RobertaME

I'm no programmer, by any stretch of the imagination. I've only been dissecting the Flat Ride and Tracked Ride data within their OVL file structure. It's a long drawn-out process of experimentation by altering individual bytes that control certain aspects of ride data like cost, Excitement, Intensity, Nausea, Reliability, etc. and seeing what the effect is in the game. I don't think it will be of much use to your project, but feel free to take a look at my Editing OVL Files discussion thread. Maybe you might find some useful data. Best of luck! I'll be watching this.

Congrats, @shyguy! Couldn't be more deserved!

As happens every year, May 30th is my youngest son's birthday, so I won't be able to attend. :^/ Hope you all have a ton of fun! --,-'-@

Considering that you can build a coaster for a few thousand dollars and that the in-game calender runs 24 times faster than the day-night cycle, (3,600 times as fast as RL) and then add 76% inflation from 2004 to today, just think of a game $1 as $42.24 IRL. Now an entry price of $3 can be seen as representing $127 IRL! Come to think of it, that might explain why Janitors only make $35 a month... at 42-to-1, that's about $18K a year, $28K per year for a Mechanic, just over $1K a year for Vendors... Nope... it's nonsense! :^Þ Seriously though, I just think of the money as an abstraction, sometimes with a 1,000-to-1 ratio so that new coaster just cost me a cool $25 million. I often find that working within the budgetary constraints of the game makes me come up with better running parks. (and adds a degree of difficulty that I feel makes the game still engaging after 20+ years) I guess stuff like this is only interesting to weirdos like me! :^3

Many years ago, a contributor named Richard R. "Remnar" wrote the definitive guide to Shop pricing for RCT3. I've been using his guide for longer than I care to admit, but over the years I've made several edits and additions as I learned important aspects of in-game pricing. In the process of assembling the data for my Index of Tracked Ride Data and Index of Coaster Data, I've managed to put together enough data to release a Version 2 of Remnar's guide. Pricing Guide v2.txt This Pricing Guide not only includes Remnar's original Stall pricing data, but now includes the cost of every sellable item in the game, profit margin when price is set to the optimal value, plus they're now categorized and alphabetized for ease of reference. (it even includes the Make Your Own Balloon Stall's pricing data) In addition, the Guide now includes all the information necessary to price all non-custom Flat Rides, Tracked Rides, and Coasters in order to get maximal profit and customer satisfaction. Lastly, the Guide also covers data on the in-game clock and how it relates to running costs and a quick tip on how to avoid pool pricing problems with pool slides. Altogether, it's 20 years of data and research into how RCT3 pricing is done. Best of all, it's still in Remnar's original and universal TXT format! Comments and suggestions welcome, as always.

Geez, @JB! Is there anything you DON'T have? :^þ

Just an FYI update... this project is still in progress. I have basic layout of all of the Tracked Rides and Coasters data. I ended up splitting the data into those two sets because there are so many coasters. Thus there will (eventually) be THREE Index PDFs, one for Flat Rides, one for Tracked Rides, and one just for Coasters. (and someday maybe a 4th and 5th for Walls and Scenery objects) No promises on when they'll be ready for upload, though. I still have a crank-ton of data to find. Keep watching! ---,-'-@

Can't watch the video because it's listed as private. (and I don't have a YouTube account :^/ )

Loving it! Thanks for sharing your process! This is invaluable for future modders. Looking forward to seeing more. :^)

All very good examples of poor attractions... but they all pale in comparison to the two worst examples of theme park attractions ever... Superstar Limo at California Adventure and The Rocket Rods at Disneyland Anaheim. My SO and I went to DLA for our honeymoon in '99. Three hours in line and 2 breakdowns later, we got to ride what replaced my beloved PeopleMover. 3 minutes later I got off the Rocket Rods feeling like I might throw up... which actually would have been a blessing. I ate a bug on the ride itself. ::barf:: Superstar Limo would wait until our next trip in 2001. What a bazaar and surreal experience! It's only saving grace was that it had almost no line. (which honestly should have been a red flag right away) I've only regretted riding two attractions in my life, and those are they.

Technically, though not its intended purpose, there would have been bacteria both inside and outside of the German's A-4 test rocket, (the first man-made object to fly above the Karman Line) making bacteria the first organic life man put into space. The correct way of putting the question (unless it is a trick question) would be, "What was the first living creature to be intentionally sent into outer space?" :^Þ

-For how long have you been creating trough games ? I began back in the 1980s by writing in 8502 machine language to create my own version of the Lunar Lander arcade game. It was clunky and slow, and not very well drawn, but it was mine and I was proud of it. I was never very good at art, so digital code let me express myself in a medium I could work with... math. When games like SimCity and RCT came out that let me express myself without the need to be able to draw or paint, it was perfect for me. -Do you create trough other form (traditional medium , digital drawing , gamedev etc...) if yes can you please precise it? I am a Game Master in a weekly Tabletop Role Playing Game. As such, I am called on to create maps, storylines, plots, challenges, etc. I also dabble in writing as a hobby. (I have written 4 novels, 2 novellas, 2 short stories, and a poem, all unpublished just for my own use) -Do you consider your creation inside those game to be art? why? Absolutely! Art is self expression at its core. Through building games like RCT, I can express myself without having to have the artistic skill normally required. -Why do you create trough those games ? As noted above, I am a terrible artist. Building games give me the opportunity to express myself artistically without the requisite skill at creating art assets. -You share your creation trough forums why is that? Forums are the perfect medium for artistic expression through building games. They have a permanence not found in other forms of social media. I choose to share my work on a forum because I want others to share in my self expression. Art that is never seen except by the artist is a waste. -Do you consider the game you're creating with a game or more like an engine / another creative software? For me, it's a hybrid of the two. I still play and enjoy the game aspects, but they are also an engine for creative expression. -Why are you using a 22 years old game when more modern alternative exist? Because it works. Additionally, because I know it so well, I know how to make it do what I want. I enjoy having to work within the limitations of the engine. (which is why all my creations aren't in sandboxes but using the provided scenarios) -The game has an expansive list of mods and custom assets , does the original game still impact your creation or as it just become a simple base to use all of those assets? The original game is the core of my expression. Everything I make has to fit within its constraints. I may have thousands of custom assets, but they just serve to give me more "colors" to apply to my chosen "canvas". -From what I understand some of you even create custom assets in the game can you explain your creative workflow? The closest I have gotten to this is editing other people's assets to fix what I perceive as errors or omissions. (like assigning them appropriate costs, stats, etc. when they have none or I feel they weren't done well enough) I have no artistic talent to create visually appealing art assets, so I must rely on the ability of others. My talents lie in other areas such as mathematics, physics, and storycrafting. -Some of you have been very influential in the modern park tycoon game trough your mods/creations. Would you like to share your tough on it? Not applicable to me, but I would like to express my deepest thanks to those such as @shyguy and @wolfpaw who have influenced this genre. Without them, we wouldn't be here to give you the data you're seeking. ;^)

I personally would love to see your work on this! I've spent a good chunk of the last 2 years working on my own reverse engineering of the OVL file format in RCT3 and I've barely scratched the surface. (I can make a few simple edits of most flat and tracked rides, but that's all) Anyway, glad to see a fellow code-monkey here! ;^) I look forward to seeing what you bring to the site!

That's a common misconception. Hyenas are actually part of the cat family, not the canine family. Awesome setup, @shyguy! Very much 'early Buffy the Vampire Slayer' vibe!

Welcome, Dawn! I remember your sets, especially your signs. It inspired me to make better signage myself. Don't feed the Wabigbears. :^þ