Have RCT3 retail on my PC, bought RCT3: Platinum from Steam. How should I set up?

Question

I've had a retail copy of RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 since it first came out, which was several years ago. It's a great game. I don't play it as regularly as other games, but I still love it.

The other day there was a Steam Daily Deal on RCT3: Platinum (RCT3 + Soaked! + Wild!). I went ahead and grabbed a copy because I don't have the expansions, there was no way to purchase each individual expansion via Steam, and 10 bucks seemed a good deal in my book anyway. Also, I like the Steam platform.

My save games and other data are probably going to be compatible two expansions up, so I'm not worried about those. But what do I do with my existing RCT3 installation itself? Do I need to get rid of that first before having Steam install RCT3: Platinum?

Answer

You should run into no problems. If you're hurting for disk space, you could delete it, but your OS knows which one is which and they are not sharing resources.

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Can Park Entrances be Changed?

Question

Can park entrances in RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 be changed, in sandbox mode or otherwise?

That is, can you change the physical model or position of the entrance gates? I noticed that most (all?) of the career mode scenarios do this, and at least one of them actually has two active entrances on opposite ends of the park.

I couldn't find any park entrance objects to place as scenery, and it wouldn't let me delete the existing one because I "didn't own it." Clicking the gate does nothing, and there's nothing in the park management screens.

Answer

It's only possible to use custom park entrances in the map editor. The career mode and sandbox mode both lock down anything outside the borders of the park, and that includes the park entrances.

The map editor gives you the option to place any of the 'themed' park entrances (you might even be able to have a park with no entrance set, but I'm not 100% sure). You can also place (and thus, change) the location that peeps enter the map from, which lets you have an 'underground' entrance to a map (provided you have a fully patched version of the game)

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Does a cable lift have any advantages over a chain lift?

Question

I noticed that giga coasters in RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 can have cable lift hills. Instead of a chain running the length of the hill, a train-length cable travels from the top of the hill, picks up the train from the station, carries it back up, and drops it off the other side.

What's the point to this, though? Does it have any advantages over traditional chain lifts?

Answer

As Maxpm hinted at in his comment, it's mostly an issue of speed. A cable lift is faster than a chain lift, so the coaster gets to the top faster. I don't think there's any major gameplay reason to have one over the other, though a cable lift would likely shorten the ride time and thus might effect ratings. One would have to build two coasters that are otherwise the same to test the effects.

In terms of gameplay: It's been a while since I've messed around with Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, but if I remember right, cable lifts require a special start and end piece, and requires a completely straight lift hill. This means you need a certain amount of horizontal space to be able to use it successfully, and ideally, it should be used for the main starting hill. I'm not 100%, but you might be limited to only one cable lift start/end point. Chain lifts also only work on straight inclines, but you can add tight turns between them to break up the lift hill and make it spiral (though you need a certain train length to be able to do this). So chain lifts work well in areas with space limitations.

Outside of the game: Cable lifts are used in a variety of coasters and (according to wikipedia) they require less maintenance, and are fairly quiet compared to the loud, clanking chain lift. The earliest coaster to use a cable lift (at least, per the wikipedia article) was built in 2001, though the method was likely used prior to that. Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 came out in 2004 (with RCT2 coming out in 2002, and RCT1 coming out in 1999). Likely, the cable lift in RCT3 was included for realism and ride variety as opposed to any major gameplay reason.

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