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Planet Coaster Alpha |OT| underconstruction
- Thread starter SpacePirate Ridley
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SpacePirate Ridley
Member
3 is the same as 2 but in 3d and with a little bit more freedom for creativity. That and the management aspect of 3 being sadly a little bit borked and unfixable because of peep AI.
Thankfully frontier finally fixed that problem of guest AI in Planet Coaster (using groups with a leader deciding instead of grous with each individual with its own AI).
Rct3 expansions are pretty excellent though as it expands the world of theme parks instead of just putting more rides and theming only.
Frontier also worked on RCT2's expansions. So threy know their stuff.
Got it, untick rotation snap and hold down z,
you don't even need to untick, it should just work
SpacePirate Ridley
Member
I suppose the pirate and generic scenery we have now its not the final and more will be added to those groups.
Z (Y if you are in germany). Pressing z obce rotates 90°, keeping it press and moving the mouse usually makes the object rotate freely.
Would love to have the link to that!
After my recent trip to Disneyland I was coming up with all sorts of things that have been missing from previous theme park games. Mainly, spicing up queues to be a part of the ride experience, such as Indiana Jones's lead up to getting in the ride or pirates of the Caribbean. Are those things possible? Are there not enough items and variation yet? Mod/workshop support is coming right? I know they'll let you mix set pieces and shops so I can have exits of rides feed right into the gift shop like most rides at Disneyland.
I'm really curious how condensed and tight packed I can make my parks.
Oh, also items on rides like animatronics and story through architecture, but that already looks to be possible.
I'm really curious how condensed and tight packed I can make my parks.
Oh, also items on rides like animatronics and story through architecture, but that already looks to be possible.
potatohead
Member
3 has so many options it is almost obscene, at least with decorations.
Honestly I find it a little overwhelming actually. But you can do a ton with it.
I just finished a live streaming on Youtube that lasted about 4 hours I think? I built this from scratch:
The link (it's still processing, might take a while!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU9QxDqrSp8
And some extra shots:
The link (it's still processing, might take a while!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU9QxDqrSp8
And some extra shots:
You can form the queues like usual paths. Combined with the scenery elements you can place as you like, you could have a queue lead through a multi floor castle with all kinds of props, if that's what you mean. I guess the variety of scenery will be expanded for release. A very limited generic theme and one pirate theme is probably a bit shallow. ;-)
Seeing as they publish this themselves, have their own shop and launcher etc. and are selling cosmetic items in Elite Dangerous, I could see them selling some themes as Addons down the road. Some time after release probably.
They sad that they'll eventually have mod support though, but well after launch.
to be quite honest, if they make a solid game with all the depth and interest that it looks like they're putting into this, so long as there's a good variety of themes included in the base game, I absolutely wouldn't mind paying a few quid for DLC themes so long as they weren't just reskins and a handful of items per theme.
Thanks. Just saw the OP and this looks to have the queueing stuff I want. Yeah, and mod support is coming Holy shit.
TheSpoiler
Member
But can I make death traps or not?
I haven't seen the infamous yellow light for testing rides, so I don't think so.... at least, not yet.
I just finished a live streaming on Youtube that lasted about 4 hours I think? I built this from scratch:
What rig are you running on this?
Demanufacture
Banned
How does this compare to RTC3 for you guys so far?
less content (obviously) and it's rough (obviously) but the groundwork is there for something far more fun to play with & less awkward when it comes to custom buildings
The fact they're planning on adding SO MUCH content is great & the UGC addition will be great too.
So long as they refine the fuck out of coaster building and HOPEFULLY sort out the paths, we'll be onto a winner.
This is me assuming all the management side of things will be at least as good as RCT3, because we've seen none of that stuff yet.
Definitely the potential to be the clear best in genre, though.
Rebel Leader
THE POWER OF BUTTERSCOTCH BOTTOMS
Build coaster... Ride status incomplete
must be a bug.. got a Train on it but nothing
must be a bug.. got a Train on it but nothing
The group AI ruins RCT3. So many empty rides and people wandering. This is all but remedied by the Peep Factory app that allows you to create custom peeps by the thousands that do not belong to groups. I'm sure you know about this though
but figured I'd pass the info to others.I really hope the new AI works out. I dream of a busy park with long realistic queues. Do we know the peep limit yet? I'm hoping for 10k+
Uhm, I can't remember the processor right now but I have a GTX680 and 16Gb of memory. On the stream (which hasn't finished processing yet, holy shit how long does it take!?) the framerate was at around 30 or less because of the capture but as soon as I finished the stream, the framerate went up to what at least felt like 60. I was worried the game would go so slow after placing that many assets, but it seems they did some good work!
