Traveller

3 hours ago, wolfpaw said:

I've been to this park and on this water slide in Atlantis! I remember when I was little and went here I got all inspired to make a water park in RCT3 and as soon as I got home I tried making something... and immediately quit because it wasn't coming out the way I wanted it to 

I think this is commonly true for the most of us. We'd love to recreate parks close to use, or park parks we have visited. I have started in the past at least four or five parks really close to my heart, parks I have visited more times I can remember, but haven't been able to finish for pretty much the same reason you just mentioned. But this really is one thing where the limits of RCT3 start to make an impact. This Atlantis themed water park in its entirety would be super difficult to recreate accurately in RCT3. Planet Coaster would be the more appropriate choice, if one would want to create as accurate park as possible. But even then, making everything fit in scale, right size, dimensions, measurements - not to mention the overall look and feel - would still be extremely troublesome to achieve. I've seen some truly magnificent park recreations made for Planet Coaster. I've also seen some really superb park recreations made for RCT3, which just in itself is an accomplishment, when we do think of all the many, many limitations that RCT3 does have. And yet still I would prefer to work with RCT3, a 20+ year old game, which pales in graphic quality compared to Planet Coaster... but for me it's not just the eye candy and stunning graphics - there really is something magical and unexplainable how RCT3 keeps still attracting even new players, and how for me RCT3 is one of maybe only three or four games I keep going back to for many years after the games original release. Some games are just that good!

What I do know from personal experience, that creating 100% accurate water slides or water coasters is not easy thinking of all the limitations that RCT3 has, coupled with the fact that most of water rides would require heavy CS content and a lot of time to recreate. More simple the design, more easy it would be to create and build. But when the designs get more complex, achieving accuracy will fall almost always for making compromises, and as far as I know there aren't too many custom water tracks, which could make creating an accurate water ride/slide a bit more easier...

However I just saw something recently, that made me interested creating predominantly water themed park sometime in near future. I was visiting the website for Atlantis Paradise Island Waterpark in Nassau, The Bahamas. Check out this pic below. I think this is one of the coolest water slides I have ever seen. Near vertical long drop into small tube opening which will undoubtedly create a terrifying head chop-effect, then a long transparent tube under pool of water filled with sharks and finally plop out in a landing pool. The ride is called "Leap of Faith" and a near duplicate of this can also be found in Dubai. I think this would be entirely doable in RCT3, as the thrill of this ride is based on the themed structure and a very simple water slide parts. The pyramid has four slides in total.

If we think suitable CSO... Max's Old Pyramid, Temple of torment and few others are like made for this slide structure!

FInally, I think this entire themed water park could be an interesting project for someone.... Here's one aerial photo of the entire park:

4 hours ago, wolfpaw said:

As a pyro person I wasn't even aware this bug existed since I never work with elevators but this is good information to know!

I remember there was some discussion about this on the Atari's RCT3 forum, long, long time ago, but as I remember it, no one had any solutions back then either. The same goes for the other annoying bug, the customized colors for the in-game balloon stall, where first ticking "Synchronize stalls of this type", then creating a number of custom colors and prices for the balloons - then placing the next balloon stall, the number of the balloons and the prices for the balloons are copied OK, but the colors are not copied, leaving all the same default color, blue, leaving you having to do the color selection all over again.

-I'm still amazed, that none of the well known game play bugs were not fixed in the Complete Edition. And there are more than a dozen of bugs in RCT3 game play, but the elevator bug, the customized balloon bug and the bug where peep or peeps wind inside animal closures without any understandable reason are the most annoying ones. I mean really... at least they could have made the game so, that the lion would eat the peep or peeps - like they do with herbivore animals, if they are placed in the same closure with carnivores.

I find "Mambo" as a theme itself, somewhat humorous.. Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt at all you're being very serious with making this project, but as someone who loves humor as a way of life, my nutcase brain brought out immediately all the gags and fun I could pull out of a mambo -themed pyro show!

-Can't wait to see what you guys can come up with this! ...Good Luck!

