Coaster editor improvements

[dunkelziffer]

1. Make the coaster builder fully spline based:

I'm a long time fan of the series and always loved the piece-by-piece approach. I even tried to develop improved versions of it that allow a more fine grained control. However, in the end I have to say that a proper spline based system under the hood is definitely the superior solution as you can always layer a piece-by-piece system on top of it.

Allow experienced players to unlock full access to the spline system (with free node placement !!!) and let the rest use a restricted set of prebuilt pieces as it is in use right now.

2. Decouple the banking from main control points:

Imagine doing a straight drop and afterwards a 180° turn. You would want to to have a constant banking as soon as you are in the curve, but you would still want most of your drop without banking. So the banking would have to happen at the transition between the drop and the curve. However, you only have one control point around there. You would need at least two.

My suggestion would be to give us auxiliary control points at regular intervals for each spline. At these points you can only set the banking angle and nothing else. Also, you can choose to NOT set a banking angle for auxiliary and even main control points and just let the game interpolate the inbetween values. With this, you could e.g. only set the banking at two nodes on the whole track and let the game interpolate everything else.

3. Give us auxiliary grids to build precise custom inversions:

The grid system for the buildings could basically be applied to the coaster editor without major changes. Maybe make it more fine grained, but apart from that it already works pretty well. Allow us to turn on an optional grid on demand that automatically aligns with the current or selected track piece.

To be of any use, however, this system would need the "expert building mode" from (1) with free node placement.

Also, it could be pretty neat, if you could directly use this grid for buildings as well. Imagine building a custom inversion, then creating a building around some parts of the track and saving both coaster and building together as a custom track piece.

 

[dunkelziffer]

I'm sorry to bump this, but I'd really like to hear your opinions on this topic. (Also, I added point 3, so there's at least something new.)

Planet Coaster is a fantastic game, but sadly I feel that it is lacking right in it's eponymus feature (no, not the planets [where is it]). There were people that enjoyed the management aspect of the old RCTs and there were people who liked to decorate everything. I preferred to build coasters all the time. Having a powerful coaster builder is basically the most important feature for me in this game. And the current version doesn't really appeal to me. Building custom inversions is far too cumbersome.

 

[Ling]

I agree completely, although I think this spline-based system should be the "basic" version of the coaster editor. If it is relatively simple and user-friendly (perhaps with a nice shiny "smooth" button which takes care of most of the roll/pitch transitions for you) then a piece-by-piece builder is not needed. I have detailed my thoughts on this more here.

I think making judgments on the current coaster builder is unfair, since it's not an "official" part of the game, but I think your suggestions have precisely the right intent behind them.

 

[MegaAlalil]

Only problem is...

I agree completely, although I think this spline-based system should be the "basic" version of the coaster editor. If it is relatively simple and user-friendly (perhaps with a nice shiny "smooth" button which takes care of most of the roll/pitch transitions for you) then a piece-by-piece builder is not needed. I have detailed my thoughts on this more here.

I think making judgments on the current coaster builder is unfair, since it's not an "official" part of the game, but I think your suggestions have precisely the right intent behind them.

Only problem is that RCTW has a spline based building system, and I have tried it. It is ❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎, (and no, it's not the game im talking about, even though its pretty bad, RCTW that is). I am talking about the coaster building experience. Me no gusta. I love the current coaster builder in Planet Coaster though, it is really F**king awesome

 

[Ling]

They are both currently node-based (and RCTW also has the piece-by-piece editor). You have a point in space and you choose pitch/roll/yaw for that point. If you want to know how a spline-based system works, look up NoLimits 2.

 

[Doogerie]

Just Remember that the Coster editor is still in hevy development so. Uch so that you need the code to get in to the editor I think you will get your way in the end .

 

[Springrbua]

I have seen a few videos about this game and RCTW andi like the "free" editor (RCTW) better then the "piece-by-piece" (Planet Coaster) editor. But as @doogerie said, the Coaster editor is in heavy development and officially not even part of Alpha Phase 1, so i guess it will change a lot!

I personally would like to have a fully free editor, where you can even create loopings, without using pre-created pieces (if this is even possible). The pices could be there as a help.
Also it would be cool to be able to save self-made track-pices as templates and use them in other coasters as well.

 

[dunkelziffer]

I think I have to clarify a few things here:

The building tool is already spline based. You are doing nothing else than placing individual control points one at a time. The track is then calculated (via spline interpolation) between the new control point and the former end of track, which is also a control point.

However, in comparison to RCTW, it pursues a different method of placing these control points.

Position:
In RCTW you place control points freely on the xy-plane (2 dimensions) and can then adjust their height (1 dimension).
In PC you set the track piece length (1 dimension) and then place it approximately on a sphere around the last control point (2 dimensions). However, you can't bend too far, so you are restricted to a sector of the sphere.

Direction:
In RCTW you can set yaw, pitch and roll at each control point yourself.
In PC you can only set roll. The rest are automatically determined to make the piece as smooth as possible. Additionally roll has a dead zone that prevents you from building the track 180° upside-down.

Now it sounds like PC is imposing superfluos restrictions upon you that hamper your freedom. However, these restrictions do actually make sense. They guide inexperienced players towards building more realistic tracks.

Also, they aren't absolute. By relocating control points later and making clever use of the smoothing tool you can achieve basically any track layout. However, here comes the problem. If I'm not content with the restricted building options plus prebuilt track pieces I am most likely an experienced user. Now why do I have to "cheat" the system with relocating and smoothing in a second step and aren't allowed to put my control points where I wanted them to be in the first place?

