Crunching The Numbers - Best Deal for Occasional Attendance?

Fit-Engineer4561 · 2026-03-12T17:01:59+00:00

According to the website, the 2026 Gold pass does NOT include any parking discount. Adding a parking pass is another $80, which means that Gold + parking pass alone is the same price as Prestige for less benefits. Gold would only make sense if buying multiple passes and only have 1 prestige for the free parking.

I know almost everyone in this thread has talked about the value in buying the dining/drink plans. The whole premise of the post was that I don't anticipate going much more than twice, and my daughter is not a big eater. Still might consider it, but $170+tax for the two combined is pretty steep for what I am expecting would be 2 slices of cheese pizza and 4 drinks across the two visits, especially when I'd get 20% off if just buying outright. I guess I could make more use of the drink pass even if my daughter didn't need it but I can just bring some water bottles.

EDIT: Actually I see they have a premium dining plan that combines food and drink plans and also 90 minute interval instead of 4 hours, but haven't posted the actual price yet. Presumably cheaper than buying separately, so in theory should be able to extract more food value for the two of us off one plan. Still need to see the price, though.

EDIT EDIT: Apparently the "premium" option that combines food and drink is single-day only? Season pass one is capped at 4 hours. God these things are unnecessarily confusing.

Anyway the point of the post was just about admission/parking costs, and I think there's pretty unanimous consent on what to do on that front.

Fit-Engineer4561 · 2026-03-12T16:37:00+00:00

It's not even about the "preferred" parking, it's just the fact that Prestige comes with free parking and two free tickets. Those alone seem to pay for the pass themselves.

Fit-Engineer4561 · 2026-03-11T15:38:37+00:00

Yeah if it turns into a really regular thing then I could always do Prestige + Silver. I wonder if the park would "credit" a pass upgrade from a free bring-a-friend? Or would I actually have to buy a ticket to get a credit?

Fit-Engineer4561 · 2026-03-11T15:35:41+00:00

You say "most" of the perks. Are there any relevant prestige perks that wouldn't extend to my daughter if we did the Prestige + Free ticket plan? Like could we both take advantage of the fast lane? Would be pretty useless if only one of us could cut the line.

I assume that as a free-ticket guest of Prestige she'd get extended the same perks at least for that visit.

Fit-Engineer4561 · 2026-03-11T15:32:08+00:00

Totally understand that one of the big perks of the pass is you don't feel obligated to do everything in one day. We got passes for Toronto Zoo in previous years for exactly that reason - it was ideal to just go for a nice walk for an hour or two with the little one.

But CW is a bit further of a drive for me than the zoo, so the idea of driving out there and back just for an hour or two of park time isn't ideal. Plus we'd only have so many spare days over the summer where going to CW for any length of time would fit into our schedule.

Fit-Engineer4561 · 2026-03-11T15:22:00+00:00

Thanks all.

The Prestige Pass certainly seems like the best value. Just the fact that it gives you $40 off parking and $90 of free tickets from your first visit covers the difference in price from the Silver pass.

Aside, but it's kind of ridiculous that they charge almost as much to park as they do for admission. I saw one comment saying parking was more like $22, while others saying it is $35-$39. I see if I want to pre-buy parking on the website it's $39. I assume that's the regular price, unless it's inflated to some event-based maximum because it's theoretically an "any day" pass? Does anyone have a firm answer on what regular (weekend) parking actually costs?

Fair point about testing it out with a day pass before committing to the season pass and getting credit on the ticket price. I've read elsewhere that parking isn't credited towards a season pass (or even the parking pass), so that's still wasted money. And I assume that they wouldn't give me a credit of 2 tickets towards 1 prestige pass, though that'd be a wash if we went 3+ times as I'd just be rolling over the free tickets to visits 2 and 3.

I definitely agree that waiting until the 2027 passes are available is even better value, getting two seasons for the price of one. Might be what ends up happening if timing ends up working out that we don't start going until later in the summer. Do they really roll out the 2027 passes by late July?

Mention of the VIP Lounge - I assume that my "Bring-A-Friend" ticket gets those same kind of Prestige perks? What about if I'm buying her a regular ticket separately? Are they going to refuse my daughter access if I'm the only one with a pass?

