Amoebas are gravity powered. Their muscles distort them into being off-round, and gravity pulls the amoeba onto the recessed part. As that part rotates around the amoeba's perimeter, it makes the amoeba spin. If gravity is too low or wave speed is too fast, the amoeba flexes so quickly that gravity can't pull it down fast enough. The amoeba usually continues the resultant backwards flop until it catches up to its flattened part, which is by now continuing another circuit. The natural reaction when you see your amoeba flipping around is to turn up g. This helps, but eventually you get to the point where g is up all the way and your amoeba is still moving too quickly. (Or, if your amoeba isn't very crossbraced, it may collapse when exposed to very high gravity.)
Turbines, on the other hand, spin around just fine with g off. Therefore, they are usually fine with going fast, unless they're really short from end to end. They don't usually tip over, instead, they explode at high speeds. Since the explosions are usually due to small inconsistencies, you can improve upon your design and fix the muscle timing/spring lengths/off-round wheels. Amoebas, no matter how well made, are still prone to flipping.
Now, even though amoebas and turbines can both be tweaked to go very fast, they each react differently to slopes. As I said before, amoebas are basically g powered. When they hit slopes, gravity effectively changes. It's still pulling straight down, but since they're going uphill, it seems to them like it's pulling down and backwards, sort of like the feeling you get when sitting in a recliner. Since the amoeba is being pulled backwards as well as down, that much of gravity is actually working against the amoeba, making it much more prone to flipping.
Turbines, again, are longer than amoebas and not gravity powered, so all they have to worry about is not ramming into the hill and exploding, unless it's VERY steep (over 50вк). They are also not as prone to getting "snagged" on the top of the hill (although they can get high-centered).
Phewwwwww.... a long technical explanation, I know, but I hope it's as fun to read as it was to write.
^E
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