Disaster Shelters Require Power to Function

[p4nzer]

Hi, currently disaster shelters require power to function, which is neither realistic nor conducive to good gameplay. It makes them completely vulnerable to tsunamis (as I found out when my city was totally vaporized by a maximum-power tsunami 10 minutes after installing the mod, consigning 10,000 cims to a watery grave) and other power-killing disasters.
Disaster shelters should be able to survive for at least a short time without power.

 

[Mr Maison]

I agree with this 100%. They should not require juice from the main power grid but have backup generators in them. Power lines go quickly once things get dicey. Citizens should have a safe place where they can wait it out. Not leave as soon as the power goes out which is usually when things are at their worst.

 

[Sanny]

I thought they did have backup generators in them according to a dev diary?

 

[JohnA45]

It does not matter either way (power or not) in my experience, once the shelter is hit it empties, this even happens with tornadoes and it's silly. My shelters still had power according to the icons but when water or tornadoes got to close or hit it...it empties! To reiterate your point: Shelters are underground so getting hit, especially by a tornado, wouldn't matter!...and they would have protected generators if they were worth a darn... I hope they fix this because what is even the point? I've had perfect coverage and still lost hundreds or thousands of people...I tried with shelters and without and the numbers are really are not too different. And the shelters don't seem to load too quickly either, (by game standards days passed as the tornado hits...weeks with a tsunami!) which also kinda sucks. I've tried several things including fewer pick-up stops...radio towers all over...everything I could think of...but I only once ever had them fill up to capacity and that was with the extremely slow tsunami, (which I saw coming before I was alerted) but as soon as it hit the shelter, everyone died or it was emptied or whatever to happens to them. I just stopped placing them because they cost so much anyway and the upkeep is terrible when your city get's very big.
I don't want to sound too ungrateful here...I'd like to say that I really love this DLC in most aspects, the disasters are cool (I'd love to see a volcano added and maybe a blizzard to snowfall) I just think a few things need to be tweaked to make it better. I want shelters to matter more to game-play and for them to make more sense! Or explain what everyone is doing wrong so we can make it work...I've exhausted everything I could think of....

 

[Mundoworld]

I played the vanilla tsunami scenario "Island Hopping" today, and noticed that the overall population count doesn't jive with the number of cims in shelters. At the end of a particularly brutal tsunami, I had about 2000 people in shelters all over town according to the shelter pop-ups, but the counter at the bottom of the screen rapidly declined to less than 300 people as residential buildings were flattened. The next tsunami was even worse and the overall population count declined to zero, and I lost the scenario, although their were supposedly thousands of cims sitting in shelters. All shelters had electricity (which I agree should not be a reason for shelters to release cims to their death) and were on hills, so only shortly submerged. Frustrating...

 

[JohnA45]

I played the vanilla tsunami scenario "Island Hopping" today, and noticed that the overall population count doesn't jive with the number of cims in shelters. At the end of a particularly brutal tsunami, I had about 2000 people in shelters all over town according to the shelter pop-ups, but the counter at the bottom of the screen rapidly declined to less than 300 people as residential buildings were flattened. The next tsunami was even worse and the overall population count declined to zero, and I lost the scenario, although their were supposedly thousands of cims sitting in shelters. All shelters had electricity (which I agree should not be a reason for shelters to release cims to their death) and were on hills, so only shortly submerged. Frustrating...

That's because the shelters don't protect your citizens from tsunami's... If you click the shelter when the water hits you can watch as the numbers decrease to 0. As I stated, they seem kinda pointless and I think that should be fixed. I always try to play the scenarios in vanilla so I can challenge myself, but it just doesn't seem fair if shelters don't really make a difference. BTW: If you make it past that first couple of disasters in that one there don't seem to be anymore...I'm at 75K people in Island Hopping and nothing so far....which is another gripe I have, the scenarios are virtually disaster free if you make it past the first few things they throw at you. Tornado Country doesn't seem to have anything after the fist 3 or 4 either. I'm up to 200K on that one and have had nothing since about 10K people. I stopped building shelters.... Seems silly to me. The good news on that at least is that you can create your own...I am considering adding one of my own scenarios to the workshop...at max you go about 75 weeks without anything. I'm making sure they play out right first and can be won.

 

[MotownCountry]

how the heck do the Shelters run out of food, but not water or electricity...if NO ONE is in them?

 

[JohnA45]

how the heck do the Shelters run out of food, but not water or electricity...if NO ONE is in them?

LOL...I know right? Maybe the food expires?

