Staff usually crowd a particular staff room. There would be other staff rooms that are free, but it is often noted that most of the staff ignore the other staff rooms. So, by forcing a occupancy limit on each staff room, the staff can occupy other vacant or half-full staff rooms. On top of this, having a limit also mirrors real world staff room operations.
P.S: Making staff choose staff rooms closest to their next job point (whether it is a check-in desk, or boarding gate) will further reduce time delays which otherwise occur when commuting to gates at the ends of a terminal. THIS WOULD BE A BIG BONUS when it comes to facilitating on-schedule departures.
I would go even a step further:
Assign personal to staff rooms and connect the staff rooms with items to be serviced from there. So you might assign 5 ramp agents there and tell them to only service planes on stands 1-3 while 4-6 are managed from another staff room - just connect the room with the stands to tell the game 'personal operating this must come from here). Assign 2 security there and tell them to operate security checkpoint 1 only, not 2 or three. In that case, employees are kept in their designated area and do jobs you assigned for them. For janitors and service techs, add a cleaning closet or workshop and assign space to be cleaned/repaired from there (a bit like in rollercoaster tycoon). True, this will mean a bit more micromanagement, but it gives us control over what our employees will do and not run to senseless places causing lag behind. All working, if the number of desks meets the number of persons to be assigned. In that case, a staff room not only is recreational, but becomes a small department responsible for shifts at certain sites.
But in doing so, you force the same staff to work in the same place over and over again. This is quite contrary to what happens in real life. I’ve done a bit of flying myself and in no cases did I meet the same person at the exact same boarding gate. Even as I wait for my flight I see different staff operating the desks (at one particular stand) for different flights. So for a game that focuses more on creating a replica of a real-world situation, I doubt this will help
Do correct me if you feel otherwise. I have just stated my experience in Indian airports.
I understand, that this is not quite the case in reality, but think about the game engine. Imagine you have only one staff room. After finishing a job, everybody would walk there after the job is finished. Having more rooms, they will wander around and return to the next room - but this might pull away staff from where you need it just because someone in terminal C could do a job in terminal A miles away and stays there. In reality, someone coordinates the workers. In this case, we have a soft case of control as we restrict the area, where the workers will be. Just splitting your workforce for enhanced performance. Imagine an airport, where you have small stands and medium remotes. The medium remotes will call for a ramp agent about 4 times a day. In the meantime, they will walk to the small stands at another place and when a medium lands, they have to run back again maybe causing delays. I want a staff room assigned to my medium remotes so ramp agent there only will work on those and not elsewhere.
Yes, I understand completely. Believe me; I flip out sometimes when I see staff moving the entire length of my terminal to do a job when there are other staff in a nearby staff room. I guess the game randomly assigns tasks to free staff members without accounting the distance between their current position and the position of the task that needs to be completed. If the devs are willing to change this, your idea would definitely come in handy and I would love to see it be implemented in-game.
i believe a limit automatically equalized to the amount of seats in the staff room should be enough. The job task system is programmed to look for closest staff anyway so no need to assign rooms or staff.
I believe a manual input is required, because I usually build a big staff room so as to not have the need to expand it or build another one close by. So when I hire more staff, I just have to increase the allowed limit rather than build or expand. Hence by doing so, I am free to utilize the remaining areas in my terminal for franchises and food courts.
Sometimes closest staff is not good enough. I hire 6 ramp agent to care for 3 small stands. I hire another 6 for the next 3 small ones. I do not want to hire 20 and hope, the correct ones will walk to the small stands and not wander off to got to my baggage bay somewhere else or attend medium flights at the other side of the airport just because the next job is there. They shall stay where I assigned them for and ready and waiting for their job and not wander my airport aimlessly…