The coaster seems to act weird when almost finished. When it works though, it's so much fun alreadyBuild coaster... Ride status incomplete
must be a bug.. got a Train on it but nothing
SpacePirate Ridley
Member
Guys, made an advanced building tutorial on the feedback forums, thought it would be cool to have it here also.
You can see how the AI is controlled by a leader now if you stay enough time looking at a queue infront of a store. They get food for the whole group, instead of each person in the group having a hunger bar, or liking different type of rides. They also pee themselves at the same time. Is not as realistic but its impossible its going to break the management aspect of the game this time around.
Also in the first dev diary they said something like 20000 guests. Queues in the alpha are already full most of the time, even in the stores waiting.
To test fully the modular building system, I tried to recreate this small section (still not finished) of the Iberia zone at Terra Mitica parks, as I thought it was going to be easier to recreate thanks to the pirate theming.
As you can see, theres different buildings, that have totally different diagonals (that is something I really wanted to test), and slightely different heights. This type of segment would have been totally impossible to recreate in any RCT game, in a realistic way, but after some play time, and some tricks thinking out of the box of how to use the building modular system, I could get a pretty nice recreation of it in Planet Coaster.
Here is the result:
There are some changes here and there, and its not completely finished, but it works. So what a normal person would see in this screen is 3 different buildings, but in reality with the local grid system, theres up to 35 grids (thats what I mean when I said you had to think out of the box to build this things). Its basically buildings, with other buildings attatched to create realistic structures. Sometimes, when I found a roadblock on placing something, the fix was creating a new grid only for that object. Some of this could be streamlined by making that scenery object having more freedom (some pieces do, and some don't), but with others, like complete segments of a building, I think building a new grid was the right solution.
BTW, to create a similar thing to this, the master of the Control and Shift keys is a must. When you master them, the freedom they give with the majority of pieces (not all, will talk about that later) is unbelivable.
First lets start with the a more simple structure:
This building is composed of two different grids. As you can see, grid A and grid B are easily discernible in image number 1. They didnt change angles, but it needed to be two different structures, even if it was the same building, so I could give a personalized height and width to the B structure, that wouldnt have worked with the pieces we have, thats why some part of it is inside structure A. The good thing about this is that when you start creating a new grid, it uses exactly the same angle as the last wall placed in the first grid. What I say with this is, before going into any details, the best and fastest way to build a more complex stucture like this that uses two grids, is plant the basic stucture grid A has (the floor shape of you first structure) and dont add any details, as soon as you finish the floor shape and main walls, start a new grid (grid B) and build the main walls of that structure. If the building has more segments, keep adding grids and the main walls of each segment, and when you finish, then you start adding the details, that you can now rotate however you want.
Now one that also uses two basic grids, but with a few new details:
So this is another building, with a small segment attached to it. You can see the main building in the first image, with the A grid, and the secondary segment in the second image, with the C grid. Its lower and a little bit further back to give a sense of realism (make things less boxy). It works exactly the same as the first tuturial i gave of using different grids.
This time we go a little bit into detail to create a "new piece" of scenery with the tools given. In the 3rd image, you can see a new type of window that is not present in the game. This was done with the Building Attachments, probably the most versatile pieces, and the ones that give you most freedom of the modular building aspect of the game. You can see here a blend between the stone part of various pirate windows (C) with the two modern windows (D) to make a bigger window mixed between modern and vintage. To do this, you need to master they use of the control key (move an object left/right and up/down thats being attached to something) and the shift key (controls the depth of that object attached to, in this case, a wall). You will see in not easy at first, what the mouse does is put one piece of scenery above another, as soon as the point of the mouse touches that part of the scenery. Thats where control and shift become super handy, as it makes the object move giving you toal control, without that object jumping above as soon as it touches another surface.
Theres a little problem with this type of more complex "new" scenery though. You can select groups of objects inside the edit mode of a grid. For example, pressing the control, and clicking each piece of window with the mouse will start creating a group that you can copy and move around, so you could have the same window you created copied multiple times for example. This is great! The problem is, it isnt as good as it looks. The group looses its complete moving freedom like Building Attachments have, and starts behaving like hard coded walls, so you loose all the precision of putting a copy exactly where you want. At the end, each of this similar windows was created from scratch, even if they look like copies. More on that later.
And now to the big complex structure, this one is tricky and uses a lot of grids to work, even if it doesn't look like it.
