Does Housing Location Matter for All Jobs?

[Il_Ducky]

A teamster, miner, farmer, dockworker and other such workers need to live fairly close to where they work to be efficient, otherwise all their time is spent commuting. But does this matter for all jobs? I ask because I had an archeological site and the workers there lived in town on the other side of the island. As far as I could tell, it didn't seem to matter, the site was still up and running, attracting tourists and generating money. Do the workers for "service" industries need to have a short commute? Will a high school educate its students if the teachers get tired and go home before getting to class? Does a hotel still attract guests if the maids never show up? It seems that it should matter, that the job should be more than just having a slot filled, but it doesn't seem to. It may just be that the effect is more subtle than, say, a mine not producing any ore, so I was wondering what other people had noticed.

[Mjara]

If I had to guess, I would think that distance from home to work would impact any job.

My feeling is that with farmers & miners, you can see them do their jobs.  With hotels, highschool, immigration, etc, I would bet that the same thing goes on, just in the background (ie. the same algorithm is used for all jobs, just some are more 'visible' than others.).

I have no proof, but thats my suspicion.

[caddet]

Housing proximity matters for all jobs, it just matters more for some than others.  As an example, let's take a few different Tropican professions.

A teacher goes from home to school.  She teaches until it's time to take care of her other needs like rest, food for her home, entertainment, or church.  If she travels farther from home to work, she may not teach as long.  It might make the students stay in school a little longer, I don't know, but the effect is rather small.

A farmer goes from home to the farm.  Then he or she goes out to the fields to work.  The farmer works until it's time to take care of other needs (see above).  If they travel farther from home to work, they will not work as long.  The effect is more visible, because they work outdoors.  It is also more pronounced, because their production directly affects your economy.

A teamster goes from home to the teamster office.  Then he goes to where there are resources waiting to be picked up.  Then he takes the resources to the dock or to a processing facility.  Then he goes back to the teamster office.  If he gets tired anywhere on that long path, he goes home to rest.  If he travels farther to work, and gets tired on the way to pick up resources, he never gets there.  Or worse yet, he picks up the resources but gets tired on the way to the dock.  He heads home to rest and the goods just disappear.  I've seen this happen.  Again the effect is the same, but in this case it can cripple your economy.

Rule of Thumb - Tropicans will only do so much before going home to rest, but they will go as far as necessary to get home.  Set your housing so they get the job done before they have to rest.  As long as the teamster gets the goods to the dock, it doesn't matter how far he has to go to get back home.

[littleraven]

Hmm…far be it from me to argue with caddet, but as far as I can tell, certain jobs are not affected by housing proximity at all. A perfect example is maids. I’ve had hotels where the maid lived across the island, and I’ve never noticed the hotel suffering one bit. It doesn’t appear to matter if she ever actually goes to the hotel, as long as she’s on the payroll. Ditto for most tourist attractions, power plants, airports, and schools. If they are affected by housing proximity, the effect has been too small for me to notice. Obviously, this is NOT true for dockworkers, Teamsters and construction workers, but you already knew that.

Are you sure that housing proximity matter, caddet? I guess it might with schools, I’ve never paid much attention to them, but I watch my hotels like a hawk. As long as I have maids on the payroll, the guests come, whether the maids ever show up or not. Could it possibly affect the hotel rating? I haven’t experimented with that….

[Il_Ducky]

From littleraven's post I realized the perfect place to test whether housing location always matters is a power plant. I think the power output is completely independent of whether or not a plant worker is on the job or wandering around the island. From what I remember, the power output is equal to the number of workers times power per worker. It only changes when you gain or lose workers, it does not change throughout time as workers show up or leave the plant. Otherwise power output would constantly fluctuate and you would have random blackouts when by chance all the plant operators were out of the office at the same time. This to me argues that there is at least one place where it doesn't matter where the employee lives. I think caddet could definitely be right in that absent teachers might equal slower students, or absent maids equals unhappy hotel guests. I don't know how you'd test that theory, though, since there are so many other variables. Does the housing location effect worker happiness? If citizens have great homes in great locations, will they still b*tch about having to walk a long way to get to work?

