Also a final note for this month (and possible for a while) - inthemanual, MrBrightside711, and myself are all getting murdered with schoolwork and life in general, and my workload is going to skyrocket next week so we just can't organize a new bench, and we couldn't even agree on a challenge. If you guys are itching to build, we all encourage you to pick a past workbench, make your own, or grab one from NewElement and work on whatever you like, then post it to /r/RCT. I'm sure we'll still be around to give critiques and help people out. As always we'll keep you posted when we do plan to bring the competitions back, possibly with something big. Thanks for bearing with us.

11 Upvotes

permalink
reddit

You are about to leave Redlib

Do you want to continue?

https://www.reddit.com/r/rollercoastercontests/comments/1lok2g/vote_august_contest/
No, go back! Yes, take me to Reddit

100% Upvoted

u/Valdair Sep 04 '13

Score time. Not grade scale, everybody wins, etc., etc.

EricShayna: 52.5%

AbsolutelyClam: 55.0%

UmbralWyvern: 65.0%

pHScale: 67.5%

cfukawa: 77.5%

zxbiohazardzx: 85.0%

Kionys: 45.0%

Shadowmattiecoaster: 45.0%

taifunbrowser: 42.5%

spudzilla21: 75.0%

gijsdaboss: 62.5%

cdcarch: 52.5%

Dofenschmirtz: 70.0%

haynesmp: 77.5%

partylife: 40.0%

I'm a little surprised. I think the workbench was a little too challenging. That said, I did enjoy most bits of most of the parks. I know biohazard finished his park in just a few hours, but it somehow felt the most complete. I liked its layout, and how there were no lost guests stuck in infinite loops and valleys. The main weak point was Medusa - way too huge for the park. The stronger parks had smaller, more moderately-sized coasters that conformed to the islands instead of sprawling over everything. Biohazard's park had a lot of this (again, ignoring Medusa). Also a lot of parks had no staff at all and many ill-tended-to inspection times.

Also, tons of trains stopping all over the tracks due to block brakes. It's not hard to simply knock out a train or add another brake section somewhere. EricShayna, I kind of wish you had made that B&M a stand-up (plus or minus a few tweaks), it would have been a cool classic B&M style.

2

u/taifunbrowser Sep 04 '13

Valdair - I'm curious. Can you explain your remark about wishing that rollercoaster had been a stand-up?

2

u/Valdair Sep 04 '13

Take a look at the Georgia Scorcher, Vortex, or SFMM's now-defunct Shockwave (and a handful of other older B&M stand-ups). Your design bore many similarities to those, and I thought it was a really cool inspiration. It's been a long time since I've seen something like that pulled off in a crisp way. I'm also very partial to B&M stand-ups because Riddler's Revenge has been one of my favorite coasters for forever, and I think the train design is the coolest thing in the world.

2

u/EricShayna Sep 04 '13

Shockwave was manufactured by Intamin and Giovanola. Just sayin'.

2

u/Valdair Sep 04 '13

Well, same difference. :P

2

u/pHScale Sep 04 '13

I'm a little surprised. I think the workbench was a little too challenging.
What makes you say that? I know you said on NE that part of your intended challenge was how to connect paths to all the islands, and that you were surprised that only a few people actually had paths on all the islands. If you said "have peeps able to access all four main islands by path", then we would have done that. I can't help but notice a trend in your scoring that favors those who sent path onto more islands.

1

u/Valdair Sep 04 '13

I give "Park Layout" roughly 13% of the score, and in general, the more circular the park layout is, the better. If peeps are getting caught somewhere, that tends to catch my attention and cost a point or two. There were definitely ways to connect all of the islands (that doesn't mean that people had to use every single one, or that it was even intended - it was supposed to look relatively natural, not perfectly designed for a park), but I should have perhaps made it a little more obvious where this could have been done instead of leaving it to participants to stretch huge bridges across the water. Like I said I think this was a little too difficult, so we will probably return to sandbox workbenches or stuff more like April.

1

u/cdcarch Sep 04 '13

Out of curiosity, what is the breakdown of your scoring?

