Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 Platinum Guide

------ I've spent far too much of my life playing this game in front of the TV. Ended up writing a guide for it. Bit redundant as there are loads on GameFAQs already. And there's already a list like the one at the end of the real roller coasters in the game. Still fun to write though.
--------------------------------

Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 Platinum Guide


This guide assumes that the player has used the various gameplay tutorials and is familiar with the interface of the game and the various functions. It is not a walkthrough of every scenario or a comprehensive list of every feature in the game and the expansion packs but is a general guide to playing the scenarios and creating an efficient and profitable park.

It also assumes that the full Platinum edition is being played with all of the features added in the Soaked! and Wild! expansion packs.

Key:
1; Basics
2; Park Layout
3; Staff and Animals
4; Finances
5; Tricky Terrain
6; Weather
7; 'La La Land'
8; Challenges
9; Roller coasters

1; Basics

Scenario Objectives:

The game has several different types of scenario objective to pass in order to unlock the next scenario, provide new land to buy, and unlock new roller coaster layouts. Each scenario objective can be at three increasingly difficult levels. Here is a list of the objectives along with a brief summary of what is needed to achieve it.

Park Stats

- Park rating:
Build a large park and keep it tidy.

- Visitors in park:
The larger a park is and the more high excitement rides it has, the more visitors it will attract and the longer they will stay.

- Maintain park rating:
Usually over several months so lookout for any problems that might cause the rating to dip momentarily.

- Maintain visitors in park:
Easier to achieve with a 'buffer zone' of visitors - build a big ride when nearing the required figure to draw in more visitors.

Financial

- Ride/pool complex/viewing gallery income:
Not profit, just income. Income from the rides, pool complexes or viewing galleries individually. Sometimes requires a bit of luck (see below in 'Random Variables'.

- Pay off loan:
Make enough money to click the loan tab down to $0.00. Note that this needs to be achieved only once, and then the loan can immediately be put up again.

Rides

- Roller coaster excitement:
Or, in other words, amass enough money to build a big coaster. Can be a custom ride or a ride imported from the coaster designer.

- Roller coaster stats:
Basically a challenge to utilise the more expensive coaster types. The cheap coasters won't be able to run at 80 mph for example.

VIPs

The VIP tab has a route planner to direct the VIP to the required attraction. Unfortunately you have to wait for the VIP to leave the park for the objective to be passed. The VIP will have various 'tolerances' to mess in the park, and can leave early if unimpressed, but this is usually not a problem in a well run park.
- Wants to visit roller coaster
- Wants to visit fireworks
- Wants to visit themed areas (see the 'La La Land' entry below)
- Wants to see animals

Animals (Wild!)

- Minimum number of animals
Includes animals that are bought or born to your existing animals.

- Release animals into the wild
Only adult animals with 95% or above health can be released.

- Make money from selling animals
Animals can be sold at any time, even immediately after they have been bought.

Scenery

- Themed rides
Place enough scenery pieces around a ride (walls are good for this) and open the ride.

-----------------------

Scenario Objectives can Be Passed at Any Level.

The game hides the the Entrepreneur and Tycoon objectives to try to stop you from breaking them on the previous level but many times it is not difficult to work out what they might be. For example if an Entrepreneur objective is a coaster of with an excitement of 6, then the Tycoon objective just may very well be excitement of 7. Building a '7' coaster to begin with will pass both objectives in one go.

----------------------

Park Rating Low? There's a Dirty Path Somewhere

If your park rating is way down it is almost always because of litter and vomit on paths. Hire more janitors, put in litter bins, and take a closer look under roofs and in underground paths for any hidden oases of mess that you can't see but the game's engine can.

-----------------------

Soaked! And Wild! Addon Packs Make The Original Easier

Installing Soaked and Wild, or playing the full Platinum edition will make the original RCT 3 scenarios easier since pool complexes and animal pens will still be available to build in all of these scenarios, thus spoiling the challenge slightly.

-----------------------

The Pause Button.

You can plan ahead and build while paused - it saves you from the hassle of dealing with other problems while trying to plan your next moves, especially when laying out roller coasters. If test mode is selected while the building tool is still open a 'ghost' train will run on the track even when the game is paused*. Using the ghost testing mode will show how the coaster is working as it is being built. An exception can be made if your park is making tidy monthly profits - then building a coaster while time is running can save you from needing to take out a loan to pay to finish the ride off.
* (If not then try unpausing the game for a few moments and the train will start to move)

-----------------------

The Fast Forward Button.

If you only have one more objective left, and a reasonably 'stable' park, then hitting the fast forward button is usually an easy way to save time waiting for the objective to be met.


-----------------------

2; Park Layout.

The basic idea with the park is to keep your visitors in for as long as possible and to satisfy as many of them as you can. Like real people each guest has a unique profile of what kind of ride they prefer. Some guests preferred ride stats will mean they never want to ride the most extreme rides so you need to provide some gentler rides for them. Placing a gentler ride or a thrill ride next door to one of your roller coasters is a good way to keep everybody happy.

Try not to have unnecessary paths leading off to nowhere. You want your paths to take your visitors past as many rides as possible and to allow your mechanics to quickly access your rides to fix them. Plus the more paths there are the more janitors will be needed to keep the paths clean and maintain the park rating. If several janitors are needed to clean paths that have no rides on them then money is being wasted unnecessarily.

Many scenarios will begin with long stretches of path leading into large swathes of empty land. You may wish to use these paths for your park but seeing as the game gives money back for bulldozing paths then they can be quite a useful source of income at the beginning of the scenario.

Note that although the paths in the game will come to look crowded the guests apparently don't notice any overcrowding, but for aesthetic reasons you may wish to widen the paths to stop things looking so congested.

-----------------------

Queues.

If there is a queue line for a ride then visitors will join it expecting to be entertained in short order (no South Park 'Line Rides' here folks). You need to keep tabs on whether or not the lines are getting too long and people are complaining (the message 'the line for XXX is ridiculous' will appear). For rides with quick turnovers of passengers like most roller coasters the line can be a reasonable length (about ten squares). For rides that can only take a few people at once (the spiral slide being a prime example) don't put in more than three queue tiles or there will be grumbles from frustrated guests. The queue TV monitors will mollify some of this effect, as will the costumed entertainers.

It also helps to try and keep the entrance to the queue as near to the exit as possible to encourage repeat rides, those riders who liked the ride so much they want to go straight back on again.

Some gentle and thrill rides are so cheap to build and run that you may consider simply having two of them next door to each other to overcome their low capacity.

-----------------------

Facilities.

