Utilities and staff

Tenants need electricity, water, climate and data, clean rooms and working equipment. The plant rooms supply the utilities; your staff keep the building clean and repaired.

Utilities

Every room uses some: an office needs electricity, climate, water and data; a flat needs all four as well; lobbies and corridors need a little power; elevators need power. The lowest floors are served first, from the nearest plant with capacity to spare. When the plant is too small or too far away, the rooms above go short.

The Facilities panel (⌥⌘F) shows supply against demand for each utility and how many rooms are short. The Services overlay (⌥⌘U) colours every room: red out of order, orange missing a utility, amber worn, blue dirty, faint green fine.

Staff

Hire them with Hire in the Facilities panel. They work from 07:00 to 19:00, walk in from the street and use the stairs, the public elevators and the service elevators. Technicians do the most urgent jobs first: failed plant and broken elevators, then the most worn room.

Staff rooms

Staff need a place in a Staff Room: 3 places in a 4 m room up to 7 in a 10 m room. You can only hire while a place is free. Idle staff wait in the nearest staff room. A job more than 10 floors from any staff room takes half as long again, so in a tall tower spread staff rooms over the height.

Dirt, wear and waste

• Rooms get dirty as people use them and wear over time; storms, rain and snow make it worse.
• A janitor's job opens when a room drops below 60 % cleanliness; a technician's job below 30 % condition, or 50 % for plant rooms and elevators.
• Plant that falls below 15 % condition stops supplying.
• People make waste. A Waste Room takes 80 kg per metre a day; collection costs money at the closing. When the waste rooms are too small, the rest of the building gets dirty.