Are Community Created Routes Important Anymore?

[longbow]

Not at all. Just get the TC3 team to export all their custom S&C route scenery into RW and you'd be well on the way.

[bigvern]

And those lovely Mark Ones!

In all seriousness I would pay for a RS/RW version of the TC3 motive power and stock pack as it is the one of the best collections ever released for any sim (alongside the ELR stuff but the author has already stated it's not on the cards for RS).

[Ghostcav]

Damn been caught reading a Railworks thread when I'm still a lowly RS er.

Lot of good points in here, can see things on both sides really. Well I hope community routes are still important enough. My humble effort still plods along, not for kudos reason's, but just because I enjoy it sometimes. Sometimes I would quite happly throw the flippin PC out of the window when the editor or sim throws a wobbly but I still find myself drawn back to it. Why? who knows but maybe I can see something great in the sim (RS obviously, I presume RW is better). At the risk of being told off for mentioning it (the "I'm a driver" thing) , it reminds me of work & feels accurate on so many more counts than any rail sim before. I've just run a quick scenario on v3.1 of my route & to me it was fantastic, totally realistic, then some Ai driver decided to plough into another ai train & the moment was lost. Shame, one day RS.com or someone else (like the 3rd party lot with MSTS) will make this the best railsim around.
I will confess, even though it's obvious from my route that I don't count rivets. I would rather try & capture the feel than the exact replica of the area, I have a busy life & really don't have enough time or skill to get things 100%. But if I manage to give someone the feeling of what it's like driving then I'm glad. To me thats more important.

As an example I noticed a whole factory complex the other day at Wrexham that I had never seen before in the 4 years I've been driving past it. I only noticed it as the 175 I was driving was knackered & I was struggling to get anywhere near linespeed. (sorry to mention the driving thing again to the person who had a go last time), the point being I could look on google earth/streetview & see a whole load of stuff I have never seen whilst passing it before. So how much accuracy do you need?

All the best, keep the peace etc..

[Acorncomputer]

Hi Ghostcav

Like you I am sticking to RS at the moment but as RailWorks and Rail Simulator are much the same, then the principles of building are similar.

One other point to mention when considering route building is to take a pragmatic view of the dispatcher and design the route in such a way that the track is split into player and AI sections. The whole track would have to be on the same network but with a little thought in advance of scenarios, some sections of track could be exclusively for player operations whilst AI operations are going on on adjacent tracks or in yards where the player is not intended to go. In Free Roam, of course, the player will be able to drive anywhere.

[nicknackpaddywack]

I built ALOT of routes in trainz, one prototypical, and many fictional ones loosley based on real track designs.

i found it easier to pick up trainz and build, some of the stuff you have probably seen in trainz is a bit "cartoony".
it all depends on the builder, my routes would look real and feel real, railworks is nice, its actually easier to make things look real, but they have just made it so difficult to design stuff. i just feel that you need alot more time to produce something in railworks.
i dont think alot of people have that time, especially making activities

[Acorncomputer]

I have only created a few simple scenarios but they worked OK. The biggest problem on one that takes an hour and a quarter to complete and you really have to run it in real time to see if it works. I found that about an hour and ten minutes in, a signal failed to operate properly so I had to make adjustments and start testing again. You can save the scenario at a selected point and start again from there but you lose out on the interaction with AI traffic. The fast preview gives an indication of where the player train should go but it is still not as reliable as running the scenario in real time.

This is another problem with route creation. Time needs to be taken to ensure that scenarios work, but in a group environment it would probably be best to get the track, signalling and track associated objects in first and then let scenario creators get busy whilst the scenery is added. As long as there are no changes to the track then the scenarios should work OK after the scenery has been added.

[paulz6]

Hi Ghostcav

Like you I am sticking to RS at the moment but as RailWorks and Rail Simulator are much the same, then the principles of building are similar.

I don't think Ghostcav is sticking with RS by choice. He has already posted a wonderful picture in the screenshot forum. He is one of the users suffering from the RailWorksProc error!

[paulz6]

This is another problem with route creation. Time needs to be taken to ensure that scenarios work, but in a group environment it would probably be best to get the track, signalling and track associated objects in first and then let scenario creators get busy whilst the scenery is added. As long as there are no changes to the track then the scenarios should work OK after the scenery has been added.

I think you are right is that it is important to get the track work set in stone first, and then scenery and scenario creators can work to their hearts content. For a real world route, the track would probably have to be performed by experienced people. First, I think the main track bed needs laying to everybody's satisfaction. Then, several people could work on the yards and other track detail in a 'pass the torch' fashion. Scenery creators, scenario creators and 3D object creators could be performed by people of all levels. For example, somebody could model a station that some consider rubbish, but it can be used until someone build something better to replace it. Everybody who contributes, no matter how minor or temporarily used, should be recognised has having helped in the project.