No matter how many amazing rides your park has it must have some of the basic facilities. The key ones are toilets, and the food and drink stalls. These must be built in any park of any size as all of your guests will eventually need them. Every guest has several stat bars that reflect their general heath and well being and you will need to make sure that their need for the toilet, food, and drink aren't distracting them from your rides. Unfortunately the food and drink stalls have a side effect; litter, trash and mess. So the building of food stalls means a few janitors will be needed to sweep up, and litter bins should be placed on paths to keep things tidy.

The information stall is an extremely useful stall since it sells maps and umbrellas. Maps will stop your guests wandering off into empty areas of your park and umbrellas will make them far less bothered about rain showers. Place an information stall or two near the entrance of the park to maximise it's effectiveness. Then place a few more at even spaces around the park.

The ATM helps prevent your guests leaving your park because they have run out of cash and is a must-have facility in any decent sized park. The first aid stall is, as it sounds, a place that will remove the nausea from your guests and stop them throwing up all over your nice clean paths. You cannot charge for the ATM or the First Aid stall but as long as you have plenty of ride income coming in it's a negligible cost.

Tailor the number of food stalls to the number of guests. If you see the message that 'xxxx stall is too busy', add another stall nearby. Beware of creating 'food court' arrangements though; some of the scenarios will come with these already in place and they can be a pit of litter and vomit that sends the park rating plummeting and needs a permanent janitor on site.

The 'Synchronise All Stalls of This Type' box is an invaluable time saver as it will synch the prices, food toppings, and accessory colours across all the stalls. Guests will occasionally grumble if you don't provide any toppings at all (no ketchup on the hot dogs or ice in the drinks etc) and the synch function is the best way of making sure all food stalls have some toppings.

-----------------------

3; Staff and Animals

Two members of staff are vital to the running of your park. The mechanic fixes your rides when they break down, cleans your pool complexes, and in Wild! will also repair broken animal fences to prevent escapes. The janitor cleans the paths, waters the plants and keeps the park rating high. Obviously the bigger your park gets the more staff you will need. If a staff member is being asked to do too much they will complain that 'I'm being run ragged' and that is the time to hire some more staff. As noted above an efficient path layout can make the most out of your staff, but they can also be set specific patrol zones to make sure they do as much work as they can.

Just be careful to keep them happy and diligent - staff who get too fed up can quit and leave you having to hire a replacement, and with lazy staff you aren't getting your money's worth of work. A good way to do this is to train them up at least two of the three levels as soon as you hire them - it's relatively cheap and is a one-time cost compared to hiking up their monthly wage. Their happiness will boost and laziness will decrease.

Almost every original RCT 3 scenario will begin without staff except for the park inspector. In Soaked and Wild scenarios there will sometimes be existing staff. The park can run for a short time without a mechanic or janitor if you are really struggling for money but as soon as a ride breaks down or vomit begins to appear on the paths you will need them.

The animal keepers in Wild! are similar to janitors in function. They clean up dung in the animal enclosures and keep the animal house stocked with food. Without these functions the animal health declines rapidly until the Animal Protection League flies in to confiscate your animals. The same rules apply to animal keepers as janitors; train them up to keep them happy and add more if they look like being overwhelmed with dung to shovel up.

Entertainers and security guards are a largely optional to your park, and only become useful in larger parks where the queues are longer and vandalism of your benches is more likely.

-----------------------

Animals

Contrary to appearances your animals will behave much like your staff - they are essentially both AI characters who need money spent on them. The only difference being that animals will breed (if there is both a male and female together in the same enclosure of course). Instead of spending money on wages you spend money on food and the more frequently you feed your animals the healthier they will be. Animal heath is the key to releasing them into the wild - only adult animals with over 95% health can released into the wild. Cleaning up their enclosures will also help push their health up to the required level.

Each animal needs enough habitat to move about in or they will be very unhealthy. When building from scratch this is really a case of using basic common sense; don't stick a tiger in four square enclosure, give it space to run around. Some scenarios will start with animals crammed into some nightmarishly small enclosures, so before you do anything else expand their enclosure to a reasonable size. Scenery is not as important as it seems and animals really only want a few trees to scratch themselves on.

The third problem to deal with is animal's social requirements. Some don't mind sharing their enclosure - even with other species - but others are more solitary and will be upset by more than a couple of other animals in their space. This is a problem if the scenario requirement needs lots of one kind of animal.  The only solution is to build several separate enclosures for the same animals. It's a pain in the neck having to build animal houses and employ more keepers but it's the only way to get the numbers you need. Breeding animals will add to your numbers so keep an eye out when a new arrival is announced that it's presence isn't making it's fellows unhappy.

Animals break down into three social types:

Gregarious: Apes, camels, ostriches, horses and zebras don't seem to mind lots of individuals.

Family groups: Big cats, bears, and kangaroos tolerate around six or seven individuals.

Solitary: Pandas. Preferably one or two. Absolute maximum of three. Rhinos are ok with four or five in an enclosure.

Last but not least, don't put zebras in the same enclosure as lions. It's won't be a pretty sight.



4; Finances.

In sandbox mode money is no object but in the scenarios you must make more than you are spending or your park will go nowhere fast. Opening up the finances tab presents what looks like a daunting task; all those overheads and only a few sources of income. Worse, in most scenarios most of your money is tied up in a loan whose interest is sucking cash from your coffers. But in practice it isn't too hard to make a decent profit, just follow some simple rules;

-Everything makes a profit.
Only those things that you can't charge for should be losing money (ATMs, First Aid buildings, and maybe toilets as you can only charge a tiny amount for them before guests object). Rides that require big loans to make should make back that loan after a year or two. Shop profit should be more than the cost of stock - don't add lashings of toppings to food in a park with only a few guests. Nothing should be standing idle. Fortunately the finance sheet is easy enough to read and allows you to see at a glance if there are problems.

-Don't Overcharge or Undercharge.
Guests will not pay for something they don't think is worth it. A general rule of thumb is to charge about the same as the excitement level of the ride. So a coaster of 6 excitement charge between $6 and $7. It's a trial and error task and the guest thought bar is a good guide. If they think your ride is 'good value' you can raise the price. If they think 'I'm not paying that much!' drop the fee. The same applies to stores, animal enclosures and pools. Store prices can usually be hiked up a few notches from the default price. Animal enclosures are made more appealing by a mix of adults and babies, as well as having healthy animals. Swimming pool complexes can have higher fees with big slides, and should have too since individual slides can't charge fees.

-Beware charging park entrance fees.
This will decrease your guests willingness to pay for rides, sometimes dramatically. One scenario stops you from charging for rides; in this case you can bump up the entry fee and use new rides to draw in as many visitors as you can.

