Do people really not go home?

[Jorlaan]

I was reading some reviews and one was very clear that people will drive/walk/take transit TO work but then never go home. People are really just a resource that leave their home to go to work and then disappear. Is this true? If so I'm not gonna lie that is a MASSIVE let down and will probably just outright kill what until now had been a very high interest in the game.

[leftbehind]

I know this is true of tourists, and probably immigrant workers, but as for citizens I think they do go home (I see them getting the bus back to town, driving home in their car, etc).

I was startled by tourists despawning, in particular, because I'd set up transport routes to get them home after their holiday ended only to later find out that they simply despawn. I was expecting the 100+ tourists that came in via passenger boat to also leave via passenger boat, but they just disappear. That really broke immersion for me, more than the general weirdness of public transport system (where citizens are literally just units of cargo).

[Bufnitza]

Due to gamification reasons, they teleport home when they finish their 8h work shift.

The day of a WRSR adult citizen is (assuming no custom parameters on the building):

1. Wake up in the morning feeling like J. Stalin
2. Take a shot ofnevermind...
3. Find an available job in walking distance. If one is available, reserve it, go to 4.
3a. If a job isn't available, find any public transport station in walking distance that isn't full. Reserve a slot on it if there is one, then go to 5.
3b. If no job and no station is available, I'm out of luck and unemployed today. Go to 8.
4. Walk at job. Arrive at job. Job for 8h. Go to 7.
5. Get on a bus/tram/train/etc. On the next station go back to point 3. If no job is available, stay on vehicle for next station.
6. Get off the vehicle. Go to point 4.
7. Job's done. Teleport home.
8. Free time starts (16h).
9. Check my list of needs. Prioritize, then find the necessary buildings to satisfy these (with or without public transport, similar to points 3-6).
10. All needs are taken care of. Teleport home, go to 12.
11. Some needs couldn't be fulfilled in a timely fashion either due to lack of buildings (i.e. Praying) or due to lack of waiting in queues (busy buildings, I only wait 1h before skipping).
12. I'm at home again. Time to listen to radio or watch TV for the rest of free time (until 16h are up). This is essential for increasing loyalty, if you have the required building (radio/TV broadcast station)
13. Go to sleep (it's instant) and back to 1.

[fjorkar]

People don't disappear, they are teleported home.

[Bufnitza]

Jorlaan, if your problem is with them not having activities outside of work, they do, as I described above. You can watch them go to the mall, go to the cinema, visiting doctor, etc.

What isn't simulated is them getting back home from either work or leisure, and frankly, thank God for that.

It is already hard enough to design an intricate and reliable system that gets them from home to their workplace some 3 station and 4km away. It would be incredibly frustrating having to do the same to get them back home.

[fjorkar]

In addition, this could affect the PC performance, a simulation cannot be 100% realistic otherwise we will be for a year (IG) also a year (IRL), no one can do that

[Jorlaan]

The quoted answer is actually very useful and informative, as well as mildly entertaining. With the explanation I can probably live with it the way it is.

Thanks to all.

[leftbehind]

Originally posted by Bufnitza:

It is already hard enough to design an intricate and reliable system that gets them from home to their workplace some 3 station and 4km away. It would be incredibly frustrating having to do the same to get them back home.

So the busses and trains, etc., all teleport home too? No, they don't - which means they are capable of returning people home BECAUSE THOSE ROUTES ARE ALREADY SET UP.

Same with tourists - if I can get tourist from outside the map, to a port, then to a hotel, etc., then by definition I can do the opposite because the transport routes already exist in both directions.

And why is it so hard to set up PT in the first place? The public transport system in the game is not fit for purpose; I wish people would accept that reality.

[Bufnitza]

Originally posted by leftbehind:

Originally posted by Bufnitza:

It is already hard enough to design an intricate and reliable system that gets them from home to their workplace some 3 station and 4km away. It would be incredibly frustrating having to do the same to get them back home.

So the busses and trains, etc., all teleport home too? No, they don't - which means they are capable of returning people home BECAUSE THOSE ROUTES ARE ALREADY SET UP.

Same with tourists - if I can get tourist from outside the map, to a port, then to a hotel, etc., then by definition I can do the opposite because the transport routes already exist in both directions.

And why is it so hard to set up PT in the first place? The public transport system in the game is not fit for purpose; I wish people would accept that reality.

The problem with the return trip is that usually, workers do not follow the same route every day. For my lines, the return line is usually a bee-line to the first station, not going through the same stations all over again. Furthermore, I would have for poor Boris to not be able to get back home because I removed a line or made some changes to it. Besides, the extra time that they spend going back home would eat into their free time, which is already quite tight to fit all their needs. No, thanks, that's just asking for trouble.

As for the PT system being fit for purpose, I think it does the job. Sure, I can think of 100 ways it could be improved, but then again, I could also think of 100 ways to improve Cities Skylines' PT system, and a lot of people take that as the gold standard of public transportation simulators.

I also believe many WRSR players have come to accept the current state of PT. It's what we have, we likely won't get anything better before WRSR 2 (if that ever happens), so we do what we can with it.

[6toros6]

The problem with citizens teleporting back home comes from a defect from the program: it's unable to move a certain person from one place to another place thought in advance (i.e. to route him: make him transfer in the adequate stations, etc). Even when looking for a job or to satisfy one need, the citizens don't plan ahead where to go, but they are randomly moved just in case they "bump into" a proper place. And that same defect prevents citizens from having a fixed job (it's impossible for the program to find the way to make the citizen reach their work place). Whether that would make the simulation slower or unable to simulate big maps or a big number of people is debatable and have been talked about in other threads.

In a proper designed system, the player plans the transportation network and the program just route the people to their destinations. And that's the challenge. If the player deletes a line, the program just reroutes the citizen for an alternative way to reach his destination or just mark an error (it just happens that when vehicles are marked with a question mark in the game).

I don't think that complication in network design is a valid excuse when the program forces the player to deal with every little piece of garbage depending on its type. As to the argument that the return trip would left little time for other citizens' activities or will decrease productivity, it's the other way around. The parameters of the simulation have been adjusted so that without return trip citizens have the adequate time and productivity and could be adjusted as well if citizens had return trips.

[Silent_Shadow]

Public transit is fine in this game. If you know how it works you can make as complicated or simple system as you want. The biggest problems are that most people approach it with a mindset from other transportation games and the game doesn't teach you how it works.

[6toros6]

Well, if PT is fine, I wonder why it wasn't used for resources as well. Just drop some coal at a station and force a percentage to transfer, ping-pong it at neighbor stations, etc. It would be even better since coal don't have to go back home and teleporting isn't necessary... ;)

[Silent_Shadow]

Originally posted by 6toros6:

Well, if PT is fine, I wonder why it wasn't used for resources as well. Just drop some coal at a station and force a percentage to transfer, ping-pong it at neighbor stations, etc. It would be even better since coal don't have to go back home and teleporting isn't necessary... ;)

Citizens are the only "good" with travel time limits, which is why public transportation does not have a wait until loaded function and why tricks must be employed to extend waiting times. If you ignore the time limits of citizens and substitute factory connections, conveyors, etc. for walkways, there isn't much difference between moving citizens and goods.