GUIDE - Trackless Ride System

Thought I’d share how I managed to get the trackless ride system glitch to work, in case anyone is interested. I’m sure someone could make much better use of it that I ever could. As I said in the post when I showed it, these sort of rides are not my forte in this game.

On a basic levels, all you need is section of flat coaster track and some sort of flat floor, but if you want to make something more interesting with directional changes, that will require you to play tricks with the games construction tools :D

First thing to note - I think it should go without saying, make sure collision detection is OFF (duh)
Second thing to note - this ride is much much easier to construction if you do it old-school RCT style, chunk by chunk little pieces with angle snap on (doesnt matter the angle, just make sure snap is on - there is one exception to this that I shall mention later)

It can be a little bit of trial and error, and a lot of experimentation (I still struggle every now and then, and I’ve spent nearly 2 weeks experimenting and trying to reliably reproduce my results)


Build track up to the point you want change in direction (red track)
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Add a couple of extra pieces of track (you will delete these later) (black track)
zCAv3nSl.jpg


Delete the last section or two of the red track
J0YWEFol.jpg


From the black track, add the continuation of the track you will actually be using (blue)
gH3rpyCl.jpg


From the red track, replace the sections you just deleted (using the EXACT SAME MEASUREMENTS - hence why angle snap is so crucial) (yellow track)
G9T69QCl.jpg


Delete the black track
zjBRSYal.jpg


Provided everything has gone right, the rails on the coaster should line up perfectly, and the game recognises it as a continuous piece of track.
VB4jwZul.jpg


Build the rest of you ride, then place whatever floor pieces & scenery you wish. I like to use the flat metal roof as it gives the cleanest finish
AHTOcdnl.jpg


As mentioned before, there is one moment where you would want to turn angle snap off, and that would be if you wanted to make a two-way ‘straight’ piece of track

Start as before, the same as before building up to where you want the direction change (in this example I left a piece of normal track as the final piece - this would allow a change of friction wheel speed (imaging there was a door with a dragon behind it, you approach the door slowly, the door opens and you reverse away quickly)

Build the extra pieces of track as before (the pieces with the catwalk attached)

Delete the last two section of the track you wish to keep
cmSBKoSl.jpg


Build the new track of the reverse direction (turn angle snap off, and set to something like 1 degree) (orange track)

Build the rest of the track (i put snap back on here to make perfect straight again - once the floor is in place it will look like the car is going straight forward & straight back)
8AOKioxl.jpg

4ooT33Ol.jpg


Using this technique you can get something like below - the train ride up to the far door, the door opens and a dragon says hello, and you reverse away quickly, exiting via the side door
S8iy2kfl.jpg



A FEW CAVEATS:

The train will glitch slightly as it crosses this track, and the method of glitch various depending on the train type. This is why I like using the spinning coaster - if the spin is unlocked, the wheel assembly does a weird glitch, but the seating portion appears to just slightly twitch (though in reality it has spun 180 degree - hence it wont look right on ride)

The rapids ride WILL work perfectly on ride, though to hide the track you will have the guests clipping through the fake floor you would add. The rapids ride is also more problematic to build due to the track only allowing construction ‘one way’ so to speak.

By far the best two for for this method are the Rapids Ride and Spinning Coaster. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Spinning Coaster:
Pros:
Much easier to build with
Looks better
Block brakes make it easier to implement near misses & such
Compact designs possible

Cons:
Being completely flat, the ride will always have a terrible excitement rating (0.5 if lucky :(), so useless if you want peeps to ride the thing
Train glitchy as crosses the glitched track sections
On ride wont be perfect due to train spinning 180 as it crosses threshold
Rapids Ride
Pros:
On ride works perfectly as the boats a free spinning and dont glitch as they cross ‘broken’ track
Gives a better excitement rating

Cons:
Construction of ride if difficult, needs an even number of glitched track sections, or the ride wont be a complete circuit, and if you make a mistake in construction, you could end up having to delete track all the way back to the glitched section
Glitched section of track seems very hit and miss as to whether it has made the connection or not. It is not as easy as it is with the spinning coaster rails to see if the track is perfectly aligned
Will require much more space to to the minimum track length
To make trackless, floor will clip through the boat at such a point that the guests won’t appear to have legs!
 
Wow, that's genious! I had no idea all this was going on under the floor in the 1st pic. I'll have to play with this. Thanks!
 
Oh, what an amazing idea!I love the way you sued it, and already think of how I can implement that in a ride I'm planning :) Thank you very much!!!
 
