Week 9 Weekly Digest (10th-16th February 2024)
All right, folks! Week 8 is now over, so that means it's time for another Weekly Digest!
Let's start with the Round 6 and Round 7 results...
Round 6 and Round 7 Results
There were
7 responses to the Round 6 Voting Google Form in total, and the winners of Round 6 were as follows:
The complete leaderboard for Round 6 is as follows:
Also, there were
7 responses to the Round 7 Voting Google Form in total, and the winners of Round 7 were as follows:
The complete leaderboard for Round 7 is as follows:
As such, the leaderboard for the overall contest so far is:
Great round, everybody!
Now I've covered the Round 6 and Round 7 results, I think it's about time we moved on... as Round 8 has been
extended by 1 day due to an extension request, I cannot cover the Round 8 voting stage right now. As such, let's move onto the next round...
Round 9 Building
Seeing as we've now completed Round 8, I think we need a new round to sink our teeth into, so it's time for me to reveal the Round 9 brief! The Round 9 brief is...
Icon Reloaded at Blackpool Pleasure Beach! The context for this round is as follows:
In 2018, Blackpool Pleasure Beach ended a 24-year coaster drought by building Icon, a ride that would be revered as a masterpiece and blow the UK coaster scene wide open. Or so they thought... after all the hype, the ride unfortunately has a rather lukewarm, underwhelming reputation 6 years on, and it's become a coaster people almost love to hate. "It's so slow!" they say. "I get more airtime falling out of bed!" they say. "The ride layout is so uninspired!" they say. As such, Blackpool Pleasure Beach have decided to remove the ride and build a new coaster in its place. The park wants to maintain Icon's existing ethos as a family thrill coaster, so they don't want you to build too big or fast, but they do still want a reasonably long ride. Not to mention that with Icon inhabiting an extremely confined site, you have to work around some... obstacles. So, what better coaster will you replace Icon with? Show us!
The constraints for the round are as follows:
- Must Fit Within Icon Area (Maximum Footprint 764ft*256ft/233m*78m With Various Obstacles)
- Maximum Height 100ft/30m
- Maximum Speed 50mph/80kph
- Minimum Length 3,500ft/1,067m
To put things into some perspective, here's the area of Blackpool Pleasure Beach we'll be working with (it's circled in black and labelled "ICON"):
There is some pre-assembly to this week's round in the form of placing some "obstacles" within the area to represent The Big One and Steeplechase, as well as a public footpath.
To help you do this, I have created a step-by-step guide to placing these obstacles in both Google Doc form and video form:
docs.google.com
To apply the footprint constraints, I would recommend using the Scenario Editor to make yourself a park template that allows you to enforce the constraints.
However, if you find yourself unable to impose footprint constraints and/or place the obstacles, I have created a Steam Workshop park template with the footprint constraints pre-imposed and the obstacles pre-placed, which you can download here (it should have also been made public on my profile, for anyone having Steam problems in the link itself):
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3153272617
For console users, I would recommend setting out the footprint constraints using wall pieces or path pieces to build yourself an "area" to work within. Path and wall pieces are typically 4m in length, for reference. For the placement of the obstacles, I would recommend that you follow along with one of the two tutorials I posted above. I know it's not ideal, but it's unfortunately the best I can recommend given that neither Scenario Editor nor Steam Workshop are available on console... sorry for the inconvenience, folks.
Please measure your coaster's height using
Terrain Relative height markers in build mode (this is the setting labelled with a mountain).
To submit, please build your submission, film a POV and off-ride shots of it, and post the video(s) in this thread. You can briefly describe your ride if you wish. YouTube is the website I'd recommend for uploading videos to, as this would integrate best with the Google Form when it comes to voting, but if you want to upload your video(s) using a different method, then that's also fine. If you have any issues with recording or uploading your video(s), please don't hesitate to contact me. I will try my best to assist you.
May I once again emphasise that this is a
coaster layout building contest. By all means add some light theming and landscaping if you wish, but the
coaster layout should ideally be the focus. Quality of coaster layout is pretty much the be all and end all here; heavy theming won't gain you any points, and no theming won't lose you any points.
The submission deadline for Round 9 is
Friday 16th February 2024 at 11:45pm. If you struggle for time and would like me to extend the deadline, please PM me or request an extension in this thread before the deadline.
If you do not make contact with me and ask for an extension, I will assume that you simply do not want to compete in this round and move on after the posted deadline.
I think that's all I need to cover for Week 9. Good luck with Round 9, folks! If you have any questions or concerns about the round or about anything else, please don't hesitate to contact me. I am always more than happy to help.
Get building for Round 9, everybody! Due to the extension request, the Round 8 building deadline has been extended to
Saturday 10th February 2024 at 11:45am. As such, Round 8 voting will begin exactly one day from today, on
Sunday 11th February 2024 at 12am, and the Week 10 Weekly Digest will drop exactly one week from today, on
Saturday 17th February 2024 at 12am.