[CaptScarlet]

This is another problem with route creation. Time needs to be taken to ensure that scenarios work, but in a group environment it would probably be best to get the track, signalling and track associated objects in first and then let scenario creators get busy whilst the scenery is added. As long as there are no changes to the track then the scenarios should work OK after the scenery has been added.

I would have thought that in testing a route it would be perhaps quicker if the scenarios weren't from beginning to end. What I mean is that you could test the route by breaking up a long scenario into smaller parts and testing the various sections of the route and only create a combined one when the route is ready to go and the kinks worked out of it.

John

[Acorncomputer]

This is another problem with route creation. Time needs to be taken to ensure that scenarios work, but in a group environment it would probably be best to get the track, signalling and track associated objects in first and then let scenario creators get busy whilst the scenery is added. As long as there are no changes to the track then the scenarios should work OK after the scenery has been added.

I would have thought that in testing a route it would be perhaps quicker if the scenarios weren't from beginning to end. What I mean is that you could test the route by breaking up a long scenario into smaller parts and testing the various sections of the route and only create a combined one when the route is ready to go and the kinks worked out of it.

John

This might work on a timetabled scenario but in a non timed scenario, the AI traffic is on a timetable but the player is not so if the player is later or earlier than anticipated, there may be a collision with AI traffic. It is this uncertainty that causes the problems and whilst it may well save time testing in sections, you still have to run the whole thing several times in real time to ensure that it is working correctly.

[CaptScarlet]

This might work on a timetabled scenario but in a non timed scenario, the AI traffic is on a timetable but the player is not so if the player is later or earlier than anticipated, there may be a collision with AI traffic. It is this uncertainty that causes the problems and whilst it may well save time testing in sections, you still have to run the whole thing several times in real time to ensure that it is working correctly.

I agree with that, but for testing a route to make sure it works and that scenarios will run as expected ( eg pathing and signals ) you wouldn't need long scenarios or would you ?

John

[Acorncomputer]

This might work on a timetabled scenario but in a non timed scenario, the AI traffic is on a timetable but the player is not so if the player is later or earlier than anticipated, there may be a collision with AI traffic. It is this uncertainty that causes the problems and whilst it may well save time testing in sections, you still have to run the whole thing several times in real time to ensure that it is working correctly.

I agree with that, but for testing a route to make sure it works and that scenarios will run as expected ( eg pathing and signals ) you wouldn't need long scenarios or would you ?

John

Signals and pathing No. They can all be tested as they are installed using the 2D map and handily placed locos.

http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 5#p1168555

[sniper297]

"take a pragmatic view of the dispatcher and design the route in such a way that the track is split into player and AI sections" Exactly what I did for the MSTS PO&N, except for that the signal number clear ahead value in the scripts allowed me to control how far ahead of the AI trains the switches were thrown. They left that out of RS, so the AI locks every switch for its path no matter how far away in time or distance. I did try a workaround where the entire route was doubletracked and the AI crosses over the player track without switches, only crossovers;

http://www.otto-wipfel.co.uk/rs-downloa ... 3-otto.zip

But that never made it out of beta since I decided it was just too lame for prime time. Gotta run everything on parallel tracks with no actual interaction, I don't understand why they didn't just make an AI train vehicle path or road section that looks like track but spawns AI trains at set intervals.

[paulz6]

"take a pragmatic view of the dispatcher and design the route in such a way that the track is split into player and AI sections"

Designing a route around the AI? No good for real world routes.

[AndiS]

Lots of interesting pieces in a bowl, as so often.

Are Community Created Routes Important Anymore?
Why not? I never heard that question before. Before it was always "is the hope for community created routes realistic anymore? This latter question has some diverse answers which altogether lead us to where we are now.

• In retrospective, you have to admit that the history of these forums and "the community" (where ever you draw the line) saw a long series of fallouts and turmoils. Even with all the peacemaking that followed each episode, each of them still left some bitter taste and the ensemble of them seems very far from the sweetness of collective trust and brotherhood that forms the basis of fruitful altruistic endeavours.
  .
• Content creation in 2009 requires more effort than in 2002. We were always discussing "next gen sims" and/or accusing individual programmes for the situation at hand, but as a matter of fact, you can have pretty complex models of both rolling stock and routes in MSTS 1 and Trainz. Thus, it is not a matter of which platform to use but simply the fact that our computers have more RAM and faster harddisks and processors, and bigger displays, etc etc.
  
  In addition to the hardware progress, we also have Google Earth, Street View, 1 second DEM, Open Street Map, and other resources which, on the one hand, allow the route builder to achieve levels of perfection not feasible to most, and on the other hand, they allow critiques and after critiques to drag up single examples and rant along on a level they could not muster before. (Some may doubt this, I hasten to state that I don't want to explore that level in detail ...)
  .
• The recent years of train simulation were characterised by fence-sitting and doom-looming. KRS had a very unlucky start, MSTS 2 kept people hoping and now that it is gone, RSC still have a long way to go to win a large number of hearts from which you can build a buzzing community.
  
