Annual clean up PART 2
Soon one year have past since Planet coaster released. I'm one of them that was very active during the Alpha period, but not after the release due to some frustrations about the gameplay. However, after the three seasonal updates I came back and finally start to play and enjoy it during summer and until now. I love Planet coaster and I want it to be of its best!
It is time to adress some stuff in the game that I know more than me gets annoyed about but no one really want to take time to dig into. Some quite messy stuff, other just non consistent that make my OCD go nuts. I do respect that a lot of player just don't care, not notice this stuff or that just accept this kind of errors and build ways around it to handle it. Like there are a lot of item assets that is hard to find today in the browser because they are missplaced into the wrong category. Some just accept and learn were to find it and stop depending on the categories. Another common error are items with the wrong xyz-coordination making extra work for the user to place them in the park or jumping between items in the X-mode.
Well that is not a good aim for a high qualtiy AI and gameplay. And people like me are like the canary in the mine, so if I am content, everyone are content and gains from it! Right? [big grin]
So I want to help and make something creative of this frustration. I have a range of issues to bring up and will make a series with separate parts to focus on, because the topics will be different. Today it will jet again be more generic take on several issues. It will make an understanding of what kind of issues I want to bring up into the daylight. I don't find this as bugs, rather errors. And this are not really suggestions. I have plenty of that in its correct forum area. So I place this threads in the main discussion forum of Planet Coaster.
Please feel free to assist by pointing out any additional wrongs and errors you find as well. [happy][up]
Wall sets
Today, I'm going to focus on the base games 18 wall sets and quality check them trough for errors. I haven't bought the Spooky pack yet, so I hope someone can assist me with the quality check on them. Walls are the foundation for creating buildings and an easy access and user friendliness off them are of most important. When I played the Alpha for the first time, I really liked to dig in spontaneous and try out the two easy building sets showing off in the browser. It was very inviting, easy to get an overview of the wall set concept and was fun do just play with them. [happy]
However, after Alpha3, Beta and release, it was the opposite. The first wall set you see in the browser opening up the wall menu are the most complex and hardest wall set; Castle. And to make it worse, the non flat complicated special pieces comes first and fills up the first two reachable rows of objects. [knockout] It wasn't inviting anymore. It scares you away from playing with it! [sad]
The first objects should be the most easy one, with simple colour options and standard set of content. This is still a fail in the game when opening a Sandbox mode park. For me to systematically start to learn to handle it, I played the scenarios were the content in the wall menu was very limited.
I sorted the 18 wall sets after following five logical groups:
¤ All sets under modern have basically the same content. They stand out for having the convex and concave wall pieces for the convex and concave roofs. Most of them have their own pillars.
¤ The default group are the two that also are very basic, but lack the convex and concave walls to be in the modern group. None of this two have pillars.
¤ All sets in the western groups are very identical. They all have the extra sets of different top slopes and arcs. They also lack the two standard rounded wall pieces.
¤ The two sets in the group unique have no relation to any other wall sets what so ever.
¤ The last group are for the more complicated wall sets with castle and tower pieces.
- All wall sets within each group comes in the same order as they do in the UI browser.
In this check I will look for and point out:
- Lack of content. I will not list them this time though. Only point it out with red marks in the screenshots. This to visualize how unequal the sets are compared to one another. In the way I sort them, you will se that what content every set have mostly are intended.
- Wrongly faced pieces connected to the build grid. There are only 4 directions a grid piece can be headed. For an user friendly quality still, all of the same type of items should be headed in the same direction by default.
- Name inconsistency that makes related objects being apart from each other in the UI browser. Also if related wall sets being together or apart in the UI browser.
- Colors by default and reset. All pieces in the same set should have the same colour by default. The colour by default should be the same as shown in the thumbnail image of eash object in the UI browser.
