Extra activities

[dpettit]

Hi Guys,
Would someone like a project?
Because my computer skills are rubbish, (discovered over several years), my 20 or so msts add-ons are all from cd/dvd. I have most of the community British, standard gauge routes and several from EB & MT. What I would like to be available are some community cd's with extra activities (including stock & locos) for the community cd/dvd routes. Looking at the download library, there are more than you can shake a stick at!
What would be good, would be, say, a cd with 3, 4 or 5 steam era routes with perhaps a dozen or so activities per route; another for steam/diesel, and another for modern image, giving, say, 50 - 60 activities per disk in total.
I have read the tutorial for downloading activities and at the end decided that I was none the wiser!
I would gladly pay a fiver for such disks. Surely I cannot be the only person who would like such a thing.
EB & MT offer extra activity disks with stock & locos, so it can be done & presumably isn't rocket science; (except for the likes of me.)
To be able to just load a cd into the computer and click 'install', sounds perfect.
Would anybody like to take on such a task,......please!

David

[michaelhendle]

Hi David,

It's been mentioned quite a few times about community disc for activities and stock,but there are all sorts of problems,about permissions,copy write, especially using commercial stock items.

If it could be done I think there would already be discs providing what you are asking for.

Mike

[gswindale]

It could be done, but knowing where to start is the problem.

I did think about this a few months ago - creating something similar to the freeware RW packs but purely a specific stock pack for a route.

I'll have a little think and see what comes to mind over the weekend.

[michaelhendle]

Hi Geoff,

It would be nice if you could do some,probably along these lines Steam Southern,could be S&DJR,New Forrest,Lyme Regis, and LSE, Steam Midland Thames-Mersey and Bristol to Birmingham Black Country NWC,Scotland SCE, SCP+

Modern Era Great Eastern,ECE, WCE,Thames -Mersey,Bri-Car even though it's been extended,NWC

These are some routes that I just thought about,trouble is there are so many different routes in the library and stock.

I would definitely buy a couple of CD/DVD of route activities

Mike

[gswindale]

Hi Mike,

Modern era is more my cup of tea I'm afraid - I have no knowledge of anything pre 1980s and cannot drive a steam train in MSTS to save my life

My initial thoughts are to do the following (subject to obtaining permissions from stock builders/activity writes):
1) Identify stock suitable to run on a specific route (eg NWC post-privitisation)
2) Compile this into an easy to install single stock pack with a consistent filing structure (eg UKTS_NWC_ATW_Class175) and pre-built consists
3) Review existing activities in the library to see if they can be converted to use the pack (this is where it possibly gets a little complicated due to commercial stock!)

Then, if people want to, they can simply use this pack to create activities for the route which could then either be uploaded as APK files (as normal) or zip files, or as a self-installing activity pack.

Finally; we then have the ability to update the stock pack to include activities that have been written that exclusively use stock from the pack.

There is no reason why this could not be made available as a download or a CD.

If we ignore the permissions issue for a moment, then I believe that the trickiest part is identifying the stock that would be suitable for a given route (particularly as I have little knowlege about freight operations such as what types of wagons are used).

[Alastairhufc]

It could be done, but knowing where to start is the problem.

I did think about this a few months ago - creating something similar to the freeware RW packs but purely a specific stock pack for a route.

I'll have a little think and see what comes to mind over the weekend.

I just noticed this file which was just uploaded for RailWorks

Invalid File ID [27665]

Maybe something like that could be run for activities/stock?

[dpettit]

Hi All
I'm glad that this idea has caused some further thought; I wait with 'baited breath', as the saying goes.
If all permissions could be sorted out, I'm sure there would be a market for such disks.

David

[ABABAB]

Hi All
Iwould definitely pay for a scenario pack forwell known routes on disc. I really hope this comes to fruition
Regards
ABABAB

[michaelhendle]

Hi Geoff,
Modern Frt cl 66,and Class 60 for Diesel,class 86 90 and 92 for Electric. passenger Deserio's, 150,153/5,156/158/170/1/2/3..220/1.bot really up on Emu's

I've just seen a advert for a model class 92 in Stobert Rail livery,I wonder if Anton would do one for your plans.

Mike

[photons66]

Hi All
Iwould definitely pay for a scenario pack forwell known routes on disc. I really hope this comes to fruition
Regards
ABABAB

Hi ABABAB

Completely agree. The ideas that David and Alistair have put forward in this thread are one I, too hope, lead to something.

