Nemesis: Sub-Terra Discussion (**contains spoilers**)

[Big Dave]

Welcome to the real world. This never ever happens. Every company I have ever worked for want to do it fast and cheap. They will get a load of people in and say we need it done by this time. They will work out it can be done, but it will be close. Any major issues will put them massively behind and they wont be able to tweak it before it opens.

You only have to look at previous rides both at Towers and other parks. Wodan still isn't not finished in terms of theming and its open this weekend! Stuff hasn't been finished properly at my work place after their refurb. They gave themselves a set period of time and quickly fell behind, but they have now said its done, even though half of it isn't finished.

A lot of companies do this so this doesn't surprise me at all.

[Johno]

Specs for 2 ABC drop towers:

10 people per car
2 cars
Height = 7m
1m/sec speed
Load/unload time = 30 sec
Dispatch time = 90sec
Duration of ride = 60 to 90 sec
Total theoretical capacity = 800 pass / hr

So if the ride cycle is exactly the same as Extremeis in terms of how long it takes, then the theoretical capacity is 1600 per hour....

[thefatone]

The maximum it gets is 800, as previously mentioned.

Why is it no more than this? Because they need everyone out of the main chamber and everything reset before guests are let in. This cannot be done any quicker than it already is doing.

[Tom G]

Those figures cannot be applied to this ride for the reasons I've stated previously and that should be obvious.

My advice; take a stopwatch with you next time and we'll see who is more accurate.

[Dormiens-Dave]

From what i gather its about 800 an hour, Ripsaw was once a headline attraction and that cant be more than 600 an hour, as much as i would prefer high capacity i think a slight reduction in capacity to increase ride time is preferable to a poor ride.

[Nightfall]

Increasing the ride cycle is not a realistic option and I'm not sure why people are suggesting it? It's only capable of 800 people or so per hour. Granted, its popularity isn't high enough to warrant that capacity in its current state, but during the holidays it will be very popular regardless of its reputation now. They should be concentrating on improving the experience with more effects and a new approach from the actors.

There's a simple solution, they need 2 ride cycles. On busy days it can run the current cycle albeit with all the changes suggested by members on here which will immensely improve the ride from what it is now. On quieter days they can run a longer mode where every section of the ride is extended to slow down the pace of the experience. Mystery Castle does this. In fact if those men in suits are reading this then get yourself over to Phantasialand now and they'll give you a master class on making the most out of this type of ride.

I don't like that, I'd feel cheated if I were forced to have the 'crap' version on busy days.

I know flats are run on shorter cycles when it's busier at some places, but I think this is different. They should just make the original ride cycle better with improvement in the effects and actors.

Like it or not it's the only way around the problem besides building a second Sub-Terra next door. Think of it more as an extended ride on a quiet day than a short ride on a busy day.

Whatever the rides throughput currently is I found it to be acceptable. The full queue takes 1 hour to go through and moves at a fairly steady pace. Now if they could squeeze a bit more ride time out of that then I believe it will be acceptable for on a busy day.

There are several areas of the ride that additional ride time can be gained without increasing its length:
1. Don’t leave us waiting for so long outside the first set of lifts.
2. Have a full length pre-show in the first lift, as in the same length as the ride sequence.
3. Have a second pre-show in the cave before the lifts.

Now we’ve gained more time to the build up of the ride without sacrificing throughput. The next thing to do is give the Main Room and the Exit Lifts more of a punch. These are meant to be fast paced so don’t need to take any longer. They just need to use the effects that are there in a much more active way so that when the lift doors open it really does feel like you’ve just escaped.

That’s part of my advice anyway.

[Dormiens-Dave]

Seriously Alton Towers next time you want to build a dark ride just ask is to do it

They definately have potential to increase experience length by using the tunnel as a pre-show, that's a no-brainer

[AstroDan]

I think the drop is more forceful that Thirteen's is.

Oddly, I found the complete opposite.

It feels shorter, and weaker than what is offered on Th13teen.

[Instant Mix]

Hm. You guys are really painting a terrible portrait of this ride..

[Dormiens-Dave]

Hm. You guys are really painting a terrible portrait of this ride..

Well the ride itself is doing the painting, though as always there are those who like it more than its quality and some that despise it more than it deserves. At the moment its not a good ride though, there is talk of improving it but we will have to wait and see.

[ChocolateOrange]

At the moment its not a good ride though.

I think this emphasises the whole criticism, Sub-Terra is not to be taken as a Ride, it's a whole experience and you cannot judge the whole thing on ride alone, you need to take the whole queue experience, pre lift, lifts, and main chamber as one, and a lot of this is very well done, you can tell a lot of effort has gone into this.

The videos, Audio, Themeing is all fantastic, you can't simply criticise the experience on the ride element alone.

[Tom G]

I had a thought back to the market research they were doing regarding a permanent scare maze/attraction last year.

Do you think this was with Sub-Terra in mind? I was thinking that perhaps they are thinking of doing something with Duel, as the old queue line is crying out to be used (by transforming Duel into something new and popular so it warrants it), but I know that's a discussion for elsewhere.

[Tom G]

At the moment its not a good ride though.

