With the sweep of his hand, Mr. Saywer has arbitrarily changed the height mark standard of 8.6 feet for 2HMs (in RCT1) to 10 feet in RCT2. That means that all our previous rides are suddenly too large. Unforturnately, in changing the scale of the sim, he failed to make the track components 14% smaller to "fit" the new measures. That makes coaster recreations that much harder to do since all the old track pieces are now cruder (in effect longer) to work with since they remained the same size from the old version.

I take my Giant Dipper @ Santa Cruz as an example. The actual coaster's height is 70 feet. The closest I could come with RCT1 and make a decently shaped first drop was 73.9 feet. Now suddenly that same 73.9 feet has become 85 feet in RCT2!!! Any attempts to rescale the ride is impossible since the track pieces are still the same size as in RCT1. The swoop track sections are too long for instance. And combinations to get me to the ground in the second drop either are short by 10 feet or below ground level by 10 feet. There is no intermediate swoop track to compensate for the downsizing and yet keep the layout essentials intact. 

This, along with his merging the two wooden coasters into the twister only with its hideous banked track, the separating of the minis and still leaving out some its track combos, some coasters making the use of blocks obligatory to get the proper number of cars/trains, losing our hill tool, etc. has turned RCT2 into a real pig's breakfast for me. I am somewhat demoralized at this point. 

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Steve 

           << Real World Track Packs >>

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To let you know that some are interesting to see how you solve these problems . . . Please don't get discouraged.

On the bright side, you'll be able to include scenery with your track packs from now on, and that should really make the usage of the rides even better for those of use that are too lazy to always try to figure out how to landscape around the ride for a real re-creation.
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I had noticed the vertical rescaling, and now see it to be a serious problem. I did a quick test, and I see that he *has* changed the "largest vertical drop" calculation in the ride statistics to reflect the changed vertical measures ... HOWEVER, he hasn't changed the ride physics ?!?!?!?     (enough emoticons to express my shock at this).

To illustrate, the last time I checked, the acceleration of gravity was the same in 2002 as it was when RCT1 was created ... the fact that the exact same maximium speed ratings were achieved in my test from RCT1 to RCT2 is highly disturbing. A fall from 50 feet in RCT2 (transition to drop, two steep, 2 less-steep drops, transition to flat) results in a max speed of 41 MPH ... the EXACT SAME speed achieved in RCT1 from a drop of "10" units, or 43 feet according to your conversion.  

Is the height not big enough to detect the difference??? I'm going to run some more quick tests ... be back in a jiff. 

=======================

Oh man. I did a test with the roto-drop... 10 "builds" above the base. This results in a height of 120 in RCT2 and a difference of 24 in RCT1 (in my case, it was at 30 for the top with the base at 6. . . crazy craters).

The max speed was 52 MPH for both coasters. The problem, however, is that the drop is a DIFFERENT length now. The ride stats calculate the length differently in RCT1 v. 2 ... in RCT2, the ride length was 223 feet, in RCT1 it was 95ft. Basically, RCT2 is counting going up AND down, whereas I think RCT1 only counted going down. These height measurements don't match your estimates for height b/c you don't go all the way to the top, I don't think . . . So the 95ft in RCT1 is really probably only calculated for 22 HU's, I bet. Dunno about that.

I'm going to do a vertical coaster next. That should be the real test. I'll do a max drop to see if he's capturing the physics.

Sorry for the double post (and soon to be triple). But this issue really peeves me for a variety of reasons.

(Also sorry for using the term jiff, hahaha. Heard it last night on TV and guess it just came out.) 

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Just built a 941 ft. vertical coaster in RCT1 and ported it to RCT2. To re-create it, in RCT2, go immediate after the station into a steep, chain-lift incline to 215 feet (starting at zero). Immediately go into a tight 180 degree turn, holding brake, vertical drop to zero, then stay flat until you can do a 180 back into the station (which is 3 tiles long). This ride would kill you in real life, but, hey, this is for testing the physics.

