2011 NLT - Round 1 [Scores pg 13]

[Metazoanhaddock]

WOW...didnt think i'd manage second in the first round O.o...well, off to upload the coaster

I wish I spent more time on technical things...

*8th place*

Livin' on the edge, man!

I'll be uploading my ratings as soon as I can replace the letters with actual usernames and re-arrange them so that they are in alphabetical order.

DQ'd, ah well, good luck everyone else!

[Coasterkidmwm]

Hey dillholes:

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CJD's Contest Ratings:
(Sorted alphabetically by user name)



BBT67 (Coaster "D")

Overall Impression:
In general, I'd call this coaster "competent, yet unrefined." In pretty much all areas, some legitimate skill was shown, but it was very rough around the edges and needed refinement and general perspective. The only serious issue was the layout. I really wasn't a fan of the sequencing.

Technical:
Again, there was indeed some legitimate effort shown here. For being a hand-shaped track, the heartlining was surprisingly good. The highest that accuracy-related lateral g's got was about 0.6. That's pretty darn good. The actual shaping in relation to the Gerstlauer style did need some work, as at times it didn't flow right, but that's a matter of detail. In the non-company-specific department, there was quite a bit of slight pumping, and a couple of big bumps where the transitions weren't smooth, but again in general it was done pretty well. There were lots of tunnel test intrusions, but all of them were within the range of reasonable doubt, so I'm going to warn you to be more careful and let them slide. G's were good. So you get a 7/10 in shaping, with only another .25 taken off for one moderate tunnel test infraction.

Adrenaline:
Here is where you're starting to have some legitimate issues. The speed was merely decent through most of it, feeling kind of drawn out. In intensity, it just didn't have the kind of intensity that it needed to, especially in the various turns where the g's lingered around the 2-g range and the transitions into and out of them were kind of drawn out. The only real standout moments were the two drops. Aside from that, most of the elements were just kind of decent. Kind of like it was just going through the motions rather than doing something truly exciting. There weren't really any good intense positive-g moments, and no airtime aside from the drops. Moving on to pacing, it was kind of off. It never really felt like it got going, and then the end was pretty boring. That last elevated banking transition and helix were just taken too slowly, ending this coaster on a big low note. Good pacing is when there are constant standout moments that are highlighted by changes in speed, or in general just constantly feeling like the coaster is doing something important. Again, here it just didn't ever feel like it was really going fast, just kind of medium speed through the whole thing. The ride feeling that you ideally should achieve is one of feeling like you never know what might happen next. Your sequence didn't do that. It went out, came back, out again, and back again, with no real surprises like little pops of air or unexpected unusually-fast transitions, or just in general moments where it surprised me.

Originality:
The sequencing is a big issue here. The layout footprint is nothing like a Gerstlauer. They should ideally be compact and poppy, while this was big and drawn out. The second drop was the only true moment where I felt like it was doing something original. As for the rest, I feel like I pretty much outlined its deficiencies already in the Adrenaline section. It's just a matter of doing things that the rider does not expect. The execution of all of the elements was just too straight-forward and not intense enough. I do have to give you credit for the well-done support work, though.

Technical: 6.75 Adrenaline: 6.75 Originality: 6.75
Final Rating: 6.75




C_Dude (Coaster "K")

Overall Impression:
Not a bad track, but it had some issues in almost all categories. There were some oddly-shaped moments, the intensity and the pacing were less than stellar, and it had a big issue with sequencing and variety.

Technical:
While the general heartlined shaping was there, and the elements were shaped generally in the manned of a Gerstlauer, there was a lot of pumping and vertex bumps. These were mostly just caused by vertex placement that needed a little tweaking (try using the split-up method to smooth them out. I messed with your track's shaping a bit, and was able to greatly improve the smoothness by splitting up the segments before and after a troublesome vertex, deleting the vertex, then re-splitting the mid segment to replace it and de-splitting the two side segments.) This sounds unorthodox, but it is a great way to get good smoothness by hand. Almost all of your bumps and pumps were due to uneven vertex lengths/radii and uneven banking transitions that would whip in one segment and then hold perfectly in the next. Running the track through AHG with a low vertex count is another good option for fixing these vertex bumps and banking issues. Honestly, though, for a hand-heartlined track, you did a very good job. I'll give it a 7.5/10 in shaping. There was one more issue, however... that of undercarriage support collisions. I know you were going for realistic lift supports, and in that regard you succeeded, but you've still got to keep them away from the train's upstop wheels. I counted 13 major undercarriage support collisons. Normally that many would cost you 2 full points, but since every last one of them was a stylistic choice rather than a real mistake that would require major redesigning to fix, I'm only taking half a point off. Be more careful next time, and consider yourself very lucky. That is the only issue, though. G's were controlled surprisingly well for a hand-heartlined track, e-stop passed, and no passenger-related tunnel test infractions.

Adrenaline:
Your coaster way WAY too big for this template and rules restrictions. And because of this high speed, you ran out of track so quickly that you hardly got to do anything before the ride was over. If you're going to have a track that has so few elements, you better make those elements spectacular if you still want a good adrenaline score. And this coaster just didn't do that. The drop was great, but then the loop was mostly a hangtime element, the cobra roll was quick but not exceptionally forceful, the two connecting turns both lingered in the bland 1-2 g range, and the final big turn was just another medium-force hangtime element. I just wanted more. It never really had enough of a sense of speed and intensity, rather feeling like three separate elements. This can work, but again, those elements have to be really intense for it to work. And while the elements you had would have been just fine as part of a balanced and well-paced coaster, they weren't good enough to be the focal points of a whole coaster by themselves. They needed more ?????????wow????????? to them... something unique or surprisingly intense. Without such a thing, this coaster becomes merely enjoyable throughout, not really exceptional. So both pacing and intensity were merely decent.

Originality:
Here is where the layout is an even bigger issue. Good sequencing means surprises and variety, and elements that stand out. This ride really didn't have any surprises. The layout was element after element, with no ground turns or air pops to break up the layout, which led to a very predictable feeling. The only thing I can really give you credit for here is the final turn, which was unique in that it was an overbanked turn with hangtime, and the wonderfuly detail-attentive support work. But the rest just didn't feel exceptional in any way.

Technical: 7.00 Adrenaline: 6.75 Originality: 6.5
Final Rating: 6.75




Coasta101 (Coaster "O")

Overall Impression:
Unfortunately, before I even rode it I noticed that the first part of the ending brake run was sticking out of the red area of the template, so you're disqualified. Moving on to the actual coaster, though, it was pretty much average in terms of shaping and pacing. It was relatively smooth and relatively fast, but needed some clear work in every area.

Technical:
Some parts were a bit misshapen, most noticeably the loops which had flat tops and then tightened at the ends, a very odd thing, and the shaping of the corkscrew and the heartline roll were also a bit out of shape, but this just seems to be more a matter of needing a bit more experience under your belt to know how to tweak them properly. My general advice is as follows: First of all, familiarize yourself with real coasters. Learn how they bank, and learn how their elements are shaped. (compare your shaping with pictures or something.) When you emulate things that work in real life, it will be much easier to make your own creations work. Some decent effort was shown, as things like the slightly-flattened Gerstlauer heartline rolls were present, but a lot was shaped a bit off as well. Secondly, there are a lot of hand-building tips readily available on Coastercrazy that can help you make things go smoother. Here is the [url=?????????http://www.coastercrazy.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=24504"]Link.[/url] Getting back to the obvious, there was still a lot of pumping and some bumps, but the good news is that overall, rider discomfort was minor, so I feel like I can still at least give you a 6.25 or so for some good effort. Moving away from shaping, there are just two other minor issues. First, there is too much air on the first drop, spiking at -2.0. And secondly, there were a couple of minor collisions with the supports in the first loop. Those two combined will cost you a full point, leaving you with a generally average score of a 5.25.

Adrenaline:
I think the big issue here was just that the coaster was too big. When you have such limited length to work with, it is generally very good advice to also limit the height so that you can fit more elements in at a lower speed. When you have so much height and speed, you only get to do like 4 or 5 elements. Shorter coasters can work, but they really need to knock your socks off to make those scant 4 or 5 elements feel satisfying. And you're not quite there yet. The intensity was a big issue. The turns were all lingering right at 2 g's, which is actually rather boring. The loops were taken at just about the worst intensity possible. They didn't even crack 3.5 at the bottom, but the top didn't have any hangtime either. Plain and simple, you either need to take them faster or slower. Either go for intensity or hangtime. Anything but 3.5 and 0.5. So, yeah, there really weren't any standout intense moments. The only intense part was the drop, but that was way too intense, which takes points away due to discomfort. Moving on to pacing, more big problems. The only moment on the entire ride that felt fast was the corkscrew. The rest felt kind of medium-speed. It never felt like it got going. Throw in more variety. Something more than just 180-degree turns on both ends. Some variations in height, moments where it quickly changes directions or suddenly speeds up or slows down, and moments where it randomly gets more intense and takes you by surprise. And end with a bang. That is what makes for great pacing. Another score only slightly above average here.

Originality:
HUGE problems here. Mainly in the layout department. The sequence was as follows: drop, inversion, 180-degree turn, inversion, 180-degree turn, inversion, 180-degree turn, inversion, end. See the problem here? It's way too predictable. It never had variety where it suddenly changed direction, or did some different kind of turn, or entered an inversion in an unexpected way. In general, it just never surprised me. Every element on this coaster has been done a million times before... loop, corkscrew, loop, heartline roll, end. And each one was executed completely straight-forwardly, starting and ending at the same elevation and all having unexciting g-forces through them. So, yeah, I really don't have anything at all positive to say here. About all I can say is that you put a turn in the first drop, did some decent custom support work, and at least tried to emulate the Gerstlauer style. But yeah, this layout just blows. I know you can come up with something more interesting and original than this.

Technical: 5.25 Adrenaline: 5.50 Originality: 3.75
Final Rating: 4.83 (DQ)




Coasterdave (Coaster "P")

Overall Impression:
Oh, man, this is going to be a tough one. It was smooth and well-shaped, but it was so off-the-wall different from anything that Gerstlauer would do without having the excitement factor to make up for it, so I'm kind of at a loss about how to rate it. It'll probably make it to the next round due to the great shaping alone, but it will be tough to explain why I don't like this coaster without seeming ignorant of what you were going for in the first place. But I'll try.

