Planet Coaster 2: Quick Tips & Tricks Guide for the Ultimate Park

Welcome, park manager. Before you lies an empty plot of land, a blank canvas brimming with potential. It’s your first day, and the keys to a future empire are in your hands. This is the beginning of an epic journey, a story you will write with every path laid, every coaster built, and every guest who leaves with a smile. Planet Coaster 2 is a game of two spectacular halves: a fun, engaging management simulation and arguably the most powerful creative toolkit ever handed to theme park visionaries. This guide is your ticket to mastering both. It will transform you from a rookie manager fumbling with finances into a legendary park architect whose creations are shared and celebrated across the globe. Let’s open the gates and begin your adventure.

Part 1: Your First Day on the Job (Beginner Basics & Getting Started in Planet Coaster 2)

Your first hours in Planet Coaster 2 are crucial. This section is designed to get any new player, regardless of experience, up and running with a stable, happy park. It’s all about building a strong foundation so you can start creating without worry.

Choosing Your Path: A Planet Coaster 2 Game Mode Guide

Before you place your first hot dog stand, you must choose how you want to play. Planet Coaster 2 offers three distinct modes, each catering to a different style of park manager.

1. Start with Career Mode. It’s the Real Tutorial. The single most important tip for any new player is this: begin your journey in Career Mode. While the game has some pop-up tutorials, the Career Mode scenarios are the true, hands-on training ground. You’ll be given a series of parks with specific objectives, such as building a coaster with certain stats or achieving a profit goal. These missions are expertly designed to introduce you to every core mechanic, from the new power and water utility systems to the intricacies of coaster building, in a controlled, goal-oriented environment. Think of it as your theme park flight simulator.
2. Embrace Unlimited Creativity in Sandbox Mode. This is the heart and soul of Planet Coaster 2 for many players. In Sandbox Mode, you have unlimited money and all rides and scenery pieces are unlocked from the start. This is your pure creative canvas, a place to build the park of your dreams without any financial constraints or objectives. It’s the perfect mode for experimenting with wild coaster designs, practicing intricate theming, and building massive, detailed parks.
3. Test Your Management Skills in Challenge Mode. If you crave a more traditional tycoon experience, Challenge Mode is for you. You’ll start with limited funds on a blank map and must build a profitable park from the ground up. You will need to research new rides and facilities, manage your budget carefully, and complete optional challenges to earn extra cash. It’s a fantastic blend of creative freedom and financial strategy.
4. Understand Franchise Mode for Global Competition. Franchise Mode allows you to build a chain of parks that are all interconnected. You can share resources and research across your franchise, creating a theme park empire. This mode also features online leaderboards and community challenges, letting you compete with other players around the world to see who can build the most successful parks.
5. Try Asynchronous Co-op. In Planet Coaster 2, you can team up with friends to build a park together. This works through a save-sharing system, allowing one person to build for a while, save the park, and then send it to a friend to continue the work. It’s a great way to collaborate on massive projects across different platforms.

Laying the Foundation: Park Layout & Guest Flow

A well-designed park is easy to navigate and a joy to explore. A poorly designed one is a confusing maze of dead ends and frustrating bottlenecks. Planning your layout from the very beginning is a secret to success.

6. Plan with Paths First. Before you get excited and plop down your biggest coaster, take a moment to sketch out your park’s main arteries with paths. This helps you visualize the flow of your park, designate zones for different themes, and ensure you don’t build yourself into a corner later.
7. Choose a Classic Layout: Hub-and-Spoke. One of the most effective and popular park layouts is the “hub-and-spoke” model, famously used by Disneyland. Create a central plaza (the hub) just past your park entrance. From this hub, create several main paths (the spokes) that lead to the different themed lands or major attractions in your park. This makes navigation intuitive for guests.
8. Consider a Looping Layout. Another strong option is a large loop that takes guests on a grand tour of the entire park. This ensures they see everything you have to offer and prevents them from hitting dead ends. You can then build smaller paths and plazas that branch off the main loop.
9. Make Main Paths Wide. Your main thoroughfares will see the most foot traffic. Build them wide from the start (8-10 meters is a good starting point) to prevent guest congestion. Nothing makes guests unhappier than being stuck in a crowd.
10. Use Heatmaps to Spot Bottlenecks. The park management menu contains powerful heatmap tools. Regularly check the guest density heatmap. Bright red areas indicate severe congestion. This is a clear signal that you need to widen the path in that area or provide an alternate route.
11. Create Small, Efficient Hubs. Don’t scatter your shops and facilities randomly. Group them into small hubs or plazas. Placing a cluster of food, drink, and restroom facilities near a group of popular rides creates an efficient zone where guests can satisfy all their needs in one stop before moving on.
12. Think About Sightlines. As you lay out your paths, think about what guests will see. Create “weenies”—large, iconic landmarks like a castle or a massive coaster lift hill—that are visible from far away. These act as natural navigation points, drawing guests deeper into your park.
13. Use Placeholders to Plan Ahead. You don’t need to build your entire park at once. Use the terrain painting tool to mark out the future locations of different themed zones, major coasters, or backstage areas. This helps you maintain a cohesive vision as your park grows over time.
14. Hide Your Backstage Areas. Real theme parks hide their utility buildings and staff facilities from guest view. Plan a “backstage” area, often behind your main street or along the park’s perimeter, and connect it with staff-only paths.
15. Elevate Paths for Space and Views. If you’re running out of ground space, build elevated walkways. This not only saves space but also creates interesting verticality in your park and offers guests fantastic views of the attractions below.

