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Planet Coaster Tips, Tricks & General Chat

I will surely try the Cam Time Machine. And also the inversions - but my point is mostly that if you have an exit of an inversion close to a hillside you have to put in a rather painful looking curve to avoid running into the mountain. Yes I could adjust the mountain but then again have to adjust another coaster running there already. Lesson learned: Built inversion coasters first and non-inversion coasters later. My Lisebergbanan lookalike was far easier to sculpt to the mountain as its using no inversions - and also got the far better ride ratings.

Another question: Is there a way to make mirrors? This came up during building my Lisebergbanan station.

And one more: Is there a way to adjust the walkways to the exact height of a building floor or roof? I always try to give my buildings flooring by using flat roof pieces and when I lay the walkway afterwards the virtual guests are always missing their feet.... 😂
 
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SimonProD said:
And one more: Is there a way to adjust the walkways to the exact height of a building floor or roof? I always try to give my buildings flooring by using flat roof pieces and when I lay the walkway afterwards the virtual guests are always missing their feet.... 😂
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Maybe try to start building your path from the entrance or exit (place your entrance or exit with auto connect on) and then go up to the roof of the station. This way you can have your path exactly on top of your station building and will connect directly to the walls of your station building. I always work with metrics on because this way it is way easier to build your creations symmetrical.

Worth saying that I play this game on console and I don't know exactly what the differences with PC are.
 
Some more observations:

  • As my park gets more heavily themed and I set more triggers to rides the one-ride camera starts to skip frames. I checked the graphics and cpu performance on my Alienware while PlaCo is running and they are far from getting to their limits so I guess its the game's fault. Is there anything I can do so rides are smooth again? On parks that have no theming - just some coasters and rides plunked onto the grass the ride cam is smooth....
  • I tried with the Cam Time Machine after also watching this Youtube tutorial and while it works as described on slow rides - track dark ride, rafting - its very erratic on my Schwarzkopf Katapult darkride. The ride is simple: station > overbanked curve with friction wheels set to 55mph > loop > overbanked curve > station, one ride is 4 laps. So far the time on the cam always resets in the loop - I tried to fix this by activating it in the apex of the loop - but in at least one lap its resetting the cam time anyhow. Any ideas?
  • I used a ride from the Workshop and on startup there is always a message about missing audio. As there is no audio linked to the ride - while the audio file name indicates that ride. Can I somewhere see all user integrated media at a glance?
 
SimonProD said:
Some more observations:

  • As my park gets more heavily themed and I set more triggers to rides the one-ride camera starts to skip frames. I checked the graphics and cpu performance on my Alienware while PlaCo is running and they are far from getting to their limits so I guess its the game's fault. Is there anything I can do so rides are smooth again? On parks that have no theming - just some coasters and rides plunked onto the grass the ride cam is smooth....
  • I tried with the Cam Time Machine after also watching this Youtube tutorial and while it works as described on slow rides - track dark ride, rafting - its very erratic on my Schwarzkopf Katapult darkride. The ride is simple: station > overbanked curve with friction wheels set to 55mph > loop > overbanked curve > station, one ride is 4 laps. So far the time on the cam always resets in the loop - I tried to fix this by activating it in the apex of the loop - but in at least one lap its resetting the cam time anyhow. Any ideas?
  • I used a ride from the Workshop and on startup there is always a message about missing audio. As there is no audio linked to the ride - while the audio file name indicates that ride. Can I somewhere see all user integrated media at a glance?
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In answer to your observations:
  • Sadly, that’s the case regardless of what system you use. One of Planet Coaster’s main bottlenecks is that when your park gets more detailed, the frame rate goes down. The drop does grow less pronounced the more powerful your system is (I certainly noticed this when upgrading to a new PC from my old laptop), but even the most powerful system experiences this bottleneck in PlanCo.
  • Are you setting the Ride Cam Time Machine to “activate on trigger”, or are you leaving it on “play on trigger” (which is what it sets to by default)? I noticed that something similar was happening with mine when I left it on “Play on Trigger”, but it worked as intended when I put it onto “Activate on Trigger”. If it’s on “Activate on Trigger”, the time machine will only go off at any time if there’s a “Deactivate on Trigger” point elsewhere in the layout; even when the ride ends, the ride cam should permanently stay in the time you’ve set it to.
  • Audio files won’t be integrated because they come from the hard drive of the user who uploaded them as opposed to being part of the game itself; the user audio files come from a hard drive directory associated with Planet Coaster called UserMusic. As such, the game will be searching the UserMusic directory for an audio file with the name that was originally specified by the user who created the park. Due to this, it won’t play any user music or say that the ride has any music unless an audio file of the same name is found in the directory on your hard drive. If you want to play music on it, select either one of the game’s soundtracks or a soundtrack from your own UserMusic library.
Hope that helps!
 