Technical:
This was clearly tooled, and yet successfully managed to avoid the common pitfall of predictable g-forces. However, I think it was actually a bit too perfect. It felt much more like an Intamin or a B&M than a Gerstlauer. If the vertical lift were omitted, I would have no idea at all that this was a Gerstlauer. And I shouldn't be feeling this way. It is the minor imperfections that make something feel right in this style... little places where the heartlining isn't quite right and you get a little shot of lateral g's, heartline rolls that aren't quite perfectly straight, circular loops. You were just missing all of these little defining features that would show the right style. So although technically this coaster is 100% perfect in terms of g-forces, pumps, and rider comfort, I can't in good conscience give it higher than an 8.5 because it just isn't a Gerstlauer. The only other issue is e-stop. That last brake is very dicey. Even when it did work, the speeding train came within a couple feet of crashing. And it didn't always work. I crashed twice while I was riding. And this is a very major issue, because you were already using every single inch of available space to make it stop, so fixing this problem would take almost a complete re-designing of the ride's end. So you're losing a full point for it. So a 8.5/10 in shaping minus a full point gives you a 7.5.

Adrenaline:
Here is where I just have to mention the drop. IMO, not having the past-vertical drop was a huge mistake. That, in my opinion, is the single thing that makes most Gerstlauer coasters worth riding at all. In general, actually, I consider them to be badly-paced and not exciting enough after the drop, but it is always that past-vertical drop with all the great ejector air and sensation of being pitched down into the abyss that makes it all worth it. So I must ask, without it, what is your coaster's signature element? I saw absolutely nothing. It all just kind of blended together as a sequence of turns and inversions with no moment whatsoever sticking out as the ?????????awesome????????? moment that made this coaster stand out. Without that drop, it's just another multilooper. This would be okay if it were a bit more intense, but it just didn't do it for me. There were one or two good high-positive-g moments, a couple moments of weak ejector air, and just in general a fast pace. But nothing really stood out as amazing. It was just all in the ?????????good????????? range. Pacing is much more of a positive, keeping good speed throughout, and even successfully having its single most exciting moments all the way at the end after a dramatic pause. I like that a lot, and it was the kind of layout that would leave you pumped full of adrenaline at the end. But yeah, that drop just plain sucked. It was all bland demi-positive g's, and eliminated the single most exciting moment of any Gerstlauer coaster.

Originality:
The drop was definitely original, but IMO it actually made the coaster much worse, so I really can't give it any credit. There was a lot that I liked, though. The hammerhead was very fun, I loved the sustained perfect floater air coming into the MCBR, and that finale with the interlocking corkscrews and the air pops was fantastic. In general, when I looked at this coaster from the top I did not expect to like it because it looked too much like a boring double-out-and-back layout, but the execution was much better than I thought it would be. It really didn't feel predictable, and really I think the only negative things that I can say about it are that it didn't quite have the ?????????wow????????? factor to make it feel truly out-of-control and intense (it still did feel a bit too ?????????programmed,????????? although nowhere near as badly as some of the Newton tracks,) and also, as I already mentioned, the drop just downright blows, and the whole feels-like-a-B&M-&-Intamin thing comes into play again. Support work was nice.

Technical: 7.5 Adrenaline: 7.25 Originality: 7.5
Final Rating: 7.42




Fear the four (Coaster "R")

Overall Impression:
My biggest issue with this coaster is sequencing. It was just big element after big element without a real feeling of speed or intensity. This coaster was also very bumpy, so technical is going to take a few points off. So my initial guess is that it's not going to make the cut.

Technical:
This coaster was just plagued by nasty, vicious bumps and pumps. The main thing that was wrong here was that you were using segments that were all of different lengths. It constantly switched from long segments to short ones in the middle of elements, which as a rule will ALWAYS produce nasty bumps, even when the shaping of the element is correct. I recommend using the multiple-split-up technique, splitting/deleting vertexes over and over again and smoothing them with the track smoother at every step, until all segments that are rotating are of relatively the same length. This would fix almost all of the bumps on this coaster. That is one of the biggest secrets to smoothness, is to keep all of your segments relatively the same distance apart. AHG is another way to accomplish this. With that said, the shaping of the elements themselves really were quite good. Everything was the right shape, the heartlining was good except for the two 0-g rolls, and they had the ?????????slip out????????? that Gerstlauer uses, and would have been fantastic if not for the bumps and pumps. So in shaping, I'll give you a 7/10 and call it a day. But there were a lot of other problems. First of all, you had a lot of collisions. There were two major undercarriage support collisions where the train's wheels went straight through the supports, and four other moderate tunnel test infractions. Minus 1.75 points. Then finally there were g-force issues. Because of the shaping of the two 0-gravity roll spin moments, the first had a solid 2.0 lateral g spike going into it, and the second had 1.5. There were a lot of other moments where the g's spiked into the red, but these were all due to poor vertex placement rather than actual banking or shaping problems, so I'll only dock you .5 for all of them, for a total of 2.25 off from your 7. Also, as a final non-points-related note, why did you have so many trains? Probably 3 of them were unnecessary. At most you should have one loading, one waiting to load, and one unloading, not a line of like 4 all waiting.

Adrenaline:
I honestly really didn't like this coaster. Not only was it just inversion after inversion, but it had a start-stop pace to it where every time it got any speed going it would go right back to the top of an inversion and slow right down again. This is why you need some smaller elements like airtime hills or turns or heartline spins to break up the layout... they are what make a coaster really feel like it is going fast, whereas big inversions are just kind of the feeling of ?????????okay, we're doing another inversion????????? rather than ?????????AAAH! Slow down!????????? Good pacing is what happens when a coaster varies from portions that are really fast and unexpected to portions that pause so that you can still tell what's happening. This one just lacked that kind of out-of-control punch to make it feel extreme. So just a moderate score here. Intensity was much more of a positive, though. It had two notable stand-out moments: first of all, the drop. That was just about the perfect intensity, a quick whippy peak of -1.2 g's. The second was that transition going into the sea serpent element where there was a fantastic pop of lateral air. That was great fun, and both very intense. Also, I loved the nice hangtime on the loop. All it lacked here was more intensity in the second half, where it just kind of petered out and kept doing inversions until the end. So, overall, a slightly above-average score for some good elements but a general lack of good pacing.

Originality:
Here is where the bulk of the deductions for sequencing will go. I already mentioned it twice, but the lack of smaller ?????????quick????????? elements and true sensation of speed made the second half of the ride a bit of a drag. The only big surprise in the whole coaster was the random pop of lateral air. The rest was just inversion after inversion without a single break in the pattern to keep things interesting. There were technically original elements, but that's only because Gerstlauer generally doesn't do more dive-loopy elements. So they really didn't feel original. They just felt like it was going through the motions. Also, every single inversion started from the ground, went up, and then came back down, with one already-mentioned exception. What I'm really looking for in a coaster is where every element feels like it matters, and adds to the sensation, and I never know what's coming next. In general, this one just didn't have it.

Technical: 4.75 Adrenaline: 7.25 Originality: 6.75
Final Rating: 6.25




Gazag (Coaster "B")

Overall Impression:
An excellent track. There were only some minor technical issues in all departments that kept it from being at the absolute top.

Technical:
Really good shaping for the most part. The best thing that it had was flow. It really felt like the elements smoothly flowed from one to the other in a comfortable fashion, the heartlining was just about right, and for the most part the elements were shaped exactly like a Gerstlauer should be. There were some pumps, but not to the point that it would be too uncomfortable. There were, however, two or three areas that could have been shaped better. The first was the drop itself. The air was slightly too intense, -1.3, and the bottom wasn't quite intense enough. It should ideally be a bit more rounded and less snappy at the top, and a bit more snappy at the bottom. The second issue was the transition into the MCBR, which went directly from spinning to flat with no transition whatsoever, resulting in a painful near-instantaneous transition from -1 to +1 lateral g's. Finally, the transition immediately after the MCBR was even worse, snapping very quickly from -1 to +1.3 lateral g's. Those would both really hurt in real life. The transition into the final brakes was also a bit abrupt. In general, though, most of the problems were minor. There were no real major problems.

Adrenaline:
This aspect of the coaster was quite good. Again, most of my issues with it are rather nitpicky rather than serious. I already mentioned the drop, which I think needed to be a bit more intense on the pullout and have a bit more of a lengthy midsection to give the feeling of whip-then-fall. The second nitpick is the big airtime hill. Your hill had -1 g's pretty much the whole way over the top. Sustained negative g's are much less exciting than when you start out near 0 as the crest starts, and then suddenly increase them at the top to -1. This gives a surprise "whip" feel to it rather than the feeling that constant -1's give, which is more like you're hanging upside-down than being thrown out of your seat. It's the variation in g's, and the "thrown out of your seat" feeling that really makes a coaster feel exciting and out-of-control. The third issue is just a minor pet peeve of mine, that you had a MCBR and yet pretty much all of the truly exciting elements were over by then. The ending segment was so short, and didn't really add much, so I had to wonder whether you really needed it or not. When I see a MCBR, I like to see the coaster save something really exciting and unexpected for the end. But this ending really was only interesting because of one brief pop of air and some hangtime in the cutback element. The rest just didn't have that much to it, and nowhere near the kind of excitement and variety that the first half did. This doesn't really hurt the overall ride's excitement that much, but it does show a slight lack of planning and refinement where every element truly matters and is there for a purpose. Again, overall just minor nitpicks. Great track overall! Fast throughout, intense throughout, and never felt slow.

Originality:
While there weren't any original elements per se, I really loved the sequencing of the whole coaster. It was done in a way that kept it from feeling predictable in the least. There was a great mix of intensity and hangtime, some great random pops of air in unexpected places, the speed was great throughout in that it constantly switched from fast to slow at opportune moments, and everything just "felt" unique. I'm still not a fan of the selection of elements and pacing in the ending, but the shaping itself still ensured that this ending was as unpredictable and varied as the rest of the coaster. Overall, a superb job. Great sequencing and great variety! Plus decent work on the supports.

Technical: 7.5 Adrenaline: 8.25 Originality: 8.50
Final Rating: 8.08




Gouldy (Coaster "M")

Overall Impression:
First of all, I'll assume that the little bribery message to the judges at the beginning was your idea of a sick joke, and move on. That aside, this was a very good track, especially in the sequencing department. It had a lot of really fun twists, a great variety of forces, and the technical was extremely impressive for a hand-shaped track. Most of the problems are just minor mistakes.

Technical:
For a hand-shaped track, this was absolutely spectacular! There were only a few minor bumps and pumps, the heartlining was almost dead-on, and the only ?????????weird????????? place was the shaping of the cobra rollish thing and the ensuing loop. The rest was smooth, banked properly, and almost spot-on for getting the Gerstlauer feel. So you start with an excellent 8.25/10 in shaping, the highest hand-shaped track in the contest by far, and thus far third best overall. The only remaining problem was a too-intense -1.6 g's on the first drop, costing you a quarter-point.

