Restaurant Feeds the People

[Coconut Kid]

I set up and am running a test on the Life Expectancy question. As a part of the setup, I use a Restaurant fully staffed from the start together with three farms producing food. There is no Port and are no Teamsters. I have observed:

First, Clearly, the Farmers will carry their "overstock" food output to the Restaurant. They stack the food near to the side door - the less ornate one directly opposite the trash cans in back.

Second, With only brief observation, the guests coming for entertainment go in the front door and spend at least several minutes while the Tropicans coming to "get a meal" go in the side door and spend only a few seconds (about the same time as spent at a Marketplace picking up a meal). The pile of food goes down in direct connection with those going in the side door, but does not go down at all in connection with those going in the front door.

I shall be making further observations, but it seems one can conclude - tentatively - that the Restaurant is a "dual" function building: It A} provides entertainment which makes money, and B} provides a pick-up point for free food. It appears that the two classes of customers are separate.

I think it is useful to know that Farmers do carry their "overstock" goods to destinations other than Ports.

 

[el_malo]

Thanks amigo, a very useful and informative post... as always.

You just made "urban planning"... a little bit easier.

[Captain Carrrghter]

Nice work, indeed!

As an added bonus, restaurants seem (in my experience, anyway) to be considerably less vulnerable to hurricanes than farms and marketplaces are.

[Brf]

Bah..... I was hoping that the people were only getting food when they paid for entertainment :p

There goes my idea about only feeding the rich.....

[el_malo]

To be fair, maybe the Marketplace... should sell tacos and tortas 

This makes me wonder if the Pub has a dual function 

[Coconut Kid]

@ Brf,

Yes, it does seem to be a neat "side-step" to the policy of free food, but "fair & reasonable" charges for entertainment. It's interesting that people are entertained just fine without any food stock on hand.

 

@ El Malo,

What I want to see is Marketplaces which charge, but deal not only in food, but also imported necessities like clothes. Along the lines of the famous Company Store of Ernie Ford's "16 Tons" song.

Oh - almost forgot. I don't think there is any potential for the Pub's being dual use.

The Pub was not originally coded as dual use. It could be modified in the bldg.dat file.

[artemais]

This is a good find, CK.  What price did you have on the restaurant?  Because I still wonder if the rabble would visit just for food if the price was too high...

Another related question:  Since the restaurant is designated as a teamster (and thus, farmer) drop off point for food, do you think the other food drop off points will work the same way?  Like the gourmet restaurant and the army base?  (Getting further from the topic, I sure do think that if it does work that way it would be awefully fun to designate my palace as a food drop off point....hehehe then everybody must come give me their laud before they can get food...)

[Brf]

do you think the other food drop off points will work the same way? 

Yes. I would think the gourmet restaurant works that way.... We would have to check whether the Army base does though.... I think it only supplies entertainment, religion,  and health-care to residents.... I would think it only supplies food to residents too.

The buildingdata file has two flags you could experiment with -- food-provider and food-dropoff-point. You could try setting those flags for other buildings, and see what happens.

[Coconut Kid]

My initial observation was with the fee at 0, I've had problems with subsequent observations (food shortage generally).

I have seen food deliveries to the Army Base, but I speculate that its special coding means that it supplies only residents - as Brf says. I retract that speculation. Probably anyone wandering by can pickup meals because it is coded as a food pickup point like the Market Place, etc.

As Brf says, there are the flags available for experiment. It is also possible to experiment with setting a charge for visits to the Marketplace. That would be a check to see if its single purpose - meal pickup - could be subject to charge. It seems clear that a mod to charge for food can not be accomplished with only the bldg.dat file.

I speculate that the code for both the restaurants is unique - just as the code for the food producing locations (Farms & Fisherman's Wharf) is unique. Bad speculation.

The Port remains a question. Is it set to food-dropoff just so food will be delivered there to be loaded on ships? And the allowance for citizens to pickup a meal is just coincidental thing? The Port is coded as a food pickup point ; so citizens are not "stealing" when they get meals at the port from food waiting to be shipped. A similar question might arise about the Cannery - can a citizen pickup a meal from the stock of delivered food (pineapple & fish) before it goes into processing? The Cannery is not coded as a food pickup point, so the citizens will not use either the input or output for meals.

[artemais]

I have my questions about the army base too--as far as whether or not it is a food drop off point for only residents.  But I thought I had seen regular people enter the army base before, although I don't know whether they were getting food or not.

The flags in the building data file are bytes 51 and 52 for building use, where you can designate the building as a food provider, and the 14th byte after any guest/occupant slots.  Also involved would be bytes 9 and 10 after guest/occupant slots--these are the ones that control input and output.

[artemais]

Well, I tried to set my palace as a marketplace.  I changed the 9th and 10th bytes after the worker slots to 02 and 02, what the marketplace has,  also changed byte 51 to include it as a market, and the 14th after worker slots to make it a food drop off point..  I was able to get it to say "Output store" when I clicked on it, but nobody ever delivered anything there.  I used the editor to take out the dock, and the teamsters let all of the food pile up at the farms.  As soon as I built a new dock, the teamsters went back to work, and delivered it all to the dock.

