Management of waste disposal

[Elise the Indominus rex]

Good evening (at least it's evening here), I hope you're all healthy!

The 2001 game Zoo Tycoon by Blue Fang Games gave the player control over the Zoo Staff, keepers, but also maintenance. The maintenance's tasks included repairing damaged fences...

And:
Emptying full rubbish bins and sweeping rubbish laying on the ground. Too many jam-packed rubbish bins led to rubbish getting thrown on the ground, that led to dirty zoos and that led to visitors being unhappy.

Why not implement this mechanic into JWE? The player could get access to:

-Cleaning Workers; a new building, similar to the Ranger Station (smaller) that can house up to three cleaning squads with a vehicle.
-Rubbish bins; they can be placed near important areas (bar, restaurant, hotel) and get emptied by cleaning workers
(-Compost Works; yes, this idea is also copied from Zoo Tycoon, the player could could earn a bit money with the compost works by putting biowaste in there)
-Picnic Tables; the player can place them on public open areas, near paddocks or elsewhere for visitors to sit down and relax a bit; and be it just for the optical aesthetics and immersion

What do you think? Let me hear your thoughts!

~Elise the Indominus rex

 

[Pixelated Sparkster]

I would love to see waste management in the game. More management options would be delightful! It would be a cost to invest in so that we could have more guests in our parks!

I could see cleaning workers be the most likely in the game. I could imagine a building being plopped in with a radius, and you could observe guests within that radius have cleaners among them. The more staff you have in that building, the more manageable and clean the area of effect is.
And hopefully, we could have things getting dirty over time, like paths, galleries, and guest buildings. Anything dirty would be in the red and needs to be made blue to clean, plus we could see how dirty they are visibly and would affect guest count in your park at a cost.

I think the pathing system in the game will work wonders for the cleaning facilities. In the JW and JP era, we have low tier paths, mid tier paths, and high tier paths. I think each tier path could tolerate cleanliness to a degree. Dirt path for example will be terrible to have clean as there are no trashcans of any kind on the path, so it dirties up fast. Normal paths would tolerate dirtiness more because it has some trashcans, and fancy paths could really tolerate dirtiness as it has the most trash cans. Something that players could invest in and see a manageable difference when picking a specific path. If you have a fancy park, that's great! The costs of the cleaning facilities would not be too much as the paths are kept tidy thanks to the guest compliance to make the place clean, but dirt paths? I like the approach, but we got to have more cleaners if we want to keep this down to earth look tidy.

I also do not know how, but I would love to have the cleaning facility attract small carnivores. Imagine if there is a breakout and the dilophosaurs and compies are on the loose. Normally, these dinosaurs and their large numbers would be too much for the player to handle as their numbers is what makes them dangerous. However, there is a blessing in owning some cleaning facilities, as these carnivores have the instinct to scavenge and look for an easy meal in the facilities' waste section. Allowing ample time for players to get to them and shoot their targets while they are temporarily immobile due to leftover gigantosteak!

 

[Elise the Indominus rex]

I could see cleaning workers be the most likely in the game. I could imagine a building being plopped in with a radius, and you could observe guests within that radius have cleaners among them. The more staff you have in that building, the more manageable and clean the area of effect is.

That idea could work, but I imagined it like this:
Players mark an area and assign one of the cleaner teams to that area; the team will go there on a regular basis, clean the ground and empty the bins. Adding more staff in the building could increase the area they could clean. Players could also order the teams to clean more often which would result in higher costs (and more staff would come with higher costs too, of course).

 

[MightyRevenge]

Just thought I'd pop in here to say... all this is great... but with limited map size, do we really need more buildings?

 

[Elise the Indominus rex]

Just thought I'd pop in here to say... all this is great... but with limited map size, do we really need more buildings?

Good question, but I think that might just make it more interesting to put all those crucial buildings on a small, limited area. But you're right, larger maps weren't bad either.

 

[MightyRevenge]

Exactly. I honestly do wish for more management options and depth, but with limited map size, there's nothing to add in terms of buildings...the maps are already so small. I'd rather have Frontier focus on dinosaur behavior.