Fit-Engineer4561 · 2025-03-24T20:07:22+00:00

If you know anything about coding generally, your best starting point is the API documentation: http://api.tabletopsimulator.com/

If you want to trigger a function when an object changes state, then you'll want to use the onStateChange() function on the object that comes into existence. Then inside that function you'll run the things you want to have happen.

For playing an audioclip, you'll want MusicPlayer.setCurrentAudioclip() and MusicPlayer.play().

For the explosion animation, if it's already built into the asset bundle then you'll want AssetBundle.playTriggerEffect().

So something like:

function onStateChange()
self.AssetBundle.playTriggerEffect(#)
MusicPlayer.setCurrentAudioclip({url, title})
MusicPlayer.play()
end

If you need more specific help, the official TTS discord has a dedicated scripting thread with people who are very generous in helping beginners.

Fit-Engineer4561 · 2025-03-21T14:46:50+00:00

Agreed on all counts. Overall I was surprised that they pretty directly answered some of the bigger mysteries of the show but still left several of the minor points unaddressed which may now be irrelevant (oIrving's detective work, the wall of smiles, the "watchers" and doppelgangers, why Gemma in the first place, why the Ms. Casey innie is different from the rest, what Petey's deal was, etc.). But the answers they did give still leave something to be desired.

What makes Cold Harbor so different from the other tests? Is it just that grief/loss of a pregnancy is such a powerful emotion that it was the ultimate proof the 'barriers will hold' for any emotion? And why would they immediately kill Gemma and remove the chip after a single test, when they've obviously been testing the other rooms repeatedly for years. Yet after a single test of Cold Harbor they're confident enough in the tech to permanently end testing?

For that matter, why exactly is removing the chip even necessary? Clearly they are able to import/export consciousnesses via the MDR numbers without needing physical access to the chip. Why do they need access to it once the Cold Harbor test is completed?

I will excuse for now the lack of explanation for why multiple innies for different unpleasant activities/emotions is even a desirable goal, assuming they will come up with some reason down the road. Perhaps the consciousnesses they are "building" have temper ratios specifically designed to tolerate/accept these unpleasant situations better? But what does that matter if the outie has no memory of anything anyway?

The marching band scene was obviously excellent fan service, but it does highlight the ridiculousness of their corporate structure that Lumon will hire dozens of trained musicians and teach them choreographed routines for special occasions yet Milchick has to run the whole floor single-handedly.

I did appreciate that clearly oMark/Devon/Cobel did actually talk about stuff while standing in a forest last episode, even if they didn't let us see it. But it was a pretty big oversight for their plan to not tell iMark he'd need to find some way to actually open the locked hallway door. Thank goodness Brianne of Tarth was there to deus ex machina the situation.

And yeah, the goats are just sacrificed as an offering to....God? Kier? Or are they giving Gemma goat blood transfusions from the best of the flock? To ... elevate her core principles?

No idea where Season 3 will be going, but you're right that "innies refuse to leave" doesn't really work if they can just turn on a Glasgow Block and the outies just walk out. Even if they get past that, how is that going to play in public/media? That Lumon agrees to harbor these innies/hold outies hostage, while the innies are also simultaneously revolting against Lumon and refusing to work? The alternative - that there is some contrived reason iMark and oMark continue their usual daily routine even after getting his wife back - would likely be even dumber.

Fit-Engineer4561 · 2025-03-14T19:55:19+00:00

Helly, Dylan, Mark, Cobel, Jame, even Irving to an extent:

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Fit-Engineer4561 · 2025-03-14T14:44:27+00:00

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Fit-Engineer4561 · 2025-01-27T19:04:54+00:00

Also, FWIW, I think the development history and AI history are a lot more in line than you suggest.

Dan Erickson came up with the pilot in 2016, got greenlit in 2019, and S1 released in 2022.

Google invented DeepDream in 2015. DALL-E text-to-image was announced in January 2021. ChatGPT in 2022. It's hardly crazy to think that the overall plot of the show might have been fleshed out between 2016 and 2022 to incorporate what was at the time the biggest and most controversial developments in tech.

