Galactica: General Discussion

10 minutes now

Didn't last long, gone down now according to the MAP fb group, same for Oblivion, although that's stopped at the top of the lift hill so it's probably Jordan with her camera phone out again.

80 minutes now, everyone trying to get a ride in before it lies down for another month.

In comparison Rita is at 30, Spinball 20, Smiler 15, Nemmy 10, Blivvy 5, Th13teen 0.

I have to say, the new headsets are dreadful. The quality of the video is poor, it's pretty much pointless wearing the headset now, it just jumps every few seconds! And also, pretty sure most people weren't using the VR headsets!


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It seems the end is nigh here

Jb85 said:

It seems the end is nigh here

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We can only hope.

I think we can safely say that Galactica's days as a VR coaster are finally numbered.

Hope so. Each time I go on it now I would say only a handful of people wear the goggles. Most do not.

did it enhance the ride whatsoever?

The only bit which enhanced the right slightly was the new portal. Which, ironically, you dont see when wearing the goggles!

What I think would be a good compromise is to have the first 3 rows VR and the rest of the train VR-less. Separate the queue and use the front row queue as the optional VR queue. It would increase throughputs, they'd have less issues and it wouldn't make it a complete waste of money.

The VR was okay when it was first implemented and you were lucky enough to get on a ride where it was working properly (quite rare). Unfortunately, since the new headsets were fitted I've only ridden it with the VR twice out of the many times I've visited this year and each time it hasn't been working properly - at all. The first time I had no audio and the second time the video was extremely distorted with no audio again so I haven't bothered since. I have noticed Figment being on site a lot though so who knows?

I'd say about a third of people on the last five trains were using the VR.

This doesn't seem to be about many of the issues we complain about. I hear a lot of people simply hating the idea of having something strapped to their face whilst they ride a coaster.

Galactica isn't going anywhere for a few years yet. I understand why some want it gone, but not why people think it will be? As long as there are at least some VR headsets available, it's still marketable whereas a costly retreat back to Air would be just be for enthusiast nostalgic reason.

It will never go back to Air. If the VR ever goes it will simply be Galactica but without VR.

Will always be Air to us

matthewgcole said:

whereas a costly retreat back to Air would be just be for enthusiast nostalgic reason.

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It would save £1000s in the medium term for the pretty regular need for VR maintenance. Anything non-critical to H&S is rarely maintained well after 5 years due to the way MMM fund projects, and computer control parts become obsolete fairly quickly beyond that time too. It would almost certainly save £millions in that same period on staffing alone.

Removing the VR would also greatly increase throughput for guests and Air would remain as popular a draw for guests to the park as it was previous to Galactica. The boost for Galactica is already on its way out, if it had anything significant beyond the opening year anyway. I certainly havn't witnessed much of the public taking to the Galactica idea beyond a bit of novelty.

It would certainly save a whole lot of money in the medium term, and Merlin tend not to care about /fund maintenance on attractions after their first 4 years anyay. Although I can't really think of a similar big reverse by Merlin, other than the 'Brave it Backwards' thing on the Swarm (which also wouldve been costly to adapt the ride and have it re-assessed), which was unpopular and so got U turned easily.

I don't think there's any serious nostalgia for Air, I think it was just a flawed decision to rehash it with VR in the first place.

To be clear, I see 5 years as a realistic expectation for the VR remaining. By "any time soon", I'm thinking around that ball park, whereas the "back to Air" talk seem to be implying that this is Glactica's last stand and that a change back to the good old days is imminent.

This notion that some sort of retreat to the good old days of Air is on its way is ridiculous. Even if VR usage and reliability is low, the whole ride was rethemed to fit it and so was the marketing. This is incomparable with The Swarm as the ride is still new and was not sold/ rethemed long term as anything else. So regardless of cost, Thorpe went from The Swarm with backwards seats to just The Swarm. Still the same product, just with 1 less feature.Alton would be going from a brand that has dominated it's marketing for the past year and a bit in Glactica, back to a ride that was stale before the change just to keep a few fans on here happy.

Whether people use the VR or not, this has breathed new life into an already underwhelming the ride. I don't like it that much either, but what it has done is both draw attention to and refresh an older attraction that needed it.

Would the public share the view that it was stale? I thought it was pretty popular and entertaining for most, not nearly as fun as it could be though.

It needed new life breathed into it I agree, the ride experience was practically left unfinished when it opened, so it soon wore thin, but looking at the obvious results I dont think VR was a good option.

The ride has hardly been transformed into a different beast, I forget Galactica is even a thing its so generic and thinly spread. They moved the furniture around and gave it a new logo, I think it could go VRless without any real marketing damage to be honest. Well it would be funny if they did and so many people ride without VR anyway.

But yeah I doubt thered be any kind of Uturn being talked about currently. Was a pretty silly rushed idea in the first place though!

VR won't last much longer on there, it's a nightmare for Towers and it just does not work for Air/Galactica. It's a ride that was never designed for VR having VR thrown at it. Even rides built from the ground up with VR at the centre of it struggle to work fluidly. So an already complicated enough ride having a complicated VR system placed on top of it, it was never going to work out well apart from being unique to advertise.

Once SW8 opens and that takes charge in Alton Towers marketing, they will quietly drop the VR on Galactica in 2-3 years time and no one will probably notice.