RCT Discussion / OpenRCT: advantages and disadvantages

No. Trainers don't work with OpenRCT2, but you should be able to open hacked parks.

Dear lord OpenRCT2 is like a dream come true, it's so easy to use. No more alt+tab. No more glitch-fest zero-clearencing, no more guessing which thing needs to be built on a tile first for the other to be displayed after the zc is done, etc etc. The only issue I've run into is that a train keeps getting stuck on a merge I made invisible, but that's just me messing around. The point is I was able to build a merged ride in no-time (with quite a few merges, I might add), switch up the trains, length, and other properties, and just click a button that keeps everything from breaking down, ever. Truly amazing. I found out that you can get rid of supports with the tile inspector, which saves object space by pretty much making the support blocker objects obsolete. Also, now I can place diagonal path objects flush with the ground by simply turning off clearence checks and lowering them in place, no more map object manipulation needed. Also Now I don't have to mess around with compatibility settings, no matter which version of windows I'm on. Another feature is not having to wait for "checking object files" when I download new parks, it's so much faster now. I'm also a big fan of being able to turn on the setting that groups coaster types like they were grouped in the original rct.

 

Seriously, where was this 10 years ago? Haha, either way, fantastic work. Keep it up!

 

P.S.

 

The only things that I can think of that I'd like to see in the future:

1: I've noticed that if you have a lot of ride types available, then the window to change a train to any type can't quite encompass all the types (the list is so long it extends out of the screen boundaries, hiding a few types), even when I set openrct2 to full-screen. Simply being able to scroll in this menu so that we can get at all the train types would be great.

2: The ability to change the height of things in the tile inspector. The height numbers are such a tease, haha! would be awesome to just click on those numbers and let us change them. (of course the corresponding second number would probably have to automatically adjust accordingly)

 

Like I said, I'm really impressed. Back when I had lots of free time this would have been even more of a dream come true than it is now! I hope to see build times go down, even if just a little bit, from this.

1. Dropdowns in RCT2 only allowed 32 items. I raised this to 64 in OpenRCT2, but it's not ideal. We will indeed need dropdowns with a scrollbar, but implementing GUI elements is not my forte. I could try to use a spinner instead of a dropdown as a workaround though.

2. Good idea.

Regarding changing of height: isn't it exactly like the map object manipulation thing? I've only briefly seen that functionality demonstrated in a video, but sounds quite similar, bar the spatial effect (bulk, not per element) of the map object manipulation.

Nope, Map Object Manipulation summed up is:

Performing [action] on [things] on [selection]

Action being raising/lowering or removing
Things being categories like rides/paths/small scenery/large scenery/banners/land/water
Selection being a land type, selected by either the horizontal texture (snow/mud/checkers/grass/whatever) or the vertical texture (ice/rock/wood/whatever), optionally narrowed down with hexadecimal (I think) height specifications

Whatever you do, everything on the selected tile is affected by the action. There are some exceptions to this, for example it is not possible to raise/lower station track for some reason.

There are many uses for this, for example raising or lowering entire buildings or park sections, building rides at half height, making the land go beyond the usual height limit (check out 'Wasteland' to see an example of super tall mountains), and whatever creative application you can think of.

MOM works this way because 8 cars had no better way of achieving it, not being able to change source code and such. We're mostly interested in what people want to achieve with it. As far as I can see, the biggest thing missing is raising or lowering things, but that can be implemented.

 

Another thing: if SV6 can actually handle higher terrain than RCT2 allows, without glitches, we could get rid of that lower limit.

I'm not very technical so maybe there is a reason for the limit I'm not aware of, but I've never encountered any problem with scenery and land past the limit except for that rotating the screen can go weirdly. But that also happens with land under the limit when it's tall enough.

MOM works this way because 8 cars had no better way of achieving it, not being able to change source code and such. We're mostly interested in what people want to achieve with it. As far as I can see, the biggest thing missing is raising or lowering things, but that can be implemented.