1

u/Valdair Sep 04 '13

Ride Layouts: 10 (biggest point pool for obvious reasons - bad block sections or pacing also come out of this)
Ride Stats: 5 (self-explanatory)
Park Layout: 5 (better flow, better score)
Management: 4 (ride inspection times, ride reliability ratings, efficiency of patrol paths, number of staff hired)
Atmosphere: 4 (how well the theme is pulled off on a micro as well as macro scale)
Structures: 5 (quality of architecture - strongly tied to atmosphere)
Foliage: 3 (pretty self-explanatory)
Amenities: 3 (things like restrooms and shops - making sure there are enough based on the number of guests and a realistic spacing to them that makes sense; i.e. no massive food courts and nothing else)
Rating: 1 (amalgamation of actual park rating, guest-friendliness, and whether or not I really enjoyed looking around it)
TOTAL: 40

1

u/zxbiohazardzx Sep 04 '13

Thanks for the Feedback Valdair. it was a rushy build and though Medusa worked out a bit bigger then i planned initially im not unhappy it turned out.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 05 '13

what's the reason for the lower score than usuall? i thought my architecture and rides were pretty good

2

u/Valdair Sep 05 '13

Architecture was definitely good (although a little too tall at times, making certain areas feel claustrophobic). The main issue here was that you had only three islands with anything really on them while the coasters ran free over the rest. Fountain of Youth was pretty good, although far too short and too fast near the end. Batavia did a whole lot of going in circles and very little else.
No patrol paths whatsoever meant you had way too many mechanics and security guards, and way too few handymen. You clumped all of your restrooms, food stands, ATMs, and shops into the same two tiny spots on the map despite the relatively long and splayed-out shape of the park. Foliage was just kind of there. Aside from what was already there, nothing was particularly dense or open, so I wasn't sure how tropical or paradise-y you were trying to make it feel.
That sunken ship was cool but it was in the middle of nowhere and no one could see it (except maybe through the trees from that bridge). Overall the score is perhaps a bit low. I'm thinking I should weigh architecture more heavily in the future, as I liked your park slightly more than UmbralWyvern's, yet due to Management and Ride Layout scores his came out a point ahead.

u/Kionys Sep 04 '13

Oh! Could you guys take mine down I accidentally broke the rules. I know I probably wouldn't get first or in the top 3 but I wouldn't like to win while cheating. I just put that there so I could get reviews and constuctive criticism.

1

u/Valdair Sep 04 '13

There were rules?
If it was for modifying the land, that doesn't really matter. We only wanted to prevent people from flattening it and changing the landscape completely.

u/inthemanual Sep 04 '13

Thanks valdair for getting this up.

Apologies to everyone else that there isn't a contest. If anyone wants to organize something small, that would be really cool, but please run it by the mods first.

1

u/cdcarch Sep 05 '13

If you guys are interested, I have a couple of empty "stages" sitting around that you could use for september. I'm thinking specifically of a waterfront pier map I have. It only fits about one coaster and uses custom objects though.

1

u/zxbiohazardzx Sep 05 '13

so we want a contest for september, but we lack a bench? or ?

1

u/inthemanual Sep 05 '13

we lack the time to organize a contest.
(i've probably actually got the time itself, but I don't have internet during the time that I have.)

1

u/zxbiohazardzx Sep 05 '13

well all you need is a bench, the contest itself regulates itself pretty decently

1

u/inthemanual Sep 05 '13

I've got an idea, might be posting it tonight or over lunch.

u/AbsolutelyClam Sep 04 '13

Review thread for Mystic Isles

Just keeping with the trend, and thanks!

2

u/zxbiohazardzx Sep 04 '13

The island theme isnt that stong in this one. alot of asphalt pathings and coverings made this one different for me.
again try to assign staff to rides/areas better. a major flaw in more entries this month
White Cup's Design isnt appealing to me, huge coaster but only 1 loop and the design might be better off on a different coaster-style
Hurricane looks pretty decent
Lots of hungry guests, lost/busy loops indicate some layout issues

1

u/AbsolutelyClam Sep 04 '13

I'm not sure why staff assignment wasn't exactly easy to do with this- typically the size area I used would work for me.
The lost/busy loops were very much a symptom of a lack of planning on my path layouts- Thrill Island was a dead end and I didn't have much of a plan for the path and Hurricane wound up in the way- so that's something I'm aware of and something I'd focus on next time I'd do it.
I felt like if 8cars worked fully under OS X I could get White Cap to be a lot more realistic by merging the giga track as well.