Adrenaline:
In the intensity department, most of the inversions were taken at good speed, pulling over 4 g's at the bottom for a good fast-inversion speed. The drop off the MCBR was downright insane, and the first drop would have been great if it weren't for the bad g's. Really the only moment on the ride that lacked intensity was the final helix and air hill. The helix lingered between 2-3 g's. Those numbers sustained are fine, but I feel like it needed a brief 3.5+ kick at the end to give a little surprise rather than lingering right at 3. And the last element was merely floater air, which I felt was a letdown for a final element. Floater air is more of a big-element thing, IMO, while ejector, even just a little pop, is much more appropriate for the last element on a ride. My complaints in pacing are pretty much the same. The beginning was pretty well-paced, with a great pause-then-surprise at the MCBR, and then the roll was another pause, so I was expecting one final intense surprise right before the end, but it didn't come. So that was really the only letdown on an otherwise very fun ride.

Originality:
There is some very cool stuff going on here. The slight pause before the drop was an amusing touch, the three big inversions were certainly different, albeit a little odd and not really original in terms of g-force experiences, that drop off the MCBR was downright amazing, and in general the ride never felt predictable. Sequencing was great, as I never knew what was going to happen next and I was surprised on more than one occasion. Once again, the only letdown for me was the ending. I was just craving one last unexpected twist, but just got a floater air hill into the brakes. But mostly, I really can't complain. A great track in all departments.

Technical: 8.00 Adrenaline: 8.00 Originality: 8.00
Final Rating: 8.00




Highthrills2 (Coaster "H")

Overall Impression:
This track was clearly by beginning designer, so I'm going to be giving a lot of hopefully-constructive criticism. Technical was really bad. Adrenaline was marginal, and originality needed some serious work as well. Also, you violated the rules three times. The lift ends outside of the red box, the mid-course brake run is complete outside of the red box, and your coaster was 56.82 m too long. So you are disqualified.

Technical:
Some basic advice for making better shaping:
1. On most coasters, with the exception of non-GCI woodies, lateral g forces should be kept as close to zero as possible through most elements.
2. If the g forces are too high (anything yellow or red on the NL force graphs,) make the turn/pullout wider and adjust the banking.
3. (possibly the most important) Look at pictures and POV videos of real coasters. Look at how their inversions are shaped, and look at how their banking transitions flow. The more you know about how real coasters are shaped, the more you'll be able to get the shaping right in NL.
4. (easy fix) don't use continuous roll on lift and brake segments. It puts weird kinks in pieces of straight track.
So, with that said, this coaster did at least show some skill, abeit not much, in that the elements at least had some relatively logical shaping. So while most of the vertexes were bumpy, and while the banking and shaping were off in most of the elements, at least some skill was shown, which I'll call ?????????slightly below average????????? (which would be a 5,) so I'm giving you a 4.5/10 in shaping. Then there were three other big technical problems. The first, and most obvious, is the bad g-forces. Here's a short list: 5.6 vertical, 1.7 lateral, 2.3 lateral, potentially-deadly 4.3 lateral, 1.8 lateral, the list goes on. There were two instances of red g's, one of which was over twice as strong as the absolute maximum limit of the human body. So due to this potentially life-threatening nature, I'm taking off the maximum 3 points for g-forces. The second major issue was e-stop. What e-stop means is that when you press the ?????????F12????????? button, and the coaster hypothetically shuts down due to either a technical breakdown or an emergency, the trains MUST stop safely. This coaster's first ending brake run had an issue with this. Although it was set as a blocksegment, it did not stop the speeding train fully, resulting in a crash. (In fact, the coaster crashed on its own right at the beginning of the track about 50% of the time.) So another half-point off. Then finally, there were two undercarriage support collisions near the ride's end, where the coaster's upstop wheels went straight through the supports (this would cause a horrible crash in real life, either death by sudden-stop or derailment.) So another half-point off gives you your final score of the minimum, 0.5. Don't take it personally. Again, the shaping was just slightly below-average. It was the g-force spikes, e-stop, and the collision that knocked it down, not so much the shaping.

Adrenaline:
This area wasn't as bad, but still needed a lot of work. The main reason that points are being taken off is because there were bad g-forces in almost every single element, meaning that I can't really judge them due to their infeasibility. Despite that, the layout still would have had some issues even if the technical was fixed. The biggest issue was just that there weren't any ground-hugging fast turns or airtime. It was all ?????????elements,????????? which tend to make a coaster feel like it isn't going very fast. It is in quick transitions, intensity, and doing things that the rider does not expect that good adrenaline is made. And although most of these elements had high g's, they really weren't taken very fast. Most of the track that led into each various element was low and wide, creating a slow feeling rather than the high-g intensity that would have been ideal. In the pacing department, the big problem is that the second half of the coaster is extremely short and slow-paced when compared to the first half, which leads to a let-down sort of feeling. (Save some of the excitement for the ending.)

Originality:
The shaping of the elements certainly wasn't anything that has been done before, but that is more because of bad shaping than truly original execution. Take that away, and the sequence would be as follows: drop, slightly-kinked loop, overbank, boomerang, overbank, overbank, rising turn, MCBR, cutback, heartline spin. I just wasn't a fan of that sequence. I wish you had done something a bit more original than the three high-banked elevated turns, and the sequencing and Gerstlauer accuracy both needed a lot of work. I appreciate that you tried all-custom supports, but they actually took away from the coaster more often than not in this case. Again, I recommend looking at how real Gerstlauer supports are constructed and emulate that.

Technical: 0.5 Adrenaline: 4.00 Originality: 3.75
Final Rating: 2.75 (DQ)




Jakizle (Coaster "J")

Overall Impression:
This track was very well-done in terms of pacing and intensity. There were a lot of nice little surprises that set it apart, and the only real issue was a few Newton-y mistakes in certain places. This one should easily be on to the next round.

Technical:
The only pumping on the whole ride was at the bottom of the first drop, and aside from that it was glass-smooth. So there aren't really that many shaping issues. The only problem is that a couple of the inversions were slightly mis-shapen. The loop had an odd kink in it, and the two dive-loop elements were both too perfectly-vertical. This wasn't technically an issue of comfort, but more an issue of adhering to the Newton style rather than the Gerstlauer style. Also, in general the coaster was taken a bit too fast for a Gerstlauer, and more often than not I could tell exactly where your g-force zones started and ended, which is generally a sign that you let Newton dictate the shaping too much. In general, although it was perfectly-smooth, it needed just a bit more shaping effort put into it to properly emulate the Gerstlauer feel. But since that's just a style issue, I don't feel comfortable taking off more than 1 extra point. 8.5/10 in shaping. Moving away from shaping, there are some big problems, though. The first one is your g-forces. Some of the elements were just taken a bit too fast, resulting in some bad lateral g's. You had yellow lats of 1.8 twice, first in the underbanked section coming into the zero-g roll, and then again through it. Then there was another 1.4 lateral-g slam in the ending helix. So for those three moments, you're losing ????????? of a point. The last issue was support collisions. You had two MAJOR undercarriage support collisions, first at the top of the lift and then again coming into the end brakes. Then you had at least 3 or 4 minor tunnel test infractions in the lopping section. These all combined are costing you another 1 point off, which gives you your final score of 6.75.

Adrenaline:
This coaster had great speed throughout, and what especially stood out was its fantastic pacing. It had a great start, a nice slower floaty section in the middle, and then really kicked it into overdrive in the end. Fantastic stuff! The intensity also was great throughout. There was fantastic sustained 0-g hangtime in every single inversion, a well-placed pop of air, and some really intense lats in the ending helix. As a full package, this would definitely be the single most exciting Gerstlauer out there. The only part that I disliked was the big airtime hill, because it went for sustained -1 g ?????????hangtime????????? airtime instead of the more-exciting ejector feeling created by spiking up to greater than -1 for only a split second rather than holding it there. But honestly, that's a nitpick. The only legitimate reason I am taking points off is because of the bad g's in the heartline roll and the final helix. Had you been able to keep the lateral g's down below 1.3, I easily could have given this coaster a 9.

Originality:
While this coaster really didn't have too much pure originality-wise, and it suffered from following the often-predictable Newton g-force shaping, it gains big points in the sequencing department. I loved the layout of this coaster, I loved the variety of g-force experiences, and I loved how it all fit together into one fantastically-planned whole ride experience. Now when I say that it suffered from the Newton g-forces, here is what I mean: it had too many sustained g-forces rather than varying them. Real coasters, especially Gerstlauers, do not hold high g-forces for sustained periods of time, and do not transition so gradually from one to the other. They tend to be a bit more circular rather than parabolic like Newton tends to make. In other words, they have their highest g-forces at a single defined point rather than holding them at a single number. Not only does this make a coaster more realistic, it provides greater g-force variety because it means the rider is not expecting that g-force to get more intense, but it does. It is that sudden change in g forces, where it was lower but then jumps higher, that helps a coaster really feel unpredictable. Basically, you just needed to get a bit better g-force variety. With that said, the layout was such a big plus that I'm just being nitpicky, and once again can't in good conscience take off any legitimate amount of points for it. Also, good job on the supports!

Technical: 6.75 Adrenaline: 8.50 Originality: 8.5
Final Rating: 7.92

Jer (Coaster "G")

Overall Impression:
This ride, to me, is like ?????????A Tale of Two Coasters.????????? In the beginning, it is ridiculously over-fast, and then in the ending it is too slow. There were a lot of parts that needed some serious re-shaping, and originality was kind of meh, but it was at least mostly above average. However, despite anything, it had a footer sticking outside of the template, so this coaster is disqualified.

Technical:
Mainly what I want to say here is that the ideas that this coaster had were decent, but the execution was a little off in many places. There were lots of moments like the drop which were really snappy and abrupt, there were some heartlining issues where the g's were off, either due to the snappiness or due to wrong banking producing odd inner-turn lateral g's. The biggest issue, though, was bumps and pumps. They were everywhere. Very few vertexes were smooth, and a lot of them had some very painful bumps that produced high g's. Part of the reason why this happened was because you were constantly switching from long segments to short ones. This will ALWAYS produce bumps. I think what you really needed to do was to split up those longer segments so that they were more close in length to the shorter ones, and then go about tweaking them from there (this will come with practice, but here are some immediate tips that I can offer: http://www.coastercrazy.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=24504 That was the real issue, which is what produced most of the g-force issues I will mention later. Flow was somewhat decent, as it didn't feel like every element was separate, and the general shapes of the inversions were mostly right, although I would still recommend watching a few Gerstlauer POVs to see how they shape things, as it still needed some work. G forces were a big issue. There were a lot of instantaneous high-g snaps due to the track's many bumps, including spikes of 1.8 and 2.1 on the drop and corkscrew respectively (turn the speed down to 25%,) and sustained lats of 1.4 in the exit of the downward roll. Painful stuff, and -1 point in addition to the 6/10 in shaping. Finally, you failed E-Stop. The MCBR was set as a blocksegment, yet it didn't even come close to stopping the moving train in time. This means that given the right circumstances, it is possible that a full-speed train could crash into a train stalled on the first set of final brakes. (In the sim it actually didn't, due to station timing, but it is a very grave potential hazard given the right set of circumstances in real life.) I'm only taking away .25 points due to the very rare circumstances it would take to make it happen.

