OK - here's the deal so far - there are 155 rides/shops (including variations - such as junior coaster "log cars"/junior coaster "ladybird trains"/junior coaster "log trains"). As Henry said, the scenario editor allows you to have a maximum of 128 rides - so, in other words, 27 rides or shops must be left out of your scenario choices. Here's even worse news - only 19 scenery choices can exist in any one scenario AND there are 29 choices.

What is even worse than that is that the categories (1)Fences and Walls, (2)Gardens, (3)Shrubs and Ornaments, (4)Signs and Items for Footpaths, (5)Trees, (6)Walls and Roofs are PRESELECTED for you and cannot be removed - thus, you can really included ONLY 13 specialized scenery categories (which is even further limited by the number of items contained in the category - for example - I have the preselects, and now 12 others chosen - when I click on the supposedly allowable 13th I get a message: "Warning! Too many objects selected. Not all items in this scenery group could be selected." HUH!!!? What's up with that?). BTW - there are 29 scenery groups in all (including the preselects) so at least 10 have to be left out of any player made scenario. There are 3 Park Entrance types to choose from (only one may be chosen at a time - but no big deal - it's only the park entrance) and 4 water colors (blue, orange, green, acid green), but only one may be chosen for any one scxenario. With the advanced option you can add signs, walls, etc not existing in your selected scenery categories.


MORE TO COME in a few minutes...

OKAY!!!!! Something very positive to report - I chose the largest map size (256 x 256) and was able to designate all but the outermost edge squares as owned land (so the restriction on how much land can be owned has been lifted). The editor then randomly assigns what is available at the start of the game and what is researchable BUT you can modify the list (and the interface for the mification is pretty cool - you grab the item with the cursor (becomes a hand) and move it from one list to the other). I also am happy to report that at least you can make all your 128 selected rides and 19 scenery groups appear at the beginning without having to research anything (although you still have 10 missing scenery groups and 27 missing rides/shops).

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In the manual it says you can import landscapes from the old RCT into RCT2. It even warns that some objects may look weird and Tech Support will not help you. When you go into the scenario editor and try to load a landscape from the old game it doesn't show because you can only look for RCT2 landscapes. I see no import option. Anyone know the secret or is it something else left out from what they advertise? 

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Right now, I probably have more experience doing this than anyone else - it definitely works - just hit Load Landscape and then look for a Rollercoaster Tycoon Saved Game File (not RCT2 necessarily - but RCT1, an .sv4).

Try this (if you installed RCT in the default directory):

Get to the scenario editor. Hit Load Landscaqpe (always do this first because it will erase anything you've already done - like selecting rides, etc). Use the dialogue box to locate the folder C:/Program Files/Hasbro Interactive/RollerCoaster Tycoon/Saved Games - I guarantee if you have any saved game files there at all they will show up - the other thing to do is to take all the saved games from RCT1 and copy them to the following folder C:/Program Files/Infogrames Interactive/RollerCoaster Tycoon 2/Landscapes - then when you hit Load Landscape they will be available to select. 

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There is a limit of only 128 items that can be displayed under the "?" Theme tab.

I was attempting to build a scenario by choosing only objects, instead of selecting a pre-defined theme (I had in fact de-selected all possible themes). Regardless of the number of objects I had manually selected, only 128 were available in the scenario (apparently the game reads the object list from the top-down, and when it reaches 128, it just stops adding objects).

The solution was to FIRST choose all desired objects, and then select some Themes. Note that if you have for example chosen all allowed objects manually, when you click on a Theme you will get a warning that "Too many objects selected! Not all objects in this scenery group could be selected". This is Ok, as it only means that the Theme you selected had additonal objects beyond what you have manually selected and that because you manually chose up the the limit already, the computer could not add any more from the pre-defined list associated with the chosen Theme. All the objects that you manually chose will still appear under this Themes tab (and more importantly, no longer under the "?" Theme, thereby freeing up space in the "?" Theme for other stray objects). 

Warning: If you choose a Theme after choosing objects manually, do NOT de-select the theme or the computer will automatically de-select all the objects associated with that Theme from ALL the object selection lists (you will then have to manually go back to all of the object selection lists and re-checkmark the individual ones you wanted). A good tip is to first de-select all the Themes, then begin to manually select all your objects. Now, just prior to choosing your themes again, save your landscape (as a precaution, so if you do accidently de-select a theme, you can reload the landscape and try again). 

