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Planet Coaster 2: General Discussion

Bowser said:
Has anyone got it on PS5? Please let us know your thoughts if so!
Click to expand...
So, I caved in and pre-ordered last night, despite my preference for a disk (if I like the game, I'll still buy a disk eventually when they're going cheap for posterity). I've been playing the game for 3 hours now, so my views are very pleminary and will pretty much extend to coaster building which is what I used the old game for more than anything.

The first immediately noticeable change is the drop in frame rate. Whereas the original had a decently high frame rate throughout, this seems capped to 30fps. I'm not at all against that actually, as I'm suspecting it's being capped to meet console licence performance targets so that it's stable, and could be a work around for the piece counter limit. This, the new subdued colours, weather conditions, and motion blur (which can be switched off) gives it more of a cinematic feel. It feels more realistic and less cartoony that the original.

It kind of looks a lot like No Limits 2 a little bit. It's still bright and colourful, but whack some grey clouds in the sky and keep those annoying characters out of the way, and the POV's look quite realistic. The lighting and shadows are excellent actually. Coloured light bounces off of metal surfaces rather than the high sheen of the original, shadows become dull and blurred the further the object is away from a surface. I know plenty of games do this on PS5, but in such a vast management simulation game, it really looks much better.

The coaster building is a mixed bagged. I'm pleased to report that almost every issue from the first game has been rectified. There's no longer awful jerkiness when you transition between track pieces no matter how much you smooth. You no longer need to fiddle with 4mtr methods and exploit the game mechanics to get good results. You can just profile a coaster well, smooth it and it'll look good.

As for the smoothing tool, there's nothing not to like. It's much faster, intuitive, and effective. You can choose the strength of it, and what you want it to do (like sort out banking only, or smooth turns only etc). Absolutely brilliant. You choose the amount of track pieces you wish to smooth, and whether you want to go forwards or backwards, and away you go. It moves along the coaster automatically with each button press. Extra faff that's very welcome. No more mistakes, or moving along at a snails pace, selection a section at a time. It also doesn't ruin your intended profiling as much as before (like how it used to take heart lining out or make turns too tight). If it does, just undo it and fiddle with the settings until you get what you want.

The 4mtr method isn't completely dead. I tried building some rather tricky non-standard elements and it still requires some precision or the smoothing tool will just take it all out when it's to go "all". But you can build pretty standard coaster elements with ease now. My concern with this, however, is that so far it seems to take a huge chuck of skill out of the game. My son has dabbled with the first game from time to time, but he managed to build a Vekoma launch coaster that looks real and perfectly smooth in about 45 mins with ease.

I wouldn't mind that as much if it was to make the game more accessible to less seasoned players, but if fails on that front because the controls are much more complicated for some unknown reason. Remember how they mapped the controls to a console controller quite ingeniously in the first game? Well for some reason, they thought that the camera needed to be accessed differently, but this comes at the expense of laying track pieces.

Pointlessly, you now have to toggle between lifting and turning track pieces, to banking them and choosing their length. It's incredibly more faffy. I keep speeding up the camera and bringing up the weather forecast by mistake, because I'm holding square and it's just keeps doing things I don't want it to do. I don't think any player ever minded using the d-pad to speed up and pause the game speed, I don't need a trigger dedicated to it. Who asked for this? I wouldn't mind if the game had a 'classic controls' option, but if it does I haven't found it yet.

Another thing I haven't found yet, is how to speed the game up when viewing the coaster with the testing camera. I regularly test when building, but at the moment I'm sitting there watching a coaster creep a lift hill slowly. Press up on the d-pad and it just makes the screen go white and some storage enjoyment thingy menu comes up.

Some of this will just be adjusting to new controls. But for the life of me I don't understand why we need to toggle back and forth when laying track pieces. If doesn't seem to have anything to do with the extra options.
 
Matt.GC said:
I wouldn't mind that as much if it was to make the game more accessible to less seasoned players, but if fails on that front because the controls are much more complicated for some unknown reason. Remember how they mapped the controls to a console controller quite ingeniously in the first game? Well for some reason, they thought that the camera needed to be accessed differently, but this comes at the expense of laying track pieces.

Pointlessly, you now have to toggle between lifting and turning track pieces, to banking them and choosing their length. It's incredibly more faffy. I keep speeding up the camera and bringing up the weather forecast by mistake, because I'm holding square and it's just keeps doing things I don't want it to do. I don't think any player ever minded using the d-pad to speed up and pause the game speed, I don't need a trigger dedicated to it. Who asked for this? I wouldn't mind if the game had a 'classic controls' option, but if it does I haven't found it yet
Click to expand...

Hmm. Might hold off and await both further thoughts and a possible update as this does sound annoying.
 
Bowser said:
Hmm. Might hold off and await both further thoughts and a possible update as this does sound annoying.
Click to expand...
Matt's review is far more succinct and cohesive than my initial penned thoughts.

