I've been lurking a bit here and there on this site but have recently just gotten back in to RCT3 over the last few weeks and thought I'd get involved. I've played all RCT games a lot over the years and as I finish up what is probably my 4th or 5th playthrough of RCT3 and expansions (I re-play it whenever I get a new computer/HDD, basically whenever my save file is deleted or lost), I am now getting more in to sandbox mode. I'm finding it an excellent way to relax and be creative after a long day at an office job. I live in Florida and because of that, have always lived near and had a fascination with theme parks and roller coasters for as long as I can remember.

I'm quickly realizing that building a full-sized park from the ground up with multiple themed zones is a major undertaking. My goal is to complete the current project relatively quickly and use it as a learning experience for a future project that will be much more detailed. Currently I plan to use stock RCT3 (at least my first go-around) and then update with add-ons and custom pieces on my more detailed attempt.

I look forward to learning from everyone and checking out more of the amazing stuff you all create.

Hey Welcome!! Excited to follow your work

We're happy to have you with us. I agree, there's a lot more to making a complete full-sized park than dropping a few items in place and taking a screenshot.

I guess I'll ask for some advice as well. At what point did you all start with CS add-ons, etc.?

Is it worth learning all of that as I go now or should I keep focused on getting good at basic designs within the standard RCT3/Expansions? How did you start learning the more advanced methods to really tie things together? Would it be a good exercise to try and replicate a real-life coaster as accurately as possible or do you find that just practice making your own designs is more helpful?

I was a very long time playing the game before trying CS because I had heard how much of a drain they are on system resources. After I got experienced with RCT3 I got over that and I can’t imagine my parks without custom items. I would find RCT3 without custom content to be very restrictive.

A lot of RCT3 is trial and error. You may find you want to faithfully recreate real coasters and then discover you prefer more creativity. I myself began with maximum sized parks but out of necessity (custom stuff) have had to settle for smaller parks.

You’ve already taken the first step to learn advanced techniques to tie things together in your parks and that was joining RCTgo. You will discover you get just as much out of reading someone else’s post as you do writing your own and reading someone’s comment on your post.

Except for the manual that came with RCT3 there is no ‘book’ in which to learn what we need to know about RCT3, no one stop to download a huge mega pack of custom content, nor is there any essential custom stuff. It takes experience in the game, learning your menus, knowing your custom items, browsing the different custom sites and communicating & sharing on the forum.