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Did you know that you can place a new scenario you created in RCT2 Scenario Editor into the Landscapes folder (the .SC6 file), and if you start the Scenario Editor and select "load landscape", the scenario can be FULLY modified? 

The only catch (and this is true even if you are building a scenario totally from scratch) is that if you select different scenario OBJECTIVE, the editor doesn't remember the changes to the previous objective and you have to reset it again (e.g., If for example the scenario objective was "park value at a given date" with the date changed from the default of Year 3 to Year 5, and then you selected for example "number of guests in park"; if you decide to go back again to "park value at a given date", the objective will have become reset to the default of Year 3). This may be a bug, as none of the other dialog boxes in the Scenario Editor forget their changes from default. 

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I'm surprised this wasn't mentioned earlier as on the UK box it says new tools allow us to create our own themes, but there's no sign of these tools on the disk  

i think what they ment by that is the new things u can create with the stacking scenery but i might be wrong i really hope this idea come into full swing cause it would be used a lot it would be probably the most popular trainer or what ever its considered ever for this game 

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 thought that at first but, the box says

"New design tools even make it possible to create your own themes such as, World champion Soccer Land or Grand Prix Racing World"

The soccer theme could just be the sport theme, but where's the Grand Prix themeing???

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very simple - because going thriough the advance tab and looking at every little picture to determine which you to include and which you want out is more time consuming than checking themes and unchecking themes - additionally, the oither way, you have to know in advance what you want to use and what you don't - this way you can constantly swap in and out of themes. 

And, I think you're not following me because my idea initially included not making any scenery available after the scenario was done - I was thinking that you could use all the scenery to your heart's content and never worry about what was "available" in the gactuial saved game - I did not realize initially that the game counted any scenery object you used in the scenario editor as "available". You see Forest Frontiers has scenery in it that is NOT available in the scenario for placement. That's what I was aiming for - I thought initially that this would be a way around the limits of what you could make available - Unfortunately RCT1 is much different than RCT2 in that anything that is used as a scenery object is automatically made available in the scenario under the ? tab - 
QUOTE  
If even ONE scenery object in a saved track design is missing from your CURRENT list of scenery objects (meaning also unresearched scenery objects) you will get the error message "Design includes scenery which is unavailable", and only a bare non-sceneried track design will be available for placing on the playfield. Simply selecting all the neccessary scenery elements, regardless of whether it is under a specific Theme tab or just the generic "?" tab, is all that is required to have the scenery come down to the playfield with the track design 

this is NOT the way RCT1 works. As I noted above Forest Frontiers at the very least has scenery in it which most certainly ins not available in the game. Anyway that was the idea and it doesn't quite work as hopped but it does make some selection easier. 

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Yeah, the new way that RCT2 works initially messed me up also. I was going to create some track designs that contained scenery objects, like the scenery Steve Franks builds around his rides in the Saved Game workbenches he sometimes includes with his Real World Track Packs. I figured that the new Save Scenery feature was great in that it would eliminate the need to bundle a Saved Game File along with the Track Design. However, the first time I tried to put a track with scenery into one of the games scenarios, I got the scenery not available error. 

This revelation therefore means that for safety reasons (e.g. so you are less likely to get the error message), when you save a track design along with associated scenery, you should stick EXCLUSIVELY to saving only scenery from one (or at the most, two) Themes (plus the default scenery that all scenarios have to have). The whole concept of mix-n-match for scenery to enhance saved track desgins (which is what we were all hoping for) has turned out to be impractical in implementation. I guess we should just learn to live with it (besides, didn't we get mad in RCT1 when we saw scenery objects in the scenario that were not available for our own use?). 

None-the-less, if we are building scenarios for playing the game (rather than as workbenches for designing tracks), I still think initially giving players individualized scenery objects from multiple themes that enhance the scenarios objective is a good idea. Scenarios are not something we should be pumping out like widgets on an assembly line. Each one should be carefully crafted, and in this context, I feel that the minor extra time it takes to individually select items just enhances the quality of the scenario under construction.

If you still need a Scenario built fast (for testing out ideas or something), I suggest that you plan ahead. Spend an evening building a dozen or so different scenery combination selections and save each of them with the "save landscape" feature. Now when you need that Scenario built right away, just select one of these templates to get you started. Just a few minor tweeks and Ta-Da, instant scenario .  

