Alpha 2.3 update is going live
- Thread starter Zac Antonaci
- Start date
To be clear: there's a reason why modern coasters use upstop and guide wheels, each of which are nearly a quarter of a meter in diameter, and each of which are made of solid steel with a rubber lining, all anchored in place with what are effectively steel I-beams rooted to the bottom of the carriage. Yes, it is hypothetically possible to build a roller coaster that could experience such tremendous forces that every single one of those beams would bend, allowing the wheels to disengage from the track and eventually depart from it at an intense curve.. But you would literally kill your guests at about a hundredth of that amount of force; the tissues in their cell walls would start degrading before that point. I mean we're talking going several hundreds of miles per hour into a curve with the train going around the outside and which has a radius of about a meter before this sort of thing starts happening. The reason that so much care goes into designing coasters isn't fear of derailment; at least not since the turn of the 20th century. The only roller coaster left in existence which even CAN derail is Leap the Dips at Lakemont park, which was built in 1902 for crying out loud. No, the care in design is because the human heart stops pumping blood at something like 12 g's, and if you reach that point you've already caused external bruising and severe blackouts in every passenger that isn't a trained jet pilot or an astronaut.
Look, I've spent years studying physics and my life's ambition is to design roller coasters for a living, so this is something which I consider myself to be extremely knowledgeable about (if only for the number of times that I've had to convince friends that a ride IS, in fact, perfectly safe to ride). Derailment hasn't been physically possible since Side Friction coasters became a thing of the past. Any coaster that could derail would have to be specifically designed to do so, and it would be so painfully obvious that it was going to murder its guests that a three-year-old could look at it and say "that looks stupidly dangerous and I'm never going on it ever". It would put RCT3's "Red Mist" coasters to shame, and then some more on top. It just could not happen without forces that make a spacecraft reentering Earth's atmosphere look like a child on a playground slide, or else a manufacturing defect on the train that would INSTANTLY put the manufacturer out of business and involved in several dozen lawsuits--not to mention it would have set off red flags from the dozens upon dozens of inspections that have to be completed before a ride is allowed to even be tested, much less opened to the public.
No, if RCTW wanted to shoot for "Realism", they should've shown guests greying/blacking out and screaming in pain and getting off rides with bruised or broken limbs, instead of a coaster derailing, because physical injuries to riders are actually common on poorly designed rides (just look at Intimidator 305 when it first came out). Of course it's also extremely grim and not really suitable for such a happy-go-lucky cartoonish game, but that's the price of "realism" for you.
Also, a $1,000,000 large-scale coaster would be considered by most parks to be extremely cheap. [tongue] $10,000,000 is more the norm or even the lower end right now.
Okay, rant done. Sorry for getting all "doom and gloom I am right and you nonbelievers shall go to ❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎ [mad]", but this is something I feel quite strongly about. I totally agree that the "coaster flies off the end of the track and kills everything" idea is fun but should be saved for the end of development, since it's just not necessary to the game. Like, sure, crashing things is always entertaining, but if I want to go on a managerial rampage I'll go summon some volcanoes in SimCity 4. It's just too much effort going into a "feature" that's ultimately a huge design restriction. Plus, who are Atari to decide what is and isn't possible? The envelope on what coasters are capable of doing is getting expanded every day. Just look at what Rocky Mountain Construction are doing with wooden coasters! If you showed someone from ten years ago the POV of Wildfire they would tell you it was utterly impossible and direct you to Son of Beast as proof, but nevertheless, there it is. Anyone want to try recreating Wildfire in RCTW for me and seeing if it breaks? [tongue]
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Exactly what I was trying to say but better written lol.
Yea, those assemblies (in fact fabrications for the most part) are designed to survive a 20+ year life without so much as a weld showing a hairline crack. That automatically rules out instantaneous failure no matter how much speed is involved. Unless, as you say, if enough force were employed to make the train leave the track, the weak humans inside would already have been liquified. They would be soup.
All RCTW has done with their derailment 'feature' is to try and cash in on the previous games fun idea of killing guests. They tried to make that idea bigger, but in doing so they made it less realistic and therefore imo less amusing.
