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[2024] Thorpe Park: Hyperia - Mack Hypercoaster

Danscott22 said:
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.
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A very large number of people thought Oblivion was too short when it first opened, the biggest criticism was that it simply didn't do enough...it was declared simply not long enough by an awful lot of people...never a complaint with nemesis.
 
Zadra and Iron Gwazi are being mentioned as short coasters that deliver but this new Break Run: The Ride coaster at Thorpe STILL looks even shorter than them. And by quite a margin too.

Why would you build a coaster so high and then waste all of the velocity slamming it into a long final brake run half way through the layout? Unless you can't actually afford a proper hyper coaster but wanted bragging rights. All very PLC Merlin this.

As has been mentioned, it's already in a country full of short coasters. The Swarm is very disappointingly short and it's in the same park. It's rare to see something so tall being built in the UK and they should be taking advantage of it.
 
Matt.GC said:
Zadra and Iron Gwazi are being mentioned as short coasters that deliver but this new Break Run: The Ride coaster at Thorpe STILL looks even shorter than them. And by quite a margin too.

Why would you build a coaster so high and then waste all of the velocity slamming it into a long final brake run half way through the layout? Unless you can't actually afford a proper hyper coaster but wanted bragging rights. All very PLC Merlin this.

As has been mentioned, it's already in a country full of short coasters. The Swarm is very disappointingly short and it's in the same park. It's rare to see something so tall being built in the UK and they should be taking advantage of it.
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I think the main reason that Zadra is mentioned as being short is because it comes screaming in to the break run at absolute full pelt and feels as though it could do with another element at that point to finish it off and take some of the speed and momentum off of it. But it’s not actually a “short” coaster at all, at 4317ft long it’s actually the joint 10th longest coaster currently operating in Europe.

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It's not all about length, it's what you do with it. Wise words indeed.

On that list, I've done 8 of the 12 that either operate or operated. Ulty was brilliant, PMBO and Silver Star not amazing, Hyperion much better than SS or PMBO, Coaster Express is fine but a bit dull, Taron is really good, Zadra is amazing and Abyssus is a bit crap.

Expedition GeForce is off the bottom of that list and is shorter than the hypers mentioned but is better than all the hypers except Zadra. We can get hooked up on stats all day but stats don't mean everything. Nemesis isn't particularly long and isn't tall but turned out great, meanwhile in the same year PMBO launched and is tall, long and 95% monorail snore fest. Millennium is longer than Swarm but a far inferior ride.
 
It's all about perceived length. I've just watched POVs of Skyrush, Zadra and Iron Gwarzi. All of them are short rides but they don't feel like they've been cut short.
This ride I'm not sure about. The first few elements are huge. The last 2 are significantly smaller, in a way that suggest substantial triming between them. Then it hits the breaks hard.
That description sounds far closer to Oblivion, Stealth and similar 1-trick rides than a full experience.

There's nothing wrong with short 1-trick rides but the UK already has a lot of them. Those first few elements will have to be mind-blowing to make it worth it.
 
Fønix starts with a large element but then keeps up the tempo. Not really an excuse is it?
 
It's an interesting point @Matt N

Skyrush is a great example to compare to Exodus. It is a short coaster but it's so good it doesn't matter. Every element delivers.

Exodus could be similar, I think we could be looking at one of the best ever first drops that could deliver serious ejector air. Its difficult to tell at this stage if the rest of the ride will be forceful enough to make up for the lack of length, but if it does then we could have an M25 version of Skyrush.

I much prefer rides that are longer, that's why I personally don't think Steel Vengeance will ever be topped. Skyrush is my number two though despite the much shorter ride time.
 
What it all boils down to is the fact that Brake Run: The Ride seems to be designed around gaining the bragging rights of the UK height record first and foremost.

Of course, we don't actually know for sure that all these geek recreations are indicative of the final layout. But if the lift hill is that high and the brake run is that long, then it smacks of having the old school PLC Merlin marketing and finance departments finger prints all over it.
 
Matt.GC said:
Of course, we don't actually know for sure that all these geek recreations are indicative of the final layout. But if the lift hill is that high and the brake run is that long, then it smacks of having the old school PLC Merlin marketing and finance departments finger prints all over it.
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I'd say they're likely to be pretty indicative given that they're based upon the planning application and the details given in that.
 
Matt N said:
I'd say they're likely to be pretty indicative given that they're based upon the planning application and the details given in that.
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NL2 creations based on vague planning documents are not anywhere near the same as the blueprints. We'll only know exactly what it's like when we're getting off the ride and waking through the exit gate.
 
The layout screams "we want the height record" and then they've lost interest after that or just don't care, to me. We'll see though, I guess.
 
If they have designed a rollercoaster that is going to slam into the brakes at full speed, I do wonder if there might be a bit of an environmental backlash in the pipeline. So far, the theme park industry hasn't really had too much scrutiny over their energy consumption, but will a ride that obviously wastes quite so much energy draw negative attention to Merlin's environmental credentials?

Equally, with the current trajectory of energy costs, will Merlin still have the stomach for a ride that wastes so much power by the time they finally have planning permission?
 
Squiggs said:
If they have designed a rollercoaster that is going to slam into the brakes at full speed, I do wonder if there might be a bit of an environmental backlash in the pipeline. So far, the theme park industry hasn't really had too much scrutiny over their energy consumption, but will a ride that obviously wastes quite so much energy draw negative attention to Merlin's environmental credentials?

Equally, with the current trajectory of energy costs, will Merlin still have the stomach for a ride that wastes so much power by the time they finally have planning permission?
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I would think that with a traditional chain lift hill the speed doesn’t make as much difference. Yes the motor will have to run longer to ge the train to the top but on many older coasters lift hill motors ran continuously anyway.
 
The motor may well run continuously but it'll be drawing very little power unless there's a train on the lift as chain drives are quite efficient.

The amount of energy required to get a train to a certain height depends only on how heavy it is. A longer coaster is therefore arguably more efficient as it uses up more of this energy by the time it reaches the brakes. Alternatively a ride can be designed with the station and brakes built higher up, so that a shorter lift hill is required. Nemesis and Oblivion are both quite energy efficient in this regard.
 
I think we are massively over-crediting people with the ability to think “this is an energy-efficient coaster” and “this isn’t”.

If the topic is ever looked at (which it may well be one day), the question will be whether amusement rides as a whole are a good use of energy, rather than is coaster layout A more or less efficient than layout B.


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