The coaster stats -- as we should expect by now -- DID NOT CHANGE. Amazingly, this INCLUDES the ride LENGTH! Given that a good portion of this ride's length is going almost straight up or straight down, you can see why I am shocked at this, yes??? This means he changed the vertical scaling in the game for window-dressing (i.e., no longer measuring height units in units but in chunks of 5 feet), but didn't bother to make those 5 feet match anything in the game. Unbelievable.

Maybe he was rounding????? But the coaster calculations in terms of feet are identical, the coaster physics are identical, etc.

Also, notice that the identical coaster length calcs imply that the horizontal distance of a tile is the same between RCT1 and RCT2, since this is how you measured it in RCT1, yes??? (not sure about that, but makes sense).
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My recommendation ... consider making "real-world" rides based upon the 4.3 ft/height unit rather than the 5 feet amount that is in the game. 1) this is more workable, since the scaling gives you more flexibility, 2) this allows porting from RCT1 to 2, and 3) pretend the 5 ft. is a rounded 4.3 ...

I really don't know what else to say at this point. Maybe someone else does.
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One other alternative -- we should theoretically be able to measure the actual vertical distance of a tile based upon the speed measurements in the game ... for example, in the vertical coaster I just mentioned, we have a drop (that the game claims is 206ft) that results in an instantaneous velocity of 82 MPH (120 ft./sec.). This body started the descent at a velocity of zero, so the resulting distance displacement should be a straightfoward calc.

But since I've never had any physics, I'll let someone else do this. 

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The RotoDrop is VERY troubling. For several reasons. First, if I make two roto drops -- one in RCT1 and one in RCT2 -- the RCT2 one is MUCH more extreme in intensity.

In fact, if I try to recreate the "Drop Zone" at Paramount's King's Island in Ohio, I *can't*. Nobody will ride it. The ride in real life is 300 feet tall, give or take. I can't make anything much over half that tall in RCT2! How annoying!

So you're not the only one bothered by this. Never mind the Deja Vu re-creation which is totally the wrong size and wrong proportions

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Spryboy --- Re: roto-drop -- He's made the drop *much* more intense ... the E/I/N ratings between two roto-drops of equal height from RCT1 and 2 are substantially different, as you noted. Specifically in my test (see if I wrote this down somewhere...) the E/I/N in RCT1 was 4.12/5.34/5.34. In RCT2 it was 5.19/7.84/7.84 for the same number of vertical build units, same max-speed, but obviously different ride length as per my previous post.

However, the E/I/N ratings for the steel / Looper and vertical coasters I tested were virtually identical for the same track (in addition to virtually every other coaster stat -- almost 100% identical. Off by .01 here and there, but really identical).

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My last post, then I'm outta here for the day.

Just did the distance calculation based upon the maximum speed of the vertical coaster (ignoring friction) ...

d = .5*v^2/g, I think. Which means that in BOTH RCT1 and RCT2, the ACTUAL drop of a vertical coaster of height 43 (RCT1) or 215 ft (RCT2) is closer to 224 ft. (in this case, .5 * (120^2)/32.2.

More shocking, this is WITHOUT friction!!! Adding friction would make the distance of the fall even higher, yes???  Man, I am totally confused. Did you guys notice this problem back with RCT1? I can't believe I never tested it.

With the caveat that I know no physics, so my calc. could be radically screwed ... Please tell me that this is where the problem is.

UGHUHGUGUHTUGHHYUG. Very, very frustrating.

(BTW, just saw the edit feature. Again, apologies for double posting earlier. Should have merged these things). 

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I can understand the plight of those who do recreations more often than just park building, and I do notice a change in the height ratios and the track size. But, for us regular addicts that don't bother with perfect recreations, this doesn't really make much of a difference.

The roto-drop tho, that confuses me. I could build the tallest possible in RCT1 and guests would still ride it (intensity in the 9's) but now in RCT2, I have to build them up to a height of about 120 feet to match it. I don't really understand.

Jared 

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Why not just change the hight marks to "units" and forget about it? I keep thinking most people seem to miss the fact that it's changeable...

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You mean like RCT1?? Not sure why he changed it. . . Can we change that option on-screen in RCT2?

I think the problem that Steve is having is that "Feet" is an almost-unversally understood measurement. Arbitrarily releasing coasters advertized as realistic but not conforming to CS's choice of feet/unit would be purposefully misleading people.

