want me to use for towns along the route, please let me know

Tags: Computer Game Reviews, Trainz by Roadwolf
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Engineering, a formerly respected profession, has seemingly been changed into a redundant profession in most cases.  I was a ‘Radio Broadcast Engineer’…  Well, technically I was a technician.  But the Radio Industry considers both to be the same title.  My job was to ensure the Radio Station ran correctly; All components were in working order, and if need be, to replace defective units with working ones.  I also did get to do some design work, but it was rare.

I had grown up playing with electronics.  Taking computers apart, and putting them back together, chip by chip sometimes.  When I was 16 I had the resistor color code memorized, I knew how a logic circuit worked, and I understood the theories behind digital processing and circuit design.  When I was 18 I took a Co-Op class in High School for my last semester.  Kind of like an Internship, this was a full time job, 8 hours a day  4 days a week.  I was somehow lucky enough to get a spot as a ‘junior technician’ at a Radio Station in Downtown Toronto.  I quickly got very involved in things and found myself enjoying the workplace environment a lot more then the School environment.  Being my first real job, I really enjoyed this.

The engineering department was similar to my room in many ways.  Unfinished projects laying around, Tools strewen about the place, and papers and books all over the place.  It had an old 70’s charm to it.  Similar to what you would expect a Engineering Shop to look like.  A windowless room with a few old desks, and alot of crap.  With a rack room full of buzzing and humming equipment, directly behind the Shop.

In those early days the job was fun.  I got to tinker with things I had never tinkered with before.  And my co-workers were helpful and taught me everything I needed to know.  At the end of the school year, I was offered a job to continue on as ‘technician’ part time, for a short period until they could find a replacement for someone they recently fired.  Being that I enjoyed working there, I took the job.  Hell, at 18, how cool was it to already work at a major market radio station?

That is when things started going downhill.  Because I was no longer in school, it was assumed that I knew everything I needed to know.  I was still very much learning and dependent on my co-workers for advice.  And I think this sometimes annoyed them.  I really hoped to get more involved with RF stuff; The transmitters, and Antenna systems.  But that was mostly being taken care of, and it was decided that my ’skills’ would be better used at cleaning storage rooms, and hanging picture frames.  I also got into mixing and production a little bit, and assisted with many band setups and recordings.  Soon enough I was doing these recordings by myself.  Bands like Matchbox 20, Great Big Sea, Alanis Morrisette, Barenaked Ladies, Styx, Collective Soul, Goo Goo Dolls, Tonic, … just to name a few.  I rather enjoyed this, but I found that working with artists, as well as working with radio DJ’s and the production team, was often not the most enjoyable thing in the world.  They would complain and bitch.  Hell, John Mayer once asked me to crank the Reverb, and after I turned it up a bit, he told me to crank it all the way.  He then said, ok thats good, and then when he went on the air, he complained about the reverb.  What a dick…

I volunteered to look after the Fire Safety system and the security systems.  As I enjoyed that stuff, and it seemed no one really looked after it.  I would check Fire Extinguishers (of which we had about 50) and take care of Key requests and Lock changes.  I was also expected to clean storage rooms, and repair headphones…  Ah yes repairing headphones.  The most common thing to break at radio stations is headphones.  Why?  well, because DJ’s like to throw them across the studio.  And of course it was my job to fix them.  Personally it was better to just order new ones in my opinion.  While yes the cost of parts was cheaper then new headphones.  Some of these older headphones had been in circulation for 10+ years.  Imagine how dirty headphones are that have been around for 10 years?  Many headphones were beyond repair.  Requiring many parts.  I simply put them in a large box which filled up of half broken headphones. The most common thing to break was the cord.  A new cable was $45.  Another common thing was the element itself,  If I recall those were $60 each.  A new set of headphones: $150  Often some of the broken headphones had both of these things wrong, and I was often still questioned as to why I wasn’t fixing them.  I also had a plan in a way.  If we spent more money on headphones every time one broke, maybe someone would be more strict on DJ’s who broke them.  I have had a pair of headphones exactly like the ones at work, which I purchased for myself, which have lasted 5 years without breaking – and I use them a lot!.  The average lifespan of headphones at the radio station was about 2 months.  Anyhow, repairing an endless stream of headphones was not my idea of what this job was all about.  I wanted to get into studio design, and maintain the RF transmitters.

