How do you guys start your parks?

[LastJedi]

How do you guys like to start your parks? Do you like to close the park first, build the main plaza with shops and stuff, then venture out and start building rides & coasters? Do you let guests in little by little until you get more rides in so that your queues aren't lasting forever?

What do you like to start with?

I usually close the park at first. Take some time in building my park entrance. Then after that, going in and building the main plaza where my peeps will eat & drink. Then I will build a flat ride, usually go karts to start with. Then a wooden coaster here, kids ride there. Then go on from there, all the while increasing the park guest limit so my little park isn't overwhelmed with peeps

 

[aDOLPHINjoy18]

- For the first minute my park is open so that I can confirm guests are spawning
If you were in the Alpha program last year, when the full version or Beta version came out, guests stopped spawning in your park because the spawn entrance was missing or not in the same place.

- Close park
- Work on entrance and plaza
- Add water areas using terrain tool
- Place all rides I want in the park in one corner of the park, then plan where I want to position them
- Place the flat rides where I want them.
- Create paths
- Add coaster rides
- Create paths
- Add monorail transport ride network (strategic stops around the park, first stop around the plaza)
- Add scenery
- then..... open my park and watch the crowds come in.
- Adjust the queue sizes to rides so that half the population aren't queued up for just one or two rides.

I play on starting a new sandbox map when the new update comes out November 22. I might change my approach to building my next park when the update comes out. I want to be finished most or all of it by early or mid December since in Australia and New Zealand, December to February is our summer break and will be going away on holiday over new years. And since my laptop is not good with playing games (has a 6th gen i5 processor) but my desktop at home has good specs and I play my PC games on it.

 

[RubberKerfuffle]

My approach to my park was as follows:

- Close park
- Build railway (travels around perimeter of park so acts as border)
- Build entrance plaza/main street area
- Build park centerpiece - medieval castle
- Start going around park building themed lands one by one.

 

[LastJedi]

My approach to my park was as follows:

- Close park
- Build railway (travels around perimeter of park so acts as border)
- Build entrance plaza/main street area
- Build park centerpiece - medieval castle
- Start going around park building themed lands one by one.

What if you just wanted to stick with one theme?

 

[Helena]

I mostly play career parks so I have to be economic.. So a little by little! I prefer doing the simulation aspect over the "painter" game.

 

[Spanky]

I search first in the internet for some ideas and inspirations, look also in the workshop, what I can find there and if I can borrow some of the ideas. Then I start to build something, that match with my inspirations. But after these I always stumble unfortunetely over my own claims and build anything several time new. Sometimes I wish we could add our self created scenery to fill the gaps, that I could need to make my buildings the way I want them.

So I'm happy to read this thread with all the park building suggestions and hopefully find a way, to finish also my own parks some day soon. Currently all my park projects are on hold 'il christmas because of the upcomimg anniversary update and hopefuly coming Christmas/Winter update or DLC.

 

[RubberKerfuffle]

What if you just wanted to stick with one theme?

I'd probably just still work around the park filling the gaps. Adding a border and a central landmark (or a "weenie" as Silvarret puts it) just makes it a lot easier to plan out your park using the available space.

 

[ThunderboltDragon]

Like the others I start with pausing the game.
Then I have a look at objectives , cash reserve, cash flow, loans, current staffing, shops available coaster types/other rides.
Depending on the status of the above I then do different things.
Can I take a loan and put in one of my own already made coasters I usually do that because that will usually sort out the cash flow and profit enough
to hire some more staff build more rides/coasters and etc.
Otherwise I might have to build a small custom coaster or just put in a few flat rides to make enough money to build a coaster.

I have a smaller hybrid coaster which costs about 10K. Long enough for guests to pay really well to go on it
but short/simple enough to avoid the breakdown epidemic which the larger/longer coasters suffers from.

 

[Gysan]

I mostly play career parks so I have to be economic.. So a little by little! I prefer doing the simulation aspect over the "painter" game.

Same here aswell. Most playing the careers right now. [happy]
Always have the park open to start gain money instantly. Expand little by little. Depending of the economy all the time at start. When you play on career mode, you can't really plan so much roads and stuff that cost to mush to build. You gotta invest those initial money in enough flat rides to start up you economy.

In sandbox mode however, I aswell close the park. Make a great entrance area. Build up a reasonable part of the park. Then opens up. [haha]

 

[KickAir8p]

I'm playing career. First I run through the scenario as fast and dirty as possible until I reach the end of the research trees, writing 'em down as I go, so I know what I have to work with. Then I restart it, taking inspiration from the scenario setup (the developers have done some beautiful work). If I have Teacups I'll usually make that the first ride from the entrance, in a building done in my main theme. If feasible I'll then put two or so more exciting flat rides (maybe a coaster) behind it, where they'll share an exit area -- that gets bathrooms, at least one first aid (depending on nausea stats), a bloons/hats/gifts shop, food stall, and drink stall.

If feasible the paths from here will branch off into differently themed areas, with maybe one continuing the main theme -- extra drink stalls go on these when I start getting thirsty-guest notices. If the space I have is too stretched out I'll try to pair flat rides so they share an exit area (bathrooms & first aid). Then a bloons/hats/gifts shop, food stall, and drink stall between the pairs (or between every other pair).

Farther back I'll usually have a theme-appropriate track ride grouped with more exciting flats. I'm not big on coasters (sorry), so I'll usually grab one or two that meet the scenario requirements (maybe edit 'em a bit), with a themed station/queue building.

Screenshot is of Teacups in a castle, done in the Great Tree scenario.​

 

[Lurker1]

I'm a bit weird.

Mostly I like to create a park as if it was a real park. A new area with a coaster (or 2 if it's a period of ambitious expansion) and a flat. During that time the area remains closed, I usually connect things up and usually even put fencing down with a coming soon sign. it takes a bit longer but it gives my parks a history.

But then I usually do a 'soft open' before it's finished off to check the flow of traffic around an area, rework anything that doesn't flow smoothly and make sure it looks how I want it to.

But also I get distracted by new projects, or other things I want to do small improvements on. So often things get opened without being 100%, then I do a closed season (for that area of the park, very rarely close the park all together) and do some improvements.

I try and do all work as if there has to be an area cleared for customers. So popping down fences (and a row of bins) to stop the flow of people is super normal in my park.

For example- we had a coaster that had been placed on an 'island' in the middle of a rapids ride. The bridge used was thin and bland as I wasn't expecting much traffic. As I managed to squeeze another ride in the flow became too much for the bridge. So first I built a new path, which went a long way around (it was supposed to be temporary, but ended up staying and getting a few shops along it). Then the old bridge was closed, path heading up to it was closed off with fences and bins. Then the bridge was edited and reopened.

I love the way people flood to the new area when I open it. It's great to see a big crowd head into the new area.

TLDR :- keep it as 'real' as possible, close off rides and paths to work in close by areas and then have an 'opening' when the work is done.