Virtual Resort - Spring Break aka Beach Life

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[CoconutKid]

...  In one sandbox game the power units are constantly failing and even though I have 2 mechanics huts fully staffed and have the power generators set for inspection every 1 hour, they still break down and of course cause other buildings to lose power until they are fixed, really annoying.

I have been pondering that comment. I think I mentioned that the sandbox for islands may carry over some of the script for the campaign scenario for that island.

Additionally, I opine that setting the time for "inspection" on a building is likely to be ineffective by itself. It seems that one also has to do some quasi-micro management of the Mechanics. (Perhaps I may repeat myself, if so forgive me.)

First, you must reset their shifts from the default of 0900\1900 hours so that they cover the full 24 hours. Since their work tends to fit the classic industrial pattern, here is one way to do it (for a single building's five):

• Day shift = 3 x 0900-1900 0700-1700
• Swing shift = 1 x 1400-0000
• Graveyard shift = 1 x 0000-1000

That's simple to setup as you add more "Maintenance Dispatch of Mechanics" buildings. The Mechanics use walking time so it may be possible that clustering their buildings, after the first one, upon the Builder's Yard may not be the best placement. The different shifts should show in each building rather than among the Mechanics in total unless you really get into micro-management. I changed this considerably later in the thread.

Second, you really need to consider the "task list" which each Mechanic follows:

• Inspect & Repair = Operations Maintainer Universally required and the most important speciality.
• Repair Vandalism = Fixer  Connected with serving "Smasher" Beer & the Cocktail equivalent.
• Water Gardens = Gardener Needed to maintain landscaping. Most important on islands subject to frequent "heat waves."

I suggest that specializing Mechanics can increase the average number of "Inspect & Repair" visits that are made. Perhaps with the second building, a "Gardener & Fixer" is justified - depending (i.e., one of every 10 Mechanics have only 'Repair' & 'Water' ticked, while the other nine have only 'Inspect & Repair' ticked).

Third, it is silly to leave all buildings at the default of 8 hours! I have not yet discovered the clue about how fast the various buildings deteriorate. However, my preliminary "guesstimate" is that, on average, each Mechanic will do well to do between 5 & 7 "Inspect & Repair" visits per shift without specialization.

Without knowing (having reports) of the various deterioration of buildings and if that rate is connected with use, the player still needs to construct a "priority list" from which to adjust the building's "Inspection" hours data as it is constructed. Let me assure you that if you don't start off adjusting these hours, when you go past ~20 days and ~75 buildings -- you will play hell trying to catch-up on adjusting them.

I will surely appreciate comments from anyone who has played beyond ~20 days ---  

[CoconutKid]

REVISITING

... 2. Is the only way to make a worker happy, to increase their wages?  And if so, how does it work, I mean how much of an increase must be given to make them get xx% happiness increase? ...

While I still don't have a definitive answer, I can say it seems apparent as you get to ~ 20 days that employees who started then and remain at the default salary have begun a decline in the % as compared with newer employees. Since it seems reasonable to infer that the % happy is directly correlated to productivity (the Representatives may be the most clear evidence - they seem to "boost" the guests in direct proportion to their %.), it's important to keep employees in the high 80s to low 90s.

Besides not changing their shift hours too often, it may be necessary to give a small raise frequently (weekly) based on hireing date to keep them smiling. Alternatively, perhaps just firing the older, flagging workers (with the fee) may be just as cheap.

I'll keep watching.   

[City Builder]

Hey, thanks for all the information.  While I haven't responded much to this thread I do read the information in the notifications emails, so it is appreciated and a good addition to this games information on the site here.

Now let me ask you, when you are playing, do you give a weekly raise to your employees?  If so how much is a small raise that you are giving?  I tend to give my employees the raise that I would want to get if I were them, so I often way WAY overdo it and give them several dollars at a time, although I don't give weekly raises, but rather it's just sort of arbitrary when I give them.

Also, do you tend to just keep all employees across all the different branches of work (maintenance, customer reps, sanitation etc) at the same salary level, or do you keep all employees of the individual type of worker at the same level, or do you even go further and each employee might have a different salary than every other employee?

Thanks,

[CoconutKid]

It's interesting how many times in a game released internationally, a narrowly used term (sometimes slang) is in the game to the confustion of a large segment of the buyers. Train Oil was an example I ran into in ANNO 1503.

From the SB manual page 21, Guest Opinions - Totty: "Guests love beautiful people and everyone has hopes of a little holiday romance. The better the totty in your resort, the happier your guests will be."

