Otter's Master Guide to Realistic & High-Scoring Roller Coaster Construction (V1.01)

This is an advanced guide in its early stages meant to teach people how to take the roller coaster shaping engine and put it to work, churning out realistic, high-scoring, and aesthetically pleasing roller coasters in short hours of work.

This guide will teach about roller coasters and basic design properties, some introductory information and research sources on the real-world counterparts to the roller coaster styles of Planet Coaster, a list of tips and tricks for using the shaping engine effectively, the building blocks of custom elements and how to implement them into your rides, and how to use this information to effectively to create high-scoring rides.

Sorry about the branding image. It's a placeholder for now.

Introduction

So you want to design better roller coasters?

It's not the easiest process, especially for those who aren't spatially-minded, but I will try to teach you what I've learned through years of enthusiasm and fiddling in NoLimits Simulator, whether you're looking for some tricks to spice up the scant amount of cpu-hungry roller coasters in your newest sandbox project, or you're looking to use Planet Coaster as an engine for designing roller coasters, you've come to the right place! (I hope!)

But why should you trust me? Am I really good at the basics of design?

I believe actions speak louder than words, so here, have a sift through my two most recent rides (today was the day the arctic climate in these videos released, to give you a timeframe!) and the two rides they are loosely based on.

Workshop: RMC Hybrid
POV Video:

Workshop: Classic Intamin HyperCoaster
POV Video:

Disclaimer: I have not and will likely not ever be a professional roller coaster designer, most of what I know is gathered from years of enthusiasm, research, experimentation with roller coaster games and roller coaster design software, and intuition. If I get anything wrong in this guide. Feel free to (politely) correct me in the comments below.

So now that you either trust me enough to continue or have clicked off my awful guide, let's get right into it!

Glossary - Defining Terminology

Note:

This section of this guide will serve as a glossary area. I'll define terms and then maybe add an image if I feel a visual aid might help. I'll do my best to alphabetically organize it but I'm no miracle worker! I recommend you give it a skim before continuing, I'm going to be using some very enthusiast-grade roller coaster terminology so if you're not an enthusiast or designer it'll do you good to read up. If you read a word later in the guide that you don't understand, hit ctrl+f and look for it up here. If I get a few requests for a term I haven't included, I'll add it later.



Airtime - Airtime is simply negative vertical G Forces, which gives riders a 'floating from their seat'. Feeling. Most common at the crest of fast hills airtime adds to a ride by making the overall sensations more dynamic (It's worth noting high-speed airtime makes for a sizeable boost in overall excitement rating in Planet Coaster)

Airtime hill on Maverick @Cedar Point, notice the crest is tighter than the lead up to it, this is to keep the airtime even throughout the whole top of the hill
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Airtime Hill Visualized in Planet Coaster with the 'Vertical Acceleration' Heatmap, on which Airtime appears bright blue
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Heartline/Heartlining - The heartline is a surprsingly literal term. It simply means an imaginary line above the roller coaster track at roughly chest-height. Literally Heart Line. The track of most modern roller coasters is banked around the heartline, rather than around the spine. This gives the designers more freedom to use harsh banks by reducing the lateral g force incurred while sharply banking. This can be done in planet coaster by editing the banking offset (either positively or negatively depending on whether the track type faces up or down) in the right-hand tab.

The Heartline Visualized in NoLimits Simulator 2 (Yellow Line)
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A Heartline roll - In a perfect heartline roll, the heartline is straight
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LSM/LIM - Linear Synchronous Motor or Linear Induction Motor. These are modern high-powered launch systems that use a row of electromagnets to propel a train forward or backward. They are some of the most efficient and least prone to breaking down of the common roller coaster launch types, and they sound cool as hell.


Parabola and Parabolic hills - A Parabola in simple terms is the path something is going to follow as it arcs through the air and falls. A Parabolic hill is a hill that follows the Parabola over the crest, or a hill where the riders follow their own parabola, which creates an absolutely 0-G sense of weightlessness when done correctly. Intamin and B&M both actually have different styles of parabolic hill, B&M goes for very steep Parabolic Hill, while Intamin goes for lower, faster hills with larger crests and therefore more airtime.

