23 replies to this topic

[Woodpecker]

Hi, when I look at the queue times for an RCT ride, often the ride window will say it's 5 minutes long but the the park guests will complain as if they've been queueing for hours! I can keep queues to a minimum of course, but how does the game calculate when to make peeps restless? Is it:

"1 'queue' minute" = "1 'guest' hour"?

In real life I'd be happy to wait 5 minutes for a rollercoaster...

[Wolfman]

I'm not that sure about the "ratio" between game minutes and real world time. All I use the time for is the calandar. How many "game years" it takes me to create a park, start to finish. But there is one way to keep peeps from getting bored in the queues. Have an entertainer walk through the queue once in a while. It seems to make the guests happy. Just assign the entertainer's "coverage", (blue grid area,) to include the entire queue, and a small area just outside the entrance to the attraction.

Something fun to do is to relocate the entertainers to the newest attraction/coaster in the park. Or assign different entertainers according to theme or whatever, to the flagship attractions. It's sort of acts like a "becon" that will attract peeps to a newer attraction.

[Woodpecker]

Thanks. Normally I have an entertainer for the longer queues, (either a Tiger or an Elephant if I have too many Pandas) and aim to have 1.5 times the ride capacity in the queue-line tile length. That makes sure most of the queue gets on the ride when the gate opens and that there's enough people left to start forming a full load for the next train entering the station. But that time ratio is strange...

[Wolfman]

Are you creating long coaster tracks? Or do all the trains depart the station, and end up with a long wait before another train enters, unloads and takes on a new batch of riders?

If so, you may want to time out how long it takes for a train to travel full circuit. (total ride time) and divide that time by the number of trains. This is so that the trains depart at regular intervals, instead of one after another.

Either that, or add more trains via block brake system, so that you can put more trains on the track, and have more departure times. This may be a bit more complicated than it sounds, because you have to create a sort of "holding pattern" on the tracks so that a brake run and a series of block brakes, (spaced apart so each train can be held if a breakdown occures.)

If you have questions on that sort of thing. Let me know.

[rcthelp]

Ahem....

Written in 2002!

http://www.rctstatio...ofrcttime.shtml

1 game 'month' = 7.5 guest 'minutes'

1 queue 'minute' ~= 1 guest 'minute', but read the article to see how the length of a queue in minutes is not calculated 'properly', and my suggested alternative formula for calculating queue time more accurately.

It's important to avoid any guest being in a queue for more than 7.5 guest minutes. If they are, in that game month, they spend no money at all.

[mushroomer]

^ Or they leave the line (sometimes)

[rcthelp]

Long queues are very bad. Although they make the park look more realistic, within the game they lower your monthly income [because there are lots of people standing in line spending nothing], and your guests' happiness.

This reduced happiness drives down park rating, which in turn means that the game's 'peep generator' slows down so that fewer people turn up at the park gates wanting to visit your park.

In real life I'd be happy to wait 5 minutes for a rollercoaster...

In RCT life, 5 guest minutes = about 20 days of a park month! Don't think you'd be happy to wait that long in real life

[Wolfman]

I always had a feeling about those long queues. I've always tried to make them short. Regardless if it fills up fast or not. But I always tried to make the queues long enough to hold enough peeps for two trainloads of passengers. Between 10 and 14 queue path sections. I mean, if they get antsy because they have to wait for two trains, then it's just kind of silly.

Thankfully, I've been able to design coasters that the trains take off in a few seconds after loading. And I'm able to run multiple trains, so wait times are pretty much non-existant in my parks. Queues are now just a path that gets the peeps from the midway to the entry house of the station. Not where peeps wait very long at all.

[Luketh]

Well, unlike Wolfie I like the little people saying

"YO! This is takin' foreva'!!!"

I like to see them agravated.

But I HAVE taken a few of Wolfie's tricks for fast loading and unloading times. He's a master at that.

[Woodpecker]

Thanks rcthelp! Ironically I'd read that article earlier in the day but couldn't find it again! I suppose rct peeps are just naturally impatient, then. The number of peeps per hour is also a bit odd: if a group of peeps joins the queue line together, the number of p.p.h. will go up even if it doesn't actually affect the overall throughput.

Haha, no I wouldn't want to wait 20 days for a ride! xD Now, what would be really nice is if we could sell anoraks while they queued like in real parks...


Wolfman: it's not always that easy. Yesterday I was running a Mouse coaster and no matter how I timed the departures or how many cars I took off the line there was always a moment where two cars would touch in the station! Not only that, but there was always a long gap when all the cars were on the circuit and none coming into the station. I think I'll just have to learn how to 'see' blocks when I design coasters. Interestingly, on the Franks/Woodpecker "Giant Dipper@Ocean Park", when three trains are running one is heading to the lift while another shoots onto the approach brakes, and the third is somewhere on course 2 or 3. That's at full capacity of over 2000 pph, with 90-odd people in the queue, and it keeps queue times to a steady 6 minutes! Any more trains than this and they end up clogging the blocks.

Anyway, for your entertainment, here's what happened when I built a very high excitement coaster with a huge queue line, in an otherwise high excitement park:



410 guests queuing!

Edited by Woodpecker, 28 January 2009 - 11:05 PM.