The Gamer’s Needs

When generating guests with Peep Factory, if no groups are generated it’s possible to get those huge queue lines in our RCT3 parks that we’ve missed since RCT2. Most of our community knows by now it’s the Group AI in RCT3 that prevents us from seeing all those queues so if we choose to generate Peep Factory guests individually without groups this will bring a return to our parks of those queue lines we so desire.

Yet with those same guests arriving at our parks as individuals, while technically there would be Group AI it would be made up entirely of lone guests and we'd therefore be unable to observe guests interacting with each other.

Later on in this article we’ll show you why when we choose to generate Peep Factory guests that we’d want to ensure that some of our guests enter our parks as individuals and other of our guests enter our parks as groups.

How RCT3 Generates Guests

The average size of a group of RCT3 guests is 2.5; if we don’t count the individual guests produced by RCT3 this figure is 3.0. Less than 10% of guests produced by the game are single guests who are made up of lone teenagers, single adults, and individual VIP’s. The game does not generate unaccompanied children to attend our parks. The Guest Statistics console counts single guests as groups of one.

In addition to groups of one, our game generates guests in groups of up to six individuals. Those groups are:

►

Teenaged Couples

►

Adult Couples

►

Teenaged Gangs

►

Groups of Adults

►

Families

►

Day Trips

If we want to see those long queues that we like in our game and still want to observe Group AI in our parks then, based on RCT3 considering the average group to be 2.5 guests, the ideal Peep Factory guest generation setup would be that

►

40% of our guests enter the park as groups

►

with the remaining 60% being individual guests.

At this ratio we’d see a good proportion of guests in groups interacting with each other in addition to we as gamers enjoying something much closer to the numbers of guests in our queue lines that we’re used to seeing in previous RCT titles.

Another reason we’d want to take this sort of information into account is if we’ve painstakingly tested and prepared a huge park for guests, we’re done with testing & have emptied that park of peeps who previously arrived when the park was smaller, and we want to start afresh from zero guests. It does take time for the game engine to integrate each guest into our park after he arrives so although we’d want to open our park and receive those guests when our park is ready, in our fully developed park we’d want to be careful we don’t push the game engine too hard too soon with too many guests.

Park Example A

►

guest generation 100%

►

game generated guests 100%

If we’re using game generated guests and are not using Peep Factory guests then more than 90% of them will be a part of a group. In this example, in about 15 minutes our park will have received 1,000 guests, or about 400 sets of Group AI. 1,000 guests added within 15 minutes (gamer time) to a huge park that’s already got everything we want in it will make your park more likely to crash.

Here the park is receiving more guests faster with game generated guests.

Our Arrivals After 15 Minutes:

►

1,000 guests, or

►

400 sets of Group AI.

Park Example B

►

guest generation 100%

►

Peep Factory generated guests 100%

Comparatively, if we’re using Peep Factory generated guests none of whom are part of any group, in 15 minutes our example park will have received 400 guests (400 sets of Group AI comprised entirely of lone guests). With fewer actual guests swanning around in our parks it will take about 30 to 45 minutes in this example for our park to receive 1,000 guests, or 1,000 sets of lone guest Group AI. This park would be less likely to crash than Park Example A and we’d have no hesitation in considering the entry into this park of one or two thousand more guests at this same rate.

Here, although we’ve received the same number of Group AI sets, because those sets of Group AI represent lone guests it will take over double the amount of time to receive the same number of Peep Factory generated individual guests.

Our Arrivals After 15 Minutes:

►

400 guests, or

►

400 sets of Group AI.

Our Arrivals After 30-45 Minutes:

►

1,000 guests, or

►

1,000 sets of Group AI.

After considering this information we should choose to go either of two ways. We’ll use two new example parks to illustrate:

Park Example C

►

guest generation 40%

►

game generated guests 100%

We can open our example park in Scenario Editor and turn the guest generation rate down to 40% so that the numbers of game generated guests will arrive at about the same rate as individual Peep Factory guests would. Although we’d end up with less than 10% of the peeps arriving as lone guests this will give us about thirty to forty five minutes with our park before it has 1,000 guests in it.

