One issue I'm facing when trying to beat some scenarios in the campaigns are that some attractions have a really high maintenance cost while not offering the possibility to bring back the money.

For example the bob coaster. I build one with maintenance cost of $220 per month, but the maximum size "wagon" has 7 seats. I add segments to the coaster so can have 3 wagons, but still it's only barely enough to cover the maintenance costs.

Another example is the alpine slide. Maintenance cost there is often higher than even the maximum possible profit (as it usually only has an excitement of around 35 and consequently can't be priced too high.

Because of this the only way to beat some scenarios is to research other coasters or exciting attractions, but it would be nice if all options were viable.

I'm facing this issue with many rides I create. Even some stationary ones.

Ferris Wheel for example can only handle 12 guests per month on the lowest rounds (1) but has a maintenance cost of $22. If you put medium decoration you can take $2 for it, but that ends up with only $2 profit per month. If your whole scenario you won't make the cost to build it back (not to mention the decorations and roads).

Another one is the relaxing river ride (Gemütliche Flussfahrt). I build a pretty long one for $7000 with decorations, so it's decorations rating is "Amazing". It has 42 wagons and results in a maintenance cost of $189.56 per month. Even if there are enough visitors for one wagon every 10 seconds, it's impossible to make back the money (with amazing decorations an acceptable price seems to be $3).

Seems this is a core flaw in the game. The maintenance costs for many rides are simply way too high and in no relations to what they can earn back.

The only attractions that really bring in a lot of money are wild coasters that can take a lot of customers at once. Then suddenly you earn tons of money. But not all scenarios are written for them (I'm at Sakura Gardens right now and people want relaxing rides...).

Can you please look into it? @sebioff

I can provide my latest saves but they might not be too representative as it's already a fully going theme park (which I could only create by cheating money).

It's more of a general design flaw in the game, especially if you play the campaign.

In every single scenario in the campaign it's always the same:

You start building what you have available, but that only has an intensity rating of low-medium which hardly brings any money or even causes losses. As you said some of those rides only make profit if they are 100% used, but early in the campaign you can be happy if they are 25% filled. It's not good for the campaign that they are making losses! You say you only build those to make people happy, but it would be sufficient to only build one or two for this. The way you designed it right now, there's no point in making any gentle rides on tracks or build ferris wheel or some of the other attraction because they are only bad for your park.

Most of the rides in the game are low intensity anyway, especially those available in the campaign from the start. People will always complain about the lack of high intensity rides, in every single scenario of the campaign, because those are incredibly hard to create (even if I make a pretty wild coaster I often end up with medium intensity still and most of the pre-designed ones don't get higher either).

Even in Sakura Gardens, a scenario that's supposed to be about building gentle rides, your only worry is to finally get one high intensity ride done so you can earn money and make the people happy (because even in that scenario the main complaint is that there aren't any high intensity rides, this is particularly bad in this scenario because you can only build gentle rides without research and you don't earn any money to fund the research).

So instead of making the game interesting by making all rides useful for something, you kind of end up with every single scenario being the same and several of the rides being completely pointless to build at all.

I really love the game and already played it over 100 hours and this is the core flaw you notice when you play the campaign this long non-stop.

Saves:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1y9W4ioR3Una7LFwfiDQlmlLHmRf47VWH
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1OQGSpzo34HaoaXNcAedNTQsUQn8c7Xzc

I strongly suggest reconsidering the maintenance costs, especially for tracked rides. They should only be half or even 25% of what they are now. In exchange some of the better intensive coasters could have higher maintenance costs. Some of the exciting rides that have high intensity are also incredibly valuable.

Maybe also the calculation of intensity should be changed, so that it's easier to create high intensity rides.

That's because it's an endgame save where the park is already populated and I already did some adjustments to the alpine slide (making the station shorter and have less wagons). Not to mention spending tons of cheated money to place enough trees around to increase decoration rating.

I don't remember the numbers, but the alpine slide originally had a lower maximum income than the maintenance cost but effectively it was only filled to 25%, so it was making huge losses (when I noticed it, it was already at -600 profit).

The bob slide had a maximum income which was slightly higher than the maintenance cost (like $220 maximum income and $180 maintenance cost) and it's fairly easy to fill most of the time, but it's hardly of any use and it's not balance with other coasters which may cost $300 in maintenance but can easily result in maximum income of $1100 or higher.

Keep in mind that you don't just need to do make "a bit profit", you need to get back the money you spent to build it in reasonable time (assuming you want to win the scenario within time limit), plus pay employees monthly.

The relaxing river ride had a similar problem to the alpine slide. In early scenario it's only 25% filled and nets you a huge loss every month even though the decoratiosn are considered "amazing". I spend like $7000 to build it only to make loss from it (in a scenario where people are said to enjoy relaxing rides, mind you).

In the end the core problem is the balance. Some rides just have maximum income 4-10 times higher than the maintenance costs while others need extreme care to even get 20% above the maintenance cost.

As an experienced player (which I consider myself to be now), you just end up building always the same attractions in every single scenario because you know they work best and that makes it boring.

In Kaiserberg, the alpine slide fits the scenario perfectly, so I really want to build it, but if I wanted to beat the scenario without cheating, I can't build it. Some for the bob slide. To beat the scenario without cheating you need to instead start researching rollercoasters right away and build whatever is researched even if it doesn't fit the scenario as well. In Sakura Gardens, even though it's supposed to be a scenario about gentle rides, only the exciting rides are what actually make you able to complete it without cheating, because even in this scenario, the gentle rides don't make enough profit and people still complain about "no high intensity rides".

I played the scenario with the particularly small park (where you need to buy land and can't take credits) and played that one with the knowledge of the game I had accumulated: Only one single low intensity ride, spend rest on good coasters and exciting rides which I know result in high profit and see there, I was already at +$1000 per month after the first year.

But I wish the scenarios where less about knowing which attractions globally work and which are useless and more about figuring out scenario-specific characteristics. Because the campaign is a good 200 hours long and always doing the same thing isn't fun.

And I think the best way to accomplish this would be to first balance the attractions, so everything becomes viable if it fits the scenario.

Hi sebioff, I made a better save: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1_FaDPyKA4J0Qs_REHKfoDZGE1dA4m67g

Take a look at "Dampfschiffe" - possible income $61, maintenance cost $233.33, total net win -$1719.83.

1. Keep in mind that many customers stay for more that one station, though. So even if you consider multiple stations, possible income is still lower than maintenance cost.
2. This fact does not change anything about the $1719.83 loss just from maintenance costs.
3. As said, gentle rides are never occupied 100%, they can be lucky to be filled to 25%. I could reduce the number of boats to a fourth, to make it 100% occupied, but the maintenance costs will just be marginally lower.

Don't you agree that a maintenance cost of ~$60 per month would be much more appropriate for such rides?