"...Papa loves mambo, Mama loves mambo. Havin' their fling again, younger than spring again. Feelin' that zing again, wow..." 

-Perry Como: Papa Loves Mambo-

7 minutes ago, YamiDragoon said:

The CFRs (there are actually 10 different CFRs) are actually fully functional downloads on this website too! The CSO is meant to go along with them to give some of the CFRs the needed supports and extras and stuff.

Well, in that case I have struck out! - Anything else I could find by GreenTomTom (GTT) are "Adventure Path Covers and some other Adventure related stuff, apparently benches, wall bits, fences etc. (Although I studied German language for three years at school, my German skills are a bit rusty) and something named "GreenTomTom-GlasTreppe" (whatever that is...) I also have GTT's hedge maze (which is excellent, by the way!) and the Glass Labyrinth.

I so do wish that all members would actively search their old hard drives and storage discs just to check if by any chance something truly valuable could be found! Just as an example of the possible pay-offs: I found one "lost" CSO set (which I have already uploaded) from a very old Zip -drive I still have. The NOISE it makes reminds me of a brace of woodpeckers nesting inside a broken cuckoo clock!

6 hours ago, Kablary said:

HOWEVER! I'm going to ping @Cody and @Traveller to see if they might have the proper full Playground set. 

Have no fear - Traveller is here!

I'm not entirely sure what the set has contained originally... BUT.... I did a quick search of the looooooooooooong list of my recovered CS set mess, which have survived, and only sets related to "Spielplatz" (playground) by GreenTomTom (GTT) are two sets named "Spieplatz(Playground) Part 1" and "Spieplatz(Playground) Part 2" - and these two seem to go instead of "Themed" -folder, into "Custom" folder, which would suggest to me that they are categorized as CFR. The Part 1 contains "Wippe" (Seesaw) and Part 2 contains "Schaukel" (Swing). Are these the correct ones? -Also the faulty download page mentions the set needs that shared texture pack... but I seem to have version 1.2 - and this is a rare find, because it has the original readme within the root folder, and doesn't mention the shared texture. Need to test to see what's what.

Since the set was originally uploaded by Knight Rider, you should also ask if he has the correct set...

"...When you find the light to an upset shade away
    If you never, never let me go with every melody
    And you often were at leaving just my life
    If you're really not to tug an and
    Buy too many fantasy... me too!"

-Savage: Don't Cry Tonight-

(English language skills of the 80s Italo Disco artists left a bit to be desired for.... )

Small update: I think I discovered something new! -As I am still convinced people separated from groups is one of the main reasons for the elevator bug to appear, I started paying detailed attention to all groups in the park and their behavior, when they become "lost" and how long they keep still on spot while either waiting or lost, and what happens when a peep or peeps are separated from the group, for example when part of the group are on a ride, and others are waiting. If a peep or peeps take enough time in a ride, while others are waiting, occasionally the peep or peeps riding a ride - any ride, not just elevators - can sometimes become lost immediately when exiting the ride, if the group waiting is not immediately around the exit, and the peep or peeps won't therefore move - until meeting withe the rest of the group. I am now in process of creating a small test park, and filling it with custom created peep groups of different sizes, ages etc. and see what happens. (well... as I needed an excuse for making a new park, this is good excuse as any! )

1 hour ago, JB said:

While I don't know how to prevent the elevator bug from happening, there IS a way to get rid of it, at least for the current playing session: Pause the game. 'Double close' the elevator (click on the 'close' button twice). This will force any peeps out of the elevator. Open the elevator again. Unpause the game. Wallah! As far as I know, this will keep the bug from occurring for the remainder of the session. I automatically do this every time I boot up a game with an elevator. It's annoying, but it works.

Hey! That's a great tip! Many thanks for that! This is the first time someone has found at least some sort of a work-around - it's not perfect, butt still better than torturing poor peeps indefinitely.  I will definitely give this a go, and I still want to keep on checking for what causes this bug in the first place.  I have spent most of yesterday testing different things with elevators, and I am becoming more and more convinced it does have something to do with groups, where one single member has a status "Wating for group" while the rest of the group are "On elevator X ride" - or vice versa, where group waits for single person in elevator ride.

