Mar 20, 2020 Welcome to RollerCoaster Tycoon® Story! The legendary Eagleland theme park has fallen into despair and it’s up to you to restore it to its former glory by solving exciting match-3 puzzles. Based on the beloved RollerCoaster Tycoon® franchise, RollerCoaster Tycoon® Story uses an innovative rail match system to earn tickets that can be used to complete tasks such as repairing rides.
Proper Queue Design
by Steve Franks
Now that happy peeps have queued up for one of your rides, the very last thing you will want is to have that happiness level drop while they are waiting in line. Bearing this in mind, your first consideration when building a ride and positioning the station platform is how long should a queue be? Basically, this will be determined by the type of ride to be placed.
Flat Rides
Most Flat Rides (known as 'spin and pukes' in Carnival lingo) work well with a queue of 5 or more tiles. The two strategy guides suggest 5 to 10 tiles, but 7 tiles feels just right for most ride/station arrangements. With this in mind, proper placement of a Flat Ride is important as you will need to consider where to place the ride's entrance/exit booths. It is recommended to place a Flat Ride at least 1 tile away from the park pathway, and to locate the entrance on the back corner of the ride. The exit booth should be placed at the front of the ride and adjacent to the entrance queue. Having adjacent entrance/exit paths encourages repeat ridership, allowing them to immediately re-enter a ride for a second go round. This is very profitable planning!
Illustration #1 shows the Carousel with both booths on the same side. This is a good average queue.
Illustration #1
Illustration #2 is an example of a long queue. The Dodge 'em car's entrance and exit booths are not on the same side, but the exit is still placed adjacent to the entrance queue. Peeps won't have to worry about finding the entrance if they want a second go round.
Illustration #2
The Ferris Wheel
The one notable exception to this 5 to 10 rule is the Ferris Wheel. This Flat Ride is peculiar in the way it loads and unloads passengers. Two peeps will enter and sit in the first gondola. The Wheel will then spin twice (the default ride length) and stop to load the next gondola. It will continue this cycle until all the gondolas are full. The unloading procedure has the same 2 turns/1 gondola cycle. This creates very long waiting times in even the shortest of queues. Try to position the Ferris Wheel so as to keep queues limited to just 4 or 5 tiles. A long queue will quickly kill off your Ferris Wheel's popularity and profitability.
Illustration #3 shows one method of setting the entrance booth and forming the queue.
Illustration #3
Illustration #4 shows an alternative method. Keep the Ferris Wheel queue very short.
Illustration #4
Thrill Rides
This same entrance/exit booth placement can be employed with most Thrill Rides as well. Again, it is best to build the ride at least 1 blank tile away from the park pathway. The recommended queue length is between 5 to 15 tiles. Personally, I find 7 to 10 tiles works best in an average park. Occasionally monitoring a queue's waiting time will help you in determining the optimum length. You can do this by selecting the 'people' tab on the ride window. A good rule of thumb is to never allow more than a 9 minute wait in the queue, otherwise peep happiness levels will begin to suffer.
Illustration #5 shows an example of a short queue.
Illustration #5
Illustration #6 shows an example of a long queue. The efficient handling of queues will allow you to really pack in a lot of rides in a small area.
Illustration #6
High Capacity Rides
High capacity rides, like Transport Rides, can swallow up a lot of peeps per train load, so 10 to 20 tiles is best depending upon the type of transport. For example, a long monorail can accept up to 60 peeps at a crack! On the other hand, the Chair Lift handles only 24 passengers, so a queue closer to 10 rather than 20 may be advisable. It will also depend upon the length of the ride and speed of the chairs. Periodically monitoring each ride's queue time will allow you to optimize the queue's length. Always design your Transport Ride station placement so that you can extend or trim your queue as the ride demand changes over time.
Illustration #7 shows one method of handling long queues for high capacity transport rides like the steam train and monorail.
Illustration #7
Illustration #8 shows an alternative method. Notice that the entrance booths are midway between the passenger cars of both trains for quick, efficient loading.
Illustration #8
Roller Coasters
Roller coasters are another ride that is high capacity in that the trains are long or many, and the ride time is rather short. A queue of 12 to 20 tiles is recommended. It is especially important to place the exit path as near to the entrance queue as possible. Roller coasters are your park's biggest and best money makers. Repeat ridership should be encouraged with proper entrance queue and exit path placement. Personally, nothing makes me happier than to see a peep get off my latest and greatest coaster, jump for joy, and then immediately queue up for a second and third go round.
Illustration #9 of a Roller Coaster shows a 20 tile queue. One must became very creative to pack in a such a long queue. Try to keep the queues compact but 'airy'. Notice the different levels of the parallel sections. Empty spaces in between also allow for trees to bump up happiness levels. It is especially important with Roller Coasters to try to keep the exit and entrance queue adjacent.
Illustration #9
Waiting Time for a Queue
Now that happy peeps have queued up for one of your rides, the very last thing you will want is to have that happiness level drop while they are waiting in line. Bearing this in mind, your first consideration when building a ride and positioning the station platform is how long should a queue be? Basically, this will be determined by the type of ride to be placed.
