I do have some notes on the game, which I will incorporate into this thread, but I'll start with this meager post and add to it.
Planet Coaster, a Windows only game. (Consol? Maybe in the future.) If you are into building, the game is simply amazing. It may be a decent simulation too, but so far I have used this only as a platform for creative building.
What it is: A stunning tycoon style simulation allowing you to build and manages a profitable theme park that includes a no-budget, creative/sandbox build mode.
What it's not: The game is not designed to creative livable buildings, i.e. designed to live in. All the buildings are facades, most of the Windows are fake, pasted on the outside of the building, which can't be seen through, and although some impressive interior spaces can be created, they all lend themselves to public buildings designed for a theme park, and to support rides, with small compact shoppes incorporated into them. The game can be used to create some impressive, spectacular exterior theme park spaces.
Grid vs Non-Grid Imo, the game has a fairly steep learning curve, trying to figure out to how to build. Building grids and grid pieces provide the backbone and means of building coherent structures but they have significant limits on how pieces can be placed. Non-grid items can be moved and rotated any way desired and can be incorporated into a grid structure, as part of that grid, while retaining their flexibility. Of note, the game has lax collusion rules, allowing pieces to be shoved into each other, and melded into new building components,
For now, here are some general tips to get you thinking:
Planet Coaster, a Windows only game. (Consol? Maybe in the future.) If you are into building, the game is simply amazing. It may be a decent simulation too, but so far I have used this only as a platform for creative building.
What it is: A stunning tycoon style simulation allowing you to build and manages a profitable theme park that includes a no-budget, creative/sandbox build mode.
What it's not: The game is not designed to creative livable buildings, i.e. designed to live in. All the buildings are facades, most of the Windows are fake, pasted on the outside of the building, which can't be seen through, and although some impressive interior spaces can be created, they all lend themselves to public buildings designed for a theme park, and to support rides, with small compact shoppes incorporated into them. The game can be used to create some impressive, spectacular exterior theme park spaces.
Grid vs Non-Grid Imo, the game has a fairly steep learning curve, trying to figure out to how to build. Building grids and grid pieces provide the backbone and means of building coherent structures but they have significant limits on how pieces can be placed. Non-grid items can be moved and rotated any way desired and can be incorporated into a grid structure, as part of that grid, while retaining their flexibility. Of note, the game has lax collusion rules, allowing pieces to be shoved into each other, and melded into new building components,
For now, here are some general tips to get you thinking:
- The more building videos you watch the better, great insight will be gained along with less trial and error in your own building.
- Use multiple grids when building a single building if more flexibility in the architecture is needed. Grids side by side allow buildings and parts of buildings to be oriented in other than at 90/180 degrees to each other.
- Paths are everything, park guests only go where paths exist, can only enter and exit rides via paths so they must be top priority in design. If you intend to run a path through a building, run the path to the entrance and into the building, (or build the building around the path
), try to utilize the gird ability for paths, build a shell for the building, and then flesh out the path through the building and establish ride locations prior to any time spent on finishing the appearance of said building. - Orienting a building to a path- After you have a path, the building grid can be created, and raised/ lowered and oriented so that the path aligns perfectly with the floor tiles of the building.
- Terraforming/Verticle Builds, Incorporating pathing into vertices builds- Building on a mountain can seem challenging. Build the path to the entrance platform, build the coaster, and then fill in the mountain. While a reference hill might be built, and a sample building might be plunked down a to provide scale (easy to download from the workshop), don't build the entire mountain first. It's easier to lay out the path, an elevated path, and establish building foundations and ride relationships, then build the mountain up to it. A single square grid with walls built on it could be used to provide a height reference if desired. Especially, for coasters, make some approximations for desired heights, which I acknowledge can be difficult when first starting out because you don't have a good feeling for scale, but take a guess, then build the coaster with an idea of where it will be on the mountain. It's the only way you can build a decent coaster.