RCT Discussion / Track Elements Survey

There's a lot of excitement for the NSF and the ability to implement new track pieces. The biggest stumbling block for new track pieces are the sprites. A scant few track types have had new track elements implemented, and these new track pieces used existing sprites or lightly modified ones. I am talking about steep-to-flat junior coaster track elements and booster track elements.

 

It's important to note that the pieces that are being developed are done so as a hobby and have no schedule for release, and are entirely dependent on the creator(s) of them to choose what to work on and when they are released.  Additionally, any element that has angles that objects do not have sprites for will show up strangely, and there's no guarantee that rides created after the new element is implemented will have the sprites for it.

 

New track elements that are in the works:

- diagonal brake
- diagonal block brake
- medium half loop up left
- medium half loop up right
- medium half loop down left
- medium half loop down right
- large corkscrew up left
- large corkscrew up right
- large corkscrew down left
- large corkscrew down right


New track elements that have been proposed in the NEDesigns discord:
- double-long half-slope slopes
- diagonal loops
- diagonal corkscrews
- elevators
- sloped brakes
- sloped boosters

What track elements would you add? What would you rate each of these elements 1-4 with 1 being most important?

I'd rate them the following:

diagonal brake and block brake: 2
medium half loops: 2
large corkscrews: 1
double-long half-slope slopes: 2
diagonal loops: 3
diagonal corkscrews: 3
elevators: 2
sloped brakes: 2
sloped boosters: 2

diagonal breaks: 1

medium loops: 2

large cork: 2

double long half slope: 1

diagonal loop: 4

diagonal cork: 3

elevator: 4

sloped brake: 3

sloped booster: 2

- diagonal brake: 4
- diagonal block brake: 4
- medium half loop up left: 1
- medium half loop up right: 1
- medium half loop down left: 1
- medium half loop down right: 1
- large corkscrew up left: 2
- large corkscrew up right: 2
- large corkscrew down left: 2
- large corkscrew down right: 2

 

- double-long half-slope slopes: 3 (Love this idea!)

- diagonal loops: 3
- diagonal corkscrews: 2
- elevators: 2
- sloped brakes: 1
- sloped boosters: 2

 

I'd personally like to suggest a few possible track elements myself.

 

Diagonal station

Smaller radius diagonal turn (would work really well for kiddie coasters)

Zero G roll (I know this is already in development but I want to emphasize it)

I would throw out filling the gaps in some of the existing track types. Particularly thinking of banked sloped turns for the mine train or corkscrew, but also things like full vertical pieces for giga or maybe woodie. I don't know how this would impact things like sprites, but would be cool to see some of the more basic tracks get retrofitted to have full capabilities. 

 

Also, what about overbanked elements? Idk the coding requirements at all, but some ideas.

Here are some I think should be implemented that I dont think require any extra sprites for trains. Just smoother/larger transitions that are good for bigger coasters and airtime hills.

 

Also I think large radius half turn sloped pieces. banked and unbanked.

I would throw out filling the gaps in some of the existing track types. Particularly thinking of banked sloped turns for the mine train or corkscrew, but also things like full vertical pieces for giga or maybe woodie. I don't know how this would impact things like sprites, but would be cool to see some of the more basic tracks get retrofitted to have full capabilities. 

totally agree w this. In particular I'd love to see:

-diagonals on bobsled

-helixes on water slides

I would throw out filling the gaps in some of the existing track types. Particularly thinking of banked sloped turns for the mine train or corkscrew, but also things like full vertical pieces for giga or maybe woodie. I don't know how this would impact things like sprites, but would be cool to see some of the more basic tracks get retrofitted to have full capabilities.

Those are not new track pieces, they're just new sprites for existing track pieces. That does not require the new save format and would be trivial to implement once the sprites exist - the only reason it hasn't happened already is because making new sprites match existing track types is very hard.

It's for that reason that I am not planning to add *any* new pieces to existing track types, my custom pieces will be available only on the single rail, hybrid and any other custom tracks I might make. I'll leave it to others to make sprites for existing track types.

- double-long half-slope slopes

Why double long? There's no reason the game can't support track pieces with half the current height increment - the restriction is arbitrary and we already have a cheat to disable it. In fact, I accidentally made the first version of my medium half loop piece with a half-height offset. I didn't notice at first because it worked just fine with the half height offset, and only when you used an odd number of them did you have an issue as the track wouldn't connect.

Personally, though, I think that if we're adding a new slope angle then a medium slope would be far more useful. There's a big gap between gentle and steep, and I very often find myself wanting something in between.

- elevators

I have absolutely no idea how you would go about implementing that, but if you think you can that would be interesting.

diagonal brake and block brake: 2
medium half loops: 3
large corkscrews: 1
double-long half-slope slopes: 3
diagonal loops: 3
diagonal corkscrews: 3
elevators: 2
sloped brakes: 2
sloped boosters: 2

 

I think that generally, having more diagonal elements is helpful. As far as the elevator track pieces, I would see them as having a bottom, middle, and top piece (maybe catwalks on either side of them for the top and bottom pieces?)

While I feel like the elevator would have a limited use case (I could only really see myself using it if I was recreating Cannibal at Lagoon), I think that if an additional functionality was added to it, it could be extremely useful - and that's if you could make it be a drop track.

I imagine this would be a very far in the future thing, but its an interesting mechanic to consider.

I must say that most elements on the list so far for me are elements that I feel are more nice to haves rather than things we really really need. What I feel like this game needs most are the following elements:

 

- Sloped diagonal to straight transitions, both banked and unbanked.This would result in a new era of ride smoothness.

- A steep slope in between steep and vertical. To finally make sure that all these giga's and hypers actually look somewhat decent.

 

Other elements which would be cool but also more nice to haves:

- A steeper bank angle (similar to rct3) and also outerbanks

- Zero G roll would be nice as well.

- half helixes (90 degrees)

- diagonal brakes

- tighter turns into diagonals

Large corkscrews that could be taken at higher speeds seem the most important to me. Medium loops next, there's a big gap between them and large loops. After that would be the diagonal brakes and sloped brakes and boosters.

- half helixes (90 degrees)

 

That one already exists

Wait what? On track types other than suspended/inverted coasters?

Wait what? On track types other than suspended/inverted coasters?

 

Only the inverted and suspended coaster currently have it available, but there's no distinction between the inverted elements and the regular ones, it's just a different track type. There is no reason the existing quarter helix element can't be used on a sit down ride type.

I'd like to make a suggestion - large radius vertical to level (or vertical to steep) pieces. At the tops of vertical track the vertical to steep piece can give a lot of negative G's, much more than the large radius steep to level. The vertical to steep piece is what limits G's and train speed, not the steep to level that forms the rest of the top of the hill.