mixing coasters/hacked rides

[joshmarsilio]

I have been experimenting with mixing coasters; example: LIM coaster has only one small loop so i tried building a steel twister loop in place of the lim loop. I see people doing this successfully in nedesigns.com parks, they have loop and track pieces from multiple coaster types functioning as one single coaster. I, however, have not been able to figure out how to do this. I have tried joining one type coaster track with another and have sometimes even seen the ends of the track pieces "merge" together at the ends so as to create a complete circuit of coaster, but when i test or open the coaster, i get a "cant test coaster, ride is not a complete circuit" message. Could someone explain to me how i can successfully use multiple coaster track types in one coaster and actually have it function?

By the way, I also see people making swimming pools,  boat rides, and other "hacked" rides naming each boat or swimmer "building 1, building2,.. etc.."  with invisible track sections and invisible "other stuff", how did they figure out how to do all of this? and why is it not working for me?
 

[X7123M3-256]

For a track merge to work you have to have two overlapping track pieces and they must be built in the correct order. The easiest way to do this is to build the two tracks adjacent to each other, then select the rearmost track and build forward one piece so they overlap (with zero clearance enabled obviously). You can use the tile inspector to rearrange pieces after the fact if you do things wrong. I made a video on this here.

 

2 hours ago, joshmarsilio said:

when i test or open the coaster, i get a "cant test coaster, ride is not a complete circuit" message

When the game is checking for a complete circuit, it does not follow merges, so it will not recognize the circuit as complete. There are two ways around this: the simplest is to set the operating mode to "boat hire mode" as this doesn't require a complete circuit to open. However, block brakes will not function in this mode. The alternative is to make sure the *original* track makes a complete circuit, and then make the parts that the train is not supposed to run on invisible. When doing this, I usually build a complete circuit (without the merged parts), first, check that that is complete, then merge the tracks. I leave making the unused track sections invisible until last because it is tricky to undo if you want to go back and change it. I would recommend this approach for use on coasters, as they should have a block system, but for other rides it's easier to change the operating mode and leave the circuit incomplete.

 

2 hours ago, joshmarsilio said:

with invisible track sections and invisible "other stuff", how did they figure out how to do all of this?

There are two ways to make track invisible. If you want to make the entire track invisible, the fastest method is to change the track type to crooked house. This is done by checking "Allow arbitrary ride type changes" in the cheat window. Then the ride window will have the option to change track type, or you can just type

ride set type <ride index> <ride type>

into the console (crooked house track is type 47 IIRC).

If you want to make part of a track invisible but not all of it (as you would if you have a merged ride with block sections), you can do that in the tile inspector by placing corrupt elements under the track elements you want to hide. If you want to make the track visible again you have to go through and delete all the corrupt elements individually, so I usually save doing this until the ride is otherwise finished.

 

[joshmarsilio]

wow, this may take me some time to figure out... but thanks.