The big change took place around 2004.  We had just purchased about 60 other radio stations across the country, and the company was growing.  My boss was moved up to corporate, and I got a new boss, who was very nice.  A new radio station was moving into the studio, and this ment that we would need to build new studios.  We had 2 design firms come in to design and build the place.  One firm for the studio work, another for the office work.  It was very very fun supervising and taking part in the demolition and rebuilding of the studios.  I even got to help design some of the new studios, and made a few critical design changes to some of the rooms.  This is what I was talking about.  I was loving this job again!.  I was also very free to do what I wished with my time.  No one breathing down my back.  I could plan my day accordingly.

I was also on call by this time, and full time.  I carried a company cellphone and pager, and was treated exactly like the other co-workers…  as an ‘Engineer’.  And this is when I started to get more involved.  I began assisting co-worker on big projects, and even was given a few big projects on my own to work on.  Granted I was kind of nervous about them at first, and found that sometimes it takes a lot longer to work on something then I had imagined.  But I think in the end, I did well.  I designed a radio communication package, which was to be mounted in an airplane, a relay panel which controlled various studio functions, and a tester which tested boards from the studio consoles.  I also managed the installation of a Satellite dish.  But after the rebuilding project tapered off, things seemed to return back to normal.  ‘Make Work projects’ were common.  Aside from headphones, one of the most common problems was minidisc players.  They would screw up and become useless.  Minidisc players are rather expensive…  so they do warrant fixing, instead of throwing them out and getting new ones.  Of all things we could repair, these would be the most obvious right?  wrong!  Instead we would ship them out to a repair place so they could repair them.  On average it took them a month to repair the unit and often costed about 300 dollars.  Sometimes we would just refuse their estimate.  We would often have as many as 3 or 4 MiniDisc units out for repair at any given time.

I would of liked to of tried to repair these myself, but I wasn’t allowed… lol,  funny eh.  It wasn’t that they didn’t trust my to work on them.  It was that there were better things to do,  like hanging picture frames, and clean storage rooms.  There was no time to sit at our nice expensive work bench for hours and ponder over what is causing a digital micro controller not to function.  So work became mindless and routine again.  I often would find myself staring at my computer screen, trying to thing of something I could do which I could put some creative input into.  Often I just did databasing.  Recording serial numbers of equipment and tracking things.  The odd time I was allowed to look after the transmitter site, was amazing.  I loved it.  I would be out there alone, and would ponder over every aspect, and would take note of every little detail.  I really wants to maintain the transmitters on a regular basis.  I rather enjoyed working with such machines.

My pay was shitty.  I had been there for 6 years.  I was on call every 4th week/weekend, and I was expected to provide my own transportation.  Which at my young age, was costing me a fortune.  Insurance, and Lease payments…  I could not afford a place on my own, or further education.  I didn’t even have time.  I was drained every day upon returning from work.  Because I never really had an official degree, they used that as an excuse whenever I applied for a raise.  My co-workers who were considered equals to me, at this time, were all making atleast twice what I was making, sometimes a lot more.  Some even had deals in their contracts which allowed them the use of a company car and such.  I was becoming disgruntled.  And I began to slack off more.  However whenever something needed to be done, I was on it, and would finish it.  I began to resent the situation that the company had put me in.  Luring me in young before I was educated, and using me as a extra low paid workhorse for so long.

At this time I was becoming close to my girlfriend at the time.  And the long distance relationship was adding more stress.  However her father had an open ended offer to me, to help him manage a Army Surplus store in Indiana.  Well I didn’t want to live in Indiana, but I loved Army Surplus.  And I was seriously considering this change.  When all of the sudden…

It was an average day, I was installing a TV in an office, and needed some help to run a cable down inside a wall.  So I went back to the shop to get a co-worker, lets call him Bob, to help me.  When I got to the shop, Bob was in a serious debate / discussion with John, another ‘equal’ engineer in the Shop.  So instead of interrupting, I simply relaxed for a minute and checked my email.  It was a hot day and the room I was in had direct sun coming in thru the window and I was quite hot – so the break was nice.  After the discussion Bob had a phone call, so I continued to Wait, while John left the room.  I finally got the chance to ask Bob for the help and he told me that he could help me in a few minutes.  A few minutes later John entered the room and yelled at me.  He was yelling because he saw that the TV install was incomplete.  He then literally dragged me to the room, in front of a bunch of other people in the company, and continued to yell at me to finish it myself, then slammed the door in my face.  It was then that I decided that this was not worth it anymore.  The fun had ended, and I obviously had someone in the department who didn’t like me.  It wasn’t going to be easy to stick around, especially when that person was a friend of the boss.