To sum it up: the restrictions of PC's coaster editor are good for less experienced players and are definitely worth keeping. However, as an experienced player it is currently very cumbersome to circumvent them.

 

[Ling]

I disagree that the current editor is good for inexperienced players, because every single coaster made by every single member of the community is a jagged mess. It's not a system you can put more effort into to get a better result out of. If it's not an improvement over the grid-based system of RCT3 then there's no point in needlessly over-complicating it (in addition to restricting the elements we're able to make). You do determine pitch, roll, and yaw of individual nodes in PC. That's why there are three nodes above each track piece as you build. You control how much each one affects the track via the track length and angle sliders. But I would not call that spline-based at all. The nodes determine the position of breaks in the track, such as for brakes, lifts, and launch sections. A spline-based system would allow you to place those dividers anywhere on the spline. See:

I don't have personal experience with RCTW's builder but have watched my fair share of people building rides in it. They are both basically the same system Hyper Rails used 14 years ago, just with some additional options, finer control, or things moved around. For instance, in RCTW the roll is controlled as a circular array of points the track snaps to. In PC it's a left/right toggle with variable sensitivity. PC and RCTW make slightly different assumptions about pitch and yaw based on previous track - RCTW tends to assume returning to 0 while PC assumes continuation of whatever the previous segment was doing.

 

[dunkelziffer]

Have you seen the abominations created by novice players in RCTW? I'm not saying that you could put any coaster, that was built with PC's restrictions, in a real park and people would survive the ride. I'm saying that they look "more" realistic. Obviously you can't compare them to a professionally built NoLimits coaster, but only few people will ever achieve that regardless of the used coaster builder. Also, a theme park sim game of 2016 should permit realistic coasters, but it's not its job to educate the average player towards beings a professional engineer.

Also, you claimed that one can determine yaw and pitch in PC. To my current knowledge yaw and pitch are determined by all variables of the previous control point and the position of the node you are currently building. Of course you can rephrase that into: "You can determine yaw and pitch, but then the position is defined by them." In the end the result is the same. Each node has six degrees of freedom (3D-position plus yaw, pitch, roll) and you can only set four of them independently of each other in PC.

 

[breezerHOG1]

[up] great thread! I'm not very knowledgeable in this stuff but I hope to learn more by the time PC launches [big grin]

 

[Ling]

Obviously you can't compare them to a professionally built NoLimits coaster, but only few people will ever achieve that regardless of the used coaster builder. Also, a theme park sim game of 2016 should permit realistic coasters, but it's not its job to educate the average player towards beings a professional engineer.

I find the notion of a professionally built anything funny in this context. [tongue] But I take your point. The issue of what the system permits while still being usable by anyone who didn't design it is the crux. I think it's a system that you should bring education to and be rewarded with, rather than something that is unnecessarily over-complicated, or something that is too simple to be useful. If you understand how real coasters are designed, and why they are designed the way they are, you should be rewarded with a set of comprehensive tools that produce exactly what you want in a buttery smooth way.

Also, you claimed that one can determine yaw and pitch in PC. To my current knowledge yaw and pitch are determined by all variables of the previous control point and the position of the node you are currently building. Of course you can rephrase that into: "You can determine yaw and pitch, but then the position is defined by them." In the end the result is the same. Each node has six degrees of freedom (3D-position plus yaw, pitch, roll) and you can only set four of them independently of each other in PC.

You are correct, and now I think I understand what you meant by the "point on a sphere" statement you made above. But my point was merely that the systems are functionally similar, even if they are experienced in slightly different ways.

 

[dunkelziffer]

As the coaster editor is now a proper part of the game and doesn't need to be unlocked by a cheat code anymore, I suppose it is fair to criticize it now. It already is a very powerful tool, but is still far too restricting for people that want to create their own inversions. And the most annoying part of this is, that many of these "restrictions" can actually be circumvented, but only in a very cumbersome manner. So you can't justify them with the argument, that you want certain coaster elements locked away for scenarios or to only allow certain elements for each track type. With these arguments gone, the current restrictions of the coaster builder don't serve any purpose apart from being a nuisance.

Please give us an "advanced building mode" with the features explained in my original post and potentially an "expert building mode" that allows FVD-based building in a style similar to Newton².

 

[Casiquire]

As the coaster editor is now a proper part of the game and doesn't need to be unlocked by a cheat code anymore, I suppose it is fair to criticize it now. It already is a very powerful tool, but is still far too restricting for people that want to create their own inversions. And the most annoying part of this is, that many of these "restrictions" can actually be circumvented, but only in a very cumbersome manner. So you can't justify them with the argument, that you want certain coaster elements locked away for scenarios or to only allow certain elements for each track type. With these arguments gone, the current restrictions of the coaster builder don't serve any purpose apart from being a nuisance.

Please give us an "advanced building mode" with the features explained in my original post and potentially an "expert building mode" that allows FVD-based building in a style similar to Newton².

Yes, yes, a million times yes.

 

[Gord1]

I am really missing having a half loop to work with. Also would like the American arrow to be able to do the forwards/backwards track, i believe the option was called reverse incline launch in rct3. Also for us people with machines on the lower end of the scale add an option so that the peeps are not 1 to 1 meaning it does not animate 800 peeps when there are 800 peeps in the park. I bought this game and was silly and did not check the min. system spec. but i am having great success running the game with my 2.6ghz duel core laptop, i don't experience much slow down until i get over 1000 peeps in the park. I plan to buy a better system just for this wonderful wonderful game, thanks guys [big grin]