I haven't really found a thread where this would fit, so I'm creating a new one. Hope this is fine.
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The coasters in Planet Coaster already have an incredible amount of mechanical details in them - in fact, more than I'd actually could dream of!
But, inevitably, some are still missing. Wherever it's been overlooked or a choice, I don't know. But I felt like we might address them here.
1] Trailered coaster trains and zero-car
Many coaster trains nowaday are trailered. What does that mean?
Each coaster car has only one bogie instead of two (imagine a monocycle instead of a bicycle), and thus to maintain balance, it has to rely on either the car in front or behind it.
The question is, what happen at the end of the train?
Well, either it's the first car or the last one, but you always have a wagon that is different and has two bogies. These two bogies are linked together, and can only perfom a torsion instead of all the freedom the other car links have (in order to support the weight).
Basically, the link in that particular car is a pivot joint, whereas the links on the other cars are ball and socket joints.
It's often easy to tell where this special car is, because you spot a bogie that has no seat on it, but a plastic shield instead (or nothing). Those are called zero-cars.
On B&M, they are at the front.
On Arrow/Vekoma, they are at the rear.
Where it becomes tricky, tho, is when the manufacturers actually add a row of seats on both bogies of the zero-car.
To tell where it is, you have to look closely and spot the two rows that constantly stay parallel to each other.
On a B&M floorless coaster as on all B&M coasters, that's the first two rows.
On a Giovanola inverted, that's the last two rows.
Here on a Dive Machine, the first two rows are constantely parallel.
... and you can see that in-game it isn't the case... yet.
2] Heartlining
A small feature that can be a game changer for the coaster editor, is the addition of heartlining.
Basically, when the feature is enable, the twisting of the track wouldn't not occurs around a axis located at the center of the rails, but around a virtual line commonely dubbed as heartline.
Here is a representation in the very ideal case where the train is actually a single guest:
This is the most visual real-life exemple. Here, the heartline is actually following a straight line :
But the heartline is applied throughout the entire course, minus some exceptions. (so the real awesomness would be to be able to enable or disable heartline for each individual segment of a coaster)
I hope this helps!
-
The coasters in Planet Coaster already have an incredible amount of mechanical details in them - in fact, more than I'd actually could dream of!
But, inevitably, some are still missing. Wherever it's been overlooked or a choice, I don't know. But I felt like we might address them here.
1] Trailered coaster trains and zero-car
Many coaster trains nowaday are trailered. What does that mean?
Each coaster car has only one bogie instead of two (imagine a monocycle instead of a bicycle), and thus to maintain balance, it has to rely on either the car in front or behind it.
The question is, what happen at the end of the train?
Well, either it's the first car or the last one, but you always have a wagon that is different and has two bogies. These two bogies are linked together, and can only perfom a torsion instead of all the freedom the other car links have (in order to support the weight).
Basically, the link in that particular car is a pivot joint, whereas the links on the other cars are ball and socket joints.
It's often easy to tell where this special car is, because you spot a bogie that has no seat on it, but a plastic shield instead (or nothing). Those are called zero-cars.
On B&M, they are at the front.
On Arrow/Vekoma, they are at the rear.
Where it becomes tricky, tho, is when the manufacturers actually add a row of seats on both bogies of the zero-car.
To tell where it is, you have to look closely and spot the two rows that constantly stay parallel to each other.
On a B&M floorless coaster as on all B&M coasters, that's the first two rows.
On a Giovanola inverted, that's the last two rows.
Here on a Dive Machine, the first two rows are constantely parallel.
... and you can see that in-game it isn't the case... yet.
2] Heartlining
A small feature that can be a game changer for the coaster editor, is the addition of heartlining.
Basically, when the feature is enable, the twisting of the track wouldn't not occurs around a axis located at the center of the rails, but around a virtual line commonely dubbed as heartline.
Here is a representation in the very ideal case where the train is actually a single guest:
This is the most visual real-life exemple. Here, the heartline is actually following a straight line :
But the heartline is applied throughout the entire course, minus some exceptions. (so the real awesomness would be to be able to enable or disable heartline for each individual segment of a coaster)
I hope this helps!
