And then you have rides like Phantom's Revenge at Kennywood, where the tallest drop isn't the first, but the second, because the first drop descends to ground level, while the second drop descends into a ravine! (It's officially a hyper coaster because of that second drop.)
@@11_credits That's only true if you _don't_ use the more flexible definition of a hyper that seems to be the most common one that people use--that it's _either_ 200 feet height above land, _or_ 200 foot tallest drop.
Looking into measuring roller coaster height is a door into madness. In frankly just about any system you could come up with to do it, you could find a real life example, or if there's not build an example in Planet Coaster or No Limits, to where it doesn't feel "right" to measure it's height like that. Also gets especially fun when you get into the "what's a hyper coaster" discussion. Like Magnum XL 200 doesn't have a 200ft drop whilst Apollo's Chariot does but doesn't reach 200ft above the ground. Have fun thinking about that one!
It's should be a priority kind of system. It should always be the tallest point of the lift hill. Unless the coaster hugs the terrain for the majority of the layout, then it's top point of the lift to the lowest point (But you can't call it that tall, you now have to call it like elevation change)
this is a really interesting point to bring up that i never really thought of! I'd possibly measure the height as the difference from the highest point of the ride to the lowest non-underground point maybe? that's probably the best thing i can come up with
One other thing I remember is that there was actually a court battle over the issue of what the tallest wooden coaster was, since both Texas Giant (Six Flags Over Texas) and Hercules (Dorney Park) were claiming the tallest wooden coaster at one point. Texas Giant had the greater height over land, while Hercules had a shorter height over land but a larger drop, thanks to use of the terrain letting the drop go into a depression. I wanna say the battle resolved with Texas Giant officially having the _tallest_ coaster at the time, while Hercules had the coaster with the largest drop.
That Court battle is also the reason for design changes on the original Rattler at Fiesta Texas. Basically the very original design had a fairly shallow drop that began on the Quarry Wall, but because the Park wanted the tallest Wooden Coaster without any doubts, they implemented a flat section after the Lift Hill to have the drop begin over the Parks ground level leaving very little room to question the height of the coaster. Of course Mean Streak first threw a wrench in the plan of Rattler being the tallest Wooden Coaster, but that was "solved" by adding a few feet to the lift and making the drop even steeper than originally designed.
One of the lesser talked about negatives about Kingda Ka closing is that I can no longer dab on the Brits with "Congrats on finally building a roller coaster that's half as tall as our tallest coaster!"
When building a coaster, you can actually see the height of track pieces you are building if enabled in settings. And it gives you options such as from sea level or from ground level. And for irl coasters, I think the height compared to ground level should be the height, and when going into specifics other numbers can be added for info.
Simple. There's height and there's drop. They're listed separately. Magnum XL is 205' tall with a 194' drop. Phantoms Revenge is 160' tall with a 230' drop. Biggest hill and biggest drop have never been confusing, they don't need to be the same hill and I've been riding for 35 years since I was 12.
What’s wrong with just measuring the distance between the highest and lowest point of the track. It doesn’t matter what element it is. Height doesn’t say anything about the biggest drop or how high it is from the ground. Just how much verticality you scale when riding.
3:55 Isn´t that 13m height Number on Nemesis just the height difference of the Lift? I mean, the Station on that thing isn´t the lowest point of the ride anyway. The real question with Nemesis is a different one anyway: Where did they get that bloody 31.7m drop number from? Because honestly, I highly doubt that Nemesis has any drop on it that comes even in the ballpark of that number. To me it always felt as if that´s the total difference between the lowest and highest point of the ride. Like Bandit at Yomiuriland, that thing is listed with a Height of 51m, a drop of who knows what because nobody seems to care and a Elevation change of 78m
The height is measured by, when you’re at the highest point and you look down to the ground and say “omg we’re so high up”. Measure from there to the ground lol
And then you have rides like Phantom's Revenge at Kennywood, where the tallest drop isn't the first, but the second, because the first drop descends to ground level, while the second drop descends into a ravine! (It's officially a hyper coaster because of that second drop.)
For anyone who doesn't know magnum and phantoms revenge can't both be hypers bc magnum uses height and phantom uses drop
@@11_credits That's only true if you _don't_ use the more flexible definition of a hyper that seems to be the most common one that people use--that it's _either_ 200 feet height above land, _or_ 200 foot tallest drop.