 

[Mundoworld]

That's because the shelters don't protect your citizens from tsunami's... If you click the shelter when the water hits you can watch as the numbers decrease to 0. As I stated, they seem kinda pointless and I think that should be fixed. I always try to play the scenarios in vanilla so I can challenge myself, but it just doesn't seem fair if shelters don't really make a difference. BTW: If you make it past that first couple of disasters in that one there don't seem to be anymore...I'm at 75K people in Island Hopping and nothing so far....which is another gripe I have, the scenarios are virtually disaster free if you make it past the first few things they throw at you. Tornado Country doesn't seem to have anything after the fist 3 or 4 either. I'm up to 200K on that one and have had nothing since about 10K people. I stopped building shelters.... Seems silly to me. The good news on that at least is that you can create your own...I am considering adding one of my own scenarios to the workshop...at max you go about 75 weeks without anything. I'm making sure they play out right first and can be won.

Actually, shelters do protect cims during tsunamis, if you build them on hills and they aren't submerged for too long. I made that mistake when I started the scenario and as you mentioned could see the numbers of cims slowly decline while the shelters were flooded. After I moved them to hills that problem was gone and the number of cims inside the shelter stayed constant. However, they still die, once you release them from the shelter, when there is no residential housing left for them to go afterwards.
So the key to get passed the 10.0 tsunami in the scenario is to have at least a few residential houses that survive the disaster. When I wrote the comment above, I had only low-density residential houses, which not surprisingly got all destroyed. However, a few of the high-rises always seem to survive. So the key is to zone high-density residential housing.

 

[Chief of Staff]

how the heck do the Shelters run out of food, but not water or electricity...if NO ONE is in them?

LOL...I know right? Maybe the food expires?

I would think it is a usual practice in real life world to constantly restock food, replacing those expired food....

There should be at least a couple workers assigned to each shelters or simply attached to the emergency services department that represents the workforce that maintains and provisions the shelters. In latter case, number of workers employed for this purpose would be dependent on a number of shelters you have. Perhaps 2 workers for every 5 shelters or something.

I don't have ND expansion pack yet so I don't have all information but are shelters separately funded in budget, perhaps as a subitem under fire department or whatever? If they are, that funding can also determine how many workers there are for every X shelters as well.

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

There should be at least a couple workers assigned to each shelters or simply attached to the emergency services department that represents the workforce that maintains and provisions the shelters.

My gaming rig is busted, so I don't have ND either, but I would think that a delivery from time to time could keep it fully stocked with food. A few workers to maintain it as you said. It should have water tanks. And should have backup generators for when power is disrupted. (Wish I could play to see what it's like.)

 

[JohnA45]

I would think it is a usual practice in real life world to constantly restock food, replacing those expired food....

There should be at least a couple workers assigned to each shelters or simply attached to the emergency services department that represents the workforce that maintains and provisions the shelters. In latter case, number of workers employed for this purpose would be dependent on a number of shelters you have. Perhaps 2 workers for every 5 shelters or something.

I don't have ND expansion pack yet so I don't have all information but are shelters separately funded in budget, perhaps as a subitem under fire department or whatever? If they are, that funding can also determine how many workers there are for every X shelters as well.

They are funded under fire department.
As far as I can tell there are no workers assigned to shelters, if there are workers the game does not show us. As for keeping the shelters stocked I do just assume the food expires, but it really seems that they are set up as part of deliveries same as commercial buildings, even though they are part of the fire department. So basically, if your traffic becomes an issue then they don't receive regular deliveries. Shelters in real life store food that last for many months like canned and dried/powered items...so they wouldn't need regular deliveries, but hey, it's all about the challenge for the game right?
Anyway, as I stated in an earlier post, I just don't place shelters anymore since they don't seem to do much good and the cost and ability to maintain them just does not seem worth it. The majority of the time they never fill up before the tornado or other disaster hits, if they get hit directly they lose people and I've not noticed much in the way of saved lives with or without them. ( it would make sense to me that many homes would have basements or personal shelters as many do who live in tornado prone areas of the US...but I'm doubtful that is programmed in the game) The disaster relief depots do the most good and I still place weather radar and warning systems so I know where they will strike, I also like the radio towers, but since I have no shelters they are just for ascetics.

I am also a bit dismayed that the high-rise buildings get leveled by tornadoes in the game, it's very doubtful that this would happen, even the devastating EF5 tornado that hit Joplin, Missouri in 2011 didn't level the 8-story hospital...it just blew out all the windows. And the few others that have hit downtown areas of cities have never lost a skyscraper...mainly just the windows.