My point is that CS's scale is also inherently inconsistent (as noted above, you can measure distance by the maximal instantaneous velocity achieved, or by the lengths advertised in the game. None of these seem to match to any degree of accuracy -- other than length of drop and the new 5-ft/unit scale).

Thus, the question is ... can real-world coasters actually be built???

Has anyone broken down the 6-flags coasters in the game and analyzed the "scale" that was used for those coasters? How realistic are they? 

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You grasp and appreciate my dilemma pefectly. 

Since his old height units were obscure and had to be calucalated out to find that 1 HM is 4.3 feet, they are no doubt the correct figures. His suddenly declaring that 4.3 feet is now 5 feet without alterring the track pieces accordingly is a serious issue when trying to cobble together a recreation. 

I have already considered you idea of making a new conversion chart converting RCT2's feet into RCT1 feet so that I can, at least, continue making recreations based on the old standard.

I spend hours tinkering with my Giant Dipper @ Santa Cruz with the new standard and rescaling the track is simply impossible. I expect that to be the case for all my recreations. 

This Mr. Sawyer drives me nuts. 

--------------------
Steve 

=============================

yes but the height and velocity will be thrown off. Sawyer seemingly changed the ratio of the height to land units, not just put the feet in. The whole vertical scaling, as someone above me said, is changed. So regardless of feet or units, they all will be thrown off.

Jared 

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I just thought of this - has anyone tried setting the measurement displays to metric and testing that way? 

Reasoning: If the game "thinks" in metric we could just be seeing an error in conversion to imperial units. The old RCT1 magic numbers "4.3/4.6 feet" look way too much like "1.5 meters" (with roundoff error) to me - if he simply bumped the English-unit conversion constants to produce an even, user-friendly five feet, and used the same modified constants for the physics engine (gravity acceleration constant in particular), it would produce oddball results like we're seeing - in particular (Eagle does rough calculation in her head) we'd be looking at a gravity acceleration constant of (very) roughly 36 ft/sec^2, about 10% stronger than real Earth gravity, since if he made a foot smaller there'd be more of them in the constant!

I don't have time to do the calculus right now (it's a simple enough integration, ignoring friction, which should be negligible for a vertical drop anyway), but I can see how this would produce a 100-mph train from a 260-foot drop as reported earlier; it would also make the "drop" rides much more intense, as it would see free fall as (approx.) 0.1G-, not 0G, causing everything to over-accelerate. The error will compound and grow exponentially as the the drop size increases, too.

The only way he could account for this, since the distance of coaster tracks is fixed, would be to slightly alter "time" if one is using English measure, to compensate for the shorter "feet." But too many other things rely on game time for that to be likely.

OTOH, the metric units were already nice and round in RCT1 - unless he bunged-up the metrics to be consistent with the new "feet," the metrics will remain unaltered and should still reflect "true" physics to the extent they did before.

Now I have to go to class, but I'll check this when I get back unless someone beats me to it. My point is, the physics engine might still be "good" in metric, depending on how CS went about producing round numbers in English measure in RCT2. I could see how a person who thinks in metric could overlook the full effects of changing the English conversions... it's worth a look.

S.E.

==========================

Ha! I was right. 

Build a 10-foot high object in Roller Coaster Designer, then switch the display to metric. You now have a 3-meter high object. That's 9 feet, not ten! But set a launched coaster speed to 63 mph, then convert to metric, and you get 101kph (rounded)... that's about right. It gets the velocities right when converting between measurements, but not distances.

Non-math majors may want to skip this next paragraph:
To check whether this is carried throught the physics engine, I then obtained the gravity constants by integrating D = S[0,x] Gt dt = (G/2)x^2, and using the known free fall time for x and the known free-fall distance for D, solved for the gravity constant G, and found the expected consequence: In RCT1 and RCT2/metric, G = 32ft/sec^2 = 10m/sec^2 (approximate, since I had to eyeball the free-fall time from the ride test graph). That's pretty close to 1 Earth gravity. But in RCT2/Imperial, it's about 36ft/sec^2, about 1.1 Earth G. And isn't it convenient that 1 RCT unit (in feet) * 1.1 rounds off pretty close to 5?

