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Planet Coaster 2brings back the custom build system from the first game, allowing you to fully customize your shops and facilities. you may either use shop and facility blueprints, edit blueprint shells, or build completely from scratch. The choice is yours.
Here we will look at the two main ways to build, by using shells - either from the in-game catalog or the Frontier Workshop - or by building from scratch. Here’s how to make your buildings unique.
What Are Blueprints?
The blueprint system allows you tochoose from a wide range of pre-built shellsfor shops and facilities. Some of these are designed for specific buildings, while others are more generic.Most can be edited to fit whatever building you like, with minimal fuss.
There are someblueprints in the game already, and you candownload others from the Frontier Workshop.Anything you create yourself can also be saved as a blueprint, so you canreuse it in the future.
Where Can I Find Blueprints For Shops And Shells?
Thefacilities tabshows you all thepre-built Planet Coaster-themed buildingsand some of theViking shells. However, to access thefull rangeof blueprints go to thescenery tab.
The scenery tab alsoincludes blueprints for other types of decorationand scenery, and the default setting shows all the blueprints. As such, you’ll want to click thecastle iconin the bottom left to showjust the buildings.
If you have a lot of downloaded or saved blueprints, try using thesearch facility or custom filter- which has an icon of sliders in a line. This can help younarrow down furtherby theme, content pack, brand or source and allow you to find specific items if you know their name.
Some of these blueprints will be fordecorative buildings, but many areshells you can place your choice of shops and facilities intoyour choice of shops and facilities. The shells are thebest place to start editingand in turnlearning the building mechanics, but if you want to just place buildings, there are afull set of Planet Coaster-themed pre-built options.
Pre-Built Shops And Facilities
Thefull set of pre-built shopsand facilities is found under thefacilities tab.Everything has a pre-built version and there arealso many shells. As a result,it can get confusing to work out what is whatwithout opening everything up. Luckily, there is anicon system to help.
If you want to see what a blueprint is for at a glance, verify tocheck out the icons.
Scroll And Triangle
Custom Design
How To Edit Pre-Built Shells
The best way to learn how to build is toexplore the pre-built shells.By editing these, you cansee how they fit togetherand also get used to thebasic editing tools.
The only buildings that are harder to fit into pre-built shells are the staff rooms, which are larger than the regular buildings.
To start editing, firstlocate your chosen shellin the scenery menu and thenplace it down.You should have theentire building selected.
From this menu you canchoose edit building.This will flip you into a view where you areshown a grid around the shell,which you can use tomake sure you are lined up properlyif you are placing a shell near a path.
Whenbuildings are placedinto a shell, they willtry and connect to the nearest path, assuming it is close enough. This means that if youplace the shell out of lineyou may find that youcan’t add the shop, or itadjusts your paths or terrainwhen it is placed, depending on your settings.
If you are unsure about being able to line things up, simplyedit the building somewhere out of the way, thenmove the entire thingonce complete.
Getting Started
To start editing, verify you arezoomed inand then click on the piece you want to change.For most buildings, you’ll want tofocus on the front.This is so you canadjust them to fit the type of buildingyou are placing.
There are three types of building frontage:
By changing out thefascias and frontage,you may fit all thesmall and medium-sizedbuildings intomost shells.
To find the correct pieces, you’ll first need to click on the shell andselect the existing front. You can use thename of the pieceto work outwhich theme setit is from.
How To Find The Right Scenery Pieces
To find the matching pieces:
You’ll now see a lot of individual pieces, but don’t panic.We won’t need to touch most of these. To find what you need, you’ll need to godeeper into the menus, since these split down the items by category.
Each section ofthe menu is an icon, but if youhover over it with your cursorit will tell you thename of the category.
The sections you’ll want are as follows:
Building (Castle Icon) > Walls (Brick Wall Icon)
Here are all themain walls.They include plain flat walls in multiple sizes. You’ll only want to look for theshop fronts, which havea windowcut out, andwalls with a door cut outfor now.
Building (Castle Icon) > Arches (Archway With Line Under Icon)
Under here you’ll finddifferent archways. You may not use any of these, but the wider ones can sometimes be useful forcovering the edge and some of the top of facilitiessuch as changing rooms and toilets.
Props (Lamppost And Dinosaur Icon) > Signs And Advertising (Signpost Icon)
This is quite acluttered section,since it includes a wide range ofsigns, fascias, awnings, and signposts, so you may want to use thesubsections.They are:Shop Signs(Stall Icon),Facility Signs(Toilet Icon),Ride Signs(Ferris Wheel Icon),Theme Signs(Star on a Monitor Icon),Signs and Advertising(Signpost Icon),Screens(Triangle on a Monitor Icon),Shop Decorations(Standing Sign Icon), andMisc Signs(Circle and Triangle in a Square Icon).
Mostly you’ll useshop signs and facility signs, to find the signs for your buildings. You may also useshop decorationsfor the awnings and fascias.
How To Change The Frontage
We suggestfinding the pieces to build each type of frontage. This means ashop front with a window, a wall with door, and an archwayif you wish - although you can leave the frontage blank on toilets and changing rooms.
Place them all downby your building.
If your shell has no front, you canplace one of these straight inside. If it does, you candelete the front piece and replace itwith another. Just by doing this, you can make any shell fit almost any building.
When placing pieces, the default settings will allow them tosnap into place using the gridas a guide. This works for any building and enables you toquickly swap out the pieces.