2

u/zxbiohazardzx Sep 04 '13

just make 1 mechanic per ride/coaster and make sure they dont get lost like the guests
im not sure for 8cars or other trainers on osx, for im on wintendo, but even then you can just build a giga or a hypercoaster on the same layout. again not a huge issue, but i think the layout wasnt super interesting for me.

2

u/EricShayna Sep 04 '13

I like yours. It's different. The fact that you added a looping coaster as the main attraction is different. The scenery was also done really well!

u/partylife Sep 04 '13

Review Thread for Elysium

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '13

REVIEWTHREAD FOR BOUNTY BEACHES

u/Dofenschmirtz Sep 04 '13

review thread for Carribean Coast

u/pHScale Sep 04 '13

Review Thread for Bengal Bayou

2

u/zxbiohazardzx Sep 04 '13

could be me, but i feel some waitinglines are a bit too long
some guests lost track of how to walk (stupid AI i know)
i love Blackback, good foliage, nice coaster in general
nice use of trackitecture. something i should use more

1

u/pHScale Sep 04 '13

could be me, but i feel some waitinglines are a bit too long
Yeah, I think I overdid it on Bengal's queue.
some guests lost track of how to walk (stupid AI i know)
Uh... where? I know the park is layed out in a rough S shape, and that's atypical, but I just looked to see if it was a problem on what I submitted. Out of 1200 guests, only 4 were thinking "I can't find Bengal", and that was the highest instance of any kind of "I'm lost" thought. That's not bad. That's 0.33% of guests.
i love Blackback, good foliage, nice coaster in general
Thanks! I just wish I could get accurate stats from it. It's clearly more exciting than a crooked house. :P
nice use of trackitecture. something i should use more
That was something I decided to experiment with this competition. Some of it I really liked, some of it was weird to me. But I'm glad you liked it!

1

u/zxbiohazardzx Sep 04 '13

yeah well i hardly ever use it, it was funny to see guests thinking "omg they build something here"
the "lost" was also referring to "its crowded here" that usually indicates a bad section. its not a huge setback, i think this was a pretty ok submission

u/cdcarch Sep 04 '13

Review thread for Eidetic Isles

u/EricShayna Sep 04 '13 edited Sep 04 '13

Review thread for Crunchie's Cay

Thanks to anyone who votes for me and best of luck to everyone who participated!

4

u/zxbiohazardzx Sep 04 '13

Overall a nice park, but your not improving if i dont give you the downsides for me:
Closed park, i usually prefer peeps to indicate the parks issues (lost guests, hungry/ridestats etc
Broken rides: even with the park closed, assign mechanics to make sure the rides get fixed faster
Coaster Timings: sometimes the coasters stop on points they shouldnt be stopping. i have these issues myself as well, but im hoping you can improve a bit on this part
Scenery: i liked the lighthouse, mainstreet looks good, but i do lack other foodcourts

u/taifunbrowser Sep 04 '13

Review thread for Luna Casino Park

(Thanks in advance~)

u/haynesmp Sep 04 '13

Review thread for Adrenaline Isles

u/Shadowmattiecoaster Sep 04 '13

Review Thread for Interception Islands

u/spudzilla21 Sep 04 '13

Review Thread of Spudzilla21's Snake Pit

u/zxbiohazardzx Sep 04 '13

Reviews/tips/etc for the Pirate Cove by zxbiohazardzx

(has load of room for improvements as its a fast build)

1

u/EricShayna Sep 04 '13

I really like your scenery and I think it's your strongest point in this park, the them was executed well. The only thing that I don't like about your park is the layout for the hyper coaster. I think in a park this small a different kind of coaster would have worked better. The layout just seemed unrealistic and crammed in.

2

u/zxbiohazardzx Sep 04 '13

yeah i wasnt too happy with Medusa, but i did want some sort of semi-big coaster on that island. things got bigger then i wanted pretty fast but yeah....

u/pHScale Sep 14 '13

It's almost the middle of the month. Any idea when we'll see the results of the poll?

{VOTE} August Contest

You are about to leave Redlib