An idea for better FPS: Dumber Guests

[horizons1]

Controversial, I know, and contrary to the spirit of PC, but hear me out. We know that even before the FPS performance declines after 1.8, Planet Coaster has always struggled with performance for large parks with a large amount of guests. The amount of computations required to track every guest, what they're holding, how they react to scenery, what impacts decision-making, etc. increase exponentially with guest population growth.

My idea is some sort of setting that simplifies this logic. I'm not suggesting guests wander around aimlessly, but rather see if there was a way to cut down on the computational load in some way. For example, let guests decide when they first arrive at a park to go to a ride and then don't make any other "decisions" for that guest until they arrive at the destination queue entrance. Maybe this setting causes guests to ignore scenery, deactivate hunger and bio levels, etc.

Like I said, I'm the first to admit this idea runs contrary to the original spirit of Planet Coaster's charm in guest personalities. But let's face it, the users of this game have pushed it to the limits (as expected) so a way for fans to tweak & optimize for performance would encourage creativity to continue.

 

[cap3961]

I like this idea, and would definitely use it if it were an option. I care more about having higher FPS than having "smart" guests.

(There is already a way to prevent the guests from changing their mind about where they want to go: You give the peeps the "Single-Minded" trait in the Scenario Editor. But I've tried doing this and it didn't help the FPS).

But maybe there is something similar that would help, maybe you could give the guests a "Dumb Guest" trait. Not sure if this would require a lot of re-coding, but I like the idea if it would work.

 

[horizons1]

Interesting. I've never tinkered with the Single-Minded trait. That's probably not dumb enough though. They're still tracking thirst, hunger, et al. Maybe dumb guests wouldn't use food stalls or bathrooms. Sort of like the settings we have now that override litter and ride breakdowns.

Frontier already has some experience with this. In Kinect Disneyland, the park is populated with a lot of guests and the performance is very fluid, but the trade-off is robotic and aimless guests there just to give the illusion of crowds. They don't ride anything or interact with anyone. But it is kinda fun following one of them around, seeing how long their "route" is. I'm not advocating for this level of simplicity though.

 

[Ramm]

Agreed, I also suggested this a few weeks ago:

So do I. I'm also interested in "dumb guests", as in guests that just walk around randomly doing stuff randomly instead of constantly calculating what they wanna do, how to get there and what their needs are.

It would be my expectation that this would probably improve the most in performance if it were possible. They could just make it an option in the menu to "disable smart AI behaviour" or something.

Hopefully a dev could shine some light on this.

Yeah making the calculations less frequent could possibly help, but why all the advanced calculations to begin with? I guess 3 years ago when we first heard about Planet Coaster and guests AI we were all very excited how advanced every single guest is, but we didn't know the cost back then.

Why would they even need to have a "will" anyway? I'm guessing it adds for realism, but does anyone really ever notice? I never really care about the bladder or hunger of an individual guest, all I care about is having a nice, full theme park.

So if the guests were to just wander around randomly like ants and occasionally visit rides and shops they walk passed by, I would probably not even notice, and I think the same goes for alot of people.

If it could save alot of calculations and thus performance, this has got to be the most important request I could come up with.

So hopefully a dev could respond and tell us why "disable smart AI behaviour" as an option in the menu would be a good or a bad idea performance-wise.

 

[horizons1]

Thanks Ramm, sorry I didn't see your post. Great minds think alike!

 

[Damien=666]

You dont make things worse just so that people with medium-powered computers can play a game.
Do you want the game creators of all the new top AAA-games to make them worse? Makes Zero sence.

And how the guests reacts to different things, and almost feels like real living people is Amazing..
You never know exactly what they are going to do. The guests ''IQ'' is 75% of the soul in the Game. Take that way and all you have left is a Metal Graveyard, full with Lobotimized drooling creatures.

 

[Ramm]

I would love to hear any updates on this. If our thinking is even correct here and if this would help. Maybe a dev could shine some light on this.

 

[GGG2021]

Personally, I love the guests and how they walk around - I'm one of the lucky ones who gets great Frames - never really goes below 30 to 35 - usually at 50 or more each game, and I just stick it in fast forward and watch the lemming guests flood into the park - I really enjoy how they flow in and move around - just me though - it's so purty - it's mesmerising - sorry you are not getting better performance - I would be completely devastated and rush down to my local computer stockist almost immediately; and buy a top speck PC just to handle this game. Yes it's true - and I also, just yesterday, got rid of all the TMT items and now my game runs even better - something mysterious happens in the TMT items and it stalls everything - takes a while to load menus - too long for my reckless roller coaster anticipation . . . hope this issue is resolved soon for you, regards Sirbarkalot.

 

[tricktrack]

If it would really affect FPS than I would suggest to make the "dumb AI" optional.
For example, I really don´t like guest behaviour while they´re queueing for a ride. They should really stop behaving like they´re walking around, squatting uncomfortably to signal that they need the toilet (but not going when the could have), or looking and complaining for shops (that they don´t use when they could have). I´m sure this takes considerable processing power that could be put to better use.

Guests are much too picky to refuse to go on rides and use vending machines and shops. I guess they´re somehow still too "smart".

 

[Damien=666]

If it would really affect FPS than I would suggest to make the "dumb AI" optional.
For example, I really don´t like guest behaviour while they´re queueing for a ride. They should really stop behaving like they´re walking around, squatting uncomfortably to signal that they need the toilet (but not going when the could have), or looking and complaining for shops (that they don´t use when they could have). I´m sure this takes considerable processing power that could be put to better use.

Guests are much too picky to refuse to go on rides and use vending machines and shops. I guess they´re somehow still too "smart".

Yep, some guests allready act stupid aspecially in the lineup to a ride. So we need SMARTER guests not more stupid guests.

Wonder if it's a bug. Why are soo many guests walking around bent over in 90 degree angle ?
I have even seen small kids do it, but 99% are grownups. They ignore toilets and then stand in a queue for 15 minutes...