Adrenaline:
This one's a hard coaster to judge here, because almost all of the big elements had g problems, and then the ending was really forceless by comparison. On the plus side, the opening was very fast. It really felt like it was going quickly, and there was a good variety of g forces varying from mild to very intense in random bursts. This randomness helped to make it quite exciting despite not being necessarily original or well-shaped. The ending was kind of a let-down, though. We breezed through the MCBR while hardly slowing down at all, so I was expecting the ending to be completely nuts, but it ended up being almost boring. You really needed better planning, and less drawn-out elements. Do something quickly. Quick transitions, intense inversions, anything to keep that sensation of speed up, but don't let it fade into mediocrity like it did here. You did the opposite of what I like, where the beginning is big elements and setup and then the end is really where it kicks into high gear and leaves you pumped with adrenaline.

Originality:
Again, a mixed bag here. The drop was original but had poor execution, the inclined loop was original but also had poor execution, and the entire ending was just plain awful. Bland, unforceful, and unoriginal, especially when compared to the fast beginning. The only true standout surprise moment was the diving loop where it unexpectedly got extremely intense. So just like many coasters in this contest, good originality in the beginning and then just bland in the end. Also, as a final note, I think you could have done with a little less height. When a coaster is going faster, it obviously burns up length faster, so with the short length limit, less height would let your do more with it. Supports were above average.

Technical: 4.75 Adrenaline: 6.75 Originality: 6.50
Final Rating: 6.00 (DQ)




Jonny Richey (Coaster "I")

Overall Impression:
Technical was good, the ride setup was exceptional, but the layout on this coaster was just really bad. For most of its length, it just felt like it was aimlessly wandering around doing nothing important.

Technical:
The only substantial problem in the technical department was the nasty bumps in the ride's first half. These bumps are bad enough that they generated temporary red g's for fractions of a second. In general, the banking transitions were a bit off. They weren't heartlined and banked enough, which contributed to the couple of extreme lateral g spikes, especially in the two low turns immediately after the big drop. The rest was a bit better, but still the transitions were just not banked right, and generated a lot of lower-end odd lateral g's in the 1-g range. There was at least some good effort put in to attempt hand-heartlining, but ultimately you just needed more vertexes spaced more evenly. Bumps tend to be generated either when a coaster switches from long segments to short or short to long (like in the first turn,) or when there is a very sudden switch from flat to full-g turning like the entrance to the loop. Just work on the vertex placement and banking transitions a bit more. On the plus side, you did make a decent effort at emulating a generally Gerstlauer-like shape. It was just in the banking transitions and the execution where you fell short. There were also two other major issues. The first is the g's which I already mentioned. The other is two full-blown collisions. The first was an undercarriage wheel hit with a footer in the first covered turn, and the second was a major side-arm tunnel-test infraction on the loop. So your score is a 7.25/10 in shaping, minus 1 point for the bad g's, mainly that 3.0 lateral spike after the drop and the -1.8 vertical g spike on the drop itself, and another point for the two collisions.

Adrenaline:
The speed felt decent, mainly because of the way the coaster was constantly dodging trees and diving into wooden trenches, but the intensity and the pacing was really off through the whole coaster. The beginning was way too fast, and then the ending was way too slow. My biggest gripe was that the banking transitions weren't consistent. At first, they were zipping left and right and all over the place, and then in the ending it was taking a long time to transition into all of the elements. You needed to find a balance somewhere between these two extremes. Intensity-wise, the only things in the ideal range were the cutback inversion and the loop. Those are the things that made me go ?????????wow,????????? so you do get credit for those. Pacing was just plain awful. There really weren't any moments that felt like they stood out speed-wise, and the whole ending of the ride was too slow, leaving a sour taste in my mouth. Good pacing is a matter of varying the speed and intensity in such a way that the elements stand out and make you feel like what you are going through is exciting. There should be moments where you really feel like you are out of control as well as some slight pauses to get the proper sense of scope, plus a couple of surprises. The ending here especially needed more variety and more intensity.

Originality:
There was one very cool moment on this ride, and that was the pop of air heading into the cutback element. I liked that. It took me by surprise. With a better coaster surrounding it, it could be a signature element that I'd look forward to riding it for. The rest was just plain bland in terms of sequencing. Lots of flat turns, one loop, and two rollovers. Some variation would have helped a great deal, either in the form of a change in pacing, or an unexpected element, or a helix, anything to break up the layout a bit. Stylistically, it did relatively feel like a Gerstlauer. Only the several back-and-forth turns felt kind of odd. You do, however, get huge kudos for all of the extras. The one remarkable thing about this ride was the fantastic setup. The supports, the station, the catwalks, the cool extras on the lift and the loop, and those trenches that it was always diving into were huge pluses. Great work there!

Technical: 5.25 Adrenaline: 6.25 Originality: 7.00
Final Rating: 6.17




LeFlo (Coaster "C")

Overall Impression:
Superb coaster! The technical was near-flawless, the adrenaline was very good, it followed the Gerstlauer style better than any other coaster in this round, and the extras like the supports and 3ds environment were just amazing! This should easily be in the top 3 coasters in this round, if not #1.

Technical:
Shaping-wise, the only technical issue that I saw on the whole coaster was some minor pumping throughout most of it. However, there were three legitimate collisions that need to be mentioned. The first one was with the bush at the bottom of the drop off the MCBR. The second and third were both with the top of the second box-support for the roll after the loop. It was not only within the reach of passengers on the left side of the train, it also grazed the undercarriage wheel assembly of the coaster train. Those are your only issues, though. In general, big kudos for capturing the Gerstlauer style almost 100% perfectly. You only lose a half-point in the shaping department for the pumping, giving you a starting value of 9.5/10, but then tack onto that a quarter point for the easily-fixable bush hit, and a half point for the also-easily-fixable, but potentially dangerous, support hit.

Adrenaline:
It was very good, and would easily be one of the most exciting Gerstlauer coasters if built, but I was still looking for that extra extreme push to get it into the 9's. With that said, I absolutely loved the beginning sequence. Great drop, absolutely superbly-shaped and very intense/exciting airtime hill, that double-roll element was really fun, and there was a nice air/lat combo coming into the MCBR. That part was near-perfect! The ending was less of a positive, though. (This is probably where I'm going to differ from most judges. Because although it was very accurate to the style, I don't see that as a good thing. IMO, the ending of most Gerstlauer coasters are really bland, so if I don't like it on the real coasters I don't see a reason to be forced to give it a good score on a virtual coaster either, no matter how accurate it is to the actual sequencing of a Gerstlauer coaster. After all, most Gerstlauer coasters are in the mid-100's on the Mitch Hawker poll, and even the highest-rated open-air coaster, Speed: No Limits, is only in the 70's. So, yeah, that's my reasoning here.) With that said, it was mostly the second half that gave me issues. The drop out of the MCBR was really bland, staying in the 1-g range all the way down. And it's not that the loop and final helix were bad, as the loop had good hangtime and the helix was plenty intense, it's just that they felt really predictable compared to the rest of the coaster, and just didn't give me a real sense of randomness and excitement like the first half did. And if you've seen my ratings before, I like to see something unexpected in a coaster's second half to finish it with a bang. So a very good job here, but just needed a touch more to push it into the 9's.

Originality:
Here is where I am going to give you the credit you deserve for the absolutely amazing work on the supports, scenery, and accuracy in general. It was downright sublime! Every little detail was there, from the ladders up the MCBR to the block-sensors to the way that a Gerstlauer stops at the bottom of the lift while the chain runs under it. Amazing work! As far as the coaster's originality goes, again, I loved the beginning, thought the sequencing at the end could have used a bit more unpredictability, but that's about it. This coaster was not only accurate, it was also accurate while having a couple nice twists thrown in. Just an amazing job!

Technical: 8.75 Adrenaline: 8.25 Originality: 9.25
Final Rating: 8.75




Marcello (Coaster "L")

Overall Impression:
Although a smooth and fun track with very nice ride-environment work, this coaster had some serious shaping issues. Almost nothing was shaped like it should be for a Gerstlauer track. It was maybe 20% Gerstlauer, 80% Newton.

Technical:
There was only one bump/pump through the whole track, at the bottom of the first drop, but your issue was one of style. Everything was parabolic and completely un-Gerstlauer. Gerstlauer's style is to have more rounded tops on most of there inversions, and you really didn't make any attempt to emulate that style. All of the elements were quick and pointy at the top, which is a very idealized force-based thing to do rather than realistic. The drop is a good exmple. Real Gerstlauers whip you down, and then hold for a brief while before gradually building back up to maximum positive g's at a quick but smooth speed. Yours was rounded, and kept going more and more backwards rather than the whip-and-hold style, and then very quickly whipped out of the negative g's and back to 3.2 positive, where it held for a good 2 seconds afterward. So my general advice would be to make all of your elements more circular and less parabolically-perfect, and look for how real Gerstlauers are shaped. There are many other places that needed a lot of work, such as the lack of lateral pitch in the first inversion, the tightness of the turn into the MCBR, and the too-teardrop-shaped loop. So since this was a big issue, you're only getting an 7.5/10 in shaping despite the near-perfect smoothness. Then one last issue is that there were two places with bad g's. The drop was too intense, at -1.5, and there were too many lateral g's, 1.4, in the first flip element after the MCBR. That's a half-point off, leaving you with a 7.

Adrenaline:
Intensity-wise, there were three standout moments: the drop, the rollover after the MCBR, and the last double-pop of air right at the end of the ride. Two of those had bad g's in them, so I can't give you full credit, but they still score you some points. The rest was kind of mediocre. The loop especially was just plain horrible. It was too fast and too teardrop-shaped to have hangtime, and yet it only briefly peaked above 3.5 vertical g's, resulting in a very mediocre inversion. And this is the case in a lot of the inversions. Because of the Newton-perfect shaping, you have wide bottoms and pointy tops on almost everything, resulting in elements that feel relatively fast, but have almost no intensity whatsoever due to the lack of high g's and hangtime. Moving on to pacing, it was much more of a positive. The speed felt very well sustained throughout it, it had a great combination of fast and slow moments, and you saved a great surprise for the very end, resulting in a very fun coaster despite the general lack of real intensity through most of it. Not much else to say here. In general, a fun ride, but could have been improved with better intensity.

Originality:
On the negative side, the style was way off, as mentioned in technical. But on the plus side, the sequencing was very good. It had a lot of variety in speed and height, and the whole thing really did feel like it was a well-planned-out track seeking to deliver certain ride experiences at certain times. Plus the ride setup was fantastic, and added a lot to the whole experience, and the support work was fantastic. All it really needed IMO was maybe a big ?????????wow????????? element, slightly better execution, and maybe a touch more variety in the post-big-drop section where the lack of intensity made it drag slightly. But overall, a very solid coaster.

