City Services - Part 2

Read the first part of the development diary here...

SERVICE UPGRADES

A new feature in Cities: Skylines II is the city service upgrade system. In the previous game, city services were one-and-done buildings. You placed the building and if the city needed more of the service type, you placed another building of the same type. In Cities: Skylines II each city service building (with few exceptions) is upgradeable, extending its operations to service more citizens and answer different needs of the citizens.

Upgrades can add new functionality or expand the existing functionalities of a service building. For example, you can place an ambulance depot or an extension wing to a Medical Clinic to add more ambulances and patient capacity. Similarly, placing an extension wing to an Elementary School increases its student capacity while placing a Children’s Clinic or a Playground improves student Health and Well-being, respectively, both adding new effects to the Elementary School. A power plant can have additional turbines built, increasing the electricity output, an exhaust filter added to decrease the amount of air pollution created by the power plant, or additional storage space for storing fuel. Upgrades come in many forms and improve service buildings in many different ways.

It is worth noting that adding upgrades costs money and in most cases, the upgrades also add to the building’s upkeep cost. It may not always be beneficial to build all upgrades for a building but instead to consider the needs of the city and its citizens. Is the exhaust filter necessary for that power plant which is already downwind from the city and the air pollution spreads away from the residential areas? Maybe not. But if the power plant is located near the city center and was built in the early days of the city, the exhaust filter might be exactly what the plant needs. It can continue to operate closer to the city without causing too much harm with its air pollution. If the school is already full of students but more eligible citizens are in the city, is it better to upgrade the school with additional student capacity or build an entirely new school in another part of the city? This depends on where the students are located as providing them with nearby facilities cuts travel time and contributes less to traffic congestion.

UPGRADE TYPES
Service upgrades are divided into three categories: Operational, Extensions, and Sub-buildings.

Operational upgrades add functional and statistical changes to the building without changing its looks. These can be bandwidth increases for the Radio Mast, exhaust filters installed in a Coal Power Plant, or a dispatch center built inside the Taxi Depot.

Extensions are visible upgrades connected directly to the main building, usually increasing the building's capacity for vehicles, output, range, or the number of citizens being serviced. These include, among other things, extension wings for medical facilities and schools providing more patient and student capacity, respectively, garages for various services increasing the size of their service vehicle fleet and additional turbines for power plants increasing their electricity output and fuel consumption. Extensions have a fixed position on the building lot and fit inside the existing lot size.

Sub-buildings are separate buildings attached to the service building’s existing lot. They can increase, for example, the fuel storage capacity of power plants or add new functionality to a building, such as the aforementioned Children’s Clinic and Playground upgrades for the Elementary School. Sub-buildings naturally require additional space to be built so it is important to take into consideration the placement of the service building and make sure that there is enough free space around them for those potential sub-buildings added in the future!Add a Disaster Response Unit to your Fire Station to search for survivors in collapsed buildings

SERVICE COVERAGE

In Cities: Skylines II services have both a passive coverage effect and a simulated effect. While the passive effect is local to the area surrounding the building, the simulated effect can reach further into the city through patrolling vehicles or citizens visiting the service building, and often the two work in tandem. As an example, managing the city’s crime rate isn’t about placing a police station on every street corner, instead, the police station’s presence decreases the accumulation of crime in its neighborhood as its passive coverage effect while the patrolling police vehicles extend that reach to all over the city as the simulated effect.

PASSIVE SERVICE COVERAGE EFFECT
Many of the city services have a passive effect that spreads to their surroundings along roads. Services with passive effects include:

• Healthcare facilities: Health bonus
• Education, Elementary Schools: Well-being bonus for families with children
• Fire department facilities: Decreased fire hazard
• Police department facilities: Decreased crime accumulation
• Parks and recreation buildings: Well-being bonus
• Welfare Offices: Well-being bonus for citizens whose Happiness is low

The strength of the passive effect depends on three factors: range, capacity, and magnitude. Range is the maximum distance in meters along roads where the service building still provides its passive Service Coverage Effect.

Capacity is a rough estimate of how many people the city service building’s passive effect reaches as it travels on the roads, however, the reach of the effect can vary greatly depending on how many people live in its vicinity. If there are only low density housing, the reach can be far, but if the area is densely populated with medium or high density housing, the reach can be quite short as it is used up faster, spreading through the apartment buildings.

Magnitude is the maximum effect gained from the passive service coverage. It’s at full effect within most of its range but the effect fades out quickly at the edge - this area is where, as an example, your citizens will only have a few bars on their cellphones and their internet may be unreliable, making some overlap of passive service coverage worth it if you are aiming for the best coverage.