The Rides of Planet Coaster (And Their Real-world Counterparts)

The next order of business is a little bit of homework.

Nobody likes homework, not even me! but I can't exactly tell you each subtle design trick of every individual manufacturer. It's something that comes from intuition over time of seeing rides they've designed in action!

• Basilisk

Real-World counterpart: RMC T-rex
Type: Prototype Steel Roller Coaster that runs on a single hollow steel rail. Currently none are in operation. Debuted at IAAPA 2015. Since there's no videos of the real thing, have an interview from IAAPA 2015

Iron Fury/Malice Unchained

Real-World counterpart: Rocky Mtn. Construction Topper Track and IBOX Track Inverting Wooden Roller Coasters
Type: Hybrid Wooden and Steel Roller Coasters

Black Falcon/Cloud Runner

Real-World counterpart: B&M Inverting Steel Winged Coasters
Type: Steel Roller Coaster, riders sit on low-riding wings of seats on either side of the car

Dragon/Wendigo

Real-World counterpart: Not my area of expertise (which is why I've included no images), but my best guess are S&S or Schwarzkopf Junior Roller Coasters, or a generic amalgamation of the idea of junior roller coasters in general. If anybody knows, let me know!
Type: Junior roller coasters meant for children riders

Anubis/Rage

Real-World counterpart: B&M Non-Inverting Steel Roller Coaster (Old and New-gen trains)
Type: Steel roller coaster designed for large heights.

Pioneer

Real-World counterpart: S&S Free-Fly Coaster
Type: Some kind of wonderful Frankenstein's monster

Invincible/Tiamat

Real-World counterpart: Intamin Non-inverting Steel Roller Coaster
Type: Steel roller coaster designed for large heights. The winged variant is a much newer design.

The Monster

Real-World counterpart: Nondescript 6-Seater Wooden Roller Coaster
Type: Wooden Roller Coaster. 6-seater trains provide high capacity but low overall articulation. I've included multiple POVs of different styles of wooden coaster.

Equalizer

Real-World counterpart: Arrow Dynamics Hyper Coaster
Type: Hyper-Coaster, not usually exceeding much more than 200ft, the original hyper coaster was rough but uncompromisingly fast and tall.

Boa/Rival

Real-World counterpart: This one's a Doozy, Frontier slipped it would seem. While the Rival is very obviously a standard B&M inverted coaster, the second is what seems to be an... intamin impulse train? But on a B&M track? Which is why the cars look abnormally wider than the seats which is atypical for B&M but common for Intamin whose track has a slimmer profile
Type: Inverted Steel Roller Coaster, inverting often these rides tend to suit compact spaces better than non-inverted rides. There is no real-world counterpart to the Boa I've ever seen, but since it's pretty much exactly the same price-wise as the 4-seater, has lower capacity, and isn't launched by LSMs, there is absolutely zero reason to build it over the Rival anyway.

Stingray

Real-World counterpart: B&M Flying Roller Coaster
Type: This ride places the riders parallel to the track, allowing for both inverted track and upright track elements and a sensation of flying.

Spiral

Real-World counterpart: Outward-facing spinning coaster.
Type: Good for small spaces, high articulation trains that can spin freely allow for tight turns back and forth and small dips, similar to wild mouse rides.

Torque/Sprint 500

Real-World counterpart: Intamin Launched coasters, both LSM and Hydraulic variants.
Type: High-speed steel roller coasters, hydraulic is better for extreme speeds and acceleration, stratacoasters (over 400ft) especially. LSM is better for smaller-scale rides.

Aethon

Real-World counterpart: B&M Dive Machine
Type: Diving roller coaster. Wide, short trains that are designed to comfortably drop down 90 degrees vertically.

Enigma/Werewolf

Real-World counterpart: B&M Multi/Mega loopers
Type: Characterized by long strings of inversions, nothing beats these rides when it comes to element complexity

Test Pilot

Real-World counterpart: Arrow Dynamics' 4D/X-Dimension Roller Coaster
Type: Innovative for its time, perhaps too innovative, this ride spins riders around the sides of the car. Only a few have ever been built. I'm surprised this version made it into the game and not the smaller-scale recent evolution.

