@SimGuruModSquad, going back to this, I removed the time limit on how much time the game can spend on the "simulate" function, and added a timer on it. The results were worrying, even on Speed 1, the "simulate" function executed around 100 ms most of the time on the library lot in Willow Creek around noon, and varying wildly from 200 ms to 2000 ms.
Here's a small log of the execution time of the simulate function at the Willow Creek library on Monday, around noon, on Speed 3.
Function took 342.39721298217773 ms
Function took 2067.561149597168 ms
Function took 420.31288146972656 ms
Function took 697.6380348205566 ms
Function took 380.08594512939453 ms
Function took 335.02912521362305 ms
Function took 346.2541103363037 ms
Function took 247.98202514648438 ms
Function took 232.00416564941406 ms
Function took 449.1159915924072 ms
Function took 179.48317527770996 ms
Function took 749.9978542327881 ms
Function took 757.5180530548096 ms
Function took 201.5058994293213 ms
Function took 270.4651355743408 ms
Function took 218.54281425476074 ms
Function took 339.475154876709 ms
Function took 183.9010715484619 ms
Function took 285.5231761932373 ms
