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Most Innovative Coaster

jayjay

Giga Poster
I'm going to leave this question as open as I can. What coasters do you think are the most innovative? What is it that makes it innovative?

I'll leave my opinions for a bit and see what you say first.
 

spicy

Giga Poster
Probably 4D coasters, there is still only two in the world after 6 years and I think that there is still huge potential for this type of coaster waiting to be exploited in the near future.

S&S have proved with Eejanaika and with the improvements to X that this can be a reliable coaster.We just need a big park chain to order another one with different inversions and theme it better than the current 4D's it could make for an awesome ride.
 

trav

Mega Poster
spicy said:
We just need a big park chain to order another one with different inversions and theme it better than the current 4D's it could make for an awesome ride.

Trouble is, when you're on the ride, you don't really have time to notice where you are, never mind what theming there is around you. It's a weird experience, but after going on one, I don't think theming would make much of a difference.
 

Pokemaniac

Mountain monkey
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Well...

1) Dueling Dragons. Tha fact that they keep in sync is pretty impressive. Too bad the ride appearently sucks.
2) 4-D. And as for themeing, it may not play a big role in the ride experience, but it draws customers.
3) Maverick and similiar. All we like thrown into one layout. Usually, the ride focuses on either groundhugging, inversions, airtime or speed, Maverick gave us it all.
4) Teeny-Weeny. I wonder who sat down and thought: "Hey, let's see how small we can make those things, huh?".
5) Vertigo. Too bad everything but the concept was poo.
 

Hixee

Flojector
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Social Media Team
Loads of coasters are innovative.

Matterhorn - first coaster to use tubular steel rails. Revolutionised how we make coasters and what we can do with them.
First hyper coaster - just the size really
First Giga-Coaster - ditto
First Strata-Coaster - the extreme of height
First Launched coaster - new aspect of coasters, and the advantages that come with it
First 4D coaster - just plain new
First Invert - new idea
First Dive Machine - again, novel idea

There are so many different rides that can be considered innovative. Most, if not all, coasters that are a first are innovative. It takes innovation to come up with the idea, and then to make it a reality.

As for specific rides, well, Duelling Dragons has to one of the top ones. They've been around for ages, yet no-one has copied them.

I don't know, I think it's too hard to say.
 

Hyde

Matt SR
Staff member
Moderator
Social Media Team
There is no top Innovative Coaster.

There are many innovative layouts and concepts, but technology and opinions change, and what may be innovative now is old hat technology five years down the rode.

With that in mind, we must be able to realize what was innovative IN ITS TIME.

For instance, Bat at Kings Island was introduced in 1980 as the first suspended coaster. Though it didn't last long due to maintenance and comfort issues, it was still an innovative step in roller coaster design.

1992 marked the beginning of a B&M era with the first Inverted roller coaster, another innovative step in how roller coaster design is viewed. Beginning with Batman, we soon saw Nemesis, arguably the most innovative roller coaster design today, and Raptor which showed the Invert design could exceed in height and speed.

Intamin rocked the roller coaster industry with the introduction of the accelerator coaster in 2002. Though other forms of launched coaster had been used before, none took off in popularity as the Accelerator, building 13 models in 5 years.

The list continues, and you can see that what may be average now was innovative at its introduction. This includes technologies like the anti-rollback, the Turn Around, upstop wheel, LIM launch, magnetic brakes, and the cable lift.

So how the hell should we know what's the most innovative!? :razz:
 
Has to be the 4D coasters, because I think that was the most giant leap from conventional coasters that we have ever seen. Sure, there are inverted coasters, and stand up coasters, but they all kinda follow the same pattern and layouts as the regular sit downs, only with different seating. 4D's do the whole different layout and seating, as well as having the seats spin.

So, no question about it for me that the 4D coasters are the most innovative. Certainly not the most successful, but innovative for sure.
 

Screaming Coasters

Strata Poster
We say all this about 4D's and whatever, but they wouldn't have been around if it wasn't for Arrows suspended and B&M's inverted. To me, those 2 designs are what revolutionised the industry.
 
The idea of an invert was the most innovative at it's time.

Everything was innovative at its time though. Even sit downs and inversions were innovative when they came out, but I'm saying, judging by what we had at the time that X came out, it seems as though X was probably the coaster that strayed away from the norm more than anything else did. Inverted coasters were innovative, but their layouts weren't really that different to sit downs or other B&M coasters. The seating was definitely different, but 4D's have both a different layout and different seating.
 

Ormerod

Hyper Poster
But I mean the leap from Sitdown to Invert.

I suppose the leap from wood to steel was extraordinary too, but if you've to judge which is the most innovative you've to look at which was the most groundbreaking (of it's time).
 

Screaming Coasters

Strata Poster
But a 4D coaster is only an expansion on a concept already in production. The inverted coaster was an original design which I feel makes it far more innovative.

Basically I see a 4D coaster as a Doom Buggy (Haunted Mansion carriages). It uses the exact same mechanical method to turn the carriages around, but put on a roller coaster. To me, that isn't overly impressive as the technology has been around for 50 years. Ok, it looks cool but it's not much of a hurdle in my eyes.
 

Screaming Coasters

Strata Poster
Ultimate Coaster said:
But a 4D coaster is only an expansion on a concept already in production. The inverted coaster was an original design which I feel makes it far more innovative.

Uh, that sentence doesn't really make sense.

It did if you linked it with the last portion of my post.

The 4D coaster added a dimension of motion to coasters that had not been done before.

No, but the technical aspect has been around for 50 year in the Doom Buggies system.

Inverted coasters weren't an original design by any means. Arrow and Schwarzkopf had both created suspended coasters (Schwarzkopf started Big Bad Wolf before they went bankrupt and Arrow finished it off), and Arrow's development team had already tested a version with an inversion in it.

