Inquiring minds want to know

[Roxxsmom]

When you get that message that such and such a shop has been without a vendor for a long time, where did the vendor go? There's never a notice that the employee quit, and it happens when there are staff rooms nearby. I hire a new vendor, and sometimes that one will disappear from that same shop too in a while.

What are they up to for so long? Sometimes a staff member gets stuck in a mob of guests, but then I get notices that the employee is upset and thinking of quitting. The shop vendors just disappear. Did they fall into the lion habitat or something?

 

[Firestar97]

It seems to be like they are sometimes just drowning in Work because they don't want to leave the Shop when there are still Customers in Front of it. I wish we could force Breaks on our Employees

 

[Britches]

This happens in my zoos, too! Don't get it, either.

 

[GRAMPERS62]

Staff happiness is the main contributor with this. If they are underworked they might not return to that shop for a considerable time.
If that shop is not busy when staff are in it you might need to change it to something else or move it to a busier part of the zoo.

 

[Roxxsmom]

Interesting. So they actually get bummed and stop coming to work when underworked? I guess I remember how stultifying slow food service shifts could be when your boss decides slow days are a great time to clean the grease traps in the grill or to pull decaying food out of the drains or something I worked pizza restaurant jobs when I was in college, and I'd pray for an order so I could go out on a delivery and not have to deal with that stuff!

I would expect that the missing staff would be sitting in the nearest staff room, though, regardless, and it is typically empty when this happens. Sometimes staff get stuck in big clots of guests, but when that happens I get alerts that the staff member is unhappy and considering quitting after a while. One "unrealistic" thing about this game is that the staff live in the staff rooms and never actually go "home" between shifts. But that's due to the accelerated time frame of the game. They'd have to zip around the map to leave the zoo and come back fast enough.

I've also noticed a bug, or it feels like one anyway, where a shop will have no vendor in spite of being powered and along a path and so on. I'll hire a new vendor and drop them in front, and sometimes they will simply wander off. Sometimes deleting the shop and re-creating it helps fix this, but with the "shop without a vendor" thing, sometimes the replacement shop develops the same issue. Maybe some spots are simply dead to vendors, even when they are powered, accessible, and near a staff room, and get a reasonable amount of customers when open?

 

[GRAMPERS62]

Yeah, it gets complex and buggy feeling sometimes. A little thought from the wording of your previous reply.
Paying attention to keeping paths wider than we think is needed will do a lot to keep one's zoo going strong. often staff will get lost in crowds so having those wide paths and alternate paths can get them where they need to be. With those new vendors that walk away from empty shops, there might be a vendor assigned already that blocks that closer vendor from entering. click on the shop and you might see vendor enroute to said shop.

 

[Roxxsmom]

I do tend to make paths at least 8 m wide in most spots, and I try to widen them into plazas where I put down shops. I try to make some smaller side paths for specific exhibits as well, but I like to have a few main routes by which people can go through the zoo. Looking at some real world zoos, there is often different ways one can traverse them.

It does happen sometimes that a staff member will get stuck on a gridded path because there's one of those groups of endlessly pivoting guests. Generally you'll get an alert when that happens, though.

Have they ever figured out what actually causes the endlessly pivoting guest balls? I had one spot where they kept getting hung up, and interestingly, putting a barrier tape/ribbon thingy in fixed it. Sort of counterintuitive, since this gave the guests fewer options where to go in that spot in the plaza, but it seemed to help because it kept them going in one direction rather than constantly changing their mind every time they bumped into another guest.

 

[XT]

I think you nailed the guest issue in your last few sentences. When a path is gridded there's no 'direction' for the guests and their collision mechanism causes them to randomly change direction when they bump into something. Enough people around and they end up bumping in circles, creating the guest gyre.

 

[GRAMPERS62]

From observation it seems directly related to the guest groups. It seems there is a buffer zone of how far a group can stray off the edge of a path. That zone allows the group to cross directly over the intersection of the four path tiles which interrupts the pathfinding routine forcing a recalculation of where the group is going. Because of this they can get stuck in that loop.
Work-around is to avoid using gridded paths of 6 meters or less or placing something to block that conjunction of four tiles.
This can also occur if the path is too narrow less than 2 meters, blocked by an item or crowds.

 

[Roxxsmom]

I've found those ribbons they added to be a nice tool in any case. Seems to solve some of these problems with guest flow at chokepoints, and also it's nice being able to stop them from walking through landscaping, decor, fountains etc. that protrude onto paths.