Rollercoasters are the highlight of any theme park and can be a centrepiece attraction for your guests to enjoy.
Coasters tend to be pricey, so make sure you have enough money before building one. A beloved rollercoaster can become a fixture and attract more guests to your park, so they can be well worth the investment in the long run.
To function, a rollercoaster must have a supply of power from a nearby Distributor, be connected to a path and have an assigned Ride Attendant.
Coasters can be placed quicky and easily with Pre-built Blueprints, or by creating a Custom Coaster.
Learn more about using Blueprints in our Blueprints guide.
Did You Know?
How-To Build a Custom Coaster
Creating your own custom rollercoaster in Planet Coaster 2 couldn’t be more straightforward.
- Select the Coasters tab.
- Select the Create Custom button.
- Choose from the range of available rollercoaster models.
- Place your Station.
- Select and place track types from the Edit menu to the right of your screen. Use the tools on screen to tweak the angle and direction of your track.
- Continue to place track pieces until you have made a full circuit and connected back to your station. Make sure you are placing track pieces that will provide the right level of speed for the coaster to make it around the track.
- Place an Entrance and Exit on your Station.
- Connect the Entrance and Exit to your existing paths.
- Run a Test on your coaster to confirm it works as intended. Repeat this with any tweaks until your coaster passes the test and provides the desired Excitement, Fear and Nausea scores.
- Connect the coaster to a power supply and open the rollercoaster for your guests to enjoy!
How-To Smooth a Coaster
Coaster Smoothing is a way to even out sudden direction changes, making coasters less extreme for your guests.
- Enter Edit Mode and select the piece of track you’d like to smooth – note that multiple pieces of track can be selected at once.
- In the Edit menu, set the strength, direction and type of smoothing that you’d like to apply.
- Select the Smooth Selected button. All selected track pieces will now be smoothed!
How-To Create Synced Rides
Sync up the timings of your coasters, tracked rides and flumes!
- Select one of the rides you would like to sync.
- Navigate to Advanced Settings in the sub-menu and select Add Ride Sync.
- Using the Multi Select Tool, choose all the rides you’d like to sync timings for and confirm your selections. You can have up to 8 rides in a Sync Group.
- In the sub-menu, you can edit the Sync Group, adding or removing rides, as well as testing, opening and closing the whole group of attractions.
Coaster Components
Constructing a rollercoaster in Planet Coaster 2 requires the use of a variety of different components which all perform their own functions.
Stations and Trains
All rollercoasters need a Station for guests to board and exit the ride.
The size of the Station can be modified to allow for more coaster cars or to save space. But make sure you leave enough room for a large queue so that plenty of guests can give it a go. You can also change which side of the Station the entrance and exit gates are placed on.
The speed at which coaster trains can exit and enter the Station can also be modified, for a brisker start or a gentle ending.
The number of trains on a coaster and their operational mode can also be modified. This directly affects the throughput of the coaster i.e. how many guests can ride the coaster over a period of time.
Did You Know?
How-To Build Separate Loading & Unloading Stations
Streamline your coasters and your queues by creating rides with separate loading and unloading stations.
- Select Create Custom in the Coasters section of the browser.
- Select a Left Loading Station or Right Loading Station.
- Build your ride as you would normally. If this is your first time building a custom coaster, check out How-To Build a Custom Coaster instructions further up.
- Once you have gotten to an end point with your coaster, navigate to the Station section in the building sub-menu. From here, select a Left Unloading Station or a Right Unloading Station. Your guests can now exit the ride from a different place than where they entered!
- Connect the track between your loading and unloading stations to finish your rollercoaster, allowing the cars to return to the loading station.
- Test your coaster and complete the opening requirements, like adding an entrance and exit, and you’re ready to go!
Chain Lifts and Momentum
There’s no thrill like gravity and rollercoasters need a source of momentum to begin the excitement.
Some coasters use chain lifts to lift the coaster up a hill in the track, before releasing it. The higher the chain lift goes, the bigger the drop can be and the more speed the train can pick up. The more speed your train picks up, the greater the g-forces it can generate as it changes direction.
