Pathfinding with 500x500 park

[Timson]

Hello

I play openrct2 with three of our four kids. As our new project I've created a 500x500 map where each one of us gets one corner with a diffrent "biome". Each biome currently has a transportation ride that eventually should connect to the other players area. Right now they just do one lap. To get around the map each area is connected with an underground path.

The problem: even with very little stuff on the map, the guests enter, immediately get lost and want to go home. I've also noticed, that when they enter and walk in the correct direction towards a desired ride, if the ride is far away by the time they get there they are upset. Does a map this big even work or is just too big? Or is there an issue with my paths? I feel that I've build more complex parks in the past and they worked just fine.

Would appreciate if someone could have a look and let me know before we invest hours into this project just to find out it's fundamently flawed.

Thanks ❤️

Tim

Family Park 2.park

Edited January 24 by Timson
added screenshots

[ExCrafty]

"Guests are getting lost or stuck" is a VERY common occurance on larger than 100x100 maps I've found. The peeps AI isn't able to take into account the size of maps now. I assume it's on the (no doubt) long list of "things to do" for the devs. This gets mentioned in several threads. It's annoying, but unfortunately that's it for the time being.

I find that it's roughly four minutes before a guest will start complaining, but I may be wrong. It doesn't seem to matter the pathing layout either. And you no doubt know that guests don't use transport rides as "transport" rides, they just get used as another ride that's often free.

My most recent park is 150x150 with a path around the perimeter and two paths bisecting it in the centre, basically dividing it into quarters, and I still get the dreaded alert. Mine are always about the coasters, not asthetics, this one is possibly the most asthetic I've done.   So ignore the "look" of the park. 

The Barrens.park

[Timson]

So this means we can technically build larger parks, but it's not feasible due to the guests being unhappy? That would make me unhappy too.

[RollerCoasterTyphoon]

I haven't tried to play any super-large parks, but I've been anticipating this problem: two years ago I devoted some time to watch Guest behaviour during my replay of Evergreen Gardens; over and over again, a Guest would be "heading for X" (often, the entire other side of the Park), then, "I can't find X!", wander around a little, then "heading for Y" (again, often, the other side of the Park ...).

I deduced that, in Parks above a certain size, this accounts for all of the "lost" complaints but, also, almost-all of the "it's too crowded here" complaints. I was frustrated that I had, in Evergreen Gardens, a large number of Attractions with starving queues, and hundreds of Guests serially-timing-out not reaching far-away rides, generating "lost" and "too crowded" complaints.

I'd imagine that the control here is a simple time-out but I haven't decompiled & parsed any of the code, nor compared energetic v. tired Guests: it could be tied to distance.

I'd like to ask our Devs to modify the control to be, instead of some fixed-value, a function based on Park size: simply increasing the time-out will not punish "bad-pathing".

I might want to try to play large-Park Scenarios, maybe even design one or two, but I've held-off in anticipation of this very issue. I imagine it's disheartening for hopeful Park-makers.

Typhoon

[ExCrafty]

You are apparently familiar with coding, you could always offer your assistance, since this is effectivelt a "labour of love" by those who are bringing this game into more modern time. Since they do tihs in what passes for "spare time". I myself haven't got much of a clue what you just said. This was always an issue way back in RCT, just that back then I for one didn't know any better, so thought it was my park design.

This is by no means a critisism of any of your posts, that mention the game mechanics and coding.

[RollerCoasterTyphoon]

I perceive no criticism, and I'll thank you for the encouragement. Sadly, I really don't think I should attempt to join the Development Team: I do not work as a Software Developer, nor as a Systems Admin, the last time I even inspected "raw" Assembly was 30 yrs ago; I'm "on-call" at the lab, family, friends, Friday-night "6-pack & a movie", my time is spent; the most-recent plug-ins I've written were for Dragon Age: Origins (what; 15 yrs ago?), facilitated by the studio releasing a public, "for modders", version of their Development Console.

The OpenRCT2 plug-ins I employ (Ride Price, Scenery Manager, Advanced Track), so far as I can tell, run parallel to the game code and do not make any attempt to overwrite/supersede it: if a plug-in could address this issue, I might consider "blowing the dust off of" my JavaScript claws and sharpen them up; of course, the manner and magnitude of any changes would need to be ratified by a consensus from the Development team.

One thing a lot of people sometimes overlook, when desiring to modify computer code, is the possibility of change in one system contaminating proper function in another, at its worst potentially causing cascade failures in numerous areas. With this specific issue my experience & instincts tell me that such danger is highly unlikely but, yes, I'd prefer to leave this sort of thing to our Development Team.

On top of it all: I launch OpenRCT2 to play scenarios, design roller coasters, horse-around with 'hacky' stuff; I get enough work, at work.

Typhoon

[rc8]

I have a 262 x 262 park that guests don't get lost.   I built straight, underground pathways in a grid across the park so guests looking for a ride or to leave can get there.  The entry in my park to the underground pathways is hidden in the restroom buildings of the park.

[RollerCoasterTyphoon]

On 26/01/2024 at 05:06, ExCrafty said:

stuff I found to be kind and encouraging.

This is what I do:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_vapor_deposition

This style of thing is too complex for basic PLCs: two of our reactors run on modified Win95, one on modified XP; our best reactor, manufactured by PLATIT, is the sexiest creature in the entire universe. I make sure nothing f**ks up, including climbing into the machine, detaching wires in order to 'hot-wire' it into life (obviously, only when it has failed). The lab is air-gapped but I can access all machines, remotely, through some devious method that I devised.

ExCrafty, again, thank you: you remain a kind and honest person. I'm not the best, nor the most-sensibly temperamental candidate for inclusion in the Development Team. Oh, I gave you a like because you were simply being you and I respect that.

Typhoon

[X7123M3-256]

On 26/01/2024 at 21:08, RollerCoasterTyphoon said:

One thing a lot of people sometimes overlook, when desiring to modify computer code, is the possibility of change in one system contaminating proper function in another, at its worst potentially causing cascade failures in numerous areas.

This is true, but you're asking for a very specific, simple change ... it's not like it's less likely to cause problems if someone else makes the same change, and any PR you submit would be subject to review by the dev team anyway. I think it's unlikely that anyone on the dev team will see a comment here as I don't think any of them check this forum anymore - submitting a PR if you know how to do that at least guarantees they will look at it. Otherwise maybe post here https://github.com/OpenRCT2/OpenRCT2/discussions/

One possible consequence would be that if you extend the timeout, lost guests take longer to give up and might become unhappy as a result. But, having the timeout be tied to the park size doesn't seem like a bad idea because it's also a problem if you have a park so large that guests are likely to timeout even when they aren't actually lost - and it's a fairly simple thing to test if this change helps or not if you've got a park that's having problems.