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2018: General Discussion

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It doesn't sodding matter if there's nice theming inside the tunnel or not. That is a ridiculous eye sore and shows lack of care, effort and generates a huge "can't be arsed" vibe. Shortcuts and cost cutting at its most blatant.
 
Danny said:
It doesn't sodding matter if there's nice theming inside the tunnel or not. That is a ridiculous eye sore and shows lack of care, effort and generates a huge "can't be arsed" vibe. Shortcuts and cost cutting at its most blatant.
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That’s exactly my thought on Gruffalo, I seriously can’t get over why they didn’t have the imagination to do a proper waterfall instead of the projected version. less than a few hundred quid at a garden centre gets you the pond tub and and some rocks that would of been perfect.
 
So, what will become of Galactica then without VR..... they couldnt leave it that name without doing some more themeing with it. I wonder how easy it would be to add a dark section to it..... maybe the bit where you lay on your back and go up on to the hill where the extra queue line was could be enclosed into a tunnel, with some "space" effects inside.... lights, images,, sound effects etc.....
 
As Air the ride slowed the lift down as and when required and when the previous train entered the brake run it speed up again if I remember correctly. It was my understanding that's what caused the VR to be somewhat out of sync with the ride. I'm not saying that did or didn't have something to do with extra work for the lift.
 
If the train slowed down going up the lift the VR did become out of sync but it sorted itself out at the top, me and @Ian were on one that slowed down, in fact the ride staff have slowed down the dispatches to avoid the train crawling up the lift. I would of thought not having to crawl up the lift would of reduced wear (it not the speed difference, it the actual changing speed that could put extra wear on it).
 
spinba11 said:
If the train slowed down going up the lift the VR did become out of sync but it sorted itself out at the top, me and @Ian were on one that slowed down, in fact the ride staff have slowed down the dispatches to avoid the train crawling up the lift. I would of thought not having to crawl up the lift would of reduced wear (it not the speed difference, it the actual changing speed that could put extra wear on it).
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Although it varies significantly per ride, usually certain parts of a motor will pass through a tolerance where they need to be replaced around once every season, often twice if the ride is running at a faster rate such as with a three car service instead of a two car service and if all trains are full to the maximum. Parts of Galactica’s motor wore out four times before the end of last season which was put down to the stress of carrying not the VR headsets themselves as these weigh under 1KG each (although this would have contributed) but the charging rail and charging equipment that charged the devices.

In the end, constantly replacing motor parts wasn’t deemed cost effective which is why the VR capacity was reduced instead of having full VR capacity on each train, but allowing guests to decide whether or not to use the headset.
 
Lurker said:
Which might have worked well, had they managed to squeeze two seperate queues in.
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Well they’ve already got the queue lines ready just needs someone from Leek signs to print one up.

VR could use the current entrance, Non VR use the old single rider queue and fastrack use the fastrack queue. They all meet at the photo point don’t they?
 
ringo said:
Well they’ve already got the queue lines ready just needs someone from Leek signs to print one up.

VR could use the current entrance, Non VR use the old single rider queue and fastrack use the fastrack queue. They all meet at the photo point don’t they?
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Yes, they'd just need good instructions at the photo point, which doesn't currently happen. Explain which side to stick to when they say which station to go to.

There is also the case of people switching sides after the merge, saving themselves a big queue. They could hand out VR tickets, which are time stamped and taken off you on the train, stops any switching lanes. A lot of faff though, and there is really enough faff already .
 
The faff situation isn't helped by the fact it's a double station that sees trains more often than not return to the opposite side to where they started. It would be far easier to have one station VR and the other not, but that can't happen. It would also not help the issues described above if a full train of VR increase's the trains weight so much it causes lift issue's.

I think the best option all round is to scrap the unfortunate idea and return that (and all the other coasters that have been infected by the VR plague) back to a normal coaster.
 
Ash84 said:
I think the best option all round is to scrap the unfortunate idea and return that (and all the other coasters that have been infected by the VR plague) back to a normal coaster.
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But it’s the future of theme parks, that’s what Merlin told us. Merlin won’t admit defeat although Varney did lay blame with their suppliers in that interview last week.
 
It’s almost as if the ride wasn’t designed for VR and therefore the operations and infrastructure of the queue can’t deal with it well. ;)

Scrap it and get the ride back to a decent throughput.
 
I think VR has potential, but there is a lot more polish that needs to be applied for it to be successful.

The masks need to be lighter and more comfortable to wear.
The timing, motion, focus & quality all need to be tightly controlled to provide the best experience, in line with your movements.
The quality of the screens need to improve (resolution, focus, and quality of CGI in the videos being played).
There shouldn't be any light leak, which means more padding.

Basically the technology isn't quite where it should be in order to provide the best possible customer experience. The current iteration of VR coasters seem more like prototypes and proof of concepts.

The suppliers provided a product that isn't perfect, but Merlin may have overestimated the technology and underestimated the operational impact and costs.

A good idea that's going to take a lot of iterations to get right. We keep stepping further away from red and blue carboard and sweet wrapper glasses and closer to good 3D.
 
Remove the VR. Theme the tunnel
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