The American Arrow

Real-World counterpart: Arrow Dynamics' Inverting Steel Roller Coaster
Type:The first ever inverting Roller coaster (with the corkscrew) this ride revolutionized and changed roller coaster design forever. Rough by today's standards this ride's track and trains are immediately recognizable by reputation alone.

Barghest/Loony Turns

Real-World counterpart: These both seem to be the Gertslauer infinity and euro-fighter, although notably, it seems the trains should be switched around on these styles
Type: Inverting steel roller coasters, nobody delivers a more complex layout in as compact of a footprint compared to this tag-team.

Canyon Runner

Real-World counterpart: Nondescript Mine Train roller coaster
Type: Arrow started this one in the mid-1900s. These were, notably, the first type of steel roller coaster. These are gentler, heavily-themed rides, similar to junior roller coasters.


That was a doozy! I almost hit the character limit!

Advanced Lifts, Brakes, LSMs, and Other Mechanisms

Now that you know a little about real roller coasters, let's start at the beginning

By the beginning, I don't mean the basic controls. Keep in mind, this is an advanced tutorial, meaning if you don't know the basics, you shouldn't be here. If there's a lack of a comprehensive basics guide, perhaps I'll write one in the future.

What I mean by the beginning is the station platform. You should already know how to place a station and change the directions people enter and exit the station, what you might not know, is that by selecting the same platform you already have when it creates the first track segment, you can extend a station! This is useful as you can increase the train length or store multiple trains (although the latter is virtually useless unless you're running no block brake sections, which on almost every single ride you will be.)

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The station has all kinds of editable parameters, which can be found in the tab on the right side of the build panel. It's a little hard to notice, but it's there for every type of track piece, I'd familiarize yourself with all the functions in them and what they do before continuing




Additionally, it's worth noting here that, in terms of efficiency, placing the exit on the front side of the station (Near the front of the train) will greatly improve your riders/hr efficiency by cutting the time it takes for riders to casually saunter out of the station in half.

Next, we'll move onto the Lift Hill.

We'll start with speed. Here, you need to battle realism and ride ratings. Since ride ratings are based on averages in Planet Coaster, maxing out the speed slider on your lift is a guaranteed bump in excitement rating, but, especially on older roller coasters, lift hills can be very slow. This is also true for transport mechanisms like LSM's, magnetic brakes, and Drive Tires.

Most rides have a lift, there are minor differences in the ways they're designed, which you hopefully noticed in the POVs of the real-world counterpart section. But we'll go over some the major ones and some tips here.

Generally, most lifts are or are around 30 degrees steep. Set your angle snap to 15 degrees and raise your entrance two ticks. Some lifts, however, are steeper. Dive Machine lifts and the lifts of smaller compact rides like spinning coasters and wild mouse rides generally have 45 degree lifts, as well as some of the taller rides from intamin and B&M (giga coasters and new-gen hypercoasters especially). Gertslauer rides notably often use a vertical lift and a steeper-than-vertical drop, which is part of the reason why they're the kings of compact footprints.

For our next order of business, we'll discuss brakes.

There are three types of braking mechanism in Planet Coaster - not counting magnetic variants which are virtually the same as standard friction brakes, other than in strength and the block brake's drive tires+scripting for multiple trains. For the purposes of this guide, I'll be separating them based on use cases rather than in-game classification.

• End-ride Brakerun - Almost every ride ends with brakes, slowing the train down before it reaches the station to prevent a sudden stop that could cause whiplash. These are usually gently tilted down until they reach a transport mechanism, usually drive tires or block brakes. I'd recommend looking at images and POVs to get the spread of brakes and other mechanisms correct.
  
  
  
• Mid-course Brakerun - This is an important one, as a well-placed MCBR can make or break a ride's capacity, making you more money. You've probably already figured out you can use the block brakes to run multiple trains efficiently, if you want to run more than two, having a mid-ride trim braking run with a block brake can help you increase your ride's productivity, and more tightly control your overall speed and ratings. You can also use a block brake in place of a trim brake (top), to release a train off the lift block earlier, before the other train gets to your endcourse brake run - but keep in mind this will not stop the train if two trains end up on the same block.
  