One of the most annoying and persisting bugs in RCT3 directly affecting all known versions of the game, is nothing short of being totally perplexing and weird.

This is of course the bug, where peeps get stuck inside the elevator, while the elevator still runs perfectly normally, doors open, paths are available, but the peeps don't even seem to want to leave! (heh-heee...Maybe it's my standard elevator music "Theme From Summer Place"? ) Another weird thing that can happen is sometimes only one of the peeps is stuck in the elevator - hungry, thirsty and needs a toilet, but won't budge!

I've tried practically everything thinkable and unthinkable trying to find some sort of fix or a work-around for it. What I have discovered is that while it seemingly appears completely at random, and rarely effecting more than one elevator at a time. I have one park file, where I have two elevators, one being on a lower level than the other, but the bug happens only in the shorter one, no matter if I have completely deleted both elevators, saved the file, cleaned the dat -file from elevator, rebuilt the elevators, it still sooner or later appears in the shorter one. I have tried changing heights, entrance and exit directions, mechanics check the elevator every 10 minutes without finding anything, because for the game it is not broken. So far nothing has helped preventing the bug reappearing. The bug can even appear in parks with only one elevator as well in parks with as many as 10 elevators.

So, I'm wondering if anyone has more info what might trigger the bug to appear in the first place - or is it really just random? And if so, is there ANY known workaround or a fix for this super annoying bug? Or anything to prevent it from happening? (Other than not building an elevator!) - One thing I haven't tried is using Vodhin's vendors... anyone know if that has prevented this bug?

I do have one theory, which might be one of the reasons, but I haven't been able to replicate this constantly, so it remains unproven. I speculate that this may have something to do with groups, where one or more of the members in the peep group is/are not inside the elevator....

-Any ideas and thoughts are most welcome! No matter how crazy or inconceivable they might sound!

"G** d****it! I would piss on a sparkplug, if it would do any good!

-General Beringer in "WarGames" (1983)-

On 4/2/2024 at 8:51 PM, Nicole Bertsch said:

Kinda inconsistent since I can never seem to agree on what mods I should install.

Well... I think this is something that can only become more clearer with experience and simply testing everything you come across which has even the tiniest amount of interest to you personally. As there are an estimated 5000-6000+ mods (counting in the now lost CS, CTR, CFR, structures, scenarios and parks) this will take time. You will notice pretty quickly the utterly useless mods and you'll definitely quickly notice the mods you can no longer live without! Much depends on what style of scenery you're into. If you're into Disney -stuff, there are quite a lot of mods just for that (eeZee, PLT, MaxDC etc.), or if you're into Medieval/Fantasy type of thingies, you'll better start by downloading all 25 of the Lassoares Medieval Conquest sets. Or if creating realistic coasters is your thing, there are a lot of CTR and accessory items (footers, support structures, accessories etc.) to get really close to real world accuracy.

Here's my personal Top 10 list of CS objects I really think are the best in quality and usability, and which I get the most enjoyment out of, simply because how well they are designed and thought out.

Everything on this list not only looks good, work flawlessly, and are extremely versatile, which is by no means limited to their original intended scope of usage.

1) Everything by ShyGuy (The Main Street, Alpine and Circus sets should be mandatory for everyone by Law! ;-)

2) Everything by Vodhin (The "Girders 'n Glass" set is a must have!)

3) Everything by The_Cook

4) Everything by StationJimJr

5) Everything by Das Matze

6) Everything by Weber

7) Everything by Stuk71

8) Everything by Ralfvieh

9) Everything by Old-Spice

10) Aceana's Pavement Essentials

+ ATH's Catwalk and Accessories Set

I personally don't have use for every single item contained in these sets, but these are the "basic starter kits" you can go a really long way without ever downloading anything else.