Technical: 7.00 Adrenaline: 8.00 Originality: 8.00
Final Rating: 7.67




Markhudson17 (Coaster "E")

Overall Impression:
This is by far the strangest of the rides in this round. I don't think a single thing about this coaster except the drop resembles a Gerstlauer Euro-Fighter in any way. On the one hand, this does make it unique, but on the other hand it was so ?????????out there????????? that it lost its sense of realism. Technical was decent. Pacing was very dicey.

Technical:
The problem with shaping here wasn't so much your decision to use more of a multilooper-with-intense-lats layout, but rather that the shaping of almost all of these inversions and turns was really off. There were many parts with no heartlining, all of those sharp turns just seemed extremely jerky and abrupt, even moreso than a wild mouse, there were a lot of moments where the banking just felt off and generated some odd inside-turn lateral g's, and almost all of the inversions had some nasty bumps and pumps in them. (Try splitting your elements into a greater number of vertexes with roughly equidistant placement. This will eliminate most of your problems here when you put the track smoother and some manual tweaking to it.) It's not like the shaping was ?????????bad????????? per se, as it showed at least some skill with making elements, but the main issue is just that the whole thing was made with almost no regard at all for the Gerstlauer style, and it severely lacked flow. Every element felt completely separate, and it really felt like it was following the ?????????element, turn, element, turn, element, turn????????? type of progression rather than truly feeling like everything was integrated. To improve on this, try linking elements together with a variety of different transitions, so that it feels like the whole thing is one big whole rather than just a bunch of different parts. So those are all of my shaping suggestions. Despite all that I complained about, I'm still giving you a 6/10 since it was more of a style issue than actual discomfort. You did have some g problems, though. The main one is lateral g's. I know what you were going for, but you overdid it. That first elevated turn pulled 2.0 lateral g's coming into it, and the turn between the two rolls pulled 1.4. That might be all right on a wild mouse coaster with padded sides and only lap bar supports, but you're talking some serious pain on a coaster with OTSR's. Yes, Gerstlauers do have unbanked turns sometimes, but they do not pull anywhere near that many g's. You could have reduced it to 1 or so and still gotten the same kind of sharp whip without the pain. The second g issue is that there are a couple places, notably the exit to your immelman element, where the train slammed straight down from airtime to 3 vertical g's with no transition. That would really hurt. These g issues are costing you .75 points, for a final rating of 5.25, or about average.

Adrenaline:
At pretty much all parts, this coaster was either too intense or not intense enough. The lateral-g turns were almost all too intense, while the drops and pullouts in general weren't quite intense enough, with long straight lead-ins. There was a lot of hangtime in the inversions, but not really any decent airtime that would take the rider by surprise. Pacing was really dicey. Because of how the elements were shaped, with really long tops, the whole thing had a stop-start pace to it, where every time it started going fast it would slow right back down again. This was exacerbated by the fact that there wasn't a single normal turn on the ride, rather just being element after element with an occasional elevated turn. The sensation of speed comes from quick ground transitions, so when it's just a lot of elements linked together, you lose that sensation of speed.

Originality:
The opening element and the sharp turns were definitely original, but the sequencing on this coaster was really bad. Once we got past that first inversion, the whole thing was following the out-and-back sequencing where it went out in a straight line, made a turn, and then came back in a straight line. This might have been okay if there was a little more element variety, something that started from a different height or flowed into other things in a unique way, or started the turn in an unexpected place, but this coaster didn't do anything like that. In that manner, it just felt kind of boxy and predictable. Again, I'm not saying that it was boring or anything, just that it could have been executed much better and could have done more to surprise the rider and mix up the sequence and pacing. As is, it's just kind of bland in these two departments despite having decent excitement. Also, here is where I really feel like I have to take some points off in the effort department. It is quite clear that almost no effort was put into making this coaster anything like a Gerstlauer. The rolls lacked entering and exiting banking transitions, and were too perfectly 360-degree heartline circular, more like an Intamin. The turns were more like a wild mouse, the loop wasn't shaped right, and the rest of the elements were just off in general, having odd slow hangtime. And the supports, while technically functional, have 0 resemblance to reality. I know it sounds like I'm being harsh, but there is a reason why the style of this round was Gerstlauer. You are encouraged to do original elements, but I should still be able to tell that I'm riding a Euro-Fighter rather than, say, an Intamin. Just watch some POV videos to see how they tend to shape things, and then adjust your shaping a bit to give at least a wink and a nudge to it.

Technical: 5.25 Adrenaline: 6.50 Originality: 6.00
Final Rating: 5.92




Maxamaxam (Coaster "S")

Overall Impression:
Here's another one that I can't tell right off the bat whether it's going to make it or not. It was good in technical, pacing was good, but sequencing I think could have been a little better. It just needed to be a bit twistier and a little less out-and-back-y.

Technical:
By this point, I'm just running out of things to say in this department that I haven't said already, so I'll be brief since you seem to be a good designer that will know exactly what I'm talking about. Like just about every tooled track here, there were no problems with bumps or pumps (except, bizarrely, the lift, which felt like an earthquake,) but the coaster lost a bit of the Gerstlauer style. Your layout was so un-Gerstlauer that I kind of lost the feel. It didn't have the sketchiness or the heartline-roll style that make me think of a euro-fighter, the banking felt off, and some of the element shaping just didn't feel quite right like the almost-straight drop and the runs of straight hills. Blah, blah, nitpick, nitpick, nitpick. Nothing too major, 8.25/10 in shaping. There were lots of other problems, though. The most major of these was the blocking scheme. You had 4 trains, but only 5 blocks to fit them all in. The stacking was ridiculous. You not only started with one train on the MCBR, you also started with one in the middle of a freaking vertical lift. This is because you had only 2 spaces for trains at the end of the ride... one set of brakes plus the station. This means you are running two more trains than your design can handle. You need at least one ending block for each train that you have, so that in the event of a breakdown people aren't stranded in the middle of the ride for extended periods of time. Fixing this on your coaster would take a HUGE re-design, because you left almost no space at the end of the ride for extra brakes or stations. So I'm going to have to deduct a full point for this problem. The next problem on the list is your g's. There is a vicious -1.7 vertical g spike in the last hill. Minus another .25 for that. Next. There were a lot of minor tunnel test infractions, including a potentially-dangerous extended tunnel-to-tunnel between the last set of hills and the big drop, where trains traveling in opposite directions at full speed could easily cross each-other and put the riders on the left side at risk if both stuck their arms out to the side. There were about 4 more very minor collisions with trees. I'll take off another .25 for each of these two groups of problems. And finally, you failed e-stop twice. The MCBR failed to stop the train, and the final brake run sporadically failed to stop the train as well. (I don't understand at all why you let this happen by setting the deceleration at 0.1.) This also led to sporadic crashes at the end of the ride, about 50% of the time. I can't penalize you too harshly since it was just due to a very unwise setting adjustment, but I still can't ignore it, so another half-point comes off. So if you were counting with me, that's a total of 2.25 points off, leaving you with a score your coaster really didn't deserve, a 6. (Side note: lol, so much for me being brief in this category...)

Adrenaline:
There were some really cool things going on with this coaster. It started with slower big elements with a couple surprises thrown in to break up the bigness, and then it really cranked up the speed and intensity for the ending. I love that! So pacing was a huge plus. It never felt slow, but there was a clear contrast between the fast and the slower parts, and when it finally did get going, it really hauled. I really don't think I can find much of anything to take off in this department. Maybe the beginning could have used one turn or low hill to break it up, but that's really getting nitpicky on a great coaster. Moving on to intensity, it was quite good. The standout for me was the sheer abundance of beautifully-executed airtime. This would be a coaster to ride simply for that reason. And for the most part, it wasn't executed predictably either, rather thrown in in short bursts randomly. And while this partially contributed to the lack of Gerstlauer feel in Tech, it was exciting. The verts hovered around 4 in most big elements, but not in a predictable kind of way. So, yeah, not really much to say here. A very exciting, well-paced coaster with amazing airtime. The only thing I can legitimately say I didn't like is the first drop. I think it could have used just a bit more curve to it. The rest is near-perfect, though. The only other points coming off are in the last hill, where the excessive g's are to the point that they would take away from rider enjoyment.

Originality:
Sequencing was definitely not this coaster's strongest suit. It was basically a double-out-and-back, and it actually did feel like one. I could tell through most of the ride that there was almost no track anywhere around me, and this kind of open-air-track design is very un-Gerstlauer, which tends to be much more compact and overlapping. The last run of hills especially just felt off-character, and oddly predictable despite their incredible intensity. Now, granted, there were some very nice surprises thrown in, especially the big elements where there was a suddenly-sharp moment at the top. So in general, good excitement and unpredictability, but the sequencing could have used just a little work, and also I have to take off points for the very un-Gerstlauerish feel of it and the complete lack of effort in the supports / ride setup department. (only 5 custom supports on the whole ride.)

Technical: 6.00 Adrenaline: 8.75 Originality: 7.25
Final Rating: 7.33




Metazoanhaddock (Coaster "F")

Overall Impression:
Pretty good track. The only technical downside was that it was very clearly a Newton track, and didn't quite do enough to hide that fact, and also I thought the layout was a little too boxy, but the pacing was quite good and it had some really fun elements, so it's still going to get a high score.

Technical:
The biggest issue that needs to be overcome with Newton is its tendency to make g forces that stay the same for too long, and then transition into and out of themselves too quickly. And you didn't quite overcome this. The first element was probably the worst culprit of this, quickly snapping from negative g's to 3.4 and then staying there until halfway through the loop. It's this kind of thing that you need to avoid. Real coasters tend to gradually work in and then gradually work out of high g's rather than sustaining the same ones for long periods. In future rounds, ease in and ease out, so that the vertical sections aren't so sharp and fast, and the shaping is a bit more circular. This was the main issue with most of the inversions. The high g's were sustained too long on the upslope, resulting in overly-tight element tops. The issue isn't that these are painful or bad g's, just that it gives the coaster the wrong flow and the wrong kind of pacing. The flow really was the only issue here. A lot of the elements didn't flow like they should, and in general the coaster suffered from the traditional Newton-separation syndrome where not enough was done to make the elements flow together, leaving every element feeling somewhat separate. There was some good effort shown to emulate the Gerstlauer style, though, most notably the way the rolls didn't finish banking fully before turning, so kudos for at least trying to make it flow right. Aside from that, no pumps or bumps, although the little past-vertical nub on top of the lift was weird, no g-force issues, so you get a 8/10 in shaping with no deductions.

