No One Visits the Cafeteria

[Playin Girly]

New to the game and just built my first cafeteria. Other than the assistant that mans the counter no one visits. Students or staff. I did download the extra mod content. Wasn't sure if there was an object I was suppose to place that I didn't or if there was a conflict with the added content.

[Two Point Abby]

Heya, sorry to hear no one's been visiting the Cafeteria!

Has it seen more use since you posted? Wondering if there's an issue going on or simply not enough time had passed.

For context, students and staff will make decisions based on their needs and other time commitments going on for them. So let's say they're on their way to class, they might pass a vending machine and grab a snack to fulfil their needs, because they're on a time limit (they need to get to class).

If your students have enough free time, they should be visiting the Cafeteria. The team worked with our VIP testers to balance things, so whilst vending machines are convenient, they decrease Healthiness, so students will seek out the Cafe for a meal, alongside a place to hang out and socialise with each other.

Is your Cafeteria far away from the main busy areas of your Campus? It could be they're grabbing a packet of crisps or similar as they don't have time between classes to visit the Cafe.

It could be worthwhile checking your modded content, if any items are giving students food and drinks needs, they might be using these instead of the Cafe. Modded items aren't able to be super buffed, but someone could (as an example) add a modded vending machine where they remove the - Healthiness effect.

If they still aren't visiting please let us know, there might be something going on causing the room to not be used

[Playin Girly]

Thanks for the quick response.

I watched it for a good while and students will walk in the entrance (I put in two entrances) and then walk back out. Not many, mind you, but a few.

I built it in a secondary building towards the back next to one of two student unions which gets a decent amount of traffic. I thought maybe it was the layout with the tables being crammed in pretty tightly. I removed a few tables and noticed the occasional student sit at a table but still didn't order food.

I have a good many food kiosks outside in front of the school and inside another secondary building on the other side of the main building. I also have a number of the initial unlocked vending machines scattered around the main building and the secondary building opposite the one with the cafeteria. These spaces get a lot of traffic.

I haven't put much modded content in the game other than additional tables for the cafe as I don't want to spend to unlock them. I might try moving the whole cafeteria to the main building and possibly making it larger to see if that allows more traffic.

I'll update with my findings. Going to check it out now.

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by Playin Girly:

Thanks for the quick response.

I watched it for a good while and students will walk in the entrance (I put in two entrances) and then walk back out. Not many, mind you, but a few.

I built it in a secondary building towards the back next to one of two student unions which gets a decent amount of traffic. I thought maybe it was the layout with the tables being crammed in pretty tightly. I removed a few tables and noticed the occasional student sit at a table but still didn't order food.

I have a good many food kiosks outside in front of the school and inside another secondary building on the other side of the main building. I also have a number of the initial unlocked vending machines scattered around the main building and the secondary building opposite the one with the cafeteria. These spaces get a lot of traffic.

I haven't put much modded content in the game other than additional tables for the cafe as I don't want to spend to unlock them. I might try moving the whole cafeteria to the main building and possibly making it larger to see if that allows more traffic.

I'll update with my findings. Going to check it out now.

It sounds like you gave them no reason to use the cafeteria. The game launched without one, no students have a need or desire to go there.

When they get hungry they just go to the nearest available food whether it's a vending machine, kiosk or cafeteria.

The only way the cafeteria would get used is if it's centralized where many people walk through it or near it and no other food is nearby when they happen to get hungry.

There's no fixed schedule to go to any specific rooms other than classes or events you put on the schedule yourself.

Food, drink, sleep, entertainment, etc. are all just at the whim of the needs bar and random interactions with what's nearby to refill them as they wander randomly around the campus between scheduled classes.

[Playin Girly]

Originally posted by Kunovega:

Originally posted by Playin Girly:

Thanks for the quick response.

I watched it for a good while and students will walk in the entrance (I put in two entrances) and then walk back out. Not many, mind you, but a few.

I built it in a secondary building towards the back next to one of two student unions which gets a decent amount of traffic. I thought maybe it was the layout with the tables being crammed in pretty tightly. I removed a few tables and noticed the occasional student sit at a table but still didn't order food.

I have a good many food kiosks outside in front of the school and inside another secondary building on the other side of the main building. I also have a number of the initial unlocked vending machines scattered around the main building and the secondary building opposite the one with the cafeteria. These spaces get a lot of traffic.

I haven't put much modded content in the game other than additional tables for the cafe as I don't want to spend to unlock them. I might try moving the whole cafeteria to the main building and possibly making it larger to see if that allows more traffic.

I'll update with my findings. Going to check it out now.

It sounds like you gave them no reason to use the cafeteria. The game launched without one, no students have a need or desire to go there.

When they get hungry they just go to the nearest available food whether it's a vending machine, kiosk or cafeteria.

The only way the cafeteria would get used is if it's centralized where many people walk through it or near it and no other food is nearby when they happen to get hungry.

There's no fixed schedule to go to any specific rooms other than classes or events you put on the schedule yourself.

Food, drink, sleep, entertainment, etc. are all just at the whim of the needs bar and random interactions with what's nearby to refill them as they wander randomly around the campus between scheduled classes.

I did a cursory search of scheduling but other than events I didn't notice a place to manage schedules more specifically.

I moved to another campus and placed the cafeteria in the main building before placing any kiosks. This was the first time I saw the animations for ordering food. It had a good bit of traffic and was used regularly.

Once I started building up the new campus and placing kiosks outside the cafe was barely occupied other than a place to sit occasionally. During the summer off time it was again used but not very often.

It seemed pretty apparent that the schedules did play a role in usage and the draw of kiosks greatly outweigh the use of the cafe.

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by Playin Girly:

Originally posted by Kunovega:

It sounds like you gave them no reason to use the cafeteria. The game launched without one, no students have a need or desire to go there.

When they get hungry they just go to the nearest available food whether it's a vending machine, kiosk or cafeteria.

The only way the cafeteria would get used is if it's centralized where many people walk through it or near it and no other food is nearby when they happen to get hungry.

There's no fixed schedule to go to any specific rooms other than classes or events you put on the schedule yourself.

Food, drink, sleep, entertainment, etc. are all just at the whim of the needs bar and random interactions with what's nearby to refill them as they wander randomly around the campus between scheduled classes.

I did a cursory search of scheduling but other than events I didn't notice a place to manage schedules more specifically.

I moved to another campus and placed the cafeteria in the main building before placing any kiosks. This was the first time I saw the animations for ordering food. It had a good bit of traffic and was used regularly.

Once I started building up the new campus and placing kiosks outside the cafe was barely occupied other than a place to sit occasionally. During the summer off time it was again used but not very often.

It seemed pretty apparent that the schedules did play a role in usage and the draw of kiosks greatly outweigh the use of the cafe.

Kiosks are also part of the rotation for student wants; it's why they come up as requests if you don't have one. Same as any other "I want to see X" trait. Cafeteria I don't believe is on any request list since the game didn't launch with it.

That's something they could probably adjust if they looked into it.