-Maximise riders.
Every ride needs a decent turnaround of riders. Keep this in mind when designing roller coasters and setting the length of ride settings for thrill rides and transit rides. For coasters try to fit in as many cars a possible, or even have two trains. The 'Block section' operation can allow more than one train on a ride with a one-train sized station. The 'Leave if another train arrives' order is useful for keeping transit rides moving, as is increasing the speed at which they run. With the 'static' rides keep an eye out for rides that are too long and attracting grumbles from guests saying 'I want to get off'; that's a sign that they should have shorter durations.

-Make Sure Everything's Open and Accessible
Look on the ride and store summary pages for any rides you may have accidentally left closed or in testing mode. They won't be making money in that mode. Neither will they be if the path to them is broken or the queue line isn't connected. Your park inspector will eventually notice these problems but try and beat him to it before more potential money is lost.

-Scenery, Paths And Pre-Existing Rides Can Pay
If you are really tight on money, or have maxed out the loan and need a little bit more cash, try removing some pre-existing scenery if you think it isn't adding much to your park- the game pays you back some money. The same applies to paths to nowhere and even to big rides that come with the scenario at the start. Sometimes they are flawed or very unreliable (for example the Go Kart ride in 'Karts and Coasters' is so long your guests want to get off of it) and can pay off some impressively large amounts of money when demolished. That money can be used to make something more profitable, or even to instantly pay off the loan if that objective is the only one left to achieve.

-Passed the Objective? Sell it!
You can sell off an attraction you built to pass a scenario objective, especially if it was something that took up far too much space and chewed up money. This is most often the case with the VIP challenges; they will usually demand one specific thing (a fireworks display, certain animals) and change to a different thing for the higher level. This is best done when you pass Entrepreneur level and know exactly what is needed to pass Tycoon level. There's no use in demolishing, say, your ape enclosure and selling off your chimps at Entrepreneur level only to find you will need more chimps to pass Tycoon level.

-No Needless Loans
If you have a loan you need to be doing something with it, otherwise you are simply paying needless interest payments. Sometimes the interest rates are pretty whopping (29%) and for some reason your diligent park inspector is not keen to draw your attention to this hole in your finances. Guess he's not an accountant.

-Research
By default the research tab is on at the start of scenarios and set at $200 a month. Whether or not it needs to be is simply a case of opening the ride construction windows tabs and seeing what is available there to build. If there is hardly anything then keep the research budget high, and vice-versa - there's no need to spend money researching rides you won't be building. The big thing to look out for is what stalls are available, and especially whether the information kiosk, with it's maps and umbrellas, is there. If there is only a toilet block available to build then turn stalls research to maximum to make sure you have some food to sell when guests start getting hungry.

-Wages
As mentioned above it is cheaper in the long run to keep staff productive and happy by training them up for a one-time cost rather than paying them more money a month. Just be on the lookout for them thinking 'I'm worth more than this!' or your inspector reporting that a member of staff may quit. Then bumping up the salary is worth it to keep them working, especially in a larger park that is making good money.

-Fireworks
Fireworks ain't cheap. Each display costs money to stage. Sometimes VIPs demand fireworks so there's no option but to spend money to impress them, but if fireworks come with the scenario and aren't necessary then you can save funds by demolishing them.

- Buying Land/Building Rights
Land is expensive stuff, but worth it if you can build a big money-making coaster on it. Plan ahead earlier in the scenario and put more mundane rides in the existing land before expanding out onto the new land with a lavish new super coaster.

-Random Variables
Rain and breakdowns can knock your monthly takings down, sometimes significantly, so don't get too hung up on scrutinizing the balance sheet for individual months. Try and keep your more unreliable rides inspected more frequently, and make sure there are rides to tide your guests over while it's raining. The only scenario where rain is a real nightmare is the penultimate Soaked! scenario where it is raining half the time and you need $200,000 in ride tickets (just rides, not including pools). In this case you really just need to be patient and get lucky with a drier month.

-----------------------

5; Tricky Terrain

One of the main problems facing you in scenarios isn't money or time - it's space. Buying land isn't always the answer because in some scenarios there won't be any for sale - at least not until the Tycoon level is passed. Some parks have barely any room for any rides at all, and very little flat land. All rides will cost more if they are built on elevated platforms, elevated walkways are surprisingly expensive too, and animal pens must be built on fairly flat ground - the animal house is annoyingly hard to for your keeper and animals to access if built near too many obstacles. However, with a little ingenuity the space can be made to work.

The levelling tool is an obvious friend - it can bulldoze away inconvenient hills and flatten those irritating little variations in height that stop paths connecting up properly, leaving billiard-table flat terraces to work with. On the flip side the hills can be a boon for roller coasters - building the tracks up and down the side of existing slopes saves on construction costs as the track does not need to be on expensive supports (plus a ground hugging coaster looks really cool).

With Soaked and Wild some of the problem was alleviated with the ability to build underground again like in the original RCTs (another retroactive feature that makes the original scenarios easier than they were originally) Underground coasters can be expensive and it's difficult to work out exactly where they are being placed (look for the ground squares above being highlighted) but they can free up space in parks where space is at a premium.

The animal enclosures in Wild provide an obstacle as the park paths cannot run through or over them. There is a clever trick demonstrated on the internet (look up www.ataricommunity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=509054 ) for running paths through the enclosures, but it is a complicated process. The simpler option is to tunnel the paths under the enclosures. Unfortunately paths do not automatically tunnel like rides so the terrain has to be stepped down to a square tunnel face for the path to slope down and run underground.

-----------------------

6; Weather

Each scenario has its own specific weather patterns and there's nothing the player can do about it except to build information booths or umbrella stalls and build enough 'indoor' rides. Anything to stop the guests worrying about either the rain or the extreme heat - guests will use umbrellas as parasols if it's hot enough. The hot weather will make guests thirsty very quickly so drop in drinks stalls if the temperature is over thirty degrees. The roof scenery pieces can be used to create shelter, especially on queue lines, but it's not a neccessity. Annoyingly guests will often still stay away from some rides that seem to be entirely 'indoor' (like the aquarium) when it rains.

-----------------------

7; 'La La Land'

The 'La La Land' level in RCT 3 involves having to impress the VIPs by building a firework display and then building two separate themed zones (Adventure and Sci-Fi) to "impress" them. The 'Park Opinion' bar in their stats must fill up fully for them to be suitably impressed. This seems like an onerous trial and error task but there is a quick way to do each;

If you can't get your head around the firework mixmaster (or can't be bothered) then there are some impressive saved displays out there on the good ol' interweb to use. To impress the VIP wait until dusk when the message 'XXX Firework Display is About to Begin' appears in the message tab, pick him up with the tweezers tool and plonk him on a path in front of the firework bases and let him watch. It shouldn't be too hard to impress him.