Looking into measuring roller coaster height is a door into madness. In frankly just about any system you could come up with to do it, you could find a real life example, or if there's not build an example in Planet Coaster or No Limits, to where it doesn't feel "right" to measure it's height like that.
Also gets especially fun when you get into the "what's a hyper coaster" discussion. Like Magnum XL 200 doesn't have a 200ft drop whilst Apollo's Chariot does but doesn't reach 200ft above the ground. Have fun thinking about that one!
This makes sense, height and drop height are different stats.
1:33 look at that kink in the right running rail. Quality Arrow jank right there.
Another instance of analyzing marketing claims driving someone insane.
It's should be a priority kind of system. It should always be the tallest point of the lift hill. Unless the coaster hugs the terrain for the majority of the layout, then it's top point of the lift to the lowest point (But you can't call it that tall, you now have to call it like elevation change)
this is a really interesting point to bring up that i never really thought of!
I'd possibly measure the height as the difference from the highest point of the ride to the lowest non-underground point maybe? that's probably the best thing i can come up with
One other thing I remember is that there was actually a court battle over the issue of what the tallest wooden coaster was, since both Texas Giant (Six Flags Over Texas) and Hercules (Dorney Park) were claiming the tallest wooden coaster at one point. Texas Giant had the greater height over land, while Hercules had a shorter height over land but a larger drop, thanks to use of the terrain letting the drop go into a depression. I wanna say the battle resolved with Texas Giant officially having the _tallest_ coaster at the time, while Hercules had the coaster with the largest drop.
That Court battle is also the reason for design changes on the original Rattler at Fiesta Texas. Basically the very original design had a fairly shallow drop that began on the Quarry Wall, but because the Park wanted the tallest Wooden Coaster without any doubts, they implemented a flat section after the Lift Hill to have the drop begin over the Parks ground level leaving very little room to question the height of the coaster. Of course Mean Streak first threw a wrench in the plan of Rattler being the tallest Wooden Coaster, but that was "solved" by adding a few feet to the lift and making the drop even steeper than originally designed.
One of the lesser talked about negatives about Kingda Ka closing is that I can no longer dab on the Brits with "Congrats on finally building a roller coaster that's half as tall as our tallest coaster!"
...But assuming TT2 reopens in 2025 at least I can still say that. Even though it's more like 56% as tall.
When building a coaster, you can actually see the height of track pieces you are building if enabled in settings. And it gives you options such as from sea level or from ground level. And for irl coasters, I think the height compared to ground level should be the height, and when going into specifics other numbers can be added for info.
I've always wondered this myself. Glad someone else is out there stressing about the truly important problems we face. LOL
Simple. There's height and there's drop. They're listed separately. Magnum XL is 205' tall with a 194' drop. Phantoms Revenge is 160' tall with a 230' drop. Biggest hill and biggest drop have never been confusing, they don't need to be the same hill and I've been riding for 35 years since I was 12.
I agree you can’t class them as the same stat because they are not
i just think that they are measured from the bottom of the station to the top of the highest point
I think that the height should change depending on the ride.
What’s wrong with just measuring the distance between the highest and lowest point of the track. It doesn’t matter what element it is. Height doesn’t say anything about the biggest drop or how high it is from the ground. Just how much verticality you scale when riding.
5:17 What about PowderKeg?
3:55 Isn´t that 13m height Number on Nemesis just the height difference of the Lift? I mean, the Station on that thing isn´t the lowest point of the ride anyway. The real question with Nemesis is a different one anyway: Where did they get that bloody 31.7m drop number from? Because honestly, I highly doubt that Nemesis has any drop on it that comes even in the ballpark of that number.
To me it always felt as if that´s the total difference between the lowest and highest point of the ride. Like Bandit at Yomiuriland, that thing is listed with a Height of 51m, a drop of who knows what because nobody seems to care and a Elevation change of 78m
Biggest drop doesn’t nessicarily mean first
The height is measured by, when you’re at the highest point and you look down to the ground and say “omg we’re so high up”. Measure from there to the ground lol
But like in the case with Defiance, you don’t drop more like 70ft, but it’s over 1k off the canyon bottom.