- Color control panel. All pieces in the same wall sets should have the same related areas being controlled by the same colour control in the UI panel. To make this type of error easy to visualize, I decided a standard set of colours always representing the same spot in the panel, to see if that is the case for the objects in practical. Colors as follows:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Modern wall sets
1.1 Metal Alloy wall set
This set are quite complete. It don't have any pillars. It is a good presentation of what to find in the base set of content for all wall sets, save for convex and concave sloping walls.
The default color are some what darker than the thumbnails.
1.2 Modern brick wall set
This set is okey.
1.3 Modern wood wall set
I miss the possibility to recolour this set.
Otherwise, its okey.
1.4 Panel wall set
Everything is okey with this set.
In my opinion, this is one of the most easy for beginners to use wall set. It should be the first one to be reachable in the UI browser.
1.5 Rough Concrete wall set
The set is complete. Pity there is no colour options for this set.
1.6 Smooth Concrete wall set
This is also one of the good basic wall set for beginners. Should be reachable earlier in the browser.
This set is fine.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Default wall sets
2.1 Lime Plaster wall set
This set should be a castle set with more pieces if you ask me.
It missing the bacis wide arc piece. because it have the narrow arc tunnel, it should have the wide arc tunnel as well!
2.2 Rough Brick wall set
This set is fine. However, would be good if it had the same content as the modern bricks.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Western wall sets
Now the real mess begins... For this group, I will present the color codes in an extra screenshot for the added top flats and slopes sets. I group them in 3 rows for the three different sorts of top finnish / roofs.
3.1 Classic Brick wall set
- Classic brick wall Top flat = Has another default colour on its top than the rest of the set.
- Classic brick wall Top Round Arch = As seen yellow1 and pink2 are flipped compared to the others.
- Classic brick wall 4m = second color control panel default brown-red colour does not correspond to the other wall pieces second color control panel default brown-red colour. They are slightly for the 4m-wall to not cooperate. Allways gives a black ?-sign.
3.2 Natural Wood Batten wall set
- Natural Wood Batten wall Top flat = Has another default colour on its top than the rest of the set.
- The top row with five pieces with roofs = The roof is not colourable. For the arches pieces the yellow1 is connected to the edge under the roof and pink2 are not working. For the sloped ones pink2 are connected to the edge and yellow1 not working.
- Non consistent that color1 and color 2 are connected to different parts in the same wall set.
Row 2 and 3 in the colour test is fine.
3.3 Natural Wood Plank wall set
Amazing, this set is consistent.
And the roof pieces are colourable.
- However, the thumbnails do not represent the top edge colours correctly compared to the real pieces default colours and three different types of top pattern.
3.4 Painted Wood Batten wall set
Were to begin? This set is a mess!
- Painted Wood Batten wall Top flat = Has another default colour on its top than the rest of the set.
- The color panels 3 sets are extremely inconsistent as shown in the image above. In some the yellow1 are connected to the top edge/roof and for some the pink2 are connected to the top edge/roof. And so on...
- The thumbnails do not represent the top edge colours correctly compared to the real pieces default colours and three different types of top pattern.
- Painted Wood Batten Square Half Arch = This piece does facing the opposite direction compared to the common directive for this kind of piece. Its orientation need to be fixed 180 degrees.
3.5 Painted Wood Panel wall set
This one is even more worse! Okey, not that extreme, I had problem first with reseting the colours in the second row of top edges were one is green and rest is brown. Now when writing it worked again and all is green. That is a bug to be reported separately. Anyhow...
- The color panel are mixed up for the top edge pieces as seen in the color check image. They correspond to the same piece in the painted wood batten set, but compared to the whole group this is still a big error. Not consistent.
- The thumbnails do not represent the top edge colours correctly compared to the real pieces default colours and three different types of top pattern.
- Painted Wood Plank Square Half Arch = This piece does facing the opposite direction compared to the common directive for this kind of piece. Its orientation need to be fixed 180 degrees.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Unique wall sets
4.1 Gingerbread wall set
![XOZIxJt.png]](https://i.imgur.com/XOZIxJt.png])
This set is fine.
4.2 Glass wall set
This set has been around since alpha1, and it still lack a lot of content.