For the themed zone simply drop down one of the themed thrill rides on it's own and surround it with a path from the same theme that does not connect with other paths in the park. The swinging Pirate Ship (Adventure) and Flying Saucers ride (Sci Fi) are ideal for this. Then surround the path with a thick forest of themed trees; palms for adventure, the weird alien trees for sci fi. Then when the VIP arrives in the park pick them up and drop them into the isolated area and let them ride the themed ride over and over in a loop until they are 100% impressed (it may help to make the ride free to guarantee the VIP keeps riding) When they are impressed, pick them up and put them back in the rest of the park. When they finally leave the task should be accomplished.

---------------------

8; Challenges

In the Soaked and Wild scenarios there are additional achievements called challenges - usually involving selling items from shops, but occasionally asking for a roller coaster. The challenges are not essential to completing the scenario but provide a useful boost of money if completed. They can be postponed once if you are busy with something else but on the second request it's either accept or decline permanently. Whether or not you accept a challenge is really up to common sense. Some of the challenges will set a very ambitious target that looks tough to reach and can be a needless distraction. But if game asks for you to sell an easily reachable number of hats, or to build a coaster when you were about to anyway then the thousands of dollars you will be rewarded with are well worth the effort.

---------------------

9; Roller Coasters

Excitement

Many scenarios will demand roller coasters at a certain level of excitement, length and speed. Some of the optional challenges also request certain coaster attributes. Length and speed are fairly straightforward to meet provided you have some money - for speed simply select one of the launched coasters and set the launch speed above the requirement, or build a suitably large drop.

If you come up very slightly short on speed make sure the lift hill is set as fast as possible, or try changing the length of the train - a shorter train will effectively make the same drop longer and thus faster because there will be less of the train still on the lift hill when the front is over the crest.

A curiosity is the scenario that requests coasters of certain length but not exceeding a set speed. Most of the bigger coasters will struggle with this request so try using the slower ones like the Junior or the Side Friction rides in this case.

Coaster excitement is more of a black art than speed or length, (although achieving the targets still isn't nearly as frustrating as 'impressing' VIPs). Basically the excitement rating is the sum total of all of the different features of the coaster; drops, crests, corners, loops, corkscrews, helixes, twists, crossovers etc, plus surrounding scenery. Some coaster types have more components to build than others, and the more expensive coasters are generally easier to reach higher excitements than the more mundane types. The easiest option for the beginner is to run the coaster designer and open up some of the pre-made coasters and see how they do it. Practice makes perfect; five and six ratings are not too hard to reach, but a seven-excitement coaster will take a bit more ingenuity.

Landscaping, scenery, and the ride music can help push a coaster that is just below the required excitement over the line without having to change the ride itself. Plant a few trees, stick an animatronic by the track, put statuary next to the station, or raise up a little bit of land and make a small tunnel section in the ride.

Generally speaking more is better when it comes to excitement, and the only limit is when the rides intensity rating becomes too high and then the excitement takes a plunge. 'Intensity' is easier to quantify than excitement; it is the measure of speed and the g-forces exerted. The 'nausea' rating is less of a problem with most coasters; if the intensity is in acceptable range it is highly unlikely that nausea will be problem.

---------------------

Controlling Intensity

Intolerable G forces are the main cause for intensity being too high. Just one spike in G forces past about four g's will put the ride over the limit so keep an eye out on test runs for a section that is being taken too fast. There are some simple techniques to keep intensity under control and excitement high:

- Bank the turns: bank turns when possible as it reduces g forces.

- Reduce negative g: negative g's are the 'air time' over hill crests and the riders have far less tolerance to them than 'positive' g's (the g forces pushing down into the seats). If a train is flying over a crest far too quickly try raising the hill up.

- Inversions: most inversions should be taken at a reasonable speed to avoid extreme forces. Generally the ideal is to have the train run through in a smooth and graceful looking movement.

- Ease transitions: Moving straight from flat tracks to the steepest tracks can produce sudden spikes in G forces. Ease them by adding the intermediate slopes in between.

- Sudden direction changes: The ride will be more comfortable if sequences are taken in the same direction, for example a left corkscrew followed by a left helix.

- Brake blocks: brakes are useful for controlling speeds through loops and over crests, and to slow the train before the end of the ride if there are tight turns back into the station.

---------------------

Coaster Building In Scenarios

Any coaster saved in the coaster designer can be built in a scenario provided the particular ride has been researched, and plonking down a pre-built layout it is the easiest option, but it can be more cost-effective to custom build a coaster in the scenario. Using the existing landscaping and interweaving a coaster around and through the other rides can create a ride with high excitement for less money than building a pre-made coaster on an empty space. Plus the map may not have enough space to build one of the pre-built coasters.

The big problem in scenarios is that anything reasonably exciting is going to cost huge amounts of money to build, and will usually require a loan. For that reason the cheaper types of coaster are more practical for the early levels of scenarios than the glamorous types. The wild mouse, junior, corkscrew, steel looper, stand-up and wooden coasters can generate high excitement levels (and thus profits) without needing to max out the loan.

A problem with building coasters in scenarios with limited space for building is running out of room to properly finish off the circuit back to the station. Either by it being physically impossible to connect the track or not being able to fit in banked turns or a brake run and ending up with an intolerably fast tight hairpin into the station. For this reason it may be a good idea after building the station to build the last few turns of the layout first, thus ensuring that the circuit can be completed. Similarly in a crowded park build the queue lines and exit path and make sure they can be connected up properly before making the ride.

The 'ghost' train testing function is a must for scenarios since it runs when the timer is paused, preventing distractions while constructing, and making sure that the train has the momentum to make it through the ride without stalling.

---------------------

Roller Coaster elements

The coaster tutorials in the game provide a basic rundown of how to build a simple circuit ride, but there are many other possibilities to try. So much of the genius of RCT is how much complexity can come from such a simple construction system. Here is a selection of some of the more interesting tricks to employ when building coasters.

- Tester hills. Many real coasters have 'tester hills' - a very small drop followed by a flat section before the main drop - this takes the entire train off the lift hill before the drop. In real life it reduces the tension on the lift chain (not a problem in the game) and increases the speed of the first drop.

- Shuttle looper coasters. The most conventional coaster layout is a circuit but there is the 'shuttle' option. Either the train is launched out of the station or reverses out of the station and backwards up a lift hill and is then released at the top of the lift. The train runs through maneuvers (usually loops and corkscrews) and then up a very steep hill. At the top the train runs out of momentum and falls backwards to run back through the loops and back to the station. The major advantage of shuttle coasters is they get twice as many thrills from the same piece of track. A track with three loops will produce a ride with six inversions. The disadvantage is that they can only have one train.

