User Guide

The Colour Scheme tab provides tools that let you customise the colours of all the parts
of the ride. As usual, the options depend on the characteristics of the specific ride.
The Income and Costs tab is where you set the price of admission to the ride and view
important financial data such as income, operating costs, and overall profit or loss.
Of course, some of this data is not available until the ride has been open for a while.
• Click the green light (in the View tab of the Ride window) when you’re ready to open the ride.
Characteristics of the Ride
After you’ve run a successful test of your ride, you can get a complete report on the important
characteristics of the experience. While most of these statistics are fairly clear and self-
explanatory, there are a few that might seem a bit subjective. The ratings that need explication
are among those with the greatest effect on your guests’ decisions whether or not to ride, so let’s
get to them.
Excitement The excitement factor of each ride is rated on a scale from 0 (the epitome of
tedium) to 10 (knocks your socks clean off). The higher this number, the more
you can successfully charge for admission to the ride, and the more popular
the ride will be with your guests. You can generate excitement by several
means. The type of ride sets the standard, and the design does the rest. The
overall speed of the ride, its pacing, and the look of it from the outside can
add to the excitement, as can nearby scenery (especially if it and the ride
share a consistent theme), the view from the ride, and the nearness of external
objects, including footpaths and other rides. The age of the ride is a factor,
too; novelty adds excitement.
Intensity Intensity appeals to some guests, but not all of them. This characteristic, too,
is on a scale from 0 (walk in the park) to 10 (white-knuckled terror). The
overall rating depends on all the forces, accelerations, changes of direction,
inversions, and speed experienced by a rider over the course of the track. You
can achieve intensity ratings over 10 through misguided design decisions, but
don’t be surprised when no one is willing to ride it, even for free!
Nausea Factor As with the others, the scale for this rating starts at 0 (safe even after a feast)
and proceeds up to 10 (don’t even stand close). This has a strong influence
on how your guests feel (physically) during and after the ride–and also on
whether or not they’ll choose to ride it in the first place. Spinning rides tend
to have high nausea ratings, and the more turns (especially sharp ones) and
inversions you include, the worse it gets.
Accessories
Once the track itself is complete, you must position and build an Entrance and an Exit, just as
for any other ride. Unlike other rides, however, only you can decide when a custom design is
finished. Therefore, the Entrance button is not activated for you as it is for placed rides.
• Click on the Entrance button (in the Construction window).
• Position the Entrance square adjacent to the Station Platform (leaving room for the Exit) and
click to build it.
• The Exit button is selected for you when the Entrance is complete. Position the Exit square
adjacent to the Station Platform and click to build it. (The Roller Coaster 1 window opens.)
• Build a Queuing Line to connect the Entrance with a main path.
• Make sure that the Exit is connected by footpath to a main path.
Remember that you must place both an Entrance and an Exit–and their associated paths–at
every station on the track.
Operations
When the design and construction of your custom ride are complete, it’s time for the moment
of truth–the test run. This “shakedown cruise” serves two purposes. First of all, it shows whether
or not the ride runs as it should. This is not a foregone conclusion for gravity rides; if you don’t
provide enough downhills to compensate for your uphills, the train can stall part of the way
through. The other purpose for testing is to determine the important characteristics of the
ride–excitement, intensity, and nausea factor. These are important clues that can tell you that
you need to modify the design or lead to a correct price for admission to the attraction.
• When you’ve finished the track and placed all of the necessary Entrances and Exits, the Ride
window for your custom ride opens.
• Click the amber light to begin the ride test run.
Select the tab with the pocket watch to see
the Measurements and Test Data display.
At first, there is no information in this display. When the test run is complete (assuming the train
makes it), the missing data is filled in. If the track design is functional and its running
characteristics are reasonable, your next step is to determine the way you want this attraction to
be run–the operating procedure. The features included under the various tabs in the Ride window
give you complete control over your new ride. (Note that not all of the tabs listed here appear
for every type of ride. You’ll see only the relevant ones.)
The Vehicle Options tab is where you control the “cars” (a general term that includes
all ride vehicles) on the ride. What options you have depends on the characteristics of
the specific ride, but you’re likely to be able to change the type of car on the ride (if
you have more than one option, that is), determine the number of cars or trains of
cars, and set the number of cars per train.
You determine exactly how the ride operates using the
Operation Options tab. What options and information are
provided depends on the type of ride you’ve built. Most of
the functions are toggling check-boxes with which you
simply turn features on and off. Others are pull-down boxes
in which you make one selection from the available choices.
One of the most important options controls how often the
track is to be inspected.
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