Are the income and rating calculations buggy?

[Black Mamba]

Hello there,

first of all, I want to apologise in case my language isn't entirely correct - I grew up with learning English, but it's not my mother tongue.

Now, my question is concering the way your income and park rating are calculated, since I have the impression that it doesn't always work properly. I get it that income and rating are constantly calculated in real time and of course there can be slight differences. But for example in the "Jurassic World" mission in chaos theory mode, there's the task to make an income rate of 150.000 Dollars per minute and your current rate is shown in comparison. I had to try this mission three times until it worked. In one run, I had quite a constant income rate about 80.000 to 90.000 or so. I managed to make it increase up to 130.000 or so, but then, after a few minutes where I changed absolutely nothing in my park, it would gradually decrease again and even fall back to 70.000 to 80.000. Like I said, I can understand a difference of, let's say 2.000 or 3.000 dollars within a short time, depending on how many guests you have in stores, restaurants etc. But a strongly decreasing income when you don't change a thing in your park? That doesn't make sense.

And it's the same for the star rating, which is of course connected to the income. At some point you have 3,5 stars and then it slowly decreases and falls back to 3,0 or 3,1 for no obvious reason. You haven't changed anything, none of your dinosaurs died whatsoever.

I think that when there are no changes in your park, both income and rating should be quite constant with only a few changes in one or the other direction. So I wonder if there's maybe a bug which is responsible for that issue? I'm interested if anyone else faces this kind of problems?

 

[Nioell]

That mostly happens because different visitors come to the park. Say you had everything optimized for neutral and nature guests but the next bunch that comes in is more adventure or luxury heavy, then your amenities will make less income because the need other modules. Sometimes it just takes a while for changes to take hold, so the rating and income won't change right away when you alter the park in any way but take a few minutes to become really visible.

And speaking of visible: when your enclosures aren't 100% covered by the visibility cones from galleries etc. it happens that dinos walk outside that radius and hence the appeal and rating/income will fall. Once the dino is in the visible area again it'll go back up. You can actually see those changes in appeal on the right when you open the park rating window.

 

[Black Mamba]

That mostly happens because different visitors come to the park. Say you had everything optimized for neutral and nature guests but the next bunch that comes in is more adventure or luxury heavy, then your amenities will make less income because the need other modules. Sometimes it just takes a while for changes to take hold, so the rating and income won't change right away when you alter the park in any way but take a few minutes to become really visible.

And speaking of visible: when your enclosures aren't 100% covered by the visibility cones from galleries etc. it happens that dinos walk outside that radius and hence the appeal and rating/income will fall. Once the dino is in the visible area again it'll go back up. You can actually see those changes in appeal on the right when you open the park rating window.

Alright, I guess I didn't think about that too much, but it's a good explanation. Thank you! Those are some valuable points to consider

 

[Skawt]

I have a question about this.

Out of curiosity, I was playing SW USA on Jurassic difficulty - very early game. I moved the Guest Entrance to where the Response facility is (and move it to the other side of the mountain). My income dropped from $65,000 per minute to $10,000 per minute and remained there until I effectively lost the game (couldn't afford to treat disease and dinos died) Other than moving buildings, no other changes. (edit: park was immediately re-opened when construction was complete).

Is there another calculation I'm missing here?

 

[PCMR4Life]

It's the upkeep. Upkeep is too high or something in this game. While playing the JP Chaos Theory I was making a little over 1 million in income with my park. But the upkeep was so high I was actually making less than that. Your income is not your profit. You want to look at your profit. That's what you make after upkeep costs are deducted. The game will tell you your income is like 800,0000 a minute. But what matters is what your upkeep cost is. You are probably making far less.

In JWE making money was super easy. At certain points in the game you would have so much you couldn't spend it all. But it seems like they went the opposite way with this game. Instead of making it too easy they just made it harder. The economy needs some work. Just a slight easing up some of the costs or something.

 

[Nioell]

I have a question about this.

Out of curiosity, I was playing SW USA on Jurassic difficulty - very early game. I moved the Guest Entrance to where the Response facility is (and move it to the other side of the mountain). My income dropped from $65,000 per minute to $10,000 per minute and remained there until I effectively lost the game (couldn't afford to treat disease and dinos died) Other than moving buildings, no other changes. (edit: park was immediately re-opened when construction was complete).

Is there another calculation I'm missing here?

Did you check the path connections and transport ratings? They might be overcrowded due to the new position and the transport can go down as well, meaning less guests and guest comfort, resulting in less profit. Also make sure to have a real good look at the scientists and their wages in that challenge since those are insane. When I played that on Jurassic it started me with over 500k in wages and it lost me 300k during the freaking intro scene already. So little tip there: skip that and hit pause ASAP to check those wages and throw some scientists out or they'll kill you before you even get started. Also don't train them in case you get some cheaper ones, rather look for several cheap ones with good stats because as soon as you add just one meager point their pay skyrockets again and you'll be back where you started.

