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Force Types Guide

Force Key

The force key illustrates what type of force you're viewing on a graph.

Solid arrows indicate the direction of positive force along each axis.

Broken arrows indicate the direction of negative force along each axis. The tail of the arrow looks like a minus sign to indicate this.

Vertical Forces

Negative vertical g's feel like you're being pulled out of your seat. This sensation is often called "airtime".

Positive vertical g's feel like you're being pushed down into your seat. The strongest forces on a ride are usually in this direction.

Lateral Forces

Laterals feel like you're being pulled to your left or right. They often occur during unbanked turns.

Longitudinal Forces

Longitudinals are commonly referred to as "acceleration" and "deceleration". You'll feel these when speeding up during a launch or slowing down on a brake run.

Combined Forces

By default combined forces are always provided. It adds the 3 axes of raw accelerometer data together into one value.

This is a good fallback force type for when our device's orientation shifted during the ride.

On most rides high positive combined and vertical forces will match.

Combined forces give the best indication of true weightlessness but they can’t go below 0 g.