AllegroCrab

I think there's a similar amount of risk associated with both of them, yeah we've had some accidents on carnival rides, but you have to remember (apologies for being blunt) 4 people died at Dreamworld last year on the river rapids ride. It can happen in any situation, but the likelihood is so low that it's considered a freak occurrence for either setting. Bottom line is that both are ridiculously safe compared to almost anything else you do in life, and we've heard it a million times before. You're much more likely to be in a car crash on the way to the park than you are to be in an incident at the park, yet no one thinks twice about getting in a car to go to work or school every day. Health and safety laws and regulations are there for a reason, but you can't live your life being afraid of anything that moves, you'd simply get nowhere and achieve nothing. I reckon there'd be no point riding carnival coasters if it weren't for that heightened feeling of impending doom. They're all pretty rubbish on face value. I simply don't get that on coasters at parks anymore, but it's something carnie rides still deliver for me, whether it's an illusion or not. And that's just the coasters, in general, I find carnival flats are of a higher quality experience-wise compared to flats at parks.

@AlexB I don't see a problem with the subjectivity of this question, it gives us more to talk about that isn't pointless back and forth like how tall a hyper is. (It's 200ft, no less, by the way!) I don't think the two options I picked are conclusive enough, so I'll elaborate, what makes a coaster truly great, is when you nail what you set out to achieve when designing the coaster. Instead of rabbiting on for hours with millions of examples, I'll just pick one case study: Jet Rescue vs MDMC. Both are 'motorbike' coasters, so what are the things that you want to get right with this type of coaster? It's a ride that should be marketed towards a more family audience, without completely alienating those seeking thrills. It's themed around motorcycles/jet skis, two fast moving vehicles in their true forms, so you want this coaster to have a good sensation of speed. Also, jet skis and motorbikes don't really involve much flying or height, so you'll probably want the layout to stay relatively flat. The type of coaster and market lean greatly towards theming the ride, so the best implementations of this kind of coaster will have elaborate themed scenery and an established ride theme. Because it is best marketed as a family ride, you'll want to keep the forces less intense, however you will need to keep the ride exciting, so fast pacing and keeping that sensation of speed is paramount to this type of ride being a success. Now let's look at what these two coasters do right: Both have a relatively flat layout, true to their subject matter as motorbikes and jet skis. Both have a decently detailed theme that is relevant to the coaster style. Both have suitably fast initial launches, not too intense, but perfect for their family market. Once we get to here (as most of you probably know) MDMC starts to lose out big time, here are the things that it does wrong: The track is way too high off the ground, killing its sensation of speed. The corners and the transitions between them aren't fast paced or intense enough. The turns should have been sharper (and in turn, banked more) in order to bring the intensity up to that golden point for a family coaster. There is little scenery once you leave the station. Dreamworld really didn't capitalise on how much of an effect theming this coaster's layout properly would have on the ride experience, even without changing the layout to make it more exciting. Furthermore, having scenery close to the riders would add to the sensation of speed that this ride is severely lacking The ride goes on for too long for the amount of momentum the first launch gives. Jet Rescue, on the other hand, does these things well: The track is low to the ground, making you feel like you're travelling faster than you actually are. The corners are sharp and the transitions are whippy and fast paced. They are also perfectly heartlined to keep things comfortable for riders. They really hit the sweet spot between intensity/excitement for a family coaster. The ride's theme is actually much better outside of the station than it is inside the station. With rocks and caves to zoom in and out of, it adds to the experience on a phenomenal level. The second launch works to keep the speed that the ride needs to remain exciting at the right level, and it extends the amount of time that the ride remains exciting all the way to the brake run. If you were to put someone who didn't know the statistics on both rides and ask them which was faster, they'd tell you that Jet Rescue was the fastest of the two by a country mile. In actual fact, MDMC is the fastest at 72km/h, with Jet Rescue clocking in at 70km/h after the second launch. It really does go to show that the design of the ride is almost always more important than the bare bones statistics. People are actually really bad judges of speed. We don't feel speed like we do with forces, we can only guess by looking at things as they go past. In this way it is really easy to trick people into thinking that they're going faster than they are, and Jet Rescue does an excellent job at this. Most people would have traveled faster in the car to get to sea world to ride the ride and not think twice about it, whereas on the ride, its speed is one of its best assets. Anyway, there's an analysis this detailed for every different type of coaster you can think of, and you could really talk about this for hours and still not quite say everything that you want to say. It's truly something that makes coasters so special, there's so much variety, and so many different varieties of coasters are so good.