I had nothing against my boss, he was cool, and I truly think he wanted to see me improve and wanted to give me a raise.  But I think there were others in the department who feared for their job security maybe, and wanted to back stab me in order to protect their position.  Either way they got what they wanted.  I left.  I choose not to return to a place where I was disrespected for no apparent reason.  And for that,  6 years of my life, and all of my creditability as an ‘engineer’ went down the drain.  I was told that if I left, no one in the company would ever vouch for me, or act as a reference if I tried to get another similar job.   That was nice of them eh?  So I quit, and took up the offer of managing a Army Surplus store in Indiana.  Of course that turned out to be a bad idea.  A place full of corruption and lies.  But that is not what this article is about.

In the end, I have discovered that technical trades are more about being a person to blame when things go wrong, then about fixing stuff.  A majority of my time working here, was spent doing non-technical things.  The industry is not what I imagined it to be.  And I am left empty, trying to come up with another interest which I could work in.  But I am jaded, knowing that behind every dream job, there is a dark side.  And dream jobs don’t usually stay dream jobs for long.

Tags: Uncategorized by Roadwolf
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I recently purchased Civ 4 BTS. I have to say I am quite impressed by the additions to Civ 4 in this expansion. Civ 4 has always been a strong title in the gaming world. BTS adds some realism that Civ was lacking, and makes for a more interesting gaming experience. If you like Strat games of any kind you should surely try Civ4: BTS.

I really have nothing bad to say about the game at all. Game play is smooth and addictive. However I sometimes will find myself getting bored of it. They have fixed many of the performance issues which caused lag in the previous versions during the end game.

Multiplayer is a lot more interesting now as well. With Corporations, Spys, and Vassal states, it adds a whole new level of gameplay which seems to match the current real world conditions. While the game may not let you feel as ‘in control’ of things as Supreme Ruler 2020 does, it still maintains that god like feeling.

Overall, it is a solid buy. Highly recommended!

Tags: Computer Game Reviews by Roadwolf
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Ah yes, an old classic. SimTower was released in 1994. Yet it is still a very viable and entertaining game.

The basic premise of the game is to construct a 5 star tower. To do this you have to build many different services and various types of commercial and residential spaces in your building. And you have to interconnect these services and spaces with a maze of elevators, stairs and escalators. All while keeping everyone happy, and maintaining a profit.

Each star rating you achieve, allows you to construct more items for your tower.

1 Star:

- Lobby: The lobby acts as an interconnection between elevators, stairs and escalators. A lobby has to be placed on the first floor. In addition, sky lobbies may be placed every 15 floors. Sky lobbies do not NEED to run the entire length of the building, however for the best possible flow of people going between elevators it is recommended. I will sometimes place a fast food joint or something similar on either end of the sky lobby, if it isn’t between any elevators. Lobbies can not be removed once they are placed. so remember this especially when you are planning the lay out of your Sky Lobby.
- Floor tool: (click and hold on the lobby tool button to access) The floor tool allows you to create blank floor spaces. This is normally not needed unless you need to fill empty spaces below something you plan on building. Whenever you construct a new area, it will automatically add the floor. Also, the floor auto fills between the 2 widest floor areas of your building, per floor.

- Stair tool: (click and hold on the lobby tool button to access) Stairs are basic transportation services. Sims will only travel via 4 sets of stairs per trip. However they do help take care of some elevator congestion in busy areas.

- Standard Elevator: The standard elevator shaft is your main local elevator type. These elevators can only service a maximum of 30 floors. You can place as many as 8 elevator cars per shaft. And in total you can only have a maximum of 24 elevator shafts (any type of elevator). So placement and use of your elevators is critical.