  
  
  
• Trim Brake - Simply a brake designed to slow the train mid-course. Oddly, the trim brakes in Planet Coaster are restricted to a very long length, which is atypical, but still usable, if you want to be more realistic however, using a friction brake with the settings tuned down to their minimum would look a lot better. Not perfect, but better.
  
  
  
  Next up, Launch systems!
  
  Launches are a great way to run smaller roller coasters especially, since they cut out the time spent on the lift, they are guaranteed to raise your overall excitement rating.
  
  
• LSMs are versatile and efficient and can be adjusted and fine-tuned easily to suit any ride. You can vertically curve LSM's, as well, which can help you get some extra speed before your first element or create some interesting launching elements like loops and airtime hills!
  
  
• Hydraulic Launches are generally very powerful but are comparatively unwieldy and more prone to breaking down than LSMs. These launches are suited to rides looking to get up to extreme speeds or heights, like Formula Rossa or Kingda Ka
  
  
  Drive Tires are drive tires, make roller coaster go. Hopefully you don't need that explained to you.
  
  Now that you know how to utilize systems properly, we'll move onto the most difficult section, shaping.

Shaping, Smoothing, Splines, and You

This is going to be the single most important section for your rides, so pay attention!

This is the most difficult section to write, as it's primarily going to be a short list of key tips and tricks for shaping and some words on its comparison to real roller coasters and its effect on your ride ratings.

This section is especially important for your ride ratings, as creating a smooth ride will virtually guarantee you a higher-rated ride due to massively lowered nausea rating. I'll also partially discuss large rides and why I think many amateur builders tend to get low excitement scores on big rides, one reviewer I watched going so far as to say 'being punished for thinking big'. To start, here is an excellent guide to elements by VestedGamr that will teach you what we know about how ratings are calculated and some tips for improving your ratings. It will also serve as an excellent glossary of elements from which you can draw.

Now going back to my earlier point - that is to say, why amateur builders get low scores on big rides, it has to do with a combination of g-forces and speed. Using a lot of, quite frankly, poorly-shaped prefab elements on a high-speed ride, especially when they're not sized to match the speed at which the train is going, slams riders into intense G-forces and sudden transitions that lower excitement and skyrocket nausea. Additionally, most builders don't look at the options menu and find out about the smoothing tools and the angle snap feature, meaning almost all hills and drops will lack a proper parabola and end up like an arrow hyper coaster on super-steroids.

Next on our list, let's talk about transitions. I'll go into a little more depth with this when we reach the elements section, but transitions between your elements are just as important as the elements, and many of planet coaster's prefab elements have fixed entrances and exits, meaning transitions are actually impossible to make when using a large majority of prefabs. It is worth noting some prefabs do allow you to transition into them, however.

With that said, you're going to have to create custom elements the vast majority of the time. This is by no means an easy task as the various arbitrary 90-degree restrictions on each segment of track and the way rolls are calculated can make it very hard to design inversions, especially heartlined inversions. So that's why I want to talk about exaggeration, and it's effect on smoothing a ride.

Let's take a look at this example I've constructed. This launch coaster starts by pulling a sharp heartlined rising turn into an airtime hill. It's mostly smooth, but a little rough, and I want to smooth it out.
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I hit the 'smooth all' button a few times annnnd...
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Well that's no good! It totally eliminated your shaping. This is a phenomenon in NoLimits also. Creating a track out of larger spline sections (in this case, two) massively increases the homogenization when hitting the smooth button. A helix I made of large sections once went from 30M wide to about 8M wide, just from a little smoothing button spam.

So what do we do about it?

Well there are two solutions, the easier and more consistent one is exaggerating the track shape before smoothing. Like so:
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Then we hit the smooth button a few times (only 2-3 times depending on how much you've exaggerated, more will give you the same result as earlier.)
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Now doesn't that look nice? Noticeably smoother than before, but even with some slight tweaks afterwards, it isn't quite perfect. Nevertheless, this is the quickest, easiest, and dirtiest way to solve your smoothing problem.