[Tourist2001]

From what I remember, the power output is equal to the number of workers times power per worker. It only changes when you gain or lose workers, it does not change throughout time as workers show up or leave the plant. Otherwise power output would constantly fluctuate and you would have random blackouts when by chance all the plant operators were out of the office at the same time.

It may not have any affect on the output of certain jobs, but I do think  that housing location and the convienence of ther things such as food will affect how long they stay at that job verse change to a job that they are qualify for and would make the same closer to home.   I've seen my power worker leave their job to work at a bank as there was more convienences near by and the pay was the same.  Job happiness is dependent on many things and I think proximity to home and food is included.  Maybe I'm wrong, but it just seem that way in games I've played.

[Eddy]

I saw a comment along the lines of "My new job is closer to home now."  The person was a farmer and apparently a farm next to her house had a job vacancy and she took it.  She didn't change careers over distance but definitely changed work location.

[Il_Magnifico]

I watched a Cathedral with one bishop, as the bishop was out wandering (i.e. not in the Cathedral), worshippers were still coming and leaving as usual. They were getting religious exposure, although possibly the quality of the religious experience was lower, hard to say. But certainly the building was still functioning despite having no staff present.

Would seem to make sense that job happiness would go up if a subject... er, citizen was closer to his/her job.

[caddet]

In response to littleraven, the effect of housing proximity for service workers is questionable.  I don't know how you could even measure it if there was an effect.  I just hadn't even thought about most of the service workers when I posted my earlier response.

[Coconut Kid]

YES It Does !

... I realized the perfect place to test whether housing location always matters is a power plant. I think the power output is completely independent of whether or not a plant worker is on the job or wandering around the island. From what I remember, the power output is equal to the number of workers times power per worker. It only changes when you gain or lose workers, it does not change throughout time as workers show up or leave the plant. Otherwise power output would constantly fluctuate and you would have random blackouts when by chance all the plant operators were out of the office at the same time. This to me argues that there is at least one place [Then it is NOT the perfect place for a test.] where it doesn't matter where the employee lives. I think caddet definitely could be right in that absent teachers might equal slower students, or absent maids equal unhappy hotel guests. I don't know how you'd test that theory, though, since there are so many other variables. ...

Bad logic, poor test. If the building is unique, it is not a proper test for formulating a general rule. This fallacious line of reasoning led to the Urban Legend that indoor work does not require actual presence of the workers at any time. Mjara's guess is the correct answer. It is very difficult to measure the actual output of the power plant to determine if there is a fluctuation -- particularly to determine if there is a gradual downgrade if no Engineer actually enters the building over a long period of time. We know that the Engineers improve their skill levels only during actual time on the job (without the cheat "Learning With Larry"), so actual presence has something to do with it. Let's examine the issue in a bit more detail.

All building which allow units to enter (that is, all except the decorations such as the Statue) are production buildings which produce or pass through product or units at a variable speed. Some have to do with activity outside the building - "outside animations" provide interest and amusement for the player. Most have to do with something going on inside the building - "inside activity" which is invisible to the player. In fact, it is rather difficult (not intuitive) for the player to realize when an employee is actually in the building. T2 (the pirates) corrected this by showing the avatar in the building display in two different modes.

There are some basic types of buildings:

• Initial Production
  • Farms & Mines, etc.
  • Electric Power Plant, etc.
• Product Change
  • Factory
  • Teamster
  • Port
• Unit Needs Gage Recharge
  • Housing & service buildings
• Gameplay Effects Only
  • Diplomatic Ministry, Bank, etc.

.
A rather simple level of observation has confirmed that factories move product from the input queue to the output queue faster when employees are actually in the building. With respect to the service buildings, it has been much more comfortable to accept the 'Urban Legend' than to take the trouble to confirm the relationship of movement of units through the building with the actual presence of the workers.

To assume that there is a great divergence between the importance of actual presence between outdoor (animation) work and indoor (invisible) work is to assume that the developers were a bunch of blithering idiots. Why would they not use the same standard lines of code for both situations?