Guestology 101: Mastering Guest Needs in Planet Coaster 2

Happy guests spend more money, stay longer, and give your park a better rating. Understanding and managing their needs is the core of the management gameplay loop in Planet Coaster 2.

16. Master the Eight Core Guest Needs. Every guest in your park is driven by eight primary needs. Keeping these in the green is your main job as a manager.

Guest Need	Negative Thought	Primary Solution	Pro Tip
Entertainment	“I’m bored.”	Build more rides; hire entertainers.	High scenery ratings around paths and queues significantly boost Entertainment.
Energy	“I’m tired.”	Place plenty of benches.	Place benches in shaded areas and near scenic spots for a bigger energy boost.
Hunger	“I’m hungry.”	Build food stalls (e.g., Chief Beef, Cosmic Cow).	Offer a variety of food types to cater to different guest preferences.
Thirst	“I’m thirsty.”	Build drink stalls (e.g., Gulpee Soda).	Place vending machines near ride exits for a quick thirst-quenching sale.
Toilet	“I need the toilet.”	Build toilet blocks.	Place toilets near food and drink hubs, and hire enough janitors to keep them clean.
Nausea	“I feel sick.”	Build First Aid facilities.	Balance high-nausea rides with gentle rides and place benches near intense ride exits.
Panic	“I’m scared.”	Build less intense rides.	For pools, ensure full Lifeguard coverage to prevent guests from panicking in the water.
Luxury	“I want a souvenir.”	Build gift shops (e.g., Just a Momento).	Guests are most likely to buy souvenirs when their happiness is high. Place shops near popular ride exits.

17. Prepare for the Weather. Guests in Planet Coaster 2 are affected by the elements. On sunny days, they can get sunburnt, which makes them unhappy. During rainstorms, they will get soaked and miserable.
18. Sell Sunscreen and Umbrellas. The solution to weather is also a new revenue stream. Stock your Information Kiosks and Guest Services buildings with sunscreen and umbrellas. Guests will happily buy them when the need arises.
19. Build Covered Queues and Plazas. Don’t let your guests bake in the sun or get drenched in the rain while waiting in line. Use roofing pieces to cover your queue paths and build covered areas in your main plazas to provide shelter. This has a huge impact on overall guest happiness.
20. Keep an Eye on Individual Thoughts. Click on any guest to see their current thoughts and needs. This is the best way to diagnose problems in your park. If you see many guests thinking, “The queue for Cosmic Spin is too long,” you know exactly what to fix.
21. Don’t Make Queues Too Long. While you need enough queue space for popular rides, excessively long, empty queues can be a waste of space. More importantly, guests waiting in line aren’t spending money at your shops. Keep queues reasonably sized.
22. Place Toilets Near Food Courts. This is a simple but crucial tip. After guests eat and drink, their next need will be the toilet. Placing these facilities close together is a massive quality-of-life improvement for your guests.
23. Acknowledge Dietary Preferences. Some guests have specific dietary requirements, such as wanting vegan options. Stocking your shops with a variety of products will help meet these diverse needs and keep everyone happy.
24. Hire Entertainers to Boost Moods. Entertainers and mascots might seem like a luxury, but they provide a significant boost to the Entertainment need of nearby guests. Place them in high-traffic plazas or areas where guests tend to congregate.
25. Use First Aid Stations. For parks with a lot of high-nausea thrill rides, placing a First Aid station is essential. It gives nauseous guests a place to recover, preventing them from getting sick on your paths.

Hiring Your First Crew: Essential Staff Management

Your park is nothing without the hardworking staff who keep it running. Assembling your starting crew is one of the first things you should do.

26. Hire the Essential Trio. At a bare minimum, every new park needs three types of staff: a Janitor to keep things clean, a Mechanic to fix broken rides, and Ride Attendants to operate the attractions.
27. Build a Staff Room Immediately. Your staff need a place to rest. If they get too tired and unhappy, their morale will drop, they will work slower, and eventually, they will quit. Build a Staff Building in a backstage area early on.
28. Train Staff to Improve Efficiency. As staff members work, they gain experience. You can spend money to train them, which increases their happiness and efficiency. A well-trained vendor, for example, can serve guests much faster.
29. Pay Your Staff Fairly. You can adjust staff pay between three preset levels: Low, Fair, and High. While Low pay saves money, it crushes morale. Keeping pay at Fair or High is crucial for maintaining a happy, efficient workforce.
30. Don’t Forget to Hire Vendors. When you place a food, drink, or souvenir shop, it won’t operate by itself. Remember to open the shop’s menu and hire a vendor to run it.