Bingo, precisely correct. Plus, most parks rotate out their trains to get either replaced or refurbished by the manufacturer on a semiregular basis, somewhere between 3 and 5 years between maintenances (which usually occur because the restraint system has had a failure, which makes sense since it has the most moving parts of anything on a coaster), and if those joints show any signs of disrepair then it's an instant replacement. The restraint system is solely responsible for like 90% of all roller coaster related casualties, and about 90% of THOSE casualties are due to user error (like Six Flags Over Texas causing a fatality on New Texas Giant by trying to cram in a guest for whom the restraints were too small). So if you use your head and don't take stupid risks while riding, your chance of severe injury or death is actually significantly lower on any given roller coaster ride than on any given drive to work. Fun coaster facts [big grin]
To me, RCT3 was the right balance for destruction: you get to throw giant flaming carriages around the park and make rides that pull 150 gs, plus you get that fun explosion a few seconds after the derail; but there was no death, everyone might go flying but would ultimately be perfectly fine (seriously RCT3's peeps were literally mutants), and you could have your evil laugh and move on with your park without anyone hating you forever. It was always a perk, a silly little not-quite-an-easter-egg that made you grin, and NEVER a limitation, a humiliation, or a burden.
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Very well said indeed [yesnod]
They clearly have been making decent progress on this given it's been shown in the E3 footage and it looks good. It's being 'put off' for a reason, they are still putting the finishing touches to it & why should they have it 'by this point' given how long it is until a provisional release? Based on some of your previous posts you do seem to be getting overly caught up in the fact it hasn't been added to the alpha as yet resulting in you thinking the game is due for a big release delay. Have you still not purchased or pre-ordered the game as yet given your comments in the 'next update' thread?
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Yes I bought it after they released Alpha 2 but there's no need to get combative, or bring up any previous posts as a justification for being so. I was asking them, not you, as you can probably see that given I responded to their thread on the update. At this point I think I am just happy that your not working for them. [haha]
Finishing touches doesn't really tell me much and I am just curious about it. Try to relax, maybe spend some time off the boards.
I got it last night. Its Sunday morning for me. I noticed that new ride I'll play with it today. Last night I thought what was going to be in this update. It was kind of big. Maybe water or security staff/park management.
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Park management, unless I am mistaken will be in Alpha 3.
Joël
Volunteer Moderator
Hi members,
Everyone is free to express their own opinions. As this is a family friendly forum, I would like everyone to respect opinions of others and consider that when posting on the Planet Coaster forums. Thank you for understanding.
Concerning the question of Hallowene about the water in Planet Coaster;
As a volunteer moderator, I would like to explain that when making a game, a development team needs to plan how they are going to develop a game, and when they are going to work on certain features. Each development team, whether they are small or large or in between, needs to make a plan, because in most cases it is not possible to work on all of the game features at once. Therefore, some features of a game will be developed first, and after those are done or are in a suitable alpha/beta state, a team can work on other features, according on how they planned overall development of a game.
In case of Planet Coaster, again as a volunteer moderator, the team seems to have worked on the guests first. When the guests and their systems of how they move through a park were in a suitable state, they went on and started working on the terrain system and the rides. In case of Planet Coaster however, there are multiple features of the game that are being worked on simultaneously by the team. So, there are people working on the guests, rides, terrain, AI, simulation, tools, and also on the water. Even features that are already available in the Planet Coaster alpha, are still being worked on by the team. The thing is, they can't finish everything on the same time, and some features need more development time than other features.
The above being said, the team has stated that they want to make features in Planet Coaster to the best possible extent that they can accomplish. Therefore they will continue to develop certain features, such as water, until they think those features are ready to be released as part of an alpha update. This does not mean that those features are then finished, but they are then deemed ready to be released to the players of the Planet Coaster alpha. The development team will continue to develop those features until they are ready for final release.
In case of the water in Planet Coaster: that is a feature that is not prioritized for release as part of the Planet Coaster alpha as of now, but we have already seen that the team has worked on water, because it was seen in some of the videos that were published over the last weeks. As with the other features of Planet Coaster, we will get the water into the game as soon as the team is confident the water is ready for release as part of the alpha, and not sooner than that. Not because they want to tease us, but because they want to give us the best possible experience.
This appears to have become a quite long post. Thanks for reading. [happy]
Everyone is free to express their own opinions. As this is a family friendly forum, I would like everyone to respect opinions of others and consider that when posting on the Planet Coaster forums. Thank you for understanding.
Concerning the question of Hallowene about the water in Planet Coaster;
As a volunteer moderator, I would like to explain that when making a game, a development team needs to plan how they are going to develop a game, and when they are going to work on certain features. Each development team, whether they are small or large or in between, needs to make a plan, because in most cases it is not possible to work on all of the game features at once. Therefore, some features of a game will be developed first, and after those are done or are in a suitable alpha/beta state, a team can work on other features, according on how they planned overall development of a game.
