Talk:Disk'O (product)

Discussion page of Disk'O (product)
Latest comment: 14 May 2022 by Ticatoc in topic Images

Disk'O Coasters Sub-Models

According to observations I made, 2 types of Disk'O Coaster (24) exist, one whose lenght is identical to the larger Disk'O Coasters (Shaman's curse), and one whose lenght is shorter (Buffalo Bill Rodeo).

While this explains why there are different track lenghts in the stats taken from Zamperla's website, there's only one dimensions and height stat making it confusing.

Furthermore, while it's clear that it's the 40 seat sub-model that can reach a capacity of 600 pph, we don't know wether it's the 24 seats standard lenght or the 24 seats reduced lenght that can achieve a capacity of 500 pph.


Therefor it may be a good idea to do the following things:

- Differentiate both sub-models by giving them different names (Ex: Disk'O Coaster (24) short & Disk'O Coaster (24) long).

- Set the stats of Disk'O Coaster (24) short as unknown (except for the number of seats and track lenght) however as the current stats are by all accounts accurate to the Disk'O Coaster (40) (Thus by extension to Disk'O Coaster (24) as it has a smaller disk on the same structure), properly separating the sub-models in the statistics section may be needed (instead of using "and"). In this case I think we should create a different stat table for the Disk'O variants and Disk'O Coasters variants in order to avoid making the table wide and cramped.


If you have any thoughts on this feel free to contact me here or on the coasterpedia discord, I'm not 100% sure about what I'm planning to do! Ticatoc (talk) 15:27, 7 May 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks for all your work improving this @Ticatoc! I was a bit confused by all the Disk'O products last time I looked, so will have a read over now and see if I can make sense of it Lachlan (Talk | contribs) 23:13, 8 May 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Disk'Os, Skaters and Rockin' Tugs; How should they be categorized?

@Time93 asked me a very interesting question on discord about the difference between Skaters and Rockin' Tug, having answered it in a thorough manner, @Lachlan suggested posting it here in order to avoid losing it on discord, so here it is:


@Time93's question:

I was reading your Disk'O updates and was wondering, after having researched so much on the product, what differentiates a small Disk'O skater from a rock 'n' tug? Is it just that the rock 'n' tug is still smaller? And where does the surf's up product from Zamperla (https://www.zamperla.com/products/surfs-up/) fit into this?


My answer:


So far I've been grouping the Skaters and the Disk'Os together because Skater Coasters were already listed on the page, which seem appropriate because Skaters seem to be Disk'Os with different trains.

However, as you noted, Skaters can also be defined as supersized Rockin' Tugs, as the seating arrangement of Skaters is suspiciously similar to the one of the Rockin' Tugs (The main difference being that there are no rows in the middle of the train on the skater in order to, I would guess, make space for a stronger spinning mecanism). Additionally, larger Rockin' Tugs bridge the gap between Rockin' Tugs and Skaters: For example let's compare Kontiki XL with the base Skater: Dimensions: 19m * 13.3m VS 21.5m * 10.7m Height: 8m VS 10.69m Seats: 40 VS 24 I would also add that I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing Normal sized Rockin' Tugs with (appropriately sized) W shaped track, Zamperla has shown that they could do it with the Surf's Up (And we'll get to whatever I think these should be categorized as) and I by the look of things an obscure Chinese manufacturer have already made it a reality. This has for effect to make the Skater Coasters feel less different from the way smaller Rockin' Tugs.

That being said, one could still argue that difference between Rockin' Tugs and Skaters is a thrill level difference, with the Rockin' Tugs being kiddy rides and the Skaters being visually impressive family rides. This distinction is supported by the fact that Disk'O and Skaters have obvious steeper maximum angle. Because of that whereas Rockin' Tug are associated with Kiddy rides, Skaters and Disk'O are generally associated with family rides, and as such using one these appellation to describe a ride of another thrill level would be misleading. Oh and Skaters are still widely associated with Disk'Os.

With all that being said, I devised 2 plans of action that I believe would be appropriate: - The first one consists of leaving things as is, as such the Skater would keep on being considered a Disk'O variant and the Rockin' Tug will stay it's own Entity. Types: Disk'O -> Disk'O (Zamperla), Skater (Zamperla), Disco (Berton) Rockin' Tug -> Rockin' Tug (Zamperla), Kontiki (Zierer) - The second one consists of separating the Skaters of the Disk'O and grouping the Skaters with the Rockin' Tug. However as Rockin' Tug is a well known term associated with kiddy ride (thus his usage to describe Skaters and Skater Coasters would be misleading), I would still use it as the name of junior variant of the type instead of "Junior Skater", and the name of the type in general would be Skater: Disk'O -> Disk'O (Zamperla), Disco (Berton) Skater -> Skater (Zamperla), Junior model: Rockin' Tug (name to be used as type name in table for these instead of Junior Skater/Skater) [Rockin' Tug (Zamperla), Kontiki (Zierer)]

In both cases I would add in the type and product article an infobox with links to to other type and product articles of "Half pipe rides" that will encompass all the flat rides with this kind of straight rails, including the types I've being talking about so far, that Schwarzkopf flat and the Surf's Up.

Speaking of Surf's Up, I feel like it will need it's own type or at the very least it's own product as it's basically a fancy Rockin' Tug you have to ride in a stand up position, which is different enough to me.