Part 2: From Builder to Architect (Creative Fundamentals in Planet Coaster 2)

With your park stable and your guests happy, it’s time to unlock the true magic of Planet Coaster 2: its unparalleled creative tools. This section will guide you through the fundamentals of building your own rides and creating a beautifully themed world.

Your First Thrill Ride: Coaster Building for Beginners

Building a custom roller coaster is one of the most rewarding experiences in the game. The editor is powerful and intuitive, but it takes a little practice.

31. Start with a Family Coaster. Don’t try to build a 500-foot-tall giga-coaster on your first attempt. The sheer speed and forces will be difficult to manage. Instead, start with a simple family coaster or a junior coaster. This allows you to learn the track editor’s controls and the basic principles of coaster physics in a low-stakes environment.
32. Understand the Holy Trinity: EFN. Every coaster is judged by three key stats: Excitement, Fear, and Nausea. Your goal is to maximize Excitement while keeping Fear and Nausea within tolerable limits for your target audience.
33. Mind Your G-Forces. The EFN ratings are primarily determined by the G-forces your riders experience. Use the G-force heatmaps in the testing tab to analyze your track. As a rule for beginners, try to keep lateral (side-to-side) Gs below and positive vertical Gs below. High lateral Gs are a primary cause of high Nausea ratings.
34. Bank Your Turns. Never build a flat, unbanked turn, especially at high speed. Use the banking controls to tilt the track into the turn. This converts uncomfortable lateral Gs into more manageable vertical Gs, making the ride smoother and more exciting.
35. Use the Smoothing Tool Liberally. The single best tool for improving your coasters is the “Smooth” function. After building a section of track, select several pieces at once and hit “Smooth.” Do this repeatedly along the entire length of your coaster. The new smoothing algorithm in Planet Coaster 2 makes creating buttery-smooth rides easier than ever.
36. Don’t Over-Smooth Hills. Be careful when smoothing hills and drops. Applying the tool too aggressively can flatten out the curves, reducing the thrilling “airtime” sensation. Smooth the entry and exit of a hill, but be gentle with the crest.
37. Test, Tweak, and Test Again. Don’t wait until your coaster circuit is complete to test it. Run a test every time you add a new major element. This helps you spot problems with speed or clearance immediately. Plus, it’s always fun to watch a test car fly off an unfinished track.
38. Use the “Autocomplete” Feature. When you’re close to finishing your circuit and just need to connect back to the station, the “Autocomplete” tool can be a lifesaver. It will automatically generate a smooth piece of track to complete the ride, saving you the hassle of lining it up perfectly.
39. Don’t Forget Brakes. Your coaster needs to re-enter the station at a safe, slow speed. Build a final brake run before the station to slow the train down. You can adjust the brake speed to get it just right.
40. Add a Chain Lift to Your First Hill. For your first lift-hill coaster, select the “Chain Lift” special track piece for the initial climb. This will pull the train to the top before gravity takes over.

Theming Your World: Scenery, Blueprints, and Atmosphere

A great theme park is more than a collection of rides; it’s an immersive world. Theming is how you tell your park’s story and bring it to life.

41. Scenery Is Money. Adding scenery around a ride is the single most effective way to increase its Prestige score. A higher Prestige score means guests are willing to pay more to ride it. Decorate your queue paths and the area around the ride track to maximize its profitability.
42. Aim for 100% Queue Scenery. Your goal for every major ride should be to achieve a 100% queue scenery rating. This ensures you can charge the maximum possible ticket price.
43. Use Blueprints to Get Started Quickly. The game comes with a huge library of pre-made blueprints for themed shops, scenery structures, and even fully decorated rides. These are perfect for quickly filling out your park and making it look great without spending hours on custom building.
44. Explore the Frontier Workshop. The Frontier Workshop is an in-game browser that lets you download creations from other Planet Coaster 2 players. It is an endless source of incredible blueprints, from hyper-realistic buildings to entire themed lands. If you can imagine it, someone has probably built it.
45. Learn by Deconstructing. The Workshop is also your greatest teacher. Download a building or coaster you admire, place it in your park, and then take it apart piece by piece. Seeing how expert builders layer objects, combine different pieces, and hide structural elements is the fastest way to learn advanced building techniques.
46. Create a “Palette” of Scenery. When working on a themed area, it can be tedious to keep going back into the menus to find the same few rocks, trees, or wall pieces. A pro trick is to create a “palette” off to the side of your build area. Place one of each piece you plan to use frequently, then simply select a piece from your palette and duplicate it (Ctrl+D on PC) to place it in your scene.
47. Use the Scenery Brush for Nature. To quickly fill in large areas with trees, rocks, and bushes, use the Scenery Brush tool. You can customize the brush’s size, density, and what objects it places to paint natural-looking landscapes in seconds.
48. Don’t Neglect Audio. Atmosphere isn’t just visual. Place ambient speakers hidden in bushes or behind walls to add soundscapes to your themed areas. You can choose from a library of music, ambient sounds (like jungle noises or cityscapes), and special effects.
49. Group Objects into Buildings. When you place your first “building” piece (like a wall or roof), the game automatically creates a new building group. Any subsequent pieces you place can be added to this group. This allows you to move, rotate, and duplicate the entire structure as a single object, which is essential for efficient building.
50. Save Your Own Blueprints. Once you create a building or a decorated ride that you’re proud of, save it as a blueprint! This adds it to your personal library, allowing you to place it again in the same park or in any other park you build in the future.

