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Oblivion: General Discussion

JAperson said:
I agree whenever you talk to anyone who isn't an enthusiast they would say that oblivion is the scariest ride there
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The smiler has always scared me the most. I mean it's pretty understandable given how nuts it looks, especially underneath the ride in the queue.
It's the only coaster at towers that I look at and think 'oh crap'
 
jon81uk said:
Smiler makes me think oh do I have to endure that.
Oblivion scares me as the anticipation of the drop is scary.
It’s more comparable to Apocalypse than most coasters.
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Oblivion is much better than The Smiler in my opinion… I’d take one huge drop over repetitive loops any day! The other day, I was in the queue for The Smiler in the morning before it opened - it would have only taken me about 10/15 minutes to get on once open- but then decided to bail because I had a revelation that I could just go on Oblivion multiple times instead (though the queue built up quite quickly and I only got 2 rides anyway…).

Oblivion is definitely my favourite coaster I’ve been on of all - it’s so unique and the simplicity is what makes the drop so much more powerful!
 
spinba11 said:
Given the black hole tent is still there you know it’s pretty old.
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Yep, but I can't recall when lockers were in that location. I've got a feeling there were lockers before Smiler opened and different lockers more recently, but there are none at the moment the Street View was taken!
 
I'm pretty confident the magical, mystery shelter has only ever been used for lockers, the Fastrack/VQ distribution (activated on Oblivion, Submission and then Black Hole), was only ever adjacent to the Black Hole tent, on the hill.
 
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Plastic Person said:
I'm pretty confident the magical, mystery shelter has only ever been used for lockers, the Fastrack/VQ distribution (activated on Oblivion, Submission and then Black Hole), was only ever adjacent to the Black Hole tent, on the hill.
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That does recall something in my memory.

Edit:

normal_DSC00457.JPG
 
What's up with oblivions queue lately, when I was there a couple months ago it was very overstated I'm guessing that's still the same as it's quite consistently getting the same queue time as the smiler
 
George Williams said:
What's up with oblivions queue lately, when I was there a couple months ago it was very overstated I'm guessing that's still the same as it's quite consistently getting the same queue time as the smiler
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Like you say I think it seems to always be overstated. My experience was the same earlier in the year. I think we waited about 15 minutes and the queue said 45 minutes. I really don't know why but oblivion seems to be the worst for queue overstating.
 
Out of interest, why is it that all of Oblivion's staff wear safety harnesses? As far as I'm aware, no other staff in the park do...

Also, a few interesting observations I made regarding Oblivion on my recent trip were:
  • Awesome operations today! On one station, cars were being hammered out about every minute and 30 seconds, leading to a throughput of around 633pph. That's excellent, especially given that the ride was running 4 cars/one station!
  • Restraints were being checked twice today. This happened on no other ride, and I've never seen it on Oblivion before, as far as I can remember.
  • One station lowers the throughput by less than I'd thought. I thought one station halved the throughput, but it actually only lowered it by around 1/3; on one station, I clocked the throughput at 600-650pph, while it was a touch below 900pph on two the previous day. One station does notably slow the queue down, but the throughput dent is not as profound as I'd thought! Although I guess the staff could have felt a greater degree of urgency to dispatch on one station than on two, thus increasing the per-station throughput... they were working really hard on there today!
 
Matt N said:
Out of interest, why is it that all of Oblivion's staff wear safety harnesses? As far as I'm aware, no other staff in the park do...
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Probably because of people like this:
It allows them to get there quicker and get the ride running again. It also means if the ride actually breaks down the staff can get there quickly rather then having to fiddle around with harnesses.
 
Matt N said:
Out of interest, why is it that all of Oblivion's staff wear safety harnesses? As far as I'm aware, no other staff in the park do...

Also, a few interesting observations I made regarding Oblivion on my recent trip were:
  • Awesome operations today! On one station, cars were being hammered out about every minute and 30 seconds, leading to a throughput of around 633pph. That's excellent, especially given that the ride was running 4 cars/one station!
  • Restraints were being checked twice today. This happened on no other ride, and I've never seen it on Oblivion before, as far as I can remember.
  • One station lowers the throughput by less than I'd thought. I thought one station halved the throughput, but it actually only lowered it by around 1/3; on one station, I clocked the throughput at 600-650pph, while it was a touch below 900pph on two the previous day. One station does notably slow the queue down, but the throughput dent is not as profound as I'd thought! Although I guess the staff could have felt a greater degree of urgency to dispatch on one station than on two, thus increasing the per-station throughput... they were working really hard on there today!
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I would simply say that it's poor operations on 2 stations. You'd think in theory the throughput would double, but the other day when it was on 2 there was just no urgency or efficiency from the staff. Whereas like you said if its on 1 station they may feel the pressure to get the trains moving quicker. If it was run properly on 2 stations, they could easily reach 1000 or more per hour. If its getting less, especially less than 900 as you noted, then that's really poor. I guess with a ride like Oblivion it doesn't really matter though as it never gets much of a queue anyway
 
*digs out throughput graph*
throughput.png


So on two stations there was an extra 40+ seconds of faff per dispatch. There's no reason why it should take that much longer.
Matt N said:
Out of interest, why is it that all of Oblivion's staff wear safety harnesses? As far as I'm aware, no other staff in the park do...
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They've always worn them since it opened. Oblivion has a steep lift hill and so it's necessary to wear a fall arrest harness when climbing.

I'm not sure about other rides like The Smiler though. I think the lift has anchor points for one but I don't recall staff wearing them routinely.
 
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