In case of Planet Coaster, again as a volunteer moderator, the team seems to have worked on the guests first. When the guests and their systems of how they move through a park were in a suitable state, they went on and started working on the terrain system and the rides. In case of Planet Coaster however, there are multiple features of the game that are being worked on simultaneously by the team. So, there are people working on the guests, rides, terrain, AI, simulation, tools, and also on the water. Even features that are already available in the Planet Coaster alpha, are still being worked on by the team. The thing is, they can't finish everything on the same time, and some features need more development time than other features.
The above being said, the team has stated that they want to make features in Planet Coaster to the best possible extent that they can accomplish. Therefore they will continue to develop certain features, such as water, until they think those features are ready to be released as part of an alpha update. This does not mean that those features are then finished, but they are then deemed ready to be released to the players of the Planet Coaster alpha. The development team will continue to develop those features until they are ready for final release.
In case of the water in Planet Coaster: that is a feature that is not prioritized for release as part of the Planet Coaster alpha as of now, but we have already seen that the team has worked on water, because it was seen in some of the videos that were published over the last weeks. As with the other features of Planet Coaster, we will get the water into the game as soon as the team is confident the water is ready for release as part of the alpha, and not sooner than that. Not because they want to tease us, but because they want to give us the best possible experience.
This appears to have become a quite long post. Thanks for reading. [happy]
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Will there be a "normal" carousel in the game? A single level one, and maybe a larger grand carousel? Also, will additional rides be made available after the final release to download? You know, how RCT3 had expansion packs? And user made scenery and rides? But will Frontier make additional rides to add into the game after the final version? Are there rides in development now that we haven't seen yet? Will there be horror theming and haunted mansion tracked rides? How about a mini golf like RCT3 to use in custom walk-through haunted houses? That's what I like about RCT3. You can build your own custom structures, like make a custom walk-through haunted house with mini golf path without golf holes so that it counts as a ride. When will we see the steam train ride? Not until the final build? Will there be tracked car rides, like sports cars and antique cars?
To answer all of that for you in one go: there is a lot of stuff in production that we have not seen yet and I'm sure it's all going to be amazing! Alpha releases normally don't contain much content, only the framework, so I'm pretty sure we can expect a lot more stuff by release.
Vampiro
Volunteer Moderator
I agree as well... People need to realise the Alpha's are to get feedback and test stuff out. The Alpha's focus is all about the complex features :
- Building
- Paths
- Terrain Editor
- Coaster Editor
- Guest simulation
I think thats also why we have only 2 themes so far. If those work well, then all of it will work. Another wall piece won't need special testing as it will work the same way as all other walls work.
And thats i think also the reason we only had 4 new flatrides in Alpha 2. If they have any bugs they will be pretty easy to fix and they don't need excessive testing.
I don't want to have my expectations too high, but following this logic there might be a lot of stuff on the shelf that we will get that doesn't really need too much testing in the Alpha's.
Yea totally. Once they now how stuff works in game, and how the players want to use stuff, then the rest is just formulaic. I think the person who asked this question basically wants every one of the rides they liked in RCT3, which probably won't happen. I expect some new stuff added, some old stuff missing. But overall it's pretty clear they're trying to make an RCT3 for the modern era, so I think the overall content will be as broad as original RCT3 release and will expand from that point, either by full expansion packs or DLC. (I don't often have this view, but DLC for individual rides might make more sense than bundled expansions for this game).
Vampiro
Volunteer Moderator
I dont know about that...
We more or less have darkrides confirmed. (if the game is popular enough they will be added, the answer has pretty much been given by pre-sales alone)
But darkrides isn't just 1 feature... It's the ability to make it dark indoors but would also require some omnimovers, slowmovers, etc etc...
In my opinion thats too much for just a single DLC, i think this will be more like a real expantion pack.
- Feature to make indoor buildings dark
- Omnimovers and other dark ride trains (boats!)
- Custom music (pretty much needed with darkrides)
- Animated stuff (like opening and closing doors)
If the game is popular this is most probably another moneymaker for Frontier since it would add a lot of stuff that is heavily requested [happy]
If they take dark rides as seriously as I hope, then that would indeed justify a full expansion pack. They're every bit as involved and important as the addition of water rides and wildlife was with RCT3 expansions. They have already said they 'might be' working on omnimovers though - can't remember where, in a CHC thread somewhere.
If they got proper dark rides in for launch, it would end all arguments about the 'best ever' theme park game!
The new carousel's music reminds me a LOT of the RCT2 theme [hehe]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oENUA2B1_uM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oENUA2B1_uM
