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Galactica: General Discussion

GaryH said:
Must be working today :


Alton Towers Resort ‏@altontowers 47m47 minutes ago
We are excited to be welcoming @ChrisMoyles and the @RadioX team on board Galactica later today. Prepare for launch and enjoy your flight!
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Looks like Chris Moyles is popular, all rides currently showing 0 waiting times apart from Galactica which is currently showing 80mins waiting times. :eek:

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Ooh interesting.....
Picture of Chris Moyles on Galactica
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Older picture of Galactica
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Notice the new ventilation holes, when were these added? Suggests down time could of been down to the headsets (phones) overheating in the recent hot weather.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk
 
Well I know that my phone certainly gets hot when plugged in and playing video, so I could imagine that overheating phones would be an issue, particularly in the black and unventilated cases!
 
Chris moyles is looking old now. Anyway, i was suprised there was no vents when they where first fitted
 
You'd think they'd consider ventilation when designing the headset. You don't need to be an expert to work out that phones not designed to be used for long periods playing a high graphic video, tracking your movement whilst in an unventilated case whilst being worn on someone's face will overheat. I have a much worse phone, but I can't use my own vr headset for any significant amount of time otherwise it freezes.

Any chance we'll see something like this on DBGT? The headsets are far superior to galactica's, and probably much better thought out, but I noticed mine was very hot and it was only the second train of guests.
 
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There is a tech saying "leading edge, not bleeding edge"
Unfortunately Alton seems to be more bleeding edge with there new tech installs
 
Quite ironic that they had the headsets fully covered to make them waterproof but then the phones begin to overheat! :p
 
When I was at Alton Towers yesterday I went on Galactica and the VR headsets had vents in them and I think the covering had been removed.
 
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I rode for the first time yesterday and found it more impressive than I expected. The second ride had juddery VR and wasn't as well-syched as the first, I felt.

The daft wiping down process has dramatically increased dispatch times compared with Air as well. So many sets had failed by the end of the day, staff were having to pre-warn guests which caused considerable disruption.
 
Any problems today? Went yesterday hardly any VR sets working!! most rows on only 2 or 3 sets. As a group of three we kept getting moved to different rows when one arrived with enough working sets, I felt sorry for poor girl grouping the queue trying to sort out sending us to the gates. Then to cap it all one of the group had their headset overheat during ride and cut out!!! He was given a priority pass but took another half hour to get back on ride (after 1 hour on the first attempt!!!) NOT GOOD AT ALL!!!
 
I personally just think the VR isn't worth it. Maybe I expected too much? But I felt the graphics were quite poor and I didn't feel immersed at all, I also only had one ear working when I rode it. We rode it again without the VR straight after and I really, really enjoyed going through the Stargate thing which pumps out the water vapour. Apart from the grubby station and the climb, I much prefer it as Air without the VR.
 
I find everything about Galactica better than air, apart from the VR. Remove the VR, sort the tunnel out and i'll be happy. Doesn't matter as it wont happen :p
 
I get the feeling they wanted to rush the concept into reality quickly so they could say they were one of the pioneers of VR rides rather than take longer to develop a system that was more reliable and had better graphics etc.
I think they will improve the system for next year though after learning from the negatives this year.
Also as the novelty factor gets less, waiting times may drop as less people see it as a must ride.
 
So, galactica has been open around six months, and I just want to compare it now to when it first opened.

March:
  • Area looked clean, but a few features didn't seem to be working yet
  • Photos were managed well
  • Headsets were new and felt clean
  • Staff didn't seem to know what they were doing at this point, throughput suffered
  • The stations would open at random times, with one often being closed.
  • VR seemed very glitchy and lots of people had broken headsets
  • Towers had no idea whether they wanted wearing the headset to be compulsory or not
Now:
  • Area doesn't quite have the same impact it originally did. Maybe the music's been turned down, or maybe it's the very loud announcements they play at the photo booth tho send more people to the station, but it doesn't feel as good.
  • Overall, the area still looks clean though (well, better than most of the park), and the galactica sign lights up.
  • Photos were broke the other day, so we were rushed through the booth. Had the exact same problem on derren brown a few weeks ago (photo not sending to the shop)
  • Despite the fact they are wiped, the headsets smell. It's not so much the plastic part that touches you face, but the fabric casing
  • Some headsets are visibly damaged, with parts hanging off
  • Staff are much quicker than before, but lots of headsets are out of action
  • Improvements were made to the bridge, but these have already been peeled off by people waiting
Just like to point out though how slowly the queue line moves now. It can be more than ten minutes once your inside the station just because of how many headsets are down and it takes so long to load.
 
Following on from my earlier post, we made a little vlog of our day at Alton Towers at the end of July, which primarily started with/centred around checking out Galactica. I put a little video footage in there of our thoughts if you're interested, if not or if it annoys you then ignore this message! :)

Now that the peeling artwork on the bridge has been pointed out to me I can't unsee it!



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Forgot to mention before, but when I went last week, they were asking people to do feedback in galactica's shop, and handing out 1.4 priority passes once you completed it. I got two (not intentionally, someone else in my group did feedback aswell), so I'm ready for fireworks :)
 
Leah said:
Forgot to mention before, but when I went last week, they were asking people to do feedback in galactica's shop, and handing out 1.4 priority passes once you completed it. I got two (not intentionally, someone else in my group did feedback aswell), so I'm ready for fireworks :)
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Was that on the iPad they have in the shop? When I was there last week you could put feedback into it but there was no rewards of priority passes for doing so.
 
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