How to increase your income and maximize your profits. The time taken for guests to get on a ride can be critical - Try to always build the ride entrance next to the last block of a station platform, so the trains can be loaded as quickly as possible. This will allow the ride to operate at maximum capacity, without long delays waiting for passengers to walk along the platform from the entrance to the train.

On-ride photographs are a money-spinner. The running costs are very cheap, and guests will be willing to pay high prices for a photo if the ride is exciting enough. Be careful with the positioning though - Try to position the on-ride phototrack in an exciting position, where the train is travelling at speed.

Some of the more gentle rides can be money-spinners in poor weather. Rides like the monorail give the guests a chance to shelter from the rain, and also enable them to see some of the other attractions around the park, so they know whereto go when the weather improves.

Umbrellas can also be a money-spinner in poor weather. The guests are often willing to pay vastly inflated prices for umbrellas when it rains, so use the opportunity to make a quick profit by increasing the prices when it's wet.

In climates where the weather can be poor, build at least one big ride partly or entirelyunderground. Underground or dark rides can be very exciting, and will also be very popular when it's pouring with rain outside.

Try to build your largest and most popular rides at the far end of the park, rather than near the park entrance . Positioning your big rides further into the park will mean your guests will be drawn past all the other rides and spending opportunities on their way to the big ride. If you put popular rides near the park entrance, the queues may become far too long, and guests will become unhappy before they've even had a chance to see the rest of the park.

Water rides can be very popular, so try to build the station platform as long as you possiblycan, so that the maximum number of boats can be used and guests don't have to queue too long.

Charge the guests a much higher admission price for a brand new ride - Keep putting the price up until the guests complain or turn away at the entrance in large numbers, then drop the price until they stop complaining.You'll have to keep checking guests' comments about the ride though, as the novelty factor of a new ride will wear off quickly, and you'll have to drop the price to keep the guests riding as the ride gets older.

If you need a certainpark rating and you only have a few weeks or months left and you are still below the required rating, do as everyone else does... panic. Since it averages abouta month to two months to build another nice coaster, you cant really do that. So instead, i like to make the entrance fee FREE, and every ride fee FREE, and drinks/food/etc. like $.20 cents or $.30 cents. Yeah youwont make much money, but it's incredible what it does to your park rating.:)

· If you have a scenario that requires you to have a certain amount of money by a certain time (I know I know, not many scenarios require that), or if you are just after some quick cash, remember your Information Kiosk's and your Souvineer Shops. When it's raining, guests will come crawling on their hands and knees for an umbrella. Sell umbrellas at $4 to$5 (U.S currency),even though the original price is only $2.50. Some, but few, guests will complain about the price, but hey, they'll either be wet or pay. Also,the park maps are originally only $.60 cents. Dont raise this too much because it isnt needed as bad as an umbrella would, and it keeps people from getting "lost". Once again, few complain, most buy.

· There are times when you aren't building - either waiting for $$$ or the next research...what do you do? Start taking "Exit Polls," just clicking on customers as they leave, checking how many rides, how much money, what they bought. However, there is a problem with this - only rides that charge get listed,so if you have a high entrance fee and only charge for the premium rides,you can't really tell what they did in the park. Here is a solution. Keep the park entrance fee at or bel;ow $35 (US) (A lot of park goes only have $40), then charge a dime ($.10) for all the rides. Most won't complain about that low of a price, and then you can see who spent 3 hours riding 35 rides,while still spending less than $40.00. Like I said, not much of a tip for winning, but it does keep the wait time interesting.

· To helpincrease excitement here's a tip from Sam: One thing that can majorly improve a ride is by making it a dueling coaster. Racing Coasters do okay, but a dueling coaster (side by side) majorly adds excitement.

