Im sure there have been many topics about this but im curious on what you actually need to do in order to become a coaster designer for the companies that create these things.

im guessing it will involve lots of uni courses and a lot of knowledge based around G forces an what is physically possible when it comes to creating a ride. BUT, with the introduction of simulators like 'no limits', do we really need these qualifications and training?

there are lots of realistic coaster designs that have been made with the no limits simulators and im willing to bet that 95% of the creators dont have formal education around coaster design. just common sense of what the human body can withstand and what is possible to create in real life.

You would need a degree in mechanical engineering, or structural engineering, preferably mechanical. If you don't start your career in the roller coaster business, you still have tons of options to choose from as the job options with mechanical engineering are very numerous.

B&M and Intamin do use No Limits to do their animations I believe, but they don't use it to actually design the ride because you don't even need supports in No Limits for your coaster to work. They will use some CAD package (AutoCAD, ProE, NX, Solidworks, Catia, etc.) to design the track and trains. For design validation, they will use some sort of Finite Element program (Ansys, Cosmos, CalculiX, etc.) Pretty much all engineering disciplines use some sort of FEM (finite element method) to do design validation because it it cheaper and more time efficient than traditional testing. The safety factors for roller coaster loads are enormous though because dynamic loading from the trains causes fatigue loading on each portion of track, so they will also need fatigue modeling and analysis software.