Q: do Hybrid/Single-Rail Coasters earn Excitement from Air-Time?

[RollerCoasterTyphoon]

Um, because, they shouldn't: they can deploy "zero-G" elements.

I am soliciting fact, not opinion.

Marcel Vos helpfully compiled this table: coasters capable of zero-G elements, without exception, do *not* earn any Excitement from Air-Time, probably because that would be too easy to exploit.

Answer, 'no', no worries; Answer, "yes", is this an issue?

Again, I am soliciting fact, not opinion.

Embedded Link, advance to 'Air-time':

 

[X7123M3-256]

18 hours ago, RollerCoasterTyphoon said:

Marcel Vos helpfully compiled this table: coasters capable of zero-G elements, without exception, do *not* earn any Excitement from Air-Time, probably because that would be too easy to exploit.

I don't see where in the linked post it says that. The zero G roll elements did not exist when that post was written - the new track pieces were only added last year. The hybrid and single rail were the first ride types to get them and are still the only ones that have them available by default.

All coaster ride types except the alpine coaster calculate airtime - whether or not an excitement bonus is applied for airtime is actually dependent on the vehicle type. In the vanilla game, the vehicles which don't get an airtime bonus are the ones with over the shoulder restraints, while rides with lap bars do. So the hybrid coaster does and absolutely should get an airtime bonus - it has lapbar restraints and those rides are generally very airtime focused IRL.

The single rail is debatable - it has over the shoulder vest type restraints, which are somewhere in between a lap bar and a traditional OTSR. These didn't exist when the original game came out so there's no direct comparison in the vanilla game, and you could perhaps argue that it shouldn't get an airtime bonus, however it currently does.

[RollerCoasterTyphoon]

23 minutes ago, X7123M3-256 said:

I don't see where in the linked post it says that. The zero G roll elements ...

I did not say, "zero G roll": I said, "zero-G elements"; barrel/heartline roll, in-line twist, corkscrew; elements that "artificially" generate Air-time. Now, my bad: I definitely should have elucidated that better in the OP.

Thanks for an excellent reply: particularly that "yes/no Excitement" is dependent upon the vehicle, not the Coaster-type; drat, this (potentially) is a lot more complicated than I first had deemed ... at this juncture, I can not make even an opinionated disposition ...

Any additional information that anyone could provide is welcome.

I want OpenRCT2 to remain "honest": no "cheaty/hacky" stuff (haha: beyond deliberately employing cheats/hacks); I love what the Devs have done, what folks like you and Spacek and others have done; most folks at New Element, et al.; I do want to preserve the "cleanliness/authenticity" of the OpenRCT2 project.

Yes, drat (again): the distinction you've provided definitely muddies the waters surrounding my query.

Thanks (again).

T

 

[RollerCoasterTyphoon]

In this matter, as regards the original assets of the games, I imagine that the graphics actually will self-regulate the issue: trains that possess sprites for traversing zero-G elements will not be earning excitement from Air-time; perhaps that's why CS designed RCT/2 in this fashion.

I'd like more information, though.

Thanks again.

T

[X7123M3-256]

Just now, RollerCoasterTyphoon said:

In this matter, as regards the original assets of the games, I imagine that the graphics actually will self-regulate the issue: trains that possess sprites for traversing zero-G elements will not be earning excitement from Air-time; perhaps that's why CS designed RCT/2 in this fashion.

I'd like more information, though.

Thanks again.

T

Whether a train has sprites for a given element has nothing to do with excitement rating (and the zero G roll sprites don't exist in the original game, so if that was the deciding factor then no vanilla train would get an airtime bonus). Whether or not the excitement bonus for airtime is applied is determined by a flag in the vehicle's JSON file.

[RollerCoasterTyphoon]

You and I again suffer a failure to communicate, including a reiteration of the original failure I've already cited: only you say anything about "zero G rolls"; I say nothing about "zero-G rolls", except to (now) repeat that I say nothing about "zero G rolls".

Based on the information you kindly provided, I entered the Track Designer and deployed 8 Coasters: 4 identical Loopers & 4 identical 4D Coasters; both populated with trains from these coaster types, Looping, Giga, 4D, Corkscrew.

