Faster loading/unloading rides

[godieex]

Hello!

I think it would be great to see people loading coasters immediately after other guest left the carriages, like in real life coasters. It kind of desperate me to see them waiting till the last guest left the station, or seeing other carriages full of people waiting in the station behind. If they are stopped in the station they could leave the carriages already like in roller coaster tycoon 2 that everything happens at the same time and boarding and waiting times would be faster.

Thank you anyway for this wonderful game!

 

[Abletudu]

This would work if the exit and entrances are on opposite sides of the station platform, but not when they are on the same side since the new passengers would have to wait for the platform to clear anyway.

 

[TheOne1]

The time to go into the ride or coaster takes too long, because they all have to wait until every Person hast left the Station Exit.
It would be better on coasters if they only have to wait until they left the coaster and not the Station Exit.
Maybe this could be an option if the Station Exit is on the other side.

In the Videos it tooks not so much time, but you can see for example in RCTW they load and unload on coasters and rides at the same time.
[video=youtube;Ymb7S51hbLk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ymb7S51hbLk[/video]
[video=youtube;IagReJtovHE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IagReJtovHE[/video]

 

[Kickflip]

Why can't we just disengage the safety harnesses and invert the coaster over some pads right before it enters the station? Seems unrealistic to me.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

I've never felt the need for faster loading on coasters. Water rides and car rides, yes. They need some tweaking.

I've done calculations with available data, and the coaster "The Beast" at Kings Island, for example, has a 2 minute load time.
If you calculate the PlanCo coaster riders per month, and multiply that out to an hour real time you meet or exceed published data for riders per hour on many real life coasters. So, for those that like realism, it's already there.

Take into consideration using block sections, and if you increase your load time too much, then you have to have more frequent block brakes, more block sections, which becomes more challenging to design efficient coasters. If they halved the load time, you would have to double your block sections! With car rides and water rides, that doesn't matter, so I support the change there.

In my video above, it still cracks me up that RCTW doesn't use the batch gates correctly. This leads to longer load times even though they start boarding while the peeps are exiting. The exit is always at the back, and the entry all the way up front, and there is nothing you can do to change that. Stupid game.

 

[PlanetChris]

It would be cool, if the guests in the train behind the first one in the station could unload while the first one loads.
This could be possible, when you change the way the stations are build. - The exit lane should be in the back and the entrance one on the front side.
And you will need to make it just possible to add the exit just behind the exit and not the other way around and it should work.

 

[Bullethead]

The reason they make all the previous passengers exit the platform before letting new customers on is so previous passengers can't hide in the crowd and get back on the ride for free. Only by having a totally clear platform for a moment before letting the new passengers on can you ensure you're not being cheated by sly peeps

In the absence of separate loading and unloading stations, you can do things to improve the speed of coaster loading cycles. I have a giga coaster with 12-car trains. It runs 3 trains and has a loading cycle of less than 30 seconds, yet almost always has every seat full. When 1 train leaves the station, the next pulls in only a couple seconds later. So with some tweaking, you can get some huge throughput on your rides. Here are some of the tricks I use.

1. Single-Car Coasters and Track Rides
Put the exit gate directly in line with the yellow exit arrows painted on the station platform. That way, the old passengers go straight off the platform in the minimal time. Entrance position doesn't matter so much because new passengers sprint to their seats, but in general it should be as close to the exit (and thus the position of the car) as possible. If the entrance and exit are on the same side of the platform, put the entrance adjacent to the exit. If they're on opposite sides, put them directly across from each other.

2. Multi-Car Coasters
Speeding the unloading process is ONLY possible if the entrance and exit gates are on OPPOSITE sides of the platform. If they're on the same side, then the yellow exit arrow path will by at 1 end of the platform, so old passengers at the other end of the train will have to walk the entire length of the platform, which takes a LONG time. OTOH, if the entrance and exits are on opposite sides of the platform, you can put the exit gate even with the central car of the train near the middle of the platform, which minimizes the distance old passengers at the ends of the train have to walk, and thus the time required to start loading.

Also note that as train length increases, you have to put the entrance gate closer to the rear end of the train. This is because the entrance gate closes shortly after the train leaves the station (or maybe just before the next train is about to enter). Anyway, if you're running a tight schedule with very little time between trains, often the entrance closes before all the slots on the platform are full, and the slots fill from front to back. When the next train arrives and the entrance opens, guests at the front of the queue can dash to fill the last few open slots, but only if they don't have to go very far. So putting the entrance at the rear of the train lets you fill every seat (minus the odd empty seat in the last car due to # of remaining seats < size of next peep group in queue).

Being able to do this, however, requires careful design of the coaster up front. You should determine how many trains (of how many cars) you want to run up front, then design the track so you can do it. The length of the track and the average speed of the coaster needs to be such that it can be divided by the number of trains desired with only a small remainder. Then you have to set the max waiting time to be (ride duration) / (number of trains), which should be on the order of 30-35 seconds. Then place the entrance and exit gates as described above and things should go very well.