@XxMrYoshixX I was at the show on Thursday twilight, I agree with pretty much everything you've said. The presentation was particularly good for the new coaster. You didn't quite catch them in your photos but the motorbike rider figures set up around the place looked excellent, and as you said, the paint job was shiny new. As for the ride, it's the best coaster I've ridden at a carnival, though that isn't saying much. It has some decent height to it, and the loop was surprisingly good, not painful, and had some excellent hang time at the top, pretty much perfect zero Gs for a moment. It was a struggle but I managed to prevent headbanging by going full fighter pilot mode and counteracting the deadly lats. I wasn't in the back car, however. I saved a snapchat I took of the loop that you can't really see in your photos, https://streamable.com/1a4d6 you can also see a few of the motorbike riders that were set up. I wouldn't mind it as a permanent fixture at Luna Park, would certainly add to the place a little. I also took a ride on the wacky worm that was there, as I'd never ridden it before and credits are few and far between in this country. Can't say it was the most dignifying experience of my life, but they sent us around 4 or 5 times, would have been almost value for money if you had a kid with you to make the most of it.

@Glubbo Doubt it will be the exact turnaround I linked, as @Skeeta said, it's not one Mack have ever done in the past. It'll most likely be the same as this one on Flash: I put the Fury 325 turnaround on my prediction as I'd prefer it due to the extended sideways airtime. In the Mack one, the 180 degree turn completes at the very height of the turnaround, whereas on the B&M it completes lower down, with an extra bit of a sideways rise to reach the top and go over. The transition from positive to negative Gs on the B&M turnaround would be insane, the Mack turnaround will be kinda similar but the airtime won't last as long basically.

@Brad2912 It was clearly hyperbole from the start

It was removed because of the stress on trains, not on riders. You really think it would have made it that far through the design/construction process if it was deadly? Just looking at these track pieces and discussion in here, seems like a lot of them are curving inwards with a lot of talk of inversions/intense elements for my liking. Hopefully some airtime pieces arrive soon. My guess for the really twisted one is for the start of the first drop. Not really heartlined enough for what you'd expect from a high speed twist, unless Mack are flashing a big middle finger to Intamin and are having their own go at the scrapped roll from Maverick.

Just look at the number: 367 Is 367 between 300 and 399? If yes, then said coaster is a GIGA coaster.

@Reanimated35 GP Scum! The lot of them!

The 'hyper' term was coined by Cedar Fair when they first built Magnum XL-200, being the first coaster over 200 feet in height. (Common knowledge to you and most on here I'm sure.) I think there is a very strict definition that hyper coasters are over 200 feet. The same for Giga being 300ft+ with Millennium Force and then Strata (400ft) with TTD. In the end, if it isn't over 200ft, it isn't a hyper. Do I care in the end? Not really. Any decent enthusiast looks past the stats of the ride and analyses it for what it is. I think the whole hyper/giga/strata terminology is very GP in nature. Even if you need to be a bit of a coaster nerd to know what the terms mean, you're focusing on how tall a ride is rather than how good it is. Of course, if it is over 200ft I'll be quite happy, the higher the better.

The thing is, we have world class dark rides already, having lost Bermuda Triangle and LTRR, I agree that we are possibly ready for another addition. What we don't have and have never had is a coaster of this sort of quality on this sort of scale. It's mind-boggling that you don't realise how massive this thing is for the park, physically AND metaphorically. I've wanted something like this at our parks since as long as I can remember. The money that they make from this is the money that can feed into your future dark ride wet dream. For now, just enjoy what the park is building, because this IS happening.

Bit off topic, but just an example of how many parks in the US are like with new coasters. (Bar RMC Mean Streak of course). It's very up front about everything that's going to be on the ride. What I would give for our parks to be less secretive hahaha.

@docoaster Daaaamn, you put my NL2 effort to shame hahaha. Would love more airtime, but I would have guessed your way the way this coaster will actually go, those clustered footings in the middle really do suggest at least two inversions. @djrappa's comments, however do give me hope that you're not completely correct, and we'll see some more ejector air, less boring inversions.

yeah you're right, I've got it going the wrong way in mine but the same element, no doubt that's what's there. At least that's one bit sorted.

Had another go at this based on the footings that I can see. I added some black lines to show which track passes over which. Also, in places where supports might get confusing I drew some red supports to the relevant footings. The middle is such a confuddled mess, it'll be a miracle if anyone guesses it right. I'm hoping that I'm right about the turnaround in the bottom left, the supports seem to indicate that there is a massive change in elevation from the entry to the exit. Also hope there is more airtime, less helixes/inversions. I won't object to a really floaty zero G roll though.

