How is Sector Defined

[Haflax el Pope]

Picked up the game again after a long while. Enabled events, which so far seem to be fires somewhat regularly. Whenever there is a fire everyone in that sector evacuates. I had been rocking an open concept as I find that easier in the beginning so I am not constantly removing and rebuilding walls. As such, security opened up into the main terminal (no walls or doors). When there is a fire, the terminal (not the bathrooms) AND the security zone all evacuate.

My thought was that if I did a wall and a glass door to section off some of the gates this would stop the ENTIRE airport from evacuating, but it is still considering it all one sector.

Long way of asking. What are the games parameters to define a "Sector"

[joscha999]

Before going into detail on Sectors we actually have a lower layer - SubSectors. SubSectors are even smaller partitions that will break in this case. You can see SubSectors as defining a room but also defining what parts of that room have placeables and what parts are free.

Since there are many SubSectors which all have similar reachability (i.e. they can be reached from spawn/can reach spawn by the same agents) it makes sense to have one abstraction layer higher to SubSectors - that's where Sectors come in. A Sector defines an area that is reachable by the same agents consisting of SubSectors defining the space itself (simplified speaking).

The bigger the Sector the more SubSectors it contains and the less data we need to store to determine whether or not an agent can reach another Sector. So we generally want Sectors to be as big as possible.

Combining these two criteria we end up with what we have right now - quite large Sectors outdoors and few big ones indoors which split where agent reachability changes. So the question becomes, where does agent reachability change - it's the following (simplified):
- Floors (a Sector can only be on one floor)
- Zones (a Zone always has its own Sector)
- Indoor vs. Outdoor
- Security/Directional dividers (security exits, one way arrows)
- Staff doors
- Floor portals (stairs, escalators)
- Road ramps
- Crosswalks (if placed together they get one Sector)
- LRT, Roads, Runways

There's no intended way to force seperate Sectors (there really should be for fires, some fire-doors that can close automatically would come to mind) - you can achieve it using baggage claim zones however. It's a trick I actually used back before working on SimAirport (when I was just a player as well ^^), you can build a seperating wall, place a door in it and place a bagge claim on one side of it. The baggage claim zone doesn't require anything and if you have a functioning bag system using depots/conveyors it will never be used.

Feel free to ask if you want more detail on any of these points, happy to share :)

[Haflax el Pope]

Thank you. That is very helpful to know some of the nuts and bolts behind the coding. From what you said, I am still not sure why my security (as a separate zone) is in the same sector as the rest of the terminal on that floor.

However, I think my solution will be to wall off the security zone and make the only way through one-way walkways. People shouldn't be backtracking through a security zone anyway, so also adds some realism. :)

(also, thank you guys for continuing to work and be active on this. It really is a solid game.)