RCTW - Early Access - Dev Blog #11 - Update #8 Now Live!

Dear Tycoons,

Happy Summer, and welcome to RCTW Update #8! The focus of today’s update is primarily on the staff system and implementing an Alpha version of Staff Patrol Areas. We’ve also made improvements to how peeps are picked up, adjusted the camera when editing coasters, made further performance optimizations to flatrides and foliage, and added the ability to share custom Scenarios via the Steam Workshop!

STAFF PATROL AREAS (ALPHA VERSION)

Today we are releasing the “Alpha” version of Staff Patrol Areas. Each building can now have as many unique patrol areas as it has employees. Each patrol area can be built up to 8 segments (and segments don’t have to be contiguous). To assign a staff member to a patrol area simply pick them up and drop them into the area you want them to patrol. Employees still belong to their building and will rest there when not patrolling. However, now they will only address problems within the patrol areas they’re assigned to!

We're continuing to work on this feature, and you should see additions and improvements in the coming weeks.

PICKING UP PEEPS (IMPROVEMENT)

We heard your feedback and have made it easier to pick up and drag peeps and staff. Right clicking on a peep will now pick them up! Left clicking on a peep summons their info panel just like before. Additionally, you may either right click once to pick up and then click again to drop OR you can right click and hold to pick up and then release the mouse button to drop.

PERFORMANCE

For this latest patch, we have further optimized a larger number of flatrides and have now turned our attention to foliage. The team is going through every tree, bush, and flower in the game - not only making them look better but also decreasing their impact on performance. We are now able to accomplish this thanks to some new tech we have implemented over the last few months. Be on the lookout for beautiful foliage and more as we roll out further updates!

We also know that one of the largest issues players face is an overall decrease in FPS with larger parks or large numbers of peeps. We have been working on a solution that we expect to solve this, however it involves not only our team but the core engine of the game as well. The goal is to significantly increase FPS without affecting visual quality at all. We are confident we can achieve; we will of course keep everyone appraised of progress on this initiative in future blogs.

CUSTOM SCENARIO SHARING

Today we are giving players the ability to share their custom scenarios via the Steam Workshop using the in-game UGC tools. Now you can make an awesome new scenario and share it with all your friends! See who can beat your scenario the fastest!

COMING SOON

Our next patch will include new content (that we teased in past blogs) and some cool new features, like the ability to add custom colors to your queues. (This feature is greyed out in today’s build.)

Thank you all so much for the support, continued feedback, and incredible ideas! Every piece of info we collect is being carefully considered and influencing our development!

- Team RCTW

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Here is the full list of today’s updates:

NEW FEATURES/CONTENT:

• SCENARIOS: Share your custom scenarios via the Steam Workshop! Today we added the ability for you to share any scenario you make via the Steam workshop! Make a cool new scenario and challenge your friends to beat it!

ALPHA FEATURES:
This list contains features that are in-progress, have had a first pass at improvements, or are at an Alpha stage.

• PERFROMANCE: IN-PROGRESS Started rollout of optimizations and graphical improvements to in-game foliage. This will be rolled out to all foliage in-game over the course of a few patches.
• STAFF: ALPHA FEATURE: We have added Staff Patrol Areas to the game! Its still in Alpha but you now have the ability to assign staff to unique patrol areas! See the notes above for details on how to do this and for more about the feature.

IMPROVEMENTS:

• BUILDINGS: Star on top of Entertainer buildings changed to purple to make it easier to find in heatmaps
• COASTER EDITOR: Improved the cameras when editing a coaster
• COASTERS: Adjusted seats of Accelerator Coaster
• COASTERS: Improved the ride-cam on coasters to give a better sense of motion
• GRAPHICS: Further improved the visual look of the “Gold Entrance” in the Deluxe Edition
• PEEPS: Improved peep animations for Standing Coasters
• PEEPS: Improved peep notifications further for Hunger, Thirst, Bathroom, and Nausea
• PEEPS: We have made it easier to pick up peeps. Simply right click to pick them up!
• PERFROMANCE: Further enhancements and optimizations to flatrides
• STAFF: Further improved Staff Heatmaps
• UI/UX: Cleaned up the look of the main menu

BUG FIXES
The Bugs below have all been fixed in this latest update. Note that this is only a selection of all the bug fixes from the full list.