- Underground coasters. A good way to get excitement and save precious park land is to run the coaster underground. The original RCT 3 couldn't support this function and Soaked had to have vertical faces in the land to allow rides underground but with Wild the ride construction will automatically run underground. The only hitch is that the game will build a cutting when it can rather than a tunnel so unsightly gouges in the landscape will be created rather than a nice neat tunnel if the land isn't deep enough.

- Ground-hugging hills. Lower the costs of construction by running the lift hills up the existing terrain. Useful for non-looping coaster types to add excitement by running them close to the ground and between scenery elements.

- Weave between rides. Unlike in real life parks health and safety regulations do not apply and the game will allow any ride to run through any other, allowing some surreal situations to be created; crazy golf courses running through the middle of coaster loops; aqua-blaster water slides doing tours of the park; paths running parallel to lift hills.

- Mid ride lift hill. The lift hill doesn't have to be at the start of the ride. With a raised station the train can roll down into an immediate drop and through various elements before reaching a lift hill later in the ride.

- Compound maneuvers. The half loop, twist and corkscrew pieces can be combined to create some dizzying combinations; cobra rolls, batwings, Immelmanns, pretzel loops etc.

- Interlocked loops. One of the coolest looking elements can be created by running two vertical loops through each other at different levels and at right angles.

- Interlocked corkscrews. Similar to the interlocked loops, the corkscrews can interlock if placed correctly.

- Loops around the station. The station has enough clearance to run vertical loops right around it.

-'Headchoppers'. As the name suggests any point where the track dives underneath another section, creating an alarming sense of an impending collision.

- Racing coasters. The 'synchronize with adjacent station' option is there to run two coasters parallel with each other. The trick to a successful racer is to stop one track getting too far ahead of the other. Do this by trying to equalise the number of times each coaster has to take the longer route round corners.

- Moebius/Continuous track racing coasters. Rather than having two separate coasters next to each other, one coaster can loop back to a second station parallel to the first one, and then around a second circuit and back into the end of the original station, thus creating a 'moebius'/figure eight/continuous loop. Just make sure the track has two trains, let the first one run round to the second station and then it will race the second train. In the few real continuous track racers the necessary crossover between the tracks occurs just after the station and before the lift hill.

---------------------

Coaster Types

Just about every major real-world roller coaster type is represented by an equivalent ride in the game. The developers were comprehensive and included many similar rides as built by competing manufacturers. As a result there is plenty of overlap between the various types.

Compared to RCT 1 & 2 the 'Change car' tab is more realistic in RCT 3; instead of switching between radically different classes of ride cars RCT 3 separates rides with identical tracks but different classes of cars into completely separate coasters. The 'Change cars' tab now more correctly switches between different car styling, although these styles do have differing attributes and will run on the ride in slightly different ways (for example the aeroplane cars on the Suspended coaster are heavier than the other cars).

Some coasters are more useful for scenarios than others because they will appear by default and won't need researching, some are definitely cheaper than others, but most have unique features that others do not have.

Included are the names of the most famous examples of real coasters of that particular type and some other interesting little factoids to explain the history of each design.

    Air Powered Vertical Coaster
An idiosyncratic high speed ride with rubber-tyred trains that only has vertical towers, an n-shaped tower top and banked corners. Layout possiblites are limited given the small variety of elements and the intolerable forces created if the train runs over the crest too fast. Can also only have one train. In real life it was something of a technical dead-end but this is still a useful high intensity and high speed ride in scenarios.
-Real Life Famous Coasters:
- Dodonpa (Japan). The only one of the type now running.
- Hypersonic XLC (King's Dominion, defunct)

    Bobsleigh
Free running cars in a train running in a U-shaped track or an O-shaped tunnel. Cars are loose so can fly off the track if crests are too abrupt.
- Avalanche (Blackpool)

    Compact Inverted Coaster
A smaller and cheaper version of the Inverted coaster with 2-across seating rather than four. The face-to-face cars from the previous games are now used on the identical Inverted Shuttle Coaster.

    Corkscrew Coaster
The ubiqitous 1980s steel coaster, and for a good reason; it is relatively cheap and has a number of different pieces. Makes for good value for money and compact layouts that are ideal for scenarios. No longer being constructed but many are still running around the world and will be for the foreseeable future, despite many being notoriously rough running.
- Loch Ness Monster (Busch Gardens Williamsburg)
- Corkscrew (1980 Alton Towers)
- Python (Busch Gardens Tampa)
- Great American Scream Machine (Six Flags Great Adventure)
- Viper (SF Great Adventure)
- Manhattan Express (Las Vegas)
- Ninja (Six Flags over Georgia)

    Dingy Slide
A water flume ride that does not need to be connected to a pool complex, because it is from the original game and predates Soaked!. With the add-on pack simulating water park slides the Dingy Slide can represent the compact slides found in fairgrounds and at seasides.

    Floorless Roller Coaster
One of the four variants of what was the Steel Twister coaster in RCT 1 & 2. The others in RCT 3 being the Stand Up Twister, Hyper Twister and Twister Coaster. As the name suggests the cars are sit-down cars without floors.
- Kraken (Sea World, Orlando)
- Medusa (SF Discovery Kingdom)

    Flying Coaster
Similar to the lay-down coaster but with the cars in the flying position in the station.
- Sadly an unfixed bug makes this coaster produce some very low excitement ratings considering the layouts. Build the lay down coaster instead, that works properly.
- Air (Alton Towers)
- Superman: Ultimate Flight @ Six Flags over Georgia

    Flying Turns
A very old-fashioned type of thrill ride from the early 20th century, contemporary with the Side Friction and Virginia Reel. Flying turns were invented and patented by an entrepreneur named John Bartlett and many were built around the USA in the 1920s. Recently resurrected with some modern copycat rides. Similar to the Bobsled Coaster but with a wooden track and only individual cars.
- La Vibora @ Six Flags over Texas
- Bobbaan @ Efteling

    Giga Coaster
One of the largest and fastest conventional coasters in the game. The giga coaster has no inversions and relies on breathtaking high speed drops, crests and turns. Also has a unique cable lift hill that is bit fiddly to implement but gives the train lots of momentum down the first drop.
- Millennium Force (2000 Cedar Point)
- Superman – Ride of Steel @ Six Flags America
- Goliath @ Six Flags Holland
- Desperado (Buffalo Bills Resort, Nevada)

    Heartline Twister Roller Coaster
A tubular ride developed by the Japanese TOGO company in the 1980s, with a car running in the centre of the tube barrel-rolling perfectly about their centres - only the Pipeline coaster can also do this. Doesn't have any corners but uses transfer junctions to create a circuit.
- Ultra-Twister (Six Flags Astroworld), closed with Astroworld in 2005.