Making a Splash: Your First Planet Coaster 2 Water Park

The headline new feature of Planet Coaster 2 is the ability to build incredible water parks. But creating a functional swimming area involves more than just digging a hole and adding water. It’s an integrated system of new buildings, utilities, and guest needs.

51. Build the Water Park Trinity. A pool area will not function without three essential facilities placed nearby: a Changing Room for guests to put on their swimwear, a Guest Services building or Information Kiosk to sell the required Pool Pass, and at least one Lifeguard Chair to ensure guest safety.
52. Install Water Pumps and Filters. Every body of water, from pools to lazy rivers, must be connected to a water utility system. You will need a Water Pump to supply the area and a Water Filtration System to keep it clean. These are found in the facilities menu.
53. More Guests Means More Filtration. The cleanliness of your water is affected by how many guests are using it. For a busy water park, you will need to build multiple Water Filtration Systems to handle the load and keep the water sparkling blue.
54. Use the Pool Stamp Tool for Easy Shapes. The easiest way to create a pool is with the Stamp Builder tool. You can quickly place perfectly geometric shapes like circles and squares, which can be scaled and snapped together to form larger, more complex pool designs.
55. Use the Draw Tool for Freeform Pools. For more organic, natural-looking pools, switch to the Draw Tool. This allows you to “paint” the shape of your pool directly onto the terrain, giving you complete creative freedom.
56. Be Patient with the Rounding Tool. The pool editor includes a rounding tool to smooth out the sharp corners of your custom shapes. It can be a bit fiddly, but with some patience, it’s key to creating smooth, curved edges.
57. Add a Wave Machine. Turn a standard pool into an exciting attraction by adding a Wave Machine. This facility, placed at one end of the pool, will generate waves for your guests to enjoy.
58. Don’t Forget Poolside Essentials. Guests in a water park have specific needs. Place Body Dryers near pool exits for guests who want to dry off quickly. Build a Splash Emporium shop to sell inflatables, which guests can use in the pools and lazy rivers.
59. Build a Simple Lazy River. A lazy river is a great first water ride to build. It’s a tracked ride, much like a coaster, but it uses a water channel. Simply lay out a gentle, looping circuit, add an entrance and exit, and connect it to your water utility system.
60. Ensure Full Lifeguard Coverage. Guest safety is paramount. When you place a Lifeguard Chair, it will show a radius of its coverage area. Make sure your entire pool is covered by the watchful eyes of your lifeguards to prevent guests from panicking.

Part 3: Becoming a Tycoon (Advanced Management & Park Optimization)

Once you’ve mastered the basics of building and guest satisfaction, you can start focusing on turning your park into a ruthlessly efficient, money-making machine. These tips are for players who want to dive deep into the management simulation.

Mastering Your Park’s Finances in Planet Coaster 2

While making money in Planet Coaster 2 can be straightforward, optimizing your income requires a bit more finesse.

61. Use the Prestige Pricing Formula. The game provides a simple way to find the perfect ticket price for any ride. Open the ride’s finance tab and look at its Prestige score. A good starting price is the Prestige score divided by 35. For a ride with 700 Prestige, a ticket price of $20 is a great target.
62. Enable Dynamic Pricing on Popular Rides. For your most popular rides with consistently long queues, switch the pricing model to “Dynamic.” This will automatically adjust the ticket price based on the queue’s length, charging more when demand is high and less when it’s low, maximizing your profit per hour.
63. Sell Priority Passes for Your E-Tickets. On your biggest, most popular coasters and thrill rides, build a second, shorter queue line and designate it as a Priority Queue. Then, start selling Priority Passes at your Information Kiosks. This creates a fantastic new revenue stream and can significantly increase a ride’s profitability.
64. Take Out Loans to Grow Faster. In the early game, cash flow can be tight. Don’t be afraid to take out a loan from the finances menu. The initial interest rates are manageable, and the injection of cash can allow you to build a new coaster or ride hub that will quickly pay back the loan and accelerate your park’s growth.
65. Charge for Everything (Reasonably). Guests will pay for convenience. You can add a small fee (e.g., $0.10 or $0.20) for using the toilets or body dryers. While it seems small, these charges add up to a significant income stream across thousands of guests.
66. The Career Mode “Sell-Back” Trick. When playing Career Mode, once you complete an objective (e.g., “Build a coaster with 6 inversions”), you can immediately delete that coaster and get a 100% refund. This gives you a huge cash injection to tackle the next objective without having to wait for your park to earn the money.
67. Run Advertising Campaigns. Use the marketing tab to run advertising campaigns for specific rides or for the park as a whole. This will attract more guests to your park, and targeted ads can drive traffic to a new attraction you’ve just opened.
68. Place ATMs in High-Traffic Areas. When guests run out of cash, they’ll leave the park. Place ATMs near your main food courts and at the exits of major souvenir shops to ensure they can reload their wallets and keep spending.
69. Raise Park Entry Fees Strategically. Once your park has a high rating and plenty of attractions, you can start charging a higher park entry fee. A good strategy is to have a high entry fee but keep the individual ride prices low or even free. This encourages guests to ride more, boosting their happiness.
70. Add On-Ride Photos to Coasters. You can add an on-ride photo camera to any point on a coaster’s track. This will take a picture of the guests, which they can then purchase at a shop near the ride’s exit. This is another excellent source of passive income.