- Office Space: Offices are commercial rental spaces which can have as many as 6 people employed per office. They are rented out in Quarterly terms to the tenants and you receive rent payments from them every 1st weekday at 5 AM. Office tenants must be kept fairly happy. If their ‘Evaluation’ of the tower (stress level) is red for too long, they will usually vacate. Office Tenants begin to arrive at your tower around 9 AM every weekday morning. They will have lunch between 12 and 1 PM, during which time most tenants will wish to visit various fast food restaurants in your building. Thus ensure your elevators are able to handle them during this time. Officers begin to close at 5 PM, although some Sims will continue to work as late as 10 PM. Offices are a great source of easy income. However the traffic they create is something you must ensure your elevator system is able to handle. Otherwise the profits will be short lived as tenants move out.

- Condominium: These units are private residential apartments. These are actually sold upon purchase by the tenant. Since these are sold, you do not get any rent payments or anything similar from them after the sale. If the tenants vacate, you basically automatically re-purchase the condo, and then you can re-sell it again at a price of your choosing. Because of this, condos are not really a good way to make a profit in the game. They are however a good way to make fast cash, if you are strapped for cash. The low population of condos is also helpful if your elevator system is over burdened. Condos provide a method to continue to build upwards, without drastically taxing your infrastructure. Tenants will begin to leave condos around 8:30 AM on weekdays, to go to School or work, or shopping. Tenants begin to return home to their condos around 2 PM on weekdays. Sometimes they will go out for dinner at your local Restaurants in the evening.

- Fast Food Restaurant: These are places where Sims can have lunch and eat snacks during the day. Fast Food places attract everyone in your tower to them, as well as bring in outsiders. In this regard their positioning is critical to the traffic patterns in your building. Since they do see a lot of lunchtime traffic, it is often best to place them within 1 floor of a lobby. If you can, I try to place them directly on a sky lobby. Fast Food places will open at 10 AM and close at 9 PM at which time they will hand in their daily profits.

2 Stars:

- Service Elevator: Service elevators are similar to Standard Elevators in that they can only travel 30 floors, and can have as many as 8 cars per shaft. However service elevators are only for Housekeeping staff. Their only use is to transport housekeeping staff between floors with Hotel rooms on them, so they can clean them. The in-game help for Service Elevators suggests that they also need to be connected to Recycling Centers as well. However, I have found this to be untrue. Recycling Centers work just fine without connections to Service Elevators, and vise versa. Service Elevators do not need to connect to lobbies. You should only use them locally on the floors where you have hotel rooms and housekeeping rooms. Otherwise they are a wasted elevator shaft.

- Single Hotel Room: These are single hotel rooms. They hold one guest, per night. Hotels are an excellent, all be it difficult way to make money. Rooms must be cleaned every day by your housekeeping staff, otherwise they will get infested with Cockroaches, and at that point then only thing you can do, is destroy the room and rebuild it. Cockroaches can spread across a whole floor if left unchecked, even if the other rooms are clean. Hotel guests begin to sign in around 5 PM and will continue to sign in until Midnight. They trickle into their rooms just as the office crowd is trickling out of the building. This makes a very difficult 2 way traffic pattern for your building, if you have a lot of Offices and a lot of Hotel spaces. Hotels, like Condos, are sensitive to neighboring space use. If there is an office or commercial space next door, they will likely complain that it is too noisy. Hotel guests begin to check out around 6:30 AM and continue to sign out all morning. When the guest signs out, you will receive the rent payment directly from them. Per tenant, Hotels generate the most income for your tower.

- Housekeeping: These areas are the workplace of 6 housekeepers. These staff members will use Service Elevators to visit each hotel room, each day, to clean it. They operate between Noon and 5 PM. If the housekeeping staff are not able to clean all the rooms by 5 PM, you need more staff. To do this, simply place another Housekeeping section. However be careful where you place these. They are unable to be destroyed once built! Also, each Housekeeping unit will only send 1 housekeeper to each floor. So if you have lets say 3 floors of hotels, and 1 housekeeping unit, it will send only 1 housekeeper to each floor, leaving 3 housekeepers in the Housekeeping unit for the whole shift. If you wish for 2 or more housekeepers to attend each floor, you will have to build 2 or more Housekeeping units. There are apparently no restrictions on how many housekeeping units you can have.