SimonProD said:
Some more observations:

  • As my park gets more heavily themed and I set more triggers to rides the one-ride camera starts to skip frames. I checked the graphics and cpu performance on my Alienware while PlaCo is running and they are far from getting to their limits so I guess its the game's fault. Is there anything I can do so rides are smooth again? On parks that have no theming - just some coasters and rides plunked onto the grass the ride cam is smooth....
  • I tried with the Cam Time Machine after also watching this Youtube tutorial and while it works as described on slow rides - track dark ride, rafting - its very erratic on my Schwarzkopf Katapult darkride. The ride is simple: station > overbanked curve with friction wheels set to 55mph > loop > overbanked curve > station, one ride is 4 laps. So far the time on the cam always resets in the loop - I tried to fix this by activating it in the apex of the loop - but in at least one lap its resetting the cam time anyhow. Any ideas?
  • I used a ride from the Workshop and on startup there is always a message about missing audio. As there is no audio linked to the ride - while the audio file name indicates that ride. Can I somewhere see all user integrated media at a glance?
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  1. Have you tried lowering your graphics settings? you can boost you're fps that way. Sadly the game isn't the best optimised so the more you add, the more you will lose frames.
  2. I am unsure about this one, but maybe you can select the ride, click on the construction icon, delete a section of track, re-connect it and re-open the ride, that might do something?
  3. Is it definitely an mp3 file? I can only suggest checking if it playing from your files and make sure that it is in the right folder. ^ What @Matt N said
 
I assume the time machine was never intended to work with coasters. Its set on "acitvate on trigger" but always resets at exactly the apex of the loop. I have now set 4 triggers to "activate on trigger" and most of times it works.

I see that the frame rate drop is most severe when the coaster reaches areas with many simulated guests. When the coaster is zipping through some woods its rather smooth - when its gets back to the station at the midway frame rate drops badly. I will try reducing the number of daily guests next by increments of 500. On closer inspection I assume this is more a CPU issue combined with using old DirectX11 - DirectDraw calls with Dx11 all run on one core - Dx12 would be multicore :(
 
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One more thing: I have the game cloud synced with steam. How can I copy an existing park? To freeze one status of it and then continue.

Edit: Already found it. The idea is to have one save with the complete park and mulitple saves like front-rear-upper-lower area were I delete parts of the park until the POVs of the coasters are smooth again without frame drops ...
 
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Hi all,
Sorry that this isn’t expressly related to PlanCo as such, but it is related to the videos I upload to show off my PlanCo work.

Basically, I uploaded a video this evening for the Speed Building Contest, and I used a bit of theme park audio within the video. For the first time thus far, YouTube has given me a copyright claim. Not a copyright strike, which is apparently worse and has actual effects on your channel, but a copyright claim.

From what I can gather, the copyright owner’s policy is that they have no issue with the video remaining up, but they have to run ads on it and I’m not allowed to gain money from it; the ad revenue goes to the copyright owner.

However, I do not run my YouTube channel as a public channel (every video on there is unlisted, and only people with a direct link can view them), and I have no intention of monetising my channel or trying to profit from it or pursue it as a legitimate venture; I use it purely as a means of showing you guys my Planet Coaster creations, and for absolutely nothing else.

So what I was basically going to ask is; is this anything to be worried about if I’m not intending to profit off of my channel or run it as a legitimate business venture? Should I remove the content that YouTube has flagged, or do you think it’s OK to stay there seeing as it’s only a copyright claim as opposed to a copyright strike, and I have no intention of ever monetising my channel or making it a properly public venture?
 
Did they specify what material the copyright claim is for? If, for example the claim is for music, you could just disable the in game music before you film. There’s plenty of royalty free music online that you could add to your videos if having music is important to you.

Copyright enforcement on YouTube is a big mess, and it’s exacerbated by the fact that copyright laws are woefully outdated and inadequate when it comes to the internet.
 
Matt N said:
So what I was basically going to ask is; is this anything to be worried about if I’m not intending to profit off of my channel or run it as a legitimate business venture? Should I remove the content that YouTube has flagged, or do you think it’s OK to stay there seeing as it’s only a copyright claim as opposed to a copyright strike, and I have no intention of ever monetising my channel or making it a properly public venture?
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It's nothing to worry about. Just ignore it.

Copyright strike is a different kettle of fish, but it's highly unlikely a PlanCo video that you have created would fall foul of that.
 