Our Arrivals After 30-45 Minutes:

►

1,000 guests, or

►

400 sets of Group AI.

Park Example D

►

guest generation 80%

►

Peep Factory generated guests 100%

We can use Peep Factory to generate all our guests, making sure that the number of Peep Factory guests arriving in groups is around 40%, that the number of individual guests is around 60%, then open the same park in Scenario Editor and turn the guest generation rate down to, say, 80%. Here too we could anticipate receiving around 1,000 guests in about thirty to forty five minutes.

Our Arrivals After 30-45 Minutes:

►

1,000 guests, or

►

Approximately 350-450 sets of Group AI, dependent on the percentages of our group sizes created by Peep Factory.

If we've created a high percentage of large guest groups along with a minimum of lone guests in Peep Factory, with such an arrangement it's possible to have 1,000 guests in our park with only 300-350 sets of Group AI being produced by the game engine. At a glance this could be seen as the more economical way of enjoying more guests in our parks. However, when we take an electronic view of our park later on in this article we'll see why this isn't a valid point of view. We should remember that our ultimate goal is to get

►

enough individual guests in our park so that there's more traffic about our parks with there being more attractions being used with a smaller number of guests standing around waiting for their group, in addition to

►

enough guest groups visiting our parks so that we may enjoy the benefit of guest groups which includes some of our guests flowing through our parks and interacting with each other as groups.

Maximum Guest Attraction Levels And

Expiration Of Guest Visits

Vanguard West falls under the heading Park Example A. Guest generation in Vanguard West was set at 100% and, for the sake of getting results as intended by the game’s developers, was made up entirely of game generated guests. If we take a look at Vanguard West Financial Report we’ll observe that there’s an expiration date for guest stays in our park. This occurs about 1½ seasons into the park’s operation which is about the same time our park reaches the maximum guest attraction level. Because Vanguard opened on 1 March Year 1 our maximum guest attraction level and the expiration of guest visits would turn out to be around July or August in Season 2.

It is known that if we increase our guest generation rate to 200% ultimately we will not end up with double the number of guests at our park after 1½ seasons, but instead our park will simply reach the maximum guest attraction level in half the time. In view of that let’s reconsider Vanguard West as two additional park examples:

Park Example E

Vanguard West at 100% Guest Generation:

At the 100% guest generation rate actually used for this park the maximum guest attraction level was reached at about the same time as the expiration date was reached on guests’ park visits which was around July or August in Season 2. At this time our park developed a natural outflow of guests going home replaced (a month later in the case of Vanguard West) by a natural inflow of new guest arrivals.

Park Example F

Vanguard West at 200% Guest Generation:

With the guest generation rate set in this example at 200%, our park will have reached its maximum guest attraction level around August or September in Season 1, yet almost none the guests in attendance will be ready to leave until about July or August in Season 2. Particularly if we’re dependent on the income from guest entry tickets we’d have a whole park Season during which we’d need to do something specific to attract more guests because until about August Season 2, without our doing something about it the game engine has sent all the guests to our park that it is going to.

The Limitations Of Advertising & Publicity

►

We’ll get the best return from advertising campaigns and releasing animals for publicity in parks that have yet to reach their maximum guest attraction level.

►

In Park Example E, when the maximum guest attraction level has been attained, because a natural outflow and inflow of guests is being maintained by the game engine there will be a moderate reduction in the numbers of guests in our park that are attracted by campaigns and publicity.

►

In Park Example F where a 200% guest generation rate has been used, in order for us to enjoy the benefits of advertising and publicity from releasing animals, when the maximum guest attraction level has been attained the game engine will have to artificially end some of our guest’s visits and send them home early so that it can then add to our park something that resembles the number of new arrivals that are ordinarily attracted by advertising campaigns or releasing animals for publicity. Further, relying on the game engine to send our guests home isn’t a given so if the game bothers to send our guests home at all it could take around one park month before it got this started. At this 200% guest generation rate, after we’ve feasted on park entrance ticket income for six or seven months, we’d suddenly find ourselves at the start of a financial famine with an inability to do anything about it until another park month had passed, and uncertainty as to whether this time the game would send any guests home early so we could hope to climb out of this situation with advertising and publicity.

