Steel Roller Coasters vs Wooden Roller Coasters - you choose!

Thanks for the response F-16. == Rebuttal == {{{ Enthusiasts }}} My opponent claims there are a lot of smaller events too. That doesn't matter. These parks need to sell *thousands* of tickets on a *daily* basis, not a couple hundred tickets to enthusiasts on a yearly basis. In addition, F-16 drops/concedes my argument that season passes aren't profitable. Enthusiasts ride coasters often. They thus buy season passes. If you buy the season passes in bulk, they are just as much as a single day-pass. [1] So having an enthusiast go to your amusement park 100 times per year is no more profitable than having him go once per year. My opponent claims that enthusiasts write reviews. Really, where? Unlike movies, where reviews are published in legitimate publications like the New York Times and aggregated by Rotten Tomatoes, roller coasters are only discussed in obscure roller coaster forums. Six Flags and Great America get most of their new revenue from advertising (tv spots, placements on soda cans, etc). It's easier to advertise a taller and faster new steel coaster than a wood one. It's not really that impressive to say, "people on ultimaterollercoaster.com really like our new wood coaster." Nostalgia also isn't impressive to the general public. Video game enthusiasts are often nostalgic about old 16-bit games. That doesn't mean that Ubisoft should build Assassin's Creed III using the original Mario graphics engine. What percent of enthusiasts even prefer wood? {{{ Unique Features }}} For airtime, my opponent merely provides a quote about coaster "fanatics." Most people don't like the bumpy ride of wood coasters, which throws people into the air and then slams their butts, painfully, back into the seat. People get a much longer zero G experience from long drops. Steel has longer drops. Because of the design of wood coasters, they can only have one large drop because they are propelled by pulling the cart, by chain, up a hill. Steel coasters have alternate propulsion systems which can allow them to have multiple large drops. In addition, the up and down design of wood coasters can be done with steel as well. Most coaster designers don't use this design with steel because there are more interesting thrills. My opponent claims wood can have a smooth ride. Firstly, the only reason wood is better than steel, according to my opponent, is because of the bumpy ride. Why pay more for maintaining wood if it has the same ride experience as steel, minus the inversions? In addition, prefabricating wood is expensive. Traditional wood coasters are only cheap because "track is built on site … Prefabricated track, on the other hand, is manufactured in a factory. It is made of many thin layers of wood that are glued together and then laser cut to the exact shape needed." [2] This expensive manufacturing process needs to be done with replacement wood as well, which would add significantly to the cost of our coaster. Swaying – I did address this. Feeling like the track might collapse isn't a nice feeling to most people. {{{ Fills a need }}} Con asks if you have 1 wood and 4 steel coasters, why buy another steel one? Because each steel one can be different. My local Great America had these four steel coasters: Top Gun (legs suspended, car rides under track), Vortex (standing, legs not hanging, car rides on top of track), The Demon (classic car steel coaster, with two loops), and Invertigo (launched propulsion, suspended coaster with passengers facing each other; goes through 3 cork screws forwards, stops, then goes through the same 3 corkscrews backwards). They also had the Grizzly, which was wood. When they had money for an additional coaster, rather than build another typical wood coaster, they decided to build an additional steel coaster where people were suspended, lying flat on their backs. The name of said coaster, however, escapes me. Steel adds additional variety. Wood doesn't – it offers much the same experience. {{{ Poll }}} My opponent claims this poll is so legitimate. If it is, why didn't they aggregate the data? Why can't you tell us, "57% of coaster enthusiasts prefer wood"? My opponent never even tells us what the results of the poll were. The site says they can't aggregate because it's not an apples-to-apples comparison. Also, F-16 claimed that enthusiasts have said the methodology of this poll is super great. One such enthusiast wrote that this poll was good because "a great but rarely ridden coaster will beat a mediocre coaster that everyone has ridden." That's all well and good, but what park wants to build a "rarely ridden coaster"?? Critical acclaim counts for nothing. F-16 keeps ignoring the fact that the tastes of enthusiasts and the general public differ greatly. Enthusiasts even *admit* this. == Defending my case == {{{ Unique Features }}} Why do people need more drop height? Free falling for 6 seconds is more fun than free falling for 1/2 a second. A higher drop height also means the coaster gains more speed. It also has to do with advertising appeal. A mega coaster sounds better than a junior coaster. Similarly, 3 Ghz for a computer process sounds better than 2 Ghz. You have to do something to set yourself apart. Wood seems like an outdated medium to most people, kind of like trying to advertise for a slide rule rather than a calculator. It's not "cool." {{{ Popularity }}} F-16 doesn't answer my sources that the general public does not like wood as much as enthusiasts do, that it was steel that skyrocketed in popularity starting in the 1950's, and that people prefer height, speed, and loops. F-16 drops that demand (more steel built) proves popularity. In addition, F-16 assumes, without warrant, that we already have a 500 foot coaster. Yet, there are only 2 such ulta coasters in the world. It is quite possible that our park does not even have a giga coaster, so we could build bigger or faster. But as I showed with my local Great America, each steel coaster offers a unique ride experience. The Demon only had loops. Invertigo had lots of cork screws and went backwards and forwards, using a unique propulsion system. This is the reason steel coasters cost more to design: because there are more design *options.* Of the top 10 "coolest" roller coasters, all are steel. [3] Ranking criteria include speed, height, unique modes of acceleration (one is self-pedal powered), and unique track designs (one unexpectedly shoots underwater). And F-16 assumes our park is an average size park. The fact we want to expand typically means we are starting on the smaller side, since it means we still have extra land. We may only have 1 wood coaster and 2 steel coasters. In addition, the three car types F-16 cites for wood are mostly small variations of the same typical roller coaster "car" design, which travels above track, on wheels, with the rider seated face forward. {{{ Cost }}} F-16 says it's good we can save our money for maintenance. However, consider this: Let's say we are willing to spend $30 million over the next 15 years on a new roller coaster. With steel, most of our money can go into building the coaster itself. We can use more of the money up-front to ensure that the ride itself has some amazing features. With wood, most of the money needs to be held back, to pay for maintenance. This means that less can be spent on the build. So we get a less impressive roller coaster because more of our money is saved for maintenance. Pressure treating the wood ups the cost and even pressure treated wood coasters need constant maintenance. [4] F-16 claims someone will top our steel coaster. Same could happen for wood. Not only that, people rarely travel super-far just to go to an amusement park (besides Disneyworld). We only need to be the fastest or tallest in our local region. [1] http://tinyurl.com... [2] http://tinyurl.com... [3] http://tinyurl.com... [4] http://tinyurl.com...