TOO MANY GUESTS!

[Reurra]

I set my guest limit to 500, but my paths are consistently crammed to standing room only. Is there something that can be done about too many guests???

The game lags really bad too, even though I have a decent computer setup, I get about 5 good habitats with about 50 animals throughout and my fPS go from 160 from a fresh game down to 30 in no time. I cant even enjoy a third of the species Ive purchased.

[audiolady]

Raise the prices to the point that no guests want to visit? Just a thought.

[Just Kevin]

500 guests are nothing, I think the default limit is 10,000. More and wider paths maybe? And a better PC?

[grampers62]

Yes, having traffic jambs on the paths will tank performance greatly. The optimal strategy is to plan the main paths to be as wide as possible and have alternate routes to different parts of the zoo. Often players will build the main path through the zoo as a boulevard arrangement with two paths side by side to reduce the chance of crowding. Also planing where the high appeal species go so as to lead guests to different areas helps a lot.
Of course as the zoo grows and more things get added the impact on performance increases so plan well to have things spread out a bit. Know that the AI routines for guests and animals might be the biggest impact on performance. The only things in settings that really makes a difference in settings are shadows and reflections. Even on high power machines turning each of those down slightly will increase performance with minimal change in visual quality.

[SotiCoto]

My advice, for what it is worth...

#1. Make the entrance area BIG. It is a choke-point that all guests have to pass through, so you want to give them as much room as possible... just like in real zoos, theme parks, etc.

#2. Make separate vending machine / shop areas separated from the main path. Do not just cram vending machines along the path, as people will start queuing where other guests are trying to pass and it just makes a huge mess. Spread things out.

#3. Same with the animal enclosures. You may be tempted to just line them up along the path so people can see them while going past, but people are going to stop and stare, forming large crowds if the animal is popular... and that means they will be getting in each others' way. Viewing areas should ideally be separate from walking areas. Remember you're given a LOT of room to work with... at least outside of campaign mode.

#4. Put the most popular animals at the back of the zoo. That will spread out the foot-traffic throughout the entire zoo rather than having it all front-loaded. You can put a middle-popularity animal at the front if you like.

#5. Add alternate routes about the zoo if the paths taken are too circuitous. I'm particularly fond of sky-paths going over the enclosures (though you need lots of bins to ensure visitors don't drop rubbish off the path). Going underground is a bit trickier to manage.

#6. If all else fails, raise the ticket prices. Same for shop / vending machine prices if they're getting too crowded.

[Beastmonger]

Originally posted by Reurra:

I set my guest limit to 500, but my paths are consistently crammed to standing room only. Is there something that can be done about too many guests???

The game lags really bad too, even though I have a decent computer setup, I get about 5 good habitats with about 50 animals throughout and my fPS go from 160 from a fresh game down to 30 in no time. I cant even enjoy a third of the species Ive purchased.

bad layout... you need build smart...

[Just Kevin]

And of course you can have many entrances. The default one actually has four spawners, which causes heavy traffic in that area, and it can take guests a long time to spread out. As I add more single spawner entrances I delete the default ones, one at a time (make sure you split the building and the spawners first) until there's none there. That forces people to use other paths.