Difficulty level: Very hard (but mostly very tedious)
Hey everyone! You can use rides like the Observation Tower, Roto-Drop and Launched Freefall to make nice beefy supports for your rides! In this tutorial I will show you how to do this using an observation tower as an example! This tutorial assumes you are familiar with the Tile Inspector. It can be found under the cheat menu, which becomes available when you enable cheats in the Options.
To start off, an important thing to realize is that these tower ride pieces will normally show a top piece, unless something is exactly 4 units above them! This can be another track piece from a tower ride, a track piece from a different ride, a scenery object, or any other object. using the tile inspector you can copy a track piece from a tower ride, and paste it somewhere else. In the image below I pasted a few observation tower track pieces next to an observation tower ride. Above one of the track pieces I pasted an invisible object 4 units above. Note that it does not show the top piece. We will now use this to create some supports for the coaster track you see below it.
Using the tile inspector, we will now paste a tower piece below the straight part of the coaster track. Because the coaster track is 4 height units above the tower track piece, the top part of the tower track piece will not show. This is probably the easiest situation you can have when creating these supports.
When the track is a few units higher and things don't exactly line up, it becomes a lot more difficult to pull off nice supports. If we place the track on the ground now, the track is 6 units above the tower piece. 6 units is not 4, so the tower top piece shows.
In order to solve this, we will now first make the top piece disappear again by placing an invisible track piece 4 units above it. Here I copied and pasted another observation tower track piece, and moved it above the track piece. Then, using the eye icon, I made the track piece invisible. As you can see in the list, there is now an invisible track piece 4 units above the observation tower track piece on the ground, so the top piece does not show.
Now, we will put another observation tower track piece 4 units below the track. Keep an eye on the order of things in the tile inspector list! If you see top pieces somewhere, it means there is an observation tower track piece with something above it in the list that is not 4 units higher. It can get complicated very quickly! As you can see in the image below, there is now no longer a gap, and the observation tower support looks like a continuous one.
Now, to spice things up a bit, we will make a support for some sloped track. If we use the same method as before, where we place an observation tower track piece 4 units below the track, you will now see there is a gap between the coaster track and the support. This not something that we want, and it will complicate things a lot.
First, we will move the observation tower piece that is under the coaster track up by 1 unit to fill in the gap. Then, to remove the top piece that shows we will add another observation tower piece above the one that shows the top piece and make it invisible. However, when we do this something else will happen that is undesirable. The track now shows behind the observation tower track piece, which is something we will fix in the next step.
To make the coaster track show behind the observation tower support, we'll want the coaster track to be below the support pieces in the list. Putting the coaster track under surface will also make sure the coaster track's own support that it wants to draw disappears (If the coaster track piece is above water, never move it under surface, or it will start glitching for some people. Instead just put it above surface and hide the support with invisible scenery). When you do this however, as you see in the image below the observation tower pieces will start showing in the wrong order. This is also something we can fix.
To fix the tower pieces showing in the wrong order, we will have to swap them. So the tower piece that is right below the coaster track will have to be moved below the observation tower pieces that extend from the ground. The invisible track piece that is above the tower piece right below the track will also have to be moved lower in the list, right above the tower piece we just moved lower in the list. This will ensure no top piece is drawn.
When this is done, the observation tower support is finally drawn correctly. As you can understand, this can get very tedious and time-consuming quickly if you are making a large rollercoaster. However, the end result can really look great!
In the following screenshot you can see what it looks like for some taller supports. As a bonus, I also added in some roto drop track pieces at the bottom to make some nice footers. They work exactly the same as observation tower pieces!
I hope this tutorial will help you create some nice beefy supports for your coasters!