Planet Coaster

[PaulC2K]

Theres research at the moment, its just that the only place that seems to have a pre-sculpted map is the career maps, and those beginner scenarios are still restrictive in what you start with and can unlock. The sandbox mode should have everything thats functional in the build, and challenge gives you the basics and lets you research the rest.

I'd just like to see challenge which had an interesting map to start with, rather than a flat blank canvas, or have to play career with its limited access to items for gameplay reasons.

 

[PaulC2K]

Thinking of caving in and buying the Thrillseeker Edition.

Is the management system in the game at the moment?

The only things missing afaik are small things, only 2 of the career maps, no spooky theme props, and a couple of transport rides & shop mascots i think. Its a week from proper release and as its not an open beta it isnt too tight on what it contains, its as good as getting access to the full game a week earlier. Whether thats worth the extra £3 (you still get soundtrack & artbook stuff too) to folks, i dunno.

 

[PaulC2K]

Is this game like Theme Park back in the Amiga days from Bullfrog, as I loved that game.

£26 for the pre release and its getting some positive feedback, I could be tempted.

I haven't played a management game in ages, and in the mood for a slow paced game, think I'm getting burnt out on fps, etc.. dunno could be a nice change of pace.

Its the same as a modern day Theme Park, yeah. Biggest difference beyond the obvious is that you're able to construct the buildings around a basic shop box-stall allowing you to create strong themes for areas, and everything is freely placed and everything except rides can clip through other things, so no grid saying tree goes in that cell, wall goes in this cell etc, its a creative persons heaven really. The downside im finding is that having seen what others have done with it, anything i make feels completely inadequate Even if you're not creative people upload the things they've build and you can place them in your park, or even modify them to suit your needs.

A few examples
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=796498709
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58tUZIE3QYQ

Happens to be the same person, but the video helps demonstrate it. Thats probably made up of around 1,000 smaller assets, like those seen in the YT video.

Its got all the management stuff, but IMO the thing that makes it stand out is the amount of creativity possible in it.

 

[PaulC2K]

They've never really commented on DLC. One thing i did hear a week or so ago was that before Planet Coaster was announced backers of Elite were snooping for future DLC info and pulled up 3 lots of Brands tied to what is now Planet Coaster, although by a different name back then, but it wasnt far off being Planet Coaster, Planet Zoo, and maybe something water-park-ish. However when they registered Planet Coaster they only did Planet Zoo, not water park sounding title. Doesnt mean it cant be done as DLC, but they surprised us on Monday (iirc) by showing us 2 water rides, a log flume and a river rapids ride. Log flume is in the beta atm i believe, and rapids comes on the 17th. So it'd be odd to give us those seeing as we didnt know of them and they did a waterpark DLC for RCT3, and the other might even be a Safari one (infact, it was probably 'Planet Safari', not zoo).

Like you say though, if they sold DLC with a new theme, a couple of rides etc, i dont think it'd be devastating not having it, or just waiting till its on sale. It wouldnt inhibit us from creating stuff.

The 2nd & 3rd alpha only had a few themes, and things like brick, castle, sandstone, wood (sauna style, rather than shed or log cabin) for the basic building blocks, and you should see the way some people were able to create stuff you'd never believe was done with the regular assets.
Silverret is the best example IMO: https://www.youtube.com/user/Silvarret/videos
Have a quick look at a couple of those, the Main Street one is a perfect example. Makes you feel completely inadequate though when you try and make something

 

[PaulC2K]

Here's my train station. Great game. Took me 6 hours to make this though. Massive time sink.

Spoiler

Thats fantastic! (ugh, now it needs a hat shop inside it! ) Will definitely be adding that if you've put it on the workshop.
I think i might need to either download a handful of workshop items and try to replicate them by myself to get a feel for what i need to do, or watch some of the build videos on YT and follow along somewhat, cos i watch these people do nice stuff and always think they should do something slightly different, but give me the game and my mind just goes blank, and i'll be fairly disappointed if i dont get to really utilise the tools this game has and just plop things down like its RCTW or something generic.

I experimented a little yesterday, because wooden coasters are what it's all about and finally we have them! Plus triggers!

I really wanted to make a runaway mine train coaster with a dark ride section at the start but the underground building got me very frustrated.