Guest Arrivals - The Glass Ceiling

In Park Example E our guests are leaving for home anyway but in Park Example F, with our game engine working overtime sending guests home in addition to attracting new guests while at the same time keeping the numbers of guests within our maximum guest attraction level, we’ll find that new guest arrivals generated from advertising and publicity will be only around 25% to maybe 50% as effective in Park Example F as they would have been in Park Example E. In other words, if the game engine has determined our park is 100 guests away from the maximum guest attraction level, it isn't going to send any more guests than 100 because we've relied on advertising or have earned publicity. At that time it will simply decide how many of those 100 guests are ordinary guest arrivals, and how many of those guests will have been attracted by advertising or with publicity. On top of this, for advertising and publicity to bring guests in meaningful numbers to Park Example F we’d need to constantly advertise, constantly rescue & release animals, and consistently to do this continually so the game ceaselessly sends guests home in order that new guests may attend our park. In a very best case scenario you might, just might be able to get the game to over saturate your park with about a 5% guest increase over your maximum guest attraction level.

If your game engine won’t send your guests home and replace them with new ones, or if you just don’t want to get involved in the hard slog of constant advertising & publicity, to get around the financial famine near the end of Season 1 in Park Example F the only other option would be to close the park, empty it of guests, and reopen it. Before re-opening your park would be a good time to re-consider your guest generation rate.

An Electronic View Our Park

The Game Engine

Guest Generation

Although with game-generated guests it is possible to get more guests faster in our parks it is the number of sets of Group AI entering our parks that is determined by the guest generation rate. Because the game engine calculates guest generation based on the number of sets of Group AI that arrive at our park, this is how the guest generator views our park.

The Maximum Guest Attraction Level

This is the maximum number of individual guests that your park can draw, not the number of sets of Group AI in which those guests have arrived. This attraction level remains the same whatever percentage of those guests are lone guests, grouped guests, game generated guests, or Peep Factory generated guests. Each time you play the same park from zero guests to maximum guest attraction level this number may increase or decrease by about 5% because your park's game-generated ecology and variability change each time you restart it from zero guests.

Our Computer

Arrived Guests

It is the number of guests in our park that adds to the load on our machine, not the number of sets of Group AI that have arrived at our park so taking into account everything else we have going on in our parks our computer views the total processing needs of our park by considering the number of guests that have arrived regardless of how the Group AI has been distributed among them.

Guest Generation

Once we’ve put any guests that we make into the

C:\Users\[USER NAME]\Documents\RCT3\Peeps

folder, when we open our park the game engine will put a priority on populating our park with those guests. The game developers made it this way because if we design guests with the in-game Peep Designer we’d want the game engine to put a priority on sending into our park any guests we’ve designed. After the game engine has used all the guests in the Peeps folder it will then auto-generate guests.

In view of that if we already know the maximum guest attraction rate for our park is 2,500 guests, if we want only Peep Factory guests to attend our park we’d probably want to put 3,000 Peep Factory generated guests into our Peeps folder.

Do keep in mind that if you set up Peep Factory to create 1,000 guest groups, with the average guest group produced being 2.5 guests it can be assumed you'd get about 1,000 guest groups made up of about 2,500 guests. You can increase or decrease the number of guests in your 1,000 guest groups by making adjustments to the percentages of your Peep Factory group sizes; if you want to produce 1,000 guests that arrive at your park in groups you wouldn't create 1,000 groups.

If you’re not sure yet what the maximum guest attraction rate would be for the park that you’re developing, creating 5,000 Peep Factory generated guests for a medium to large park will be an ample number to start with. If you do this you’d need to be aware that if your park attendance does reach 5,000 guests the game will start auto generating guests.