· Do you ever have boats or carts get stuck on the rides after a break-down, then start piling up because they don't have the "oomph" they would normally haveto get down the slide? Its a drag to have to double-click to close the ride to get your boats back, but then have all of your guest leave the queue, and wait for them to return. Pause the game, after necessary repairs are made, reduce the number of rides, unpause and then repause, and add back your rides. Change the cars to get a variety. Unpause and watch the ride get recrowded. ·

At the start of a scenario, you may find that the park doesn't have an entrance fee, butthe rides all cost obscene amounts of cash. Well, be ruthless and charge your guests to enter...and then change the prices of your rides to about 40 pounds for gentle rides, 60 - 80 pounds for thrill rides, and rides that cover a large area, such as rollercoasters, water slides, water rapids,etc...charge 100 pounds. Are your handymen are a problem? Do you find they have wandered off and start cutting the grass? Heres the solution: havea very, very basic path system and get each of your handymen to walk amaximum three blue blocks (never more). When that has been done, tell themnot to cut the grass.

Mechanics tend to walk around unoccupied...so give them something to do. Change the time interval that the engineers check your rides to every 10 minutes. Also place ride exits next to ride entrances so that your mechanics can find the rides more easily. Important: don't assign a route like you would for the handymen. This is a pointless feature because the mechanics are picked randomly and not necessarily the nearest.

Park Security and Entertainers are very expensive when on a park sized scale. So don't have it on park sized scale and remove all benches, bins and lamps from your paths. Set up a block 4 by 4 or 4 by 8 or 4 by 12, and make sure the pathis total covered by a handymen, security men and entertainers. When youhave done this, fill the area with benches, lamps, jumping water, bins...delete the path in the middle so you can place statues or gardens. By doing thisyou create a place for people to sit, but the security and entertainers when assigned a route will be extremely effective. PickUp Desciption :PickUp is a term I use to describe the number of people a ride affects.For instance, placing a ride's entrance next to an over-crowded area, such as the exit to a great rollercoaster, may seem like a good idea. But when too many people are crowded in the same area, people will complain of over-crowding.The best place to place the entrance of a ride's queue is next to the exit of the same ride, and away from other busy areas (this draws people outof crowded area and the ratings go up). Also place shops and stalls to have the same effect.

Try not to place complex paths over one another because the handymen become confused and don't clean up the rubbish. Heres how to get a rating of 999 (highest youcan get) and 100,000 pounds:

· Place handymenas explained earlier, make sure paths are totally clean.

· Make surerides have entrances and exits near departing end of ride stations (reducesloading of guest times).

· Make surerides have two ( 2 ) brakes before station platform, as station brakesfailing is the only way rides crash. (last brake before station always9 mph).

· Check rides every 10 minutes as explained earlier.

· Keep the entrance fee high, but have the rides cost little, as explained earlier.

· Remove ridesless than 60% efficient (crashes always happen at this point).

· Never place high excitment rides next to entrance of park...let the guest walk pastthe other boring ones to absorb all their money while on their way to thelarger rides.

· Place shop sand stalls every where (not on every available square) so there is never a time when a guest can't see one (guests work on the same principle asyour employees, they see four squares around them).

· More trains on your rollercoasters rides brings in more money and reduces queuing times.

· Never have benches, lamps, bins, etc on your paths because they get vandalised and its expensive to have park wide security system. (Ratings go down, people leave by the hundereds).

· At any free moment, advertise your park / rides, and offer free entrance fees (neverdrinks and rides (they have to pay to get in, remember)).

· Don't beput off if a message appears saying 'Guests are commenting that your parkentrance fee is cheap' and you've already got the price at 90 quid, mypark at Evergreen gardens (or whatever its called) had an entrance feeof 120 quid. These tips do work and you'll find you'll have more moneythan you can spend.

Note: Its impossibleto get a rating of 1000 because when the park quest increases, the ratingsgo down. And when guests leave, it's normally because your parks got problemsand the ratings must be low then anyway.

· System Tip:Rollercoaster Tycoon is one hell of a RAM hungry game! So when the gamebegins running really slow, move the screen to the far edges because thegame runs all units graphically, and not as an independent program...and the game will run marginally faster. (Don't be afraid of leaving the gameto run on its own for half an hour when your park is up, and running efficiently,but you've run out of money (it takes about 2 to 3 hours for a three year scenario to run ona Pentium with at least 64 Megs Ram).

Another tip for winning Scenarios: If you have an objective of getting a certain amount of people in your park, do this sneaky trick: when you get the right amount in, block the exit to your park with a statue, and just wait until the time is up. This is best done near the end of a scenario,otherwise your park rating will start to go down.