Micromanagement

[Simfreak]

Hello my fellow planetcoasters,

So it occurred to me today how much I liked a game on the PlayStation when I was a kid. Theme Park.

This game allowed for some micromanagement and I was wanting to put forth some ideas, all comments welcome of course.

Drinks, Food, Hat Shop, Souvenir Shop.
One should be allowed to set the price of individual items. Also, how much ice goes in a drink, more money as not putting as much product in to cup. How much salt on fries, more salt the thirstier people get. How much fat in burgers. How much sugar in candy floss, makes people more active and excitable. Different varieties of drinks, add lemon or lime for extra, burgers, add cheese or bacon. Be careful how much good stuff you add though as kids get sick (vomit). These are just a few.

Rides
Charge more for fast queue tickets. Charge for photographs. Coaster specific merchandise. Number of coasters. Promotions on coasters. Create videos to push out to media outlets for marketing purposes and promotions. Complementary tickets, school giveaways, free tickets if ride closed. Visible wear and tear on rides where investment is needed to repair. Could it be more cost effective to close the ride??? Fines for not fixing rides from HSE etc.

Mobile convenience

Stores on wheels. Guys and girls who tour your park pushing ice creams, hot dogs, drinks, pop corn, merchandise, cotton candy, sun cream, maps, umbrellas, waterproof coveralls for the wet rides.

Visitors Shop

One big shop that offers all the items like maps, umbrellas, sun cream, t shirts, sweaters, memberships annually or monthly.

And finally

Guided tour start point. Some of the parks are becoming so beautiful that it's not to far of a stretch of the imagination and with things to come, that a guided tour could be provided. Would be nice to also make money out of visiting business. Rents rooms from £80 and your visiting delegated get access to the park. I've had many a Christmas party at Alton Towers and they provide the hospitality and rooms.

Just some thoughts from the pits of my mind haha.

Simfreak aka James.

 

[danplayer01]

I love these idea, as I just posted earlier, a micromanagement expansion pack would be neat. Some of these things should be included in the base game, I love all your ideas though.

 

[Simfreak]

I love these idea, as I just posted earlier, a micromanagement expansion pack would be neat. Some of these things should be included in the base game, I love all your ideas though.

Thanks danplayer01. I love building a park but like to work when it comes to making the money. If I manage the costs and expenditures then I feel like I've earned the profits. Just setting a ticket price isn't enough of a challenge my friend. [happy]

 

[breezerHOG1]

many of these features are in the works, just like in RCT we will have the option to set prices. The alpha is not the full game and management features will arrive in the next update. Other requests you made are also discussed in other threads if you search around

 

[widlanquebec]

I love these idea, as I just posted earlier, a micromanagement expansion pack would be neat. Some of these things should be included in the base game, I love all your ideas though.

Oh, please no expansion pack about management... as I think this is core features. I would prefer to see a more advanced management side on Planet Coaster than previous RCT iteration but with toggle buttons/options to disable or enable them. For example, I would like a way to manage stock in stall, but if someone doesn't like it, in gameplay option, it switch it to off and this will become manage automatically.

 

[DonaldMcRonald]

I love this idea! Hopefully we can go even more in depth then in the old RCT games.

Oh, please no expansion pack about management... as I think this is core features. I would prefer to see a more advanced management side on Planet Coaster than previous RCT iteration but with toggle buttons/options to disable or enable them. For example, I would like a way to manage stock in stall, but if someone doesn't like it, in gameplay option, it switch it to off and this will become manage automatically.

I definately think that would help the game appeal to a broader audience. But what if instead of having an on/off switch, the game had presets for prices and products. Perhaps a few presets based on the general prices and quantities that you want for a specific store. Then you could change single items to perfect the store's sales if you want to get more specific. Just a thought, though.

 

[widlanquebec]

But what if instead of having an on/off switch, the game had presets for prices and products. Perhaps a few presets based on the general prices and quantities that you want for a specific store. Then you could change single items to perfect the store's sales if you want to get more specific. Just a thought, though.

I would prefer to have staff that will bring stock to stalls and to have to manage stocks inventory... but it's just me, so the reason for a toggle button to switch it to automatically manage stocks.

