Personally I don’t think this is a good year for traditional coasters. New coasters these days seem to be just gimmicks. I think roller coaster companies need to go back to coaster roots. We have been seeing lots of new coach concepts were the cars flip up and down and left and right. All this is doing is causing rides with low capacity and bad reliability. In my eyes, coasters aren’t even coasters any more. Coaster wars used to be the biggest and fastest but now its best new gimmick.

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Timbers Crew 08...
Timbers crew 09..!

^That's because the biggest and fastest was a gimmick. I'd love to see 250 foot tall loops but no one wants to pay that much for a coaster when they can get the same crowd with a hot new gimmick. Also, replacing a lift hill with a launch isn't a bad thing if the rest of the coaster is normal. Take Europa Park's new coaster for example. Mostly normal, but the lift was replaced with a launch. It still has a first drop even.

I think that a triple dueling coaster can be an interesting concept if properly designed. That being said, I have been expirementing with new concepts that are far ahead of their time. I'm not an engineer yet.

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Any new coaster concept whether it be a suspended, stand-up, inverted, floorless, flying, vertical drop...are all gimmicks. A gimmick is an ingenious or novel device, scheme, or stratagem, especially one designed to attract attention or increase appeal.

But most parks now wouldnt have the room for that... Or really the need/want. When was the last time a racer even opened in the US? 2000??

Im not saying new ideas arnt good. Inverted and launch coasters are amazing. I am simply trying to say that that Some designers are taking things to far. We don’t need computer controlled cars that flip you upside down every 25 seconds. Or like that new coaster that always stays level. As it goes through the ride and upside down the coach still stays level. Intamin used to be my favorite steel coaster producer. Now they seem to be into 10 second coasters that take up a footprint the size of a single wide trailer. Stuff like the LSM Ball Coaster, and zacspin coaster, in my eyes are just carnival gimmicks and shouldn’t be brought into major Amusement parks. On the other hand stuff like X2 would be a good gimmick if it wasn’t for the major down time. Flying coasters would be another if it wasn’t for the slow loading and unloading. For the most part new technologies into the coaster world are good, I’m just sick of seeing 10 second flops.

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Timbers Crew 08...
Timbers crew 09..!

Or really big, really expensive flops, like Son of Beast and it's now complete lack of a loop.


sorry ... couldn't resist....

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05.16, 05.17, 05.18, 06.05, 06.06: Cedar Point
05.25.09-06.01.09: KD, SFA, BGE, SFGAdv, Morey's & More!
06.18.09: Holiday World
2009 Diamondback laps: 41

Dont forget its huge boring layout of bigass helix.. and then smaller-biggass helix.
ZzZzz

What about aroller coaster that launches out like Superman The Escape at SFMM and then having some kind of vertical platform that moves the coaster car over to another set of tracks over 400' in the air, and then dropped, backwards down into a dark building full of corskrews, cobra rolls, loops, and more?

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What about it? The changing tracks could be easily done. Vekoma's and B&M's flyers do i for there double stations. Its never gonna happen but it sounds neat.

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Timbers Crew 08...
Timbers crew 09..!

Both Winjas Fear and Force switch track mid ride as well... And so does Everest and both Mummy's.

If inverted and launch coasters are amazing, do you think a launched invert is a good idea?

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Uh, Intamins made like 10 launched inverts.

^Lol.

RCDB has a really good search tool, you can isolate just about any kind of coaster:

Roller Coaster Search Results

Sorry, I should have been more specific (I know every Intamin launch invert, but that's not what I'm talking about). It would be more of a B&M style with almost same layout except fore a launch instead of the chain lift on all of the other B&M inverts.

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B&M doesnt do launch's.

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Timbers Crew 08...
Timbers crew 09..!

I think Intamin got the idea down well with Volcano, and hopefully they'll make more rides like it in the future. As launched coasters become more popular and inverts don't seem to lose their shine, soon somebody will look at an impulse and say, whoa KD had it right.