Whats the best way to achieve this? Can you build the ride then enclose it with the terrain? But then how do you build all the scenery and triggers without them being moved when you cover it, or what if you want to adjust it?

As mentioned already, dig the area out, possibly even building the track and then terraform for it, place all the props in, and then carefully bring the earth over the top of it. I know there were settings which influence how the terraforming works, so it doesnt build over props, and so it does, essentially clipping through. However i couldnt make sense of it in the alpha test and dont know if thats changed or i was doing something wrong.
Basically, dig it out and then carefully put a roof on top. Im not sure if the first person view (i think thats its name) allows you to ghost through the ground and into the space to tweak things, but i can imagine its a bit fiddly.

I downloaded a coaster from the workshop, Batman it was entitled, but I can actually use it, when I go to place it, it just doesn't seem to appear, its like its obstructed but its not.

Another of the games built in coaster did the same. I can't work it out.

Still game is really good fun. Enjoying it. No go karts though, that is a shame. All parks has go karts now.

From what i understand, theres is/was an issue with ride blueprints which go below the surface, because they dont automatically dig out the space, so terrain is basically blocking it. Its the same placing some of the pre-built rides, if it clips the landscape it wont let it place, and if that blueprint is designed to go below, it needs to go on land which allows it to go down too.

If thats not the issue, which may well be the case, it could be issues with older version content. Try checking the workshop page, see if others are saying something and maybe a way to work around it?

 

[PaulC2K]

Some of these parks look awesome! I loved the original Roller Coaster Tycoon, so really want this game too. But I've just started on Fifa 17, and then I also want Football Manger 17, Motorsport Manager, Transport Fever, and Forza Horizon 3. Just not enought time in the day .

I got frustrated by my lack of creativity on a blank park and decided to watch a mate playing MM over GeForce Experience which lets him stream and let me play it perfectly smooth, so we're doing it coop. We've been hammering that and PlanetCoaster had to wait a little - my jaw was on the floor, i'd been looking forward to it for a year, then the 95% polished version releases and i play it for ~3h doing a career mission and then MM snatches me. Went back to it yesterday with a self imposed short break from MM

I'll be on this game tonight and I'm worried that it will limited by my creativity and imagination! I also bought it for my my son who's 9, hopefully it's not too difficult for him.

I haven't really been following this, but just watched a few videos and think I'm gonna grab it.

Only problem is I'm not very creative, and I'm sure I'll be disappointed with whatever I can create after seeing some of the amazing things others have done!

Thats exactly the issue ive been having, i've seen some stupidly impressive things done with the game, and i'll just use walls, roof pieces and a few windows to make a building and look at it knowing its a PoS and the games creative tools are being wasted on me. I've downloaded a few of Silvarrets videos from YT to try and recreate his main street buildings and hopefully put my own spin on them, find some others for a few other themes, and hopefully learn from doing rather than looking at prop lists.

@sunlitsix
Love those water triggers, seem a little oversized but it definitely makes it look more realistic with the huge splash.
Are you finding that you're learning more about ways of working around some of the games little niggles, so instead of spending 1h trying to do something silly you know what potentially causes the issues and are able avoid it and do something you know works... or are you still finding silly little things cropping up? I feel like im spending so much time on minor things, for example slopes so that paths go down them cleanly. They need auto-tunnelling options, but without digging a circular tunnel then adding stands under the path. I feel like im spending so much time on path clipping because i dont want pillar supports, i want paths down the side of hills etc. With the size of the parks you've created, are you not as fussy as im being, or are you understanding things better through going through those experiences already?

 

[PaulC2K]

I think I have just got used to the issues that the game has, the path tool I try to use as little as possible to be honest because it hasn't really changed in the way it works since alpha 1.

The big parks take some serious time mind, I would say in a session I'm building one rollercoaster and it's scenery so that's about 3 - 4 hours per ride. The workshop is a must for fleshing out parks and open areas quickly though!


Speaking of someone has built cranes on the workshop... :')

Edit : Does the forum auto resize images yet??

