Elevators

[Ginkawa]

I just got the game, I was a big fan of Sim Tower. so this seems like it has some great potential.

So far so good, having a lot of fun.

My main issue thats throwing me so far, is Elevators. ... or should I say the elevator? thats really the point here.

how do the elevator mechanics work? it seems like at least up to 40-50 floors, one elevator seems to service everything regardless of anything.

I am kinda missing the option to turn the elevator off of certain floors. could also use express elevators, but it seems like theres not much of a point at present. I find it kinda weird that the wiring routing is so developed, but the elevator stuff is so simplified.

this particularly came to mind when on my last (most successful and furthest yet) tower I tried to retrofit a second elevator shaft, with the idea that the offices and such in the lower portion could use one elevator, and the other might route straight to a sky lobby, if not by direct control, by practical flow.

then I started having some issues.

most pertinent and not just new person mistakes... is that it seemed like my construction crews started getting semi-stuck at weird places for no apparent reason. this seems like it must have been related, but I'm not sure how.

So am I just expecting too much from the elevators, trying to make it too complicated?
any advice on elevators? or is it just easiest to make a single elevator stack with a utilities stack right next to it?

[raijinsetsu]

I noticed this too - there seems to be little reason to have more than one elevator. I tried having the initial elevator go up to my "sky lobby" and another off to the right from the "sky lobby" up to increase traffic on that floor (I wanted some restaurants on the sky lobby floor because I ran out of space on the ground floor). It seemed to work but things outside the reach of either elevator were still seeing a lot of traffic so I can't be sure.
It does not help that there is zero information about elevator usage in game: number of passengers, average waiting time... nothing to indicate that you should have more than one.
There is the elevator coverage map, but I do not see how it affects the game at all.
Maybe they'll enhance elevators at a later time.

[KatherineOfSky]

SimTower is "elevator simulator"... Project Highrise is more "skyscraper builder". You really don't need more than one elevator if it is centrally located. Reasons to have more: 1. Some tenants like having close access to elevators, 2. services benefit from being close to elevators, 3. if the one breaks down, you have a backup, reducing tenant frustration.

[Skirlasvoud]

There are still one or two reasons to work with multiple elevators, but all of them are poor.

Elevators are still bottlenecks in this game, in so far that they break down if they suffer a lot of traffic in massive towers, which can ruin both the mood and the ability of your service workers to make their calls. Splitting your tower into seperate sections, serviced by seperate elevators, splits the strain between them, lowers breakage frequency and prevents your entire tower from having a bad day when the only route up or down breaks.

There are also rooms that either like or hate proximity to elevators, or like or hate traffic. The optimal placement for elevator hating rooms, is JUST outside the elevator effect radius, far enough not to get disgruntled by the noise, but still close enough that the distance isn't an absolute slog for your service men and tenants. Meanwhile, the same goes for traffic hating rooms, but you still don't want them too far apart from the elevators themselves. Conversely, a single elevator shaft might not be enough for all the rooms you have that like elevators.

There are definitly a few situations, especially in wider towers, where multiple elevators are desirable, just to make sure your service men don't have to march all the way across the breadth of your tower each floor, and ruin their service rating.