BTW, I think I just realized that since the restaurant acts as a food source, there is now never any need to build a marketplace.

[Brf]

Well, I tried to set my palace as a marketplace. I was able to get it to say "Output store" when I clicked on it, but nobody ever delivered anything there. 

My guess is that Output store thingee appeared from the "food provider" bit.... There must have still been something wrong with the Drop-off bit or something

BTW, I think I just realized that since the restaurant acts as a food source, there is now never any need to build a marketplace.

Yup. I have mentioned that before. It uses uneducated labor too, so there is no need to train or buy a highschool girl.

[Coconut Kid]

... the guests coming for entertainment go in the front door ... while the Tropicans coming to "get a meal" go in the side door ...

Further observation shows that "entertainment seekers" may use both the front and side doors. Also, the employed cooks come to work through the rear door.

[Coconut Kid]

When considering which to use for the first "entertainment" building - between the Pub and the Restaurant - cost is usually the determiner. The Pub costs `800 and the Restaurant costs `2,000. It can be argued that the Pub is underpriced and the Restaurant is overpriced - one can correct those levels by "mods" to the building file if one is "into" such modifications.

However, other considerations are restrictions on the staffing of the buildings and the functions they meet.

The Pub is staffed with Barmaids who must be 18 years old (although "uneducated"), and the building provides only entertainment for a fee.

The Restaurant is staffed with Cooks (uneducated) who can be 13 years old. The building provides entertainment (for a fee) and a pick-up point for free food/meals.

The game guides did not tell you all that did they?

[artemais]

Although, as I have noted noted before, the pub does have one other trick up its sleeve...it allows for one of the most potent edicts in the game, the mardi gras edict.  So at least for me the winner is still the pub first...but then again I provide so little entertainment that I need the mardi gras edict.....and then again the second time, I hardly use marketplaces, either, so its easy to see why I automatically still choose the pub first.

[Sticker]

wow, this is realy useful.  Now I don't need to spend on a high-schooler early on in the game to distribute food.

[belbincolne]

Yep I rather hate the Market Place too. In playing Bob I had no money coming in and no goods to ship out and (stupidly) I'd built two MPs and they'd each got nearly 20 goods stored which would have made life much easier if on the docks getting paid for.

[cockney]

cool! gonna check it out straight away
thanks a lot

[Coconut Kid]

cool! gonna check it out straight away
thanks a lot

Look at this thread for lots of stuff that you can check out straight away:

http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=9134.0

 

[JakiusCeasar]

thanks! that helps quite a bit!

[Coconut Kid]

Does anyone have further observations about who may pick-up food at the Army Base?

 

[Coconut Kid]

I suspect that it's just a matter of "proper" manipulation of the bldg.dat file to make any building a food provider.

Meanwhile, I think it quite clear that fee charging buildings do NOT connect the fee with food pickup.

[El-Bueno]

restaurants can store food like a marketplace? this is news to me, I wil ltry and observe it, but then what if you have market places built, will the restaurants still get drop offs too? any ideas how much food the restaurant can store?

[Coconut Kid]

So far as I know, there is no connection between allocation of food to Marketplaces and to Restaurants.

I have  no idea of the maximum for either building.

[Coconut Kid]

The flags in the building data file are bytes 51 and 52 for building use, where you can designate the building as a food provider, and the 14th byte after any guest/occupant slots.  Also involved would be bytes 9 and 10 after guest/occupant slots -- these are the ones that control input and output.

I tried to set my palace as a marketplace.  I changed the 9th and 10th bytes after the worker slots to 02 and 02, what the marketplace has, and also changed byte 51 to include it as a market, and the 14th after worker slots to make it a food drop off point..  I was able to get it to say "Output store" when I clicked on it, but nobody ever delivered anything there.

Bytes 51 & 52 are for Bit settings of 0=no and 1=yes. The codes did not get tweeked correctly.


In hex, each byte has a value from 00 to FF corresponding to 0 to 255. Each character is a half-byte -- and contains 4 bits, which have a value of zero (false) or one (true) - So if a byte has a value of 75, instance, that converts to "4B" in hex. The "4" is the first half-byte and the "B" is the second half-byte. In binary it has the value "01001011", so bits 2,5,7,8 are true and the other 4 are false.

Specifically, the "building-use" bytes are  #51-52

Byte #51:
Farm or Mine (128)
Entertainment (64)
Religious (32)
Health Provider (16)
Food Provider (8 )
School (4)
Workplace (2)
Housing (1)

Byte #52:
Electricity Producer (8 )
Tourist Attraction (4)
Tourist Accomodation (2)
Point of Entry (1)

Each of these flags corresponds to a single bit within byte 51 or 52. You add each value together to get the actual value that is in byte 51 and 52.

I haven't counted out what "the bytes 9 , 10 and 14 after any guest/occupant slots" are. Check here:
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=6136.0