- Security: The Security center is used to fight fires, and find bombs planted by terrorists. Security personnel use the outside fire stairs to travel, and do not use the elevators, or inside stairs. Security officers can not be removed, and you have a limit of 10 per tower. You should place them near every lobby to be effective.

3 Star:

- Escalator: Similar to Stairs, however these can only be places on empty areas, or public areas like shops and restaurants. A Sim can travel on up to 7 Escalators during a single trip within the building.

- Express Elevator: This is an essential tool for climbing upwards. The Express Elevator stops only on lobby floors (note: you don’t actually need to have a lobby on the floor for it to stop there), and it also can stop at basement floors as well. These carry 42 people per car, and up to 8 cars per shaft. For a full width building, I try to have 4 Express Elevators. 2 to service the lower sky lobbies, and 2 to service the upper sky lobbies.

- Restaurant: These are a better food option then Fast Food joints… health wise anyhow regardless, Restaurants are only opened in the evening, from Dinner onwards. Therefore they will not be able to service the lunch time crowd. However they are a big bonus for Sims staying at your hotel, and they also bring in people from outside. They make more money then Fast Food places as well.
- Retail Shop: These stores are decent money makers, however not really essential. They do bring in a little bit of people, however they are more so dependent on other nearby facilities bringing in people, for them. Like movie theaters or the Subway station. They are good at filling in empty unused space in your basement

- Movie Theater: This facility is a great way to bring outsiders into your tower. However it is not a good money maker. Place these near your commercial areas with your restaurants and retail stores.

- Party Hall: The party hall is a better money maker then the Theater. It also takes up slightly less space. You can really place these anywhere, however, expect neighbouring tenants to complain of it being noisy. Sims who come in from outside to visit party halls however rarely seem to travel anywhere else in the building.

- Hotel Twin, and Suite rooms: These rooms round out your Hotel building abilities. You will need some Suites to advance to 4 Stars. Twin rooms pack more Sims into a floor then a floor filled with Single hotel rooms. However expect a heavy burden on your elevator system if you make a lot of Twin rooms. Suites SHOULD be places in a location where there is no delay for elevators, either going up to, or coming down from the suites. It is important they remain happy. As with other Hotel rooms, Twins and Suites will complain about noise and distance from elevators / stairs. Twins more so then Suites will be your big money makers. As While Suites technically do bring in more money, they will not always fill up with renters every night. Twins usually do if their clean.

- Medical Center: Place Medical Centers near Residential and Office areas and near the main Lobby. They should be fairly spread out in the building.

- Recycling Center: These large 2 level facilities need to be placed next to eachother to function. They can only be in the basement. So I usually align then with one of the sides. and ensure I have enough space to build as many as 8 to 10 side by side (or ontop of eachother). If they are getting full long before they are cleaned out, you need more.

- Parking Ramp / Spots: The parking ramps and spots are essential to tower advancement. They may only be built underground. I try to build them on the opposing side of the map as the Recycling centers, and I just build parking spots inwards till I hit my commercial areas (which I usually build in the middle). Other then being a pain in the ass to place all of the parking spots, there isn’t much else to them.

4 Stars:

- Metro Station: Place this near your commercial area in your basement. It will bring in a lot of new Sims from the outside world to shop at your building. Metro stations can not be demolished, so place carefully. They must be placed at the lowest level. Sims which come in from the Subway, will only shop in the lower levels of the building, they will likely never travel any higher then the street level lobby.

5 Stars:

- Cathedral: This item is required for your ‘Tower’ rating. Cathedrals cant be removed once you place them either. They must be placed on the 100th floor. Other then that there really isnt much too them. Try to place some party halls nearby, as weddings do happen up there, so having a place local may help lol but I am not really sure it does.

Strats:

Well, I have read a few of these Walkthrus for SimTower and many of them are kinda crappy. I saw one where it took the kid about a year to finish the game… really if it takes you THAT long, you are doing something wrong. Sure it is challenging, but it can usually be won in about 8 hours or so.

First off, I usually cheat a little to start off. before you do anything, scroll to the bottom left of your area, and. while pressing Shift and Ctrl, try to place a Lobby at the bottom left tile. If you do it right, you should get $4,000,000 to start off with instead of $2,000,000. I do not really consider it a cheat tho, it really doesn’t help too much in the long run. As in a hour or so, you should be making easily $1,000,000 a week or so.

