@Fishbreath, that’s amazing. Sadly I don’t think I’ll ever have the patience or attention to detail to put something like that together. The ability to build crazy awesome stuff like that seems to be the strong suit of Planet Coaster. As a business sim it seems a bit weak. But when you can make stuff like this, who cares?
It looks impressive, and I’m proud of the scenery I’ve built around the track in the cave, but the way the train goes in front of the moon a few times was purely accidental. I’m not actually all that creative a person when it comes to building things—the tools are just that good.
@jpinard, you’re welcome! I’m glad it helped you find some direction. I’m going to keep updating the workshop item. It may not be as cool as the biodomes or the Up house, but I’m enjoying building it.
I played quite a bit over the weekend but was left with so many questions. Thanks to those who posted links above to videos. The lack of tutorial/manual/whatever is … absurd. Linking to YouTube videos is an amateur move to be honest.
Other things that bothered me:
- The controls are difficult to get used to. You end up moving in all axes quite a bit if you build something beyond the built-in rides, and that’s when you struggle for a bit. There should be easier snap-to views, though I do like that I can do that through the important message pop-ups.
- The economic model has some decent reports, but to be honest, I’m having a hard time losing money. Big expenses are new rides, research, and marketing. And none of them have really slowed me down yet. I should attempt a different career game or something.
- Where the fuck is the bulldozer button. I built half of a queue to a ride, then deleted the ride. The queue is still on the map but I can’t figure out how to get rid of the damned thing.
- Employees are either not modeled well or modeled too well. They all want to quit within a year. You can keep them for a bit with training, but once they start getting really well trained, no manner of raises seems to please them, and you start getting employees quitting. About the only thing I can take from that is to keep hiring and training new employees. Other than that, I’m not sure if there is something I’m doing causing them to quit. I also wish I could just fire them when they get near maximum training and I’m tired of throwing money at them to get them to stay.
- Making a new coaster, one of the tenets of the game, really, really needs a better tutorial. There are tons of options when building one, but many of them aren’t even mentioned in the short YouTube link for building.
- It’s frustrating when you click on something, say a path, but get no detail on it, like the width of said path for example. So you end up building and deleting trying to get things to match.
- Who decided bathrooms needed entrance/exits on the opposite side of a building when everyone walks in one path along a theme park?
- Why won’t park visitors step one foot into the grass to use a waste bin, but will do so if it’s on the path, where it also limits the flow of people walking?
I guess I’ll watch some of the videos and see where I’m going wrong.
To bulldoze something, select it then hit the bulldoze button that comes up in the little pop-up.
You can turn off one of the bathroom entrances. Again, select it, then select one of the two bathrooms in the pop-up, then you can close it and turn it off.
Telefrog is right in the general case, but for paths, it’s easier to open the paths pane, then right-click on path segments you want to delete. (Or at least I think it’s easier.)
I haven’t run into this, but I overpay. A good rule of thumb (in my game, anyway) is that you should be paying an employee at least what the next level of training costs. I’ve had the same janitors for eight in-game years or so.
I do think having to manage vendors is silly, though, especially since some of my shops are not well-traveled.
If you’re using the premade buildings, it may appear to have entrances/exits on opposite sides, but the functional part of every shop/stall is a one-grid-space cube with an interaction on one side. You don’t need to connect both sides of the premade bathrooms.
No, there’s a bathroom (I think the pirate themed one) that has an entrance cube built into the front and back. If you stick one side against a road and put the other side towards nothing, you’ll get constant notices that no one can get to the bathroom because there’s no valid path. You have to open the building tab and “close” the side you’re not using.
Eurogamer’s review. I have already made my feelings known, and they seem to agree.
[quote]
As a design tool, Planet Coaster’s ambitions and implementation are near-faultless; unfortunately, however, its management side doesn’t impress nearly as much. It’s a curiously unambitious, simplistic and often retrograde part of the game, dramatically at odds with the genuinely groundbreaking creation side.[/quote]
Although I’d still count the lack of actual tutorials and the lame Career mode scenarios as negatives.
Huh. I didn’t realize. How odd.
I suspect that the general population will treat this as a toy more than a sim. My wife would be the perfect example as a more complex simulation would frustrate her (though she could just play the sandbox).
How hard would it be for them to add more complexity to the sim or perhaps add a challenge mode with a more rebust management side? Not sure if the management coding is so entwined that they could do so?
funny thing about what you mentioned about employees… I’d find that annoying as well, but think about it. I doubt that many people are lifetime amusement park workers. Maybe a year or two and then done. move on to something else. I’ll have to keep that in mind when I play :D
I worked for Great Adventure in NJ when I was 17. The funniest thing that ever happened was when Andy Gibbs was in the park. We had over 65k attendees that day. They took all the employees parking spaces for the customers and directed us to park in the Safari area in the muddy grass and were busing us to the park.
Well the Water Buffaloes decided to stand in the road! It was absolutely hysterical. There they were munching on their grass looking at us and we could not get to the park. 45 minutes later they finally moved.
Well when we got to the park we were informed we were being docked for those 45 minutes. Everyone went ballistic and started to go home. They had to relent and even gave us free sofa the rest of the day.
It was not a great place to work.
The population they end up with will treat it as a toy rather than a sim, just as with Cities: Skylines.
Thing is, they’re leaving a lot of what we MMO types call Achievers behind by neglecting the more game-y aspects. And there are many more Achievers out there than creative types, overall.
Speaking of my own experience with Cities: Skylines, I might be willing to ignore lack of meaty game mechanics in the initial release, just because I’m happy to finally have something decent in a neglected genre. But I won’t necessarily be rushing to buy expansions after the initial “It sure is pretty, but what do I do?” phase.
I think it is because it’s part of a queue that I can’t select. I wonder if I just build something over it if that would work?
[quote=“Fishbreath, post:267, topic:78071”]I haven’t run into this, but I overpay. A good rule of thumb (in my game, anyway) is that you should be paying an employee at least what the next level of training costs. I’ve had the same janitors for eight in-game years or so.
[/quote]
I’m fucking up then. I must not be keeping up on pay increases.
That’s the one, great tip!
You know, I actually thought that was what was going on. “Wait … maybe they all quit because the job sucks and they are going back to school.”
Another complaint: Flora is really limited, especially if you want to stay within the map theme.
How is there not a single flower bed? There’s a couple of potted and loose flower bushes, but no beds. If you make your own out of building parts and loose flowers, you’re going to repeat a lot of flowers.
Regarding trees, it would really help if you could scale them a bit to add more variety.
What I really want to know is can they mow the grass?
So far the game is giving me flashbacks of Sid Meier’s Railroads!. Where Railroad Tycoon 3 had an unforgiving learning curve but led to a challenging gameplay, Railroads! was made lighter and prettier and in my opinion, didn’t draw me in due to both of those things. It didn’t have low scores per se, but the reviews for the game did suffer a bit due to that.
I’m really hoping I will find more here with Planet Coaster, or it will be expanded. But I’m worried that in opening the game to make things look pretty and easier to get into, they haven’t cut off the challenge and “sim” like feeling of the games before it.
Grass does not grow.
RCT 1 I miss you still.
Was this posted yet. It’s kind of cool.
This was #1 on the Steam charts for last week, which I’m pleased to see (despite my kvetching about the lack of park management.)