• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

Planet Coaster: What you've been up to?

I am playing it on the xbox, I am currently working on a more realistic park, my previous ones have just been a ton of coasters and no real themes behind it

Im currently building an indoor ride called 'Escape: Earth' which is going to be situated inside a nasa style building with a rocket outside - going to try to make a launched coaster with some good theming around it,

my only issue is I tend to use a lot of trees etc as I get bored quickly when things aren't going right
 
I love this game, I truly do, but I've been deterred thanks to viewing YouTube videos of peoples parks that look so damn good that it demoralizes you - well me at least.

I've tried to get back into it as I have it on the PS5, but its difficult.
 
Error said:
I love this game, I truly do, but I've been deterred thanks to viewing YouTube videos of peoples parks that look so damn good that it demoralizes you - well me at least.

I've tried to get back into it as I have it on the PS5, but its difficult.
Click to expand...
It's not just you, I would love to know how the likes of Theme Park Worldwide and Channel 5 Gaming have the patience to build parks over days of game time.
 
That's the trouble with the Internet, you're always 'competing' against people who have more time, practise and resources.

I have to admit I've lost motivation a few times because it's taken me weeks to do something that was outshone by something someone else managed to make in a day.

But when it happens I just shut off the Internet and have fun making something small that I can just be happy with.
 
This isn’t me sharing a project I’m working on as such, but I just wanted to share a tip to help you optimise throughputs on multi-launch coasters in the game without damaging the flow of the ride.


If you’ve been playing the game for a while, you might notice that with the game’s multi-launch coaster models, you are unable to make each launch function as its own block section like a real life multi-launch coaster would. As such, your train is often left waiting for a very long time at the first launch; until the train negotiating the layout hits the brake run, the train cannot be launched from the first launch, leading to waits of a minute or more on the launch track prior to launching. This also substantially decreases the ride’s throughput. Unless you place an MCBR within the layout itself or make the second launch a standing launch as opposed to a rolling launch, this seems unavoidable. For an idea of what I mean, here’s a POV of Black Mamba, a multi-launch coaster I created for my Worlds of Globala park. Notice how the ride stops for what feels like a very, very long time prior to the first launch (skip to around 1 minute in to see what I’m talking about; it takes the ride 2 minutes to launch):




However, I had an epiphany yesterday, and I realised that it is possible to make each launch function as its own block section without damaging the flow of the ride or shaving off any notable speed. The way to do this is to place a tiny section of block brake prior to the second launch. To test this out, I saved Black Mamba as a blueprint and pasted two copies of the Black Mamba layout into a clean map, with no other scenery. I left one layout the same and altered the other so that the first piece of track in the second launch was replaced by a block brake section with a very high target speed (above what the ride was naturally going at at this point) and a very low deceleration, so that the illusion of a rolling launch is still there. Interestingly, the block brake actually improved the ride experience’s ratings in game; the prestige was identical, but the excitement and fear ratings were marginally higher, and somehow, the ride gained an extra 0.2s airtime moment even though I didn’t alter the actual layout at all! The brake section slowed the ride down by only a negligible amount (~1mph) prior to the second launch, and the second launch still hit the same speed, so it made absolutely no difference to the ride experience!


This brake also had a profound impact on throughput. Warning in advance; I’m about to get a bit geeky here!


I tested both layouts (with and without block brake) in testing mode, with no guests, to get an estimate of theoretical throughput for each. For reference, Black Mamba has 4 trains of 20 riders.

Without the block brake, I calculated using the Dispatch Timer app that Black Mamba could dispatch every 1 minute 17 seconds. As the ride has 20 rider trains, this led to a throughput of 933 riders per hour. I should note that in this mode, the ride was always stacking on 4 trains, leading to there never being a gap between trains, so I didn’t need to take this into account.


With the block brake, dispatches were much quicker. In testing mode, I timed that the ride could dispatch every 40 seconds, leading to a throughput of 1,781 riders per hour given that Black Mamba has 20-rider trains. However, if trains were dispatched constantly, I noticed that there was a bit of a gap between the 4th train leaving the station and the 1st train reentering the station. Adding this lag time between trains onto the average dispatch of 40 seconds for the 5th dispatch and calculating the new average dispatch time led me to an average dispatch time of 45 seconds, or a theoretical throughput of 1,600 riders per hour given Black Mamba’s 20-rider trains. Still, even with my more conservative estimate, this still led to a 71.5% increase in throughput!


