Engineering DLC

Hi, my name is Rex, and I have about 750 hours in-game, I have a few levels to this idea, there are some basic things that should be in it, and there are also some more ambitious ideas that would be a bit more of a challenge to integrate.


Stairs
Stairs are important for staff movement throughout the hospital, they provide a cheap, maintenance-free option of transport. In the event of a power outage, they are the only way to get around.

Basements
Most real hospitals have basement levels where nonpatient facing departments would be (Autopsy, Admin, Staff Rooms/Cafeterias)


Utility Room
- Generator
- Tool Cabinet (Needed for an Engineer)

New Job under the Admin Dept. - Engineer
An Engineer would provide maintenance to important items around the hospital.

Random Event - Power Outage
Sometimes the power can go out. Ideally, if the player built a generator (that has been maintained) the power will kick back on and run on that generator until the power comes back on. If the player decided not to build a generator than the power would be out meaning that any patients requiring it to survive could die. In order to save patients in a power outage, a nurse or doctor would have have to go to that patient to provide care until the power returned. For example, a patient that is on a ventilator would require a person to provide manual ventilation. The issue here is, do I have enough staff to save all the patients I have?

Need for Maintenance
Items like elevators, sliding glass doors, sinks, toilets, and vending machines would require occasional maintenance and failure to maintain them would cause a breakdown (breakdowns sometimes happen at random regardless). If an item breaks down it can't be used until an engineer comes and repairs it.


Getting Ambitious

Paying the Power Bill
Running a hospital costs money, one of the expenses to take into consideration is electricity. The larger the building, the more lights there are that need to be lit, and more air conditioning is required to keep the building comfortable. Specific items can also have an impact on electricity costs like radiology scanners, lab equipment, fridges/vending machines, and Computers/TVs. This requires the player to consider the cost impact that heavy power use items will have on their hospital.

Reducing the Power Bill
If we are going to charge for power, we should give away to curb the expense. Does every room need a computer? As an alternative to using a computer, a hospital could use the ancient method of data entry, paper. A clipboard would be used in the place of a PC to act as a hire point for a doctor/receptionist. The main drawback to this system is time, each time a doctor/receptionist is done with a patient they will need to go to a file room to put the patient data into the file cabinets.

File Rooms - These could either use the file cabinet that is already in-game or a new art piece that could be made for patient files, or both. Most small clinics have a big wall of manila patient files. They should require quite a few cabinets/file shelves since paper takes up space. The player will need to think about the placement of these rooms while it should be a shared room, do they want to have one big room in the basement or a location at each department? The choice is theirs.

Lighting - When nobody is in a room the lights turn off in-game (this is already in the game). An option for the player to reduce power is to use corridors in sections, as people move down hallway lights are turned off behind them. The player can decide to have big long corridor zones, but this will have an effect on their power as anytime someone walks into that zone, the whole area's lighting is turned on. They could also utilize individual patient rooms rather than a massive ward to save on lighting costs.

Data on Power in Hospitals
https://www9.nationalgridus.com/non_html/shared_energyeff_hospitals.pdf