My comic book knowledge isn't good enough to come up with plausible themes for this ride, especially now that the track is bright pink. Lex Luthor is the only suggestion on here that I feel has some merit to it. It'd be a perfect rival for Superman, almost like there's a battle in the park between the two coasters. Still, the bright pink teaser advertising, and the bright pink track, is a bit contrary to Lex Luthor's purple. I don't think it'd be smart for it to be Joker themed, we already have Arkham Asylum.

Keep in mind that I've just made what I would make if I was given a similar space to make a Mack hyper. I don't think the real coaster will end up being like this, there are loads of footings that suggest elements which I have completely left out. I made my original coaster in NL2 by getting a top-down photo and projecting it on the ground in NL2 to scale. I did break the rules slightly by going out of the cleared dirt area and into the green area a bit, just to suit my fantasies. In the video, you'll see my coaster has a MCBR and runs 3 trains. You'll also see my coaster deviates slightly into the green area where there are trees irl. I also have a really ugly curve along the ground after the first airtime hill leading into the second which I'd love to fix but it's too much effort at this point. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek05JZ3l37k I understand this competition is judged on an image only, so I've revised my dream layout a little bit for the purpose of this competition. Instead of a low to the ground curve I have simply implied that the coaster goes over a second hill which is slightly curved for the duration, and then the third hill is the one with the curved drop. There is no MCBR, and my station has moved slightly. I've also fit it all into the cleared dirt area. Just to explain, the fury 325 turnaround is the one with the upwards spiral into a 90deg sideways airtime moment, it's a pretty special element on what many claim to be the best coaster in the world.

Ah damn, I've already made a layout in NL2 but I have the station in the wrong place and the track going the wrong way around

They had this at PortAventura as well, although only for Furius Baco, which was unfortunately the worst coaster in the park. I think the only downside to a front row queue is that ride ops probably won't like people holding up at the front of the other queue if passengers want the back row, or any other specific seat. They'll want to be able to assign anyone in the regular queue to avoid the delays that the front row queue is trying to avoid. This coaster being a hyper coaster, I'd really love the option to wait for the back row. Hopefully in the end they just let you wait for any seat.

Brilliant stuff @STE4LTH! So, passengers will be loading from the East side of the track, meaning there'll have to be a path around, There's a good possibility of having interaction then, between the coaster and guest areas, hopefully there'll be loads of brilliant spots to view this thing from. I was worried they'd load from the other side and sort of have the coaster in its own separate area in the distance. No use having a coaster you can ride but can't really get a good look at off ride, that's part of the fun of going to a park for me. Annoyingly a lot of our parks have gotten this wrong in the past, think of how hard it is to view most of Arkham Asylum, apart from the one good view inside the cage on exit, the best views of HWSW are from the waterpark, etc. I also like the amount of trees they appear to be leaving, should be a pretty good looking area. One thing of note is that they use the term "Hypercoaster" to refer to the project, surely they can't skive off from it being 200ft+ if they're calling it "Project Hypercoaster".

God damn, Mack trains are sexy it has to be said. This ride can't come soon enough. As for spinning cars. Surely going 200ft in the air removes any need for the novelty of spinning cars. This is going to be the tallest (bar ToT) and hopefully best coaster in Australia, I trust MW will stay well away from gimmicks and just focus on making sure this a good ride.

Planes can fly 500 feet above the ground in populated areas, and they cannot fly within 500 feet of any person or structure. I don't think any rules are being broken here. I don't care anyway, they can waste money paying for planes and banners and whatever, their message has no merit to it so no one will listen.

Isn't that the truth So many ideas, so little time.

@jjuttp Meh, it depends what you're doing with the car. Land Cruisers drive slow over really rough terrain, these buggies go fast over slightly rough terrain. You wouldn't want it to be too soft because you'd have trouble handling it at speed.

Some opinions are just more correct than others

I almost spat out my drink. Yes, and Superman is just a launch, over a hill, around a corner, over another hill, around another corner, over another hill, around another corner and into the brake run. Hills and turns are what roller coasters do. Trust me, hypers and their 'numerous hills' are absolutely incredible and you seriously can't knock it until you ride one. Not every new ride has to be innovative or different, especially when you have such a tried and true formula in the hypercoaster. I can't believe we're even having this debate on a forum about theme parks, this is some GP level shit.