This became a small point of discussion in the Orion thread, but I figured it would be better to make a dedicated thread for it instead of mixing it into the construction thread.
So yeah, Kings Island's recently announced coaster Orion seems not to have wowed people to the degree the ninth tallest full-circuit coaster in the world ought to. It has a drop of more than 90 meters, it's over a mile long, it's built by B&M which has a great track record with their hyper-like coasters, it finally marks the arrival of the "KIGA" fans have been asking for for years, and... it has three hills, two turnarounds and a turn between the drop and the end brakes. Conceptually, that's not much more of a layout than what most family coasters have.
Because the thing with very tall and fast coasters is that elements have to be really drawn out, i.e. really big, and building big is expensive. So to offset the huge cost of each element, and to save space, Giga coasters tend not to have very many elements. The tallest launch coasters have a single tophat between the launch and the brakes; doing anything more would be prohibitively expensive. Despite its simple layout and short ride time, Kingda Ka is almost one kilometer long, with almost as much track as Copperhead Strike. With its three hills, two turnarounds and a turn, Orion will be 300 meters longer than Helix or Taron.
Besides, site limitations also tend to be reflected in the elements that are built. Put simply, the layout mostly becomes all about turning around before you go over the park fence. For instance, Intimidator 305 consists mostly of turns, starting as early as the pullout of its first drop. Following up the first drop of a giga coaster with a big airtime hill is almost unheard of, as it means committing to one direction in a straight line from the start of the lift until the end of the airtime hill, a distance that might span the entire length of a park (and there needs to be room to turn around at both ends as well). If I recall correctly, the only Giga to do a straight airtime hill after the first drop is Steel Dragon 2000.
One might also start to wonder what kind of coaster the park/chain could have built for Giga money instead. How many mid-size RMCs do you get for the price of a 90 meter B&M? How much of a loan would the park have to take? What does a Giga mean for the prospect of new attractions in the coming years?
So yeah, Giga coasters are very tall, give amazing views and some great drops, but they can't do a lot, and the required investment could put the park/chain in the red for a while. Then again, that sheer drop size is hard to beat, and the stats look really great in advertisements. When it comes to it, do you think Giga coasters are worth it over their smaller Hyper coaster cousins?
So yeah, Kings Island's recently announced coaster Orion seems not to have wowed people to the degree the ninth tallest full-circuit coaster in the world ought to. It has a drop of more than 90 meters, it's over a mile long, it's built by B&M which has a great track record with their hyper-like coasters, it finally marks the arrival of the "KIGA" fans have been asking for for years, and... it has three hills, two turnarounds and a turn between the drop and the end brakes. Conceptually, that's not much more of a layout than what most family coasters have.
Because the thing with very tall and fast coasters is that elements have to be really drawn out, i.e. really big, and building big is expensive. So to offset the huge cost of each element, and to save space, Giga coasters tend not to have very many elements. The tallest launch coasters have a single tophat between the launch and the brakes; doing anything more would be prohibitively expensive. Despite its simple layout and short ride time, Kingda Ka is almost one kilometer long, with almost as much track as Copperhead Strike. With its three hills, two turnarounds and a turn, Orion will be 300 meters longer than Helix or Taron.
Besides, site limitations also tend to be reflected in the elements that are built. Put simply, the layout mostly becomes all about turning around before you go over the park fence. For instance, Intimidator 305 consists mostly of turns, starting as early as the pullout of its first drop. Following up the first drop of a giga coaster with a big airtime hill is almost unheard of, as it means committing to one direction in a straight line from the start of the lift until the end of the airtime hill, a distance that might span the entire length of a park (and there needs to be room to turn around at both ends as well). If I recall correctly, the only Giga to do a straight airtime hill after the first drop is Steel Dragon 2000.
One might also start to wonder what kind of coaster the park/chain could have built for Giga money instead. How many mid-size RMCs do you get for the price of a 90 meter B&M? How much of a loan would the park have to take? What does a Giga mean for the prospect of new attractions in the coming years?
So yeah, Giga coasters are very tall, give amazing views and some great drops, but they can't do a lot, and the required investment could put the park/chain in the red for a while. Then again, that sheer drop size is hard to beat, and the stats look really great in advertisements. When it comes to it, do you think Giga coasters are worth it over their smaller Hyper coaster cousins?