The other method is a bit more complex, and a bit more finicky, but can produce far, far superior results if you take the time to finnick enough with it after smoothing. Building the track out of small sections like this:
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Obviously looks quite disgusting, but fear not, for the fact that there are more vertices to work with allows the smoothing tool to turn it into this
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This is the best overall method for making sure your shaping is retained when smoothing. In any situation where the track is curving or banking, it's always better to build out of smaller pieces. It also gives you a lot more vertices to manipulate afterwards to ensure your smoothing is absolutely spot-on. Manipulating the length of track sections will give you exact control over how much influence the smoothing tool has on your initial shaping.


Now, another important thing to note, particularly about banking, is that when banking to a horizontally straight piece of track. (For example here, into the hill)-
using either of the smooth options is never an option.

It is never an option here simply because it will destroy your gradual bank and also potentially your heartlining through the aforementioned issue of shaping homogenization through smoothing. For example, hitting smooth all a few times did this to mine (same camera position)
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This bank is slow and uneven overall. More smoothing would make it even, but it won't stop the fact that this does not match the profile of Intamin banking, which is generally quick and precise. You could rotate the bank back to 0 degrees, but moderate smoothing changes will mean the next straight piece of track has gained a slight curve, making your next hill awkward and uneven. You'll have to be careful with banking to and from straight and plan ahead and tweak, because there's not much you can change once the two pieces are placed.

Take your time, you can pause during construction in planet coaster, there's no need to rush any of this.

That's most of what I can tell you about shaping without delving into the elements section, and we're about 4/5 of the way into the aforementioned character limit so I'll leave you with this: Take what you've learned here and experiment with it, eventually you'll learn how to use smoothing, section length, exaggeration and tweaking to create exactly what your creative mind is picturing. I can only give you tips, but you need to apply them to get the most out of them. If you're really serious about improving your coaster building, you need to put in the hours until these tips are second nature.

Elements, Part One: Choosing Elements - Pacing and Juxtaposition

Elements.

They define Roller Coasters and have since the beginning. From the early inception of the double down to the sleek, modern banked dive loop, they are the essential, defining building blocks of your roller coaster.

But how do you decide on elements?

This is another one of those things that comes through intuition and patient research. Your string of hills and overbanks and inversions has to fit a certain pacing curve, keeping the riders interested throughout the whole ride without totally losing them or pushing too much on them at once. Much like any story or movie, you need to hit that 'roller coaster' pacing curve of ups and downs, juxtaposition is your best friend.

Take Intimidator 305, for example. A legendarily intense roller coaster at Kings' Dominion, Intimidator 305 is very well known for its extremely intense layout of tight, high-speed turns and powerful airtime hills. Two major types of element? That's all? Then why is it so good?

Simply, juxstaposition.

A juxtaposition is when you marry two ideas, usually very different and in many cases polar opposites, in the same space. This makes the ideas greater than the sum of their parts by comparing and contrasting them to one another. For example, in a film, you might run a violent scene juxtaposed against a cheery, happy-go-lucky background soundtrack. This takes the two normally opposing ideas, and through execution, creates an air of unease. Immediately, you're left thinking.

"Why is this music playing?"
"Is everybody in this universe this violent?"
"Violence must be to this world what a happy-go-lucky song is to any other"

Through that juxtaposition, we see emerge a third idea, and that immediately gives us insight into the experience the cinematographer is trying to create. as well as remind us how strong each conflicting tone is by grinding it against itself.. Although, admittedly, this film motif is very played-out and surprisingly common these days. Although, it is in and of itself, a sound core idea.

So, back to I305. What are the two sensations primarily felt by riders during this roller coaster? Extreme airtime when hitting all those high-speed hills, and the polar opposite, being squashed into your seat by your own weight, from the tight, low lateral G-force turns. There is no third meaning, here, but the experience of both of these elements compliments the other by reminding us what the opposite feels like.

Simply, to create a good roller coaster, variety isn't always the answer, but juxtaposition is. While variety certainly helps, juxtaposition can make the same sensation feel new to a rider again and again.