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some important info for all those making scenarios, if you dont do this, the game will crash with an error trapper.
Basicly, you have to make sure that each of the "default" scenario tabs like trees, roofs/walls, fences, path bits etc has at least one item in it else you get an error trapper.

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Funny how if you turn on more than you're allowed - with a trainer or something - the SE automatically turns some of them off when you save the SC6, but it you don't have *enough* turned on the SE doesn't care. 

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Simple explanation - I had actually written about this before... There is no way to turn off the research in a No Money scenario. Thus - if you are adding rides to a No Money scenario the research will be done on a monthly basis. The way around this is to not make everything available you want available - but to make the scenario research items you want available as you are adding rides (basically short-changing the available rides in the beginning in order to have it work out to the correct ratio by the time you get to the completed scenario).

Here's a quote from a post I made on 31 Oct - see #3 below (I put it in bold):

QUOTE  
BTW - A WORD OF FURTHER CAUTION - this scenario goal can be chosen ONLY when no money is chosen - that means a few things: (1) Peeps will ciome into your park while you are building - with no money you cannot shut the gates! (2) The park will require automatically that the player keep the rating above 700 while he/she is playing - no big deal but something to be aware of. (3) Research CANNOT be turned off while you are building your partial coasters - JUST be aware of that fact when you are selecting rides for the available/research tree - a GOOD IDEA is to make one or two rides you want available as the first two researchable rides/shops in the scenario - Thus, when you are placing your partially built coaster pieces you won't find yourself researching things you didn't want the player to start with. 

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<snip>I don't understand exactly what they mean by importing landscapes from older saved games - do they mean RCT1 games?  If so, how do you do this?  I would have thought this would have been a simple process, and not the long drawn out, rebuild of each RCT1 scenario in RCT2 that dakinle has been persevering with (to excellent effect).

I am not a technical bod, and I was hoping to be able to import some of my Megaparks from RCT1 into RCT2 without having to build them all from scratch. 

It is NOT possible to load RCT1 saved games into RCT2. But it IS possible to load RCT1 saved games into the RCT2 scenario editor as Landscapes.

The downside of this is that when you load the landscape you lose all the guests, the rides, and the research tree gets screwed. Some scenery doesn't 'translate' properly either.

It os possible to minimise these problems:
Load the RCT1 saved game into RCT1 and save ALL the track designs.
Start RCT2 and use the Track Design Manager to import your RCT1 tracks into RCT2.
Load your RCT1 megapark as a landscape into the RCT2 scenario editor. Save the file as a scenario.
'Play' the scenario.
Import as many of the saved tracks into the (RCT2) game as you can.
Save the game.
Use the Load Saved Game as Scenario option to get your rides back into your new RCT2 scenario.

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As anyone who has used the Scenario Editor knows, it has lots of little quirks. In some dialog boxes, if you perform an illegal activity, you will get an "Invalid Selection" warning message, which you must clear before continuing. This is good, as it prevents you from creating a Scenario that won't function. Unfortunately, not all dialog boxes have this safeguard. 

By default, in the first screen (Object Selection), a number of scenery "tabs" have been pre-selected for you that cannot be deselected. These tabs are "Trees", "Shrubs & Ornaments", "Gardens", "Fences & Walls", "Walls & Roofs", and "Signs & Items for Footpaths". A tab must have at least one item inside it, or when you attempt to open the Scenery dialog in the game, you will receive an "Error Trapper" crash. Unfortunately, if you go into the "advanced" Object Selection screen, you can accidently manually deselect every item that would appear under one of these pre-selected tabs (but you will get NO warning message stating the fact)!

To prevent the "Error Trapper" problem, it is reccomended that you ALWAYS have these items selected as being available:

For the Trees tab = select the "Common Yew Tree" under the Small Scenery column
For the Shrubs tab = select the "(round) Shrub" under the Small Scenery column
For the Gardens tab = select the "(1/4 tile red-colorable) Garden" under the Small Scenery column
For the Fences tab = select the "(gateless) Mesh Fence" under the Walls/Fences column
For the Roofs tab = select the "(cubic) Support Structure" under the Small Scenery column
For the Signs tab = select the "(green) Lamp" under the Path Extras column

The above 6 items were chosen because are the most universally useable for each group (and therefore the least waste of a Scenery slot). Consider them as safeguards for default selection for any scenario you create (however do keep in mind that experienced Scenario Editor users can choose appropriate alternatives). 