Yeah, the paths dont feel like they've had the same sort of love and attention other areas have had, its had cosmetic improvements but its a shame theres some really simple QoL things missing. I mentioned tunnelling earlier, coasters can do it, so i dont see why paths cant have something similar. At the same time, i feel like they need to be more aggressive in their placement, if you want a path going somewhere then it should plough through it. It shouldnt ride every silly lump & bump, and it shouldnt refuse to place because of a bump (especially when you have to delete paths to terraform something a meter or so over from it) or something. Other stuff is minor, but when we add complex terraforming and not just digging out blocks, it needs complex solutions for things like paths.

That crane is cool too, im looking forward to seeing all the weird props people put together, and no, for some reason we dont have an automatic image resizer mod on here

 

[PaulC2K]

Is the cheapest place to buy this on Steam? Can't seem to find anywhere else that can do it any cheaper :/

AFAIK its not being sold offline, and im not even sure places like GMG are even selling it because Frontier are selling direct and on Steam. Doubt it'll be any cheaper till after xmas and that'll probably be the 10% offered with preordering.

 

[PaulC2K]

Is there a way to make custom signs? Sure I saw frontier showing this recently.

Yeah, its under Building > Wall Signs > Misc, and they're referred to as 'Editable Sign'

 

[PaulC2K]

Does crossfire work okay? If so really hoping we get a SLI fix!

Its not implemented, and apparently with the way the engine works the benefits of grunt is pretty much outweighed by new calculations to spread the load. One of the devs explained it properly on Reddit in the last week and said that while its not out of the question, its unlikely because of the minimal gains and the tiny market using it - they even mentioned something about steam not even bothering to list multi-gpu in their hardware surveys because its such a meaningless amount
I also have a feeling someone brought up that Elite Dangerous was in the same boat.

 

[PaulC2K]

Nice

I've spent 30hr playing so far, and i believe it was 2.5h after the first day of beta from doing the campaign, and all ive ever really built is pirate themed stuff, even in about 5hrs of acquired alpha versions its pretty much all ive done
I did spend the vast majority of yesterday working on a Main Street which is a replica of what someone else has done, but i really want to start the western & sci-fi areas, so i'll probably take a look at that next.

I do wish that it was possible to do copy & paste, i know theres duplicate, but sometimes it'd just be nice to have that in memory to open up a different building and place it within that. I found out last night you can copy/add *some* things over from a currently open/edited building into another just by duplicating things and clicking on the other building (cursor should say 'add' or something like that) but for some reason if theres a wall piece it doesnt like that, it seems to remove the 'add' option and it just becomes 'edit' to hot-swap to that building.

I have a thing of duplicating building decorations with a single wall tile, because those tiles snap to locations. For example, if im doing a roof balcony, i'll place 1 flat roof, a single pillar on a corner, half hanging off, and the rails along the edge, and then i'll duplicate the 3 items. Its simple & fairly obvious, but i've found if i build up a load of decorations i want replicate on other wall panels, trying to duplicate the decor means theres 3 axis of freedom and no snapping. If you duplicate with a wall/ceiling type item theres defined places it can go, so i'd delete out an existing wall and simply duplicate stuff with a wall just to ensure it places in exactly the same spot. So being unable to transfer decor with a wall from one building to another is annoying, i have to skip the wall, but that means it all needs manually aligning i could otherwise avoid.

 

[PaulC2K]

I've had to lower the resolution as I can hardly see some of the menu's the menu should really scale with increased resolution.

If you've not tried it already, 'Options > Interface > Interface scale' works if you want the whole interface larger. You need to untick 'auto scale' above the slider, and it seems the options are 70 > 100 > 160 > 200 > 300, but i wouldnt be surprised if those settings are hiding in a config file and could be adjusted, but 160% should be enough. By any chance are you using an irregular resolution or ratio, cos i'd have expected 'interface auto scale' to see say 4K and bump up the interface size, but if its a irregular size it might not be triggering it... or maybe its simply smaller than you'd like at 100% anyway.

 

[PaulC2K]

You could always try a traditional 'There-and-Back-Again' style Woodie. You get lots of air time and not much fear/nausea due to low speed cornering and not much of it; mostly bunny hops.

I wasnt aware that was possible, how do you get the trains back, is it capable of doing a powered launch or w/e its called, rather than having to go up a lift?
I've barely touched coasters, or rides in general really.