The Well-Oiled Machine: Advanced Staff & Ride Operations

Efficiency is the name of the game. An optimized park serves more guests, breaks down less often, and keeps staff morale high.

71. Master Staff Zones. This is the most critical tool for park efficiency. In the staff management tab, create “Staff Zones” by painting areas on the map. Assign each of your employees to a specific zone. This prevents your janitor in the Sci-Fi land from trying to clean up a spill all the way over in the Fantasy kingdom, saving immense amounts of time.
72. Place a Staff Room in Every Zone. A staff zone is only truly effective if it contains a Staff Building. This ensures that when an employee in that zone goes on break, they have a nearby place to rest and can get back to work quickly.
73. Hire “Floater” Staff for Break Coverage. A professional park manager’s secret is to hire a few extra staff members who are not assigned to any specific ride or shop. Instead, their schedule is set to only work during the break times of other employees. This ensures your facilities have 100% uptime and are never closed because an employee is on break.
74. Use Work Rosters for Vendors. You can create specific work rosters that link a vendor to a particular shop and a nearby staff room. This is the most granular level of control and guarantees that your most profitable shops are always managed with maximum efficiency.
75. Understand Block Sections for Coasters. For any coaster that you want to run with multiple trains, you must use “Block Sections.” A block section is a piece of track (like a brake run or a chain lift) that can stop a train and hold it until the next section of track is clear.
76. Use the Block Section Rule of Thumb. The number of trains a coaster can safely run is determined by its number of block sections. The formula is simple: Maximum Trains = (Number of Block Sections) – 1. A coaster with a station, a mid-course brake run, and a final brake run has 3 blocks, so it can run 2 trains.
77. Increase Throughput with More Trains. Using block sections to run multiple trains dramatically increases a ride’s throughput (the number of guests it can serve per hour). This means shorter queues, happier guests, and more income.
78. Adjust Ride Sequences on Flat Rides. Many flat rides have customizable ride sequences. You can make the ride cycle longer or more intense. A shorter, more thrilling ride sequence can often increase a ride’s throughput and excitement rating.
79. Set Mechanic Inspection Schedules. To prevent rides from breaking down, set a regular inspection schedule for each one. You can set inspections to occur every 10 minutes, 30 minutes, or whatever interval you choose. Proactive maintenance is always better than reactive repairs.
80. Train Your Mechanics. A highly trained mechanic will inspect and repair rides much faster than a rookie. Investing in mechanic training is one of the best long-term investments you can make for your park’s reliability.

Power, Water, and Security in Planet Coaster 2

Planet Coaster 2 introduces several new background systems that you need to manage to keep your park running smoothly.

81. Power Your Park. All rides and shops require electricity. You must build power generators (like solar panels or wind turbines) to produce power for your park.
82. Use Power Distributors. Generators don’t power buildings directly. You must place Power Distributors, which create a radius of electrical coverage. Any building within this radius will be powered. Use the power heatmap to easily see which areas of your park have coverage.
83. Connect Your Water Systems. As mentioned in the water park section, pools and water rides need to be connected to Water Pumps and Filtration Systems. Use the water cleanliness heatmap to monitor the quality of your water.
84. Combat Crime with Security. If guest happiness drops too low, some guests may turn to crime. Pickpockets will steal from other guests, and vandals will damage your benches and bins.
85. Deploy Security Guards and Cameras. To fight crime, you must hire Security Guards to patrol your park. You can also place Security Cameras in high-traffic areas. When a camera spots a crime, it will automatically alert a nearby guard to apprehend the culprit.

Part 4: The Master Creator’s Toolkit (Expert Design & Theming)

You’ve built a successful park. Now, it’s time to build a masterpiece. This section is for advanced players who want to push the creative tools to their absolute limits and build breathtaking, hyper-realistic attractions.

Engineering Marvels: Expert Planet Coaster 2 Coaster Design

Moving beyond the basics of EFN, expert coaster design is about realism, pacing, and mastering the subtle art of track shaping.