One year ago this particular wall set had a glitch making the glass disappear viewed from specific angles that I reported. I'm glad that this was fixed. [up]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. Castle wall sets
The following thre wall sets have castle tower add ons and smaller tower add ons from the pillar-subcategory.
5.1 Castle wall set
- Castle Curved Wall Buttress = This piece does facing the wrong direction in default compared to the common orientation of all other curved wall pieces. Should be rotated 90 degree clockwize.
- Castle wall extension and Castle wall Parapet Extension = Should be headed 180 degree to the opposite side to be consistent with the rest of the piece set.
- Castle Wall 2m Station Surround 2 = This piece have a forth colour panel that does not do anything. In the rest of this set the fourth colour are consistent used for arches, butress and other edges and details. However, this particular piece does not have that, so this fourth color panel should be taken away.
- Castle curved column Large Base section, Castle curved column Large Capstone section and Castle octogonal column Large Capstone section = All this pieces are headed in the wrong direction in default compared to the common direction of corner pieces. They should be rotated 90 degree clockwise.
5.2 Sandstone wall set
The sandstone wall set is the oldest one, all the way back to Alpha1, and lack of castle and tower content compared to the other two castle sets.
- Sandstone wall 4m Buttressed Alcove = The colour of the door does not correspond to the colour in the thumbnail. This door should be colourable as all other doors in the pirate theme.
5.3 Stucco wall set
Note that this set does not have any buttressed wall pieces compared to the other two. Not marked in the image above. However, it seems intended.
Trivia: You can colour the Stucco Wall 2m with 3 different colours making a Mexican texture appear.
- Stucco Wall Extension and Stucco Wall Parapet Extension = Should be headed 180 degree to the opposite side to be consistent with the rest of the piece set.
- Stucco curved column Large Base section = This piece is headed in the wrong direction in default compared to the common direction of corner pieces. They should be rotated 90 degree clockwise.
- The stucco set lack the octagonal column base sections that the Castle set have.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. The Wall Menu Browser
Last, lets check the browser in what order pieces comes in and in what order the wall sets comes in.
Is this the most user friendly set up or could it be optimized. To set items in alphabetical order have its benefits in the search engine, but also disadvantages in question of having the most user friendly wall set reachable first for beginners to feel invited to start. Also, wall sets that is related to each other with the same kind of contents should be put together.
This is the first views the user see when entering the wall menu:
This is just not user-friendly. When you enter Buildings>Walls>All by default the 54 first items shown, none is a basic flat wall piece. [knockout]
If you enter the specific Buildings>Walls>Wall pieces, still there is 12 advanced curved pieces before you see a basic flat wall piece. This is just not user friendly for beginners. It overwhelmed and scared me away, and I am certain other casual players feel the same. My recommendation would be:
-> Set an easy basic wall set first in the list instead of the castle. Like the Panel Wall set or Smooth Concrete Wall set.
-> Give curved wall pieces and tower pieces its own sub category, just as the arch have its own. This would clean up the wall piece subcategory big time and be easier to overview. Actually RCT3 had that.
Lets check the actual order for the wall sets. Following the rules of alphabetical order:
It is great that most of the western grouped wall set are together in a straight line. The rest of them are quite a mess were adjacent wall set are not related to one another. it would be great to put groups together.
To pick up the discussion from the image before, to keep the alphabetical order. I would suggest to change the "Panel Wall set" to "Basic Panel Wall set" to make it come first and before the more advanced Castle wall set.
Last, lets check the order of the basic wall pieces, no matter what wall set. How the naming made a particular order.
I borrow the Modern Brick Wall Set:
The height measure are placed early in the names to be related together. All 1m together, all 2m together and all 4m together. However, similar pieces when it comes to shape are pretty mixed up. Would it be possible to change the order of name info to order the wall pieces in this way instead:
As you can see, when similar pieces are put together. It is easier for the eye to spot the difference and makes more efficient to find the right piece you need.