 

[ristosal]

As far as I can tell there are no workers assigned to shelters, if there are workers the game does not show us.

Like any public service building in the game, emergency shelters do employ workers. As for their usefulness, they're probably not very efficient if a massive tsunami flattens the whole city, but with more local impact they can do a decent job. And since they are services, they increase land value and help industry/offices level up. Same with radio masts.

 

[Chief of Staff]

They are funded under fire department.
As far as I can tell there are no workers assigned to shelters, if there are workers the game does not show us. As for keeping the shelters stocked I do just assume the food expires, but it really seems that they are set up as part of deliveries same as commercial buildings, even though they are part of the fire department. So basically, if your traffic becomes an issue then they don't receive regular deliveries. Shelters in real life store food that last for many months like canned and dried/powered items...so they wouldn't need regular deliveries, but hey, it's all about the challenge for the game right?
Anyway, as I stated in an earlier post, I just don't place shelters anymore since they don't seem to do much good and the cost and ability to maintain them just does not seem worth it. The majority of the time they never fill up before the tornado or other disaster hits, if they get hit directly they lose people and I've not noticed much in the way of saved lives with or without them. ( it would make sense to me that many homes would have basements or personal shelters as many do who live in tornado prone areas of the US...but I'm doubtful that is programmed in the game) The disaster relief depots do the most good and I still place weather radar and warning systems so I know where they will strike, I also like the radio towers, but since I have no shelters they are just for ascetics.

I am also a bit dismayed that the high-rise buildings get leveled by tornadoes in the game, it's very doubtful that this would happen, even the devastating EF5 tornado that hit Joplin, Missouri in 2011 didn't level the 8-story hospital...it just blew out all the windows. And the few others that have hit downtown areas of cities have never lost a skyscraper...mainly just the windows.

Regarding the bolded part, I do agree that shelters in real life world would typically store the food that have very high shelf life... but that doesn't mean they aren't restocked periodically... I seriously doubt there is food that has infinite shelf life. :') But obviously, representing high shelf life like that isn't doable in game, since it is not meant to be completely realistic to the point we have to put up with aspects we would find dull and boring, since after all it is a game. So I would guess perhaps shelters would be restocked... once a year? 5 years? I don't know... does anyone know what are shelf life typical on shelter stocks are, for the comparison?

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

I seriously doubt there is food that has infinite shelf life.

Honey.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-science-behind-honeys-eternal-shelf-life-1218690/

 

[ConjurerDragon]

Regarding the bolded part, I do agree that shelters in real life world would typically store the food that have very high shelf life... but that doesn't mean they aren't restocked periodically... I seriously doubt there is food that has infinite shelf life. :') But obviously, representing high shelf life like that isn't doable in game, since it is not meant to be completely realistic to the point we have to put up with aspects we would find dull and boring, since after all it is a game. So I would guess perhaps shelters would be restocked... once a year? 5 years? I don't know... does anyone know what are shelf life typical on shelter stocks are, for the comparison?

Old Bundeswehr packs could be eaten for 10 years
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einmannpackung#Die_deutschen_EPa
the modern ones only for 3,5 years.

 

[JohnA45]

Like any public service building in the game, emergency shelters do employ workers. As for their usefulness, they're probably not very efficient if a massive tsunami flattens the whole city, but with more local impact they can do a decent job. And since they are services, they increase land value and help industry/offices level up. Same with radio masts.

You are right, later I decided to investigate further and went into the asset editor to see. It is a shame we can only find out this way....Anyway a small shelter has 45 workers and a Large has 100...each with a few from uneducated to highly educated. As for using them...you go ahead...my cities do great without them. Disaster or not.

 

[MotownCountry]

Honey.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-science-behind-honeys-eternal-shelf-life-1218690/

twinkies?

 

[Chief of Staff]

You are right, later I decided to investigate further and went into the asset editor to see. It is a shame we can only find out this way....Anyway a small shelter has 45 workers and a Large has 100...each with a few from uneducated to highly educated. As for using them...you go ahead...my cities do great without them. Disaster or not.

Do you mean 45 workers as in shelter capacity? Or does it actually employ 45 workers? That's rather a huge number of workers to employ for a shelter, methinks....

 

[ristosal]

Or does it actually employ 45 workers? That's rather a huge number of workers to employ for a shelter, methinks....

Yeah, that's a terrible lot. I guess some explanations would lie in evacuation buses and supplying food.