Great game, but agree limited by lack of my own imagination, so steam workshop will be a great resource.

I hope the devs build on this, and release some cracking content. Game has such potential.

As mentioned, im trying to replicate stuff others have done, and thats definitely helping me. If theres something i want to do differently im now getting a pretty good idea where i'd find it, cos a few things the icon image gives you a misconception of whats in some locations compared to what the folder name is, like wooden facades are in 'wall > wall decorations' with an icon of an oriel (the little round rooms with roofs on - looks like a rapunzel type icon) when theres also 'decorations' which has a icon of a flag and lantern and its own sub-categories. Knowing your way around is often half the battle, makes things easier to get into a rhythm and minimise frustration at your own inabilities.

Im hoping they do more content, and if thats in the form of paid DLC then hopefully its meaningful, and not just £10 for a new theme and a few rides that match it.
Im not sure they'll do much in the way of free content though, but it'd be nice if whatever they did it was similar to Cities Skylines where the update brings new features and its DLC adds content that compliments it, so if they did a snow location with igloos & animatronic polar bears etc then add a hot chocolate stand & mascot to the core game for everyone regardless of buying the DLC.

 

[PaulC2K]

Tried it and really wasn't my cup of tea.

First scenario I just built stuff and solved a couple of problems, then waited to reach gold star.

Looks great, but just boring to me. Plus I don't have the time or the patience to spend hours building rides or structures. I mean, to what end?

Thats kinda what the campaign stuff is though, its a progressive tutorial of sorts, and that one definitely was too easy, not sure if the feedback included making it a little more challenging rather than getting 5k/mo easy. But thats mission 1, it'd get more complex later when your park has proper obstacles to overcome. The 2nd beta campaign had rides that broke down much more frequently, for example, but it could be an isolated park where they dont get many guests, or where people cant afford to pay high prices and you've got to turn a loss-making park into a successful one. Whether later missions are genuinely a challenge i dunno.

And sandbox is sandbox, it doesnt need a goal, its for the player to do whatever they want. Its a big part of these types of games, the other being the campaign, which im sure once you've passed the easy missions will be closer to what you're looking for, and if its not, what is it that you were expecting? it might still be there, just not obvious.

 

[PaulC2K]

Its a traditional chain lift, I suspect all Woodies will always be, but this type of old fashioned coaster is pretty much just a drop into lots of bunny hops, a 180 degree turn, lots more bunny hops, 180 degree turn, lots of bunny hops etc. etc. until you have no more momentum.

Quite like this sort of thing: Link

Ah, in my head i was thinking of something that sent the coaster out with some momentum, then at the end of a non-looped line it'd have a steep incline it couldnt reach, then did the return journey backwards.
Are there any coasters which do that? Im sure theres coasters which do something along those lines, but i suppose it does mean there could only be 1 train on the line, unless the station had 2 bays so one can be filling up while the other is out... i've no idea really

 

[PaulC2K]

The z-fighting is something that annoys me, but in the highlighted example, no, not in the slightest really. 2 equally sized & shaped objects existing in the same space, how can it know what to show unless you can somehow add an z-index value.

Places where it does bother me though is on floors where they'll fight with the walls. I cant quite understand why either the floor/ceilings cant be a thousandth of a millimeter narrower or whatever it may be, but the minimal unit of whatever measurement. Seeing the sides of ceilings through a wall is unsightly, and that i find annoying. In fact, thats not even z-fighting, the ceiling just wins, the walls dont put up a fight. In what practical situation would you want to see the sides of a ceiling tile? Even if you wanted to, then go stack wall-ceiling-wall as the game does anyway with auto-stacking. However when you try and do wall-wall and place the ceiling in the shared space, the ceiling shows through. I just dont see a practical purpose, and if the walls can be a fraction thinner so the ceiling shows through guaranteed, i dont see why the opposite couldnt be true, or why thats not the ideal solution.

 

[PaulC2K]

Yeah, i get why it can be annoying, and why theres times you'd want to do the overlaps, i just cant really think of how they'd fix it because unless they let us tinker with the z-index (i'd assume this is what they'd also call it, it is in web design) to tell the engine item A has a higher layering value, and item B sits below that, it cant possibly know how to handle it on 2 equal objects like the shapes.