 

[Brett C]

I love these idea, as I just posted earlier, a micromanagement expansion pack would be neat. Some of these things should be included in the base game, I love all your ideas though.

Micromanagement and expansion pack don't go hand in hand. [tongue]

If we were to introduce extensive-micromanagement, how much micromanagement is too much? If you incorporate so much micromanagement, how do you manage it on a macro scale? It ends up becoming a massive spider web of connections of if this is then than this becomes that and this.

Just food for thought.

 

[Vampiro]

Micromanagement and expansion pack don't go hand in hand. [tongue]

If we were to introduce extensive-micromanagement, how much micromanagement is too much? If you incorporate so much micromanagement, how do you manage it on a macro scale? It ends up becoming a massive spider web of connections of if this is then than this becomes that and this.

Just food for thought.

100% true

Micromanagement is "doable" for smaller parks, but once you have a bigger park you don't have time to micromanage each and every stall and ride.
In my opinion RCT3 had a perfect sense of management, there were quite some options to set, but not overwhelming.

Personally i like to have many options but i like to set them only once. For example, in RCT3 i could create my own menu by adding a "200g burger" add ketchup and cheese to it, and set a certain price. Last but not least i could rename it to "cheeseburger" or whatever i would find a fitting name. This way i could even create my own menu which was very cool to do.

I would LOVE if this would return in PC. It gives a lot of options but you have to do it only once per shop. Once you have set the options you never have to worry about it again. Which i think is the best way to do it. As i dont want to click EVERY shop again after 30 minutes to see if i have to order some stock or not.

In short, i love to have options for "micromanagement" but only if i can set once, and never worry about them again. Bring back the RCT3 system if it was up to me [happy]

 

[Curlyriff]

I want the Micro management we have stated and then an 'apply to all' button for the shop type would solve the need to manage each shop individually. Then if you decide actually I want this one shop to change and see how it affects my income you can select and adjust it individually, just don't tick 'apply to all'.

This means that when you go into your management page and see say 10 drinks shops listed you can see how the profit of each is doing, number of customers etc and if that one shop you have adjusted is doing better than before you could then role out the same to the others, however if the profit increases but customers are unhappy with the product and that particular shop rating is lower you could revert back to previous settings.

It needs complexity to keep it interesting.

Having each shop a positive/negative rating system from customers as well as able to micromanage means you have the option on how you want to play. Maybe you feel a little bit of negativity for the increased income is a big enough pay off between the two. Maybe you want all your guests to be happy or maybe you don't care what they think as long as the money roles in. It all needs to be down to the individual.

Stock ordering might be a little too far and honestly not sure that would add a huge amount. Although maybe if we are hiring staff you could hire a food court manager who deals with this and depending on the ability of the manager depends on how often if at all stock runs dry or how well maintained the stalls/shops are. To increase the performance then you train the manager or higher a better one which again is a cost/quality option the player has similar to that of doctors from theme hospital.

But the selection of the drink type/options, amount of ice in the cup and cup size would be good for that. The amount of sauce and with or without cheese in the burger would again be interesting to decide what you want to do and how to price it.

Just small options to make it feel more alive and allow greater management detailing is what I will be looking for.

 

[Abletudu]

Spoiler

I want the Micro management we have stated and then an 'apply to all' button for the shop type would solve the need to manage each shop individually. Then if you decide actually I want this one shop to change and see how it affects my income you can select and adjust it individually, just don't tick 'apply to all'.

This means that when you go into your management page and see say 10 drinks shops listed you can see how the profit of each is doing, number of customers etc and if that one shop you have adjusted is doing better than before you could then role out the same to the others, however if the profit increases but customers are unhappy with the product and that particular shop rating is lower you could revert back to previous settings.

It needs complexity to keep it interesting.

Having each shop a positive/negative rating system from customers as well as able to micromanage means you have the option on how you want to play. Maybe you feel a little bit of negativity for the increased income is a big enough pay off between the two. Maybe you want all your guests to be happy or maybe you don't care what they think as long as the money roles in. It all needs to be down to the individual.

Stock ordering might be a little too far and honestly not sure that would add a huge amount. Although maybe if we are hiring staff you could hire a food court manager who deals with this and depending on the ability of the manager depends on how often if at all stock runs dry or how well maintained the stalls/shops are. To increase the performance then you train the manager or higher a better one which again is a cost/quality option the player has similar to that of doctors from theme hospital.