With some time and patience, it is perfectly feasible to get a ride system very similar to the one Disney uses. 4 simultaneous cars moving round the track on their own slightly seperate paths. Obviously, we can't get the ride to stop to watch scenes we have set out, or make the cars face certain key pieces of a scene, but I still think there is some potential here :)

God bless the station sync option!

'Sketching' out some rooms and track, it is incredibly frustrating trying to build 4 tracks simultaneously trying to make sure they stay close to each other without colliding!
20170503132910_1.jpg
 
Didnt even think about that sort of usage with the monorail! We can finally get shuttle monorails if people dont mind the weird flipping train!



Video footage of the ride in motion, a full overview of what it looks like when the track is hidden (Just imagine some scenery the cars are interacting with) and then a closer look following the trains around to see exactly what is going in!
https://youtu.be/pq3vtWaWnaU
 
Thanks a lot for sharing.... I couldn't resist and got to give it a try with the monorail


http://i.imgur.com/EMjafIH.gifv

LOL! I suppose you could hide the unsightly flipping of the train at the end by extending the track a bit behind the station and covering that with a building or tunnel.

But, the ideal thing would be to have a perfectly linear track with a station at each end, and run 2 trains so they'd crash head-on :)
 
I don't really get it, but it looks great in the video! [up] basically, you made the coaster stop and turn around in place, then go in another direction, without using a brake or power launch?
 
I don't really get it, but it looks great in the video! [up] basically, you made the coaster stop and turn around in place, then go in another direction, without using a brake or power launch?

OK, the game moves cars from 1 section of track to the next section in line, but only if the ends of these sections occupy the same space. DogBearCougar has discovered that this is all the game cares about---it doesn't care if the track sections point in opposite directions, overlap, etc.

So, what's happening in the game is that the car moves along Track Section A to its end. There it finds the end of Track Section B in the same place, so the car continues on Track Section B. But in this case, Track Section B is overlapping Section A pointing in the opposite direction. But the game doesn't notice this, it just keeps the car moving "forward" from one section to the next as if the track was built normally nose-to-tail. So the car isn't really backing up on Section A, it's still going "forward" on Section B. Which is why the car switches ends when it comes to the end of Section A.

EDIT: At first, this appears to violate conservation of momentum, what with the instantaneous direction change without any external force applied. HOWEVER, as far as the game's concerned, there is no change of direction. The car is always moving "forward". This says a lot about how the game handles physics calculations.
 
@Bullethead - i understand HOW it works, I was not asking about the operations or the fact that he has overlapping tracks, I'm just not sure how this is beneficial? Thats a lot of work just to make it look like the car is turning around or switching lanes or whatever. Is it supposed to be for creating dark rides or themed track rides that spin?

It would be cool to see more scenery added to the video Dog made, but I don't see how practical that is to make a ride like that. Like he said, excitement is 0.5 so no guests will enjoy this. It looks alright on the small coaster car, but it looks janky with the monorail when its glitching directions.
 
use your fantasy. think of a ride with 5 trains performing a facepalm move.

imho it's each day a surprise what the people are able to dig out of this game. love it :)
 
@Bullethead - i understand HOW it works, I was not asking about the operations or the fact that he has overlapping tracks, I'm just not sure how this is beneficial? Thats a lot of work just to make it look like the car is turning around or switching lanes or whatever. Is it supposed to be for creating dark rides or themed track rides that spin?

Ah, OK. Well, rather than trying to recreate some sort of flat-track powered ride, you could use this in an actual coaster I suppose, with all the hills and valleys normally need to create excitement. You could use it add a boomerrang-type element to the coaster. Might be neat to do.
 
It would be cool to see more scenery added to the video Dog made, but I don't see how practical that is to make a ride like that. Like he said, excitement is 0.5 so no guests will enjoy this. It looks alright on the small coaster car, but it looks janky with the monorail when its glitching directions.
I'll agree to this point, the excitement thing is irritating, but we don't really make the heavily themed dark rides for the Guests satisfaction now, do we? [big grin][big grin]

I'm also not the most creative of people, there could be others uses here we aren't seeing yet?

It does work quite well with the Rapids ride for a bit more variety in direction and car movements (provided you don't mind a little clipping through the trough). The excitement on the rapids will be the usual 4+ too. Spinning coaster is only so rubbish because its based on a coaster.
 
That looks great, you can make some nice switches with it. Come to think of it... I havent tried to make switches after the no coaster collisions update. I should try that soon
 
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