Ask the Experts / Advanced Shoestring Tutorial

Due to the new image limit in this forum I have split this tutorial in half. Find the Basic Tutorial here. http://www.nedesigns...al/#entry456684

Part 4: Advanced Techniques

Split only one train:

Zero uses a slightly different technique. While the general splitting of the train is the same. The ride splits only one of the coasters two trains. This is simply achieved by Running the coaster in powered launch mode until the first train has left the station forwards. This is followed by pausing the game and using a trainer to change the rides operating mode to downwards launch while it is still open, so that the second train leaves the station backwards.

River Ride/Log Flume:

Although you can split up a train of River Ride Boats or Log Flume Logs there is little practical use. This is because the boats will always move forwards at a constant speed and treat every hill as a lift. Therefore they will not reverse as coaster trains will when reaching a hill.

There is a way around this by using a station on the underground section. This will cause the boat to stop and reverse out of the station (if set to Downwards Launch Mode) causing the non hidden boat to stop and reverse too. There is a 2nd more complex way. See a little way below for details

Working Shoestring Flat Rides:



Shoestrings can be used to make working custom flat rides which stop for passengers. I did this with the Red Baron Flat ride in Zero. Although I won’t go through the details the general theory is the same as above. You will need to use a trainer to make a large train which will fill the above ground ride track as well as provide some cars for the underground section
When you split the train you just send the back section of the train to the flat ride and the front section to the hidden underground section.



The underground section has a station to stop at, and boosters so that as the front of the train is boosted along, the top section will spin round and round.

You can vary the length of the underground section to vary run time of the custom flatride. As a plus side you can use the bottom station to board people onto the custom flat above.

In a ride like this the section which actually splits the ride should be a different ride to the station. This is so you can either make this section invisible (using the crooked house method) or just delete it after the train has split.

Log Flume Coaster Boats.

Anyone who has put log flume boat on any other coaster track knows that the logs will always act as if they are on a log flume. Creating splashes on flat sections and treating every upwards slope as a lift hill. This limits the use of such boats as they can never travel backwards properly.

This can be countered using a shoestring coaster and an odd trait of the reversing section in a log flume. The hack for this is quite complex but bear with me.

The way this works is by passing a train of 3 heartline cars (any train will work but heartline cars are the only ones large enough for the second part) forwards through a reverser section of a log flume. This bizarrely converts all the cars except the front one into log flume boats.

To do this you need to create a log flume that passes the train of heartline cars backwards and then forwards through a reverser section, Then Backwards into a standard splitting section.

There are 2 ways of doing this. One needs you to edit the track every time you test it though. I obviously prefer the more complicated way . You can avoid the constant editing by setting up something like this



It is a Complex series of merging but it’s not impossible, The important things to note are the 2 stations are the same log flume. The Reverser and S bend are another flume so that the log can switch stations. Station 1 merges backwards into the flume with the s-bend.

The flume with the s-bend merges forwards into station 2. The Track from the back of station 2 merges back into the splitting track. The operating mode is set to “Downwards Launch Mode” so the train travels backwards up Arrow 1 first.



The train reaches the end and then comes forwards through the reverser (turning the car into a heartline + 2 logs) on arrow 2 and heads into the second station.



Upon reaching this station the train will reverse along arrow 3 from the second station and onto the splitting track which is off the top of the image.



Once the train splits into 2 you should have a front car of 1 heartline car and a log and one back car of just a single log.



And there you have it, a log which will respond like a coaster car.



Working Master Blaster Slide:

If you have mastered the splitting technique at the top of this thread then this one is easy.
This should be a type 2 shoestring with one part of the ride hidden and controlling the other.
First up build something like this to split a train of waterslide boats. This is done exactly the same as before including setting downwards launch as the operating mode.



Keep in mind that with this hack the station which dispatches the cars must be a ride type that has boosters. In my example i have used a corkscrew coaster, but a steel coaster will work just as well.
After this we will have split the train like so.



Now if you slowly boost the hidden set of boats with boosters you will give the illusion of a master blaster lift on top.



With a bit of hacking you can even add in the nets and frames from a normal masterblaster using a heartline coaster



And now you have a master blaster. See told you it was easy,

Unpinned to clean up this forum.

May be someone could help me out with a question. By the way Roomie, thanks for all the tutorials!

I am trying to make a custom flat ride in Rct2 similar to the Red Baron, and have gotten the trains split and operating on different tracks with a new station(which still operates in downward launch mode?) But how do I add more cars to the train to fill the upper track, or add another train to do so? Thanks.

make the station longer and use the "8 cars per train" (under rides) function.