SERVICE EFFICIENCY

In Cities: Skylines II one of the most important aspects of both businesses and city services is their Efficiency value, which represents how well the building performs its function. In the case of city services, Efficiency affects the buildings’ capacity, processing speed, or output, depending on whichever value or values are the most relevant for the city service, and it may also have an effect on the range of passive service coverage effects and city-wide effects of certain service buildings. Below are the functions affected by Efficiency for each service type:

• Roads: Number of available road maintenance vehicles
• Electricity: Electricity output level
• Water & Sewage: Water output level, sewage processing speed
• Healthcare & Deathcare: Treatment bonus, processing speed of the deceased, number of available ambulances and hearses
• Garbage Management: Garbage processing speed, number of available garbage trucks
• Education & Research: Graduation bonus
• Fire & Rescue: Number of available fire engines
• Police & Administration: Number of available police cars
• Transportation: Number of available transportation vehicles
• Parks & Recreation: Attractiveness value, number of available park maintenance vehicles
• Communication: Number of available post vehicles, network range, and capacity

CALCULATING EFFICIENCY
Many factors contribute to a building’s Efficiency, some are essential for the building to even work while others are important but lacking some doesn’t entirely halt the building’s functionality. Water and electricity are the basic needs for a building to function, and lacking either one of them incurs a large Efficiency penalty while lacking both leads to the building becoming inoperative.

Employees are an important factor when it comes to building Efficiency as having the right amount of employees who are happy, healthy, and have the right Education levels, ensures that the buildings function as smoothly as possible. Employee Happiness gives a boost to Efficiency while unhappy employees incur a penalty. If employees become sick, they can’t contribute to their workplace’s Efficiency which incurs a penalty. And the inability to find employees who are suitably educated will also have a negative impact on the building’s Efficiency. As a reminder, highly educated employees are able to fill job positions requiring lower education levels but it is impossible for a lower educated employee to fill a higher education level position.Happy employees of the right education levels increase efficiency but make sure your services don’t run out of resources

Some service buildings, such as many power plants, use fuel or other resources to function. As an example, if a power plant does not have access to fuel for any reason, its Efficiency decreases greatly. In the case of power plants, the resource can also be immaterial such as wind and sun. A Wind Turbine loses most of its Efficiency if there is not enough wind available for it to produce electricity, and similarly, during night time, the Solar Power Plant does not produce electricity and instead relies on built-in batteries to keep the lights on in the city. Medical facilities are another example of a service dependent on a resource as they use pharmaceuticals (a type of produced goods) while treating patients. If the building runs out of this resource, its Efficiency decreases and as a result, the treatment bonus added to the citizens’ recovery decreases.

Lastly, the City service budget can be used to affect the Efficiency of all buildings within a service category. Perhaps your city is still small and it doesn’t require the full force of the service to function in which case lowering the budget can be useful as it lowers the Efficiency, decreases the upkeep costs, and cuts down on the service’s vehicle use or other functionality. Or maybe your city is growing rapidly but you are not ready to invest in additional service buildings just yet. In that case, increasing the service budget will increase the Efficiency of all the service buildings allowing them to service more citizens.

SERVICE FEES

In the Economy panel, you will find a page dedicated to city services and adjusting their budget. The budget slider affects all of the service’s buildings equally and its main function is to reduce and increase the upkeep cost and affect the buildings’ Efficiency. Expenses displayed on the panel comprise of maintenance (also known as building upkeep), and depending on the city service, resource costs such as fuel for power plants. The panel also includes service import and export information as well as the fees collected from city services that have them. Yes, that’s right, some services collect fees from the citizens. These include Roads, Electricity, Water & Sewage, Healthcare, Garbage Management, Education, and Transportation services.

Electricity and water fees are paid by citizens and companies alike, and the fees can be adjusted in the Economy panel. Lowering the fees increases citizen Happiness and company profitability but also increases the usage of water and electricity. Increasing the fee decreases citizen Happiness and company profitability but also decreases the usage of water and electricity. Using these fees, on their own or in addition to District policies, you can encourage citizens to conserve electricity, decreasing the demand in the city.Adjust both the service budget and related fees in the Economy panel

Citizens also pay a fee for Healthcare services when they visit medical facilities to get treatment, while Garbage fees are paid when garbage trucks collect garbage from households and companies. Additionally, Citizens pay for education, with each school type having its own service fee, the cheapest being the Elementary School and the most expensive being the University.

You can set up roadside parking fees for Districts and the various parking lots and parking halls included in the Roads service. Similarly, each passenger transportation line’s ticket fee can be adjusted individually, which can encourage or discourage citizens to use certain methods of transportation as the cost is considered when they make pathfinding decisions.