Adrenaline:
Really fun all around here. Most of my complaints are just nitpicky. The drop was great. The loop, however, was kind of in the dead-zone between being fast and having hangtime, so it needed to either be faster or slower. The rest of the ride was taken at great speed, although the intensity wasn't quite there. The ride lingered in the sub-3.5-g positive range, and after the one little pop of air into the MCBR, all we had was perfect floater. So mainly what you have going for you is sensation of speed rather than intensity. Only the drop and the 1-lat turn into the MCBR were legitimately intense. In the pacing department, it was pretty much just fast throughout. There weren't really any dead spots, nor were there any especially intense spots. The speed was kept up pretty consistently all the way through the end. It worked well enough for me to call it good pacing. I'd ideally like to see at least one unusually-fast moment strewn in, especially if it's near the end, but this still worked as is. The only real issue was that it really didn't surprise me enough. It felt like all of the elements were separate, and a bit too ?????????programmed????????? rather than what it needs for a top-notch score here, namely the feeling that anything could happen at any time and that you never know what intense moment could be around the next corner. So a solid score but not top-notch.

Originality:
Not really too much exceptional going for it here. Elements were pretty standard Gerstlauer, and the coaster didn't really have any big surprises. The slight lack of flow plays a bigger part here, as when the elements feel separate it loses a lot of the surprise that it could have. I really would have liked to see at least something that set it apart from other Euro-Fighters. But since this really didn't try to be original, I'll make up for that in this category with pacing and how well it emulated the style, where the same nitpicky technical/adrenaline issues come into play. So somewhere in the mid 7's seems reasonable to me. You do score some points for the excellent support work, though.

Technical: 8.00 Adrenaline: 8.00 Originality: 7.75
Final Rating: 7.92




Omnigeek6 (Coaster "N")

Overall Impression:
This coaster's going to get huge originality points, because it did some ridiculously bizarre and off-the-wall things, but it is also by far the worst purveyor of Newton Shaping Syndrome. The pacing and shaping were just way off from the Gerstlauer style. (The challenge here was to build a Gerstlauer coaster, so you did indeed need to try and emulate the company's style.) Going into the review, I predict that it'll likely end up on the cusp of whether it makes the top 8 or not. I'll just have to crunch the numbers and see.

Technical:
There were a couple of nitpicky little bumps in two of the elements, including the stereotypical ?????????Newton bump????????? at the bottom of the first drop due to unchanging vertical g's, but really your issue is just style. It just wasn't Gerstlauer. The drop had way too much sustained ejector air, and in general everything was too teardrop-shaped rather than the more rounded shape that Gerstlauers tend to use. Basically, everything was completely shaped based on the default sustained-g shaping that Newton produces with almost no effort shown to emulate a more realistic shape. While I was riding the coaster, I could tell exactly where each g-force zone started and ended, and what forces you used to build it. Plus all of the vertical inversions had no tilt whatsoever. Watch an onride video of Haracan... that is what ?????????big????????? Gerstlauer inversions should be shaped like. They're tilted like B&M's. So, yeah, that's where most of the points are coming off here. Because it's technically smooth, I can't feel completely justified taking more than a couple points off, but please put more effort into emulating the real style next time. 7.5/10 in shaping. Now, moving on to g-forces, you've got some major problems here as well. This coaster was just too fast, and thus almost every time that it spun laterally, it generated some bad g-forces. The first big inversion is the biggest perpetrator. It generated a whopping 1.4 lateral g's, as well as an extremely-painful -2.0 acceleration g's (this means that people are being slammed into the front of their OTSR's with the force of twice their body weight. OUCH!) This was repeated in the corkscrew, and then there was another 1.6 lateral g spike in the final heartline spin. And your upside-down flip, while original, had way too many sustained negative g's, at -1.4 for almost a full second. (If you're going to use any g's above -1.2, it can only be for a split second, otherwise it starts to hurt, especially with Gerstlauer OTSR's.) These bad g's are going to cost you a full point. And finally, there were three collisions. Your phalanges, while they did add to the look of the coaster, also created about 8 very close calls with the undercarriage of the coaster car. The wheels only actually hit them twice, but they were within an inch the other times, which is way too close for comfort. I'll only dock your for the two times it actually hit, but be more careful next time. And then there was a major tunnel test infraction on both sides of the train during the vertical flip-over element. That is all. Another .75 off, for a final score of 7.5 ????????? 1.75 = 5.75.

Adrenaline:
It was fast. It definitely was. The only real problem here is that all of your truly intense moments were a bit too intense, taking away significantly from the riders' enjoyment of them due to being slightly painful. Also, while the airtime moments were definitely welcome, and added a great deal to the ride's excitement factor, I would have preferred to see it in shorter surprise bursts rather than in sustained -1 fashion, like you had it on almost every single element. This default-Newtony shaping was also an issue when it came to the excitement factor, and I'll tell you the same thing I told the other Newton builders: unexpectedly changing g-forces, ones that suddenly get higher and take you by surprise, are much more exciting than long periods of sustained g-forces. But in general, I'm just being nitpicky. It was really fast, it was really intense, it had a lot of great airtime, and it didn't feel predictable at all. Pacing could have been a bit better, as it didn't quite have the contrast between slow and fast to make things stand out, and it did kind of lose me in turn-hill-turn mode for a second there in the middle due to the slight lack of big elements, but again I'm just being nitpicky, and trying to explain why this coaster, although very good, isn't quite into the 8 range. It's just a lot of nitpicky deductions adding up across the board. If the g-force and shaping problems were fixed, I would have no qualms about giving this coaster a score in the mid-upper 8's.

Originality:
I feel like I've gone on way too long with this review already, and don't really have much to say that I already haven't, so I'll be brief. You're getting big points for trying something gutsy like the flip-over, as well as some cool moments like the double-airtime bump and the extremely-intense sequence of turns in the end, plus it had very good sequencing where everything flowed well and gave me a couple of nice surprises, but you're losing some points for execution and for the Newtony over-sustained g's rather than having variation. Same things as before. Some bonus points for good support work.

Technical: 5.75 Adrenaline: 7.75 Originality: 8.00
Final Rating: 7.17




Rolling Coaster (Coaster "A")

Overall Impression:
A pretty decent coaster. It was nice and fast/intense, technical was decent, and it at least tried to be somewhat unique. In most areas, it was done with competence, but no area really showed mastery. It just needed a bit, well, more in most categories.

Technical:
The good news here is that most of the elements were shaped relatively well in terms of how the g-forces were applied, with the exception maybe of the final corkscrew. The bad news is that you needed a lot of work on your banking transitions and vertex placement to actually make them smooth. There were just a lot of moments where the track didn't flow like it should, and other moments where the banking was slightly off, creating some slightly off g-forces. The main thing that it lacked, though, was flow. Most of the elements just didn't feel like they were connected to each-other. The banking snapped quickly from one element to the other rather than changing gradually. Some extra work with AHG or the track-smoother and split-up could have helped a lot. But again, bumps and pumps aside, the overall shaping was actually pretty good, so I can't dock you too much here. It just needed a little bit more tweaking. Aside from the actual shaping, there were a couple bad g's in this coaster, specifically around the corkscrew: 1.8 lats in the banking transition coming into it, 1.3 in the middle of it, and -1.7 in the camelback hill after it. Because of the jerky transitions, there were a lot of moments where the lateral g's sharply snapped from +.8 to -.8, which would be a bit uncomfortable. The vertical g's were really pushing it a bit, but they were all very brief so I'll ignore those. So, overall, I'm giving you an above-average 7/10 in shaping, minus one point for the bad g's.

Adrenaline:
The intensity and speed on this coaster were really good. The way you shaped the drop, IMO, made it even more intense because of how it gradually built up to -1 g's. That was good fun. Most of the elements in general were taken at good speed, with the exception of the last camelback which was too fast. The vertical g's were the highlight, being really intense through the whole thing, giving a great sensation of speed. So intensity-wise, I really don't have any qualms here aside from the one hill which was taken too fast. In the pacing department, it really didn't do anything too remarkable. It was fast the whole way through. The only time that the speed really changed was in the dramatic pause before the second drop. This endless speed, I actually felt like it took away from the feeling of intensity. Everything was taken near the pace of 4-5 g's at the bottom and then 0.2-.4 g's at the top, and nothing really broke that pace aside from the one over-intense hill. While it wasn't nearly as big of an issue on this coaster as with a tracks that use Newton tend to be, this slight lack of variety still led to a coaster that felt intense, but not really out-of-control and unpredictable. It is variations in speed, and different g-forces in different elements, that really make a coaster feel fast and wild, because you never know what is coming next. So this was intense but not really exciting.

Originality:
There were some cool things going on here. Again, I really liked the shaping of the first drop because it made it very intense. The second drop also, the only real moment in the ride where the speed changed, was great because it was something unexpected. The rest of the ride, while the whole inclined-loop abundance was definitely something new, it really didn't go off much in terms of unique ride experiences. Still the same 4-g bottom and demi-positive-g- top. And the sequencing really wasn't anything special. Every element started from the ground, and again was taken at similar speed, so the general feeling was just "drop, inversion, inversion, turn, drop, inversion, turn, drop, hill, turn, end." Maybe it was the lack of flow in technical that made it feel this way to me, but everything just felt like individual parts of a ride strung together rather than a coaster that was made with a real purpose in mind, one that had a sense of what it wanted to do in terms of pacing and sequencing. My real suggestion for fixing this is just to do some better planning. Ask yourself what the pacing of the ride is doing at a certain point, and what you have already done and what you can do differently or unexpectedly. Always have a sense of where you have been and where you want to go from there. In terms of extras, the list supports and Mint-Berry Crunch's mug were the only standouts. The rest of the supports were adequate but not great.

Technical: 6.00 Adrenaline: 7.50 Originality: 7.25
Final Rating: 6.91




Sobek (Coaster "Q")

Overall Impression:
This was probably the most bizarre entry out of all of them, which is not necessarily a good thing. It seemed to me that it was doing things that were original purely for the sake of being original rather than really questioning whether those things added to the ride experience or not. There were also some glaring technical errors, but the pacing and sequencing were actually really good.

