Elevators

[Valdemort]

So I've got a max height hotel at my architect level (2 basement/8 high) and finally got elevators researched. I build the first two all-floor elevator shafts (slow/low volume, since first unlock) and the whole building screeches to a halt.

No one's on the upper floor rooms using the slots anymore, workers aren't at their upper floor posts, everyone's in these clusters around the elevator cars on the first two floors and the basement 2 parking lot. Delivery people and incoming builders & workers aren't doing their jobs either, just waiting, waiting, waiting...

At this rate I'll drive myself broke just by no one able to go anywhere and most of my workers not generating revenue or research points or whatnot. Yikes.

Any advice/thoughts? I do have prior saves I could revert to, but oof. Yes I've still got the prior multiple staircases but now no one's using them, instead opting to wait forever.

[CyperkSoftware]

Most people prefer utilizing stairs over elevators particularly when the floor they need to reach is in a 1-2 floor distance, other than that they do anything to avoid stairs. And they choose the elevator line with fewer people waiting over others.

They get +5 tired moodlet if they climb 5 stairs back to back.

Maybe I should add something about if the wait is too long go with the stairs no matter what. But I thought solving the crowding issue could be fun. Do you have any suggestions?

[Baguette]

Maybe a max queue system for elevators? I didn't use them till a bit late on and didn't really have space for multiple elevators so suddenly I had queues of people not doing anything because of the slow speed so I had to quickly just research high speed and now it's fine.

It is a bit odd though that you can place stairs anywhere even ontop of things but an Elevator that's in the wall is apparently obstructing everything

[curmudgeon69]

I have an elevator set up and it can be used by everyone. The issue is at the start of a shift, the elevator gets crowded on the main floor because all of the incoming employees and outsourced workers want to use it at once. Eventually, the outsourced workers get fed up and leave and so I miss out on things like deliveries. I have stairs in the slot just to the left of the elevator shaft which go down to the storage areas and those are just two floors down. You say they prefer to use stairs if it is just 1-2 floors but that does not seem to be the case, at least not with outsourced workers.

[thelefthorse]

Originally posted by Baguette:

. . .

It is a bit odd though that you can place stairs anywhere even ontop of things but an Elevator that's in the wall is apparently obstructing everything :happiness:

I also find this to be a very strange decision by the devs. Shouldn't it be the opposite?

I dislike how the stairs look when they're on top of room objects, so pretty early on I started building proper stairwells, which at least helps when you get to elevators.

[Katara]

Originally posted by CyperkSoftware:

They get +5 tired moodlet if they climb 5 stairs back to back.

What does 'back to back' mean in that context?

[CyperkSoftware]

Originally posted by Katara:

Originally posted by CyperkSoftware:

They get +5 tired moodlet if they climb 5 stairs back to back.

What does 'back to back' mean in that context?

It means they don't use any elevator in the middle of it or reach their destination. Because the count resets if so.

[Lv1 Magikarp]

Personally would prefer "If busy = Stairs"

It's what you'd do irl and makes sense from a gaming point too as at the minute it just sorta feels anti fun, watching all of them just ignore the stairs they were fine with 5 minutes ago before adding an elevator is annoying.

P.S

Getting them late in the game is stressful as well as it's not really easy to move a room over to the left or right to accommodate the lift shafts you need room for, not if you want to keep the same layout or have rooms on the other side which means moving those rooms or delete objects.

Saying that, it is my first play through, now I know how big they are etc I can plan for that going forward but yeah.

Hope that made sense..

[xSquishx]

Personally I would prefer that they use stairs if line>elevator capacity or if destination is =<4 floors away. In real life I would take the stairs in those cases as well.

In my initial game when I learned that they get tired after 5 flights, I used elevators to set up 'blocks' of activity. Elevators would only stop every 5 floors and each of those stops connected to the nearest 4 floors through stairs. Pathing ai did not seem to like that setup very much though, saying places were unreachable despite the character only needing to take the elevator up and then descend 4 flights of stairs.

[hungry.fish]

The smoothness of all traffic dropped significantly after I added elevators to my building. They have an odd behaviour, in which an empty cabin sometimes zooms past waiting people to pick up someone from another floor.With every floor having a crowd of angry people, the cabin is travels mostly empty, or with a handful of people. Looks like there is a global queue for the given shaft across floors maybe? I can see it would avoid "starvation" but it means many people have to wait really long.
After adding elevators, I suddenly had to add a lot of extra janitors and maintenance employee, as everyone is often stuck just waiting for elevators.
I have a set up of one cabin going 5 floors max, and then you have to switch. Long busy shafts were just not working. Now I am thinking of experimenting with 2 floor shafts :D
I feel like something could be improved on the elevator performance side.