    Hyper Coaster
A version of the corkscrew coaster that can be built to far greater heights. The immediate predecessor of the Giga Coaster, and usually providing a somewhat rougher ride. Has it's own unique loop - the figure eight roll.
- Magnum XL200 (1989 Cedar Point), first coaster over 200ft tall.
- Pepsi Max Big One (1994 Blackpool)
- Phantom’s Revenge  Kennywood Park
- Steel Force  Dorney Park
- Steel Dragon 2000 (Nagashima Spaland), the longest steel coaster in the world.

    Hyper Twister Roller Coaster
The non-inverting variant of the Twister coaster. Essentially a cheaper version of the Giga Coaster as it can do big drops and high speed fully banked turns.
- Apollo’s Chariot (Busch Gardens Williamsburg)
- Nitro (SF Great Adventure)
- Raging Bull (SF Great America)

    Inverted Coaster
The now-standard design around the world for 'feet dangling' coasters with four-wide seating and lots of different pieces to use. If it can be afforded its a good coaster to use to make a 7-plus excitement coaster in scenarios.
- Batman The Ride (1992, SF Great America), the first Inverted coaster.
- Alpengeist (1996, Busch Gardens Williamburg)
- Raptor (1994, Cedar Point)
- Montu (1996, Busch Gardens Tampa)
- Nemesis (1994 Alton Towers)
- Top Gun/Flight Deck (1993 Great America)

    Inverted Hairpin Coaster
Effectively a suspended wild-mouse coaster, with all of the various wild-mouse pieces available.
- Flying Coaster (Elitch Gardens)

    Inverted Impulse Coaster
An inverted coaster with a powered launch. Can only turn on vertical twists and has limited scope for track layouts.
- V2: Vertical Velocity (SF Marine World)
- Wicked Twister (Cedar Point)

    Inverted Shuttle Coaster
Identical to the compact inverted coaster but with unique 'face to face' cars where riders sit in pairs looking at each other.
- Two Face: The Flip Side (Six Flags America)
- Invertigo (Paramount’s Great America)

    Inverted Vertical Shuttle
The compact inverted coaster but with four person cars, making it almost identical to the Inverted Coaster, except this coaster can run on vertical hills.
- Déjà vu (Six Flags over Georgia, Magic Mountain, and Great America)

    Inverted Wild Mouse Roller Coaster
A wild mouse coaster than can build tracks past 90 degrees angle and run upside-down on the underside of the track.

    Junior Coaster
A cheap and useful coaster for building rides in the early stages of scenarios as it is nearly always available without needing to be researched. Cannot go very high but has a convenient space-saving curved lift hill.

    LIM Launched Coaster
LIM means 'Linear Induction Motor' coaster. Uses the same magnetic technology as the Reverse Freefall but in a conventional coaster. Only has a powered launch out of the station, and doesn't have a lift hill. Can be useful for beating required speed marks without resorting to the super-high speed coasters.
- Flight of Fear (Paramount’s Kings Dominion)
- Joker’s Jinx (Six Flags America)

    Lay Down Roller Coaster
The next development of the inverted coaster, with cars that lay down flat in the station. The ride can either create stomach churning lay-down inversions or 'flying' suspended rides, depending which way up it is.
- Stealth (Paramount’s Great America)
- Batwing (Six Flags America)

    Log Flume
The basic water ride with riders hanging onto the handles on the flume logs while dropping down steep slopes.

    Looping Roller Coaster
The original steel-looping coaster from the 1970s, the first common steel coasters that eventually took over from wooden rides. Quite cheap to make with a good variety of pieces, although a bit old fashioned-feeling compared to more advanced rides. Sadly the distinctive and historically accurate loop with boxy support towers this coaster had in original RCT games is missing in RCT3.
- Revolution (1976, SF Magic Mountain)
- Mind Bender (1978, Six Flags over Georgia)
- Shockwave (Six Flags over Texas)

    Mine Ride
Not strictly a coaster but a powered ride with mine train theming.
- Runaway Mine Train (Alton Towers)

    Mine Train Roller Coaster
A steel coaster with wooden support towers and mine train themed cars. Works best when diving underground making a 'Runaway Train' style ride.
- Gold Rusher (SF Magic Mountain)
- Runaway Train (SF Great Adventure)
- Dahlonega Mine Train (SF over Georgia)

    Mini Coaster
The Junior coaster with more ride elements - including a 95 degree drop - and two person 'rocket' styled cars. Unfortunately it doesn't have the space-saving circular lift hill like the Junior coaster.
- Black Hole (Alton Towers)
- Skull Mountain (Six Flags Great Adventure)

    Mini Suspended Coaster
Identical to the Suspended Coaster but with small single person chairs instead of cars. Stick trees around the track to add excitement for the riders.
- Birdman (Fuji-Q-Highlands)

    Mini Suspended Flying Coaster
Identical to the Suspended Coaster but with small flying suspended cars.
- Pteranodon Flyers (Islands of Adventure)
- Batflyer (Lightwater Valley)

    Multidimension Coaster
A steel ride with cars that can rotate the riders round 360 degrees in their seats, creating dizzying combinations, such as a feet-first vertical drop or a loop coordinated with the seat rotation to hold the riders vertical all the way through.
-X2 (Cedar Point)

    Pipeline Coaster
A corkscrew coaster with the train in the centre of a U-shaped track. The only conventional track coaster that can perform 360 degree heartline barrel rolls (the Heartline twister does not turn corners).

    Rafts
More of a transit ride than a coaster, river raft cars run in a water channel.

    Reverse Freefall Coaster
A real money-maker if you have researched it. The Freefall coaster is uses magnets on the horizontal pieces to launch the car up a vertical tower where it stops and falls back down - giving riders a few moments of weightlessness at the apogee of the tower. It does nothing else but visitors seemingly cannot pay enough to ride it. For double income place two side by side and sychronise the launch.
- The Escape (SF Magic Mountain)

    Reverser Coaster
A real rarity. Only one was ever made in real life and that was in 1914 (The 'Hooper Reverser' in Salt Lake City). It's a very basic wooden coaster but has cars built like railway cars with bogies that are spun around 180 degrees on ingenious reverser sections. The cars can run backwards in the stations so the next circuit begins backwards.
- Hooper Reverser (The only one ever built)

    River Rapids
A water channel ride with various pieces to help make the riders as wet as possible. The cars are circular rafts that are bumped and jostled down the ride.

