This is true. But most are based on historical information. These are not. Instead, they are based on nothing in particular. That is when the user should be informed, otherwise the entire rest of the plan isn’t accurate and the user doesn’t know it (unless they come to this forum and post a thread entitled “Toy Story Land - TP Lying?” 
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I wouldn’t say they are based on nothing in particular, they are based I believe on wait times for similar rides with a similar capacity. The issue is that new rides are popular while everyone tries them.
I don’t have any problem with your suggestion at all.
I’d hazard a guess that from a programming point of view these wait times are based on the same data as everything else. It’s just that the wait time is zero.
So for ride A in your TP, it access the database of wait times which the algorithm (which is just a complex calculation) then fiddles with for CL level etc and comes up with 20 minutes.
For ride X, a new one, it accesses the database in the same way. There’s no historical data stored, and any calculation performed on it gives zero. The maths is exactly the same.
It’s not that simple to just over-ride it. What do you over-ride it with? How do you determine that for every new ride? At what point do you take it out, or update it? And how much do you have to re-test before going live again?
Ah, brings back memories of 20 years in IT…!
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ditto
I imagine my thumb in the wind guestimate would be more accurate in this case. And even if I’m totally wrong, it is on me. But if the software is left to do it without any guidance to the end-user that there is no historical data to base this one, then the end user can blame the software when the touring plan is ultimately completely wrong.
From a software engineering standpoint, it should be somewhat trivial to override whatever the current guess is and replace it with a hard-coded better guess. Maybe deploying an update is much harder which is why it hasn’t happened. There doesn’t seem to be a downside to doing so as it’s clear a back of the envelope guess is better than whatever the algorithm is currently generating.
Also, regardless of what kind of crowd this ride appeals to, what kind of capacity it has, etc. etc. there is still a self-regulatory feedback loop. 90% of people just won’t stand in a line that’s more than 3 hours long. Heck, most people won’t even put up with 2. I would bet that for a month or two, the line will peak at 3 hrs and for the next 6-12 months the line will peak at 2 hrs. It shouldn’t be that hard for the algorithm to make approximate estimates for TP’s off that ballpark guess rather than generating figures like 7 minutes based on who-knows-what.
Edit: If there’s no data available, it should either make a better guess or just shrug and give you a question mark. There’s no real upside to having it spit out a clearly incorrect number.
Based on personal experience studying wait numbers for other attractions that have opened in the last 6 or 7 years, and on discussions on other very technical forums, this is what I expect to see. Both rides will build very rapidly at RD and will remain at several hours all day.
7DMT is an approximate model for Slinky Dog (although some believe the actual hourly capacity may be less). I was there on the first day of “soft” opening for 7DMT (it was on one of the 24 hour days that they did). At 6:15 I waited about 15 min. By 10:00 it was over two hours. By mid afternoon it was over 3 hours. At 2:00 AM it was still 2 hours… Now, 2 years after it opened, 2-plus hour lines are not unusual on crowded days. If you’re not in line for SD within the first 20 minutes the park is open, expect at least an hour wait. If you’re there an hor after park opening, plan on 2 hours.
A.S.S. is harder to predict. It has a low capacity and is slow to load/unload (think tea cups as an approximate model). It’s hard to use Mater in DCA as an accurate model because Carsland also has RSR, which was the biggest draw in the park (and for the first few months had 4 hour lines. Mater started filling as people exited RSR - but still had 90-120 lines for most of the day. The time I rode it I went there first and only waited about 20 min (and then used the single rider line for RSR).
I guess this was a very long way of saying that unless you get to the park very early so you can be at the very front of the RD pack, you’re not going to get on either with much less than an hour wait - at least for the first 6 months TSL is open (after which, it might slack off at least a bit).
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i have decided to basically ignore my TP for our HS day, well at least for the first 2 hours. I have managed to get FP for SDD, TOT adn RnR. we are onsite so plannign on rope drop at 7am ( ouch, think we will def drive that day). Plan is to do ASS and TSM before 8am opening. we then have SDD FP at 8.30. My TP plan has me going to star tours and muppets at 7.15 am so think i will be ignoring them. I had thought about putting in a pretend FP for both ass and tsm to see if that makes a more realistic plan
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TP is not “lying”. TP lacks data for TSL
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This. We have become somewhat “spoiled” by all of the additions to the “science” of TPs. It wasn’t all that long ago that “personalized” TPs with on the spot re-optimization, FPs/FPPs, etc. didn’t exist. For my first several trips after discovering the Unofficial Guide, a TP was basically a pre-packaged recommended order to the attractions based on overall historic data; you could choose a one-day plan, a two day plan, a “Dumbo or Die” plan, a seniors plan, etc. And, at least at that time, they “worked” as well or better than any “personalized” I’ve recently created. Of course WDW is now a much more complex world, with constant changes to operating procedures, than it was “back then”.
To account for this @len and company have developed an insanely complex mathematical model that not only takes into account CLs, the date of the visit, “moving” holidays, “live” in-park data, etc. but also allows for which specific attractions you want to do, the order you want to do them in, FPPs, ADRs, breaks, etc.
But the more data-driven a model becomes, the more data is required to make it “work”. The accuracy of ANY statistical model is directly related to the number of data points available. For TSL, the number of data points is currently zero. It will be months before enough data is collected to be able to make relatively accurate predictions.
And everything we’ve ever known about DHS will be turned on its head after SWGE opens next year.
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I hate it already.
And I am eternally grateful to be visiting before SW:GE opens, though I am also desperate to see it and so sad to miss out on it.
Agreed
Since we don’t go every year though, I look at it as getting in before it explodes and then I get to wait a year or so until it settles down before coming back. 
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We probably won’t be back for at least 5 years 
My next trip is planned for Dec '19 - a couple of months after SWGE opens. I count this as a double-edged sword. On the plus side, I’ll probably get a chance to experience the new rides, on the down side I may not be able to do much else and might have to get to the park several hours before RD to do even that. I’m planning on two RD days there; one to focus on SWGE and one to focus on TSL. If I can knock out those 4 rides plus Mickey’s RR, ST and ToT I’ll consider it a success.
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Five years from now is perfect. There’ll be so much more open by then. Ratatouille, Tron, GOTG, the Space restaurant, Star Wars Hotel experience. Plus likely a U.K attraction, a new country pavilion, a redesign of the FW dead space…l
So much more coming by 2023, it’ll be awesome. Loooks like I have at least another 2 years to go, but then I’ll miss all this new stuff too.
It’s not perfect, it’s too long!! But I’ll be glad to see all the new stuff and crowds will hopefully have died down a bit!
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Well of course it’s too long, but I didn’t want to say that - because I was trying to make you feel better. By sending you an online hug. 
Clearly I failed! 
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Haha nothing could make me feel better about it but you did an excellent job pointing out the positives, thank you!
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