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Thorpe Park | Hyperia | Mack Hyper Coaster | 2024

Melons

Roller Poster
This ride looks really fun. Although alot of people on here have their gripes I personally don't have many complaints with this! Super excited to ride it and has finally given me a reason to be excited to visit Thorpe Park again.
 

Nicky Borrill

Strata Poster
To be completely honest; I don't. I won't deny that this coaster will probably have airtime in places (and quite possibly strong airtime, at that), but it certainly doesn't look like an airtime machine per se; the focus looks to be more on those big, sprawling inversions, which will orientate it more towards being a hangtime-focused coaster, as well as an inversion-focused coaster. Apart from the hop into the brakes, this coaster does not have any airtime hills; the negative g seems to be coming more from hangtime or whip within the inversions and overbanks.

I wasn't talking merely in terms of magnitude of negative g's, either; I know this will probably have strong negative g's in a few places. I was talking in terms of quantity of airtime and seconds of airtime, as well as the general layout composition and whether it's targeted towards airtime.

I know B&M hypers don't tend to have the strongest negative g-forces (I'd imagine Stealth and Saw probably have stronger negative g's than your average B&M hyper), but I'd imagine this ride will probably have less airtime per unit length than a more traditional, hill-based hyper. It looks to focus more on those inversions.
I guess it's just another of those subjective things...

I love all airtime, and floater is an incredible feeling when sustained... But...

Give me 0.5 seconds of -1.5 over 4-5 seconds of 0.5g to 0.0g any day ;)

I judge airtime on it's strength first, not it's duration... So seconds of airtime isn't even a factor for me... Not if more seconds was merely 0g anyway... However...

Would I like more 'moments?' Of course... You can NEVER have enough moments :p
 

Ian

From CoasterForce
Staff member
Administrator
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Social Media Team
It's interesting how many UK enthusiasts seem to hold Merlin parks to such an impossible standard. It's like no matter what Merlin do, some enthusiasts will never be happy. Yet we don't hold this standard to other parks.

For example, if Paultons were getting a launched B+M family wing coaster, the decision would be praised as The Best Thing Ever For The Best Family Park Ever!

If Phantasialand, Efteling, Plopsa, Europa, Djurs, Hansa announced this new hyper coaster...would it be met with such criticism? If Drayton Manor announced this coaster, would the reaction be different?
I agree with this, Merlin is held to a high standard. Most (not all!) of the other parks Serena mentioned are independently or family owned. Merlin on the other hand is one of the top global park operators, is floated on the UK stock exchange with oodles of cash, operates four of the (if not the) most popular/visited UK parks, has access to some of the best worldwide talent, a comparatively massive marketing budget and a name that can open doors. I think it's inevitable that some people will be disappointed. The other global park operators throw everything at a ride, but there's always a sense of cutting corners to maximise profits with Merlin that it just can't shake. If Drayton or Paultons announced this, there would be unwavering love for it, because their circumstances are not comparable to the multinational global dominance enjoyed by Merlin. Until Merlin are consistently good with their investments in the same vein as Disney, Universal and other top operators, regretfully they'll always be a degree of disappointment from a minority. This is probably the best the UK could hope for, and I'm pleased it's edging toward reality.
 

Matt N

CF Legend
I guess it's just another of those subjective things...

I love all airtime, and floater is an incredible feeling when sustained... But...

Give me 0.5 seconds of -1.5 over 4-5 seconds of 0.5g to 0.0g any day ;)

I judge airtime on it's strength first, not it's duration... So seconds of airtime isn't even a factor for me... Not if more seconds was merely 0g anyway... However...

Would I like more 'moments?' Of course... You can NEVER have enough moments :p
Just to clarify, in terms of seconds, I was talking about overall seconds during the ride per unit length, not seconds per moment. There are many great airtime-focused coasters out there that have short moments of airtime!

From what I can tell, this looks to have 1 or 2 airtime moments that could be pretty strong, but the overall seconds and number of moments of airtime aren't that high, and the main focus of the ride appears to be something else; personally, I certainly wouldn't consider Exodus an airtime hyper in the same vein as the other 3 Mack hypers, or a typical B&M or Intamin hyper. Exodus looks to have airtime in the same way as many other UK coasters have airtime; it's kind of sprinkled in there while the ride primarily focuses on something else (in Exodus' case, big inversions and hangtime). Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Exodus' airtime will be absolutely excellent airtime, but I'd say that the ride as a whole does not look airtime-focused in the way that many other hypers are, and doesn't look like it will be packing tons of airtime.

There's nothing wrong with that by any means; I'm sure the ride will be excellent, and I'm excited to try it! But based on the layout we have, it doesn't look to have as much airtime as some other hypers out there; it looks like it focuses more on those sustained inversions, overbanks and whippy transitions. I could be wrong, but that's just my personal assumption based on what I'm seeing.
 

Coaster_cat

Roller Poster
this looks so good, both airtime and hangtime by the looks of it. wish we could get something similar in the states to be honest
Interesting to hear a non-UK based opinion. We saw something similar with the Smiler: It seemed so cool to enthusiasts in the US who had less of that sort of thing. Grass is always greener, right?
 

