GlacierGlacier
Well-Known Member
Let's clarify the difference between "Capacity" and "Hourly Capacity" for a moment.
"Capacity" is the number of people a ride can hold. Rides with large numbers of seats (or ride vehicles) have high capacity. Theaters have high capacity because they can hold a ton of people. This could also theoretically include the queue, which is another holding space for people outside of walkways.
"Hourly Capacity" is the rate at which you cycle people through an attraction. Typically notated as people per hour, this dictates how fast a ride can chew through a line.
As long as every load point in a station is satisfied by a ride vehicle and guests are loading without issue, a ride is at its "Theoretical Hourly Capacity," this is found by finding the "perfect" dispatch time, finding out how many times you can dispatch in an hour, then multiplying that by the number of guests dispatched each time. As an example, Dinosaur has ride vehicles that hold 12 people, a ride vehicle is dispatched every 20 seconds (pure guess, someone can correct me later), that would result in 180 dispatches per hour, or 2,160 pph.
Once ride vehicles become sparse, dispatch drops. If a ride is too long with not enough ride vehicles, guests are waiting at the station with no vehicle there to load onto. Dispatch times rise sky-high, and actual hourly capacity drops.
So yes, ride length and number of vehicles can impact hourly capacity, but only when the ride is not operating at or close to Theoretical Hourly Capacity.
Theaters break the rules by being a single ride vehicle and station - therefore tieing dispatch times directly to ride time. A solution used often for this is having multiple theaters, all loading at different times.
"Capacity" is the number of people a ride can hold. Rides with large numbers of seats (or ride vehicles) have high capacity. Theaters have high capacity because they can hold a ton of people. This could also theoretically include the queue, which is another holding space for people outside of walkways.
"Hourly Capacity" is the rate at which you cycle people through an attraction. Typically notated as people per hour, this dictates how fast a ride can chew through a line.
As long as every load point in a station is satisfied by a ride vehicle and guests are loading without issue, a ride is at its "Theoretical Hourly Capacity," this is found by finding the "perfect" dispatch time, finding out how many times you can dispatch in an hour, then multiplying that by the number of guests dispatched each time. As an example, Dinosaur has ride vehicles that hold 12 people, a ride vehicle is dispatched every 20 seconds (pure guess, someone can correct me later), that would result in 180 dispatches per hour, or 2,160 pph.
Once ride vehicles become sparse, dispatch drops. If a ride is too long with not enough ride vehicles, guests are waiting at the station with no vehicle there to load onto. Dispatch times rise sky-high, and actual hourly capacity drops.
So yes, ride length and number of vehicles can impact hourly capacity, but only when the ride is not operating at or close to Theoretical Hourly Capacity.
Theaters break the rules by being a single ride vehicle and station - therefore tieing dispatch times directly to ride time. A solution used often for this is having multiple theaters, all loading at different times.