Noun
Singular totty ; Plural uncountable
totty (uncountable)
(British)
(slang, English) sexually attractive people (especially women) considered collectively; usually connoting a connection with the upper class.
(slang, English) an individual sexually attractive woman
quotations:
2006: "Some posh totty, who was more than a little bit of a babe, just walks up and makes Eddie pull her, against his will almost." — Richard Taylor (2006). Eddie Shore 4 Jo, 29, Lulu Press, Inc.. ISBN 1411696077.
2005: "The mother screamed that Ali was a posh totty who held her nose up at ordinary folk with babies." — Georgina Hunter-Jones (2005). Peckham Diamonds, 19, Fly Fizzi Publishing. ISBN 1900721309.
2006: "The doctor attended a fancy dress ball dressed as Star Trek's Dr Spock but suddenly the costume split open and his phaser found its way into some totty." — Tonto Greenberg and J Bannister (2006). The Blue Book : V. 1, 32, Banland Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0955151309.
Usage notes
Although denoting a countable subject, the noun is a mass noun. A single person is described as "some totty" or "a bit of totty". But a group of people can also be referred to as "some totty" or "the totty".
Related terms: top totty (slang) A very attractive woman or women, or (more recently) a man or men.
Similar sounding:
pl. toddies [TOD-ee] Although toddy has different meanings around the world, in the United States and Britain, it refers to a hot water-based drink, generally spiced and liberally laced with alcohol. The word comes from tari, the Hindu word used for the sap or juice of a palm tree. In Asia, this sap was often fermented to create an alcoholic beverage. British sailors picked up on the idea, which eventually evolved into the toddy.
Toddy may be:

• Hot toddy, a mixed drink served hot
• Palm wine, also known as palm toddy
• The toddy palm (genus Borassus)
• Toddy coffee, a drink made from brewing coarsely-ground coffee beans in cold water using a special brewing system
• Toddy (PepsiCo), a powdered chocolate milk drink marketed in Brazil
• Svetoslav Todorov, Bulgarian international footballer
• slang for a toddler.

.

toodle-oo
  

[CoconutKid]

Hey, thanks for all the information. [pay rates Q] ...

To be honest, I'm just getting to the point of understanding the pay issues.

However, I think it's important to keep the various lines of work at the same relative levels as the defaults put them.

• 12 - Mechanic
• 11 - Builder
• 10 - Life Guard, Rep. (Happiness Monger¹), Security Guard
• 9 - Cleaner

That gives some clue as to what the developers saw in the financial balance of the game. While you want both the Mechanics and the Cleaners to hustle, paying them both the same rate may not be the way to do it.

I still have to see. I'll be looking at relative numbers in occupations (I suspect it's typical to under-estimate the numbers overall, and especially the Mechanics and Cleaners); and how to do the raises.

& enjoying it a lot.
 

¹ I become more and more convinced they started as Prostitutes and were too far into the fabric to pull out when they didn't pass the ESRB censors.

[CoconutKid]

Numbers of Mechanics Required
per Inspection Schedule.

Theoretical Data.

Assumptions: 75 buildings all set to same schedule, 6 inspections per Mechanic shift¹, and no changes in Mechanic's specialities, i.e. all have the three ticked.

Schedule for | Inspection & Repair.	Inspections | Required per day.	Mechanics Required. Rounded Up
8 hrs (default)	225	38
16	112.5	19
24	75	13
32	56	10
40	45	8
48	37.5	7
56	32.25	6
64	28.5	5
72	24.75	5

Next Step: Gather some refined data on Mechanic performance, and then calculate the fractional Mechanic required per building at various schedules.

¹Third, it is silly to leave all buildings at the default of 8 hours! I have not yet discovered the clue about how fast the various buildings deteriorate. However, my preliminary "guesstimate" is that, on average, each Mechanic will do well to do between 5 & 7 "Inspect & Repair" visits per shift without specialization.

[RhiannOn]

Wow, that is some detailed info CoconutKid. 

With the buildings that are continually popular I had inspections down to every couple of hours.  That seemed to work, but it meant I had to build another mechanic building/s as the mechanics were too busy and couldn't always inspect the other buildings on time and so they broke (the buildings that is lol ).
  The employees doing the graveyard shift I paid extra and that seemed to keep them happy..made me feel happier and guilt free too  ie  the cleaners as I sometimes "asked them to do an extra shift"  if there weren't enough cleaners for the litter.

