Multi-use buildings

[DanL58]

This last weekend I was watching a few Planet Zoo tutorial videos. I can't remember whose video it was but one had made a 2 story building with staff support (vet, workshop, keeper hut, etc.) on the first floor and a kind of plaza on the second floor with guest facilities (food, drink, gifts) and several picnic tables and shade areas. The first floor had a staff path going in and all the staff buildings were hidden from the outside. The 2nd floor plaza I think had 2 guest paths with staircases. Would the zoo guests actually use this kind of setup? I can't get the idea out of my mind and have a design I would like to try to build if it would work. I didn't do much with the construction part of the game during the beta so I will probably have to overcome a learning curve.
Thanks

 

[LoneBlind]

Technically, that would be possible and the guests would use the facilities (probably, assuming all the pathing was done right. Not sure about the 2 story aspect) but they would complain about being in proximity to the staff facilities which will lower your guest's happiness and zoos overall rating.

 

[Promethien]

Technically, that would be possible and the guests would use the facilities (probably, assuming all the pathing was done right. Not sure about the 2 story aspect) but they would complain about being in proximity to the staff facilities which will lower your guest's happiness and zoos overall rating.

Proximity is a bad way to say it. If the facilities are hidden they will walk right past no problem. The entrance of the staff facilities is the point of exposure. So the real rule is, make sure guests never get in line of sight of the entrance of your staff facilities.

 

[Balwick]

Proximity is a bad way to say it. If the facilities are hidden they will walk right past no problem. The entrance of the staff facilities is the point of exposure. So the real rule is, make sure guests never get in line of sight of the entrance of your staff facilities.

Negative, the system is based on a proximal radius around the building and unaffected by scenery. They walk past fine because they don't stop within that radius, but in the OP's example they would have prolonged exposure to that radius.

I hope that system can be improved though.

 

[GreyLambda]

Negative, the system is based on a proximal radius around the building and unaffected by scenery. They walk past fine because they don't stop within that radius, but in the OP's example they would have prolonged exposure to that radius.

I hope that system can be improved though.

They should make it so that the sphere is the influence and when you just build it it has a negative effect, but when you turn towards 50% scenery it gets neutral and if you get it up to 100% it has a positive influence to the guests happiness within that sphere.

 

[Moonfox]

I tried to test this in the beta. I think (definitely not sure) that there is a 2m radius around buildings. So, in theory, you would just need to build the guest plaza outside the radius (say, by raising the path it's built on). Did anyone else find the actual radius measurement?

 

[Cile]

This is a sized up image of a portion of one of the zoo's I had that although not the most pretty, was successful
Anyways, if you see the weird area on the lower left the longer building closest to the staff paths the one with the shaded darker roof, it is a bathroom, and you can see the little white square structure near the pink tree and the various other buildings there, near the pink trees are all staff buildings, the bathroom and those staff buildings radius are just brushing one another, and so its like a good guess to how far about you can have a building without issues, including staff path, even tho there is a line of sight, the guests never complained because the radius around the buildings does not intersect with the main path or any guest facility. My point being, you could have a multi purpose building, it would just need to be pretty large to avoid merging the guests in the dome of evil that is staff facilities. XD

Alternatively there was a transformer here, located kind of under the tree, this transformers influence is also not impacting guests cuz it was just bordering the guest pathing as well, unless for some reason the guests were to step off the road onto the grass then maybe they have a single instant of 'OH GOD ITS Th--- oh what was i mad about' syndrome. Also a side note, this zoo had 1 water filter for the whole zoo, because I figured out water filtration was infinite so long as the main source was touching the range of the filter, so like i made a huge river that dipped into various habitats and they all got filtered even though they were not anywhere near the filter, i hope it still works that way at launch cuz, that was a neat technique to get the river to touch everywhere I needed water. XD Although probably not realistic by any means.

 

[B4DD4WG]

There is a radius around each staff building, including the rest building that you need by any shops/restrooms. That radius, no matter what you have blocking the view, is still going to produce a negative impact for guests.
I do like the idea that the radius is a bubble, and placing things like barriers, or plants, that block most of the view, would push that bubble back. It would open up a few more design possibilities.
As it stands, the most efficient way I found was to set my staff buildings in the center of 3-4 habitats. This way there were short distances to each habitat, and they could all function quickly and hidden from guests.
As for shops, if you placed a Info building by a path, leaving a small que line to path. You have room to place a staff rest building behind it, and the radius not effect the guests.
I do hope they can "adjust" the radius by blocking the view, or some kind of percentage of decoration. Kinda like how the rides were done in PC. Even if you have to place those things within that radius, it would open more possibilities of design vs function/efficiency.

 

[Promethien]

I had a very different experience on this. I had a staff facility area that definitely had guests in the radius you guys mention. However they were on the side that was walled off so they couldn't see it. No complaints from that side. However the entrance to the staff area had a direct line of sight path to all the entrances of my staff buildings. I watched guest reactions and they were complaining about the stuff they got line of sight of. Including the stuff super far away that definitely wasn't in the radius.