Hope you find this tip useful to optimise the throughputs on those multi-launch coasters!
 
Last edited:
Sorry for double posting, but I just wanted to update you all on my PC situation for playing the game, as I know that my system specifications and the frame rates they lead to have drawn some comments in the past.

As you’ll know if you’ve seen my Worlds of Globala park in particular, my current system does encounter some performance issues when dealing with larger, more detailed parks (frame rates of <10FPS for the vast majority of the time, and drops to around 5-6FPS, sometimes lower, if I try and record). So I just wanted to tell you all that I may hopefully have found a solution; I’ve actually gone ahead and bought myself a brand new desktop PC!


I decided to revisit the idea of buying a new desktop PC after getting rather a lot of money for my 18th birthday, and after a bit of thinking & researching, I decided to take the plunge and order this amazing-sounding system from PCSpecialist; with the specs it was offering for the price point, it was an absolute steal that I couldn’t refuse: https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/gamin...tx-3060-2-tb-hdd-512-gb-ssd-10223939-pdt.html


The desktop PC I’ve gone for costs £1,350, and has the following specs:

  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X (Hexa-core, 3.7GHz with Turbo Boost up to 4.6GHz)
  • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (12GB VRAM)
  • 16GB RAM
  • 2TB HDD & 512GB SSD
Before ordering, I ensured to put the specs into a comparison site to compare with my current system (current specs in opening post), and:

  • The CPU comes out at around 110% better than my current one overall, and the GPU comes out at around 150% better.
  • The new CPU had a score of 10/10, compared with 4.6/10 for my current one.
  • The new GPU had a score of 9.8/10, compared with 2.5/10 for my current one.
  • My current system had the GPU identified as a notable bottleneck, whereas this new system had no identifiable bottleneck.
I’m certainly excited to see how the game runs on my new computer! I’m hoping I can produce videos of my future park projects that run at considerably better FPS than my current system attains, although even if I can’t, moving to a desktop should certainly bring other benefits (am I correct in saying that desktop components are replaceable, so I can simply replace components in the future as opposed to having to buy an entirely new system?)


I’m getting very close to the end of the final country of Worlds of Globala, so I don’t think you’ll be seeing any Globala videos filmed on my new PC, but I certainly hope I can pull off ambitious creations in the future with better FPS!
 
Last edited:
Very nice, that is quite a potent system. Considering the current PC market with the global chip shortage, that price is not bad at all. Plus a PC specialist build, they are a very good system builder.

Those comparison sites are quite unreliable at the best of times to be fair, for a huge number of reasons. That said, that PC is quite a step up in terms of power than what your laptop was.

As for bottlenecking, every single computer has a bottleneck, computers are always bottlenecks by something, if they was not, every PC would have unlimited performance. What it is bottlenecked by though is relative, depends on the workload the computer is doing at the time, and can change depending on that.

PCs are upgradeable to an extent. Upgrading RAM, your GPU, storage. You could do your CPU, but your 5000 series Ryzen is the last Ryzen series built on the AM4 platform, the 6000 Ryzen will be using a new socket so, they wont be upgradeable. The CPU you are getting is very powerful though, so you would not need to.
 
Personally, I thought it was an absolute steal for the specifications provided; I was having a look on PC World, and the PCs with equivalent specs from other manufacturers were all costing a fair bit more (at least a couple of hundred more) than the system I bought, so as I was looking through, this one really caught my eye!

Out of interest, is PCSpecialist usually quite a reasonably-priced manufacturer relative to the specifications provided? I’ve noticed that certain manufacturers do sometimes tend to be more expensive (for instance, Dell’s Alienware brand usually seems to be pretty pricey for the hardware being provided compared to other manufacturers).

On a different note; to keep the thread mildly on topic, here’s a link to what I’ve been up to lately in Planet Coaster: https://towersstreet.com/talk/threads/worlds-of-globala.5458/page-3

I recently finished Worlds of Globala, my world’s fair style park, after 1 year and 4 months of working on it!
 