Other coasters use different launch mechanisms, like hydraulics or electromagnets to propel the coaster train forwards. These launch mechanisms remove the need to have a hill at the start of the track.
Generally, after the launch system has given the train its initial boost, momentum carries it around the track. If your train fails to make it to the station, increase the size of the first drop, the speed of the launch system, the speed of the chain lift or reduce the coaster's overall length.
The First Drop
The first drop on your coaster creates longitudinal g-force, which pushes the riders backwards as the train speeds downwards. That drop builds a lot of momentum to manage.
Make sure the track exits the first drop smoothly and manage positive vertical g-forces. Be wary of adding sharp turns near the end of the first drop, as these will cause lots of g-forces that raise Fear and Nausea rapidly!
Turning and Banking
You need to be careful when making turns in your track as too many can lead to unpleasant amounts of lateral g-force. To prevent that, you can twist the track into a turn, called Banking, to transform those lateral g-forces into less uncomfortable vertical g-forces.
Bank into the turn so that the g-force vertically pushes riders into their seats. Banking outwards turns the g-force into a strong negative vertical force that your guests probably won't enjoy very much. The tighter the turn, the more g-forces that you need to manage.
To lower g-forces in a turn, you can make it wider in addition to banking them. To automatically soften sharp changes in track direction or banking angle, you can use the Smooth tools.
Hills and Airtime
Experiment with hills to generate moments of airtime. Airtime is when the vertical positive g-force is at zero. In other words, your guests feel like they're floating! The faster the train is travelling, the smaller the hill you need to achieve airtime.
Hills that descend steeply for long periods generate lots of momentum and g-force at the end of the drop that you'll need to manage to avoid making your guests uncomfortable.
Hills are also good for slowly reducing speed as your coaster's train climbs them.
Did You Know?
How-To Make a Vertical Drop Coaster
Vertical drop coasters are a favourite of extreme thrill seekers and can be constructed simply in Planet Coaster 2.
- Start a new Custom Coaster.
- Select a coaster type that is suited for a vertical drop coaster – any coaster with a Max Drop Angle of 180° will work.
- Build your track and climb to a steep hill – make sure to use launch systems/chains to help your coaster climb this hill.
- Create your drop using standard track pieces or any suitable special tracks. Some coasters will have track pieces specially suited for vertical drops.
- Remember to ease out the angle at the bottom of your drop section to make it not completely terrifying for your guests.
- Finish constructing your coaster as usual! The high level of acceleration from a vertical drop is perfect for propelling your coaster through special track pieces and acrobatic moves, but they’re unlikely to be for the faint of heart!
Brakes
A coaster train needs enough momentum to make it around the track and back to the station. Too much momentum when approaching the station will cause sudden braking, extreme g-forces, and a bad time for your guests.
Reducing the coaster's first drop will lower the amount of momentum and avoid that harsh stop, or track brakes can slow the train down gradually. Brakes are especially useful if you need to reduce speed in a short run of track.
Did You Know?
Special Tracks
Special track pieces allow you to create iconic coaster moments lickety-split, like loops and corkscrews!
Special track pieces can significantly boost Excitement, Fear, and Nausea, so use them carefully or you might overwhelm your guests. A good tip is to make sure that the ride is gentler for a bit afterwards to allow Fear and Nausea levels to reduce.
Some special track pieces feature inversions that turn the rider upside down. This gives a big boost to Excitement and Fear, with only a small increase to Nausea. Inversions that last too long quickly increase Nausea though, so it's important to keep the duration short and spaced out.
How-To Make a Loop
Creating a thrilling loop in your rollercoaster is a straightforward process in Planet Coaster 2.
- Start a new Custom Coaster. The coaster type must have the Can Invert tag for a loop to be built.
- Build your track out to the point where you’d like to add the loop.
- Select and place a loop from the available options in the Loops special tracks.
- Alternatively, create a custom loop by placing track pieces and manually altering their angle into a loop.
- Make sure your coaster has enough velocity when heading into a loop, otherwise the train won’t make it all the way round!