SERVICE TRADE

Whether your city is just starting out and you can’t afford to build a service or whether it’s thriving with excess to spare, it can benefit from service trade. Services can be imported from or exported to neighboring cities through Outside Connections and apply to most services. You can save money by not building a service, but of course, imported services also cost money and it takes time for the service vehicles to arrive from one of the Outside Connections. On the other hand, exporting services can be beneficial to a large and established city selling any excess to neighboring cities.

Electricity, water, and sewage services can all be imported and exported. Electricity is transferred from Outside Connections through power lines and into a Transformer Station or vice versa. From there it is distributed to the local grid, ready to be used. You can find power lines running through the map making it possible to connect to your neighbors when you are first starting out. Clean water can be delivered to the city or pumped to neighboring cities via pipe Outside Connections, and likewise, sewage can be sent to and from Outside Connections via pipes built to the edge of the city. To import or export both water and sewage you will need to grow your city enough to reach the edges of the map, where you can create pipe Outside Connections. Excess output is always sold, if possible, while keeping enough for the city’s own needs, and if the usage increases, less is sold to Outside Connections.Import electricity when your usage increases or export any excess you might produce

If the city does not have any medical facilities, citizens travel to Outside Connections to get treated. If they are too sick or injured to travel, an ambulance is sent from an Outside Connection to pick them up. Once they are treated, they travel back to the city. Similarly, if the city lacks proper deathcare facilities, hearses arrive from Outside Connections to pick up the deceased and transport them out of the city.

Police and fire services can be imported, although their response times are slow as they arrive at crime scenes and emergencies from Outside Connections. Also, the imported services lack the passive service coverage effects from their respective service buildings, which can otherwise decrease crime and fire hazards respectively.

Citizens wanting to go to College or University may travel to Outside Connections if the schools are not available in the city. However, traveling outside of the city for Education may also encourage them to actually move out of the city for good. Therefore it is important to offer the citizens the education options they need! Likewise, your city can export education and attract students from Outside Connections who want to study at the city’s Colleges and Universities. These students move into the city to study and in the process, they also become fully-fledged citizens once they find a home

DISTRICTS & POLICIES

Districts give you more in-depth information about the populace residing there, while policies can be applied to individual districts or city-wide bringing flavor and fine-tuning to different areas of the city. The District Panel shows information about how many citizens live there, their average wealth level and what are their Education levels, as well as which policies are enabled for the district. Hovering over the Happiness for the district will show you all the benefits and drawbacks of the area, giving you an idea of how you can improve that part of the city.

Creating a district is quite straightforward. With the District Tool, you define an area by placing corner nodes and once you “close” the area, the district is created. This method is faster and more precise than in the game’s predecessor, and the district can be adjusted after it’s created by moving the nodes or adding new nodes to the edges. It’s named automatically but you are able to rename it after its creation to suit your city.Districts can be renamed and adjusted after their creation

City services can be assigned to one or more districts limiting their services to only those areas of the city. Services that have not been assigned to any districts will service the entire city, regardless of district borders. It is important to note that even though a service building is assigned to multiple districts, its passive service coverage effect still applies only to its neighborhood. Only its simulated service effects i.e. its vehicles travel to all of the assigned districts.

District policies bring more city-planning control over specific districts. For example, you can limit heavy traffic in a district to decrease traffic-based noise and air pollution which in turn increases citizens’ Well-being and Health. Installing speed bumps slows down traffic, decreasing noise pollution and the likelihood of traffic accidents, while setting up a gated community denies access to the district from all outsiders except for delivery trucks and service vehicles. Roadside parking fee can bring some income from the district but it also affects citizen pathfinding as they now calculate whether it is cheaper to use other modes of transportation than their own vehicle if they have to pay for parking as well!Enable specific district policies to customize areas of your city

City policies are different from district policies and have city-wide effects such as removing the speed limits from highways or installing air filters for manufacturing companies in industrial zones to limit air pollution. Some policies have a cost or negative consequence linked to them while others are more neutral. Taking our example of highways with no speed limits, this policy can make traffic flow faster but it also increases the likelihood of traffic accidents. Installing air filters decrease air pollution but those filters need cleaning every now and increase the amount of garbage these factories produce. City policies apply to your entire city and are found in the City Information panel

Cities: Skylines II includes 7 different district policies and 5 city policies providing different ways to customize your city. District policies are applied by selecting the district and choosing the policies you want to apply, while the city policies can be found in the City Information panel.

That’s all we have for you today, we hope this has brought you insight into how services work in Cities: Skylines II, what’s new, and what’s familiar to the predecessor. Are you looking forward to being able to upgrade your service buildings? Or perhaps taking advantage of the option to import or export services? Let us know in the comments. Next week we dive into more details about the Electricity and Water services in Cities: Skylines II so you have all the information you need to provide your citizens with these basic utilities.