If you keep that in mind it shouldn't be that hard to get set up. I ended that one with a profit of 600k/min, 2mil income (which you need for the 5 stars) and 56mil in the bank.

 

[Black Mamba]

It's the upkeep. Upkeep is too high or something in this game. While playing the JP Chaos Theory I was making a little over 1 million in income with my park. But the upkeep was so high I was actually making less than that. Your income is not your profit. You want to look at your profit. That's what you make after upkeep costs are deducted. The game will tell you your income is like 800,0000 a minute. But what matters is what your upkeep cost is. You are probably making far less.

In JWE making money was super easy. At certain points in the game you would have so much you couldn't spend it all. But it seems like they went the opposite way with this game. Instead of making it too easy they just made it harder. The economy needs some work. Just a slight easing up some of the costs or something.

Now that we're speaking in particular about income versus upkeep: What I also absolutely detest in terms of those issues is the fact that your amenities like restaurants and stores can suddenly go from generating income into causing minus numbers. I mean, I understand that when you build a new restaurant, you have to make sure that the area is crowded, so you have to build attractions and of course dinosaur paddocks etc. This draws the attention of your park visitors to this area and eventually they will start to frequent the restaurants, bars and stores you built there.

BUT it also happens that for example a restaurant which goes well and generates positive income ceases to work for no obvious reason. The area where it is built can still be crowded, but it won't have enough guests any more. And this problem remains when you change the configurations in order to please a higher amount of the local guests. Sometimes there's simply no configuration combination possible that would make the amenity generating income again.

And then, we have this overview where we can see the demands for certain amenities. There can be areas where the paths are red, meaning there's a high demand for restaurants for example. But when you put it there, hardly anyone will visit it, so it will only generate negative income due to its upkeep costs. But then again, when you remove the amenity, the demand for it in this area isn't satisfied again, so that will affect your park rating. It's a vicious circle sometimes and I feel that whereas the idea behind this amenity system is appealing, it isn't really well balanced between demands for certain amenities and then the number of visitors they will attract.

 

[Nioell]

Now that we're speaking in particular about income versus upkeep: What I also absolutely detest in terms of those issues is the fact that your amenities like restaurants and stores can suddenly go from generating income into causing minus numbers. I mean, I understand that when you build a new restaurant, you have to make sure that the area is crowded, so you have to build attractions and of course dinosaur paddocks etc. This draws the attention of your park visitors to this area and eventually they will start to frequent the restaurants, bars and stores you built there.

BUT it also happens that for example a restaurant which goes well and generates positive income ceases to work for no obvious reason. The area where it is built can still be crowded, but it won't have enough guests any more. And this problem remains when you change the configurations in order to please a higher amount of the local guests. Sometimes there's simply no configuration combination possible that would make the amenity generating income again.

And then, we have this overview where we can see the demands for certain amenities. There can be areas where the paths are red, meaning there's a high demand for restaurants for example. But when you put it there, hardly anyone will visit it, so it will only generate negative income due to its upkeep costs. But then again, when you remove the amenity, the demand for it in this area isn't satisfied again, so that will affect your park rating. It's a vicious circle sometimes and I feel that whereas the idea behind this amenity system is appealing, it isn't really well balanced between demands for certain amenities and then the number of visitors they will attract.

Reasons why amenities stop making income are mostly:

1. Dinos wander out of sight when not the whole enclosure is covered by visibility cones, they die or get sick and the appeal goes down, so less guests visit for a while.

2. Storms hit the park, hence guests have other things to do than go shopping and it needs a while until it goes back up again.

3. A new amenity of the same type has been build not too far away, so guests wander over there instead and when not enough guests are there to cover both amenities yet, the profit for one of those will go down. Either close or demolish the second amenity until enough guests are there to cover both and you're good.

4. Attractions and dinos in the area changed so different guest come in and need other modules to get the income back up again.

Check all of those and act accordingly, then there shouldn't be any problems.


The management view is a terrible indicator if you wanna make income that's true. Never place any amenities on paths that are empty and too far away from hotels and all that stuff. Always place them in crowded areas and make sure to use wide paths all around to keep the crowding down and visitors happy. Amenity coverage doesn't matter at all since the rating is only dependent on income and whether or not your guests are happy and comfortable. An amenity on an empty path won't contirbute to that since well, there are no guests there so they can't get more comfortable and it won't make money either, rather loose it, which only has a negative effect on your income and therefore rating. So never place amenities where the view tells you to, only ever place them where you know a lot of guests will be.

