The most frustrating factor in franchise mode

[Livia]

Guests. There's too many. It makes the game so buggy. But you need them for cash. I thought I'd just start to get really into it, and it's a slog for the computer. I have only 3 habitat animals and a some exhibits and the guests are around 2,000. The connection to the online market must slow things down as I don't have this issue until the zoo is much bigger in other modes (and in sandbox I can limit the guests, or have none even, as I don't need funds).

Might have to wait until I buy a new computer in a few years to fully get into franchise. That's too bad.

Is it just me? Or is it because I have such a tiny zoo at present all the guests are in one area and that's the issue?

[grampers62]

Yeah, franchise requires a little more memory which means older machines might not really have fast enough memory to handle it. And yes, guests are the biggest hit on performance. I have a reasonably good computer and still wind up limiting guests to 3500 or less just to keep things smooth. Of course you already know things like keeping from having guest traffic jambs and such right?
Also in settings if you lower shadows and the reflections it will improve things a fair bit. It also should be noticeable that playing in less busy hours for your region can help on some computers when playing franchise. I think it's because the game spends less resources pinging the servers.

[Livia]

While my computer is a little older now, it was a top of the line gaming/video editing computer when I had it built. The only game I've ever really struggled with was Spirit of the North 2 (my computer cannot play that). I can play career mode without issues and sandbox, I limit the guests since I don't need funds, so why add the stress to the computer?

So you can limit guests in franchise mode? May I ask where that option is? It will be a fine dance to handle it financially, but might be what I need to do.

My goal is to have about 9 zoos and have all animals in the game across them, so about 20 animals a zoo (though have four habitats for each species for breeding since you obviously can't keep any in storage). This is both to do community challenges (I haven't done much) and badges, but also because, jeesh, I haven't even used half these animals I've paid for. 🤣

My guests are congested at this moment as I have VERY SMALL zoos with just three habitat species and the guests can only see two of the habitats for each. This was to keep it cheap to earn up some cash and then expand (thus not having all the guests in the same space at that point.)

[grampers62]

I think the option is in the game tab.
So when you build your franchise zoos think about how big you think the path needs to be and double it. It helps to set things up so there are three routes to take from the entrance so guests get spread out a bit right off the bat. Of course put the high appeal species away from each other and fill in with low appeal species. i did one zoo that was a circle within a circle that had radial paths going from the center ring to the outer ring with a major staff compound in the center that never had any traffic issues at all. I think you can sort it out pretty quick once you get used to the minor differences in franchise. Like really getting 4 exhibits up and running right away to get the cash flow started before you even consider habitats.

[Livia]

I mean, the guests aren't having traffic issues - they have lots of and lots of space. What I'm asking is, if they spread out more, does that help the game function better?

[Varick]

grampers could answer this better than I, but, what I have found is that traffic issues just cause extra navigation calculations. Even if the guests are spread out, they are still subject to calculations for what they want to do- food, toilet, habitat, etc. One a side note, when I set up a Franchise, I move three of the spawners and disable them so guests get to leave quicker. Just costs $30 for the gates. Not sure how big a help it is but if they are not spending or donating money, I want them out. LOL

[Livia]

Sorry, not following. How do they leave quicker if you disable? Can they exit and just not enter with a turned off spawner?

[Andrasta]

İlk olarak Livia tarafından gönderildi:

So you can limit guests in franchise mode? May I ask where that option is?

In the menu look for game options, then guest options, tick the box "restrict number of guests", change number to the one desired, hit return, klick OK

Sorry I don't know the exact English words in the menu.

Zahnrad rechts oben - Einstellungen - Spiel - Gästeeinstellungen (ganz unten)
bei "Anzahl der Gäste beschränken" das Häkchen setzen
Zahl nach Wunsch ändern, Enter-Taste, Anwenden und OK klicken

I am trying it, too, in one of my largest and richest franchise zoos right now - I always forgot about it until I read this thread.

[K.. La Sorcière]

you can disable "climbing" on all the trees and buildings unless you need them for climbing animals. It helps with the navigation calculations.

[grampers62]

İlk olarak Livia tarafından gönderildi:

I mean, the guests aren't having traffic issues - they have lots of and lots of space. What I'm asking is, if they spread out more, does that help the game function better?

Sorry for the long winded reply...

Basically, every time guests bump into each other it causes an Ai recalculation. So spreading out the major habitats and giving separate routes to them will tend to help reduce those interactions. Having fewer intersections in the path system also reduces the load as each time guests get to an intersection they recalculate their route. Same thing happens on each square of a grid based plaza so avoid those. Do note that scenery items don't really put that much load on the computer so don't worry too much about using them unless you have a bunch of buildings with over 20,000 pieces in them. Special effects like fountains and mist don't put much load on the game either unless you have large groups of them.

I've played on computers that barely ran PZ in the early years of the game and these things do help considerably, And I can confirm that playing in pause for extended periods actually can cause more issues as the game's internal registers get filled up and have to cycle through everything in them when we unpause. That can actually cause issues with habitats and animals losing data on save. Of course it's actually more complex than that but these are the things we can observe in game play.
As for disableing climbing in habitats, That can help but if the habitat contains lots of items like a complex building, working on that building is where we get a lot of issue with lag and even crashes as every item we adjust on that building causes a habitat recalculation. It doesn't matter if climbing is disabled it still affects it. So just keep in mind to have smaller building groups inside habitats to avoid that. That let's you alter climbing on individual groups to reduce the load on habitat calculation. Building groups outside of habitats have no real impact on calculations for animals so it isn't worth fussing too much on those. But I do feel climbing should be off by default.

[Varick]

İlk olarak Livia tarafından gönderildi:

Sorry, not following. How do they leave quicker if you disable? Can they exit and just not enter with a turned off spawner?

Yes, a turned off spawner prevents guests entering but they can still exit. You may already know this but do not delete the game given spawners in Franchise as you will not get money for those. They use to be a cash cow in Franchise until Frontier, for balance, patched that out. :)

[Livia]

Holy grampers - that is some seriously complex stuff to avoid lag. Hats off to you for picking up on all of that. I guess the main issue currently with my mini zoos is the guest area is a gird. When I play in other modes I rarely use a grid because I am not worried about getting money together first, so I can build as I want from there.

I had no idea with the climbing. OMG. I don't have anything complex at present in these franchises (again, building funds at present), but that's good info. And unfortunate. But then, the sandbox zoos are for complex builds - I am making these to do the community and badge challenges (things I haven't done), so I suppose that's okay.

No intersections is interesting to know. So I guess the goal is always to loop your zoo and have turned off spawn point exits around.

Thanks for all this!

İlk olarak Varick tarafından gönderildi:

You may already know this but do not delete the game given spawners in Franchise as you will not get money for those. They use to be a cash cow in Franchise until Frontier, for balance, patched that out. :)

Yeah, I discovered that in career mode. I guess it makes sense, but I'd rather be able to delete and place. Minor annoyance, but I'll live.

[Varick]

Just one more thought and then I will let you be. :) I also think climbing should be off by default but you do not need to turn off/on climbing individually. Just do everything and then use the multi select to turn off climbing on everything then just select what items you want to turn on all at once. Again you may already know this.

[Livia]

Hey, I appreciate the info. You "bother" away.