I would not say it is a steal. It is about right for the specifications inside. You have to remeber the two examples you gave, Alienware and PC world, two retailers very well known for selling over priced computers. If the PC you brought cost much more, I would say you over paid. But, it makes you feel good at thinking you got it at a steal, then think that. As you certainly have not been ripped off with it.

PC specialist are priced competitively, they have good build quality and good after sales service too. Also a bonus.

I do wonder what powersupply they have given you, a very important component for reliability and longevity. Weirdly they have left the wattage, brand and model out of the listing. Companies generally do this when then use cheap rubbish supplies. But on the flip side, this is PC specialists something they generally do not want to do.

That PC though, should play any game at very high settings. It will bring you lots of enjoyment to come.
 
The PC actually arrived today, and me and my dad set it up along with all the relevant peripherals this afternoon! PlanCo is still installing, so I can't yet give my verdict on how PlanCo runs on it, but first impressions are very positive!

Regardless of how PlanCo runs on it, I'm already noticing notable improvements & differences compared to my old system; a 27 inch screen adds a surprising amount to the experience, as do dedicated speakers (seriously, I'm floored by how incredible stuff sounds over these new speakers compared to my old laptop's speakers, and these speakers aren't even particularly high-end ones, having cost a mere £30)! The mouse is also far easier to click & drag with than the trackpad I was using before, which had no specific left and right click buttons.

One other interesting side effect is that it has a lot more of the traditionally brightly-coloured gaming computer paraphernalia than my old laptop, so it makes the corner of my room it's situated in look somewhat akin to a nightclub!

So while I haven't ascertained how it runs PlanCo just yet, all is good so far!
EDIT: PlanCo is now up & running on it! I’ve tested Worlds of Globala on it, and there’s definite improvement; frame rates are now 10-15FPS, even when recording! I know that doesn’t sound great, but given the previous benchmark was <5FPS, I’m chuffed! It might not be perfect, but it certainly looks notably clearer to me; my first thought upon turning it on was shock at how crisp and smooth the motion was! For some idea, I’ve currently got 11,188 guests in the park, and I’m solidly hitting 10-15FPS in play mode and 15-20FPS when paused! I’m thrilled; I might see if I can record a park overview video at some point in the future, to show it off in somewhat better quality on my new PC…
 
Last edited:
Matt N said:
The mouse is also far easier to click & drag with than the trackpad I was using before, which had no specific left and right click buttons.
Click to expand...
You were using a trackpad to play PlanCo?! You're a mad-man!
Matt N said:
For some idea, I’ve currently got 11,188 guests in the park, and I’m solidly hitting 10-15FPS in play mode and 15-20FPS when paused! I’m thrilled; I might see if I can record a park overview video at some point in the future, to show it off in somewhat better quality on my new PC…
Click to expand...
See about closing the park to remove all guests to check if the frame rate increases as a result. Whenever I'm building I tend to have the park closed, or a very low limit set. This might be what you need to do to create some smoother, quicker videos. :)
 
Burbs said:
You were using a trackpad to play PlanCo?! You're a mad-man!
Click to expand...
I won't lie, it was difficult at times; the thing would sometimes get completely stuck and wouldn't drag at all unless I pressed very forcefully! Advanced move could sometimes be quite difficult, and I would sometimes struggle to get it to click and drag at all, but I managed to cope and build the stuff I've been building for the past 4 years!

Yes, everything in Worlds of Globala & Newman's Pleasure Gardens was built using a humble laptop trackpad...
Burbs said:
See about closing the park to remove all guests to check if the frame rate increases as a result. Whenever I'm building I tend to have the park closed, or a very low limit set. This might be what you need to do to create some smoother, quicker videos. :)
Click to expand...
I thought it looked fairly smooth at the mode I had it on (10-15FPS when playing & recording, 15-20FPS when paused, and around 8-9k guests in the park), or at least extremely smooth in comparison to the previous system (<5FPS even when not recording, at most 5-6FPS with an empty park, dropping to below 5FPS when recording, wouldn't even record at all once I got above 1-2k guests). Yes it's still far from perfect, but compared to the quality my laptop produced, it was honestly night & day! Upon turning the park on on the new PC, my first reaction was honestly shock at how smooth it was; it hasn't been that smooth on my laptop in quite some time (probably before I started filming the videos for you guys in May 2020, by which point the park was only around 50% done...)! The most recent time I can think of when it was that smooth on my laptop was when the park was only around 25% done and admitting a couple of thousand guests, if that; given that the park is now done, has a huge amount more scenery & rides, and had vastly more guests in (around 8-9k), I was extremely impressed!