And if you bothered to read my post previous you would have seen that I mentioned Arrows. I said inverted as it was a generalisation of what I had said previously.
 

Screaming Coasters

Strata Poster
Delete/ One thing, you NEED to go back a read my post previous to the one you are quoting. /Delete

Also, where would the technology come from to hang a coaster coaster? Inverts, (of any sort)

The whole wheel cluster pinning system on an Invert is totally different to a a sit down coaster. That has to be adapted to keep the train stable no matter what rotation.

The basic idea of the 4D mechanism is simply an adaption of the Doom Buggies system.

Everything is old technology, repackaged.

I am far more impressed with the older Arrows/Schwarzkopf suspended coaster AND inverted.

Oh and I can't be bothered to quote a certain section but the seat flipping I never said was adapted from an inverted coaster....

Read the bit about the Doom buggies.

Anyway, I thought this was meant to be about opinion? Not I'm right you're wrong. It's my opinion, leave me to it for goodness sake, Steve.
 

Ormerod

Hyper Poster
I think you can base innovation on publicity, how it's changed the theme park industry and helped improve rollercoaster technology and experience.
How people have took on each type of rollercoaster, that's an impact on innovation towards publicity and also the theme parks (probably the manufacturers too).

In that case, how rollercoasters advanced from wood to steel I think that's a massive innovation.
 

Screaming Coasters

Strata Poster
First off, Steve. Please don't insult me.

I merely said I am not impressed by the system and I tried to back up this reason. Both technologies already existed withing Arrows. They invented the Doom Buggy system, they were the among the first to produce a form of inverted coaster. To me, it's just a mashup of the 2 existing technologies. I'LL WRITE THAT IN BOLD FOR YOU.

MASHUP OF 2 EXISTING TECHNOLOGIES... I couldn't care if it wasn't built on a coaster, I just said its the same mechanics.

I really don't give a flying **** about the restraint system, that's irrelevant to my argument. Nor do I give a toss about which company came first. I know all what you are telling me, I'm just shooting back my opinion.
 

Screaming Coasters

Strata Poster
This is going to be fun:

Ultimate Coaster said:
First off, Steve. Please don't insult me.

I love the hypocrisy

I don't know weather you are depressed and need someone to bash, or you are just too thick to understand British English?

If you wouldn't chop my posts up to make something new then you would have noticed the -

"Well if you insist:"

Anyways:

I merely said I am not impressed by the system and I tried to back up this reason. Both technologies already existed withing Arrows. They invented the Doom Buggy system, they were the among the first to produce a form of inverted coaster. To me, it's just a mashup of the 2 technologies.

Uh, no they didn't.

The Doom Buggie system is merely an Omnimover system, invented in the mid-1960's by Roger Broggie and Bert Brundage - who worked for Disney.

Arrow simply manufactured the system that Bob Gurr had ADAPTED from the first Omnimover system to SPECIFICALLY create the Doom Buggie. They also made some minor structural improvements, but did not invent anything regarding the ride.

I am aware of the background, as you say - Arrow manufactured it. It's like me saying John Wardley invented Oblivion... Well yes, he did but B&M manufactured it. It is regarded as an Arrows system but however you want to view it, they lead that market.

Again, your inaccuracies are irrelevent, because unlike the technology used to create inverted coasters, the technology used to create 4D coasters had not previously been applied to roller coasters.

Roller coasters, for the record, are what this topic is about.

But as I said before, I couldn't care where the technology has come from. I said it is an adaptation of an already existing technology.

MASHUP OF 2 EXISTING TECHNOLOGIES... I couldn't care if it wasn't built on a coaster, I just said its the same mechanics.

As is inverted coasters vs. traditional ones, in terms of the technology required to make them.

That was proven back in 1902.

I'm interested, what do you think of LIM/LSM technology?

I haven't got a clue as to what your intention is with that but I know the coaster industry didn't invent them. They were originally midi controlled systems used in the army to fire rockets and launch aircrafts off ships.

I'm just shooting back my opinion.

Well, you're more shooting back the same stuff I've already specifically addressed (plus some inaccuracies, might I add), and claiming that I'm mis-reading it but refusing to "clarify" a damned thing (probably more because there's nothing to clarify).

errr, what?

Great style of "shooting back", Erol. Completely ignore the fact that I've addressed every part of your argument, and come back with "Well you can't read right!"

Fascinatingly convincing.

No, you gunned my argument. Everything I said was intended to focus on the technologies I am describing. I didn't intend this to be an "I've got a bigger cock than you" type argument as you have made it.

Well if you insist:

I don't know weather you are depressed and need someone to bash, or you are just too thick to understand British English? But you really have a problem with reading things the way it's intended.

Given everything you've said in this topic and others, all I can say is "lol".

That's the pot calling the kettle black, when the kettle isn't black in the first place.
[/quote]

All I can say is 'lol' at you arrogance.

Anyway, before this turns into a flame lets just leave it as -

I am not as impressed with 4D's as I am with the Inverted.

I wish sometimes I don't explain what I mean, it'd save a lot of hassle.
 

wash

Mega Poster
Well, it depends of what you consider 'innovative'. 4D coasters were innovative in that they were new and different. However, with only two coasters built, 4Ds haven't had a significant impact on the industry. I'd say the most 'innovative' coasters are those that have ie using steel, inversions, putting the train under the track etc.

(This is a response to the original question, not to UC or Screaming Coasters)
 

PLCP

Mega Poster
I'd have to say Expedition Everest is the most innovative that I've seen. To be able to take a normal (well, now that I think about it, far from normal :lol: ) coaster and to turn it into something even MORE spectacular while pulling off the most amazing theming ever seen is innovative in my mind.
 
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