How To Place Shops Inside Shells
It’s now easier than ever to place buildings inside shop shells. First, go to thefacilities tab.Then selectcreate custom.You’ll now see all thebare shells of buildings, which are sorted by sub categories:Shops(Stall Icon),Services(Three People Icon),Staff Facilities(Person and Hut Icon), andUtilities(Lightning and Drop Icon).
Select the buildingyou need and thendrag it towards the shell.As you get close, you should see apop-up menuthat will sayAdd To Shell Name.
While this is visible,click the buildingand the shop willbecome one unitwith the shell. Usually the shop will be placedfacing the wrong way.However, it should be on thesame grid as the shell, so you can simply turn it around.
Pressing Zon the keyboard willrotate it by 90 degrees, orshift and Zallows you tofreelyrotate it on its axis.Holdingshift, and moving the mouse vertically,willadjust it up and down,although this is not usually necessary.
Once the shop or building is in place, this is the bare basics. The rest is decor.
How To Build A Basic Shell From Scratch
Building a basic shell willteach you how to use a few different building tools.You can use this knowledge to make more complex shells, or edit existing ones in more depth. Here, we’llgo through the basic stepsone by one.
Adding Walls
First, you’ll want tofind the facility or shop you want. When building from scratch, it’s easiest toplace the bare building first, since the default settings enable you tosnap walls onto a building. Once they are all placed correctly, you’re able to justdelete the building from the center,and save the empty shell.
As before, you’ll needFacilities > Create Customto get to the building shells.Place the shop or facility you want, then navigate toScenery > Building > Wallsto get started.
The first step is toadd three walls to the sides and backof the building.
By default, you can justdrag these towards the shell, and they willsnap into place.Selected walls can just bepushed by moving the mouseleft and right, and willstop when they are up against a shell.
Once the walls are placed, you’ll want to thenplace the correct front panelfor the building type onto the front.
Adding A Roof
Theroof pieces are the most complexbut when you are just getting started there are acouple of easy cheats to place roofs, especially on small buildings.
Below are some roofs which are all placed either inone piece, two pieces, or four corners, rotated and matched together.
At the back is athatched flat roofwhich is one piece, the blue roof is aflat roof with a curve placed above it, and the wooden one is apre-built viking tiled roof.
These are all just placed down on the top of the building andmoved up by holding shift and moving the mouse.
The front shows the1m pitchedroof, the aquaticbevelled metalroof,2m pitchedroof,pitched corner, andcornerroof.
Thepitched roofs are one piecewhich is just placed, with thelarger buildingsimply beingtwo of themside by side.Triangle pieceswhich match the walls can beplaced to cover the gapsat each end.
The other roofs arefour pieces eachwhich just need to berotated so they match up. With just the Z key for rotating, and shift to move up and down,all these roofs can be placed easilywith default settings.
Adding Details To A Shell
Once you have the core shell,the details are what will make your buildingsyour own. A lot of this will be experimentation. We recommendpulling apart pre-built shellsto see how they fit together and thenlearning how to use a few key tools.
Theeasiest addition is signs, and for this you’ll use thescaling toolas well as theadvanced move tool.
To find a sign go toScenery > Props > Signs and Advertising.Here you’ll findall the shop and facility signsas well as fascias and awnings. Everything is placed in the same way, so the tricks you use here you canapply to any other additional decorative items.
How To Place A Sign
Placing signs is theeasiest way to make a plain shell look eye-catchingand there are several ways to do it. The most common way is simply toadd the appropriate shop signfrom the signs and advertising section.
When you go to place a sign you’ll get somedefault settings you’re able to change,according to what you find easiest. These just affect how the signs are placed initially.
Options forstick to surface, align to surface, andsnap to positionare the main ones you’ll be likely to change, but thedefault combination does work reasonably welland most signs will align properly.
How To Use Advanced Move And Rotate
Advanced moveis the tool which gives youmore flexible options for placing signs.When selecting this you’ll first seethree lines.Thesemove the item up and down, left and right and forward and backward. Youclick and dragthem and the sign will move in the direction of the arrow.
If you mess anything up just hit escape and the last movement will reset.
Advanced rotateis the next option along, and shows youthree circles.Theserotate on three different axisby turning them around. This allows you toangle signs, or ensure they are exactly straight.
How To Use Advanced Scale
Advanced scaleallows you toresize all those huge signsso they properly fit. To use it, simplyclick the blue circle and then rotate.
Clockwise increases the size and anti-clockwise reduces it.However, you need to ensure youfrequently hit the tick buttontosave the current size,as if you accidentally move from one direction to another the signs can end up being too big to size back down.
How To Use Text Signs
There are also alarge number of text signsin the game, many of which are placed on buildings already. To edit theseclick the signand apop-up menu will appear.
In this menu, you canadd the text you want on the sign. Underneath you canchange the font, and at the very bottom thetext colour.The second tab allows you toedit the colour of the signand split it from the building.
If a regular shop sign is too vibrant, these are anice alternative,and using theplain logosmost stores have, or thegeneric decorations,like the crab pictured above, you can make aunique sign more fitting to your needs.
How To Add Finishing Touches
Once you’ve mastered the move rotate and scale functions, you may use these to place any other decorative items on the shell. The best way to learn is simply by jumping into sandbox mode and trying it out. Start by editing existing shells to add, move and adjust things to make them your own, and from here move on to create your own.
