Modern Coaster Systems

[Draco18s]

Just as I've fallen down a rabbit hole of Youtube videos about how various coasters work, there's a couple of elements that Parkitect (and for that matter, nearly all coaster tycoon games) don't have and which may be worth investigating.

Just to take this one ride as an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuTn6MW_szA

1) Switch sections (9:38)
High speed live transfer sections that switch the track direction after a train passes over it to either split the direction of travel for the next train (effectively increasing the number of block sections) or to redirect the same train as it stalls and reverses. Video details the latter, but briefly mentions that one scene is duplicated for higher throughput (10:58).

2) Drop sections (11:13)
Ride comes to a stop at a dead end, then the track drops down to a new section to exit. There's a couple variants of this, the one featured in Hagrid's Motorbike Adventure is a vertical freefall drop, but the Escape from Gringots ride uses a tilted section of track, accomplishing approximately the same role, while the Tower of Terror accomplishes the same result in a different manner (being primary a dark ride, the "car" is more or less bleachers on wheels and only moves forwards and backwards, the drop is accomplished via a separate elevator system).

3) Dynamic loading stations (16:20)
Station that enables faster loading and unloading for low-capacity trains, but requires minimum station length and restricted ride entry placement.

4) Dark ride detail props
I haven't actually seen the Dark Ride ride yet, but searching the discussion boards indicates that it does exist, but that wouldn't be sufficient to replicate something like Gringots or the Motorbike Adventure which is a hybrid ride between Coaster and Scenic. Having a prop object (or several) that only provided value to track sections (and ride queues) where the train moves at slow speed and must be placed "indoors" (as far as the game is concerned, rain protected) could really boost ride design creativity.

I can see a need for about three different versions of the prop:
- one side, which faces a straight track section.
- interior corner, which has a wide viewing angle visible from multiple sides
- exterior corner, which has a narrow viewing angle

The 3D model wouldn't need to look like much, but there could be visual variants (Pepper's Ghost, Animatronic, Screen Projection) as it would be hidden by other prop decorations in order to satisfy the "inside" requirement.

[Enterprofilenamehere]

Drop sections are already possible with the elevator pieces available for the swinging, spinning and wild mouse coasters (you need the Taste of Adventure DLC though). Just set them to go down instead of up.

[Enterprofilenamehere]

I'm not sure what you mean by "Dynamic loading stations". 16:20 is just black in the video.

[Draco18s]

Originally posted by Enterprofilenamehere:

Drop sections are already possible with the elevator pieces available for the swinging, spinning and wild mouse coasters (you need the Taste of Adventure DLC though). Just set them to go down instead of up.

Don't have that DLC so that'd be why I hadn't seen them. Cool.

Originally posted by Enterprofilenamehere:

I'm not sure what you mean by "Dynamic loading stations". 16:20 is just black in the video.

I am not sure where I got that number from, yikes. It's at 3:20

[Enterprofilenamehere]

Originally posted by Draco18s:

I am not sure where I got that number from, yikes. It's at 3:20

Ok, yeah that isn't possible (I didn't want to watch the whole video).

[Enterprofilenamehere]

Also slow-speed switch tracks are available for the junior and mine train coasters if you own Booms and Blooms (although they don't work like what is in the video).

[Draco18s]

Originally posted by Enterprofilenamehere:

Also slow-speed switch tracks are available for the junior and mine train coasters if you own Booms and Blooms (although they don't work like what is in the video).

Also cool.

[Draco18s]

Some more clever ride things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc33v7JItS4

Trackless dark ride.

9:34 has a map schematic of the attraction. The train (engine + 4 cars) becomes "unhooked" from each other and rove around "at random" throughout most of the ride (Scenes 3-9); the engine takes a different route.

[Krall]

Originally posted by Enterprofilenamehere:

Drop sections are already possible with the elevator pieces available for the swinging, spinning and wild mouse coasters (you need the Taste of Adventure DLC though). Just set them to go down instead of up.

You're not saying the elevator pieces can be used with the rides are you?

[Enterprofilenamehere]

Originally posted by Krall:

Originally posted by Enterprofilenamehere:

Drop sections are already possible with the elevator pieces available for the swinging, spinning and wild mouse coasters (you need the Taste of Adventure DLC though). Just set them to go down instead of up.

You're not saying the elevator pieces can be used with the rides are you?

I'm not sure what you mean. If you don't own ToA you can't use elevator track pieces.

[Sliverius]

It's really look fun recreating this coaster , with Switch Sector , and Drop Section

[coasterbuf]

Originally posted by Krall:

Originally posted by Enterprofilenamehere:

Drop sections are already possible with the elevator pieces available for the swinging, spinning and wild mouse coasters (you need the Taste of Adventure DLC though). Just set them to go down instead of up.

You're not saying the elevator pieces can be used with the rides are you?

There's elevators for people, but a couple of the rides (mentioned above) also have elevator sections of their own. I have built a wild mouse with a drop elevator section where the doors open just before the drop (like Tower of Terror). It's turning out pretty good so far.

But it would be awesome if most every track ride could have an elevator section. And spur tracks into launches like some of the Intamin coasters do now.