It is worth noting, however, that the PlayStation 5 version does have Keyboard and Mouse support for console. The controls are intuitive, for the DualSense, but I get the feeling that both Matt and I are deeply ingrained with some of the quirks from PC1, which aren't present here.

If you don't own either, but want to play one, definitely go for Planet Coaster 2.
Matt.GC said:
Another thing I haven't found yet, is how to speed the game up when viewing the coaster with the testing camera.
Click to expand...
Hold Square and tap R2, my friend.
 
Matt.GC said:
So, I caved in and pre-ordered last night, despite my preference for a disk (if I like the game, I'll still buy a disk eventually when they're going cheap for posterity). I've been playing the game for 3 hours now, so my views are very pleminary and will pretty much extend to coaster building which is what I used the old game for more than anything.

The first immediately noticeable change is the drop in frame rate. Whereas the original had a decently high frame rate throughout, this seems capped to 30fps. I'm not at all against that actually, as I'm suspecting it's being capped to meet console licence performance targets so that it's stable, and could be a work around for the piece counter limit. This, the new subdued colours, weather conditions, and motion blur (which can be switched off) gives it more of a cinematic feel. It feels more realistic and less cartoony that the original.

It kind of looks a lot like No Limits 2 a little bit. It's still bright and colourful, but whack some grey clouds in the sky and keep those annoying characters out of the way, and the POV's look quite realistic. The lighting and shadows are excellent actually. Coloured light bounces off of metal surfaces rather than the high sheen of the original, shadows become dull and blurred the further the object is away from a surface. I know plenty of games do this on PS5, but in such a vast management simulation game, it really looks much better.

The coaster building is a mixed bagged. I'm pleased to report that almost every issue from the first game has been rectified. There's no longer awful jerkiness when you transition between track pieces no matter how much you smooth. You no longer need to fiddle with 4mtr methods and exploit the game mechanics to get good results. You can just profile a coaster well, smooth it and it'll look good.

As for the smoothing tool, there's nothing not to like. It's much faster, intuitive, and effective. You can choose the strength of it, and what you want it to do (like sort out banking only, or smooth turns only etc). Absolutely brilliant. You choose the amount of track pieces you wish to smooth, and whether you want to go forwards or backwards, and away you go. It moves along the coaster automatically with each button press. Extra faff that's very welcome. No more mistakes, or moving along at a snails pace, selection a section at a time. It also doesn't ruin your intended profiling as much as before (like how it used to take heart lining out or make turns too tight). If it does, just undo it and fiddle with the settings until you get what you want.

The 4mtr method isn't completely dead. I tried building some rather tricky non-standard elements and it still requires some precision or the smoothing tool will just take it all out when it's to go "all". But you can build pretty standard coaster elements with ease now. My concern with this, however, is that so far it seems to take a huge chuck of skill out of the game. My son has dabbled with the first game from time to time, but he managed to build a Vekoma launch coaster that looks real and perfectly smooth in about 45 mins with ease.

I wouldn't mind that as much if it was to make the game more accessible to less seasoned players, but if fails on that front because the controls are much more complicated for some unknown reason. Remember how they mapped the controls to a console controller quite ingeniously in the first game? Well for some reason, they thought that the camera needed to be accessed differently, but this comes at the expense of laying track pieces.

Pointlessly, you now have to toggle between lifting and turning track pieces, to banking them and choosing their length. It's incredibly more faffy. I keep speeding up the camera and bringing up the weather forecast by mistake, because I'm holding square and it's just keeps doing things I don't want it to do. I don't think any player ever minded using the d-pad to speed up and pause the game speed, I don't need a trigger dedicated to it. Who asked for this? I wouldn't mind if the game had a 'classic controls' option, but if it does I haven't found it yet.

Another thing I haven't found yet, is how to speed the game up when viewing the coaster with the testing camera. I regularly test when building, but at the moment I'm sitting there watching a coaster creep a lift hill slowly. Press up on the d-pad and it just makes the screen go white and some storage enjoyment thingy menu comes up.

Some of this will just be adjusting to new controls. But for the life of me I don't understand why we need to toggle back and forth when laying track pieces. If doesn't seem to have anything to do with the extra options.
Click to expand...
Great insights, thanks Matt! One of my bug bears in PlanCo 1 were the awful transitions into the pre-fab elements. Having to be on a flat surface to enter into most of the inversions was far from ideal, and I've never been talented enough or had the patience to build realistic looking inversions from scratch. How has this shaped up in PlanCo 2?
 
Bowser said:
Hmm. Might hold off and await both further thoughts and a possible update as this does sound annoying.
Click to expand...
It depends on personal preference. That's just my thoughts and I find it highly irritating because I'm so used to the original controls. They weren't broken, so I see no need for the extra faff. If you're not used to the old controls, you might not mind. If you're used to keyboard and mouse, that's fully supported on both console versions as our avian friend has pointed out.