 

 

That basically sums it up. The raising and lowering function of MoM was used primarily for four different situations (two of the four it seems are solved in ORCT2)

 

1. To raise multiple tiles worth of objects. For example, you built a single story building but want to raise it and construct a story beneath it. 

2. For merging. With the LL style merging reintroduced in Open that solves that problem.

3. To work around clearance issues that even the zero clearance trainer function cannot get around. Getting the diagonal path object to sit flush with the ground for example. It seems Open solved this too? Unsure as to how universally this works as of yet. 

4. To raise and lower objects/rides at a wider selection of heights, or like Liam said, hexadecimal? Whaat?

 

To see the function to raise and lower in ultra fine increments, make data on that tile invisible, and be able to do all of this with specificity to the type of data on that tile (large or small object, path, track) could possibly be the last nail in the coffin for vanilla with trainers I think. 

Missing hacking functions:
- Can't raise water or land without deleting scenery (no more slanted wall trick or making scenery 

 

 

Is fixed in the latest dev build, thanks OPENRCT.

 

I also suggest missing features being posted on the github of openrct to get them in the game faster. Not that they might not do it, but it's the easiest way to contact the developers. I asked for the feature only 2 days ago (^) and its already in the game.

 

Adding features to the tile inspector to match all the features of codex would be amazing. People keep thinking about RCT2 trainers, but Codex is by far the most robust thing out there, so why aren't we talking about implementing those features? 

 

Features:
-Select multiple tiles

-checkbox selection for multiple objects

-raise/lower in gamespace

-raise/lower in dataspace

-drag/drop object cloning

-pop-out hex editor (+button, pop-out itself not shown)

-landscape editor (also under + button)

 

The hex editor allows a savvy person to rotate objects as well, but that could simply be included as a button somewhere. My personal belief is that with all this fully implemented, there's nothing really left to use vanilla for.

 

Except crooked house. Still can't do crooked house in open.

I just want to echo Sephiroth's praise now that I've used ORCT2 for a few days. It's totally godsend and so desperately needed in the community. I really hope this will boost building activity.

Finally, you can now build underwater and lower land without deleting scenery objects.  Praise OpenRCT.

This is really shaping up to be the much needed next step in this community... Imagine the multiplayer uses if you build via Skype for a h2h park, no longer saying i have the park, just communicate that at that specific time we build together...

Installation on my Mac was so damn simple. I came across this thread that spells it out very well including links to the appropriate files. For anyone who has been on the fence about installing ORCT2 on a Mac, it literally couldn't be any easier. 

 

https://www.reddit.c...2_on_a_mac_osx/

So I've heard so much praise for this application so I had to check it out for myself. I really like what your able to do with it but I can't play in development mode. I have no clue why?

what do you mean by "development mode"?

Disregard. Pardon my stupidity

Magically started working. And it was develop*

 

Adding features to the tile inspector to match all the features of codex would be amazing. People keep thinking about RCT2 trainers, but Codex is by far the most robust thing out there, so why aren't we talking about implementing those features? 

 

Features:
-Select multiple tiles

-checkbox selection for multiple objects

-raise/lower in gamespace

-raise/lower in dataspace

-drag/drop object cloning

-pop-out hex editor (+button, pop-out itself not shown)

-landscape editor (also under + button)

 

The hex editor allows a savvy person to rotate objects as well, but that could simply be included as a button somewhere. My personal belief is that with all this fully implemented, there's nothing really left to use vanilla for.

 

Except crooked house. Still can't do crooked house in open.

 

Now that I've been experimenting all afternoon, I have to strongly agree with you Tim. To have these capabilities built into the tile inspector would be amazing. Right now the tile inspector doesn't seem to have many uses beyond invisible objects and deleting single objects. I've added something on the Gitter chat regarding this idea for developers to see. 

Except crooked house. Still can't do crooked house in open.

What do you mean with this? That one can't change the track type?