But the selection of the drink type/options, amount of ice in the cup and cup size would be good for that. The amount of sauce and with or without cheese in the burger would again be interesting to decide what you want to do and how to price it.

Just small options to make it feel more alive and allow greater management detailing is what I will be looking for.

Totally agree with this, I really enjoyed being able to do this in other games and would like it here.

 

[danplayer01]

I would want a lot of things to micromanage in my park, but if you didn't want to manage certain aspects you shouldn't have to, just set it once and done. So as long as you have a lot of features that you can manage but don't need to it would be fine.

 

[Abletudu]

When I had this, there was always a tick box which allowed you to set it for everything of the same type, for instance, all drink stalls, all hamburger stands, etc.
That's all that would be needed as it was mentioned earlier.

 

[BigDragon]

Hello my fellow planetcoasters,

So it occurred to me today how much I liked a game on the PlayStation when I was a kid. Theme Park.

This game allowed for some micromanagement and I was wanting to put forth some ideas, all comments welcome of course.

Drinks, Food, Hat Shop, Souvenir Shop.
One should be allowed to set the price of individual items. Also, how much ice goes in a drink, more money as not putting as much product in to cup. How much salt on fries, more salt the thirstier people get. How much fat in burgers. How much sugar in candy floss, makes people more active and excitable. Different varieties of drinks, add lemon or lime for extra, burgers, add cheese or bacon. Be careful how much good stuff you add though as kids get sick (vomit). These are just a few.

Rides
Charge more for fast queue tickets. Charge for photographs. Coaster specific merchandise. Number of coasters. Promotions on coasters. Create videos to push out to media outlets for marketing purposes and promotions. Complementary tickets, school giveaways, free tickets if ride closed. Visible wear and tear on rides where investment is needed to repair. Could it be more cost effective to close the ride??? Fines for not fixing rides from HSE etc.

These ideas concern me because they seem to over-complicate the game. I was never a huge micromanagement fan. Yes, I want to manage things like staff, marketing, and ticket prices, but no I don't care about the amount of ice, number of condiments, or employee training. The idea of dealing with wear and tear on rides and potential fines looks like too much realism. Too much realism is not fun. Too fine-grained of controls is likewise tedious.

Mobile convenience

Stores on wheels. Guys and girls who tour your park pushing ice creams, hot dogs, drinks, pop corn, merchandise, cotton candy, sun cream, maps, umbrellas, waterproof coveralls for the wet rides.

Visitors Shop

One big shop that offers all the items like maps, umbrellas, sun cream, t shirts, sweaters, memberships annually or monthly.

And finally

Guided tour start point. Some of the parks are becoming so beautiful that it's not to far of a stretch of the imagination and with things to come, that a guided tour could be provided. Would be nice to also make money out of visiting business. Rents rooms from £80 and your visiting delegated get access to the park. I've had many a Christmas party at Alton Towers and they provide the hospitality and rooms.

Just some thoughts from the pits of my mind haha.

Simfreak aka James.

These ideas I like. The mobile vendors are particularly appealing because they could help sell merchandise in areas of a park that are under-served by fixed stores. I'm finding in the Alpha that I seem to space my fixed stores too far away from each other. They're normally clustered in an area, but there can be some distance between clustered areas. Mobile vendors could fill in the gaps. It's not uncommon to see people carrying around trays of snowballs or lemonade as well as ice cream and hot dog carts setting up shop in specific locations.

Visitor shops and gift shops are things that appear in most parks. They're common at the exits of major attractions and also at the gates. It makes sense for them to be in the game. I also support this idea. I have a feeling it's going to get made redundant with individual storefronts that sell hats, balloons, shirts, plushies, and other things though.

 

[PsychoScooby]

... in RCT3 i could create my own menu by adding a "200g burger" add ketchup and cheese to it, and set a certain price. Last but not least i could rename it to "cheeseburger" or whatever i would find a fitting name. This way i could even create my own menu which was very cool to do.

