Hyper/Looper

Right... I don't think anyone writes them off as bad rides, but in the big picture, there's better stuff out there, and it's rarely the bigger stuff. If the opposite were true we'd all rave about Mean Streak and not The Raven.

Actually, my personal taste is all for giant smooth inversions- like Riddler at SFMM. I adore the Batmans, too, but somehow I don't enjoy the high-G "snaparounds" too much... I'm in for that flying freefalling weightlessness feeling of big smooth loops. Call me a whimp.

Maybe I haven't ridden enough coasters, or maybe I just have a completely backwards view on rollercoasters as most of you...but how can you say you dont like large loops? Superman Krypton Coaster has the largest loop on a Floorless Coaster out there...(that I know of, I'm sure someone will be quick to correct me in less than oh..say...2 seconds)..and I love that loop. Its the feeling of weightlessness..you just glide through it and have a chance to go .."holy hell-i'm 114 ft up in the air..upside down"..then you dive back down to the ground at 60 miles per hour. How is that not intense? I find it even more intense that you almost stall at the top of a loop....and the weightless effect is the same reason I love zero G rolls.

I think it would be a bit retarded to split the coaster into two different sections. hyper, then looper....that defeats the entire effect I was thinking of, to link in a large Inversion (particularly a zero-g in place of a camel back, and not just a huge loop) to maintain the speed, as well as an inversion or two.

Jeff:

You said earlier that it wasn't up to the designers, it was up to the parks. Well, yes, that is true...but do you think Six Flags designed the floorless coaster? Maybe they thought up Inverted coasters as well...No, the companies did..and introduced them to the parks. I'm not saying that parks dont have anything to do with design (CP, KNB, and HW come to mind)..but the coaster companies are the creators of new rides and innovative ideas. Now who knows, maybe they have thought this up, pitched it to a park, and they just didn't buy it..but I have a feeling that haven't.

In case you were wondering, yes, I realize that this post is pretty much just one big run on sentence.

anyway..thats just my two cents. i'd love to see this created..but for now, i'll just have to stick to my own designs on rollercoaster tycoon to get my kicks on this one...

I'm all for "floaty" inversions. (see my first post where I set the current record for "floaty" useage) and I thought Riddler's Revenge was a great ride.

But the examples of Hulk and Alpengeist don't have "floaty" inversions. They don't have intense inversions. They just have big boring (relatively speaking, of course) inversions.

However, I totally disagree that the big floaty inversions are "intense". They're good, silly fun, but that's not coaster intensity. In fact, it's about the exact opposite of what I'd call intensity on an inversion.

*** Edited 12/15/2003 8:33:05 PM UTC by Lord Gonchar***

All this and nobody mentions Speed: The Ride? Its got a 200' spike and a loop and a launch:)

And so does Mr Freeze, but the conversation has taken yet another course, more along the lines of BM chastising and use of the word "floaty" ;)

Aww, this is nothing against B&M. It just so happens it's two of their coasters in question. I offered equal praise for RR and B:KF's loop.

But never...never ever...never ever ever...dis "floaty".

"Floaty" ownz :)

I agree w/ Gonch. I'm a big fan of the hang time in the large inversions on Medusa E. I wonder why we can't see a looper with big hang time and B:TR level intensity (although B:KF comes pretty close). *** Edited 12/15/2003 9:19:41 PM UTC by ApolloAndy***

....and I will never ever, ever, ever, ever write a song about the "floaty"....

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Impulse-ive said:

I don't think you'll see the two combined because even huge elements would lose their punch. A major part of inversions is to give positive Gs (fact pulled from Mitch's poll!) and something as big as a 200' tall loop probably won't do that.

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But that argument isn't valid for the same reason that "Taller rides mean higher g-forces" isn't valid. The size of the element doesn't necessarily matter because that's not considering the speed of the ride. For instance, a standard Arrow-sized loop executed at a very slow speed will have far less g-forces than a much larger B&M loop that the train travels through at a high speed.

In other words, bigger elements don't necessarily mean less g-forces, as long as the speed of the train when going through the elements is high enough (and that the transitions aren't too gradual). If it's true that Alpengeist's elements are fairly "forceless" it's because the train travels too slowly through them to exert g-forces on the passengers, not necessarily because the cobra roll is big.

-Nate

And now, the High speed/G-force debate resolved in four easy steps:

1) Take a turn on a city street corner at 65 MPH in a Ford Explorer
2) Roll over and over and over, being mindful of your head
3) Wait for Ford and Firestone to get done blaming each other
4) Get your SUV fixed and try the same turn at 15 MPH

See? Fewer Gs. End of story.

Next week, we'll demonstrate the effects of catastrophic brake failure with a Ford Pinto.

-CO
*** Edited 12/15/2003 11:00:25 PM UTC by CoastaPlaya***

Oh! Oh Oh! I have a metro, can we do something with that?

I think it all just goes back to parks not doing alot of sit down loopers. Parks either have a looper, a hyper, or both, so why build another that has both? There's no reason. If it were a new park, and they were looking for a launched 500' Looping inverted standup fourth dimensional wooden coaster, I could see them wanting to blow this in the GPs face with marketing(no, I don't believe it will ever ever ever happen, just an example), because they wouldn't already have something that did all that.

I think we'll see some new loopers in some of the new parks that are proposed(the Hard Rock one @ Myrtle still looks like its going to be a sure thing, and if, big if, the one in pittsburg gets done, maybe there), but parks nowa days don't look to just put a looper in, and ones that do seem to be getting saturated with B&M Floorless coasters.

Just my .02 cents.:)

Preparing to defend your views on Alpengeist: free

Seeing this;
"But never...never ever...never ever ever...dis "floaty"."
immediately thinking this;
"....and I will never ever, ever, ever, ever write a song about the "floaty"...."
then seeing it in type two posts later: free and priceless

Realizing that you've spent way too much time on the 'net and computer lately: priceless

Ok, so as my first little Mastercard thing said, defending my views on Alpie: I completely agree with Gonch (*gasp*!) and Jeff here about Hulk too. And coasterdude, these two coasters just prove my point - the inversions are fun, don't get me wrong (Alpie 31, Hulk 38 in my Mitch poll for argument's sake) but they don't produce the same forces you feel on Talon, or the B:TRs. You're just up there floating around thinking "ok, what's next". That's not intense, that's just a little odd since you're over a hundred feet in the air, upside down when you're thinking that.

To further my point, CO's very accurate post about the corner is the same idea. Talon, B:TR, etc. feature "city corner" inversions, while Alpie, Hulk, etc. feature "interstate" inversions. Take the interstate at 65, you *might* roll your Suburban Attack Vehicle if its icy, but probably not, and if its taken at 25, G-wise, it probably won't feel as vastly different as the same two speeds on an inner-city 90-degree. So there ya are - we're all talking about the same thing here, just half like the "interstate" inversions, and the other half prefer "city corner" inversions.

And I will never ever ever ever ever ever dis the floaty*.

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* - all rights reserved Lord Gonchar, not used with permission, but hoping he won't mind

Right, but as Playa' said, it's not the size of the corner (element) that matters, it's the speed taken around (through) it. This is exactly why it's invalid to claim that large elements are boring/floaty/not intense/etc.

-Nate *** Edited 12/16/2003 1:54:20 AM UTC by coasterdude318***

Well, if you're going to build a 200' loop, you better be going really really f'n fast if you want it to be anything other than a yawnfest.

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coasterdude318 said:
Right, but as Playa' said, it's not the size of the corner (element) that matters, i

But I thought that was exactly what he was doing by using the distinction of it being a city street corner as opposed to a curve on the highway? Not tring to disagree with you, but I have to say I got the same thing out of it that Brett did.

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ApolloAndy said:
Well, if you're going to build a 200' loop, you better be going really really f'n fast if you want it to be anything other than a yawnfest.

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Well, umm, yeah..that was the entire point of my post. A hyper/looper.

Yes, and we're giving you near-200-foot rides as examples. See: Alpengeist.

It's not the size that matters, it's how you use it. (Somebody had to say it eventually....it's the offseason).

(Yeah, I'm a bit late to the party here...)

I think what it all boils down to is a persons definition of "intesity" on a coaster. Some of you think Alpengeist isn't intense because the elements are large. I, however, think from the bottom of the first drop to the exit of the cobra roll is mind numbing speed mixed with some damn high G forces, especially while exiting the vertical loop heading for the cobra roll.

I agree with Nate in the fact that the speed plays a major role in how intense an inversion is. For example, Jeff keeps bringing up how big the inversions are on Alp...well the vertical loop is 106ft vs. Raptors 100ft vertical loop. But Alpengeist takes that loop faster than Raptor does (it has to if it wants to make it up the 100ft cobra roll!). So that comparison doesn't really work for me as much. And that's why I still say it's a persons definition of "intense" that we're debating here.