[rufuskins]

As Geoff has mentioned, the idea of producing a stock and activity pack for a specific route was briefly touched upon a while ago.

Also as has been mentioned, the release would be totally dependent upon the "permissions" issue. It would require a combined effort by a number of people each one carrying out a specific element of the compilation; e.g. one person pursuing permission(s), one person compiling activities and renaming as necessary - would also need to change stock references within the activity file plus associated service files -, one person to accumulate the relevant stock and where necessary rename, etc. In addition it would all need checking. All in all a daunting task!! It's also worth noting that in some instances required stock is no longer available.

If I was fully retired I might consider being involved, but retirement is still some 14 months off.

To a certain extent I am carrying out that exercise by taking all the available UKTS activities for a particular route and unpacking them into the main MSTS folder. I then run "Check Activities for Selected Route" from Route Riter. This gives me a report of all missing items of stock, and in some case missing consists, traffic files, etc. After addressing all of these - including replacements where items of stock are either no longer available or are from proprietary add-ons that I don't have - I can then create a Mini Route for that particular route using Route Riter.

To some this may seem a long-winded approach - it certainly takes a fair amount of time as it requires several runs of the "Check Activities . ." process to pick up everything. It is then necessary to do a global check of all your items using Route Riter as there always seems to be something missing; e.g. a sound file, etc.

I have now created numerous Mini Routes with more to come - see another thread.

Alec

PS - Unless someone actually picks up the baton and starts something real, then we will only continue to talk about it!

[dpettit]

Hi All,
If this can be done, it may be best to restrict the routes to the ones available on community cd/dvd, otherwise it will be far too large a project.
In my ignorance; why would permissions be a problem. If the activity authors were happy for their activities to be freely available online, why not via the normal post on a cd? Or is it because their activities need to be reworked?
My ideal routes would be the ones with diverse route miles; eg; Cannock Chase, BC1, Burton-Derby, North West England and of course SCP which has many miles of route untouched by the present activities. Routes like Dorset Coast and Thames-Mersey probably have enough activities not to require any extra.
I did hear a rumour that Dorset Coast and Mid-East are being reworked which if true, would be good.
Maybe my above comment about permissions shows how little I know about such things; but does show how much I need these activity cd's!
There seems to be enough people who would like extra activities, but also that enough experts are needed with the enthusiasm and time to do the work involved.
This request may be just a wish list, but it would be appreciated if it comes to fruition!

David

[markh5682]

Hi All,
If this can be done, it may be best to restrict the routes to the ones available on community cd/dvd, otherwise it will be far too large a project.
In my ignorance; why would permissions be a problem. If the activity authors were happy for their activities to be freely available online, why not via the normal post on a cd? Or is it because their activities need to be reworked?
My ideal routes would be the ones with diverse route miles; eg; Cannock Chase, BC1, Burton-Derby, North West England and of course SCP which has many miles of route untouched by the present activities. Routes like Dorset Coast and Thames-Mersey probably have enough activities not to require any extra.
I did hear a rumour that Dorset Coast and Mid-East are being reworked which if true, would be good.
Maybe my above comment about permissions shows how little I know about such things; but does show how much I need these activity cd's!
There seems to be enough people who would like extra activities, but also that enough experts are needed with the enthusiasm and time to do the work involved.
This request may be just a wish list, but it would be appreciated if it comes to fruition!

David

Most routes on community CD/DVD's already come with stock and activities, whilst it's always nice to have more, we mustn't forget some of the more popular download only routes such as BrisCard and GlastoCar etc. that would benefit from a dedicated stock/activities pack too.

[rufuskins]

With reference to permissions, etc. the following post is relevant

http://forums.atomic-systems.com/viewto ... 63#p700195

Alec

[mickrik]

Hi There,

This is a great idea and one I am in favour of but there is the problem of not so many activities being made these days. For this reason I will make the following comments regarding my past work in hope to encourage others to upload some new activities, so that packages could perhaps be made.

I could be sticking my neck out a bit here. As I am beyond permissions and into activity ownership.

Over the years I have uploaded a fair few activities and included some on some community CD's

Taken into consideration the reduced numbers of activities being uploaded of late, I am willing to revoke any form rights to ownership of any of my activities, if it will encourage any fresh or not so fresh activity writers to pull 'em apart and remake them into new activities using any paths, services, consists that I may have used.

You can try using the traffic files BUT!! as soon as you change any of the consists in that traffic file, the traffic flow timings will start to change.

Mick