The "zero-G" ELEMENTS on this 4D Coaster are the In-Line Twists & Outside Ravens; the Looping Coaster possesses no zero-G elements at all, relying solely upon "Air-time Hills"; just FYI, 4D generates almost 3x the Air-time, compared to the Looper. To be crystal clear: both coasters have no zero-G rolls.

Looping & Giga trains, on the 4D, earn a tremendous bonus to Excitement, even though speeds & G Forces remain comparable; Corkscrew trains returned a (lower) Excitement, comparable to the normal 4D trains.

Corkscrew & 4D trains, on the Looper, lose a significant amount of Excitement, even though speeds & G Forces remain comparable; Giga trains returned higher Excitement, comparable to the original Looping trains.

All this commutes with your information. Again, thank you.

The Looping & Giga trains flickered in-and-out traversing In-Line Twists & Outside Ravens; Corkscrew disappeared traversing the Outside Ravens. They do not have the sprites; hence my earlier statement about (some) self-regulation being built-into the original assets.

Typhoon

 

[X7123M3-256]

> The "zero-G" ELEMENTS on this 4D Coaster are the In-Line Twists & Outside Ravens; the Looping Coaster possesses no zero-G elements at all, relying solely upon "Air-time Hills"; just FYI, 4D generates almost 3x the Air-time, compared to the Looper. To be crystal clear: both coasters have no zero-G rolls.

The game doesn't distinguish between airtime generated by an airtime hill and airtime generated by an inversion. The game doesn't designate certain elements as "zero G", so I'm not sure why you're making this distinction.

1 hour ago, RollerCoasterTyphoon said:

They do not have the sprites

They don't, but that has nothing to do with the excitement calculation.

[RollerCoasterTyphoon]

1 hour ago, X7123M3-256 said:

> The game doesn't distinguish between airtime generated by an airtime hill and airtime generated by an inversion. The game doesn't designate certain elements as "zero G", so I'm not sure why you're making this distinction.

I wonder if you and I are actually approaching accord ... I'm not going to divert (again) to explain what I meant when I described "zero-G elements"; that's above, in this very thread.

Chris Sawyer, evidently, more-than-20-years-ago, thought the distinction valid: um, hence, my initial query ...

Thanks for offering dialogue

[X7123M3-256]

6 hours ago, RollerCoasterTyphoon said:

Chris Sawyer, evidently, more-than-20-years-ago, thought the distinction valid: um, hence, my initial query ...

I don't know what you mean -  Chris never made such a distinction, there's no such thing as a "zero G element" in the game or the code. I assume you're talking about special pieces that can give airtime. But there's no special treatment there, the game just adds up the total airtime and calculates the excitement bonus, if applicable, based on that. There's not a difference between a "zero G element" and an airtime hill as far as the game is concerned.

[RollerCoasterTyphoon]

On 07/01/2023 at 04:32, X7123M3-256 said:

I don't know what you mean ... I assume you're talking about special pieces that can give airtime.... There's not a difference between a "zero G element" and an airtime hill as far as the game is concerned.

You should already know what I mean, since this is from the 3rd post in this thread,

On 03/01/2023 at 12:46, RollerCoasterTyphoon said:

I did not say, "zero G roll": I said, "zero-G elements"; barrel/heartline roll, in-line twist, corkscrew; elements that "artificially" generate Air-time. Now, my bad: I definitely should have elucidated that better in the OP.

Now, I have done a little research and I will explain precisely why I invoked Chris Sawyer: in vanilla, ALL coasters that can deploy these elements have OTSR restraints, without fail; while the short, 4-across "Twister", Hyper-Twister trains possess lap-bars, "true" Twister trains are all OTSR; the "Arrow-ish" Hypercoaster trains have lap-bars, while the "Arrow-ish" Corkscrew trains are OTSR.

Indeed, the original incarnation of the Hypercoaster demanded that the player build a Corkscrew coaster with no inversions: only then would Hypercoaster trains be available for selection. I'm not sure if a similar prerequisite was required to make a Twister into a Hyper-Twister (can't remember; just don't know), but the trains are the trains, and the distinction remains consistent.

It's pretty clear: the original game-design wanted to avoid potential abuse derived from any exploitation of the exaggerated Air-time that these elements can generate.

Thanks for patience, and continued dialogue.

T