Cafe/retail question

[GrumpyDragon]

what is the advantage to having 2 people at once register, vs 1 person at two registers.. is there a significant difference? is adding extra people to a register a glitch? just curious.

Secondly. I am curious why its easier, and more profitable, to line a wall with food and vending machines than to try and get a kitchen and cafe set up. is this as intended? Cause i dont seem to find ANY downsides to just vending machine carpeting my airport. the PAX seem to get better service, and move along faster and dont seem to mind the vending machines, where cash registers they seem to view with disdain

[chick10000]

HI,

The dev's have made some very good balance changes to cafe/retail/vending on the edge version of the game PAX now use cafe and stores more.

you can see on the change log thread on sept 26 update
https://steamcommunity.com/app/598330/discussions/3/1642042464733950612/

[aldldl]

+1 on the discussion in the first half of the question, does anyone know the advantages?

[Borrego6165]

Hello, so the big issue is efficiency. Also be ready for a long post :D

By the way, double staff on tills equals faster serving times! We wanted an easy way for players to expand the capacity at peak times without needing to lay down spare tills just for those peaks.

In say a theme park game, it's quite easy to make guests prioritise quality and queue around the block for a special rollercoaster or quality shop. It's less efficient, but they have more time to waste.

Here, efficiency and speed is everything. We try and be careful how much we prioritise cafes due to the fact that it's a 2 step process, and that cafes tend to be built further away then vending machines from the gates.

When a pax evaluates whether or not to use a food display in a cafe, if they under-predict how many pax are going to be at the till by the time they pick their product and head towards it, then they and a bunch of other pax can end up stuck/locked in a massive queue for the tills. I believe we do make them steal the product if they are really late, but we try to avoid it!

I'm going to suggest two possible changes (used together), let me know what you think:

1. Vending machines make too much profit. They probably should make a fraction of the money back, as likely the vending machine company and the product maker will take most of the cut. Vending machines should make pax more content as they do and be just as attractive to pax, but be mostly for that purpose only and barely break even financially. If you want to make money, make it from cafes and kiosks. It probably doesn't even make sense to be able to set the prices of vending machines.

2. Vending machines should probably be a bit slower to use, to take into account pax need to look at the options, decide on one, enter the code, find their change, insert it, then grab the product. And to make sure pax don't get stuck queuing all day at vending machines we can make them a bit more sensitive to the queue size of them to compensate.

We can't change 2 too much, as we'll have the same issue as slow cafes. Then pax will just avoid them instead! You can see how delicate this can be to balance.

At this point you maybe thinking "what's the point of vending machines then if they're not making much money?"

1. They're still the fastest/most efficient to use.*
2. Easy to place close to gates and pretty much anywhere desired.
3. Don't need a kitchen/ restocking/ so they're cheap to build and better for early game.

*With enough staff, kiosks and cafes can be pretty efficient, but are dependant on player management.

[Dodobird]

I think the balance is perfect. You need to leave some things challenging otherwise what is the point of thinking things through. I like all the changes to the stores and cafes but my airport was doing just fine the way it was previously. All is good though and hands off to the devs for constant improvements. I did not read the original post so don't mind me and my two cents worth and blabbering.

[chick10000]

Originally posted by Dodobird:

I think the balance is perfect. You need to leave some things challenging otherwise what is the point of thinking things through. I like all the changes to the stores and cafes but my airport was doing just fine the way it was previously. All is good though and hands off to the devs for constant improvements. I did not read the original post so don't mind me and my two cents worth and blabbering.

+1 i agree the new balance is great and would not touch it and don't slow anything down

[GrumpyDragon]

thank you for the detailed explanation. I am wonderign if maybe vending machines shoudl give a slight decor penalty since, eh.. whole LIKES to see rows and rows of vending machines? I loaded to the edge version and noticed the PAX are using the cafe's in a much more.. logical manner, i also eliminated all vending machines. and am runnign on multiple local cafe's.. A comment i woudl like to add though, i think the scoring for rooms needs tweaking. its physically not possible to get a 100% office, as if you place a desk and chair, its 'open space' req is automatically now under 100% as three tiles are being used. i would suggest maybe have it score open tiles up to 25, so if you give a person a size 30 room, and put 4 tiles of 'stuff' in it, it should satisfy that need.

if anybody hasnt complained about the wonky window req, then i am right now. how are you even suppose dto get that above 38% cause even if ii LITERALLY turn ever wall into window it never goes above 38

[aldldl]

The window thing depends on what floor you're on. A 6 by 6 portion of your walls being windows on the third floor will be 100% for example.

