PLEASE make guests not take ages to load and unload!

I have NEVER seen guests so slowly leaving rides in real life, its almost unbearable. The moment someone leaves the seat is the moment someone else should be let in, instead they always walk as slow as snails to the exit and by the time its over almost two minutes pass. that would NEVER pass in a real park, and it should not pass in this.
 
If you're having 2-minute reload cycles, you're doing it wrong ;). Nothing should take even 30 seconds and most rides take considerably less.

First off, take a look at the ride's operations tab. Most rides these days default to requiring at least 1/2 a load to move at all, and are set to remain in the station for 110 seconds at a minimum, even if they get 1/2 a load. So first change the load to "any" and then uncheck the minimum in-station delay times. Once you do that, you can see what those settings really need to be.

The main controlling factor is the time for all previous riders to clear the platform as new riders practically teleport into their seats. Thus, you need to place the exit gate to minimize the walking distance of the previous riders.

For all rides where you build the track, you have 2 choices of station configuration: entry and exit on the same side, and on opposite sides. With the (default) same-side configuration, the exit path is at the front of the station, between the operator's booth and the cattle chute for the 1st row of seats. The exit gate needs to be in line with this path. This style of station is only suitable for rides with only 1 car (logs, rafts, autos, a few coasters) and coasters with no more than 3-4 cars. With this sort of configuration, reload cycles are usually in the range of 10-15 seconds.

Coasters with 5 or more cars, plus long transport rides, all need the station with the exit on the opposite side as the entrance. Then you need to put the exit gate centered on where the ride stops in the station. This minimizes the travel distance as peeps in the front or back of the train only have to walk 1/2 the length of the train to get off the platform, and the platform is much narrower on the exit side. If you use the 1-sided station with the exit at the front, then peeps in the back have to walk the whole length of the train. Plus, they all have to walk the width of the entry-side chutes. But even for very long coasters and trains, if the exit is centered on the opposite side from the entrance, the reload time will be about 25-30 seconds max.

It's a bit different for flat rides, especially the large circular ones where folks will have to traverse the whole diameter of the ride to the exit gate. If the ride's surface is flat and at ground level, it doesn't matter where you put the gate. But if the ride is on a raised platform with ramps or steps leading to ground level, you have to put the exit gate in line with the ramp or stairs. Otherwise, you waste time because the peeps have to use the ramp or stairs so walk to them, then change direction to walk to the exit gate. Still, even the biggest flat can reload in about 30 seconds.
 
Last edited:

HeatherG

Volunteer Moderator
I have NEVER seen guests so slowly leaving rides in real life, its almost unbearable. The moment someone leaves the seat is the moment someone else should be let in, instead they always walk as slow as snails to the exit and by the time its over almost two minutes pass. that would NEVER pass in a real park, and it should not pass in this.

One thing I do to change that is to lower the min and max times. If it's a coaster the defaults are good because a lot of people have to load and they need the time to get them all in. If it's a tracked ride I lower both times to 20 or 25 seconds. Because it doesn't take that long for 4 people to get on a ride. (This helped to move things much faster. People didn't wait around as long.) Basically the more people I have on a ride the longer I set the min and max to. If there are only a few people getting on then I keep the times really low. It helped me SO much. I'm not sure what kind of rides it's happening to but maybe give that a try and see what happens.

Heather
 
One thing I do to change that is to lower the min and max times. If it's a coaster the defaults are good because a lot of people have to load and they need the time to get them all in. If it's a tracked ride I lower both times to 20 or 25 seconds. Because it doesn't take that long for 4 people to get on a ride. (This helped to move things much faster. People didn't wait around as long.) Basically the more people I have on a ride the longer I set the min and max to. If there are only a few people getting on then I keep the times really low. It helped me SO much. I'm not sure what kind of rides it's happening to but maybe give that a try and see what happens.

Heather

My point is that the way the game handles it is inefficient. It doesn't matter how much you optimize the ride, one train, exit on opposite side, both exit and entrance in the middle, when a train unloads, that instant the gates should open to let new people on. That's how I've seen it everywhere else. What my problem is that it always waits for ALL guests to leave the entire station and not just the loading area, which they do in a pace slower than a snail. this significantly impacts all of my load times (especially with more than one train) and makes even the most optimized of station designs in vain.

Something that would REALLY help would be the possibility to make separate unloading stations
 
One thing I do to change that is to lower the min and max times. If it's a coaster the defaults are good because a lot of people have to load and they need the time to get them all in.

I find the defaults absurdly long for every type of ride. With proper exit placement and station configuration (if the ride has a station), the max in-station time needed is never more than 30 seconds. You only need more than 30 seconds if either a) you deliberately use a non-optimum exit and/or station configuration for aesthetics, or b) you're replicating a real-world coaster that runs fewer trains than its duration allows and you need a longer in-station time to keep proper spacing between the trains.

Let's assume you're building a coaster of your own design and, on top of whatever design requirements you have for it, you always have these 2 basic objectives:

1. You never want a train to stop anywhere but in the station because not only do you hate that in real life, but it also kills the excitement rating, and therefore the prestige, of the coaster in the game.

2. You wan to maximize throughput because, whether you play the game for money or not, you personally hate waiting in queue in real life, and you don't want the queue being full and constantly turning away peeps.

IOW, you want to maximize throughput. So.... You know that even with a train long enough to hold 30 or so peeps, you can keep the in-station time a bit less than 30 seconds if you put the exit centered on the opposite side from the entrance. This means that for every 25-30 seconds of ride duration, you can run 1 additional train and, by tweaking the in-station time slightly within the range of 25-30 seconds, you can keep all the trains evenly spaced so they never stop anywhere on the track except in the station itself.
 
Back
Top Bottom