Oblivion was the world's first vertical drop coaster, and is short because it focuses on the drop being it's main element. It can therefore afford to be short, because the drop is what it was intended to be about. The same with Stealth, it's about the launch and top hat. As far as I'm aware, hyper coasters are not designed to be short generally, and this is why Oblivion and Stealth aren't fair comparisons to what should have been a full length hyper coaster, not half of a layout and a 50 mile long break run.
That’s a fair point, and I was perhaps wrong to include those two rides in my comparison as they’re very different in design, but I would counter that Exodus certainly doesn’t look like a typical hyper coaster in design, so the typical hyper coaster rules might not really apply to it.
As I said above, it appears to have more of a relentless, intense layout design that is quite uncommon on hyper coasters, but arguably suits a shorter ride better. Perhaps a fairer comparison would be Skyrush, a hyper coaster that is designed in a similar way. It’s also short, but it is apparently very intense and unrelenting, and I never see the same complaints about the length of that. Ditto with things like Zadra and Iron Gwazi; they are designed to have a more unrelenting layout design, and they aren’t an awful lot longer than Exodus will be, but I don’t see anyone complaining about the length of those rides. I’d argue that Exodus looks similar to these rides, and that having a longer ride might not have provided the same effect. To me, at least, it appears to play to the strengths of not being the longest ride by taking much more of a “bam, bam, bam” type approach to its layout design than your typical hyper coaster, which makes it suit its length adequately rather than feel like a stunted version of a ride that should be longer (which I’ll admit might have been the case had it had more of a traditional layout design). If it were longer, the layout style they chose might not have the same effect.
For that reason, I’m not sure the rules of a typical hyper coaster really apply to this ride. I get your point, and I might agree if Exodus had a more typical layout design, but I don’t think that Exodus’ length is a problem given the way they’ve designed the layout, personally. You’ll still get a decent 40 seconds of ride time and a good 5 or 6 elements, which should be enough to convey its unrelenting layout style adequately without feeling like it goes on for too long, in my view.
If length is important to you in a ride, then fair enough. But I don’t think Exodus is designed like a typical hyper, so extra length might not have benefitted it within the sphere of what it tries to do. Too much extra length may almost have been counterintuitive to conveying the relentless design that Mack and Merlin appear to be going for.
That’s just my thought, though; I’m not expecting anyone to agree with me. I apologise if I’ve annoyed you or wasted your time.
