Jolt Country

A little sneak peek of a new one that still needs to be themed/named, but I'll say, it's nice to slowly get better at something. This is far and away the best thing I've done in NoLimits 2 so far, in terms of realism/quality.

Whoa!

Cool corkscrew at the end. Kudos to both the ride's designer and the park's groundskeepers.

In view of the way it stops for a moment, as if it has to charge capacitors in order to fire a linear induction motor before blasting off at hyperspeed, and with all the corkscrew turns, how about calling it the "Jet Screw" (a play on Jet Ski), the 'Turn Rocket" or the "HyperCoaster"?

The JetTurnScrew Rocket Coaster!

THE
WIN WIN
AARDVARK

It has a name now, BAIJI. Plus, some trees and water and shit. Enjoy, won't you?

According to Google Translate, "baiji" means "worship" in Chinese. While I know some people really love coasters, this might be going a little too far!

I recommend Douglas Adams' Last Chance to See. There's a part about river dolphins in there.

on another note, is it possible to make a Mexican coaster where people fly out of the cars in a horrible accident?

AArdvark wrote: Thu Oct 03, 2019 5:01 pm I recommend Douglas Adams' Last Chance to See. There's a part about river dolphins in there.

on another note, is it possible to make a Mexican coaster where people fly out of the cars in a horrible accident?

That's cute. And the more I think about it, that's how I want to go out. To explain:

Here is my review of NoLimits 2 on Steam:

I mean, how do you review this? It is by far the best coaster designer/simulator on the market, and has been for quite some time. So if you want a coaster designer/simulator, there is no other reasonable choice.

That was in 2016. It was true then. It was true when it first came out. It was true when NoLimits 1 came out. It's true now. It has literally been the only thing available that does what it does for nearly two decades. It has zero competition. It is a genre unto itself. Planet Coaster, Parkitect, Roller Coaster Tycoon 1-3, etc., these are wonderful games, but they are not roller coaster simulators, any more than Dig Dug is a mining simulator.

NL2 is a roller coaster simulator. And as such, the design/building process is long, painstaking, ENDLESSLY frustrating, engrossing and infuriating. At any moment, your dreams and skills are bound to run into real-life limitations, and while NL2 will allow you to build whatever you want, its ever-present G-force combs, speed combs, radius combs, etc, will pummel into you, in bright red colors, why your coaster sucks. So you'll slave over that track that Planet Coaster would let you build in 5 minutes, and you'll slave over it for hours.

And if you watch enough tutorials, and study the craft enough, one day you might actually just finish your masterwork, and connect the end of the track with the beginning, and look upon your creation, and think, man, it was a rough journey, but I did it. I actually designed a roller coaster that would WORK, in real life, and I'd want people to ride it.

And then you realize that your entire track which you've worked on for hours and days is just sitting there, hovering above the ground.

Shit. It's a coaster simulator. We have to add supports.

Again, we see the difference between a coaster simulator and a game. In the game (Planet Coaster/Parkitect/etc.) it just builds you reasonable-looking supports as you go. Nobody wants to have to deal with that. In the simulator, you realize that building the track was at most half the battle. You sigh deeply, realizing the "fun" part, which was so endlessly tiring and frustrating, is over, and now the real work begins.

This is a unique experience in the videogame world. Building supports for your NoLimits coaster has a number of characteristics, which while often found separately, are never so clearly and definitively found in concert in computer gaming:

1. It isn't fun.
2. Virtually nobody will notice.
3. You feel like you have to do it.

It isn't fun, because it isn't fun.

Nobody will notice, because unless you upload your creation to hardcore online community, it will never be seen, and even if they see it, they'll just call your coaster a piece of shit, and won't even mention the supports.

You have to do it, because otherwise all you have to show for your efforts is a roller coaster track hovering in mid-air, which is ridiculous.

If you watch the scant video of the Quimera coaster accident, you see that the bogies disconnect from the last car, which then flies off of the track, and then the riders in said car are instantly killed when their heads slam into the support on the left side of the track.

That is how I want to go out, because:

1. It's super-quick and painless.
2. Someone designed the support structure for that ride, and did NOT enjoy doing it, and is now sitting there going, oh great, all that work, and it still offed two Mexican dudes.

So, I'm dead, but also some coaster support engineer is out there going "Come ON, I spent HOURS on that shit, and you got face all over it!!"

I feel your pain, mystery support engineer.

pinback wrote: Thu Oct 03, 2019 6:27 pm [ NoLimits 2] is a roller coaster simulator. And as such, the design/building process is long, painstaking, ENDLESSLY frustrating, engrossing and infuriating… So you'll slave over that track that Planet Coaster would let you build in 5 minutes, and you'll slave over it for hours… And then you realize that your entire track which you've worked on for hours and days is just sitting there, hovering above the ground… It's a coaster simulator. We have to add supports… You sigh deeply, realizing the "fun" part, which was so endlessly tiring and frustrating, is over, and now the real work begins.

It isn't fun, because it isn't fun.

That makes about as much sense as saying "you have to breathe because you have to breathe." If you're trying to make an argument on something, you need to say why.

The correct response is that "it's not fun because it's tedious makework." Or "it's bot fun because it's boring and unnecessary." We have computers because they can do the tedious, boring, soul-destroying ennui that drains all the zeal out of life. If a job can be automated and there is no underlying reason why it shouldn't, then the job should be automated.