86. Build with the 4-Meter Method. For the smoothest possible custom elements, set your track piece length to the shortest setting (4 meters). Build your entire coaster using these small segments. While it takes longer, it gives you the finest degree of control over the track’s shape and results in far superior, more realistic curves after smoothing.
87. Master Heartlining with Banking Offset. Real-world coasters are designed to rotate around the rider’s heartline, not the track’s center. You can simulate this in Planet Coaster 2 using the “Banking Offset” tool. By raising or lowering the banking offset, you can create incredibly smooth, comfortable, and realistic inversions and highly banked turns that minimize lateral G-forces.
88. Practice Building a Custom Zero-G Roll. A Zero-G Roll is an excellent first custom inversion to master. The technique involves using short track pieces and a specific banking pattern: bank to 45°, then 90°, then 135°, then 180° (fully upside down at the crest of the hill), and then reverse the pattern on the way down. Then, use the smoothing tool on small, overlapping sections to blend it all together.
89. Pacing Is King. A world-class coaster is a story with a beginning, middle, and end. It’s not just a collection of elements; it’s about the rhythm and flow between them. Alternate between high-speed turns, floating airtime hills, and intense inversions. A slow moment, like a block brake before the grand finale, can build suspense and make the final elements feel even more impactful.
90. Use Tunnels and Terrain for a Sense of Speed. A train moving at 50 mph high in the air can feel slow. That same train moving at 50 mph through a narrow trench or a dark tunnel will feel incredibly fast. Use the terrain tools and scenery to create “headchopper” and “footchopper” effects where the track passes very close to the ground, rocks, or buildings.
91. Study Real Coaster Manufacturers. To achieve true realism, study the work of real-world coaster designers. An Intamin coaster has a very different style of airtime hill than a Bolliger & Mabillard (B&M) coaster. Watch point-of-view (POV) videos of real coasters online and try to replicate their signature elements and pacing.
92. Use Realistic G-Force Targets. Aim for G-forces that match real-world coasters. Guests in Planet Coaster 2 are very durable, but for realism, you should aim for the targets professional designers use.

Coaster Style	Max Positive Vertical Gs	Max Negative Vertical Gs (Airtime)	Max Lateral Gs
B&M Hypercoaster	4.0g	-1.2g	±0.5g
Intamin Giga Coaster	4.5g	-1.5g	±1.0g
RMC Hybrid	4.2g	-1.8g	±1.2g
Mack Multi-Launch	4.5g	-1.0g	±1.5g

93. Build Realistic Support Structures. The default supports are functional, but for a master-level build, you should create custom supports. Use beams, columns, and connectors from the scenery menu to build more realistic and visually interesting support structures for your coasters.
94. Add Transfer Tracks and Maintenance Bays. For the ultimate touch of realism, add a maintenance bay and transfer track to your coaster. This is a section of track next to the station where trains can be stored and worked on by mechanics. It adds no in-game function, but it shows you’re a true enthusiast.
95. Synchronize Multiple Coasters. You can use the ride settings to create “Sync Groups.” This allows you to launch two coasters—like a dueling or racing coaster—at the exact same time, creating incredible near-miss moments.

Bringing Worlds to Life: Hyper-Realism and Detailing

The difference between a good park and a great park is in the details. Hyper-realism is about adding the small, often overlooked touches that make a place feel real and lived-in.

96. Embrace the Backstage. Every great park has a backstage. Use fences, walls, and dense foliage to create realistic backstage areas behind your themed facades. Add details like dumpsters, stacked crates, and staff-only paths to sell the illusion.
97. Layer Your Buildings. Never settle for a flat wall. Add depth to your buildings by layering different materials and using trim pieces. Add a foundation at the bottom, use columns to frame the walls, place window sills and headers, and add a decorative cornice at the top.
98. Add the “Boring” Details. Realism is found in the mundane. Add air conditioning units to the roofs of your buildings. Place gutters and downspouts on the corners. Add electrical boxes, conduits, and CCTV cameras to your walls. These practical details make your buildings feel functional and real.
99. Use Real-World References for Everything. Don’t just build from your imagination. Use reference images for everything you create. If you’re building a pirate-themed tavern, search for pictures of real historic taverns. Trying to recreate a real building is one of the best ways to improve your skills.
100. Tell a Story with Your Scenery. Don’t just place objects; arrange them to tell a story. A crashed spaceship shouldn’t just be sitting there; it should have a debris field, scorch marks on the ground, and scientists in hazmat suits investigating the area.
101. Vary Your Foliage. When creating natural areas, don’t just use one type of tree. Mix different types and sizes of trees, bushes, and flowers. Rotate them so they don’t all face the same direction. This creates a much more organic and believable landscape.
102. Think in First-Person. Regularly switch your camera down to guest-level view and “walk” through your park. This helps you see the world from your guests’ perspective, revealing awkward sightlines, empty areas that need more detail, or opportunities to create a grand reveal.
103. Use Custom Colors. Almost every scenery and building piece in the game can be recolored. Don’t stick with the default colors. Create a custom color palette for each of your themed areas to ensure a cohesive and unique look.
104. Master Non-Grid Pieces. Many of the most versatile building pieces are in the “Scenery” tab and don’t snap to a grid. Learning to combine these freeform pieces is the key to creating custom shapes, unique architectural details, and breaking away from the “boxy” look of grid-based building.
105. Light Your Park for Nighttime. A park can have a completely different, magical atmosphere at night. Take the time to add lighting to your buildings, paths, and rides. Use a mix of practical lights (like path lamps) and theatrical, colored lights to highlight your architecture and create a dramatic mood.