[aldldl]

That makes sense with the cafes and doubling the staff. That's similar to what I thought. However I wonder if making you purchase items to stock the vending machines would solve your cost issues. So leave it a similar price but make either a worker or janitor stock your vending machines. There are big businesses sometimes like airports that do not outsource their venting and they get more control but they have to purchase all the supplies. Where if you work with a company the vending machine itself is free and you typically get 10% to 15% or if you have a great contract 25% of the profit. At least that's how it is in the part of the country that I live in.
Source: I've worked in hotels and hospitality/ amusement park management for all my life so far.

[aldldl]

I don't think vending machines should be any slower. And if you have to have them restock don't make it a super long time. Making vending slower just makes you have to put more. It doesn't actually help make it anymore real as vending is very fast compared to say going play Cafe and getting a fountain or specialty coffee drink made.

[Borrego6165]

Thanks for your responses! :D

If you've jumped straight to this post, check out my first response above!

Everyone has persuaded me that making them slower would be worse, so thanks for that feedback. We won't change that.

I also like the decor penalty idea for vending machines!

I personally disagree about making vending machines require restock, else they just become miniature kiosks. They need to be easy to manage in the early game.

I still think making less profit on them would be a good idea, and would encourage players to use less of them in the late game, as they're currently too powerful. Agents only don't use cafes in situations where there are lots of competing options, so encouraging less vending machines solves the demand issue, only being placed where it would take too long to use a cafe. In other words, they're still good but not good for every situation as they currently are.

They make lots of money, AND are efficient and cheap, which is why they are all-round too powerful. Having them make less profit would still give them a good use case if you don't have a near by cafe and want the most efficiency, but at the cost of less income.

[GrumpyDragon]

I have noticed that in Edge, my PAX use my cafe's and stores much more.. uhm.. reliably now. I think a PAX should weigh going to a cafe and sitting, highest on their desire, going to cafe and not sitting second, and then going to vending machine as a last resort if cafe's not avilable. I would like to see PAX try to solve their boredom BEFORE it gets to 60%+, otherwise i dont ever get higher than 65% content with boredom. Also, along the lings of the cafe vs vending machines, can it be made so the PAX dont value the cell phone charger above all else? it has the same problem as the vendign machines do with food/drink. i place them, and pax forget about all my stores. I have not tried to place any yet in the EDGE version, so i do not know if that has already been fixed, but its what i noticed reliably happens in regular. the PAX all line up fo rthe cell phone chargers and whine cause of the mile long line for them.

[chick10000]

Originally posted by GrumpyDragon:

I have noticed that in Edge, my PAX use my cafe's and stores much more.. uhm.. reliably now. I think a PAX should weigh going to a cafe and sitting, highest on their desire, going to cafe and not sitting second, and then going to vending machine as a last resort if cafe's not avilable. I would like to see PAX try to solve their boredom BEFORE it gets to 60%+, otherwise i dont ever get higher than 65% content with boredom. Also, along the lings of the cafe vs vending machines, can it be made so the PAX dont value the cell phone charger above all else? it has the same problem as the vendign machines do with food/drink. i place them, and pax forget about all my stores. I have not tried to place any yet in the EDGE version, so i do not know if that has already been fixed, but its what i noticed reliably happens in regular. the PAX all line up fo rthe cell phone chargers and whine cause of the mile long line for them.

the edge version of the game has a better balance. the devs have been making changes to improve that balance as you can see in the change log thread pinned to the edge discussions. With modding coming out for objects soon I am sure there will be a lot of choices for the pax in the near future.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/598330/discussions/3/1642042464733950612/

[aldldl]

Do we have a list somewhere of what solves what problems ie boredom vs frustration and what in a store does what, is it money only or does it solve needs? (Cafe obv is hunger or thirst depending on what is in them)

[GrumpyDragon]

boredom is solved by, phone chargers, electronics vending, arcades, and stores. Frustration i have no clue, probably solved by not havgin a need go to extreme need?

[chick10000]

i think frustration is when pax have to wait in any line or walk long distances. some pax are frustrated when they get off a plane, train, bus already. A airport is frustrating to regular people just walking in to the airport or waiting in security or that person ahead of you who has no clue :). frustration should be loaded less for the game since it is a part of travel to start with