The builders if i didn't need them I would fire most of them, but it did hit the pocket to re-employ - or was it the other way round..cost to fire? 
Very cool game tho.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/b9LTVoR4PbQ&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/b9LTVoR4PbQ&rel=1</a>

[City Builder]

Placing the Beach Furniture rental shack on beaches where you want your guests to hang out seems to work well.  My guests were hanging out on the very small beach on one side of the island because I assume of the BBQ, beach bar and showers.  i put the beach furniture rental shack on the larger beach on the other side of the island and now they all hang out over there.  So it seems placing the rental shack on the beach of choice and then putting all the other amenities around it will keep people visiting there and buying from the shops on that beach.


I always overhire and end up firing people when I see that I'm barely making any profits every day although my biggest expense (other than when I'm on a building spree) is always the stock purchases, that just kills my budget every single day.

Hope that makes sense.

[CoconutKid]

There's a redundancy fee (usually\always around $100 ?) when you fire someone. I, too, am inclined to pay a premium for the "off standard\default" shifts, but I haven't observed that simply being on another shift has any impact on happiness. What does wear the people out is constantly changing hours to work them more than 10 hrs a day.

It's my estimate that to operate with ~75 buildings, one needs a minimum of two Mechanic's buildings and three Cleaner's buildings. Edit for later experience: That may work for the first week or perhaps two. But as time goes on, one will need about the same number of both buildings - even when operating at peak efficiency - especially after day 21. As time sets in, one has to keep building various things to account for changing conditions.

Which brings me to the question of Toilets. How do you determine the number and placement? Do you use the bladder index? I wonder if any of the other buildings allow the guests to empty their bladders or are we making an unwarranted assumption based on our life experience rather than the game world. Although guests go by their room at night (0400-0800 typically) and just before leaving the resort, there are some with over-extended bladders in the line waiting for the bus\boat out. I am leaning to the idea that perhaps Toilets are needed on a ratio to guests (1\20 ?) and distributed in proximity to drinking buildings - or at least to minimize walking distance. Of course, more toilets mean more cleaners.

My early observations seem to indicate an approximate decline in staff happiness of 5% per week without raises. The elementary action would be a minimum $1 raise on days eight, 16, etc. However -

I think it's important to keep the various lines of work at the same relative levels as the defaults put them.
12 - Mechanic ; 11 - Builder ; 10 - Life Guard, Rep. (Happiness Monger), Security Guard ; 9 - Cleaner
That gives some clue as to what the developers saw in the financial balance of the game. While you want both the Mechanics and the Cleaners to hustle, paying them both the same rate may not be the way to do it.

I think I guessed wrong on that. You may wish to give the Builders an initial raise to boost their happiness to the maximum at the get-go. Likewise, it there is an "Ocean Current" problem endangering swimmers, you may wish to start and keep your Lifeguards at the maximum.

BTW - when you reach "build-out" or nearly so; it may be cheaper to pay the redundancy fee and fire all the original Builders who have augmented pay rates. Then when the few additional projects are ready, hire new Builders who are happy at lower pay.

I haven't really found any clear relationships amongst buildings. I have found that some locations are "off the beaten path" and attract no guests no matter what you build there.

Beginning during week three, it seems to me that building break-downs start to get really hectic if you haven't changed the inspection schedule as you built the buildings (i.e., left them all at 8 hrs.).

Thank you very much for your comments.    

[City Builder]

As far as the toilets go in Spring Break / Beach Life, I have always placed them near to the main drinking establishments as the tool tip suggests when selecting the toilets from the build menu.  But that always makes me wonder that with all the different bar/drinking establishments in the game (other than the beach bar), what... None of them have a toilet inside?

Whether they do or don't, I simply follow the suggestive tool tip for the restroom and place one nearby to the drinking establishments.  As far as how many of them to place, well... I would assume that a line would form like it does at my restaurants if it's being overloaded and in the game that I played last night with only 160 +/- guests to my island getaway, I never saw a line form at the restroom.  There were plenty of lines at the regular restaurants that offer quality meals, and other places but none ever formed for the restroom.

Speaking of lines (queues), I thought it very funny that mny beach BBQ had a huge line for burgers, and many people were turning away with the thought in their thought box that they weren't going to stand in that long of a queue for the beach BBQ.  So I did what I thought anybody would do, and I built a 2ND beach BBQ literally not more than 3 feet away from the first so that people wouldn't have to staand too long in a queue.

And then I raised the price of the burgers on the new beach bbq to $5.90, people continued to queue up for burgers on the new beach bbq and there was nobody using the original bbq that I