If you're writing a book, you don't create the table of contents, the index or (if necessary) the table of figures yourself manually, then update it each time you add something new. No, you leave room for the table or index and you use your word processor's code to mark each item to be included, then you have the word processor generate the tables and indexes automatically, and create a new version of each as the book changres. This is the highest and best use of a computer: to automate tasks that are tedious and boring, and let the computer do the work.

The reason why the other programs created supports automatically is it's boring, tedious work that isn't fun and can be far better done automatically by the computer.

pinback wrote: Thu Oct 03, 2019 6:27 pm If you watch the scant video of the Quimera coaster accident, you see… the riders in [the last] car are instantly killed when their heads slam into the support on the left side of the track.

That is how I want to go out, because:

1. It's super-quick and painless.

"When I die I hope to go the way my uncle did, peacefully in my sleep. Not screaming and crying like his passengers."

pinback wrote: Thu Oct 03, 2019 6:27 pm Someone designed the support structure for that ride, and did NOT enjoy doing it, and is now sitting there going, oh great, all that work, and it still offed two Mexican dudes.

So, I'm dead, but also some coaster support engineer is out there going "Come ON, I spent HOURS on that shit, and you got face all over it!"

I feel your pain, mystery support engineer.

Uh no, you won't be feeling anything. As an atheist, of course I'm familiar with the Bible, as I occasionally have to respond to stupid shit from some theist. But the Bible has some interesting lines. And the ones appropriate here are,
They are now dead, they live no more; their spirits do not rise. You punished them and brought them to ruin; you wiped out all memory of them. - Isaiah 26:14
For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even their name is forgotten. - Ecclesiastes 9:5

That first quote is absolutely perfect to refer to someone killed by defective equipment, which is probably what will be found in the case of La Feria amusement park. They'll pay a small fine (and quite probably, some bribes) for killing some not-very-valuable brown people, the families will get very little, and life will go on.

Christ. He does go on.

So anyway, like any great work of art you have to put in your due diligence,that's what you're saying about this simulation software.

Even though it's not fun, is it satisfying? Will you continue to build more coasters?

Tdarcos wrote: Thu Oct 03, 2019 11:34 pm That makes about as much sense as saying "you have to breathe because you have to breathe." If you're trying to make an argument on something, you need to say why.

The correct response is that "it's not fun because it's tedious makework." Or "it's bot fun because it's boring and unnecessary." We have computers because they can do the tedious, boring, soul-destroying ennui that drains all the zeal out of life. If a job can be automated and there is no underlying reason why it shouldn't, then the job should be automated.

I've never really liked that famous JFK quote about doing things because they are hard ("We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard"). There are after all an endless number of pointless activities we could theoretically attempt to do that are hard such as take apart a mountain stone by stone and build it again somewhere else. Surely we should do things that are hard not because they are hard but because they are important and need to be done DESPITE the fact that they are hard. But I think I do understand a little bit better where JFK was coming from now that I'm older. When you do things that are hard, you tend to get more of a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction than when you do things that are easy. From JFK's perspective, going to the moon wasn't so much about going to the moon and thereby gaining a lot of knowledge and technological progress as it was about giving Americans a sense of pride in their country and showing them that they could whup the Soviets when it came to hard stuff. It didn't win the Cold War -- in fact, much smaller things had more of a geopolitical impact in the long run -- but it's only because it was hard that it able to boost the national morale to the extent that it did. I have this funny feeling that I've just reconstructed an old TDarcos post -- I hope that's true. I'm pretty sure you've written about JFK and the moon mission before anyway.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Ben doesn't enjoy the process of troubleshooting his roller coaster designs, but he does it anyway because the satisfaction of completing the job more than outweighs the pain. That's not an uncommon situation. Plenty of people have jobs they hate, but the paycheck makes up for it. The date may be tiresome, but the ensuing sex might be awesome. Writing the thesis might temporarily drive you to madness, but getting that degree might be all you ever truly wanted in your entire life. All this would feel less important if the process was automated and if we no longer had to struggle to achieve what we want. That's just the way human nature is.

I personally try to enjoy the journey -- the process -- as much as I can, but it's not possible to enjoy every activity you do in your life. The Bhagavad Gita impressed me with its message that it is our motives and our actions in life that are important, not the fruits of our actions which are always a little bit unpredictable (and, in the cosmology of the Gita, belong ultimately to Krishna). It's not a religious book for me as I'm not a Hindu or a follower of Krishna, but reading it has helped me try not to obsess too much over results. I still sometimes do things that are hard and painful just for the results, though, and often I wouldn't even want to have the choice to push a button and jump straight to the end goal. That would be be robbing me of the achievement (which isn't to say I don't also want a lot of tedious stuff automated if it can be).

If you're trying to make an argument on something

I wasn't making an argument, I was telling a story. You [s]walking[/s], talking DSM-5.

Even though it's not fun, is it satisfying? Will you continue to build more coasters?

It is only the support design part which is not fun. There are shortcuts to make it go faster, but it still takes more than zero seconds, which is how long it takes in other coaster games. The coaster building itself, once you get a handle on it, is immensely satisfying, and I will absolutely continue to build new ones, because I bought the "Pro" version of NL2 which is $90, so you're goddamn right I'm going to keep using it. Or else.

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