Hi all, I'm building (read: I have built) a Hershey Stormrunner coaster. The reason I chose the Stormrunner was because it has smooth launch sections rather than requiring block brakes. This is the layout of my coaster:

1.  From station immediately into 3.6km/h block brakes to prevent immediate launch from station. Drops down and a short, scenic route is taken.
   
2. Coming out of the slow, scenic, route (necessary due to space restraints), coaster hits a long stretch of launch sections before going into the full circuit.
   
3. Circuit contains many elements, including a second launch section.
   

My problem is:

• The coaster worked absolutely perfectly during test runs. It would complete the scenic route at low speed and then smoothly launch to max speed of ~160km/h, and complete all the ride elements.
  
• Once the coaster was complete, it stopped working. It would complete the scenic route same as usual, but when it entered the launch section, the train would stay at a constant (very slow) speed until the end of the launch section, where it would fail to clear the first hill (or indeed, even pass the first track section of the hill)
  

Even weirder is:

• The coaster will work as long as the circuit is not complete. If I build the entire coaster, but do not connect the final track section to the station, the coaster works perfectly (except of course it will crash because it's not connected to the station), but as soon as I connect the track to the station, it fails again.
  

Can anyone explain why this is?

Thank you.

Unfortunately I don't really understand the launch section so I just use block brakes

Well I can't recreate what I want with block brakes (my launch hill requires a speed of at least 160km/h to clear). So I'd really like it if someone was able to explain how the launch section worked! Cheers.

If you are using the in game launch track then it can have a fail rate. I would suggest using a chain lift. If that doesn’t work, feel free to PM me and send me the Coaster.

If you are using the in game launch track then it can have a fail rate. I would suggest using a chain lift. If that doesn’t work, feel free to PM me and send me the Coaster.

Thanks man. If all it needed was an inspection...but I don’t think so.

I tried a lot of possible combinations of track pieces to solely figure out how the launch section works and I have no idea except that it is tied in with the launch speed of the coaster, but I did come up with a very inelegant solution.

I used the David Braben cheat to push the launch speed of the coaster up to ~500km/hr. I kept the block brakes immediately in front of the stations to keep the coaster from actually launching at 500km/hr, then did the slow, scenic introduction and hit the launch section and boom....it struggled to reach 150km/hr but it was just fast enough to push me over the top. It introduced some other problems such as any subsequent launch sections became much faster (but I simply made them shorter or used block brakes). Plus the inherent design flaws in the StormRunner coaster meant I ended up with a much longer coaster than I planned for that stops and starts a bit too often, but else it actually turned out well.

That said, I still want to know how the launch section actually works!

Is the ride just not working at all?