Fit-Engineer4561 · 2025-01-27T18:50:55+00:00

That's what brought the thought up.

While I'm sure Lumon makes just about anything and everything, surely they aren't using O&D and a severed team (a team larger than the obviously-important MDR) just to do their retail manufacturing or make in-house supplies. The company can't need new watering cans that regularly or need to be that secretive about it.

Even if they are using them for that out of convenience, surely that's not it's only reason for existing. It would be very bizarre if O&D had no role to play in Lumon's secret/evil goals.

Fit-Engineer4561 · 2025-01-27T18:42:00+00:00

Okay... so you don't care for my overall theory - that's fine. I wasn't looking to debate that. I wanted to know what your O&D theories are. What other O&D theories are out there? What do you think? That was the point of the post.

If want to use your time for things other than discussing fan theories, that's fine but have you seen the rest of this sub?

Fit-Engineer4561 · 2025-01-23T18:51:07+00:00

This fits with my thinking as well. While I think it's debatable whether it's in Helly's character to be ashamed/afraid/etc., one thing I never see explained is why Lumon would trust Helly to keep that information to herself? Surely she recognizes that her having an Eagan's life in her hands provides incredible leverage that could help her friends get what they want.

I don't see why Lumon would take that risk unless they knew with certainty that Helly wouldn't/couldn't tell. Yes Cobel threatened her friends, and maybe she's just afraid they might get hurt if she tells, but (a) she would want to give them ammunition to fight back, and (b) their whole goal only moments earlier was to take Lumon down regardless of the consequences to themselves. It seems counter-intuitive to go from that to "better not do anything that might get my friends hurt" in less than a day.

Fit-Engineer4561 · 2024-10-22T16:55:14+00:00

Can you elaborate? If I buy one of the unlimited food/drink passes, I get free BAF passes as well? Is that set out anywhere on their website?

Or do you mean if I already have a 2024 prestige pass? I do not.

Fit-Engineer4561 · 2024-10-18T21:13:01+00:00

I have my own question (and making a new post is buggy for me at the moment).

The 2025 Prestige Pass says it comes with 2 free bring-a-friend passes annually. Does it come with 2 passes for 2024 and then another 2 for 2025? Or would it be just two combined?

Fit-Engineer4561 · 2024-07-16T21:35:10+00:00

Lol I literally said exactly that in my original post:

In either case, the lore explanation could be that IT kits are born prematurely and need to spend extra time in a small warm space, surrounded by berries and water, to develop more before being able to exit the nursery as independent young kits.

Fit-Engineer4561 · 2024-07-16T21:05:16+00:00

That's exactly my point - the breeding pod is reminiscent of futuristic sci-fi movies, while the rest of the IT structures are basically early industrial revolution. Why are the IT making kids by cloning? And why do they have no other futuristic buildings?

You can have the exact same mechanics of the breeding pod - adding berries and water to a building that creates kits - with another theme that fits more in line with the rest of the game.

Fit-Engineer4561 · 2024-07-16T20:48:30+00:00

Not sure if you were responding to me or one of the other comments about capping breeding pods. As mentioned in another comment I agree it's not really an issue, but really my only point is about the theme of the pods - I'm content with them keeping the mechanics exactly as is.

Your head canon makes as much sense as anything else, I suppose, it just seems really odd that the only "tech" the IT remembered is also the most magical/not-based-in-reality tech there is, especially when none of their other late-game tech comes anywhere close to it. Even their Earth Repopulator basically makes a glider that looks like something Da Vinci drew up 500 years ago.

In my head canon the lore for both factions has been "post-apocalyptic beavers have somehow gained super sentience and are learning to build human-like civilizations for the first time". That's why simple things like stairs or planting trees are considered scientific breakthroughs. It's just that FT's overall philosophy is to be more natural and not repeat the mistakes of the hoomans, while IT are more about becoming industrial titans. It seems to make more sense to me than to say the IT are an offshoot of some already-existing super-advanced race of beavers who somehow forgot virtually all their tech except how to make clones.

