Hey everyone,
I wanted to take a moment to talk a little about a topic that has been hotly discussed in the community – Coaster Friction.
A large number of our community are, like us, huge coaster enthusiasts. That’s why we take a lot of pride over the authenticity of our rides and coasters in Planet Coaster. There have been a number of suggestions that friction is too high on specific coasters so I wanted to take a moment to look behind the curtain and share with you the process and effort that goes into making truly authentic coasters.
Forces
There are a number of forces that are at work when measuring the physics of a coaster. Ever since the team developed games like Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 and numerous other coaster park sims there has always been a desire to push the boundaries of authenticity. We’re very lucky to have the same developers who created our previous physics engines continue to enhance and grow the detail that goes into each coaster. In Planet Coaster we measure more forces and calculations than ever before to ensure that we're closer to a truly real experience. One great example of this is air resistance, even the tiniest details such as the aerodynamics of the car’s shape and the size of the car come into play and are considered in the physics. For example, a Basilisk Car will have lower air resistance than the 4D coaster car.
Friction in itself is more intelligent than ever before too. In our previous developments friction has always decreased in-line with weight. However, now we’re able to take even more factors into account such as how much weight exists at any given moment. For example, during a perfect airtime moment when the coaster car is at zero-g there is zero friction that is added between the car and the track. In fact, going too fast over a hump will re-introduce friction as the car pulls up on its upstop wheels. These moment to moment calculations are just some of the granular levels of detail that going into making the physics engine our most advanced and authentic system yet.
Testing
Not only do we make sure that we are taking in more measures and variables than ever before, we also make sure to test our coasters to ensure they are realistic replicas of similar real world rides, going so far as to import schematics of real world coasters in order to fully test similar ride experiences in Planet Coaster. Below we can see a side by side comparison of a Planet Coaster ride vs a similar real life Coaster. It’s important to note that this is purely for authenticity and testing reasons. All rights for the video and any real life coasters remain with the owners of that content/ride.
Check out this little video which shows our wooden coaster vs a real world similar coaster type. You can also see their ride statistics vs those found on Wikipedia as a second reference point.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SYMhTHGhYsM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<blockquote class="imgur-embed-pub" lang="en" data-id="a/M5C8f"><a href="//imgur.com/M5C8f"></a></blockquote><script async src="//s.imgur.com/min/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Conditions and variation
Obviously every coaster is different. Even down to the day, the weather, the atmosphere but we are very proud of the process that we take to ensure friction and our coasters are authentic. We take this same level of consideration and detail on all our coasters, including steel, wooden and hybrid. What we can see here though is that the like for like comparison video and statistics show the ride to be a close match to similar real life ride types. If anything, we tend to find that our friction is very slightly lower than real life similar types for gameplay reasons which goes against the general opinion that friction is perhaps too high.
Limitless creativity
With that in mind though, we do understand that some of you would like to have the freedom to be able to create anything your imagination will allow. That is why we have developed a new slider which (when using the cheat code) will allow you to select your own friction on a coaster and create any manner of coaster experience you want. When you save the coaster as a blueprint the slider will remain saved and will be visible for others to use. This will be coming in a future update.
I hope that helps.
I wanted to take a moment to talk a little about a topic that has been hotly discussed in the community – Coaster Friction.
A large number of our community are, like us, huge coaster enthusiasts. That’s why we take a lot of pride over the authenticity of our rides and coasters in Planet Coaster. There have been a number of suggestions that friction is too high on specific coasters so I wanted to take a moment to look behind the curtain and share with you the process and effort that goes into making truly authentic coasters.
Forces
There are a number of forces that are at work when measuring the physics of a coaster. Ever since the team developed games like Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 and numerous other coaster park sims there has always been a desire to push the boundaries of authenticity. We’re very lucky to have the same developers who created our previous physics engines continue to enhance and grow the detail that goes into each coaster. In Planet Coaster we measure more forces and calculations than ever before to ensure that we're closer to a truly real experience. One great example of this is air resistance, even the tiniest details such as the aerodynamics of the car’s shape and the size of the car come into play and are considered in the physics. For example, a Basilisk Car will have lower air resistance than the 4D coaster car.
Friction in itself is more intelligent than ever before too. In our previous developments friction has always decreased in-line with weight. However, now we’re able to take even more factors into account such as how much weight exists at any given moment. For example, during a perfect airtime moment when the coaster car is at zero-g there is zero friction that is added between the car and the track. In fact, going too fast over a hump will re-introduce friction as the car pulls up on its upstop wheels. These moment to moment calculations are just some of the granular levels of detail that going into making the physics engine our most advanced and authentic system yet.
Testing
Not only do we make sure that we are taking in more measures and variables than ever before, we also make sure to test our coasters to ensure they are realistic replicas of similar real world rides, going so far as to import schematics of real world coasters in order to fully test similar ride experiences in Planet Coaster. Below we can see a side by side comparison of a Planet Coaster ride vs a similar real life Coaster. It’s important to note that this is purely for authenticity and testing reasons. All rights for the video and any real life coasters remain with the owners of that content/ride.
Check out this little video which shows our wooden coaster vs a real world similar coaster type. You can also see their ride statistics vs those found on Wikipedia as a second reference point.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SYMhTHGhYsM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<blockquote class="imgur-embed-pub" lang="en" data-id="a/M5C8f"><a href="//imgur.com/M5C8f"></a></blockquote><script async src="//s.imgur.com/min/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Conditions and variation
Obviously every coaster is different. Even down to the day, the weather, the atmosphere but we are very proud of the process that we take to ensure friction and our coasters are authentic. We take this same level of consideration and detail on all our coasters, including steel, wooden and hybrid. What we can see here though is that the like for like comparison video and statistics show the ride to be a close match to similar real life ride types. If anything, we tend to find that our friction is very slightly lower than real life similar types for gameplay reasons which goes against the general opinion that friction is perhaps too high.
Limitless creativity
With that in mind though, we do understand that some of you would like to have the freedom to be able to create anything your imagination will allow. That is why we have developed a new slider which (when using the cheat code) will allow you to select your own friction on a coaster and create any manner of coaster experience you want. When you save the coaster as a blueprint the slider will remain saved and will be visible for others to use. This will be coming in a future update.
I hope that helps.
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