Ok. I caved in and grabbed a copy.

Good stuff.

The last thing I think I need that I'm not seeing is a "snap to grid" option for pieces. Not everything snaps to the grid and sometimes I'm not looking to snap to another piece.

Is there a way to get pieces that don't seem to snap to the grid (like pillars) to snap to a line or corner or center of a square or snap to anything grid related, really?

There is a visual cue for pieces that are bound to the grid vs. free-floating. If you look at the thumbnail background for the piece, you'll see either a grid texture or white background and that's how you can tell the difference.

The closest way to get non-grid pieces to snap to something is by holding the "F" key that I previously mentioned. Not ideal.

(Opens can of worms..)

There's also a trick I saw that some of the advanced players are using where they take a small grid piece, and then sink it in the ground so that you can't see it, but it establishes a grid for any blueprints you want to make, even if there aren't gridded objects inside of it.

Also, the thing that drove me nuts when I first got started was seeing finished buildings and not being able to find the pieces that people used to build them. One of the toughest things to swallow is that generally the best looking objects in the game are from people combining multiple objects in abstract ways to really make something look next level.

Yeah, that's true in Parkitect and was in RCT too. The key is layering and combining in unique ways.

I've seen the grid piece idea, but never thought of using one as an "anchor" for snapping to. That clicked when I read your post for some reason. So, while still limited, you can get non-grid items (like pillars) to snap by dropping a gird piece on the ground:

Right. I'm assuming you have also seen the advanced grid settings where you can adjust the vertical and horizontal grid sizes, correct?

Yeah, but I haven't really messed with it.

Nice cheat sheet. How does the "L" shortcut for Flatten Terrain work? it's listed in four different sections.

Coming along...slowly, but surely.

Yep. He's back.

That is a sexy looking ride!

Wow. I like how the vertical loop is the last inversion, seems most coasters have that immediately off the first drop.

Tiny vertical loop off the mid-course and a long highly banked wide curve/turn/helix that just keep banking harder until it flips at the top. I'm actually having a hard time splitting rides into two halves. I tend to do a big front half, mid-course, and then some short run back to the station.

Thanks, guys. It's slow moving and a bit less than great up close, but I'm a lot less annoyed with the game after a couple of days. We'll get there.

After throwing a couple together to get the feel of building and stuff, I need to look at coaster ratings. Everything I've done so far has been pretty middling - this is 5-something on excitement. I also noticed a prestige rating too on a different tab. How does that work?

Prestige is for career mode and is one of the most controversial parts of the game. In the most basic sense, as the ride gets older, the prestige drops and less people ride it. You can do things like refurbishing, but the rating and the dropping ridership are meant to make the scenarios more difficult. There was a report that came out yesterday that they are re-evaluating the way that the rating works, as well as adding an option to toggle that setting on and off.

Most of my realistic coasters generally hover between 6 and 7 for excitement and 3 or 4 for intensity. I've had a tough time getting higher than that for an average length ride because lift hills and brake runs zap the ratings real bad.

Did you set up a Steam profile to upload to?

I have a Steam profile from installing Parkitect. Do I need to do something again for Planet Coaster? I haven't uploaded anything for PC yet...

I don't remember... getting the upload capability turned on was convoluted, and then the upload button I think is somewhere in the UI, maybe in the blueprint menu and the save games menu.

Got way too sidetracked messing with lighting.

I see you have your bathrooms right next to your taco bar. Shrewd.

I really need an updated PC. It seems like it's possible to make some very accurate recreations of real parks in this game.

I don't follow hardware the way that I used to, but the year-old or more 3D hardware in my iMac, which is a mobile part no less, handles this game triumphantly at an obscene resolution. I'm guessing that even lesser hardware could do pretty well at a more standard 1920x1080 resolution. I'm kind of surprised at how well it works even with a loaded and complex park.