Matt N said:
Hi all,
Sorry that this isn’t expressly related to PlanCo as such, but it is related to the videos I upload to show off my PlanCo work.

Basically, I uploaded a video this evening for the Speed Building Contest, and I used a bit of theme park audio within the video. For the first time thus far, YouTube has given me a copyright claim. Not a copyright strike, which is apparently worse and has actual effects on your channel, but a copyright claim.

From what I can gather, the copyright owner’s policy is that they have no issue with the video remaining up, but they have to run ads on it and I’m not allowed to gain money from it; the ad revenue goes to the copyright owner.

However, I do not run my YouTube channel as a public channel (every video on there is unlisted, and only people with a direct link can view them), and I have no intention of monetising my channel or trying to profit from it or pursue it as a legitimate venture; I use it purely as a means of showing you guys my Planet Coaster creations, and for absolutely nothing else.

So what I was basically going to ask is; is this anything to be worried about if I’m not intending to profit off of my channel or run it as a legitimate business venture? Should I remove the content that YouTube has flagged, or do you think it’s OK to stay there seeing as it’s only a copyright claim as opposed to a copyright strike, and I have no intention of ever monetising my channel or making it a properly public venture?
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Yep nothing to worry about, just the owner of the rights to the music you used has claimed their right to any royalties from your video… Until you monetise your channel personally, which you do not intend to do, it means absolutely nothing to you.

There are even massive channels on youtube that use mainstream music, give up the ad revenue, and make all their money through sponsorship and Patreon…

Fear not.
 
SimonProD said:
Another question: Is there a way to make mirrors?
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This depends on the scene. It would be possible if you take a video of the ride vehicle arriving in the scene (from the point perspective of the mirror location in the scene) and then mirror it in video editing. Then put the video on a billboard which serves as the mirror. Maybe you have to cut out the video a little bit, so only the mirror section is shown ;) I will use this effect in my upcoming darkride Schloss Dracula!
 
has annybody any traveling coasters under 10 meter in height that i can use for a school project? it needs to be realistic but i dont find any on steam. i am making a festival inside a building for school thats why i need it to make a map
 
It's very easy to make money if you charge for rides instead of park entry, so I've been experimenting with park entry instead.

The park tanked and was now losing 12-16,000 a month so I had to take out a mega loan to keep it afloat. This is where it now gets interesting... how do you make money using this mechanism? Park entry doesn't really cut it as the simulation isn't real-time, i.e. guests can be in the park indefinitely and they only pay upon entry to the park, this means there's no daily intake of guests, clearly you need to make money elsewhere so:

Hotels, after approximately 6 months in the park, guests will either leave or look to stay in a hotel if you have one. So I built one, made it nice (the game's prestige mechanic impacts how attractive the hotel is to guests), and experimented with how much I could charge for it. There are two tiers if room, standard and luxury. I found it was best to do away with standard and go full what in luxury for 45 a night. Any more and guests wouldn't stay, any less and the money it would be pulling wouldn't really be worth it.

I also built a second hotel entirely standard at 30 a night, and open and close it when guest demand is there.

Hotels net me approx 2,500 a month. Nice.

Staff pay, on pay-per-ride I was overpaying staff to keep them happy. With some experimentation I realised this was costing me approximately 2,000 per month on top of the optimal amount. Staff are still happy and I've saved another 2,000.

Okay, what else? Restaurants. My park was entirely grab'n'go, but a later update to the game added restaurants. Functionally these work the same way as the hotels. You don't see inside, you just add modules which provide up to 42 tables total across 10 modules. Some further experimentation here with pricing lead to the realisation that you can charge much, much more for food here, and that 9 modules yielded the best results. I now have 3 restaurants earning a total (after costs) of 5,200 a month. Gold mine!

Okay, looking good now. Let's do some additional optimisation of grab'n'go food prices. Build a go-karts which you can get away with charging for (these would often be upcharges in real parks), run some ad campaigns to keep the influx of new guests per month healthy and... we're profitable. Profitable enough to add a new land with a decent B&M wing, track ride and flat ride, plus all the theming that goes with it.

Cracked it, and made the game much more engaging in the process.
 
Huh, also people don't seem to bothered about me charging a quid a pop on the park Monorail and Chairlift.
Ka'ching.
 
Ever hear a laptop scream? Yes, this is a full map, at night, with, 11k guests...

US5lDZt.png
 
Tonkso said:
Ever hear a laptop scream? Yes, this is a full map, at night, with, 11k guests...

US5lDZt.png
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Wow! What are your FPS like?

On my current system, I managed a reasonably fully themed map (it was a park with a lake in the middle and the park itself round the lake) with 41,000 guests and didn’t drop below 5FPS!
 
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