----------------------------------------------
Thanks for reading!
Soon one year have past since Planet coaster released. I'm one of them that was very active during the Alpha period, but not after the release due to some frustrations about the gameplay. However, after the three seasonal updates I came back and finally start to play and enjoy it during summer and until now. I love Planet coaster and I want it to be of its best!
It is time to adress some stuff in the game that I know more than me gets annoyed about but no one really want to take time to dig into. Some quite messy stuff, other just non consistent that make my OCD go nuts. I do respect that a lot of player just don't care, not notice this stuff or that just accept this kind of errors and build ways around it to handle it. Like there are a lot of item assets that is hard to find today in the browser because they are missplaced into the wrong category. Some just accept and learn were to find it and stop depending on the categories. Another common error are items with the wrong xyz-coordination making extra work for the user to place them in the park or jumping between items in the X-mode.
Well that is not a good aim for a high qualtiy AI and gameplay. And people like me are like the canary in the mine, so if I am content, everyone are content and gains from it! Right? [big grin]
So I want to help and make something creative of this frustration. I have a range of issues to bring up and will make a series with separate parts to focus on, because the topics will be different. Today it will jet again be more generic take on several issues. It will make an understanding of what kind of issues I want to bring up into the daylight. I don't find this as bugs, rather errors. And this are not really suggestions. I have plenty of that in its correct forum area. So I place this threads in the main discussion forum of Planet Coaster.
Please feel free to assist by pointing out any additional wrongs and errors you find as well. [happy][up]
Wall sets
Today, I'm going to focus on the base games 18 wall sets and quality check them trough for errors. I haven't bought the Spooky pack yet, so I hope someone can assist me with the quality check on them. Walls are the foundation for creating buildings and an easy access and user friendliness off them are of most important. When I played the Alpha for the first time, I really liked to dig in spontaneous and try out the two easy building sets showing off in the browser. It was very inviting, easy to get an overview of the wall set concept and was fun do just play with them. [happy]
However, after Alpha3, Beta and release, it was the opposite. The first wall set you see in the browser opening up the wall menu are the most complex and hardest wall set; Castle. And to make it worse, the non flat complicated special pieces comes first and fills up the first two reachable rows of objects. [knockout] It wasn't inviting anymore. It scares you away from playing with it! [sad]
The first objects should be the most easy one, with simple colour options and standard set of content. This is still a fail in the game when opening a Sandbox mode park. For me to systematically start to learn to handle it, I played the scenarios were the content in the wall menu was very limited.
I sorted the 18 wall sets after following five logical groups:
¤ All sets under modern have basically the same content. They stand out for having the convex and concave wall pieces for the convex and concave roofs. Most of them have their own pillars.
¤ The default group are the two that also are very basic, but lack the convex and concave walls to be in the modern group. None of this two have pillars.
¤ All sets in the western groups are very identical. They all have the extra sets of different top slopes and arcs. They also lack the two standard rounded wall pieces.
¤ The two sets in the group unique have no relation to any other wall sets what so ever.
¤ The last group are for the more complicated wall sets with castle and tower pieces.
- All wall sets within each group comes in the same order as they do in the UI browser.
In this check I will look for and point out:
- Lack of content. I will not list them this time though. Only point it out with red marks in the screenshots. This to visualize how unequal the sets are compared to one another. In the way I sort them, you will se that what content every set have mostly are intended.
- Wrongly faced pieces connected to the build grid. There are only 4 directions a grid piece can be headed. For an user friendly quality still, all of the same type of items should be headed in the same direction by default.
- Name inconsistency that makes related objects being apart from each other in the UI browser. Also if related wall sets being together or apart in the UI browser.
- Colors by default and reset. All pieces in the same set should have the same colour by default. The colour by default should be the same as shown in the thumbnail image of eash object in the UI browser.
