Question

[Joney-F]

There are several room layouts in this game, and I used the 12x4 corridor and 6x16 reception layout. Looking closely, there are chairs and a water server, but will patients use these facilities? There seem to be a few people sitting in the waiting room, but will they also sit on the chairs in the corridors and at the reception?

Also, for example, would it be effective to place vending machines and chairs in empty space? Once you undesignate a corridor, you can never redesignate it, so is it pointless to have objects remain in the corridor?

[Not The Main Character]

I have never actually seen a patient use a chair in a corridor, but I haven't tried to force test it either (like using them for overflow to get patients standing in a waiting room to use a chair nearby in a corridor to wait).

Patients will sit in chairs in Reception while they wait to be checked in. Same for any other room where you observe them just standing around, waiting, like the Pharmacy. They will also use chairs to take a break from being in bed when they are hospitalized (any Regular Ward or HDU room, ICU patients always stay in bed). Throw a chair/sofa and a TV/Radio/Bookcase in a hospital room and they will use them to reduce boredom (and those things boost the environment of that room as well).

I also zone small restrooms within Regular Ward and HDU rooms. The patients will use them when they need to use the bathroom. Again, not for ICU.

They will also sit in a chair in a doctor's office while they wait to be directed to the Exam Table, and after examination while the doctor is still working.

Any place you see patients just standing, waiting for something, they will use a chair if you place it in that room.

The Vending Machine, Coffee Machine, and Water Dispenser do get used when they are in corridors, mainly by staff. Very useful when you want to serve their eating and drinking needs but not build a common room closer to them. They will still go to a common room to relax, but you can minimize their time away from being productive by placing those in a corridor, close to where they work.

You can place those directly in their work rooms as well (I almost always place a Water Dispenser in a workplace room unless I have one very close by outside their work room). I place Vending, Coffee, and Water Dispensers in all waiting rooms (or very close by) as well to minimize disruptions to patient flow from them leaving a waiting room to find them somewhere else. If they are gone for a while, they can be skipped over and another patient taken before them, leading to those annoying alerts about patients waiting too long to see a doctor.

I am not sure what you mean by not being able to re-designate a corridor. You should be able to take any space and designate it as any type of room (as long as you meet the minimum size requirements). You just open up a department menu and select the room you want to designate, then just click and drag over the tiles you want as part of that room. Jut choose Corridor from the department menu and you should be able to place a new corridor in the same space (or any space you want). Same thing for expanding any room, starting your drag from within a preexisting room that you want to expand. You can use this to make rooms that are not just squares/rectangles.