Hutch

Strata Poster
Figured I'd weigh after a day to gather my thoughts.

At first I was pretty disappointed in its length (still kinda am, seems like it'll hit the brakes with so much speed left), but after studying the layout more I'm really liking some of these unique elements. The first drop, non-inverting immlemann thing, and that wild outerbank inversion turnaround will be a great start.

In addition to the Steel Curtain comparisons, it actually kind of reminds me of Orion. In the sense that you have a huge coaster that doesn't appear to do a whole lot, or could benefit from a couple extra elements. But given the surprisingly positive reviews of Orion, I think we'll see something similar here.

It definitely won't be among the best in Europe, but probably one of the best UK rides. There's no way this will beat Nemesis for me though (and I do actually love Stealth, so interested to see how this ranks with the park's lineup).

But if anything, glad that the UK is actually getting something good for once haha. You all definitely deserve it.
 

Matt N

CF Legend
I've got to admit, the more I see of this coaster, the more it grows on me; some of those elements look like they could ride excellently, and I think we could be in for something special here, even if it might not be an airtime machine per se!
 

Changa

Mega Poster
Tbh I'm more excited than if it would have been a B&M hyper. It definitely could be longer, but the elements look so strong and relentless that it'd be an incredible experience nonetheless, and it has enough uniqueness to really work in its favour imo.

If it does turn out to be Mack (which is pretty likely based on the sound test), I couldn't be happier with this. If Icon shows anything its that Mack know what to do with a track layout and how to control forces. Considering this is merlin and Thorpe park, I was expecting something very underwhelming considering the track record (pun intended) but this is just awesome!
 

Nicky Borrill

Strata Poster
Just to clarify, in terms of seconds, I was talking about overall seconds during the ride per unit length, not seconds per moment. There are many great airtime-focused coasters out there that have short moments of airtime!

From what I can tell, this looks to have 1 or 2 airtime moments that could be pretty strong, but the overall seconds and number of moments of airtime aren't that high, and the main focus of the ride appears to be something else; personally, I certainly wouldn't consider Exodus an airtime hyper in the same vein as the other 3 Mack hypers, or a typical B&M or Intamin hyper. Exodus looks to have airtime in the same way as many other UK coasters have airtime; it's kind of sprinkled in there while the ride primarily focuses on something else (in Exodus' case, big inversions and hangtime). Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Exodus' airtime will be absolutely excellent airtime, but I'd say that the ride as a whole does not look airtime-focused in the way that many other hypers are, and doesn't look like it will be packing tons of airtime.

There's nothing wrong with that by any means; I'm sure the ride will be excellent, and I'm excited to try it! But based on the layout we have, it doesn't look to have as much airtime as some other hypers out there; it looks like it focuses more on those sustained inversions, overbanks and whippy transitions. I could be wrong, but that's just my personal assumption based on what I'm seeing.
I knew what you meant :)

In general, (but not always!) stronger airtime is in shorter bursts, whereas floater tends to be more sustained...

This has at least 4 or 5 good looking moments...

Let's use Shammi as an example, since your favourite is a B&M Hyper, and that's my favourite of that type... It has 6 moments of airtime, 7 with the first drop if you sit on the back. But those moments are sustained. I'm talking seconds at a time, so the total time will be crazy high.

Untamed for example has at least 12, probably more moments, of short, strong ejector... But the total seconds of airtime won't even come close to Shambhala's (at a guess.) However, I would definitely say Untamed has the 'better airtime' for me personally, and by a long way.

Or Hyperion has 6 moments of airtime, most of them strong ejector, but most of them much less sustained than Shambhala. So the total time would be much less than Shambhala. But IMO the fact the air time is much stronger means to me it has the better air time.

Obviously it's subjective, but I hope that goes some way to explaining why time doesn't come into it for me. For me it's about the strength first and foremost, and the more individual moments the better...

This looks to 'maybe' have 4 or 5 moments. And to me, based on what I've done before, it looks like it 'could' produce strong moments. Of course, all of this is just theorising, until we ride it, or at least see detailed plans and statistics. But I'm quite certain this will have more, and stronger, airtime than your average UK coaster. :)

As a side note... A coaster that mixes lots of short ejector, with a couple of sustained floater hills is even better... The holy grail, perfection... But that's probably too much to ask for, we can't have everything.... Can we???
 

Serena

Miss CoasterForce 2016
Staff member
Social Media Team
I just had a wishful thought.

RTH, CanCan Coaster and Dwervelwind are made by Mack all have on board audio... Just IMAGINE if Project Exodus has epic on board audio...😍
 

Nicky Borrill

Strata Poster
I just had a wishful thought.

RTH, CanCan Coaster and Dwervelwind are made by Mack all have on board audio... Just IMAGINE if Project Exodus has epic on board audio...😍
OMG, it is SO good on RTH! That would be amazing...

How do they get the bass to come through? Seems like there's the small speakers near your head, and a sub between the 4 seats... Is that right or is it an illusion?

Either way it's incredible!
 
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