Technical:
I just have to ask the question... you clearly show some semi-decent skills in the custom-supports department, including several custom-made box supports to avoid collisions. Then WHY, oh why did you opt to use a prefab support when it clearly went directly through the track? That just doesn't register with me, and is a downright stupid mistake to let slide. It is even more baffling because as a whole, the shaping is actually pretty decent. There really wasn't that much bad pumping, only small bumps throughout, and it was even heartlined. So WHY? I just don't get it. (Okay, my rant is over...) Anyway, again, as I mentioned, the shaping was actually pretty decent. I think you needed a bit more work on making it feel like a Gerstlauer coaster, as there were a lot of moments where the track's movements just felt a bit too jerky and sudden. The only real advice I can give for fixing this is to go watch some POV videos of real Gerstlauers, and see how they are shaped. Aside from the style, there were bumps and pumps, but they were generally not major. It's at least enough to give you a very good 7/10 in shaping. But that's where the semi-good news stops. You have three support collisions where the supports are going straight through the track and the train, one other moderate tunnel test infraction within reach of the riders, and one major undercarriage support collision where the train's upstop wheels went straight through a support. It's not quite bad enough to take away the maximum 3 points, but you're still losing 2.5. Next, there was one instance of bad g's, where you had -1.8 in that pop of air after the drop. That'll cost you another quarter-point. And then you were missing a support on the first drop, for another quarter-point, giving you a grand total of 3 points taken off of your shaping score due to stupid mistakes.

Adrenaline:
Here is where I have to ask another obvious question: why no vertical lift and past-vertical drop? IMO, those are usually the only part of a Gerstlauer coaster that are exceptionally exciting. So if you are going to take it out, you'd better have a darn good reason to do it, and a ride that makes up for it by surprising you in other ways during the course of the ride. And here, while there were a few nice surprises, I still don't feel like the removal of the drop was justified. It would have been better with it IMO. With that said, though, the pacing was pretty good. In fact, if anything it was too fast. But it did show some great competence in this area, such as the slow part just before the big near-vertical drop. The only place I think the pacing could have been better is in the very end. It had a great dramatic pause at the MCBR, and a drop that looked like it was setting up a big finale perfectly, and then the ending was over a bit too quickly without regaining the first half's intensity. This is just a minor nitpick, though. Moving on to intensity, it was great throughout the ride. The airtime was just about the perfect ejector intensity for Gerstlauers, of -1.2 for brief instants with the ?????????tossing????????? effect rather than holding it. That big near-vertical drop was amazing! Plus there was also a nice borderline-too-intense positive-g moment coming into one of the vertical inversions which would be great fun, and just about every turn was taken with incredible speed. All in all, I really don't have much negative to say here. The only thing that is keeping it down are the pacing nitpicks, the downright boring-by-comparison lift and first drop, and the g-spike that makes the first airtime pop hurt too much.

Originality:
Just about everything on this coaster is original, but again, it comes at the price of the Gerstlauer feel. It lacked every single one of the defining elements that make a Gerstlauer a Gerstlauer, from the drop all the way to the lack of a loop or heartline rolls. The only moment that I could really tell I was riding a Gerstlauer coaster was the flat turn into the near-vertical drop. The rest was just downright off-the-wall originality. My general rule of thumb for original elements is that they have to add something to the coaster to get big points. And the drop, while certainly original, actually hurts the coaster rather than adding to it. You do get credit for the mid-ride big drop and the pretzel loop, though. Those were both not only original but great fun too. Moving on to sequencing, I must give you real credit here. I never knew what was coming next. The whole thing was so random and unconventionally-laid-out that it was impossible to predict a single element on this ride. So big points for sequencing. The only part where I would have changed it is the very end, again adding one last big surprise. But that's the last of my complaints. Overall, an excellent job in almost all departments, and it is a real shame that you killed yourself with stupid mistakes in technical. Here, the only things you are losing points for are the drop, the nitpick at the end, and the lack of real Gerstlauer feel.

Technical: 4.00 Adrenaline: 8.00 Originality: 8.00
Final Rating: 6.67




MY FINAL STANDINGS:
1. LeFlo (8.75)
2. Gazag (8.08)
3. Gouldy (8.00)
4. Jakizle (7.92)
5. Metazoanhaddock (7.92)
6. Marcello (7.67)
7. Coasterdave (7.42)
8. Maxamaxam (7.33)
9. Omnigeek6 (7.17)
10. Rolling Coaster (6.91)
11. BBT67 (6.75)
12. C-Dude (6.75)
13. Sobek (6.67)
14. Fear the four (6.25)
15. Jonny Richey (6.17)
16. Markhudson17 (5.92)
17. Jer (6.00, DQ)
18. Coasta101 (4.83, DQ)
19. Highthrills2 (2.75, DQ)

Metazoanhaddock's is badass.

Johnny Richey claims that his looks better than any real Euro-Fighter.

[Metazoanhaddock]

thank you ^.^

i really did my research, especially for the supports...

Excuse me for liking low-to-the-ground turns and not just inversion-inversion-inversion-inversion.

[Metazoanhaddock]

but its about finding a mix, FTF's is inversion-inversion-inversion-inversion

Originally posted by Jonny Richey

Excuse me for liking low-to-the-ground turns and not just inversion-inversion-inversion-inversion.

Oh my god it was awful. All that's left is some glue and Top gun jackets. God help us all!

http://www.gerstlauer-rides.de/products ... ter-en-US/

Hey cjd just so you know, far as I've seen all the real ones are listed as -1.3G for the strongest air, so that note you made somewhere about -1.3G being too strong on someone's drop wasn't really correct.

Originally posted by Omnigeek6

*8th place*

Livin' on the edge, man!

I hae you.

DID NOT QUALIFY:
9. Rolling Coaster - 7.14

Still, I'm happy to leave most of the people behind. The reviews were really good though, very useful for my next ride.

Originally posted by dcs221

http://www.gerstlauer-rides.de/products/roller-coasters/euro-fighter-en-US/

Hey cjd just so you know, far as I've seen all the real ones are listed as -1.3G for the strongest air, so that note you made somewhere about -1.3G being too strong on someone's drop wasn't really correct.

Okay. Thanks for letting me know. However, thankfully it was on a track that got an incredibly good score, and ended up 2nd place by a significant losing margin, so it didn't matter in the end.

I was half way through with the support at the last day before the dead line, so i kinda rushed with those prefabs

^Still, man, you need to be more careful! That was a really awful way to lose 2 points off your technical score.

i know,[:I] Is it better if i just sent the track in incomplete, if i can't finish them on time?

[gouldy]

3rd place? Awesome, that's better than I was expecting!

It's interesting that both of the ratings above refer to my first 2 inversions as a Cobra Roll. Only now you've said that, do I realise how much it looks like a Cobra Roll . It is, infact, and always was designed as an Immelmann, with a turn through the loop on the exit, into an overbanked corner with a steep drop out.

Yeaay. 6th place . Gone upload it about an houre or so.

[hyyyper]

Ok, then it is now time to prepare for the next round, which will be your typical match-up-round. 4 winners of round 2 will go free for all into the finals.

And here are my ratings. A little overshadowed by the lenght of cjd's ratings, but nevertheless:

Track A
Rolling Coaster
Tech: Smoothness was OK, no jerks but there were quite a few rough spots where the radius and banking aren?????????t changing smoothly, but rather abrupt and harsh. Supports are average. The will hold op the track, but they are simple without much detail. The lift tower on the other hand was very well done.
E-stop test failed. The train doesn't make it to the lift. Tunneltest passed.
Adren: Great ride. The first half has good pacing, and the low turn is taken very fast. The hill in the middle makes little sense. It really has no purpose, so either make it an MCBR, inversion or airtime hills, but this is just weird. The second half is just as good as the start. The low track keeps the adrenaline going between the loop and finale. Vertical G?????????s are too high, lots of spikes towards 5.0, and a very serious spike after the corkscrew. Laterals also have some spikes. The airtime in the ending was nice.
Orig: Very cool layout, the low sections fit perfectly between the elements and connect them good. The elements themselves are good, as well as their place in the layout. Placing the loop so far back in the layout was a good call, it gives an unexpected kick halfway doing the ride. The start was very original, props to that. And I still don't know what to think of that weird hill.
5 7 9
7.00

Track B
Gazag
Tech: Overall a smooth ride, but some transitions have a pump. Most noticeable on the Cobra roll and before the loop. Supports are good, but some diagonal supports are too slanted, making them ineffective and ugly. Also, the tower looks far from strong enough.
Tunneltest and E-stop test passed
Adren: The ride looks like a lot of fun, yet when you ride it, it isn't very exciting. The cobra roll is very slow and the sections between the elements are boring. Do don't add anything and make the ride a scrapheap of slow inversions and long pauses. G?????????s are ok, some vertical spikes due to pumps, but the rest is ok, and the airtime on the first hill is very nice.
Orig: The elements themselves are OK, the barrelroll and cutback are very well placed and build, but the rest of the elements don't really connect to the layout. The elements themselves are nice, but they don't fit into the layout.
9 5 6
6.67

Track C
LeFlo
Tech: Track is super smooth. The only flaw is the banking in the rolls. The track banks in sections instead of fluent. Supports are very good, some are a bit too complicated, but they are very well built.
Tunneltest failed, several tunnel-to-tunnel collisions and 2 support hits. E-stop test passed.
Adren: The speed of the ride is pretty fast. But the immelman and loop slowed down a lot, letting the riders hang in the restraints instead of positive G?????????s. The barrel rolls are pretty good, as was the ending with helix. Apart from the weak loops, the forces are very strong. Laterals are under control and the airtime of the first hill is very nice.
Orig: The elements themselves were pretty standard, but on the other hand, the continuation of the immelman into the barrelroll was amazing, and a loop so late in the layout kept the adrenaline high. The barrelroll into the helix was also very cool.
9 8 8
8.33

Track D
BBT67
Tech: Smoothness was alright, there weren't huge pumps, but the banking wasn't fluent in every element. Supports are very good, very creative. E-stop test and tunneltest passed.
Adren: Adrenaline wasn't great. The ride was very slow, the train took ages to get through the layout. Together with the speed, the forces weren't strong either. The ride felt like a kiddie with OTSRs and inversions. The ride itself is really good, but speed is simply too low.
Orig: The layout was OK, there wasn't anything new or spectacular, but the elements are connected beautifully and placed perfectly in the layout. Also, the barrelroll into the diveloop was pretty cool.
9 3 6
6.00

Track E
markhudson17
Tech: The track has a lot of small pumps, and a rather big one after the 2nd immelman. Supports were average, a bit oversupported and they didn't look finished. E-stop test and tunneltest passed.
Adren: The track isn't exciting. All elements are taken very slow and interruppeted by (unnecessary) MCBRs. The 2nd immelman is basically a repeat of the first, if there was another element in the place it would?????????ve been better. The ending is awful, it takes ages to get to the end of the ride. G?????????s are fine, but there was one lateral spike
Orig: The layout isn't great. Two immelmans make it a bit repetavie and there are just too many MCBRs that totally ruin the flow and pacing. The lack of a good ending also doesn't help. One plus, the twist into the mcbr is really nice and original.
6 5 3
4.67