HAHA I did this too. I swear I spent more time making elaborate shops and restaurants than actually making rides. I loved being able to set up different menus for each stall and have the ability to name them. It gave me a reason to place more than one hamburger stall down. You could have cheap burgers with little toppings and more premium burger places with lots of toppings. I assume that's somewhat in the works with the whole "premium food shop" in the buildings tab. Hopefully so [big grin]

 

[Kaj Taotsu]

100% true

Micromanagement is "doable" for smaller parks, but once you have a bigger park you don't have time to micromanage each and every stall and ride.
In my opinion RCT3 had a perfect sense of management, there were quite some options to set, but not overwhelming.

Personally i like to have many options but i like to set them only once. For example, in RCT3 i could create my own menu by adding a "200g burger" add ketchup and cheese to it, and set a certain price. Last but not least i could rename it to "cheeseburger" or whatever i would find a fitting name. This way i could even create my own menu which was very cool to do.

I would LOVE if this would return in PC. It gives a lot of options but you have to do it only once per shop. Once you have set the options you never have to worry about it again. Which i think is the best way to do it. As i dont want to click EVERY shop again after 30 minutes to see if i have to order some stock or not.

In short, i love to have options for "micromanagement" but only if i can set once, and never worry about them again. Bring back the RCT3 system if it was up to me [happy]

All of this. When I go back and play RCT3, editing the menus is one of the things I like to do when placing down shops. It lets me have the ability to be creative with my stores, but also not overwhelming amount of details that make it more of a management game than a theme park creating game.

 

[widlanquebec]

The ideas with some micro and macro management was good in previous RCT, but they didn't seem to have effect, except people saying "awesome value" or "I don't pay that much to go to...".

I don't want to necessarily micro/macro manage all the things but instead have some interesting options that have real impact on guests, income, reputation, etc.

For example, we should see a big difference in attendance if we increase the price too much. We should have to manage prices of the items and quality and see an impact on sales, we should see impact of bad maintenance over time and the guests should be less interested over time about old rides, except for "featured ride/classic ride" (incredible ride should be always full).

 

[pwc1]

All this micro-managing is okay, as long as things can be toggled off.
On the line concerning shops, it would be great to have custom items, like type in an item, and the guest AI will read it, and add it to the list. For example, add Batman cup, and soon guests will buy the Batman cup.

 

[Abletudu]

On the line concerning shops, it would be great to have custom items, like type in an item, and the guest AI will read it

That is a great idea!

 

[N3k0]

OP I don't know the Theme Park game but what you describe is the same mechanics used in Roller Coaster Tycoon 3. You can also click the shops there and set different extras in your food. If you want to put extra ice or sugar in the milkshake and how much of it is in that specific milkshake (or let the customers decide how much they want). I loved these small additions to shops and I really hope this will be in the full Planet Coaster game as well. And since Frontier already worked on RTC2 and 3 we may have good chances that this will be included into the game later as well [up]

The ideas with some micro and macro management was good in previous RCT, but they didn't seem to have effect, except people saying "awesome value" or "I don't pay that much to go to...".

I don't want to necessarily micro/macro manage all the things but instead have some interesting options that have real impact on guests, income, reputation, etc.

Now that you mention it you are right...it never had any impact. But it was very fun to add new things to the shops in RTC. You could even name your own burgers I wish they could implement it so when you choose a lot of ice and sugar in the milkshake shop, the shop also has a higher cost per hour for the park. And on hot days (temperature was also a thing in RTC) it will make a profit, however on cold days you should consider removing bonus ice. Instead make the customers choose if they want sugar or iceand not force them to always have ice and extra sugar in the drinks. That could then affect the happyness of the customers and leading to exclusive park awards. I always loved these kinda things in Coaster games. I really wanted to manage a park and not only build the most beautiful park. It was fun to have hard scenario where you struggled to make profit and get new guests.

I want the Micro management we have stated and then an 'apply to all' button for the shop type would solve the need to manage each shop individually. Then if you decide actually I want this one shop to change and see how it affects my income you can select and adjust it individually, just don't tick 'apply to all'.

This means that when you go into your management page and see say 10 drinks shops listed you can see how the profit of each is doing, number of customers etc and if that one shop you have adjusted is doing better than before you could then role out the same to the others, however if the profit increases but customers are unhappy with the product and that particular shop rating is lower you could revert back to previous settings. .

^ I like this post. Decent suggestion.