This building is basically a frankenstein of grids to make it look this way. There are 14 different grids used (named from A to N). The "basic" structure is composed from the letters A to J (the first image). A is the main frontal wall that is used to build every other grid surrounding it as a base (with a little bit of patience is pretty easy doing 90º degrees corners if you have a good eye looing at the lines the elements and grids make). B and C where added with Wall Extras to give it a new width that is not the normal 1 square = 1 piece of wall. Had to be 2 comepletly different grids because Wall Extras do not play nice with the grid system and freedom, as Wall Attachments do (more on that later). As it has a new width a little more than two grid squares, I had to do some fancy new grids to create a roof (E and F) with a new wirdth, composed of 3 different roofs. Different height wall pieces are terribly lacking in the alpha, so thats why I had to mix and match colors with the behind wall (G, H and I). Then for the low roof inside the building, a new grid had to be created so those pieces didnt clip thorugh the building walls, making the low floor structure "smaller" (J).
And as Wall Extras dont play nice with grids, becuase they have less movement freedom, I had to create 4 different grids (K, L, M and N) to just add some nice wooden posts to the terrace, like you see in image 2.
The group AI ruins RCT3. So many empty rides and people wandering. This is all but remedied by the Peep Factory app that allows you to create custom peeps by the thousands that do not belong to groups. I'm sure you know about this though
I really hope the new AI works out. I dream of a busy park with long realistic queues. Do we know the peep limit yet? I'm hoping for 10k+
You can see how the AI is controlled by a leader now if you stay enough time looking at a queue infront of a store. They get food for the whole group, instead of each person in the group having a hunger bar, or liking different type of rides. They also pee themselves at the same time. Is not as realistic but its impossible its going to break the management aspect of the game this time around.
Also in the first dev diary they said something like 20000 guests. Queues in the alpha are already full most of the time, even in the stores waiting.
Video is up now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU9QxDqrSp8
It's 4 hours of me just building the theme park. It can get quite boring to watch, sorry! Also I'm not speaking so you'll be listening to the ingame sound only.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU9QxDqrSp8
It's 4 hours of me just building the theme park. It can get quite boring to watch, sorry! Also I'm not speaking so you'll be listening to the ingame sound only.
Damn, I had no clue you could use two or more grids at the same time.
When you copy that building, does it copy all the grids? As in, are multiple grids still considered one building? And how hard is it to select one specific grid when you have multiple ones intertwined?
SpacePirate Ridley
Member
Sadly no. Grids are all independent from each other so it becomese tough coping a building or changing it of place if it has multiple grids.
There is a group selection when you are inside a grid by pressing control and selecting the objects you want, then you can copy or move that group (although not to freely because theu start acting lile walls in a grid), so its strange they didnt do exactly the same group selection for groups of grids, as that would become superhandy.
Hopefully they'll allow you to create subgrids within buildings in the future to help create more complex buildings.
SpacePirate Ridley
Member
Coninued with the Iberia zone yesterday:
Is that or the group selection for multiple grids. Probably an easier fix and its basically the same thing at the end.
Is that or the group selection for multiple grids. Probably an easier fix and its basically the same thing at the end.
Made a coaster at the park. Near the end I noticed that turning off the angle snap meant being able to create much smoother rides, so tomorrow I will probably delete the coaster and make a new one. In the meantime, had fun doing this!
The hands go a few centimeters / inches below the pirates sign!
Current status of my park!
The hands go a few centimeters / inches below the pirates sign!
Current status of my park!
Rebel Leader
THE POWER OF BUTTERSCOTCH BOTTOMS
This game since the update has been running my computer as hot as the division beta..
Cpu is 60*c
And gpu is 70*c
Not even new hitman does this on the computer
Cpu is 60*c
And gpu is 70*c
Not even new hitman does this on the computer
Sounds like they need to take some knowledge from Spore's creator tools.
SpacePirate Ridley
Member
Going in a trip right now, but just this morning tried my hand with the coaster builder. Just some minutes though. Seems powerful but also a little hard, at least now. Nees to play more with it but that will be after monday.
Sad I cant play the game this weekend
Sad I cant play the game this weekend
Ouch! Have fun on the trip though!Going in a trip right now, but just this morning tried my hand with the coaster builder. Just some minutes though. Seems powerful but also a little hard, at least now. Nees to play more with it but that will be after monday.
Sad I cant play the game this weekend
Took a video of my first alright-ish coaster. It goes way too fast though so I might go around and modify it later on. In the meantime, this is how it is right now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0R6jutcEEGQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0R6jutcEEGQ
I really need to figure out the Coaster builder. I might do that today, but I'm worried that when it is officially implemented it will be a lot different
Wait, so do individual guests even exist anymore?
So instead of learning the rollercoaster builder, I decided to start a new park. I experimented a bit with creating a faux cave system around my whirly rig with rocks, very happy with how it came out!
