Galactica - A worth while investment?

[Nickolai]

Honestly, if throughputs have nearly got as good as Air's, then I really don't care how I ride. However if the throughput was still very slow, then I wouldn't say it is worth it riding without, when in the past the queue was significantly shorter. Some may disagree with what I have said, but my main concern with the investment was the throughput. If they have fixed that and made it quicker, then I would say it is a worthwhile investment. The main reason I have been put off to ride is because it was getting 50min queues when it could have been 30min queue. This however was at the start of the season. When I went again in October, trains did seem to be dispatched a little quicker though.

[Dungeon-X-Smile]

Main points on why Galactica is the final nail in the coffin for poor Air
- Throughput is so low that most people skip it if it's over half an hour
- The VR is terrible and will be replaced by next year
- It doesn't really tie into the environment besides the logic that is oh look Nemesis Creature looks like an alien. Galactica is space travel. DONE. 

I had this idea to make it better, I think that it should be like Disney's Flying Over California. They could use drone shots of the park which would've been cheaper than creating the entire world from CG scratch and it's something I haven't seen before. It'd be awesome, cause you could keep the name Air and the marking of you can fly, cause you'd feel like you're flying over Alton Towers. If I was them, I'd also have little hints of things to do with the rides, such as with Nemesis, the creature would rise and then you'd abruptly turn to avoid it. I feel like this would be a much better investment because then it'd be a world's first, it'd be keeping with the Alton Towers brand and it'd be timeless. Air wasn't ever going to be some adrenaline pumping thrill ride and that way it would've made it a memorable experience.

[Owen]

I don't really understand why I'd want to use a headset to escape reality only to be watching a video of the place I'm already at? :-s

[SmileAlways]

We went last year for 1 day on March 23rd (Wednesday) and we went for two day on 11th & 12th September (Sunday/Monday) for our annual trip. On the 23rd March we rode Galactica twice as part of their preview day/soft-opening. I believe it was only open for around an hour for people to try it out, the park was quiet. The first time around we did it with the headsets and I'll admit, it was pretty cool and a decent experience but for me, VR just isn't as fun as the traditional ride. The headsets slipped off very easily while going round, for some people it was out of sync, it increases the time taken to dispatch trains so it's not as efficient. The second time, we ended up without because the headsets were dead. The ride had only been open like 30 minutes to an hour at this point. When we went back in September, queue times were long for it, closed several times for technical issues, the selfie station part wasn't operational and once again quite a few of the headsets were also not operational.

Don't get me wrong, VR on a rollercoaster is an interesting experience but to me, it isn't worth the hassle. I know a lot of people will agree with me when I say that VR feels too overhyped, big companies are like "hey, VR sounds cool, everyone's doing it, let's do it." And I'm honestly worried that we're gonna end up in a world where everything has VR. VR rollercoasters lack the anticipation, dread, fear and excitement that comes with a traditional coaster. Seeing how high up you are, or the near misses you get, it's what makes coasters exciting, I feel bored when using the VR on Galactica. I just hope Alton don't decide to add it to any more of their rides as it's really made Galactica more and more unreliable.