To put things into perspective; many of the <5FPS videos from my old system were done with no guests in the park, whereas I'm now hitting 10-15FPS with nearly 10,000 guests in... to me, it honestly seems profoundly smoother, if still not perfect, so given the many additional guests, I was extremely impressed with the quality being produced!

I might see if I can get a more profound difference with few to no guests in the park, however... if I do, I'll be sure to film!

I tested the new PC on some other parks, however, and the improvements are far more profound! For instance, I tested it out in Newman's Pleasure Gardens, and the minimum frame rate was 30-40FPS, compared with 10FPS or below in areas before, with it even occasionally hitting the full 60FPS in the higher areas that used to only be 20FPS or so!

I also tested out:
  • My first Planet Coaster park; used to be a bit below 10FPS and is now around 25-30FPS.
  • Shawn Sanbrooke's Atlas Adventure park; used to be around 10FPS, is now 30-40FPS.
  • Shawn Sanbrooke's Volcano Springs park; used to be 5-10FPS, is now at least 25FPS, often exceeding 30FPS.
So what I've ascertained is that stuff that used to look quite juddery on my old system now runs very smoothly. To be honest, I think I may just have built a bit of a system killer with Worlds of Globala...
 
Last edited:
Rick said:
I think SteVe might have been replaced as my most hated acronym in this community.
Click to expand...
If you mean PlanCo, that's actually official. Planco (without the capital) is the language in the game. So PlanCo became the short hand for the game. It's universal across all the communities and I think I've seen Frontier use it.
 
Must admit I first read it as part of the new puter spec or system, then realisation slowly broke.
Never heard it before, but then again, I'm still playing on my Vita.
 
Matt N said:
The PC actually arrived today, and me and my dad set it up along with all the relevant peripherals this afternoon! PlanCo is still installing, so I can't yet give my verdict on how PlanCo runs on it, but first impressions are very positive!

Regardless of how PlanCo runs on it, I'm already noticing notable improvements & differences compared to my old system; a 27 inch screen adds a surprising amount to the experience, as do dedicated speakers (seriously, I'm floored by how incredible stuff sounds over these new speakers compared to my old laptop's speakers, and these speakers aren't even particularly high-end ones, having cost a mere £30)! The mouse is also far easier to click & drag with than the trackpad I was using before, which had no specific left and right click buttons.

One other interesting side effect is that it has a lot more of the traditionally brightly-coloured gaming computer paraphernalia than my old laptop, so it makes the corner of my room it's situated in look somewhat akin to a nightclub!

So while I haven't ascertained how it runs PlanCo just yet, all is good so far!
EDIT: PlanCo is now up & running on it! I’ve tested Worlds of Globala on it, and there’s definite improvement; frame rates are now 10-15FPS, even when recording! I know that doesn’t sound great, but given the previous benchmark was <5FPS, I’m chuffed! It might not be perfect, but it certainly looks notably clearer to me; my first thought upon turning it on was shock at how crisp and smooth the motion was! For some idea, I’ve currently got 11,188 guests in the park, and I’m solidly hitting 10-15FPS in play mode and 15-20FPS when paused! I’m thrilled; I might see if I can record a park overview video at some point in the future, to show it off in somewhat better quality on my new PC…
Click to expand...

Nice, a 10 to 15 fps, up from < 5fps, represents a 100 to 150% performance uplift, in computer terms, that is huge. Although the mind baffles me how and why you've played this game for so long with touch pad, the game really is built for a mouse. You could have a plugged a cheap mouse in.

