I'm having issues with changing the cars on the three track expansion CTR's. If I install the three CTR's and don't use the CTR creator (Ver. 1.00) to change anything at all, the CTR's will work properly. I'd like to have different cars on them though, and for some reason, if I change anything at all on the BahnDaten file the game will crash when attempting to open the edited CTR. I haven't had this issue before (I've successfully done this previously on an older laptop. I have a different laptop now) and I've tried everything.

I've tried installing the default CTR's without changing anything (no issues there). I've tried using the BahnDaten files that comes with these CTR's and only changing the cars on them, but this leads to a crash. I've tried creating a CTR from scratch ensuring that I have all the proper information on the BahnDaten file, this too leads to a crash. I've ensured that the cars I'm installing are all installed properly inside of my "trackridecars" folder.

I also want to note that whatever error code that's popping up as my game crashes doesn't stay long enough for me to read. It pops up for a split second, the game freezes, and then I have to alt-f4.

Has anyone else had this issue and or knows what I need to do to fix this? I genuinely cant figure it out.

A head scratcher. Have you tried putting together a simple CTR that doesn't include any special tracks or cars? If that works, then it must be something about the track pieces or the cars that is causing the problem. Maybe if you told us which cars and which tracks you're using?

1 hour ago, JB said:

A head scratcher. Have you tried putting together a simple CTR that doesn't include any special tracks or cars? If that works, then it must be something about the track pieces or the cars that is causing the problem. Maybe if you told us which cars and which tracks you're using?

I haven't tried putting together a simple CTR (but I can and see) but I have installed numerous CTR's that have all worked, including the original track expansion CTR's. For simplicity, I'll explain what I'm trying to accomplish with just the Track 11 expansion CTR. For this CTR I want to go for a Vekoma/Intamin/Mack Rides kind of vibe. So, I want to put the "CTR_Vekoma2", "CTR_FCMackMega", "CTR_Skyrush", and "CTR_FCIntaHyper" cars on the Track 11 expansion CTR. However, changing the cars crashes my game. I believe I'm able to change other things such as the station type (I have flat stations installed and use those sometimes). Something about the cars seems to be giving me trouble. Even with the original BahnDaten file for the Track 11 expansion CTR, I tried removing only one of the original cars and leaving everything else the same. That still caused a crash. It's mind-boggling because I've put other cars on this CTR before on an older device and didn't have any issues. So I do not understand what the problem is now.

Hmm. Well, MY problem is that I haven't used the CTR Creator for years(!), even though I've made dozens of personal-use CTRs; placing various cars on various tracks. So I can't remember everything I did, or encountered, at that time (Or visualize it in my mind). I don't think I've used the Track 11 expansions before.

Sorry. Maybe one of our more experienced (and younger) members will see this and chime in?

57 minutes ago, JB said:

Hmm. Well, MY problem is that I haven't used the CTR Creator for years(!), even though I've made dozens of personal-use CTRs; placing various cars on various tracks. So I can't remember everything I did, or encountered, at that time (Or visualize it in my mind). I don't think I've used the Track 11 expansions before.

Sorry. Maybe one of our more experienced (and younger) members will see this and chime in?

Lol, all good man. Thanks though!

On 4/14/2025 at 4:23 PM, JB said:

A head scratcher. Have you tried putting together a simple CTR that doesn't include any special tracks or cars? If that works, then it must be something about the track pieces or the cars that is causing the problem. Maybe if you told us which cars and which tracks you're using?

On 4/14/2025 at 6:16 PM, Matthew Brown said:

I haven't tried putting together a simple CTR (but I can and see) but I have installed numerous CTR's that have all worked, including the original track expansion CTR's. For simplicity, I'll explain what I'm trying to accomplish with just the Track 11 expansion CTR. For this CTR I want to go for a Vekoma/Intamin/Mack Rides kind of vibe. So, I want to put the "CTR_Vekoma2", "CTR_FCMackMega", "CTR_Skyrush", and "CTR_FCIntaHyper" cars on the Track 11 expansion CTR. However, changing the cars crashes my game. I believe I'm able to change other things such as the station type (I have flat stations installed and use those sometimes). Something about the cars seems to be giving me trouble. Even with the original BahnDaten file for the Track 11 expansion CTR, I tried removing only one of the original cars and leaving everything else the same. That still caused a crash. It's mind-boggling because I've put other cars on this CTR before on an older device and didn't have any issues. So I do not understand what the problem is now.

So I tried making a simple CTR with an in game track and in game cars. That worked. However, I then edited that same CTR and changed the cars with different in game cars, and that caused a crash when trying to open it in game. I genuinely confused why changing the cars is an issue.

That sounds so mysterious! I'm afraid I haven't got a clue.

First step when diagnosing custom content issues is always return to the basics - check your settings and make sure they're set up correctly! Do you have shadows turned off? Have you tried disabling most of the visual settings and see if that's causing an issue? I know most custom content crashes the game when shadows are enabled so might be a good place to start!