Elements, Part Two: Prefabs and Custom Creations

A note on the ingame prefabricated elements

Put simply, they're not great. While Planet Coaster offers a wide variety of prebuilt elements to choose from, they are fixed, rigid, generally don't scale down to small sizes well, and don't transition well. They're also just fairly unrealistic. Many of them are downright cartoony and many more have poor G-force distribution, some going so far as to have a reverse parabola effect!. Almost none of them are heartlined save for elements specifically designed around heartlining, and they're also unwieldy to implement into a pre-existing layout.

There are a few notably workable ones. The vertical loop is okay if you build the transition in and out yourself, the corkscrew is solid for stiffer rides like arrow dynamics coasters The barrel roll is fine if you don't plan to bank in and out of it or tilt it at all, and a few others that you can examine for yourself.

I recommend skipping prefabs entirely and learning how to build everything from scratch. I understand this is not easy and to throw away a tool like prefab elements is a big step, but try to realize how much better of a ride you can create without them hampering your otherwise excellent shaping. Let's take, for example, the types of immelmann/dive loop we can find in Planet Coaster.

Here are a few:
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Conversely, here are a few real dive loops/immelmanns
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You'll notice that the profile of these mostly matches, but I didn't have you watch a slew of POVs for nothing. See if you can spot the differences!

The B&M style Dive Loop prefab in Planet Coaster notably has:

• An entrance that is too steep
  
• a kink, pulling in or out of the 0-G roll side of the element, which is a result of the steep entrance
  
• The half loop is moderately misshapen, too lax in the middle section
  
• The banking at the top of the loop is notably too tight in Planet Coaster's, leading to a jerky and unsmooth experience when in a first-person POV

Now, let's look at a much better dive loop, made entirely of custom sections, by me. Keep in mind it isn't perfect, this ride I'm referencing is a little older, little rougher than the two I showed at the beginning of this guide.
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When it comes to the choice between prefabs and custom elements, it's not always clear, but it can be boiled down to this: Do you want your rides to look good from a distance, in a park, or do you want them to feel good to ride? The choice is, of course, up to you!

Elements, Part Three: Compound Elements and Building Blocks

This section will be quite short, as it is a simple point to make

Building blocks. Everything can be broken down into individual pieces. Rodney Mullen, the pioneer of almost all modern skateboarding tricks and inventor of the kickflip, can boil down each individual trick to its individual components, and even further down to the individual movements his body makes to execute those components.

We can easily apply this logic to ride design. Instead of la long-winded explanation, I'll instead show you:
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The vertical loop and 0-G roll. Two masterpieces of craftsmanship. But can you figure out how we smash them together?
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That's right! We've created a dive loop from cutting these elements in half! And it goes much farther than that, The 0-G roll for example is a barrel roll combined with a hill. A loop is two half loops, which are each made up of two quarter loops, which are each made of two 1/8th loops, all of which have a different radius to keep the ride's g forces even throughout the whole thing!

And eventually, you get down to the scale of your individual track segments, and that's how you should approach building a well-known element from scratch!

Elements, Part Four: The Style of Manufacturers

We're nearing the end of the shaping and elements sections, almost there!

Roller Coaster Manufacturers. They come in all shapes and sizes, some are parts of larger companies while some are independent and focus only on roller coaster and theme park ride design. But one thing is consistent throughout all manufacturers, and that is that they're all different.

Whether it be by virtue of philosophy, technical limitation, or a myriad of other defining qualities, undoubtedly the differences between manufacturers goes beyond the differences in their track and train designs. This is what I've termed Roller Coaster Design Philosophy, which is a catch-all term for the style exhibited by a combination of a ride's type and who designed it.

For a topical example, take these track sections here.
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Both are the same rough element. An S-turn. But the differences are clear. Because of its early inception and lack of computer technology, the Arrow S-bend has to stretch out its banks to reduce g forces, and can't bank nearly as sharply, meaning wider, more shallowly-banked turns. The banking section is also notably entirely straight, but we'll come back to that.

Next, can you tell the difference between these two?
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This one's a lot tougher. If you're having trouble, have another look from above
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So now you can see - the Intamin bank is almost perfectly straight, while the banking on the B&M S-turn gradually runs into the turn.