Anyway, enjoy my friend, the Ryzen 5000 series CPUs are monsters oozing with single thread performance. Which probably does not mean much to you, but when PlanCo is running a large park on any system, that is where the main bottleneck usually is, determining your maximum FPS, especially when guest are in a park, so having a good single core performance is a must. Out of curiosity, have you adjusted any of the in game graphical settings? Planet Coaster looks stunning with settings tuned towards the higher end of the spectrum, which you now how the power to realise, with decent FPS to boot. The game also, even now, looks amazing, especially 1440p to 4k resolutions.
 
DistortAMG said:
Nice, a 10 to 15 fps, up from < 5fps, represents a 100 to 150% performance uplift, in computer terms, that is huge. Although the mind baffles me how and why you've played this game for so long with touch pad, the game really is built for a mouse. You could have a plugged a cheap mouse in.

Anyway, enjoy my friend, the Ryzen 5000 series CPUs are monsters oozing with single thread performance. Which probably does not mean much to you, but when PlanCo is running a large park on any system, that is where the main bottleneck usually is, determining your maximum FPS, especially when guest are in a park, so having a good single core performance is a must. Out of curiosity, have you adjusted any of the in game graphical settings? Planet Coaster looks stunning with settings tuned towards the higher end of the spectrum, which you now how the power to realise, with decent FPS to boot. The game also, even now, looks amazing, especially 1440p to 4k resolutions.
Click to expand...
I was certainly very pleased with how the park looked on my new PC compared to my old laptop! Yes, the FPS may not be absolutely pristine, but they’re a damn sight better than they were before, and produce a notably smoother experience both from my end and yours (when I record videos)! When I kicked guests out of WoG, I was getting a solid 15-20FPS, compared to 5-6FPS before, which I was certainly very pleased with, personally; stuff now looks very smooth!

As for the trackpad; I managed with one for 4 years, and managed to build all the stuff I’ve built in the game with it, so it served me perfectly well, but now I have a mouse, I’ll admit it’s so much easier to do things like advanced move with, and I’m now questioning why I never got a mouse sooner…

In terms of the graphical settings; I haven’t really ever played around with them, but from what I can tell, they’re set to pretty high settings by default. My monitor only goes up to 1080p/Full HD, but that’s good enough for me, I think. I’ll admit I certainly love the whole pristine & polished visual look that Planet Coaster provides, so I’ve never really downgraded the graphics settings; it was certainly a pronounced change from the graphic style of 2004’s RCT3, which is what I was coming from when I first got Planet Coaster in 2017!