The Animatronics Workshop: Custom Shows & Special Effects

With the new event sequencer and moving platforms, you can become a show designer, creating everything from simple animated props to complex, synchronized fountain and firework displays.

106. Use Moving Platforms as Your Base. The key to custom animatronics is the “Moving Platform” pieces found in the scenery menu. These are simple shapes (cubes, cylinders) that can rotate, move up and down, or slide back and forth.
107. Attach Any Scenery to Moving Platforms. You can attach any scenery piece in the game to a moving platform. This allows you to make a statue wave its arm, a rocket ship take off, or a sea monster emerge from the water.
108. Stack Platforms for Complex Animations. The true power of the system is that you can attach a moving platform to another moving platform. For example, you can place a rotating platform on top of a vertically moving platform. This allows you to create incredibly complex, multi-axis animations.
109. Use the Trigger Sequencer for Coasters. For effects that you want to sync with a ride, use the “Trigger Sequencer.” You can place triggers anywhere along a coaster’s track. When the train passes over a trigger, it can activate an animatronic, a special effect (like a blast of fire or a water jet), or a sound effect.
110. Use the Display Sequencer for Park Shows. For shows that are not tied to a ride, like a fountain show in a plaza, use the “Display Sequencer.” This object lets you create a timeline and add different special effects and animatronics to it. You can then set the show to play on a loop or at specific times.
111. Customize Billboards with Videos. The new video billboards are a powerful theming tool. On PC, you can upload your own video files to play on them. On all platforms, you can use the library of pre-made videos, which include themed animations and advertisements.
112. Create Custom Ride Skins. You can attach scenery directly to the moving parts of many flat rides and even to the coaster cars themselves. This allows you to create completely custom “ride skins,” transforming a generic spinning ride into a themed centerpiece.
113. Use the Twinning and Symmetry Tools. When attaching scenery to coaster cars, the Twinning and Symmetry tools are huge time-savers. Twinning automatically duplicates a piece across all cars in the train, while Symmetry mirrors a piece on the opposite side of the car.
114. Hide Your Mechanisms. Just like with real animatronics, the art is in hiding the mechanism. Sink your moving platforms under the terrain or inside other scenery so that the guests only see the final, magical effect.
115. Combine Animatronics with Particle Effects. The best shows combine movement with special effects. The scenery menu includes a huge variety of particle emitters for fire, smoke, water, snow, bubbles, and more. Triggering these at the same time as your animatronics creates a dynamic and exciting experience.

Part 5: Pro-Level Secrets & Technical Tricks for Planet Coaster 2

This final section contains a collection of high-value technical tips, non-obvious mechanics, and clever workarounds discovered by the Planet Coaster 2 community. These are the secrets that separate the pros from the amateurs.

Optimizing Your Planet Coaster 2 Experience

Getting the game to run smoothly, especially in large, detailed parks, can be a challenge. These tips will help you maximize your performance.

116. The Blurriness Fix: Check Your Resolution. If you launch the game and find it looks blurry or fuzzy, the first thing to do is check your graphics settings. For some reason, the game occasionally defaults to a very low resolution. Manually change the resolution setting to your monitor’s native resolution to fix this.
117. Disable Depth of Field. Another common cause of perceived blurriness, especially around the edges of the screen, is the “Depth of Field” setting. Many players prefer to turn this off for a crisper, clearer image.
118. Update Your Graphics Drivers. Before you do anything else, make sure you have the latest drivers for your graphics card. Both NVIDIA and AMD often release “Game Ready” drivers specifically optimized for new releases like Planet Coaster 2.
119. Use DLSS or FSR. If your graphics card supports it, enable NVIDIA DLSS or AMD FSR in the graphics settings. These upscaling technologies can provide a massive FPS boost with minimal loss in visual quality.
120. Lower Shadows and Screen Space Reflections (SSR). If you need to gain more frames, the two most demanding graphics settings are typically Shadows and Screen Space Reflections. Lowering these from Ultra to High or Medium can significantly improve performance without drastically changing the look of the game.
121. Limit Your Guest Count. The game’s simulation is very CPU-intensive. The biggest strain on your processor is the thousands of individual guests, each with their own AI. If your frame rate is suffering in a large park, consider setting a limit on the maximum number of guests allowed in the park settings.
122. Beware the Console Complexity Meter. On the console versions of the game, there is a “Complexity Meter” that limits how many individual objects you can place in your park. Be mindful of this limit as you build.
123. Optimize for the Complexity Meter. To save space on the complexity meter, use larger, single-piece objects instead of many small pieces whenever possible. Also, be aware that highly detailed blueprints from the Workshop, especially those made by PC players, can consume a huge chunk of your meter.
124. Enable V-Sync for Stability. Planet Coaster 2 is not a fast-paced competitive shooter. You don’t need hundreds of frames per second. Enabling V-Sync will lock your frame rate to your monitor’s refresh rate (usually 60 FPS), which can provide a smoother, more stable experience and prevent your GPU from working harder than it needs to.
125. Install on an SSD. The developers recommend installing the game on a Solid State Drive (SSD). This won’t necessarily increase your in-game frame rate, but it will dramatically reduce loading times when starting the game and opening your park saves.

