Expressboy's Upcoming Activities...

[expressboy1983]

Hello again folks!

I said i'd start up a new thread as and when i got the time, and here we are. However, to get straight down to business.....I have been working hard on quite a few activities i plan on releasing as one huge pack...for various routes, but obviously before i go ahead and release them, i wanted to get afew peoples views on the whole "Activity Pack" thing.

As i said these act's will be for multiple routes, and there will be equal amounts of act's for each route respectively. I currently have 2 act's each for the following routes with more in the pipeline :

Dorset Coast V5
West Coast Express
Cross City
London South Coast

I have act's planned for the following :

East Coast Express
Thames Mersey V4.2
Severn Valley
MT Springfield
Great Eastern
GWR Toddington
Far North Line V1.5
West Highland Stage Two (Possibly)

My question is... would it be worth me releasing all the activities in one pack, or release the act's per route respectively, or release each act individually? Feel free to express yourself using the poll for this thread also.

None of these activities will be ready for release anytime soon, although some are fully tested completed packaged and zipped i won't be releasing them until i have all other act's for that route completed also.

I am also in the progress of making an act pack for the WSR, and (Possibly) Settle & Carlisle....again the question is....is there sufficient enough interest in the S&C to actually put weeks of work into it? Not going to give away too much info on what these act's will be, just to keep some suspence going

Also! while working on these tons of activities, i am working on my own small route...which i have aptly named "Trainspot". As that's basically what it'll be for mainly. T'isn't much at the moment, but i am slowly getting to grips with the route editor and getting places with the route. Screenshots of which will be uploaded as and when i can get on the internet to do so. Before anyone starts getting hopeful, and demanding this that and the other for the route....i dont know if i'll be releasing it to UKTS. T'is my first attempt after all, and i might well get months into making it, and have everything go wrong and what not....so please no one get your hopes up on this, but any tips and hints would be greatly appreciated.

With regards to the activities...i'm hoping that by the time i've completed all of them, and had them tested, there will be in excess of 30 (Yes thirty) in total. I have 10 written, tested and packaged...about another 7 in the process of being written, with another 12 (roughly) noted down for writing later.

So incase any of you were wondering, i have been doing anything BUT kickin' back and relaxing STill very much int he process of moving house, and my usual online habits....but any other spare time i get,m is spent writing activities and/or working on my route.

If there are any activities that you would like to see made for any of the above mentioned routes, feel free to let me know and ill gladly give you credit for inspiring me to write that activity, provided i dont already have it written or noted to be written.

Any other questions, comments, general abuse or whatever can be left either in this thread or in my pm...or if you want to you can add me to your msn, which i think i have displayed to the public

Thanks for your time, and i hope i haven't made anyone late for work

Kindest regards

Simon

[gswindale]

whilst I don't personally have any preference myself as such, I would suggest that either releasing as single activities or as packs per route is the best way forward.

[Lad491]

I would release them one at a time, one every two days or so. That way people have a steady stream of new stuff to run and you might get feedback which might change the way you do others.

You might spend ages doing 30 ( I dont know how long that will take you to complete but assuming each one is one hour long i'd guess 600 hours or so - each of mine takes 20 hours to do and test ). Much better to let them out in a steady flow. If you release the 10 you have done so far, that will take three weeks (at 1 every 2 days) and give people a much better chance to comment and maybe influence the rest.

[expressboy1983]

Okie doke....all points taken into account. I shall release them a few at a time and await feedback which i agree, would be the better option.

To relate back to my original post though...is there sufficient enough interest in the Settle and Carlisle route to work on that one too?

[ianmacmillan]

...is there sufficient enough interest in the Settle and Carlisle route to work on that one too?

There will be soon.

An LMS version is due out which has upper quadrant signals and other improvements.
It will be suitable for LMS and early BR stock.

No changes have been made to the track so activities made for the original MR Skipton route will still work.


If you mean the default S&C.....forget it. Pat's version is far superior.

[expressboy1983]

Thanks for your bluntness Ian...consider it forgotten! Maybe Pat's version is something i could work on at a later date once i have the route, and by MR Skipton, i assume you mean the Skipton - Carlisle route?

EDIT:

Also i meant to say....screen shots shall be uploaded here of the upcoming activities as and when i have them taken, and uploaded.

[jtiffin]

I'd say individual activities.

[mendes]

I'd say individual activities or a pack if they are all from the same route and linked in some way (eg consecutive services on a given day).

The original Skipton Carlisle is rubbish by today's standards, haven't seen the UKTS one.


Cheers


Martin

[Lad491]

The original Skipton Carlisle is rubbish by today's standards, haven't seen the UKTS one.

The original was called the Settle to Carlisle and it was rubbish when it was released in 2001 Pat Daltons later Skipton to Carlisle was so big an improvement i think readings went off the scale

I mention it only to stop confusion over the two routes.