- Color control panel. All pieces in the same wall sets should have the same related areas being controlled by the same colour control in the UI panel. To make this type of error easy to visualize, I decided a standard set of colours always representing the same spot in the panel, to see if that is the case for the objects in practical. Colors as follows:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Modern wall sets
1.1 Metal Alloy wall set
This set are quite complete. It don't have any pillars. It is a good presentation of what to find in the base set of content for all wall sets, save for convex and concave sloping walls.
The default color are some what darker than the thumbnails.
1.2 Modern brick wall set
This set is okey.
1.3 Modern wood wall set
I miss the possibility to recolour this set.
Otherwise, its okey.
1.4 Panel wall set
Everything is okey with this set.
In my opinion, this is one of the most easy for beginners to use wall set. It should be the first one to be reachable in the UI browser.
1.5 Rough Concrete wall set
The set is complete. Pity there is no colour options for this set.
1.6 Smooth Concrete wall set
This is also one of the good basic wall set for beginners. Should be reachable earlier in the browser.
This set is fine.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Default wall sets
2.1 Lime Plaster wall set
This set should be a castle set with more pieces if you ask me.
It missing the bacis wide arc piece. because it have the narrow arc tunnel, it should have the wide arc tunnel as well!
2.2 Rough Brick wall set
This set is fine. However, would be good if it had the same content as the modern bricks.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Western wall sets
Now the real mess begins... For this group, I will present the color codes in an extra screenshot for the added top flats and slopes sets. I group them in 3 rows for the three different sorts of top finnish / roofs.
3.1 Classic Brick wall set
- Classic brick wall Top flat = Has another default colour on its top than the rest of the set.
- Classic brick wall Top Round Arch = As seen yellow1 and pink2 are flipped compared to the others.
- Classic brick wall 4m = second color control panel default brown-red colour does not correspond to the other wall pieces second color control panel default brown-red colour. They are slightly for the 4m-wall to not cooperate. Allways gives a black ?-sign.
3.2 Natural Wood Batten wall set
- Natural Wood Batten wall Top flat = Has another default colour on its top than the rest of the set.
- The top row with five pieces with roofs = The roof is not colourable. For the arches pieces the yellow1 is connected to the edge under the roof and pink2 are not working. For the sloped ones pink2 are connected to the edge and yellow1 not working.
- Non consistent that color1 and color 2 are connected to different parts in the same wall set.
Row 2 and 3 in the colour test is fine.
3.3 Natural Wood Plank wall set
Amazing, this set is consistent.
And the roof pieces are colourable.
- However, the thumbnails do not represent the top edge colours correctly compared to the real pieces default colours and three different types of top pattern.
3.4 Painted Wood Batten wall set
Were to begin? This set is a mess!
- Painted Wood Batten wall Top flat = Has another default colour on its top than the rest of the set.
- The color panels 3 sets are extremely inconsistent as shown in the image above. In some the yellow1 are connected to the top edge/roof and for some the pink2 are connected to the top edge/roof. And so on...
- The thumbnails do not represent the top edge colours correctly compared to the real pieces default colours and three different types of top pattern.
- Painted Wood Batten Square Half Arch = This piece does facing the opposite direction compared to the common directive for this kind of piece. Its orientation need to be fixed 180 degrees.
3.5 Painted Wood Panel wall set
This one is even more worse! Okey, not that extreme, I had problem first with reseting the colours in the second row of top edges were one is green and rest is brown. Now when writing it worked again and all is green. That is a bug to be reported separately. Anyhow...
- The color panel are mixed up for the top edge pieces as seen in the color check image. They correspond to the same piece in the painted wood batten set, but compared to the whole group this is still a big error. Not consistent.
- The thumbnails do not represent the top edge colours correctly compared to the real pieces default colours and three different types of top pattern.
- Painted Wood Plank Square Half Arch = This piece does facing the opposite direction compared to the common directive for this kind of piece. Its orientation need to be fixed 180 degrees.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Unique wall sets
4.1 Gingerbread wall set
This set is fine.
4.2 Glass wall set
This set has been around since alpha1, and it still lack a lot of content.
