Rail-Simulator.org

[Easilyconfused]

Thanks for those comments bigvern. The moderators are watching (as we do with all threads) but nothing that breaches the forum guidelines has happened yet. Sure there are a lot of posts about it but nothing that breaches the rules.

Since you have been around here longer than me you will be aware that other members have started forums and other sites with varying degrees of success. Matt has offered his advice. The moderators will not silence someone just to "protect" UKTS. The members decide whether to support other sites or not. The moderators will not censor posts unless the forum rules are breached regarding spamming threads etc. So far most of the posts are in this thread and a few others where downloads are concerned so there is no cause to take action.

Removing my moderator hat for a second or two - if I ever produce any scenarios for Rail Simulator (very much dependent on how good the tools are) then they will only officially be available here - can't be doing with keeping multiple sites updated. However, I am not so naive to think that they won't be uploaded against my wishes elsewhere or availably on P2P sites.

[drwho200]

Thats fine by me As I said if you start a new project just give my site a try. I really don't want to draw away anything from UKTS, in fact I hope my site hopes to keep it.

[TElsmore]

Good luck with it mate, you seem so determined.

Cheers,
Terrone.

[drwho200]

Thanks, and I am very determined to do well. I have made sites before and I know exactly what problems I will face.

[Easilyconfused]

Thats fine by me As I said if you start a new project just give my site a try. I really don't want to draw away anything from UKTS, in fact I hope my site hopes to keep it.

If I start a project I will use the facilities Matt is already offering here to project teams. Having said that I am only into creating activities / scenarios so UKTS is suitable for my uploading needs rather than a 3rd party site.

[PrinceGaz]

6TB per month? OMG! It's no wonder you have to charge for premium access. I imagined maybe a few hundred gigs in total given the large size of some files, but with bandwidth bills of that magnitude, I can understand everything you do, Matt.

Question: would it be cheaper for you to send out an .ISO image of a CD or DVD (possibly along with printable inserts and printable CD images for those who desire them, all in a self-extracting RAR archive for instance), for those of us who'd prefer to download a disc-image than rely on the post? I'd happily pay a 50p premium over the normal £3 for a month's premium download, if it included a Community disc download. I'd probably buy a lot more as I'm very wary of the postal situation in my flat, and it is always touch and go if potentaially valuable articles arrive unless I am there to meet the postman (even though your CDs are worthless to anyone else, there's always the chance they would be stolen).

It must cost more than £1 on top of that (my suggested £3.50 for a downloaded disc-image), to pay for the blank disc, burn the disc, print the picture on it, print the insert-card, and cover the cost and time of putting it all together in the case then buying the padded envelope and paying for the postage for it all.

[NeutronIC]

PrinceGaz - the means of distribution is something that must be approved by each uploader and having spoken with all or most of them over the last 5 or 6 years I know that there are many who don't want their work on just any old CD. This is one of the reasons that we started putting together the community CD's that we have now - if I remember rightly it was Tim Court that kicked that idea off with his "Fictional ECML" CD and we've ran with it since for as many compilations as we can get the time and the organisation to put together. They prove popular because they generally fit a particular area - so if you buy a CD it's probably all or mostly things you might be interested in, as opposed to mix-bags. Another aspect of the CD's we put together is trying to get cabs, sounds etc all tied together.

Access to bandwidth is no problem at all - i'm still running the site on a 100mb/s connection; the machine is actually using a 1gb/s card so with a suitable additional monthly payment I can crank that speed right up and access tens or even hundreds of terabytes per month if needed... but it's all got to be funded some how, I certainly can't afford it myself these days! I funded the first 6-12 months out of my pocket but ever since then it's just not even been remotely practical. Thankfully it's also never been necessary, partly because - yes, I am a bit tight on the free download bandwidth, mostly because we nearly got in to a very sticky situation a couple of years back when subscriber numbers were dropping through the floor because the free access was actually "good enough" so people stopped paying and had I not made the change, the site wouldn't be here now. With things as they are, everything is paid for and I can sleep easy - I made a pledge when I started this that I would do my utmost to ensure it was a consistent and continuous service, this means I pay for higher cost servers and hosting to get better reliability (note: they're dedicated machines, three of them, running this little lot) and cannot risk making "cool" decisions that present any risk at all to the longevity of the site... if things pick up on the premium subscriber front following the release of Rail Sim then it is my intention to look at starting to lift the tight restraints on the free download, but any such move will have to be done very very cautiously because people simply don't pay for something unless they have to, and I need to make sure there are enough people paying to keep the bills covered.

Just for info, we already offer lots of services to folks that ask - there are a great many projects that host multi gigabyte FTP and Web spaces on the site such as Project Metrolink and MSTSbin; indeed even MakingTracks were using three or four gigs of space for a while to share files between team members before they got their own server space sorted. The servers have hundreds of gigabytes of free disk, there's no problem there

I don't advertise it particularly because it's something that takes time to manage and would be yet one more thing that people get disappointed about my slow responses on due to real life commitments. That said, if someone wants or needs it then I can sort it out.

Thanks for the kind words folks, much appreciated by everyone here!

Matt.

[drwho200]

Thats why I set up the site, I know its extremely expensive and difficult to run a Download Library and Forum such as this one and be able to offer support to hosted projects. My site aims to take away the latter from your list of responsibilities by providing a dedicated space for Projects and Unique web site design for these projects as well as allowing space for them to grow.