Ticatoc (talk) 12:27, 9 May 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Okay, thinking about this one step at a time. I don't think we have any Surf's Up rides recorded yet. These appear to have their own track layout, or is that shared with the Disk'O? Again with the Rockin' Tug, its small layout appears to only be used for the Rockin' Tug? Is that right? Lachlan (Talk | contribs) 17:16, 9 May 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Disk'Os, Surf's Ups and Rockin' Tugs all use the same style of track, a wide straight track with a powering system that can have a hill or not. However, the exact dimensions and shaping of the track is not shared between these three types of ride. Ticatoc (talk) 09:23, 10 May 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Category:Rockin' Tug includes rides like this that are not Zamperla at all. If the seating arrangement is consistent across all rides of this size, this feels like an easy set of rides to categorise and keep separate. Lachlan (Talk | contribs) 17:34, 9 May 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'm very aware of the existence of the Kontiki product, and do indeed consider it part of the Rockin' Tug type of ride, along with the Rockin' Tug product by Zamperla.
The question that I was trying to answer was:
Wether or not the Skater variants of the Disk'Os, currently considered as Disk'O products and part of the Disk'O type, should instead be considered as their own separate product that is part of the same type as the Rockin' Tugs.
Here's a brief summary of my arguments:
For: (In favor of proposition 2)
- The vehicle of the skaters are closer to the ones of the Rockin' Tugs than the ones of the Disk'O.
I'm very aware of the existence of the Kontiki product, and do indeed consider it part of the Rockin' Tug type of ride, along with the Rockin' Tug product by Zamperla.
I'm very aware of the existence of the Kontiki product, and do indeed consider it part of the Rockin' Tug type of ride, along with the Rockin' Tug product by Zamperla. Ticatoc (talk) 09:39, 10 May 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Images

Lachlan (Talk | contribs) 15:38, 14 May 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Okay, so I think your second idea is best - and I'm rather tired so sorry if I read this wrong. So we would group rides as follows:
  • Skater: Rockin' Tug, Skater, Skater Coaster, Kontiki
  • Disk'O: Disk'O (and copies), Disk'O Coaster
  • Surf's Up (can't think of any other rides like this that would fit into this category)
But it still feels a bit weird to list Rockin' Tug under "Skater". I think sorting by car type makes the most sense though. Lachlan (Talk | contribs) 16:32, 14 May 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I have to agree with you, but that's the best way of grouping Skaters and Rockin' Tugs I could find.
Essentially we have three options on how to call the type, the first one baing Making up a name. I really dislike this first one, I fell like it isn't coasterpedia's role to do so, and even if I liked that option, how do we chose such a name?
The 2 others being calling it either Skater or Rockin' Tug, and they are both problematic in very similar ways (in theory), mainly because the Rockin' Tugs (and kontikis for that matter) are kiddy sized while the Skaters are family sized (especially the Skater Coasters who are impressive off ride and extremely large). This difference in the target audience is especially apparent in the different steepness level of the extremities of the track between the two products.
As a consequence, using one of these names to describe the other one just feel wrong, and worse, misleading.
However I tried my best to unblock the situation, and to do that I used a simple fact: Most theme park fans know what is a rocking tug and assimilate the name with kiddy rides, whereas only a very limited number of them have an idea of what is a skater, as they are way less common and the most known one, the Cedar Fair Skater Coasters, are probably wrongly called Disk'O Coasters more frequently than correctly called Skater Coasters.
So is this it? Using Skater as the name of the type? Well... Uhm... Yes but actually No... Let's say that there's a subtlety.
You see, while I've established that most don't know the term Skater and as such won't have to change what it mean to them, this doen't really change the fact that using it to name Rockin' Tugs is misleading in a certain way.
Let me explain my self, an average enthusiast thus an average coasterpedia visitor, will have a direct idea of what a ride is if they see "Rockin' Tug" in a ride table on a park page or in the infobox on the ride's page, but will probably assume it's some kind of obscure flat ride if they see "Skater".
That's where the little trick I have imagined comes in, you see, my interpretation of the purpose of the junior types (Junior Ferris Wheel, Drop Tower...) is that they are used as the type on most pages but lead to the normal type page when clicked on, in order to indicate to the visitors that those rides are kiddy rides.
So taking inspiration from this existing convention I imagined that the Rocking Tug name could be used just like the Junior Skater term would be used now that the Rockin Tugs and the Skaters are grouped (Instead of using "Junior Skater" we would keep "Rocking Tug").
This solution is not perfect by any means as it is inintuitive, yet I feel like that with a small paragraph explaining it on the Skater type page would be enough to have it makes sense to the people who clicked on Rockin' Tug expecting to end up on the Rockin Tug type page.
And It also have the avantage of not necessitating us to change the text on every link to Rockin' Tug type as the text would stay the same (as for the link we can use a redirect, just like we would do in any scenario). Ticatoc (talk) 20:47, 14 May 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
As far as the Zamperla rides are concerned I think we could have separate articles for Skater, Disk'O, Rockin' Tug, and Surf's Up? Lachlan (Talk | contribs) 16:33, 14 May 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yeah that's the way I imagine it.
  • Skater: Skater, Skater Coaster (Categorised as the same product as standard Skater), Kontiki, Rockin' Tug, Rocking Tug copies (With links to the type from the last three being Rockin' Tug instead of Skater).
  • Disk'O: Disk'O, Disk'O Coaster (Categorised as the same product as standard Disk'O), Disk'O copies.
  • Surf's Up: Stand alone product (he is it's own type) as no manufacturers other than Zamperla made similar enough rides.
Ticatoc (talk) 21:00, 14 May 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]