RCT Discussion / OpenRCT: advantages and disadvantages

Yeah, I too hope a MOM-like selector will be implemented along with it or perhaps later. Nonetheless, this stuff is super useful already!

 

Is it possible to build more path from these elevated path tiles (using the arrow controls, not the click and drag method of course)?

 

On a side note, in LL we can raise/lower anything with even smaller units... Don't know about the technical side of it but if it's possible in LL I suppose it'd be possible in RCT2 as well... Although maybe the height limit is twice as high in RCT2, could that be it? The available data is used to allow for more height at the cost of having larger units?

finer than 1 unit?

Edit: 1 unit (as seen in the video) is the smallest granularity the game allows.

 

When could we expect this feature to be available in-game? 

That's incredible stuff! Love that! Awesome feature!!!!

Is there currently a way to add chain on segments that can't normally have it?

 

Not at the moment, but it was one of the first things I listed. I've wanted a feature like that for some time. I think it would be nice to also have one in the ride construction window, but that's yet to be discussed.

 

 

Looks awesome! How did the idea for adjusting path like that come about? I wonder how one would use that feature.

 

Thanks, that's good to hear. The main reason I started developing this is to have a way of raising and lowering track pieces easily, and to make track pieces act like chains.

 

Here's my current to-do list, green ones are finished, red ones are to be done, question marks are things I have to look into.

 

 

If you have any other ideas for the tile inspector, let me know and I'll try to add it.

It would be great if we could make either the background of the 3d signs invisible, leaving only the letters.

How do you normally achieve this? A saved game with this will be enough for me to investigate.

I don't think anyone ever did it. But it's obvious that the background and the actual text are different sprites, so it must be possible to hide one of them, leaving the other...

Couldn't that be done with a custom scenery object? Like we have invisible paths and invisible entrances?

 

While you're correct that the letters are seperate sprites, I'm pretty sure they're not seperate map elements so including it in the tile inspector, if possible, might not be backward compatible.

I think the 3d signs are hardcoded, just like track, which explains why no one ever made variations. Another possible explanation is that no one ever figured out how to make them and they are therefore excluded from the released object editors.

Neither the sign nor the lettering itself is hardcoded (I just checked). You'd have a lot of characters to replace if you wanted a custom font (though a few less if you only care about Latin letters), but you should be able to remove the background easily. What's hardcoded is the set of characters and the way that they're arranged on the sign (but you can choose from horizontal, vertical, or scrolling, (and scrolling signs have hardcoded characters as well). Not sure if you can change the size of the sign, but I doubt it - they are all two tiles wide.

That sounds very much the same as how entrances can be hidden without a corrupt map element in OpenRCT2, and I think it would be nicer to have this in the sign window instead of the tile inspector, as a checkbox next to the colours. An option to not render the background.

That actually sounds amazing... The stuff you guys have been adding really makes vanilla obsolete almost... I mean if we can reproduce every hack we used to do and make it easier and less troubling to get it to work, I'm all for it

 

 

 

Not at the moment, but it was one of the first things I listed. I've wanted a feature like that for some time. I think it would be nice to also have one in the ride construction window, but that's yet to be discussed.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks, that's good to hear. The main reason I started developing this is to have a way of raising and lowering track pieces easily, and to make track pieces act like chains.

 

 

 

Nice, super excited. The tile inspector is looking to become the catalyst that will really move Open into the spotlight for many people. 

 

I think the ability to modify objects not just on a single tile but large scale like all ride tracks on red dirt or something could be very helpful. The finite ability of the Tile Inspector is fantastic on single tiles that already have so many objects on them but to be able to make entire coasters invisible in one click by changing the land type below all of its track could be very convenient compared to having to click on potentially hundreds of tiles to modify a single ride. 

 

Again, when can we expect to see the changes with object height and direction adjustment in a development version of the game?

I don't think that should be part of the tile inspector. This tool is for editing single elements on a tile, not entire tracks. It's already being extended somewhat by grabbing elements form neighbouring tiles when related to a selected piece. Making something like what you mention should perhaps be under a different and new tool.

 

I don't want to make any promises on when this tool will be finished, I only have time to work on it in the evenings, and sometimes during the weekends. It also depends on how many problems I have to face, as I have to touch areas in the code I have not touched before.

It looks like the raise/lower only works on paths at the moment. That seems strange - since every element has a base height I'd have put that control with the others that show for all element types , but I'm sure this will be fixed by the time this feature is finished. Interestingly, if you raise a path by 1 unit relative to another the guests are still able to walk across the gap, but the AI treats the path as disconnected (it seems the AI can recognize dead ends to some extent). The ability to directly set the path edges will be useful too - so many times I've had to build temporary walls to stop paths connecting, or redo paths because they didn't connect when they should, so I hope this will make that sort of thing much easier.

 

I absolutely love the lighting. Despite the fact the implementation is rather primitive at the moment it still looks great  - I never even bothered to place lamps before now because they didn't seem to do anything. It even seems to adjust to the weather conditions. The only thing that's annoying is that if you hide the lamp by any means the light disappears, but that would not be necessary if we could have lit scenery objects - hopefully some way to accomplish that can be found.

I've implemented a new console command that makes it possible to change vehicle friction - typing "rides set friction <ride index> <friction value>" should update the friction of all vehicles associated with that ride. Double closing and reopening the ride will reset it back to default.

 

I've also implemented a cheat that makes the chain lift available on any track piece, but that hasn't been merged at this point.

Awesome! When is this feature available for us? And how do we know which friction value is required? I mean, there's not really a way to know what the current friction value is. Is it on a scale from 1 to 10, 1 to 255, something else? Zeroes in front?

The friction command has already been merged (which was surprisingly quick) - it should be available in the latest develop version. The chain lift cheat isn't merged yet, they said more testing was needed. I hope it will be merged at some point, but it could be a while, especially if bugs are found that need to be fixed - the train length cheat I implemented was merged a month after I submitted it.

 

 

Finding the correct value takes a bit of trial and error unfortunately. It is on a scale from 1 to 65535. Higher values mean less friction. A value of 1 will slow the train to 1mph almost instantly no matter how fast it's going, a value of 65535 is almost frictionless (and that's the maximum).

 

Most of my rides have friction values in the 300-500 range, while the default rides are usually a bit higher, in the 500-700 range. Rides designed for short trains tend to have higher values (because the way the game works, shorter trains mean the same value counts for more friction). The vertical drop coaster has a friction value of 2000 and that's the highest I'm aware of for a default ride.

 

It takes a bit of experimentation to determine the right value - I would recommend starting at 400 and increasing in intervals of 100 until you're satisfied. You can of course fine-tune it further if needed. Most rides won't need a friction value higher than 1000, but as I said it does also depend on the length of the train - if you want a very short train to behave like a much longer one then you might need to set the friction value very high.

 

 

I have noticed some strange behaviour when very low friction is used - when travelling in reverse the train appears totally frictionless, but moving forward there is still some small friction. Don't know if that would be useful in any way.

Man, this is incredible. Friction values of 65535 is going to do a lot of good for custom flat rides.

I made this while messing around with it. What's strange is that after the train stalls and rolls back, it is able to make it over another hill of the same height. I tried removing the merge leading back to the station, and the train loops forever - it does not slow down at all when moving in reverse.