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Kings Island | Orion | B&M Giga Coaster

tomahawk said:
Antique Cars expansion

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I genuinely wouldn’t be opposed to that, in all honesty! I really love a long, winding antique cars trip through the woods. A giga coaster flying over my head would be just as good! ;)
 
And to be fair, doing two high-speed, low-level turns? I will take that Intimidator 305-ness any day of the week. Only would wish for one or two more airtime hills. :)
 
To be brutally honest, I was a sliver let down by this giga’s length; I saw a lot more potential in the vastness of this location as there were several ways I thought that this giga could expand in. Take the narrow, forested chunk in between The Beast and The Racer that stops at Vortex, for example. I believed that this would be the direction the giga was going to take, allocating more room for a coaster even larger than Fury. Regardless, though, this giga coaster seems like a “Greatest Hits” compilation of what made Fury 325 and Leviathan so good, with a bit of Intimidator 305’s whippy goodness inserted in as well.
 
I kinda wish we'd get a giga that goes straight into an airtime hill after the drop, but I guess that would kinda nullify Diamondback. Also, it might make the first drop seem less intense. Than there's the issue of the drop being too long of a sustained airtime experience to deliver that long of a valley while still being safe and in G force standards. A design can only have 2 seconds of sustained 4 G's if preceded by 3 seconds or more of sustained airtime. So, on that note, I would like to see drop, microbunny, then large air hill. Anyway, the ride looks great. I do agree, it's a bit short compared to Fury 325, but compared to everything else the ride time seems to be very adequate.

Edit: I guess I305 goes straight into an airtime hill after the turn, but, it's not the same size as if it were a full size B&M floater hill.
 
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Kw6sTheater said:
To be brutally honest, I was a sliver let down by this giga’s length; I saw a lot more potential in the vastness of this location as there were several ways I thought that this giga could expand in. Take the narrow, forested chunk in between The Beast and The Racer that stops at Vortex, for example. I believed that this would be the direction the giga was going to take, allocating more room for a coaster even larger than Fury. Regardless, though, this giga coaster seems like a “Greatest Hits” compilation of what made Fury 325 and Leviathan so good, with a bit of Intimidator 305’s whippy goodness inserted in as well.
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Two factors Kings Island has to grapple with that were highlighted back during Diamondback's construction is the sizable land prep cost the park faces with uneven terrain and densely wooded forest. Yes, the same storied legend that gave Beast it's swooping turns by avoiding specific groves of trees and dips of valleys still plays through to this day.

It costs the park a lot of money to build across ravines, as this adds to support structure cost for having to build higher-than-necessary with steep land height change. Don Helbig mentioned during the announcement event for Diamondback that the original layout vision was more comparable to Behemoth, striaght out and back. To gap the next ravine however would cost millions more; the solution was to create the L shaped design that makes the roller coaster only need to traverse one ravine. Banshee is built going into a ravine too, with it's fastest point in the second half of the ride; and Mystic Timbers is purposely built over/nearby existing attractions that sit on relatively level land and minimize clearing costs.

I preface all this with the belief land cost concern is why the layout is so short. The land behind Racer and Vortex? It's actually a pretty gnarly ravine, the same valley Beast's second drop plunges into. And going further back, behind the Dinosaur's Alive is a gradual downhill slope. It would appear there's not much level ground outside of what they are working on (poke around on Google Maps 3D view to see the terrain change), but it also begs the question of if a different site would be more suited for a longer ride.
 
Thanks for the insight, @Hyde - I was told though, that if Kings Island had this giga low-to-the-ground it would reduce the support costs drastically; B&M isn’t exactly known for building their rides like that, however, but I’d still have loved to see the gigacoaster darting between the trees with two or three hills above the treetops. I can still dream! ;)
 
Kw6sTheater said:
Thanks for the insight, @Hyde - I was told though, that if Kings Island had this giga low-to-the-ground it would reduce the support costs drastically; B&M isn’t exactly known for building their rides like that, however, but I’d still have loved to see the gigacoaster darting between the trees with two or three hills above the treetops. I can still dream! ;)
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Exactly right - the writing is on the wall with all of these leaks and possible renderings - they are wanting to minimize build costs by going shorter and lower to the ground. :) Who knows - maybe it's a great idea after all? There were very few at the onset of Intimidator 305 who thought that was a good layout.
 
@CrashCoaster, having any doubts on the leaked layout’s authenticity now? :p Fortunately, it looks like that maze for Kings Island’s Haunt event and the backstage area next to the Firehawk plot will stay. I’ll try and examine this screenshot further, but I have been able to deduce “Project X” as the label for this giga coaster so far. It also appears that this coaster will have its entrance & exit path a bit further down from the area that Flight of Fear is entered from, and the queue will take place mostly inside and under the brake run as well as the final turn into the station. I’ve also noticed the 5.39 Ac. under the large CLEARING label — this likely means that this coaster takes up 5.39 acres of land; for comparison, Fury 325 is marketed as being spread across 8.4 acres. I do have to wonder, however, how these blueprints were obtained.
 
Kw6sTheater said:
@CrashCoaster, having any doubts on the leaked layout’s authenticity now? :p Fortunately, it looks like that maze for Kings Island’s Haunt event and the backstage area next to the Firehawk plot will stay. I’ll try and examine this screenshot further, but I have been able to deduce “Project X” as the label for this giga coaster so far. It also appears that this coaster will have its entrance & exit path a bit further down from the area that Flight of Fear is entered from, and the queue will take place mostly inside and under the brake run as well as the final turn into the station. I’ve also noticed the 5.39 Ac. under the large CLEARING label — this likely means that this coaster takes up 5.39 acres of land; for comparison, Fury 325 is marketed as being spread across 8.4 acres. I do have to wonder, however, how these blueprints were obtained.
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Filed at city hall, about a dozen other pages of information (Including the station)
 
One downside to this will be how close it cuts to the Beast - a part I've always enjoyed of that ride is emerging from the first tunnel when it is just you, the track, and tons of forest. Looks like there's a high likelihood you'll see the Treble Clef turnaround above the tree line headed into the second turn.
 
Looking at the plans in higher res:
  • Flight of Fear’s queue will be extended to take over Firehawk’s old queue.
  • The Firehawk exit will be the new ride entrance.
  • A new ride photo building will be built, with guests exiting along Firehawk’s old entrance.
  • Convert Firehawk photo building to food stand.
 
Here's what I've deduced from reading the high and low points on the drawing:
  • 296 foot lift with 301 foot drop
  • 170ish foot tall Stengel dive element
  • 170-200ish foot tall tilted dive loop esque turn around
  • 70 foot tall airtime hill
  • 140 foot tall airtime hill
  • 110 foot tall helix, probably more similar to Apollo's Chariot than Shambhala's ampersand
  • 90 foot tall "hive dive" turn

And the bitching that I expect will ensue:
  • The lift isn't 300 feet tall
  • It'll be the smallest giga
  • Not enough airtime
  • Not enough ground hugging turns
  • The station will look like a tin shed
  • Looks slow

I'll say it again - I was hoping it wouldn't be a giga so the fanboys wouldn't get their way, but it's apparent that they'll be insufferable no matter what gets built. The park could build a damn Zadra clone and they'd bitch about it. Despite that, I am excited. I want to see more of the ride's profile instead of trying to guess it off of elevations on a chart, but I think it'll be a pretty good ride when all is said and done.
 
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