Math geek mode off. In normal terms, the physics engine is assuming 1G (RCT2) = 1.1G (Earth) when you use Imperial units.  That's why your drop rides are gaining so much intensity, and the big coasters go too fast. This error is not present in metric measure, though.

Conclusion: Recreations must be built in metric or you'll end up horribly confused. Your accurate metrics will display as inaccurate when shown in imperial units, but that's not a "truth-in-advertising" issue for the coaster designer, it's a "major RCT2 measurement bug" issue for Infogrammes.

S.E. 

Edited by Screamin'_Eagle - Oct 31 2002, 05:23 PM 

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Joker and TerraEpon -- I see the option now, and yes, that puts it back into old RCT1 units. That would make Steve Franks rides basically the same as before.

I say basically, because in the ride info. screen you'll see the height of the max drop, and that is now 10% higher than it was before . . . if you ignore that little fact, then we could all go on our merry way.

Screaming Eagle -- 

 

Impressive. I am becoming more convinced that he just rounded the english unit up to 5ft for "convenience"... however, I am less convinced that things are nice and rosy in the metric system. I looked at the "test" vertical coaster I described in my previous posts, and guess what -- he increased the height of the largest drop from 57 to 63m from RCT1 to RCT2!!?!?!?! This is a 10.5% increase in height; in English units, it is 10.16%. I am assuming the difference is strictly due to the cruder metric system rounding issues.

Furthermore, I get a gravitational constant of 10.5 meters/sec^2 when using the method I described in a previous post ... d = v^2/(2*g) ... the coaster gets up to 131 kph and the reported distance of fall is 63m, thereby meaning that we are off by more than rounding on the gravitational constant. It's also interesting to note that the English-unit g is about 10% too high, and the metric one is almost as bad.

In both cases, he has REDUCED the g in RCT2, meaning that the physics in RCT1 were really whacked. Well, except for that scenario that was on another planet. That one may have been dead on, for all I know.  

BOTTOM LINE: CS screwed the height measurements up. RCT1 measurements were screwed up pretty bad by the game engine, but we (or just I) didn't notice. He changed them in RCT2 to put them closer to what they "should" be, but he's still not all the way there (between 6% and 10% off). Even worse, he changed the vertical scaling but not the horizontal, meaning that any models from RCT1 get screwed when the go to RCT2 ... unless you turn off the vertical measurement totally.

Worst of all, IMO, he doesn't recalculate the track length based upon the vertical distance a coaster travels. In RCT2, the identical track should be listed as being longer, since it goes farther up and down (by about 10%). I say this is worst of all, because this is how we are getting our estimate of the horizontal distance of a tile.

I dunno. This is just how I see it. I've got a bloody brain-killer exam on Tuesday and can't really waste time thinking about this stuff in much detail until then.

Good stuff, guys. 

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QUOTE (rctloon @ Oct 31 2002, 08:59 PM) 
I say basically, because in the ride info. screen you'll see the height of the max drop, and that is now 10% higher than it was before . . . if you ignore that little fact, then we could all go on our merry way.
[snip]
I am becoming more convinced that he just rounded the english unit up to 5ft for "convenience"... however, I am less convinced that things are nice and rosy in the metric system. 
 

Agreed on both points, RCTloon.

After reading your analysis of the metric numbers, I recalculated mine using longer decimal expansions for the meters/feet conversions, and ended up very close to your numbers in metric. *sigh*; it would have been nice if one system worked... at least the peer review process works! 

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Is it just me, or is the Magic Carpet Ride scaled wrong? It looks way, way, way too small. It's not tall enough. It's not long enough. It's not wide enough. Hell, benches are almost as tall as the cab.  

I'm gonna have to put this thing inside a building and out of sight, so it doesn't create an eye sore in my park.

Most of the other flat rides are scaled correctly. I'm not sure what went wrong here.

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I agree. This is also the problem with the Swinging Inverter Ship. Even the entrance and exits dwarf the rides. 

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From the very beginning of RCT I had a problem with the scale of the Crooked House. Even at fairgrounds I have not seen one this small. 