Please note that there are dozens of CSO sets by various creators on top of these which are very usable and extremely necessary for me personally, and then again there are almost an equal amount of CSOs I really would rather live without, either because they just don't look good, don't really function as intended, are filled with bugs and annoying mistakes or oversights - or are just some other way pretty useless or just plain annoy me enough to make me cranky, throw my computer out the window, and walk into the nearest pub and drown the feeling in a pint of Guinness.

P.S. I would also like to add Jcat's Steelworx as essential stuff

Here's a list of coaster types where children are not allowed in the game:

    Air Powered Vertical Coaster
    Flying Roller Coaster
    Laydown Coaster
    Stand-Up Twister Coaster

This is really an interesting thread! I only wish more people would share their projects. Sadly I haven't been able to save most of my own old park designs. The only one I was able to recover has a lot of issues, and I am currently in process of cleaning up and editing this fully western themed park. One thing I still have to figure out how to return the park to a default state - for one, because currently it has been running over 75 years in game terms, so you can pretty much estimate just how long I have worked on it - you can actually add quite a few hundred hours on top of that when the editor has been paused or stopped.... I have been testing the ParkCleanup 2.1's feature which has feature of adjusting time, but it won't solve all the problems related to age and aging. I'm not entirely sure, if this is what causes the elevator bug constantly reappear for the same one, even after I have deleted and built a new one in it's place! This is just one of those really annoying bugs (along with the custom balloon color bug) that should have been fixed in the Complete Edition.

Also, does anyone know if there already exists a topic or thread which would purposely share park concept plans and images? 

I think a good idea would be to create a topic with links to interesting and useful links related to park design. I think this type of thread would be beneficial for all games represented at ParkCrafters. I have tons of these concept plans, designs and ideas I have collected for many years from many, many sources.

Any thoughts?

"Oh no! German potato salad!"

-Homer Simpson-

1 hour ago, Wowman said:

hmmmm...looks like a good project to take on in Planco.

Sure, why not? - But for me Planco is not RCT3.  Don't get me wrong, Planet Coaster looks good and sounds good, so it must be good... and if you allow me to say... it's "almost" like RCT3 on steroids, much like Windows 95 was a DOS operating system in a colorful clown suit.

I believe most of you have seen the concept plan which still pops ups high on OogleGoogle's image search results when using search terms like "theme park concept". I'm talking about the "Goldrush 1853" concept art for a western themed park. I'm not entirely sure if this was indeed intended as a serious design concept for a park to be built, but was more likely a demo piece for an advertising agency. I did start making a park based on this concept image a long time ago, but I can't get this project open anymore, as it's one of the files corrupted beyond recovery.  But here is the image for the original concept art:

One resource you might want to check, is Prima's Official Game Guide for RollerCoaster® Tycoon 3™. One of the most curious aspects with this guide, are the four exclusive Download Bonus files, which were only available via Prima's website with the four codes in the book needed to download these files. I have no knowledge what these files were, other than they were created by RCT3's developers especially for Prima. All I know is these downloads included one roller coaster, one structure, one scenario and one fireworks display. (This guide's digital version is downloadable for free from Internet Archive's website.)

Other interesting features in the guide are the developer interviews and special info bits about making the game. I find the comments by David Braben (Founder and President of Frontier Developments) most interesting regarding what COULD have been in the game (...and this is where MY imagination starts to run wild!): 

"When developing a huge game like RCT3 it tends to be the small things that stand out in my memory. One of these was applying to the US ratings board (the ESRB). Sadly, in order to get an "Everyone" rating (this is important if the game is to be made widely available), we had to remove the graphic vomit (in addition to a few other things), from when a peep comes off an extreme coaster. This seemed such a silly requirement, and annoyed me an unreasonable amount! - There's still vomit in the game, but it's a bit more subtle than originally designed."