The only issue with building a cave system this way is that the lighting passes straight through the rocks, so during the day it's bright inside the caves lol
here's a few night shots
The only issue with building a cave system this way is that the lighting passes straight through the rocks, so during the day it's bright inside the caves lol
here's a few night shots
BUNTING1243
Banned
Question for those in the alpha: Can you build floors inside of buildings and then paths on top of that? Even better if the ground is just a wide open path for guests.
In RCT3 you basically had to use the spraypaint tool to replicate titling on the ground and then build paths over that and it usually looked really weird, I'm hoping that's something they've address.
In RCT3 you basically had to use the spraypaint tool to replicate titling on the ground and then build paths over that and it usually looked really weird, I'm hoping that's something they've address.
Not really, I think their plan is the same as rct3 with the terrain spray paint. Hopefully I am wrong, because it's pretty lame.
Terbinator
Member
So what's the cheapest way to gain beta access atm?
No mention of the Beta in the store:
Don't know if they've mentioned anything about the beta anywhere so far. I'd expect Alpha "backers" to receive beta access as well. The "Early Bird Edition" is expensive though - almost 70€.
Just watched a NerdCubed plays RCT3 episode and suddenly realized that this game has a much larger audience then I ever assumed it had. RCT3 had twice as many votes as any other game in the lead-up to his let's play and the opening episode has 2,5 million views (much higher than any of his other video's).
Considering that Planet Coaster is basically a modern version of RCT 3 without the IP license (which will definitely hurt sales somewhat although they have been doing absolutely everything right trying to educate the public to their new IP) I think it's safe to say Frontier is working on a multimillion seller.
I think it's also clear that they are on a multi year development plan to fully extract the maximum possible from this iteration. Their continued support for RCT 3 was great (patching and expanding the game for two years) and they are starting from a much better framework (Early Access) this time around. By 2018 we are going to have the most fully featured theme park building sim that everyone has been dreamt playing with for years.
Here is hoping they will succeed to add particle effects (fireworks/smoke), a smart UGC system and a better lighting engine (darkrides) after release.
So far the only thing I am worried about is how far they have been able to advance the simulation and AI parts of the game. What I have heard in the development diaries sounds okay but also maybe little simplistic (add more scenery from the same theme = more popularity). Will guests just do a random tour of attractions and shops in order of popularity and then go home? Will they go on the same ride multiple times because it was very enjoyable/well themed or will they choose to go on a different ride since the big ride has a huge queue. I doubt time management is really a thing for visitors eventhough it does play a huge role in real life park visits. Also right now groups always stay together but I find it alot more realistic if a group with different interests (low intensity / high intensity) splits up to go on different rides. It would be even more awesome if the game rewards you for dropping a calmer ride near a huge rollercoaster as it allows a group to split up and join up more easily in the same area. Just so many questions and no real answers yet how sofisticated the system is going to end up being.
Considering that Planet Coaster is basically a modern version of RCT 3 without the IP license (which will definitely hurt sales somewhat although they have been doing absolutely everything right trying to educate the public to their new IP) I think it's safe to say Frontier is working on a multimillion seller.
I think it's also clear that they are on a multi year development plan to fully extract the maximum possible from this iteration. Their continued support for RCT 3 was great (patching and expanding the game for two years) and they are starting from a much better framework (Early Access) this time around. By 2018 we are going to have the most fully featured theme park building sim that everyone has been dreamt playing with for years.
Here is hoping they will succeed to add particle effects (fireworks/smoke), a smart UGC system and a better lighting engine (darkrides) after release.
So far the only thing I am worried about is how far they have been able to advance the simulation and AI parts of the game. What I have heard in the development diaries sounds okay but also maybe little simplistic (add more scenery from the same theme = more popularity). Will guests just do a random tour of attractions and shops in order of popularity and then go home? Will they go on the same ride multiple times because it was very enjoyable/well themed or will they choose to go on a different ride since the big ride has a huge queue. I doubt time management is really a thing for visitors eventhough it does play a huge role in real life park visits. Also right now groups always stay together but I find it alot more realistic if a group with different interests (low intensity / high intensity) splits up to go on different rides. It would be even more awesome if the game rewards you for dropping a calmer ride near a huge rollercoaster as it allows a group to split up and join up more easily in the same area. Just so many questions and no real answers yet how sofisticated the system is going to end up being.
Agree with you, Merino. While on this forum almost nobody seems to be talking about this game or RCTW, there are quite a lot of communities out there for these titles.
I'm also looking forward to how the peeps' AI works and also all the micromanagement. I have no doubt the scenery building tools and the amount of rides is going to be more than enough and with great quality!
I'm also looking forward to how the peeps' AI works and also all the micromanagement. I have no doubt the scenery building tools and the amount of rides is going to be more than enough and with great quality!
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