This could even be a limitation of their engine, meaning they'd have to build tools that can look for a z-index value and handle them in a new way and then let us have access. If they do have that capability, then the wall vs ceiling battle could be solved simply by giving walls a higher priority value, but like-for-like items (walls in walls), shapes, things where either could be intended to be the dominant texture, im not sure an algorithm could evaluate and produce reasonably successful results.

More power in our hands through new capabilities would certainly help, perhaps similar to a debugging mode so casual players dont get lost in those complexities, but the tools exist if we enable them.

 

[PaulC2K]

Same, I just can't justify the price tag. Hopefully it will be a Black Friday deal..

Released on Nov 17th.
Thinks there might be a cheaper price 8 days later

It was 10% cheaper 4 days ago for preorders (with 9 months of independent critics free to say what they liked, and 8 days with a beta that was essentially the full game), and i really doubt it'll be offered at anything lower than that before Xmas, what are people gonna do, threaten to buy RCTW

I can appreciate the price being higher than they'd want to pay if they just want some casual fun, plenty of games i view similarly that people rate highly, but i really wouldnt expect to see it at a meaningfully reduced price (closer to £20-24) till summer at least, and plenty of us picked it up for £20 before mid-August which was the last chance to get it before it went up 50% to retail price.

 

[PaulC2K]

Here's something I think they could try to add to make the tycoon part of the game a bit more interesting...

They currently have some basic elements of a time-of-day, though it feels sort of half-implemented. If they completed that, and introduced changing weather, there would be some good opportunities to affect the gameplay:

* When it's raining guest numbers drop overall, and the guests that do come will prefer rides and areas that are covered
* When it's fair weather you have normal guest numbers and a normal spread of ride preferences
* On very hot sunny "perfect" days guest numbers are higher and outdoor rides and particularly water rides are highly sought after

It would add another layer to things - have it so that you can adjust things like prices etc. using a schedule which reflects the current conditions - maybe you want to charge just a little more for those cool slushies on the hot sunny days, and close the slushy shops down completely on the wet days etc...

Those are nice ideas, i'd imagine weather is something they'd like to add along the way.

Rain could probably be done and have a soft influence. Looking at my sandbox park, the rate at which people are entering is fairly slow (~1500 in currently), so cutting it by 50% might be the only way i'd see an impact, because the movement of people going in & out isnt much. Pushing visitors to buy umbrellas from a gift shop, and less willing to queue for rides (unless they can identify indoors/shelter and be happy) could work, and make it harder to keep everyone happy, or just encourage us to build to guests needs.


Im at 58hrs now, and thats having ignored it for almost a week during beta due to lack of creativity and wanting the career mode, and all but 2.5hrs of that has been spent in sandbox and ive still not gone back to the career maps now they're added

 

[PaulC2K]

Some pics taken from the livestream someone posted to reddit/imgur
https://imgur.com/a/tIdmW#1YA2Pzu

Pretty decent update really, QoL improvements for management, new theme (snow map & winter themed items), new shops & rides, and just... BUMPERCARS!!

I do wish they'd add stalls though, perhaps more commonly associated with fairs but certainly not uncommon in parks, especially those where you're paying per-ride, compared to just a gate fee. I think they'd work well as 1x2 or 2x2 area boxes like the shops are 1x1, and let us theme them rather than them having their own exterior.
One thing that does kinda bug me about the rides is that they're pretty distinct in what sort of theme they suit, the whirly-rig feels pretty specific to a pirate area if you're building themed districts, and theres a few very sci-fi orientated rides too. Its not like a pirate ship, where you cant really dress it up as western or something, and yet rides like the whirly-rig could have 2-4 skins that make them more neutral or orientated to specific themes like princess/fantasy, western, sci-fi etc. Same story with coaster cars, but its the flat rides i think feel like they're more restrictive.

As for CPU issues, i havent actually noticed, but being honest im pretty sure i have the fps locked to either 20 or 30fps (edit - 30, cant remember whats locked to 20fps.. Ark why fight it hehe). When it comes to management games and stuff thats rather leisurely, i just dont see the benefit, i guess im fortunate it doesnt hit me like it seems to hit others, and ive never actually monitored what its hammering (if anything) as ive not seen anything to make me wonder.