One curious fact from PRIMA's guide: The name of the "Park Inspector" is "Mr. Jobsworth"

And finally, here's the mathematical formula of how Park Rating is calculated in game:

((peeps * 150)/2000) [max 150]

+ ((happy_peeps * 600)/peeps) [max 500]

- ((departed peeps - 25) * 7)

+ ((total_ride_up_time/number_of_rides) * 2)

+ (total_ride_excitement * 10)/8 [max 100]

+ (total_ride_intensity * 10)/8 [max 100]

+ ((total_ride_excitement/number_of_rides) * 50/3.7)

+ ((total_ride_intensity/number_of_rides) * 50/5.2)

- (litter_older_than_4_min * 4) [max 600]

- (injured_peeps * 25) [penalty decays over time]

+ (30)[when VIPeep is satisfied - decays over time]

On 5/16/2024 at 12:22 AM, Reptorian said:

Modified executable file to my knowledge. But, I have no idea what the older rct3 community did, and there is bound to be people who still have working cd copy of the game.

I raised this thread because of a recent reddit post where the original poster had a cd copy and isn't willing to buy from other source. So, this can be useful for that demographics.

It's the distribution of original game contents that where they'll care. They wouldn't care if you still need the contents to play with it. Even if they went further (which opens them up to ridicule), if you have a legal copy and simply modifying it, that's all fine.

This is very true! I still encounter from time to time people who "advice" people to stay away from GOG, because they can't get their small tiny heads around the concept of DRM and distribution strategies of gaming companies. The whole discussion regarding what's really strictly illegal and perfectly legal concerning what people can or can't do after purchasing a game, has been for a very long time a very debatable issue. Using a NO-Disc hack isn't illegal, and cannot be illegal, but creating one without permission is. (The clause regarding "reverse engineering")

One thing that vast majority of people really don't understand of the actual rights and wrongs, attached to physical disc versions of the game compared to digitally distributed games is poorly known.

In another words: When you purchase a physical disc, you actually do not own the game or the disc. Or put it bluntly: Buying and selling a second hand disc version of a game has always been illegal - yet not enforced, because it cannot be enforced. Most people don't realize this until after purchasing a second hand used game when they discover the original CD-key doesn't work (in cases where installing or playing the game requires Internet connection or has a forced online registration) While I can't speak for all gaming companies, who each have their own policies regarding "used" games - as I have worked for one such gaming company, I can tell from personal experience that at least they always deny transferring the original CD-key to a another account is the default practice - and giving a new CD-key for a game is very case by case thing. The company I worked at, denied these requests 9 times out of 10 - and still always required the original proof of purchase. And this is where we walk in to the "grey" territory: I recall several cases where the customer service agents  giving a new CD-key would have been completely justified action, but the customer service were told to deny this as a "matter of policy" - and at the same time the management saying it is a "matter of discretion".

The "No-CD" hacked exe from GameCopyWorld, isn't a "patch", as such. As most of "No Disc" executables are simply just the original exe files, which has the DRM and/or forced disc check simply removed. I have personally never encountered a hacked game exe, which would have been "dangerous". Most virus scanners will give a false positive with these files, but that's what those messages are, false positives, because most virus scanners will simply detect that piece of code affecting DRM manipulation. Now, having said all that.... I do NOT personally recommend using these hacks, because they can contain issues affecting other features in the game. I too have the original RCT3 CD, and I did use the NO-CD, because it's so annoying using the disc, which serves no other purpose than to wear down my CD/DVD drive. Back in the day (late 90s-early 2000s) when I was working as a computer mechanic, our shop had a real surge in broken down CD/DVD drives - and at first we couldn't figure it out, because it wasn't limited to just one brand. Only much later on we discovered that some specific games which used a version of StarForce disc protection system simply broke the drives - when games with StarForce protection were played continuously long enough.

It's actually a really sad thing you can no longer purchase RCT3 from GOG, which I would always prefer to Steam version for ANY game - for one, because all GOG games are DRM free, and do not need a platform or network access, unlike Steam or EA's old Origin.

Small update: i can confirm everything does completely work and function as it should in-game. Nor Sid -errors, no-nothing.. if I don't count the fact that for some unknown and weird reason, "Moby's Steel Jungle v1" appears twice on the CSO menu window.... what's going on in there?  Do i after all have a bad/corrupt CSO?