    Side Friction Coaster
The most basic kind of coaster, and the oldest type in the game. The wooden side friction predates the invention of the three point under and side track wheels on later, faster coasters. Because it's cheap the Side Friction is useful in scenarios when money is tight, and guests don't notice either it's antiquated design or nostalgic appeal.
- Leap-The-Dips at Lakemont Park, Pennsylvania (built 1902) the last American Side Friction coaster left.

    Spinning Wild Mouse
Looks like the most nauseating ride in the whole game but in practice it doesn't seem to produce much more vomit on the paths than any other coaster. The cars spin and stop spinning after rolling over toggle track pieces.
- Crazy Mouse (South Pier, Blackpool)
- Magic Mouse (Pleasurewood Hills)

    Spiral Coaster
A version of the junior coaster where three riders sit in a line in cosy-looking tobaggan cars. Another good vintage-looking ride for creating a period-piece park.
- Jumbo Jet (Coney Island)
- Tornado (La Feria Chapultepac Magico)

    Splash Boats
A mid-price flume ride, grander than the log flume but made somewhat redundant by the Giant Flume introduced in Soaked.

    Stand-Up Coaster
The cheapest kind of Stand-up coaster based on the first coasters of this type that appeared in the 1980s. Similar to the corkscrew coaster but with higher intensity as the riders are not sat in relatively comfortable cars. Useful for making high excitement coasters in compact spaces.
- King Cobra (King's Island) defunct
- Shockwave (King's Dominion)
- Iron Wolf/Apocalypse (SF America/SF Great America)

    Stand-Up Twister Coaster
A much more advanced and expensive stand up coaster. Identical track to the Hyper Twister and Floorless coasters but with four-abreast stand up cars.
- Mantis (Cedar Point)
- Riddler's Revenge (SF Magic Mountain)
- Georgia Scorcher (SF over Georgia)

    StrataCoaster
The fastest and tallest coaster of the lot - it can climb to 400 feet and run over 120 mph, but it can't do much more than climb a vertical tower and vertical twist, and over the so called 'Top Hat' crest. The RCT 3 ride is based on the Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point, hence the dragster cars. That ride has been surpassed by the similar Kinga Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure. Needless to say it unlikely that any Kingda Ka recreations will be built during scenario play.
- Kingda Ka (SF Great Adventure)
- Top Thrill Dragster (Cedar Point)

    Suspended Roller Coaster
The forgotten innovator of the coaster world. The Suspended coaster appeared in the early 1980s and pre-dated the Inverted coaster by a decade but has now been largely eclipsed by the more advanced type. However the suspended design is still common around the world's parks. The track layout needs lots of turns to provide the G-forces to keep the cars swinging out. The many different cars of this coaster all have different weights and can alter the speed of the ride significantly.
- Ninja (SF Magic Mountain)
- Big Bad Wolf (Busch Gardens Williamsburg, defunct)
- Air Race (Bobbejaanland Family Park) - the model for the plane cars
- Vampire (Chessington Worlds of Adventure), the only coaster with swinging seat cars.

    Tilt Coaster
Based on a real ride in Taiwan, is a corkscrew coaster with a special additional piece - the thrill lift; a giant lift that carries the train up and then swings it round and releases it down a vertical track. That's pretty much all that's different but the lift does make a striking prescence on the skyline of a park.
- Gravity Max (Discovery World, Taiwan)

    Twister Coaster
A large, very cool looking steel coaster ride with many kinds of different elements that can be built to great heights. The Floorless Coaster and Standup Twister Coaster are the fancy variants of this coaster. (It was called the Steel Twister in RCT 1 & 2)
- Kumba (Busch Gardens Tampa)
- Dragon Khan (Universal’s Port Aventura)
- Incredible Hulk (Islands of Adventure)

    Vertical Roller Coaster
Based on the Alton Towers 'Oblivion' ride, the first coaster to have a vertical drop. Nothing particularly special about this ride now that other types can have vertical sections too, except it has the pre-drop holding brake that holds the car stationary above a drop before releasing it down. For maximum effect dangle riders above a drop that disappears underground.
- Oblivion (Alton Towers)
- Griffon (BG Williamsburg)

    Virginia Reel
Another vintage ride that is statistically inferior to more advanced designs - there's little need for it if the wild mouse is available - but adds some historic charm to a park. Once a common attraction in parks and on piers but now sadly extinct - the last one closed in Blackpool in 1982,

    Water Coaster
A water flume-like steel coaster with tracks that can run in water troughs.

    Wild Mouse Coaster
The big advantage of the Wild Mouse coaster is that it can turn tighter turns and transition from flat to steep slopes in one square, so it can fit into much tighter spaces. It's quite cheap too so a good wild mouse layout can be an invaluable aid to winning many scenarios. The key to the wild mouse is sudden changes of direction and taking the riders by surprise by dropping their world out from under them. It is still possible to create 'Ultra-Extreme' wild mouses though, so don't get too carried away.

    Wooden Roller Coaster
The most common and durable coaster of them all, the classic wooden coaster has lasted all the way through the 20th century and lives on in the 21st with new state-of-the-art computer designed rides. Until the 1960s it was pretty much the only kind of roller coaster, only being usurped in popularity by steel looping coasters in the mid 1970s.
There are several common types of wooden coaster designs. The most well famous is the classic seaside 'Big Dipper'; a coaster with many drops and crests, and slower unbanked turns, built either in an 'out-and-back' L-shape or in a figure of eight shape. Then there are  'Twister' types, where the cars twist through swirling curved drops and crests. Rarer is the side-by-side 'Racer' - either two separate tracks or one continuous track that crosses itself. Some more rural parks have wooden coasters that are built through woods and along the terrain. The latest generation wooden coasters combine all elements; big dipper drops and high g-force turns to create giant super wooden coasters.
When building a wooden coaster, try to get in either as many intense turns or high 'air time' crests as possible, and it will easily match the excitement of the steel rides.

Big Dippers:
- Coney Island Cyclone (1927) probably the most iconic roller coaster in the world, operating within sight of Brooklyn. Has inspired many copycat designs of it's figure-eight shape with a central lift hill surrounded by the rest of the ride.
- Coney Island Thunderbolt (192?) the twin of the Cyclone a few blocks away, closed in 1982 and controversially demolished in 2000.
- Blue Streak (Cedar Point)
- Phoenix (1946 - moved to Knoebels Park in 1985)
- Comet (Great Escape) - once the Crystal Beach Cyclone (below), then remodelled as the Crystal Beach Comet, and moved to a new park when Crystal Beach closed.