One thing you need to do is determine (with the ride's pop up window) what the average waiting time is for a peep in the queue. If a queue is over 50 peeps long, or the waiting time is over 9 minutes, you should perhaps consider shortening the queue, adding more cars to your trains, adjusting the waiting times and spacing of the trains to increase their efficiency, or assigning an Entertainer to Patrol the queue. Remember, the longer peeps wait in line, the greater the likelihood of their happiness levels dropping. You DO NOT want unhappy peeps. They inspire vandalism and lose you revenues.
Flush Loading
A real world concept that works well in RollerCoaster Tycoon is the principle of Flush Loading. This term is well known in the mass transit biz. It is a concept whereby station platforms are efficiently designed so that passengers can board trains from the left and detrain to the right, or vice versa. This means placing the entrance and exit booths on opposite sides of the platform. The second principle of Flush Loading is placing the entrance as close to the middle of the waiting train as possible. In RollerCoaster Tycoon, best placement for the entrance booth is generally on the 2nd or 3rd platform tile for roller coasters, and the 3rd to 5th platform tile for mass transit from the front of the ride. This allows peeps entering the platform to approach the waiting train mid train. The distance for a peep to walk to the lead car or rear car will then be the same. This simple principle can drastically shorten the loading times for waiting trains by 4 minutes. For this reason, never place the entrance booth at the far end of the platform! That looooong walk to the front will cut into your per hour profits by delaying the trains while they load. The exit booth, on the other hand, can be placed anywhere along the length of the platform (and preferably on the opposite side) since the distance detrained peeps must walk will not affect the waiting time of the trains.
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Illustration #10 shows the high capacity loading method called Flush Loading. It is important to place the entrance booth mid-train. This minimizes the train's waiting time in the station.
Illustration #10
Illustration #11 shows an alternative method of placing the exit booth. Placement of the exit booth along the opposite side of the platform is not critical as detrained peeps do not delay the trains.
Illustration #11
What if the Queue is Full?
A constantly full queue can be a real temptation for tinkering. But, even if you do see a full line, don't overdo it and make it longer. Peeps will wait in line a long time as their happiness drops, and if the ride is not so great (I am thinking Log Flume here), they will have been worse off for going on the ride. Keep wait times under 9 minutes if you can. Even less for long rides like Chair Lifts and Excursion Trains (5 minutes and more). If waits get above 15 minutes peeps will become fed up and leave the line. These peeps are ripe for committing vandalism, or leaving your park in a huff.
Boring Queues
One thing to avoid is a boring queue. Don't just wrap the queue around itself. Try to create open spaces for placing trees, fountains, themed objects, etc.. This will help to maintain, or even bump up happiness levels. Another way of creating interesting queues is to have them passing over or through the ride itself. (Refer back to illustrations #7 and #8). This is a double bonus as it not only maintains the happiness level of waiting peeps, but the ride in question also gets a bump up in its Excitement numbers as peeps ride under the queue. This is especially valuable with roller coasters.
Illustration 12 shows an example of a boring queue.
Illustration #12
Illustration 13 is the same queue but with a more 'airy' design, and all spruced up. Which queue would you want to stand in?
Illustration #13
No Queues At All
There are times when you don't even to need to build a queue. Simply place the entrance right on the main path. This is only permissible with certain types of rides (never do it with a roller coaster, for example). The best candidates for non-queues are Space Rings, Maze, Car Ride, Boat Hire, and the Slide. If you build these on a crowded enough path, then they will always be full with a queue. Peeps are never actually waiting for the ride, and therefore, never becoming unhappy with a long wait.
It should be noted that a ride with no queue still has a queue of 1 peep, except that now the peep is waiting on the main path. Personally, I prefer to always maintain a queue of at least a few tiles so that I can visually monitor the ride demand.
Entertainers
Entertainers really earn their bread and butter when they are put on Patrol Routes with the specific purpose of 'working the line'. It is always a good idea to hire an Entertainer for each roller coaster and limit his Patrol Route only to the ride's queue. Keeping peeps amused while waiting in line will give their happiness levels a slight boost.
Plan Ahead Before You Build
Good and thoughtful planning of ride placement, and the placement of your entrances/exits can dramatically increase the efficiency of ride operations, thereby increasing the number of riders per hour. More riders per hour = more profits per hour. Finally, thoughtful design of your queues and exit paths will go a long way in maintaining the happiness levels of peeps from one ride to the next. And, when all is said and done, raising and maintaining peep's happiness levels goes to the very heart of the engine that drives the game of RollerCoaster Tycoon. Unhappy peeps go home!
Just The Numbers
Here is a quick break down:
- Transport Rides - 5 to 15 tiles (depending upon the type of transport)
- Gentle Rides - 5 to 10 tiles
- Roller Coasters - 10 to 20 tiles
- Thrill Rides - 5 to 15 tiles
- Ferris Wheel - 3 to 4 tiles
- Boat Hire - 3 to 5 tiles
- Log Flume - 6 to 9 tiles
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