 

[Parritron]

Reasons why amenities stop making income are mostly:

1. Dinos wander out of sight when not the whole enclosure is covered by visibility cones, they die or get sick and the appeal goes down, so less guests visit for a while.

2. Storms hit the park, hence guests have other things to do than go shopping and it needs a while until it goes back up again.

3. A new amenity of the same type has been build not too far away, so guests wander over there instead and when not enough guests are there to cover both amenities yet, the profit for one of those will go down. Either close or demolish the second amenity until enough guests are there to cover both and you're good.

4. Attractions and dinos in the area changed so different guest come in and need other modules to get the income back up again.

Check all of those and act accordingly, then there shouldn't be any problems.


The management view is a terrible indicator if you wanna make income that's true. Never place any amenities on paths that are empty and too far away from hotels and all that stuff. Always place them in crowded areas and make sure to use wide paths all around to keep the crowding down and visitors happy. Amenity coverage doesn't matter at all since the rating is only dependent on income and whether or not your guests are happy and comfortable. An amenity on an empty path won't contirbute to that since well, there are no guests there so they can't get more comfortable and it won't make money either, rather loose it, which only has a negative effect on your income and therefore rating. So never place amenities where the view tells you to, only ever place them where you know a lot of guests will be.

Totally agree

After playing many hours I think I can give a good assessment on this issue. Dinosaurs and general appeal "feed" stores. When a dinosaur dies or is not visible, the number of visitors decreases, which means that the stores will give less income. The same goes for storms. For this same reason the stores and the park will give you losses whatever you do. You have to build the stores based on the dinosaurs and the attractiveness you have. If dinosaurs die, close the stores that give you losses while you replace them.

Do not forget that before placing a store the game reveals the estimated visitors it will have. This is very important because even if the path is in red, you cannot build more than a small store there or none at all if the estimated visitors are very few.

 

[Skawt]

Did you check the path connections and transport ratings? They might be overcrowded due to the new position and the transport can go down as well, meaning less guests and guest comfort, resulting in less profit. Also make sure to have a real good look at the scientists and their wages in that challenge since those are insane. When I played that on Jurassic it started me with over 500k in wages and it lost me 300k during the freaking intro scene already. So little tip there: skip that and hit pause ASAP to check those wages and throw some scientists out or they'll kill you before you even get started. Also don't train them in case you get some cheaper ones, rather look for several cheap ones with good stats because as soon as you add just one meager point their pay skyrockets again and you'll be back where you started.

If you keep that in mind it shouldn't be that hard to get set up. I ended that one with a profit of 600k/min, 2mil income (which you need for the 5 stars) and 56mil in the bank.

It was so early in the game, crowding was not an issue, rating was 0.6 stars even I moved the entrance. I had 3 scientists. I was making 60k per minute. Moved the entrance, and profit went down to 10k per minute after reopening. The distance was so short would not affect the transport rating.

I wanted to cram 3 enclosures in the first area and to do that, needed to move the entrance to a more geometry-friendy spot to do that.

 

[Nioell]

It was so early in the game, crowding was not an issue, rating was 0.6 stars even I moved the entrance. I had 3 scientists. I was making 60k per minute. Moved the entrance, and profit went down to 10k per minute after reopening. The distance was so short would not affect the transport rating.

I wanted to cram 3 enclosures in the first area and to do that, needed to move the entrance to a more geometry-friendy spot to do that.

You don't happen to have a screenshot of that park so we can see the layout, do you? Might be helpful when it comes to figuring out the problem here.

Or maybe it wasn't the entrance at all but some other event that just happened at the same time? Like dinos out of sight etc. or even a random event that caused bad PR or something, so it only seemed like it was the moved park entrance.

 

[Aramus418]

I suspect they need to balance that income tax a bit. There's a point after reaching 5 stars that income tax is even higher than a full crew of level 5 scientists.

Remember guys:
when the lawsuits roll it, it's YOUR park;
when the profits roll in, it's OUR park.
Love,
The Government

 

[Nioell]

I suspect they need to balance that income tax a bit. There's a point after reaching 5 stars that income tax is even higher than a full crew of level 5 scientists.

Remember guys:
when the lawsuits roll it, it's YOUR park;
when the profits roll in, it's OUR park.
Love,
The Government

lol true.

As far as tax goes, that depends on the difficulty and map. The highest percentage it can reach is about 50-55% of your income on Jurassic afaik and as long as everything is set up right and running it shouldn't give you that much trouble because at that point you're already making about 2mil or more. So even when the tax reaches that point it still leaves you 1mil to cover the other costs like scientists, power and amenities, resulting in a still stable profit of around 400k/min or more.