Twisters:
- The legendary 1920s coasters built by Harry Traver around North America were hybrid wooden track coasters with steel supports. Famously extreme at the time, they are all gone now: The Crystal Beach Cyclone, Palisades Cyclone, Revere Beach 'Lightning', and Oaks Park 'Zip!'
- Aeroplane Coaster (Rye Playland, defunct)
- Mr. Twister (Elitch Gardens, now remodelled as Twister II when Elitch Gardens moved)

Racers:
- Grand National (Blackpool)
- Racer (Kennywood)
- The Cyclone Racer (Long Beach, defunct)
- American Eagle (SF Great Adventure)

Terrain Coasters:
- Beast @ Paramount’s Kings Island
- Boulder Dash (Lake Compounce)

Super Wooden Coasters:
- Mean Streak (Cedar Point)
- Son of Beast (King's Island)
- Texas Giant

    Wooden Wild Mine
Similar to the steel wild mouse but with a more appropriate theme if you want to create an Indiana Jones style runway mine cart ride. Definitely improved by tunnelling underground too.
- King Solomon’s Mines @ Pleasureland Southport

    Wooden Wild Mouse
The original type of wild mouse, now almost completely superseded by steel wild mouses. But goes well with the Virginia Reel and Wooden Coaster for creating a vintage section of a park.
- Wild Mouse (Blackpool) one of the last Wooden Wild Mouses, built in the 1950s and a legendarily rough experience.

Soaked! expansion pack:

    Alpine Coaster
A simple steel coaster with small one-person tobaggan cars. In real life these cars  have a brake that can be controlled by the rider, but in the game that feature is absent.

    Giant Flume
A very big flume ride with a way higher capacity than the cheapo Log Flume.

    Glider Coaster
A flying coaster with a funky-looking circular lift hill. Can only have individual cars and not trains.

    Half-Pipe Coaster
A themed impulse shuttle designed to look like a giant skateboard on a half-pipe ramp. As silly as it sounds it's quite a useful ride to place down when space is tight and it makes a tidy profit.

    Hershey's Stormrunner
Licensed recreation of the Hersheypark Stormrunner, a ride like the LIM launched coaster but with some unique inversions.

    Roller-Soaker
A gentle steel coaster with the unique gimmick of being able to drop tanks of water on guests on paths below.

    Sea Serpent Shuttle
The only coaster that comes with decorative additions. Basically a shuttle looping coaster that looks like a large sea monster. Appears ready built in the Loch Ness Monster scenario.

    Sky Rider
A suspended coaster with riders sitting in seats facing each like at a dining table, and a vertical elevator lift hill.

    Turbo Bikes
Yet another steel corkscrew coaster but this time with motorcycle cars and a powered launch.
- Mick Doohan's Motocoaster

    White Water Rapids
A much more realistic looking version of the River Rapids included in the Soaked! expansion. The river trough has more water features and can be wider.

Wild! expansion pack:

    Coasterball
An inverted impulse coaster with multi-dimension cars and large circular drop pieces.
- Green Lantern First Flight (SF Magic Mountain)

    Dizzy Dropper
Another variant of the wild mouse coaster. This time the track is laid on it's side and cars run on the side with vertical seating, creating dizzying feet first drops.

    Drifting Coaster
A steel coaster with cars that swing out at the back and 'drift' out around the corners.

    Extended Coaster
The developers present to the coaster nerds - the extended coaster is the steel twister coaster but with all the lastest trick pieces from the most advanced rides in the world currently.

    Robotic Coaster
Taking the concept of the Multi Dimension Coaster another step forward with riders held on a robotic arm that can be programmed to perform all kind of maneouvers. A theoretical design that has not been built for real - yet.

    Rotating Tower Coaster
Yet another variant on the lift hill. The rotating tower places different trains on separate sections of track simulataneously.

    Spinning Steel
Identical to the Stand Up coaster but with spinning cars.

    Splitting Coaster
Creates instant racing coasters by splitting the track and the train straight down the middle to run on separate tracks before re-combining again. Does not exist in real life except as a conceptual idea. The recombining action would be extremely hard to implement at high speed.

    Towering Coaster
Very like the Vertical Drop coaster but with a vertical lift and a drop that can run past 90 degrees and round upside down.
- G Force (Drayton Manor)


In Transport Rides:

    Steeplechase Ride
This transport ride is really a vintage form of roller coaster that was popular in the 1920s. Riders ride on horse cars over small hills and dips. In real life these rides would be arranged with many tracks next to each other and run in a large rectangular course. One of these rides still exists at Blackpool Pleasure Beach.
- Steeplechase Park, Coney Island had a 5-track steeplechase ride as it's centrepiece in the 1930s.

-----------------

Water Rides:

Water slides must be connected to pool complexes with the staircase pieces - usually the spiral stairs - but can then roam off round any part of the park just like roller coasters. The slides must end in a suitably large pool or the park inspector will close them down until you provide a safe landing zone.

    Aqua Blaster Slides
The nearest thing to a water slide roller coaster. Unlike the standard water slide the Aqua Blaster has a 'lift hill' - a high pressure sheet of water that 'blasts' the riders up hills. As a consequence the Aqua Blaster can be a match for roller coasters for length and excitement levels.

   Water Slide
The water slide may be basic but it can be extremely hair raising. Try copying the practice of real parks and put increasingly extreme slides next door to each to other so your pool guests can decide how scared they want to be.

  H2o Bowl
The H2o ride is a waterslide with an insane giant funnel bowl that deposits sliders back into the pool. The giant funnel is extremely fun to watch on the rider cam.

-----------------

Roller coaster Record Stats:

Opening the stats tab will bring up the vital statistics of your rides - speed, drops, forces, length etc. For the purposes of comparision with any rides you may build in RCT 3, here are the real world roller coaster records:

Tallest:
Kingda Ka - 456ft/139m

Drop:
Kingda Ka - 418ft/127m

Tallest (Wood):
Son of Beast - 218ft/66m (standing but not running)
Colossus (Heide Park) - 196ft/60m

Drop (Wood):
Son of Beast - 214ft/65m (standing but not running)
El Toro - 176 ft/54m

Tallest Inversion:
Volcano The Blast Coaster - 155ft/47m

Tallest Loop:
Superman Krypton Coaster - 145ft/44m

Speed:
Formula Rossa - 150mph/240kph

Speed (Wood)
Son of Beast - 78mph/126.2kph (standing but not running)
Colossus (Heide Park) - 74.6mph/120.1kph

Steepest:
Takabisha - 121 degree drop

Steepest (Wood):
T Express - 77 degree drop

Longest:
Steel Dragon 2000 - 8133ft/2479m

Longest (Wood):
The Beast (Kings Island) - 7359ft/2243m

Most inversions:
Collosus (Thorpe Park) - 10
Tenth Ring Coaster - 10

Most roller coasters:
17 - Six Flags Magic Mountain, Cedar Point

Most inversions in park:
35 - SF Magic Mountain