By Avni YayinUpdated
Three numbers, three jobs
Excitement is how much guests enjoy the ride: it sets the fair ticket price, feeds the park rating and decides whether a ride still impresses guests whose expectations grow every year. Intensity is how wild it is: every guest has an intensity range they like (kids up to about 3.5, thrill-seekers much higher). Nausea is how sick it can make people: high nausea means queasy guests, and some of them are sick on your paths.
How excitement is scored
The test run measures the ride, then adds up the points below. Everything comes from the track as built:
- a base of 0.5, plus 1 point per 40 km/h of top speed;
- the drops as riders feel them: a quarter point each for the first six, a tenth for each after;
- the biggest drop: 1 point per 18 m, up to 100 m, then half as much per metre;
- 0.55 per inversion (each loop or corkscrew);
- airtime: 0.3 per second of floating, up to 6 seconds;
- length: 1 point per 400 m, up to 900 m; ride time: up to 1 point for a 2-minute ride;
- special elements: a launch +0.6, top hats +0.7 and vertical drops +0.6 each (up to two of each), helixes +0.35 each (up to three), a splashdown +0.5, spinning cars +0.4;
- the type’s own bonus, from +0.2 (the Steel Looping Coaster) to +0.6 (the Wing Coaster).
What costs excitement
Too much of a good thing hurts. The game multiplies the excitement down when a ride goes too far:
- intensity above 8: excitement × 0.8; above 10: halved again;
- more than 5 g of positive vertical force, or more than 2.6 g sideways: × 0.6;
- brakes that keep interrupting the descents: up to three braked descents are free, and each one after takes 15% off, down to 45% of the excitement. A slow “staircase” of drops and brakes feels tame, and the ride window says so.
Scenery, water and tunnels
After the test run the game looks at what the track passes: trees, flower beds and statues beside or under it (up to +0.8), water (up to +0.5) and tunnel-like spots where the track runs under something or through a cutting (up to +0.6), at most +1.5 in all. A coaster weaving through a themed land also gets the themed-area bonus: +0.1 for any ride in a themed area, and +0.35 more when the ride belongs to that theme.
How intensity and nausea are scored
Intensity comes from the forces: 0.8 × (0.8 per g above 1 of positive vertical force, 1.2 per g sideways, 0.8 per g of negative force, 1 per 60 km/h of top speed and 0.35 per inversion), plus 0.4 per vertical drop, 0.3 per top hat and 0.2 per helix.
Nausea comes from turning and flipping: 1.4 per g sideways, 0.6 per inversion, a quarter of the intensity, 0.3 per helix and 0.2 per corkscrew, minus 0.8, plus the type’s own nausea (the Spinning Coaster adds the most).
The “park g” the game shows
Like the classic tycoon games, Park Baron reports g-forces on a compressed scale, so that sensible designs land between 1 and 5 g: the vertical force shown is 1 + 0.55 × (the real force − 1), and the lateral force is halved. For the real-world numbers of a drop or a loop, use the g-force calculator.
Flat rides
A flat ride (a carousel, a drop tower, a pirate ship) has fixed ratings, shown on its build card and on the rides page. Some come in looks with a small excitement bonus, 14 spinning and swinging rides have Gentle, Normal and Wild modes that move all three ratings, and a longer ride raises the nausea of intense rides. Theming works for them too.
Designing for a high score
Go fast, drop far, add a few inversions and keep the forces reasonable. Use long, smooth pull-outs at the bottom of big drops, give the train one or two moments of airtime, keep brakes off the downhill parts, and plant scenery and dig water along the track. Then test it: the ratings, the graphs and every penalty are in the ride window.