One year ago this particular wall set had a glitch making the glass disappear viewed from specific angles that I reported. I'm glad that this was fixed. [up]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. Castle wall sets
The following thre wall sets have castle tower add ons and smaller tower add ons from the pillar-subcategory.
5.1 Castle wall set
- Castle Curved Wall Buttress = This piece does facing the wrong direction in default compared to the common orientation of all other curved wall pieces. Should be rotated 90 degree clockwize.
- Castle wall extension and Castle wall Parapet Extension = Should be headed 180 degree to the opposite side to be consistent with the rest of the piece set.
- Castle Wall 2m Station Surround 2 = This piece have a forth colour panel that does not do anything. In the rest of this set the fourth colour are consistent used for arches, butress and other edges and details. However, this particular piece does not have that, so this fourth color panel should be taken away.
- Castle curved column Large Base section, Castle curved column Large Capstone section and Castle octogonal column Large Capstone section = All this pieces are headed in the wrong direction in default compared to the common direction of corner pieces. They should be rotated 90 degree clockwise.
5.2 Sandstone wall set
The sandstone wall set is the oldest one, all the way back to Alpha1, and lack of castle and tower content compared to the other two castle sets.
- Sandstone wall 4m Buttressed Alcove = The colour of the door does not correspond to the colour in the thumbnail. This door should be colourable as all other doors in the pirate theme.
5.3 Stucco wall set
Note that this set does not have any buttressed wall pieces compared to the other two. Not marked in the image above. However, it seems intended.
Trivia: You can colour the Stucco Wall 2m with 3 different colours making a Mexican texture appear.
- Stucco Wall Extension and Stucco Wall Parapet Extension = Should be headed 180 degree to the opposite side to be consistent with the rest of the piece set.
- Stucco curved column Large Base section = This piece is headed in the wrong direction in default compared to the common direction of corner pieces. They should be rotated 90 degree clockwise.
- The stucco set lack the octagonal column base sections that the Castle set have.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. The Wall Menu Browser
Last, lets check the browser in what order pieces comes in and in what order the wall sets comes in.
Is this the most user friendly set up or could it be optimized. To set items in alphabetical order have its benefits in the search engine, but also disadvantages in question of having the most user friendly wall set reachable first for beginners to feel invited to start. Also, wall sets that is related to each other with the same kind of contents should be put together.
This is the first views the user see when entering the wall menu:
This is just not user-friendly. When you enter Buildings>Walls>All by default the 54 first items shown, none is a basic flat wall piece. [knockout]
If you enter the specific Buildings>Walls>Wall pieces, still there is 12 advanced curved pieces before you see a basic flat wall piece. This is just not user friendly for beginners. It overwhelmed and scared me away, and I am certain other casual players feel the same. My recommendation would be:
-> Set an easy basic wall set first in the list instead of the castle. Like the Panel Wall set or Smooth Concrete Wall set.
-> Give curved wall pieces and tower pieces its own sub category, just as the arch have its own. This would clean up the wall piece subcategory big time and be easier to overview. Actually RCT3 had that.
Lets check the actual order for the wall sets. Following the rules of alphabetical order:
It is great that most of the western grouped wall set are together in a straight line. The rest of them are quite a mess were adjacent wall set are not related to one another. it would be great to put groups together.
To pick up the discussion from the image before, to keep the alphabetical order. I would suggest to change the "Panel Wall set" to "Basic Panel Wall set" to make it come first and before the more advanced Castle wall set.
Last, lets check the order of the basic wall pieces, no matter what wall set. How the naming made a particular order.
I borrow the Modern Brick Wall Set:
The height measure are placed early in the names to be related together. All 1m together, all 2m together and all 4m together. However, similar pieces when it comes to shape are pretty mixed up. Would it be possible to change the order of name info to order the wall pieces in this way instead:
As you can see, when similar pieces are put together. It is easier for the eye to spot the difference and makes more efficient to find the right piece you need.
----------------------------------------------
Thanks for reading!
Last edited:
