Tanks4me05

^In defense of Viper and Predator, they are both actually really good. And yes, I said Predator is good. Once it got Voyage's old trains, it was a lot smoother. Still quite aggressive in the back, but not painful, and actually has a pretty good amount of airtime. The bunny hops kinda leave a bit to be desired, but overall I now consider it a solid ride.

I say just ride everything and form your own opinions. Crowds are light enough that you can easily do everything with multiple rerides in one day.

At least the top voted ones usually tend to be quite sensible (and have consistently been so in other articles I read.)

^Tip: Don't ride wheel seats. I thoroughly love Shockwave at KD, and Mean Streak is actually completely painless, (albeit rather boring.)

Love the Oblivion reference. I think I'll vote for this as the best ride marketing campaign ever.

It's been a long time, but I think we finally have something that rivals the Premier LIM-Bowls. Holy crap.

^^^ Mystery Mine definitely wouldn't fit. The smallest model, a 320+ (an Untamed clone) wouldn't fit either, which takes up a 196.8x124.7x72.2 foot cube. The Galaxy Theater is about 160x110x50 feet in dimensions. If they decided to no longer host shows in the building, (which I honestly doubt, I'm just going by your hypothetical scenario) it would have to be a custom model and the roof would likely have to be raised in at least one spot if they wanted a decent sized lift.

With a slowing down of the lift at the top, the rest of the ride WILL be slowed down, simple kinematics that most people will touch up on in high school physics. That being said, the slowing down may not be noticeable enough to say that the ride is neutered; the most realistic recreation I found had the ride's airtime be reduced by between 0.1 and 0.2 G's when I brought the lift speed down to what it is currently; so in other words, it might be perceptible, but I doubt it will be all that significant, and we already have confirmation from a few members that it really hasn't changed much anyway. Something like 0.5 G's definitely would be noticeable of a drop however; that's about the difference between Nitro or Behemoth and SFNE's Bizarro. Now, I am fairly confident that they slowed it down because of the cracked axles that were reported, due to the slight decrease in speed (definitely not going to do much in reducing comfort.) If anyone wants me to go into greater detail as to why I believe so I could, but I'll be delving into concepts that I just learned this semester as a sophomore mechanical engineer (Solid Mechanics.)

Being the highly analytic person that I am, I timed the ride in the 2013 video versus Coasterforce's and Stellarkart66's 2012 POV's. Measured after the lift, the ride's time has increased by about one second. So there may be a slight decrease in intensity, but I don't know how much. That being said, if someone knows of a near perfect NL recreation somewhere, I can get much more accurate numbers, as I would be able to look at the forces at both lift speeds (I have timed the train cresting the lift and it has been slowed down by a third, to 17.3 ft/sec from the 26 ft/sec advertised on the press release video.)

^Due to the fact that it is aging, it has in fact been taken out. However, he said that it will undergo a long term restoration because they feel that although the repairs are going to be extensive (as expensive as a new flat ride) it will be worth it in the end. I left that out of the original post of this thread because I wasn't previously explicitly permitted to release that information (I'm playing it safe here; I don't want to screw up and get blacklisted from achieving my dream only two years before I get my degree) but since you were asking, I asked him about it directly and he permitted me to talk about it.

No. Space Shot. The drop tower from Alabama Adventure moved to Lake Compounce several years ago.

Another piece of crap just puked in my bathroom and apparently on the stairs as well yesterday. Finally got cleaned about an hour before. My dorm door got egged three weeks ago, and it still smells a little. This sucks.

All caption changes have been made, and all photos have been more properly uploaded.

I totally forgot that TPR has their own image uploading service; I've been addicted to reddit recently so the first thing I thought of was imgur. I'll change that. I'll be changing the captions as well, didn't realize that.

So, over the past few weeks, I have been organizing a private behind the scenes tour with the park's director of maintenance and construction, and I was able to go last Saturday. I'm seeing the effort being put into renovating the park and they are doing a really good job so far. New stuff: -Viper's getting new train decals and I have seen them, but I am not at liberty to say anything more other than they are quite cool. The queue and entrance will also be changed. -Skycoaster is getting renamed/rethemed as part of the Waterfront Boardwalk renovations, though I can't say anything about said name. -The carousel's renovation consists of adding an organ sound system, repainting of the building as well as all the horses and the entire inner drum of the ride, and the entrance will be on the other side of the building, facing all the other Waterfront Boardwalk attractions so it's a more cohesive "zone" of the park. -A new restaurant will come into the Waterfront Boardwalk section. I can't say what it is, but the food should be quite good as well as being a recognizable name; I saw plans of the theming and I am quite impressed. The press release for said restaurant should be next Thursday (4/25) so you'll find out soon enough. -Other cool stuff is being planned, but I cannot mention what that stuff is either. And, onto the pictures! Note that the weather was complete crap today, so I did the best I could with what horrible lighting there was. First thing today was a lift walk of Viper. Never having done a lift walk before, I was having a field day at the minute, even if it was ridiculously cold. Say what you will, I actually kind of enjoy these. And you have to admit, they are often quite pretty. And no, it's still quite popular so it's definitely not going anywhere. I just realized that I seemed to have framed Skycoaster in Viper's loop. Also note Blast Off's completed structure. Honestly, I love Viper. Most Arrows IMO are like the Shelby Cobras and Ford TBirds of roller coasters in how they are fun classics and all. It's a pity the line is often so short on this, it deserves more love from the masses. I'm not the kind of guy who tries to put random captions under the photos just for the sake of it. LEEDLEEDLEEDLEEDLEEDLEEDLEE I would sell a lung, kidney, and half of my liver to get this shot again with Viper going through the loop and a trio of people being hauled up on Skycoaster at the same time. *drools.* Okay, this was my fault. I had difficulty seeing the camera's screen at the time so I accidentally set the exposure way too low. When I tried salvaging the photos, they actually didn't turn out that bad. Definitely not my best work, but I actually kind of like the incidental gritty feel, so I kept it in the end. Grainy photo series, Part Zwei. I think that crane might be for the remaining air compressor systems that have to be hauled in place for Blast Off. I wish I realized that the exposure was so low. This shot could have been so much better. Next up was a lift walk of RoS. So beautiful. I kinda like how Darien Lake is kinda in the middle of nowhere. Driving by, it's farm, farm, small town, farm, ROLLER COASTER, farm farm.... x(t) = 32.5cos(t), y(t) = 32.5sin(t), z(t) = 0.02(t) Now you know the equation for the center of a helix in R^3 Cartesian space. Predator was actually the coaster that started my obsession back when I was nine. And hey, Voyage's trains do help and it's actually pretty good now and has a nice amount of airtime. The bunny hops leave a bit to be desired, but my guess is that the train loses too much kinetic energy from the collisions thanks to the design of the trains and the condition of the track. We were going to do a track walk, but the rain made it too slippery, so these pictures will have to suffice.... for now. A bit more complete of an overview. Looking back across the park towards Mind Eraser. New facebook profile pic. Closeup time. Some more overview for y'allz. Tired of Intamin hyper coaster pictures? Yes? Too bad. I've got a sickness, and the only prescription is more macro. Dont.... look.... down! Oh. Wrong park. Whoops. One of my friends decided to join along as well; I thought I'd be the only other person in the University who is in love with the amusement industry, and I found two in just my classes alone. Every year I spend a crap ton of money by printing out my best photos onto high quality paper with max quality ink, and this will make it for the 2013 cut to be plastered in my campus apartment this year. It may be expensive, but the effect of OMG WALL OF COLOR is totally worth it, and I got a bunch of compliments from attractive women for the photos this past year. Walking back down the lift (it was starting to rain and it was taking probably four or five times longer than usual to operate my camera because I could barely move my hands because they were so cold, even with gloves) and I decided to post some pictures of the latest addition to the family. Water park. See that metal strip next to the antirollback teeth? It's an electrically conductive strip that generates eddy currents that raise up the antirollback dogs via induction, which is why the lift is so quiet. When the motor hauls the train upwards at a slow enough speed, the velocity of the train does not generate enough of an eddy current to keep the antirollback dog up, so it falls into place to keep the train from falling backwards. [/nerd.] For the next hour or so I went inside and saw stuff in the maintenance sheds and some plans for upcoming stuff as I was warming up and waiting for the rain to pass. Unfortunately I was not allowed to take pictures of any of the cool stuff inside. Some more Viper, as I'm walking to the Waterfront Boardwalk. DIRT! OMG DIRT! AND GRAVEL! I'M IN LOVE. Here's the new paint on the carousel building (it's already been posted to their facebook, which is why you guys get to see it.) Some new boardwalk has been put in leading up to Boomerang. It looks quite nice. A closer view of Blast Off. If you look closer to the Giant Wheel, you can see the new concrete paths being put in for the area. I really like what the park is trying to do to make this place prettier, it really makes a difference. It may have been painted a few years ago, but I really like the colors, so I decided to add it in. Grizzly Run's trough needed some fairly extensive repairs, and they are doing just that. (Yes, I got to walk the trough for a few minutes as well.) I also got to see the back view of Mind Eraser. Some nice views you don't get to see every day. Even when the weather was horrible, I still ended up with some pretty good shots. As a finale, I got to take pictures around RoS from outside the property. While this is not normally a restricted area, there are usually a ton of cars because this is where the entrance to the park is so I would have to end up playing Frogger with all the traffic to get these shots. I'll probably try to come on a day that the park is open and the weather is nice so I can take a better picture of this, as this one also has potential to make it onto my dorm wall. Well, that's all I have. Hope you enjoyed.

^Meh. At it's heart, it's simply a large swing ride, (or a short Windseeker) and I suspect that the "tracks" would likely fail from the bending moments created when the cars are pushed outwards from ride's spinning.

Question about Colossus: Those who have been on it, how does it compare to Laser/Teststrecke?

^So I'm not the only one who has bad feelings about this.

If anyone ever travels all the way out to Sylvan Beach, a couple hundred yards away is Eddie's restaurant; a really good diner/Italian restaurant that's been there since 1934, and it even still has a full-on soda bar.

^^I should have been more specific: That type of animation seems to be fairly intuitive, though since we only saw a small sliver, I am concerned as to how limited that can be. I'm talking about whether or not we'd have to get into modding any actual code and whatnot, a skill that I utterly lack.

Wait, does anyone have an idea how it would be possible to animate 3D objects?

I'm sure a lot of it had to do with cost as well. It's a lot easier and cheaper to just mass produce the same cookie-color elements over and over and combine them in different configurations than to redesign them each time. And not having to recalculate the forces for each element for each new ride probably also helped cut down on design time and cost. I'd say it's more "frugal" than "lazy", and just a matter of getting the rides to the park at a low enough price point. I can all but guarantee that the main issue at hand was the lack of computing power. I'm not sure you guys understand how ridiculously complex modern coaster geometry is. Though the math used to create the geometry, at its core, is little more than Newtonian Mechanics and Calculus (that is, 300 - 400 year old math) the sheer complexity of said calculations is absolutely horrendous. (I'm discounting calculating how the track and supports will not collapse, just simply how the coaster will travel in three dimensional space.) The reason Arrow's transitions suck is definitely because the geometry of the sudden changes in angles, etc. are simpler and easier to calculate. The only way to know how hard all that calculation is is to go to college in Mechanical or Civil Engineering, which in order to get a Bachelor's degree will require 80 - 120 hours per week of class, study, and homework for four years straight (that is if you pass everything the first time.) I'm finishing up my second year, and had I not had such the avid dream to design roller coasters, I would have either quit or committed suicide a long time ago. Suffice it to say, a vertical loop's geometry is crazy, a corkscrew's geometry is crazy. Arrow used the same size elements and made the trains travel at the same speeds through the inversions in order to keep the G's safe. They could have used different sized elements, but the calculations would take up a huge amount of time, so calculating them once and using the same geometry was the only way to get a proposal done on time. Note that these designs take a whole team of people about a good four months to do all the calculations for today's designs. Simply put, Arrow really did push the limits of what was possible to calculate at the time. Computers made the grunt work SO MUCH easier, so now we can make much crazier designs in the same time frame. I tried going through an example to calculate the geometry of, and the forces of a simple 540 degree helix to demonstrate how difficult it is, but that took way too much time from my homework and was a mistake to do on my part, and I'll be paying for it in my sleep for the rest of the week. Today, with the power of computing, Arrow's work would be considered lazy engineering, but without computers, you really were limited at how much you could create in a reasonable time frame. I would argue that it would probably take years or decades to calculate a modern design like BTR or the Smiler with hand calculations, and screwing up in something that complex will be very easy. They really were pushing the boundaries of design at the time, I don't know how else to put it.

What are people's opinions on the one that's being built at Darien Lake that got shipped from Alabama Adventure? I've been on six already, but I wanna know how good this one is.

^^You think this is bad? You should go on a TPR tour. He's pretty much completely uncensored and it's hilarious.

Green Scream, Adventure Island, Southend On Sea, Essex, UK. They did a Guinness World Record for most naked people on a coaster.