Introduction

Technically a hypercoaster is a rollercoaster with a drop greater than 200ft. However, I sometimes build ones with a drop just below this, and call it a hypercoaster. The techniques for single or dueling hypercoasters is similar, but there are differences. This is how I build my hypercoasters, although it's probably not the only way.

You'll need a fairly large park and lots of money – or a no money scenario. Depending mainly on the amount of money you have, you should decide whether to build a steel corkscrew or a steel twister hypercoaster. Also, decide if you want single or dueling, and where the station will be. A high station allows you to build a small drop 'teaser' section before the main lift hill.

This article takes you through the steps of building a hypercoaster. Extensive use is made of screenshots from the game. As a result, pages may take a few seconds to load. The size of some of the screenshots makes this article unsuitable for viewing at 640*480 resolution.

Starting the coaster

If you are building a dueling coaster, you will want to have the trains synchronised. A good way to do this is by making sure they are at the same speed & position at the top of the lift hill, say 5mph (lift hill speed). This is easy without a teaser section, just go straight out of the station and onto the lift, and make the lift straight. If the trains are not synchronised at the bottom of the lift, there are two basic ways of fixing this: alter track lengths to change time & speed in the teaser section, or use brakes and/or boosters to control speed. If you do not have speed for a straight lift, you'll need to make sure rides are synchronised at the top. You could try using this instead of earlier options to synchronise rides in the first place. Otherwise, you will need to keep them synchronised. There are 2 main ways of doing this: either by splitting the rides part of the way up, having them go away then come back (be careful about exact lengths of chain lifts and any launched lift hills), or by making an S-bend lift hill. AA/LL users see Three Monkeys Park for an example of this. Note that synchronisation may change between trains as they leave the stations. This is normal (I think).

Section 1: The hills

Section 2: The twists

Section 3: Completing the circuit

Section 4: The Station, Testing & Tweaking