Track F
metazoanhaddock
Tech: Apart from the little bump in the lift, the track is flawless, very smooth. Supports are incredible, very realistic and detailed. Tunneltest and E-stop test passed.
Adren: The first part of the ride is really cool, the turn into the loop and the corkscrew after the immelman was very good. But the slow approach and depart from the mcbr kills the momentum. And that is never gained back by the lack of thrill in the ending. The G?????????s are good, lots of powerful elements, nice pops of airtime and laterals under control.
Orig: If it wasn't for the huge break in the middle of the layout, the ride would be awesome onstead of very good. The first half is a good combination of elements, the 2nd half was also good, but it didn't flow as well as the first part.
10 7 6
7.67

#8195;
Track G DQ: Support out of template
jer
Tech: Smoothness was OK, no pump or jerks, but some of the segments are shaped really weird, where the track is essentially smooth, but feels like a jerk with a big radius. Supports are very good, the loop is a bit undersupported. Tunneltest passed, E-stop test failed, the mcbr cannot stop the train and it will crash into the train on the final brakes
Adren: The pacing in the ride is on and off. The loop and turnaround are slow, but the ride of the ride is pretty quick, and then the ending is boring again. G?????????s are under control, but most of the elements could be more powerfull.
Orig: Great layout, especially the first half in awesome. The twist in the drop was great and the inclined loop was very cool. The ending was not as good, it just didn't had anything thrilling, the train slowly cruises back to the station.
6 6 6
6.00

Track H DQ: Lift out of red area, Exceeded maximum length.
Highthrills2
I don't know if you are a beginner with NL, or someone who is experienced and just sent something in for the sake of sending something in. The track is not very good and it breaks two rules, which makes me think this track isn't a serious submission. If I'm wrong and you really put some effort in this, let me know and I'll leave you a decent rate.
0 0 0
0.00

Track I
Jonny Richey
Tech: The ride has some nasty pumps, especially the one in the loop was nasty. Supports are very good, though the turnaround supports are really odd. E-stop test failed, the train stops before it enters the station. Tunneltest passed, but barely.
Adren: I really loved the beginning of the ride, instead of an inversion, you first made some fast turns, great! The elements that follow are really good and make for a cool first half. Unfortunately the second half is just boring. The train slowly makes it was back to the brakes with any thrilling things happening. Laterals are a bit high in some places, but wouldn't be (very) painful. Vertical G?????????s are in check.
Orig: The first half was really good, the opening turns are very original and make the ride?????????s first sections really great. The ending wasn't very good, as it was quite boring and slow. The tunnels might have worked if the train was going faster, now they have little effect.
6 5 5
5.33



#8195;
Track J
Jakizle
Tech: Very smooth track, no pumps or anything. Supports are equally good, excellent work. E-stop test failed when train is trying to leave the station. Tunneltest failed, 2 track collisions on the looping.
Adren: If it weren't for the slow inversions this would?????????ve gotten 10 points. The speed is very high, strong forces and some good pops of airtime and you had a lot of close calls with the track. But the train almost stops when it's on the inversions, killing the momentum each time you go through a loop.
Orig: The layout is awesome, the start in original and the combination of inversions works really well. The compactness of the layout makes it even better. Apart from the diveloop-ish thing, the elements themselves aren?????????t very original, but how they are placed in the layout is just great.
6 9 8
7.67

Track K
C_Dude
Tech: Smoothness was OK, no pumps on the track. Supports look good, but the loop and top hat are undersupported. Other areas are fine. E-stop test passed, tunneltest passed, but I?????????d hire a new gardener.
Adren: The track is very fast, it really has a good pacing throughout the entire ride. However, the ride is very short and it has a lot of speed left to expand the ride a little bit. Especially when the layout consists of inversion after inversion. G?????????s are under control, but the loop could be more powerful.
Orig: The length of the ride is really short for this kind of speed/height. The elements are great, the Cobra roll and tophat are super, but the ride needs more than just that.
8 8 6
7.33

Track L
Marcello
Tech: There are some pumps in the track, the drop itself and the drop from the mcbr would be quite uncomfortable. Supports are good, they are very realistic and detailed. E-stop test failed, the train stops before it reaches the lift. Tunneltest passed
Adren: The ride starts out great, the acceleration on the top of lift launches you over the top when you don't expect it. The following immelman-loop combo is fast and powerfull. The MCBR that follows is very weird. Because it takes so long to get back into the ride, the momentum is almost lost completely. The curved drop then is ok, but it isn't built great. The twist and dive are ok as well, but the last section of the track is not exciting. G?????????s are very good, powerful elements and low laterals.
Orig: The layout is good, the start with the immelman is awesome, and the section after the mcbr features really original elements. The ending could've been more thrilling and the mcbr taken faster.
7 8 7
7.33
#8195;
Track M
gouldy
Tech: Nice and smooth track, totally without pumps. Great supportwork, although the lift is a bit overdone . E-stop failed when the train tries to leave the station. Tunneltest passed, but tell your gardeners to trip the bushes better.
Adren: The drop is fun, the small predrop piece speeds the train up before shooting it down the real drop. The first inversion is fast and powerful, after that the ride slows down too much. But all the close calls and track interaction in the first half, makes the ride look faster. Then after the mcbr there's basically nothing thrilling, and the helix should?????????ve been more powerful to be exciting. G?????????s are ok, vertical G?????????s are good, laterals are in check and the airtime on the drop and just before the brakes is really nice.
Orig: The layout is very compact and the elements in the first half are great and they fit well together. The cutback is very well executed, one of the best I've seen. The ride really looks great, it just needs to be faster and more powerfull.
8 7 8
7.67

Track N
Omnigeek6
Tech: The track had some little pumps but for the rest pretty smooth. Some supports are strange but they appear solid and are every detailed. E-stop failed, the final brakes cannot stop the train from crashing into the station. Tunneltest passed, but some of the foliage comes very close.
Adren: The first element is amazing, probably the most thrilling opening I've seen in this round. But after that, the the ride turns into a bunch elements put together. It has good airtime and inversions, but it wasn't exciting any more. The added sequoia dive was a nice tough, but timewise the element took too long to really add some excitement. Laterals were all in check, and airtime was a tad on the high side for OTSRs.
Orig: The elements in the ride are great. The roll-over element is sensational and the double airtimehill is very original. It's too bad these great element are somehow not in the right position in the ride. Placing them better in the layout would?????????ve provided a much cooler ride.
7 8 6
7.00

Track O DQ: Brake section outside read area
Coasta101
Tech: Track has a lot of pumps, mostly small ones, not painful but they are noticeable. Supports are very good, some of them were odd, but they hold up the track anyways. E-stop failed when the train tries to leave the station. Tunneltest passed.
Adren: The ride is really boring. The is just two loops and two rolls connected by some simple turns. The elements aren?????????t powerful, and the connecting pieces are slow and just as forceless. The ride is also way too short for such a high drop. G?????????s are in check, but positive G?????????s need to be more powerfull.
Orig: The layout is uninspired, just 4 inversions with boring sections between them. There is really nothing interesting about the entire layout.
6 4 2
4.00
#8195;
Track P
coasterdave
Tech: Overall smooth track, only one nasty pump after the loop, the rest is pretty good. Supports are great, very realistic and detailed constructions. E-stop and tunneltest passed.
Adren: Great ride. The rolling drop thing was great as a first element, and throughout the ride the pacing was also very high. All the elements were well connected and the train just flies trough all the inversions without losing speed. G-forces are good, very strong positives in the inversions and nice pop of airtime in the finale. Laterals were under control.
Orig: Very good layout, the elements fit perfectly and are seamlessly connected. The first element and the opposite interlocking corkscrews are both very original.
9 9 8
8.67

Track Q
Sobek
Tech: The track was far from smooth, it really had a lot of rough spots. Supports are bad, some areas are undersupported, while other areas have way too many supports. Also, the most of the supports are just bad, useless prefabs. E-stop failed when the train tries to leave the station. Tunneltest failed, there were about 4 supports sticking through the tunnel.
Adren: The pacing on the ride is good. The ride starts out great with the loop and airtime hop after it. The hop after the immelman is pretty cool as well. The high mouse turn takes a bite out of the momentum and also the mcbr takes too much time to keep the thrill up. The drop of the mcbr is cool, the hill after gives some good airtime. The ending with the norwegian loop is odd, I guess because it's too small. The positives are too high multiple times and a lot of spikes in other directions.
Orig: The ride has some unique element, yet some of them are out of place and put in a position where they have less effect than usual. The Norwegian loop is the prime example of that, since it would?????????ve been much better if that element was placed somewhere near the beginning. Also the mouse turn halfway the ride would?????????ve been better placed right after the lift or mcbr. On the other hand, the diveloop-immelman part was really awesome, plus the airtime hops are pretty nice.
1 6 6
4.33

Track R
fear the four
Tech: Track has several pumps, most of them are small, while some (like the one after the zeroG) are quite uncomfortable. The supports are good and detailed and very realistic. E-stop fail as the train slams into the one in the brakes before the exit station. Tunneltest failed as well, A support is sticking through the running rails on the first half of the roll over.
Adren: The pacing is all right, the ride seems pretty fast and only slows down a little bit in the inversions. The idea is great, inversion after inversion is a great way to keep the thrill up. But 3 dive loops and two immelmans is repetitive. A more diverse selection of elements would make a better ride. Vertical G?????????s are ok, most element are powerful. The laterals spike several times.
Orig: The idea to use 8 inversions and 2 turns is a bold one, but it worked out quite well. The riders are being flipped over all the time, without a moment to catch their breath, which is great, don't get me wrong . The only downside is that the elements are repetitive. A more varied selection of inversions would?????????ve made the layout even better.
4 7 7
6.00

Track S
maxamaxam
Tech: Lift is hill is very pumpy, I really don't know what went wrong over there. The rest of the track is smooth, except for the last hill, which is really really nasty. Supports are bad, and most of them are unpractical prefabs. E-stop passed, and tunneltest barely passed, there were a lot of close calls.
Adren: The pacing is average, the speed is not very high, and especially in the elements the train slows down too much. Apart from that, the ride is pretty exciting. There are some nice airtime moments, yet the last hill would make half of the riders pass out. Laterals are OK, but vertical G?????????s need to be stronger in the inversions.
Orig: The layout is quite odd. There are a lot of big elements, yet there are almost no ?????????mid-size????????? elements like corkscrews, barrelrolls or even helices. This makes the ride really unbalanced. But for the elements that are in the layout, they are very good. The diveloop, top hat, immelman and roll into the mcbr are some of the best combinations of elements in this round. Too bad there is that last element, which is really bad in many ways that takes the score down a point.
5 4 6
5.00

[GavG]

Congrats to everyone that qualified.

Originally posted by hyyyper And I still don't know what to think of that weird hill.

It used to be a MCBR, but the rules said that all electricity stuff had to be inside the red box, and I didn't want to redo half my ride. Then again I thought that the ride would be too intense if there wasn't a slow part in the ride.

And now waiting on the second round [;)]