I think this emphasises the whole criticism, Sub-Terra is not to be taken as a Ride, it's a whole experience and you cannot judge the whole thing on ride alone, you need to take the whole queue experience, pre lift, lifts, and main chamber as one, and a lot of this is very well done, you can tell a lot of effort has gone into this.

The videos, Audio, Themeing is all fantastic, you can't simply criticise the experience on the ride element alone.

Many people have slated the whole thing, or at least a number of aspects of the entire project.

[djtruefitt]

A few things I think would improve the ride.

1) Have some kind of short story in the first lift, tell people why they are going down or what they are going to see. This will also make the lift longer and make you feel you are going lower down. The lift should also shake much more.

2) Use the rock section after the lift a bit more. On my first ride we were stood there for a little while and it all looked very nice. But on my other rides we pretty much ran through there. You could make people wait there with a voice over or something.

3) The overall first video and drop was fine, it was just a bit confusing as to why you were there (but if we had a video in the lift this wouldnt be a problem). But once you drop and the lights come on at the bottom there should be something there to really make you jump. If a ride like the haunted house that was built 20 years ago! can have moving parts that reset every few sections and create scares, why cant a ride built in 2012 have something like that? Something like the big eye that pops out of the middle and comes really close to you. That would be scary and would give you something to look at. Espeically if it appeared during the dark.

4) The exit lifts were one of the best bits, as they did feel much more like lifts and lasted alot longer than the lifts going down. I really liked how the panel on the roof and wall came open, but I would say most people wouldnt even notice. So they somehow need to make them much more noticable, either with lights or something.

[ChocolateOrange]

At the moment its not a good ride though.

I think this emphasises the whole criticism, Sub-Terra is not to be taken as a Ride, it's a whole experience and you cannot judge the whole thing on ride alone, you need to take the whole queue experience, pre lift, lifts, and main chamber as one, and a lot of this is very well done, you can tell a lot of effort has gone into this.

The videos, Audio, Themeing is all fantastic, you can't simply criticise the experience on the ride element alone.

Many people have slated the whole thing, or at least a number of aspects of the entire project.

From what I've seen, those mentioning individual parts of the experience, praised those elements, apart from mentioning certain effects needed fixing, the atmosphere of the experience is faultless.

[pluk]

At the moment its not a good ride though.

I think this emphasises the whole criticism, Sub-Terra is not to be taken as a Ride, it's a whole experience and you cannot judge the whole thing on ride alone, you need to take the whole queue experience, pre lift, lifts, and main chamber as one, and a lot of this is very well done, you can tell a lot of effort has gone into this.

The videos, Audio, Themeing is all fantastic, you can't simply criticise the experience on the ride element alone.

Many people have slated the whole thing, or at least a number of aspects of the entire project.

It's the experience aspect that is desperately lacking. The ride is the ride; not crap, not amazing (like hex!), but the experience they have built around it does not work in any way so that takes away massively from the possitives the ride does posses. The experience is the problem.

[Chris W]

Hm. You guys are really painting a terrible portrait of this ride..

And some people feel completely the opposite to the majority of the people in this topic.

If you haven't been on it yet, don't let everyone else's opinions ruin a experience which you might enjoy

I loved Sub-Terra and would be riding it tomorrow if I could.

[PeteB]

All this talk about throughput.  I was expecting it to be quite high capacity but the formula for it is simple. Doesn't matter what the pre and post lifts are doing, as long as there is a continous flow of traffic we know the ride takes 40 people at a time.

To achieve 1200pph they would need to be dropping every 2 minutes.  I think 2 minutes is more than long enough to get people in, drop, get back up and kick them out.

The vault in Hex runs for just over 2 minutes 30 seconds, then you have the time it takes to load/unload.  Probably just over 3 mins but the actual ride sequence of 2 mins 30 feels like it lasts for a long time.  How is it then that they can't get a simple drop sequence to work in under 2 minutes and achieve a decent capacity? 700 and something odd people per hour is a disgrace for this type of ride.

Point being, if the ride had a decent throughput then they could slow things down and make it a more interesting experience, particulary the egg chamber/drop part.

[AstroDan]

I think this emphasises the whole criticism, Sub-Terra is not to be taken as a Ride, it's a whole experience and you cannot judge the whole thing on ride alone, you need to take the whole queue experience, pre lift, lifts, and main chamber as one, and a lot of this is very well done, you can tell a lot of effort has gone into this.

The videos, Audio, Themeing is all fantastic, you can't simply criticise the experience on the ride element alone.

Many people have slated the whole thing, or at least a number of aspects of the entire project.

From what I've seen, those mentioning individual parts of the experience, praised those elements, apart from mentioning certain effects needed fixing, the atmosphere of the experience is faultless.

It is not faultless.

The ride feedback from the weekend was shocking and Alton Towers are going to do something about it. Thankfully they can see the problems. I am glad that some of the few people who are impressed don't run the park to be honest or else we'd be left with it :P

It is designed to be [Terror Underground] and simply fails to link everything together in a coherent way.

Bring on the improvements.

[Nightfall]

Seriously Alton Towers next time you want to build a dark ride just ask us to do it

If Alton said now they wanted our feedback to improving the ride I'm sure we could come up with several hundred good ideas with a Help us help Sub-Terra Topic. it worked before.