Anyhow... I discovered that I get those two error messages only if I tick "Do a deep Check" when i select and click from the drop-down menu "Create list of required custom content", under "Content requirements" tab.

If I untick the box, the error messages do not appear any longer, only when ticking the box again and doing a new search. Weird, huh?

35 minutes ago, Kablary said:

Uninstall ParkCleanup2, then reinstall, then "reset all settings" and try to open your park file again. If the .dat file is too large (I was struggling with anything over 50,000kb), it might just not work. I hadn't run into the particular error codes you were getting. This may sound like a stupid question, but is everything RCT3 related (at least that works when the game is running) installed on the E drive?

For instance, did you accidentally set the path for ParkCleanup to anything on the C drive, when the game runs on the E drive? Or is there scenery, particles effects or park files still installed on the C drive that aren't on the E drive? Like I said, stupid questions, but I never claimed to be a genius

This is all good info! I will certainly try the uninstall-reinstall method. In this case, only the game is installed on E:\ - with all the CS in where they should be, in style\themed - and all the park files are on normal location My Documents on C:\ drive. ParkCleanUp does have correct path according to the log, but this is actually something I need to test. And you could be correct that having the game on different drive, and not in default location under C:\ Program Files, might be the reason causing havoc - not forgetting that the last version of ParkCleanUp was released 2013. However.. I think there might be a cause-symptom related to some CS sets, which may be broken only for ParkCleanUp, since the error messages is only referencing three different CS sets. Curious though that by looking at the error message, it's impossible to tell which CS sets the app thinks are faulty, since the end part looks like it's corrupt... weird! Need to test a number of things. I think everyone in the community would benefit from this, IF I am be to determine the cause!  -I doubt that I would the only one having issues with ParkCleanUp - which is still without a doubt one of the most useful apps made for RCT3. I noticed today for the first time, that it also works for structures .dat files... I didn't know before that would work!!

Many thanks for the info!

I started to cleanup some of my recently found scenarios and parks with CS sets, and the only tool (besides Notepad++) to be of any use, as far as I know, is Park CleanUp 2. The version I have is the last version v2.0.0. Right away I started to get error messages I don't recall seeing before with previous installations.

I get two types of errors:

"OVL appears to be invalid: Could not open overlay : e:\rollercoaster tycoon® 3r"

and;

"OVL appears to be invalid: File EINVAL error : e:\rollercoaster tycoon® 3m"

All the other messages are just normal "OVL not found : style\themed\...." when CS set in question has not been installed.

-Anyone have a clue about the cause? Is this an issue with the GOG edition, corrupt .dat -file or CS set related issue, or could it be the install path/location causing issues, or is this about the missing CS - or the way sets are installed? All the CS sets I have currently installed, have been verified to be the newest versions available, and the CS objects themselves at least seem to work completely normally in-game.

My RCT3 Platinum installation is GOG edition (don't remember which version). I was running low in space on C:\Program Files (Windows XP 32-bit SP3), so I installed RCT3 instead on drive E:\ Works good, no issues starting or running the game, all is well and peeps are still barfing like there's no tomorrow.

Any and all help and information will be greatly appreciated!

"G** d***it! I would p**s on a spark plug, if it would do any good!"

-General Beringer in WarGames" (1983)-

I don't know if this would be any use, but I was able to locate from Wayback Machine The Complete List of Custom Content The newest listing I found is from January 24, 2021. The exact URL must have changed sometime after that, I think. All the directories seem to be accessible, nothing can be downloaded, naturally.

Already there are notes like "No Known Working Download!" for a number of CS sets. It just breaks my heart to think that some sets really could be lost forever....

1 hour ago, wolfpaw said:

We could get a team going of many people that have archives of CS packs on their end that aren't uploaded and have everyone upload their files which we can then remove duplicates and organize them once they're on the site. Similar to the CSDepot Strike Team but instead of moving files over from the CSDepot site it would just be from everyone's own archive. It's a good starting point to get a lot of missing packs and files uploaded I think.