It's just that I personally prefer the control pad because I've been a console player since the 80's. I couldn't play an FPS without one either. So don't let my personal preferences influence yours mate. I'm still annoyed about the control change, but after 5 hours now I'm starting to get used to it as the much quicker smoothing tool and requirement for coaster building to be less precise is making up for it.
GooseOnTheLoose said:
Hold Square and tap R2, my friend.
Click to expand...
Tried that. It just zooms in like it does in Planco 1 mate. I also haven't figured out how to select and reorofile built track sections yet, but I'm starting to think that the more advanced auto complete and height options for the smoothing tool have replaced it?
DistortAMG said:
I am curious if the console versions allow for proper darkness inside buildings like the PC version.
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Go inside and it's shaded at first, I imagine for convenience reasons. Then it fades to complete darkness. So yes it does provide proper darkness.
Burbs said:
Great insights, thanks Matt! One of my bug bears in PlanCo 1 were the awful transitions into the pre-fab elements. Having to be on a flat surface to enter into most of the inversions was far from ideal, and I've never been talented enough or had the patience to build realistic looking inversions from scratch. How has this shaped up in PlanCo 2?
Click to expand...
To be honest pal, I haven't needed to use them because inversions are so much easier to build now. You could build a pretty dodgy corkscrew or zero-g roll and the smoothing tool pretty much takes care of it.

So I tried it after I read your post. It seems that as long as the entry to the prefab element is sensible, the smoothing tool does a far better job of preparing the entry piece. In Planco 1, you could do nothing wrong and the entry would still look dodgy. But I just built a gradual curve going into a sidewinder and it didn't look too bad mate.
 
Had a dabble tonight after work and it seems to be quite a nice improvement over the original.

The only issue I have is with the horrible UI, hopefully they do something with that in the future.
 
Started playing the PC version, I'm very rusty with it as not played the original for years! But first thoughts after a couple of hours:

Plus points
  • Very fast loading the game and your park. From launching from steam to my sandbox park opening took just under 30 seconds!
  • Music is awesome, and very listenable just like PC1
  • Graphics are amazing, very smooth, detailed and while they still have the "Planet" cartoon style about them, they feel more realistic at the same time
  • Lighting is amazing, ambient shadows are very realistic and dark buildings are dark!

Niggles
  • Far too many clicks and sub menus in the UI
  • Pressing Esc once doesn't quit you out of the mode you are in (eg placing grid pieces) like PC1 did, instead each press steps you back through the menus the way you came when you selected the scenery piece!
  • Cannot change the mouse button bindings (I want to swap the camera rotate with the camera pan - mouse wheel button press and right mouse button)
  • Camera only zooms in/out from the centre of the screen with no option to zoom in/out from cursor position (was an option on PC1)
  • If you change the grid size from 4m when placing grid scenery, it reverts back to 4m if you come out of the grid building and go back in/edit another grid building (this was never fixed in PC1)
  • Artificial lighting still bleeds into areas on the unlit side of lit walls if you use one of the directional coloured floodlights. The floor on the non-lit side still reflects the light from the other side. If there is a panel like the black "starfield" one in PC1 that did not reflect light that would probably solve it.
  • If you copy a speaker after setting music to it, the music doesn't get set on the copied speaker so you have to choose it again
I'm sure all of those niggles can be solved if enough people complain about them. But overall, this is shaping up to be an incredible sequel to the original.
 
Messed around with PC version a bit.

Building coasters backwards is going to make a massive difference. Especially for water rides. But means I can build a brake run and be able to work out where it's going to end.

UI isn't particularly intuitive. Though I've not done much scenery work so far so might mess around with that next time.

The drawing tool for paths and pools isn't as easy as I'd hoped. Though might just be able to draw freehand but no. Again need to play around some more on that front.

More of the same really with a few niggles here and there. Though I'd put a lot of that down to being used to PC1 after so many years and then things changing so they're wrong. It looks fantastic though. Be interesting to see how load times are affected once custom scenery hits though.
 
Two days in and they're already releasing an update. This includes several commonly requested features (including offload stations and a guest cap increase) and many bug fixes.
Correction: Apologies I completely miss read the press release, only the bug fixes are coming tomorrow, the new features are coming later.
 
Last edited:
Going back to my post last night, I have found a fix for the Zoom focus being centre screen not on the cursor. To change this (at your own risk):

1. Make sure the game isn't running and navigate to:
C:\Users\<username>\Saved Games\Frontier Developments\Planet Coaster 2\<steamconfigID>\Config and open the file Controls_remote.config.xml

2. Change the following line
<ZoomFocus>Centre</ZoomFocus>
to
<ZoomFocus>Cursor</ZoomFocus>

3. Save the file then launch the game.

View attachment ZoomFocus.mp4

There are a few XML files for the game in that folder with many settings that could be changed. I suspect many are changed within the settings menus so best change them there. It does look like this option was left out of the in-game settings for some reason, unless its so well hidden I can't find it!
 
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