It sounds like you have everything installed correctly, and you say you've done this before, so I don't believe you're doing something wrong here. Are you using a different version of RCT3 on this new computer? Complete Edition instead of Platinum/Gold/Vanilla? This would be what I would check first, along with settings, and then report back and let us know what happens!

12 hours ago, wolfpaw said:

First step when diagnosing custom content issues is always return to the basics - check your settings and make sure they're set up correctly! Do you have shadows turned off? Have you tried disabling most of the visual settings and see if that's causing an issue? I know most custom content crashes the game when shadows are enabled so might be a good place to start!

It sounds like you have everything installed correctly, and you say you've done this before, so I don't believe you're doing something wrong here. Are you using a different version of RCT3 on this new computer? Complete Edition instead of Platinum/Gold/Vanilla? This would be what I would check first, along with settings, and then report back and let us know what happens!

I’m heading to bed for the night but come tomorrow I’ll play around with my settings and see if that changes anything. I’m fairly certain I have shadows turned off for the exact reason that you’ve mentioned, but wouldn’t hurt to check again.

I’d also like to mention that I was messing around with some of the PEP CTs and was successful with adding/changing the cars on those. I used the ml18 track I believe (whichever track is used for the EP Wodan coaster). No issues there. Put in game cars and custom cars on that track and it worked just fine. At the moment, it genuinely seems like it’s something to do with the three track expansion CTR’s that I can’t quite figure out. When installed normally, they work. When changing the cars on them, they don’t work. I followed exactly what I did with the ml18 track, and for some reason it works with the ml18 track, but not the track 5, 6, and 11 track expansions.

Just now, Matthew Brown said:

I’m heading to bed for the night but come tomorrow I’ll play around with my settings and see if that changes anything. I’m fairly certain I have shadows turned off for the exact reason that you’ve mentioned, but wouldn’t hurt to check again.

I’d also like to mention that I was messing around with some of the PEP CTs and was successful with adding/changing the cars on those. I used the ml18 track I believe (whichever track is used for the EP Wodan coaster). No issues there. Put in game cars and custom cars on that track and it worked just fine. At the moment, it genuinely seems like it’s something to do with the three track expansion CTR’s that I can’t quite figure out. When installed normally, they work. When changing the cars on them, they don’t work. I followed exactly what I did with the ml18 track, and for some reason it works with the ml18 track, but not the track 5, 6, and 11 track expansions.

13 hours ago, wolfpaw said:

First step when diagnosing custom content issues is always return to the basics - check your settings and make sure they're set up correctly! Do you have shadows turned off? Have you tried disabling most of the visual settings and see if that's causing an issue? I know most custom content crashes the game when shadows are enabled so might be a good place to start!

It sounds like you have everything installed correctly, and you say you've done this before, so I don't believe you're doing something wrong here. Are you using a different version of RCT3 on this new computer? Complete Edition instead of Platinum/Gold/Vanilla? This would be what I would check first, along with settings, and then report back and let us know what happens!

Oh and I forgot to mention that I’m using the same edition of the game as I did on my previous laptop where I got things to work. I’m playing on the complete edition from Steam. Same graphical settings and all. The only difference I can think of is on this laptop I’ve used the RCT 3 options editor. However, that hasn’t seem to have been an issue with other CTRs so I’m not sure if that’s the problem. I’ll mess around with that as well.

On 4/15/2025 at 11:14 PM, JB said:

That sounds so mysterious! I'm afraid I haven't got a clue.

On 4/17/2025 at 9:31 AM, wolfpaw said:

First step when diagnosing custom content issues is always return to the basics - check your settings and make sure they're set up correctly! Do you have shadows turned off? Have you tried disabling most of the visual settings and see if that's causing an issue? I know most custom content crashes the game when shadows are enabled so might be a good place to start!

It sounds like you have everything installed correctly, and you say you've done this before, so I don't believe you're doing something wrong here. Are you using a different version of RCT3 on this new computer? Complete Edition instead of Platinum/Gold/Vanilla? This would be what I would check first, along with settings, and then report back and let us know what happens!

Guys, I figured it out, and I feel so stupid. There's a setting within the CTR Creator that's easy to miss. It's a setting for running the game with the "Soaked" and or the "Wild" DLCs, or if you're just running the base game. On my new laptop, I never changed this setting to reflect that I'm playing with both DLCs (I'm playing on the complete edition from Steam). All of the CTR's that I was successful with installing don't require that setting, whereas the three track expansion CTR's do. If that setting isn't activated, then the files won't be coded correctly when you create the ride ovl's with the CTR creator. Thus, leading to the crashes that I kept getting 😅

Glad you figured it out! I had a suspicion that it was something like that, but I had no idea what, specifically. 👍