This sound really good to me. However, I can already foresee the many problems ahead. Firstly there is the issue of the varied file names, often changed names of the authors, the fact that there are sets which have been bundled together - thus creating a fantastic confusion regarding the great quest to locate and make CS objects available for download for generations to come (I hope) .

I have only recently taken notice that the only way to have any chance of succeeding locating many of these CS sets, is to have as wide community collaboration as possible. I am currently in process of sorting out several CS sets I have rescued from my old hard drive, and are planning to upload here. Many of these are available no longer, as far as I know, on any website. I keep finding almost weekly a set I thought would have been lost for good. But this takes  time - a LOT of time, its laborious for many reasons, and only having a real passion, patience and faith in that this is all worth while doing. RCT3 is one of the very few games I really love to play - it has the definitive "LEGO -effect" - if you are familiar with this term.

One strategy I have found being unexpectedly fruitful has been to search, locate and download CS bundle packages, which often have been gigantic in size. As an example, I recently downloaded several such collection packs from www.coaster-games.org and found inside huge pack several CS sets I haven't seen anywhere else. Links to these mega packs are often very elusive, I have found some by watching RCT3 related YouTube videos, which have had links to download CS packs, usually from sites like Mediafire.

To have this type of project really to succeed is entirely possible, but it does take commitment, and from my own past experiences with other gaming modding communities, there really needs to be firm guidelines - a sort of solid rule-sets for how it should be done, so it won't turn into utter chaos... But this all up to you, and I really can't thank you enough for creating this site in the first place, which has totally renewed my interest in the sheer never ending versatility to produce enjoyment and satisfaction for playing "just" a game!

"That's not a moon. That's a space station!"

-Obi Wan Kenobi in "Star Wars" (1977)

Ah... but you forget one thing: Some of the readme -files I've read, say that I should keep the old files and overwrite, if asked. This suggests to me that some of the newer versions might only include the newer versions of the files, but omit the older, existing ones. Which I think is just poor planning, but I have already found one such set, which requires me to have BOTH the older version AND the new one. I don't know about you, but to me that's just bonkers! I don't know what some of these authors have been thinking (or drinking ...or smoking) when they thought that would be a great way to save space! (Hey! -There's no face-palm emoji in here! -so evil monkey it is.)

Oh well... to give you an idea what I am up against: I finished yesterday retrieving everything I could from my old squeaky bricked HDD. All the RCT3 stuff is now finally under one main folder, all I need to do now is to do the most frustrating part, sorting all this mess out, and get rid of 100% verified duplicates and check known dependencies for the sets, then do painstaking crosschecking against dates and versions of the sets, and again delete the duplicates. Sounds easy, right?  Well... there are now 57.6 Gb - or to be precise, 61,900,693,504 bytes in 380,628 files, and 25,151 folders!  - And just that it wouldn't get too easy: for an example a basic duplicate search found fourteen (14!) duplicates of ShyGuy's Mainstreet sets, and many of them seem to be different versions with different dates. I did some basic math, and I think it will take me a minimum of 3-4 weeks if I would (and could) spend 8 hours in 7 days a week, just to do a basic process of elimination. I don't really want to think about how much and what was permanently lost. As my granny used to say; "What's gone, is gone!".

I am currently in a  VERY time consuming process trying to recover salvageable CS content from my old HDD, which got bricked nearly 10 years ago. One of the problems I am having is that many of the CS packs only exist in their Style\Themed\ -folder, therefore missing any info files, readme and possible screenshots, etc. One of the folders recovered was named "11" and the files in that folder were named imaginatively named in style of "1.ovl"  and... surprise, surprise "2.ovl"

I was wondering if there is any kind of "master list", or index for known CS content currently available for download and especially for CS packs which are considered "missing" or "lost"?

- If there isn't such a list, I think it might be a good idea to create one, which could then keep updating in regular intervals, say once a week or a month.  This could be .xls file or something similar. What do you think?