  I believe that the AI issue is key for the general climate, not because many would care about prototypical operation, but because route builders (and rolling stock modellers) need lots of scenario creators to maintain the interest in their creations, and if scenario creation is not sheer pleasure, people will not spend much spare time with it.
  
  The other half of the issue lies in marketing and communications, which were recently discussed in the "keep in touch" thread, no need to rehash them here.

I find it very important to understand that it is the total of the above items which make for the current situation. Consequently, only a bundle of improvements will move us from where we are now. Luckily, there are a few rays of light already, but much more needs to be done.

• Over time, I guess hope it sinks in with most creators that the less strings you attach to your creation, the more you actually give to the community. The shining example is Sly's one-day action for a true public domain diesel shunter. If one dozen of people would take action like that, we would be bestowed with riches on which the lesser talented could build on.
  .
• It becomes more and more evident to everyone that if you understand but 10% of the modelling involved in a complete route, you are just a normal user, and not a dummy. At the same time, prototypical modelling of both look and functionality already became an issue before KRS was released, so teams were already forming then. Now, with "community" in mind, it would be great to have more open structures than more or less closed teams, also to increase optimal usage of special qualifications.
  
  Somewhat amusingly, I see a trias of Artist, Programmer, and Expert at work in most areas. In the past, this split of roles was rarely a split in persons, with sometimes suboptimal results. I hope that none of the three terms sound more prestigious than the other, they are meant to be exactly on a par. Of course, most of the time, the Artist and the Programmer will also know about the prototype, but I need to point out that prototype knowledge at a very deep level should be integrated in the creation process of any quality item, and at the same time, such knowledge is worthless for the community if not integrated in a creation process.
  
  When creating rolling stock the Artist creates the shape while sometimes another Artist create reskins. The Programmer does all the blueprints, the physics tweaking, and the cab programming/configuring. The Expert knows which number was assigned to which item of the batch and in which year which group of vehicles was fitted with different lights/cooling/brakes/livery.
  
  When creating routes, you too need a Programmer who takes care about consistent and flawless placement of location markers and other track properties such as sound and speed limit. You may also include a different Programmer to do the data conversion from DEM, Google & friends to something the Artists can use (like decals set in place). Besides loads of Artists to do the placement, you need loads of Experts to get all the aspects of the route right, from building style to vegetation distribution and weather.
  
  You might think that scenery creation is for the Artist alone, but a collaboration between an Artist and a Programmer might well create an astonishing about of complexly varied items with limited effort. And you do need an Expert to describe the optimal usage of each item in routes, and to help fill the gaps in prototype pictures. (You must understand a house to guess its backside.)
  
  Even for scenarios, you can distinguish the Artist's hand, which scripts interesting/nice/beautiful/exciting courses of action, and the Programmer's hand, which takes a (big) prototype timetable and keys it in. Again, the mix of both methods is what leads to the best results. And as always, some Expert must provide the prototype information first, and guide the Artist to ensure that his fantasies do not leave the realm of plausibility too often.
  .
• Whether Matt should (could?) promote such loose networks or whether they just come to existence anyway when the time is right, I do not know. Maybe it would be a worthwhile experiment if there were a (moderated) sticky in each of route building, rolling stock, scenario creation where people can offer their skills with a description of their interests. I am however aware that the opposite already exists, a thread to post concise wishes (for scenery items, at least). Also, from reading the forums, you do get an idea of who does what. But people never state how their load level is (80%, 100, or 200%). I remember at least one person stating that he likes to do scenery placement -- I am sure that even just for such people to flock together in a way visible to route builders would be a great thing.
  .
• There is nothing we can do for the dispatcher at this moment, but as soon as RSC lend a hand, we can at least collect some wisdom as to how to get AI moving reproducibly without pain. That might well be enough to give route builders confidence, no matter where the hardcore operations fans are left.
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• I do hope that for at least this year and maybe the next, we will not see new turmoil as far as "To which simulator should I sell my soul?" is concerned. Other than track and scenery placement and physics programming effort, little is lost when you opt for one platform first and then move to another one. Sure, there is some loss but in my view, people tend to be a bit dramatic about the issue. Vern shows us how you can alternate between Trainz and KRS route creation without serios damage.

All in all, there are a lot of different things to attack, and enough for everyone who wants to, to get busy.

The question behind the original question was, however: Is is worthwhile doing it? This can only be answered by each on his own. As a rule, I suggest only doing something in your spare time for which you are sure that the doing of it alone already satisfies you enough to justify the effort. Then, the varying and unpredictable feedback from other people cannot endanger your project big or small, and safety is very important for the overall success of any community effort.