• CAMPAIGN: The incorrect name ‘Plugin Tab’ is displayed instead of ‘UGC’ under the ‘Social Hub’ tutorial
• COASTER BUILDER: First track segment can be twisted if user delete all track after placing some specialty piece
• COASTERS: Closed coaster does not display closed icon
• CRASH: NullRef when clicking park entrance
• CRASH: Title remains unresponsive on 'Building your park' when attempting to enter Sandbox mode twice
• CRASH: Title returns a NullReferenceException when selecting any sub-menu within the Options menu
• FLATRIDES: Ride cam does not function for the 'Vertical Slice' flat ride
• FLATRIDES: The 'Bucking Bull' ride appears to be floating or missing some support on the ground level
• FLATRIDES: The color of the ticket vendor in the preview image of the ride 'Tornado' ride does not match with the in game asset
• FLATRIDES: There is no lighting FX in the 'Vertical Slice' ride
• GRAPHICS: Attempting to pick up the same staff employee twice in a row will cause in-game cursor to flicker
• GRAPHICS: Huge strip of the shadow visible in the Capering Canyon park during the sun rise
• GRAPHICS: Major flickering issue occurs when the user is on 'Ride Camera' mode on any Hyper Coasters
• GRAPHICS: Spinning coaster - Sci-Fi Car: UFO is missing a material
• PATHS: Building snapping creates crooked paths under some circumstances
• PATHS: Elevated path is curved instead of straight causing peeps to walk in mid air
• PATHS: Path can not be attached to the food stand 'Sundae the Ice Cream House'
• PEEPS: Peeps are littering far more frequently than they used to
• PEEPS: Peeps fails to animate with the ride 'Slingshot Tycoon'
• SCENARIOS: Custom Scenario menu highlights the "Save Scenario" button before selecting a save
• SCENARIOS: Scenario 01: Winding Wilds - 'You don't have sufficient funds to buy or open the coaster' message pops up if the user try to open the coaster after stopping
• UI/UX: "Zoom To" button never appears on employee tab in Park Staff Info Panels
• UI/UX: Employees' tab remains blank when the user loads any game for the second time
• UI/UX: Gameplay/speed is resumed when opening the Pause menu whilst the game speed is paused
• UI/UX: Options: General missing "Ok" button
• UI/UX: Overlapping text appears at the header of the Content Manager when first opened
• UI/UX: Pre-made coaster estimate does not match the cost to open it
• UI/UX: Staff Buildings will have the blue tint from the tool when enabling and disabling the Theme Concentration heat maps after canceling to move them, previously
• UI/UX: Users can build a misaligned elevated ride connected to a path/queue by using the 'move' tool

KNOWN ISSUES:
We are still working on a number of bugs, tweaks, and other fixes. With each update we address a number of bugs and make improvements, but sometimes this may cause other features to break in the process. Our focus during Early Access is on releasing updates faster to you so we can get feedback earlier in the process. If you see a bug please report it in our Bug Tracker. Feedback on what you see implemented should go in our Improvement Tracker. Please note that we are aware of an issue preventing NEW users from registering on our Official RCTW Forums and are working on resolving that.

For a general guide on fixes and troubleshooting steps for common issues (including the 57% bug) please visit THIS USER GENERATED GUIDE. Note that we have been seeing a number of users reporting issues with computers that are below the game’s minimum specs, so please check the main steam page before playing to ensure you meet the requirements. Additionally, we have seen a number of problems are solved when users update their graphics drivers.

Lastly, downloads via Steam may sometimes get corrupted or updates don’t fully install leading to odd behaviors in game and starting the game. Try these steps to Verify the game cache:

1. Right click RollerCoaster Tycoon World in Steam
2. Click Properties
3. Then Open the Local Files tab
4. Click Verify integrity of game cache

NOTE: In general – it is a good idea to Verify the Integrity of the Game Cache after any update just to be sure.