The Spiral Slide is a Gentle Ride featured in RollerCoaster Tycoon 1 and all future installments.

(Shortstuff's Slide in Diamond Heights)

“Wooden building with an internal staircase and an external spiral slide for use with slide mats.” - In-game description.

Technical Information

Stats

• Base Excitement Rating: 1.50
• Base Intensity Rating: 1.40
• Base Nausea Rating: 0.90

Stat Contribution Values

• Excitement Rating Value Multiplier: 50
• Intensity Rating Value Multiplier: 10
• Nausea Rating Value Multiplier: 0
• Soft Guest Cap Contribution: 40

Building Information

• Size: 2x2
• Base Cost: $330.00
• Cost of Supports (per unit per tile): $1.00
• Support Height Limit: 35ft/10.5m/+7

Other Information

• Guest Capacity: 5
• Sheltered?: No

Building a Spiral Slide

The Spiral Slide is an iconic Gentle Ride, being featured in many of the game's UI elements, but the ride is also very distinctive in its gameplay applications too. Its 2x2 size means that it can sometimes fit into tight spots that other flat rides can't.

It has a respectable maximum support limit of 7 height units above the ground, but on the downside, the ride itself is quite large, requiring a path or track to be built 8 height units above its station level to be able to clear it.

The Spiral Slide has a very odd facet in its customization. It has two operating modes that are quite self-explanatory, "Single ride per admission" and "Unlimited rides per admission", and you can adjust the maximum number of people on the ride to be any number from 1 to 5. By default, this number is 2 and its default operating mode is Single ride per admission.

You should always set every Spiral Slide to build to be able to hold 5 guests at the same time and keep the operating mode to a single ride per admission. Allowing guests unlimited rides per admission will increase the stats slightly and allow you to charge more money for them, but it will also take a lot longer for the guests to walk off the ride. Guests may even sometimes complain that they've been on the ride too long and want to get off, even though they can leave the ride on their own volition and will continue to take extra rides on the slide.

Setting the maximum number of people that can be on the ride to any number lower than 5 has no positive impact.

Even though the ride does not appear to have any mechanical components, it can still break down, so you will still need a mechanic to inspect and fix the ride.

Stats

The Spiral Slide has decent stats for a Gentle Ride. It has an average base Excitement Rating of 1.50, the third-highest base Intensity Rating of every Gentle Ride at 1.40, and the second-highest base Nausea Rating of every Gentle Ride at 0.90.

There is very little you can do to increase this, but changing the ride's operating mode to unlimited rides per admission will increase these ratings by 0.40, 0.20, and 0.25 respectively (which is the only way to increase its Intensity and Nausea). It does also have a high scenery bonus value at 25,098 for its Excitement, which can increase the Excitement Rating by a maximum of 0.89 points.

Throughput & Profit

Despite its tiny guest capacity, the Spiral Slide can make quite a good throughput due to its extremely short ride time of only about 3 seconds. When set to have a maximum capacity of 5 guests at a time with a single ride per admission, it can process 600 guests per hour.

Assuming it is built in "single ride per admission" mode without any scenery around it, it has a maximum ticket price of $7.60 for the first 5 months and $3.60 for months 5-13. Using its 5-13 month old price, it can reach a theoretical profit of about $2,000.00 per hour, which is among the top half for Gentle flat rides.

Verdict

The Spiral Slide is one of the better Gentle flat rides in the game. Its tiny ride time can make a very good profit, and its compact size is useful for fitting in small spaces that other rides can't.