[CyperkSoftware]

Originally posted by hungry.fish:

The smoothness of all traffic dropped significantly after I added elevators to my building. They have an odd behaviour, in which an empty cabin sometimes zooms past waiting people to pick up someone from another floor.With every floor having a crowd of angry people, the cabin is travels mostly empty, or with a handful of people. Looks like there is a global queue for the given shaft across floors maybe? I can see it would avoid "starvation" but it means many people have to wait really long.
After adding elevators, I suddenly had to add a lot of extra janitors and maintenance employee, as everyone is often stuck just waiting for elevators.
I have a set up of one cabin going 5 floors max, and then you have to switch. Long busy shafts were just not working. Now I am thinking of experimenting with 2 floor shafts :D
I feel like something could be improved on the elevator performance side.

If the elevator is called for going up, it will go to the passenger on the lowest floor that wants to go up first, and then collect people that want to go up on the way up. And ignore the ones that want to go down and vice versa. I've implemented real-world elevator behavior.

But I decided to give the control to the player. You will be able to select when to pick who etc. You deal with this now :P

So the upcoming changes are: people will be more likely to use stairs if elevators are full and elevator behavior controls.

[Sean]

i tried experimenting with this as my close to end game casino kind of came to a halt when i was getting around 500 to 1000+ customers and being around 30 floors high ( i would of carried on building but i just stopped getting deliveries etc. and had to close my casino every 2nd day to get toilet paper)

basically if the delivery guy comes in on ground floor and you have elevators on every floor if they have to go up more than 1 floor of stairs they will take the lift, if they bottle neck they ghost the order and leave. this happens with everything when involving elevator.

i found the only way i could cut down queues and stop the ghosting in my hotel was to only making elevator doors 5 floors apart ( ground to 5th floor to 10th floor etc.) i had 8 elevator shafts 2 per 12 block rooms, there would still be queues for elevator but it stopped the -5 tired debuff ever showing even if people were bothered by wait of the elevator any activity stopped you from getting it even if it fails.

the best way i could stop queues building at my elevators was to have alternate shafts, 0 to 5 on left side, 5-10 right side etc. however there were tired debuffs showing up of the elevator was going down and the sim wanted to go up it would just walk up 5+ staircases even with 4 elevators on largest map to choose from.

although it probably wouldnt be realistic but might fix abit of the jank is if you could make one way elevators ( only going down) that way the sim doesnt by pass the elevator.

[Baguette]

Originally posted by CyperkSoftware:

But I decided to give the control to the player. You will be able to select when to pick who etc. You deal with this now :P

So the upcoming changes are: people will be more likely to use stairs if elevators are full and elevator behavior controls.

Dope, I love having more control over things. Much love dev <3

[hungry.fish]

Originally posted by CyperkSoftware:

If the elevator is called for going up, it will go to the passenger on the lowest floor that wants to go up first, and then collect people that want to go up on the way up. And ignore the ones that want to go down and vice versa. I've implemented real-world elevator behavior.

I observed evidence of the elevator going up and then down, whilst some set of people stayed onboard, so basically they would travel needlessly up and down. I also saw cases where the elevator would not go to the highest floor that wants to go down, but just a floor or two, bring down one person, and then go up again to a much higher floor.

For me, and as I read for some others, elevator behavior is a blocking issue that stops me from continuing with the game.

Glad to hear it's on the radar, maybe in the course of implementing the control for the gamer over elevators, some bugs will be ironed out. Looking forward to it!

[darynbray]

Agree, great game, really well done to you. Thoroughly enjoyed but the mid/high end is hard work with the elevators. Mine biggest negative from staff and customer is waiting to long for one, or then walking to many stairs. My current set up is two 8 block towers ,joined by a 3 block hall, with the same 3 block hall on the outside walls. About 25 stories high. Each of those 3 wide halls, contains stairs, top to bottom and two high speed elevator shafts in them. Each shaft is staggered and each has doors 3 blocks gap between them. Still the only thing currently spoiling that stage of the game. As said, shame because apart from that, massive thumbs up!

[IronSides]

The key is not putting an elevator door on every floor... Once you get the fast elevators that can hold a lot of people skip a few floors and put stairs on those. This way, you funnel, the people to less Elevator doors. Therefore, they do not have to stop as often. And every time they stop, they are picking up or dropping off a lot of people. The reason that they end up waiting for so long is the fact that the elevator is stopping. So often, and changing direction so often. Maybe the developer can borrow from sim tower in allow more than one car in each shaft Or at the very Least allow us to make them express. They could be research options.