After going on holiday for a few weeks i realized a (quite) vital part of simulating an airport was missing… Families.
Groups could also have a role in a later build of the game. I believe a smaller version of the current people in the game could denote children and if those children stay next to 1 or 2 adults throughout their visit to the airport it could class as a family.
In Britain families usually have the same last names but i’m not sure how international that is as i believe Icelandic people take their fathers name add son on the end and use it as their last. (Feel free to correct me Icelandic people.) But i’m sure that could be included. Children would also need realistic birth dates to be realistic.
The Families and groups would stick together throughout their airport experience; queue together, sit together, buy stuff together, etc, etc. A lack of seats next to each other could impact their mood as not all of them would be able to sit down and if one of the children in the group had to be searched a parent would have to be near them.
Anyway it’s just an idea that i don’t believe has been mentioned before.
This would be an excellent realism addition to the game. One which would require quite some work to get passengers act like a group. Not wander too far from each other, have seats close together both in the waiting area and in the plane. But i would love to hear @Fredrik correct me on this
I like families… The kids could scream and yell and annoy the other passengers while the parents will start running around chasing the kids and apologizing and looking for somewhere quiet.
This thing is implemented very smartly in Planet Coaster. Infact Planet Coaster has used some very smart ways of memory management in the industry for simulation. It’s a masterpiece in high simulation designed for low memories.
Yes it would require some work but it can also help with performance. For example, a family will hopefully only need to use 1 path finding calculation, which can enable more passengers with less performance cost.
For example, a family will hopefully only need to use 1 path finding calculation, which can enable more passengers with less performance cost.
Maybe but then that family wouldn’t move like a one person? Like whole family passes through security at the same time or boards to airplane at the same time??
So much cancer! My lord sir, have you heard of numbers?!
But yes. Pathfinding is usually a good thing to simplify as much as possible. Pre-cached paths and other methods will also help with this, though I hope people don’t go through each other too much…
Crazy thought, as your airport grows and grows you are less concerned with the individual traveler and how people move as a whole. Could pathfinding be scaled up dynamically to group people together (Outside of a family unit) to save on resources.
When you get up to international level airports, 100,000 people may pass through an airport in a given day. Simulating all those paths probably will be taxing, but grouping them in 10’s or 20’s for the sake of the simulation would cut down significantly on resources.
One which would require quite some work to get passengers act like a group. Not wander too far from each other, have seats close together both in the waiting area and in the plane. But i would love to hear 