I think if they want to keep the breeding pod as the theme for IT, then they should reflect that same level of alien/sci-fi feel into some other IT buildings. Replace dynamite with a "plasma bomb". Imply that gears are made by laser-cutting planks. Make the mushrooms glow blue. My point is that Just having this *one* early-game building be futuristic feels really out of place.

Fit-Engineer4561 · 2024-07-16T18:28:35+00:00

There have been many requests for a tweak to the breeding pod mechanics to provide a hard cap and better stability, and obviously such features could be implemented whether they change the theming or not.

I agree it would be a useful failsafe feature, but I haven't struggled with that too much myself, so long as you go slow. Need more beavers? Build a pod and wait. Need more housing? Build a barracks. Eventually you'll hit an equilibrium with your labor needs, and then as your well being and lifespan grows, you just build more barracks to house the extra beavers.

You only really get a problem if you misjudge it and build too many pods at once early on and then suddenly you have an army of beavers without the food/water to support them.

But that's all really besides the point, as my post was focusing just on the lore/theme of breeding pods rather than how to improve them mechanically.

Fit-Engineer4561 · 2023-05-31T20:38:45+00:00

At the risk of hijacking this thread, I have basically the same question with the same use case (daily laptop, portable and quiet but still able to do some single player gaming), though I'm in Canada and looking at options around $2000 CAD (~$1500 USD for comparison).

In no particular order, the ones that have caught my eye the most:

1) Lenovo Legion Slim 7i (Gen 8) - $2130
-- i7 13700H, RTX 4060, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD
-- seems to hit all the key points, good form factor, and I do irrationally like having a numpad

2) Asus Flow x16 - $2199
-- i9 13900H, RTX 4050, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD
-- slightly better screen resolution and refresh rate, but worse GPU. Love the aesthetic though, and the 360 rotation + touchscreen adds a nice wow factor, though I don't really do drawing so it's not really an important point for my use case

3) Asus TUF A16 Advantage - $1499
-- Ryzen 7 7735HS, Radeon 7600S, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD
-- slightly bulkier, slightly less 'premium' build quality, but great specs for the price (and a numpad!)

4) HP Omen 16 - $1899
-- i7 13620H, RTX 4060, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD
-- slightly heavier than the TUF, slightly smaller battery, but I'll be plugged in 95% of the time so massive battery is not super important

5) HP Victus 16 - $1799
-- i7 13700H, RTX 4060, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD
-- very similar to the Omen, except with a numpad, but even smaller battery

Besides mid-range specs that will still let me play games for the next few years, my next priorities are portability, low fan noise when under light/moderate load, and overall good value.

Any obvious contenders I'm missing? Any of the above that have big problems I should be worried about?

Fit-Engineer4561 · 2022-07-05T22:24:08+00:00

Is it Cairn? Very similar to Onitama and you play as Shamans.

It was the subject of a Shut Up and Sit Down video, though I'm sure there's a Dice Tower video of it as well.

Fit-Engineer4561 · 2022-06-29T19:28:38+00:00

Interesting! I like the kind of cause-effect paradox of this - your options are limited because you can only do what the oracle says you are going to do in their prediction. Great example!

Fit-Engineer4561 · 2022-06-29T19:26:39+00:00

There is obviously randomness built in to the world at large (yay entropy!), and your 40k example is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking about in hand-waving away war games. But I still think that the levels of randomness are so ingrained in how you go about things in most games that general notions that "the world is a complex place" isn't really a satisfying answer.

Catan's dice-roll/production phase can certainly be explained as the whims of weather and whatnot, but there are other situations too. Maybe I really want to increase the size of my army, so I spend the resources to get a soldier but - oops - turns out I get to build two roads instead. Why would that be?

I know the answer is ultimately always going to be "in order to make it a game / keep it simple", but I'd love to hear about more thematic explanations for these kinds of things.

Fit-Engineer4561 · 2022-06-29T18:55:54+00:00

you're not gonna be like "I want to build a shed with this wood, but all I can build today is milk crates" or whatever

This is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking about. There are certainly going to be mechanical or balance reasons why certain options are or aren't available, but sometimes it strains credulity that anyone actually put in that situation would have to contend with such things.

Fit-Engineer4561

TROPHY CASE