This is a small detail, but it's these small details that really define a manufacturer. The B&M turn is smooth, gentle, and offers a continuous change in g-forces from all directions. Conversely the Intamin turn is steeper, more harshly banked, and remains straight almost entirely throughout the bank. This creates a sensation that you're barrel-rolling while banking, which is a similar, but at the same time wholly different, sensation. These types of barrel-rolling, aggressive. heartlined banks have been making appearances most notably on very recent Intamin Rides like i305 and Maverick

This example shows that when it comes to a manufacturer's style, two people can do the same thing but entirely differently. These little details will help you really define a coaster you design as something the manufacturer could actually create, giving it a real presence in your park.

A Short Note on Both Customization and On Realism vs. Stylization

So, now you can design roller coasters like you're sitting at the CEO's desk at intamin

You've come so far, in the last few hours you've learned all the building blocks of designing an excellent, believable, and high-scoring ride in Planet Coaster. But what do you name it? How do you theme it?

As I see it, there are two types of customization for roller coasters, you either want to:

A: Build a roller coaster, and theme around it

B: Theme an area, and build a roller coaster that works with it.

What's the difference? Starting with the roller coaster allows it to be your centerpiece, your ultimate attraction. The center of attention in a bustling, heavily-themed area full of guests, rides, and shopes.

Conversely, starting with the area allows your roller coaster to blend in better, to mesh with terrain and scenery in a way that looks more organic.

The simplest way to understand what I'm talking about here would be to build the same roller coaster twice. Make it a launched terrain roller coaster, flying low to the ground, through woods, over hills, around scenery. Build it first by designing a roller coaster and creating a simple hilly woods around it. Then delete the first roller coaster. Now, build it again, with the theming already in place. I bet you anything the 2nd seems to fit the terrain better, hugs it better, more naturally.

Which you choose is entirely situational. The big question you need to ask yourself is if you want your roller coaster to draw attention from all parts of an area, or if you want it to feel like an intrinsic part of that area.

Stylization And the Tug-of-War Between Realism and Aesthetic

This one is fairly self-explanatory. I suppose this serves as a disclaimer, I'm not saying all roller coaster designs in planet coaster should be 100% realistic, all the time, all day, every day. I'm saying that we can learn from real roller coasters to make our designs in planet coaster feel more like apart of the world we're creating.

And after all, isn't that what planet coaster is all about? Creativity?

I am Otter and I have been your operator for this evening. Please get your valuables and flip-flops from the cubbies, comb the wind out of your hair and try not to ruin the new tile on your way out.

Post-Release: Correction Logs

V1.01
Reasonably important edit from a historical perspective, that I sadly can't insert to the main guide since the particular section is capped out at the character limit

[Saltine]

Just pointing out that this guide is quite old from before newer smoothing methods like the 2 meter method and other smoothing methods, as well as before continuous heartline rolls for straight track pieces were added. It was also before coaster score metagaming had taken root, and obviously there is already going to be a tradeoff in ride stats for realism, anyway.

I would maybe look at newer more detailed guides, tho I do believe the sections about track design quirks of different manufacturers and the sections on element choice and flow are still very good if you're building for realism. The main things that are outdated here are the methods of building for score and for getting smooth tracks.

[Primal Dialgachu]

you forgot the wooden worier at the quwassy amusment park

[vtwo]

bro your coasters are too good tone down the airtime

[John Badman]

Remember to make Arrow Coaster rough and Janky if you want it realistic

[rain]

Loony turns is the S+S El Loco model

[kaya]

skyrush = thighcrush, sorry skyrush fanboys. ill be preparing for the rampage

[DoubleTap_13]

I use the stock sections to design it then replace them with 4m sections. You can use the stock loop for example, then recreate it using 4m pieces with the stock loop as a guide. Once done just delete the loop.

[Brandon Sucks]

Boa is giovanola, a one of a kind coaster in south africa's gold reef city

[blueinfinity]

This guide will not corelate to scores that are that high. Hence why manny of the readers cant even understand it as the guide is focused on realism not the game. Following this guide wont really help you get 9.8+ ratings on excitment for example. The games high scorers are not good rides.

[Bigs]

This is a excellent "technique" guide. I'll have to attempt to put some of this to work.