I then usually hold down Shift and Ctrl and build my lobby on the street level. That will give me a 3 level lobby, and while it takes up useful space, it is helpful in relieving stress caused by Sims waiting for elevators.

As far as cheats, thats all I know. But thats really all ya need. At this point we need to decide what your major income will be in your tower. Starting off you are really limited to Fast Food places and Offices. Offices being the far better option So usually build a few floors of offices and let them do their thing. ensure they have good elevator coverage and let them build you a nice income. Feel free to build up and try to reach the 300 population mark to get your 2 star rating.

Once you get 2 star, you can choose to start building Hotel spaces. If you do, be sure to keep the elevators as separate as possible from the Offices. I like to fill full floors of one type of tenant space. so like Floor 4 will be offices, Floor 5 will be Hotels, etc… try not to mix them because then you run into transportation and noise issues.

If you begin to run low on cash, you can always build Residential condos anywhere, and that will likely help bring you back up, just be sure not to rely on them too much, as they are kind of like a Loan. they dont bring in money long term, and when you destroy them / when they move out, you loose the money you gained.

So basically now it is a game of building offices and hotels upwards. But the challenge lies more so in the Elevators. As I said earlier, try to keep your elevators seperate for Hotels and Offices. If possible, I like to keep Hotels to one segment (between 2 lobbies), and Offices between a different segment. Therefore you can service them with different elevators completely, and different Express Elevators too! Another trick I found is handy, is to build 2 elevators side by side, and alternate the floors on each. I try to do this in the middle of the building in high density areas. I also try to run a elevator up the left and right sides to ensure that no one is too far away.if you are running low on elevators, placing 2 local elevators per section can help. I would usually place them at about 25 – 30% and 70 – 75% across the building from left to right. this is usually good enough to ensure that no one is too far away. However you will likely have a lot of traffic on those elevators with only 2 per section servicing them, so be sure to manage the elevator time table properly. It pays to watch each elevator and see what times they are busiest. If you can not help congestion, look for a nearby local elevator which can be extended to help out. But be careful not to over crowd that elevator as well.

Generally for Hotels, I usually place Twins closest to the lobby, then I place Suites and Residential areas between 5 floors above the lobby and 5 floors below the next lobby. I then place Singles at the top of the section below the next lobby. This is because you can use Stairs to help with the crowding within 4 floors of any lobby. Twins and Singles will be the most crowded. Twins more so… Avoid using stairs for singles at the top of the section unless required. If the local elevator ends at the top floor in the section, the singles should not have any issues, as the elevator cars will always pick them up first on their way down. Assuming you use Express to Top function in the morning rush hour when everyone is checking out. As for the twins, they will be at the bottom, so the elevators wont likely hit them as much, but with stairs nearby, they will be fine with walking down to a lobby.

Housekeepng should be plentiful. Especially for a full section of hotels. I tend to place anywhere from 12 to 16 Housekeeping rooms per hotel section with a single service elevator spanning it. That seems to work fairly well. Be careful where you place your housekeeping. I try to place it in the middle of the section personally… it helps east congestion at the elevator, on the floors furthest from the lobby / stairs

As far as Offices goes. They should be close to Medical Centers, and Fast Food places. Otherwise just making sure that the elevators arent too congested for them is the key. Elevator placement and scheduling is key in this game.

Residential areas dont really add much in the way of congestion, so you can always use them as space fillers in over congested sections.

Check your Evaluation map regularly, look for red areas. If they remain red for a few days, consider lowering the rent for that facility. That should help keep them happy. But the key is finding out why their Red. Following the tenants can help. You will usually find that it is caused by long waits for elevators.

Another trick I have to save congestion on your express elevators, is for them to skip the 15′th floor lobby. Instead use 2 local elevators at each side of the building, and make them skip everything between the main lobby and level 15. then use then to service levels 15 – 29. Sims can board them directly on level 1, and it will service all of the whole 2nd section without burdening other elevators.

I think that about covers it for now.

let me know how this helpped ya.

Tags: Computer Game Reviews by Roadwolf
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