_________________________________________________________________

Anyway, on a note more on-topic with the thread, I’ve been having some ideas about what I should tackle next now I’ve done Worlds of Globala. I am of course still progressively working on Newman’s Pleasure Gardens, so expect updates from that park, and I have actually started work on a theme park themed to the four seasons (the actual seasons of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, not the hotel chain or the band), so you can expect to see that at some point in the future, but I’m undecided between two ideas I had for something new to begin. I intend to do both ideas at some stage, but I was wondering which of these you’d be interested to see me work on first:
Idea 1
  • The first idea I had was for a theme park with an amalgamation of the various different “base” themes within the game, with 6 themed areas focusing on what I’d call the base themes; Pirate, Spooky, Adventure, Western, Fairytale & Sci-Fi, as well as an entrance area.
  • The park would also be built either in a lake, or have water playing into its landscape somewhat, and would have a little bit of a nautical exploration theme to it, kind of like Tokyo DisneySea.
  • I would also focus more on the Resort side of things than I did with Worlds of Globala, with numerous themed hotels, maybe an entertainment complex as well (given what PlanCo offers, this would likely just be some restaurants and food stalls), and possibly even a transportation system akin to Alton Towers’ monorail to transport guests to the park’s main entrance, showing off some of the park’s various sights along the way.
  • The park would be similar in terms of ride lineup to Worlds of Globala, with a variety of coasters, dark rides, water rides, flat rides and other things for all ages, although I’d perhaps try and focus on less, higher-quality rides in this park as opposed to putting in loads & loads of flat rides like I did in Globala. Obviously I would still build a fair amount of flat rides, but I’d like to try and shoot for some more dark rides in this park, as well as perhaps a properly large-scale, heavily themed water ride, which I’d argue that Globala lacks.
  • In terms of the project’s scope, it would most definitely be a mega park project, likely similar in scope to Globala if not a bit bigger, although the park itself would perhaps be a little smaller.
  • I’d like to do this project because my first parks in the game centred around these more basic themes, and with my (in my opinion) improved building skills, I feel like I could ensure greater quality and do the concept a lot more justice now.
Idea 2
  • The other idea I had was for a theme park themed to horror; something kind of like a year-round scare park, but with theme park rides instead of scare attractions. I’m currently unsure exactly what themed areas I’d do or how many I’d do, but I’ve got some basic ideas, and I’d definitely have all of the themes be dark themes; while they’d all have their own unique flavour, and play on different styles, all of the themes would feed back into the overarching theme of horror.
  • Unlike the proposal above, this park would not really focus on the Resort side of things, and would be a smaller park than Globala or the other proposal above; this almost certainly wouldn’t be a massive mega park in the style of Globala.
  • In terms of the target demographic and ride types I’d go for; as the theme outlined very much implies, this would be a thrill park aimed almost primarily at teenagers & adults, with big coasters and flat rides on offer, but I’d also try and integrate some dark rides and water rides in too, as I feel like great things could be done with dark rides in particular when utilising a horror theme.
  • One thing I was thinking is that I perhaps wouldn't tackle full-scale themed areas in this park, instead really going to town on theming the major rides and allocating each major ride its own area, maybe throwing in some support rides alongside a couple of them.
  • I'd like to do this project because even though I know some UK enthusiasts in particular are feeling somewhat fatigued with horror themes, what with Merlin having somewhat of an attraction to them, I feel like I've never really seen anyone attempt a horror park in PlanCo before, and I feel like there's a lot of untapped potential in Planet Coaster within the theme of horror. I myself haven't dabbled too much in dark themes (the only 2 I can think of are Doomsday Temple & El Conquistador in Globala), and the game doesn't have too much in the way of expressly horror theming, so I'd be really interested to see what I can pull off within what the game provides! Also, it would put me outside of my comfort zone a bit when thinking of storylines & ride themes, because I'm not really much of a horror aficionado myself (quite the opposite, in fact; I'll confess that I'm a complete wimp when it comes to proper horror stuff & scare attractions...).
So which of these would you like to see me attempt first? A mega park & resort centred around some of the base themes, or a smaller park based around horror themes?
 
Excuse my ignorance, but I'm not a PC gamer and never have been. I collect consoles and have done since the 90's (big Sega fanboy). I've got Planet Coaster on PS5 and I know I won't get the performance of a high end PC from it as consoles games always hold you by the goolies.

But is that dreaded piece counter anything I can get around? I'm sorry but I think it's just unacceptably over zealous. On PS4 it does suffer from slowdown but it doesn't flinch on PS5 and I think Frontier are just being rediculous by setting it so low, I know alot of other people with Series X and PS5 around the web are equally as dissatisfied with it. I don't even get to half a park before it sticks it's middle finger up at me and it seems to barely give me any more room that it does on last gen hardware. I'm told it's 20% more, which itself doesn't even sound alot for a next gen upgrade.

Is it the same on PC? I get that Frontier need to protect the performance of their product but surely there's a middle ground here? Not as bothered about performance on low end PCs, PS4 or Xone it seems.

I've learnt that coasters don't seem to impact it as much as I thought, paths however seem to hammer it. Terrain mods and lakes etc don't seem to have an impact. Does the width of paths matter? How about creating your own buildings as opposed to preset?
 
There's no limit on PC.
Unfortunately with the console versions to pass all the tests Microsoft and Sony require for releasing a game it has to run at an acceptable rate. Hence the limit. This is impossible to police on PC as some users still use decade old laptops while others have mind-blowing super computers.

As for the minor difference in next gen, It could be that they've underestimated the capability of the newer consoles. Or maybe they do start to flag at only 20% more if they've been optimised for graphics over content?

Edit: Now I think about it didn't Sony make a big claim that all games will either run at 60FPS or minimum 30FPS (graphics depending) on PS5? If so that might be why the limit only increased by 20%. My PC drops below 30FPS quite frequently once there's a lot of content, and its a fairly good PC.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top