[mendes]

The original Skipton Carlisle is rubbish by today's standards, haven't seen the UKTS one.

The original was called the Settle to Carlisle and it was rubbish when it was released in 2001 Pat Daltons later Skipton to Carlisle was so big an improvement i think readings went off the scale

I mention it only to stop confusion over the two routes.

Sorry, my mistake I obviously meant the Orignal route that came with MSTS,
I've added taking a look at Pat's route to my list of "things to do". Unfortunately it's a very long list !!! It will be longer still when the new version of his route comes out.



Cheers



Martin

[ianmacmillan]

The new version of Pat's route does not alter the track so all paths and activities writen for the MR version will work on the LMS one.

[expressboy1983]

Heya peoples

Today i had the oppertunity to upload some of my many upcoming activities for various routes. Before i go into any detail, i would like to point out, that if anyone else is working on a diesel gala set for the WSR route, to STOP WHERE YOU ARE IMMEDIATELY!!! I'm half way through making a set of what will be approximately 10-15 activities all fiction based, except for some of the stock, which Tubemad helped me find in the UKTS file library!

Anyways back to details.....I have uploaded 5 activities today, 2 for the Paddington 2 Penzance route, 2 for London South Coast, and 1 for Dorset Coast V5. The Activities for Pad2Penz are set in the modern day, using class 43's and 67's. The activities for LSC are based more on NSE days, using NSE 319's and NSE 455's. The Activity for Dorset Coast is based on the modern day and you will be using a class 444 [ Yes, you'll need the MT Desiro pack ] None of the above activities contain any freight AI.

I shall be uploading some more activities in a few days time, once you've all had some time to have a go of these ones, and i've got some feedback, whether it's good or bad, feel free to let me know what you think.

In the mean time, here's some screenies of the WSR Diesel Gala to keep you on your toes.... nothing like keepin busy huh?

Here goes...














Hope you all enjoy em, and don't get too anxious The gala won't be ready for a while yet

Have fun and kindest regards.

Simon.

[rfletcher72]

Looks very interesting , but I note some modern and older stock is married up together. Knowing the WSR add-on, will these acts involve the editing of eng. and wag. files to match braking types?

Conbuilder takes care of the couplings of course

[expressboy1983]

Heya Richard

Nope, there will be no need to edit the types of brakes in the .eng files at all mate.....although it would be, in the real world, inpractical to run say for instance....a class 37 type 4 with air brakes with stock using vacuum brakes, in MSTS it creats nothing more than a better challenge

So unless you're one of the fussier types of driver's who prefers to have all the brakes the same as the driving loco, then no...no editing will be required.

But, if anyone would like to have the modified eng files included, say so now, so i have a chance to get in touch with the relevent people to ***ATTEMPT*** to obtain permissions

Moving on from that....

I relate back to my original opening post. I stated in this that i will be releasing activities for west coast express. These have been scrapped, and the route has been un-installed, due to some major issues i had going on with the route a few nights ago. So there wil be ***NO*** activities for West Coast Express. I'm also finding it quite hard to write my style of activities for ECE. so EB... Not liking them too much at the moment, but still each to their own i guess I will however be working on some more activities for LSC at a later date.

So instead of WCE you can add GWR Paddington2Penzance to the list of route activities you shall be seeing from me in the coming weeks. Also you've probably noticed Tubemad (James Underwood's) activities for Pad2Penz. We've both gone a bit mad on this route lately, noticing the lack of activities there are for the route, and the amount of time the route has been around for, we thought it would be a nice idea to try and bring the route to life. I have taken into consideration the fact of Lad491 doing his 'Slip Coach' activities, and quite frankly, he's welcome to make them Cuz i wouldn't know where to start! However i am trying to avoid using ***ANY*** default CD stock for that route as i believe there is so much more modern stock on UKTS, and i believe this route is where you can showcase 99% of it!

Am currently working on the return trip to James' activity, he did the Up sleeper from Penzance to Paddington, i'm currently tearing my hair out trying to do the Down sleeper service from Paddington to Penzance.

Anymore updates to be had, i shall post them here in the near future.

Have fun, and happy simming all of you!

Kindest regards.

Simon

[rfletcher72]

I relate back to my original opening post. I stated in this that i will be releasing activities for west coast express. These have been scrapped, and the route has been un-installed, due to some major issues i had going on with the route a few nights ago. So there wil be ***NO*** activities for West Coast Express. I'm also finding it quite hard to write my style of activities for ECE. so EB... Not liking them too much at the moment, but still each to their own i guess I will however be working on some more activities for LSC at a later date.

This intrigues me. I manage to create acts for EB routes in just the same way as all the others. Admittedly the way there are set up does restrict opportunities, unlike the MT routes, but on the whole I find them still entirely viable,