Hidden Mechanics & Clever Workarounds

These are the tricks that aren’t in the manual—the clever, non-obvious techniques that can save you hours of work and unlock new creative possibilities.

126. The Exponential Duplication Trick. To quickly create a long, straight line of repeating objects like fence posts or columns, do not place them one by one. Instead, place one piece. Select it and duplicate it (Ctrl+D). Now, multi-select both pieces and duplicate them. Now select all four and duplicate them. By doubling your selection each time, you can create a line of hundreds of perfectly spaced objects in seconds.
127. Use Invisible Paths for Open Plazas. In the pathing menu, you can select an “invisible” path material. This is a game-changing tool for creating large, open plazas or custom-floored areas where you want guests to be able to walk freely without being confined by visible path edges.
128. Reset Guest Happiness for Easy Objectives. If you are stuck on a Career Mode objective like “Achieve 80% Guest Happiness,” there’s an easy trick. Close your park, wait for all the unhappy guests to leave, and then reopen it. The new guests who arrive will have their happiness reset to a high baseline, often completing the objective instantly.
129. Sculpt Terrain Underneath Paths. A major quality-of-life improvement over the first game is the ability to use the terrain tools directly underneath existing paths. This allows you to create much more natural-looking landscapes, such as raising the ground to meet the edge of a path or creating a gentle gully underneath a bridge.
130. Spam Speakers for Easy Scenery Rating. Need a quick and dirty way to get a queue’s scenery rating to 100%? Place a large number of ambient speakers and hide them inside other scenery or under the path. Each speaker adds a significant boost to the scenery rating, and they stack.
131. Edit Queues with the Path Tool. The queue editing tools are somewhat limited. However, after you’ve built a queue, you can switch back to the regular path tool, select the “Edit Path” option, and use it on your queue. This gives you access to the node-based editor, allowing for much finer control over the queue’s shape.
132. Create Custom Billboards with Scenery. Don’t like the default billboard frames? You can create your own. Place a standalone video screen, then use non-grid scenery pieces like planks, beams, and art shapes to build a custom frame around it.
133. Use Basic Shapes for Everything. The “Shapes” section of the scenery menu is the most powerful toolkit for advanced creators. These simple cubes, spheres, and cylinders can be resized, recolored, and combined to build literally anything you can imagine, from custom furniture to entire buildings.
134. Sink Large Objects into the Ground. Don’t be afraid to sink large scenery pieces into the terrain. You can use just the top of a massive rock formation to create a small, interesting outcropping, or sink a building halfway into a hill to create a bunker.
135. Turn Off Snapping for Fine Control. When placing objects, you can toggle various snapping options like “Angle Snap” and “Align to Surface.” Turning these off gives you complete, freeform control over an object’s placement and rotation, which is essential for detailed, custom work.
136. Use Lights to “Paint” Your Park. The lighting objects in the game can have their color changed. At night, you can use carefully hidden, colored lights to “paint” your buildings and landscapes, creating a stunning and theatrical atmosphere that isn’t possible in the daytime.

Conclusion: The Park Gates Are Always Open

You’ve done it. From that first empty field, you’ve built something incredible. You’ve navigated the challenges of management, mastered the art of coaster design, and breathed life into a world of your own creation. Your journey from rookie to architect is a testament to the power of imagination.

But the story doesn’t end here. The beauty of Planet Coaster 2 is that the park gates are never truly closed. There is always a new coaster to design, a new themed land to dream up, a new technique to master. The community is constantly sharing new ideas, new blueprints, and new ways to push the boundaries of what’s possible.

So continue to experiment. Download that blueprint that seems impossibly complex and take it apart. Try to recreate your favorite real-world ride. Share your proudest creations with the world and inspire someone else to start their own journey. The only limit is your imagination, and in the world of Planet Coaster 2, your imagination has found its ultimate playground. Now go build something amazing.

Disclaimer: This is an unofficial fan work, all trademarks and copyrights for Planet Coaster 2 belong to the developer Frontier Developments.

Find the game here! Planet Coaster 2 – Create a Splash!