A request to content creators .

[fant_autentico]

I guess it depends to some extent on your motives for uploading the route. If it took you 5 years to develop it, do you want folks using and enjoying it? If so, then some time spent on your part to assist with unknown assets seems worthwhile to me. There is no absolute right or wrong here, just a measure of how much the creator wants to help. ( Verbal abuse is a separate issue).

Help them? I help if I can, what I can't stand is to feel the sensation of ............... "This fool does it for free, so look for me for free."
Culture of effort, hard work and dedication, "that others do not win the war for one."


regards

 

[RJArtim]

I don't know what they are doing, duh.

RJ Artim

 

[pitkin]

Help them? I help if I can,

It would take but a few minutes for the creator to take a screenshot in CM of the non-dls assets and post it or include in the cdp. That way, the kuid hunters would know the name of the asset and the creator. Some enjoy spending hours tracking down a stop sign, others just delete the route if it contains very many unknowns. Maybe it "gets an ass wet", but there are other ways to spend hours enjoying Trainz.

 

[JCitron]

It would take but a few minutes for the creator to take a screenshot in CM of the non-dls assets and post it or include in the cdp. That way, the kuid hunters would know the name of the asset and the creator. Some enjoy spending hours tracking down a stop sign, others just delete the route if it contains very many unknowns. Maybe it "gets an ass wet", but there are other ways to spend hours enjoying Trainz.

I agree that would be more than helpful for a start. If the original content creator can't be bothered to give us the list of missing assets, or even respond back to a thread when asked about them, I delete the route. I'm at a point where I would rather do other things in Trainz than chase missing assets.

 

[Forester1]

We had a specific thread on this forum for help finding assets, but help was spotty. I have gathered assets world wide, but If someone posted a need for assets I don't know if I could tell them specifically where I got certain ones unless the author was good enough to put it into the config.txt file. And I am sure when I have posted requesting help, others have felt the same. I keep thinking I am going to make a list of what I need and then join TKI to find them, but there are also many postings by people who have tried that and not found them there either. A comprehensive database of every asset for Trainz would be great, but almost impossible to assemble and maintain, and of course that is how TKI got started! I think it is as good as it is going to get. We are reliant on the good graces of those who are willing to post links to assets or alternatively are willing to receive requests by pm. But requests need to be respectful, for it is at the discretion of those who know whether to help out.

 

[Vern]

Maybe the DLS should highlight if all the dependencies for an asset, be it a route or locomotive or anything else, are present on the DLS, whether they are payware etc. etc. A classic example is some of the RhB rolling stock assets (the Bernina railcar for one) have been put on the DLS, but a number of dependencies were on a now defunct external site. That gives the double whammy of downloading an incomplete item but then finding WWW attrition has removed the very dependencies needed to get it to run. If it was up to me (and I know it's not) the only stuff allowed on the DLS would be content that has dependencies 100% either built in or currently available either on the DLS or N3V sold payware. Anything else gets rejected and the author needs to host elsewhere - UKTS, TS dot com or similar.

It is also very much beholden on the route author to make it clear in the readme where any external dependencies are located and it wouldn't hurt to check from time to time the sites are still active (or in the case of one or two Russian sites, suddenly start trying to infect you with malware).

 

[JCitron]

..."It is also very much beholden on the route author to make it clear in the readme where any external dependencies are located and it wouldn't hurt to check from time to time the sites are still active (or in the case of one or two Russian sites, suddenly start trying to infect you with malware).

For this I use a browser in an Ubuntu virtual machine running in Oracle Virtual Box. This isolates my PC from the malware should there be any, and I then copy over the downloads to my local hard disk for installation. It's interesting getting "Your PC is infected with a virus" type script even when running in a Linux VM!

 

[Vern]

That is a good idea, John. Even reputable looking sites can spring a nasty on you. Was trying to grab a mod for European Truck Sim 2 last night, started to run the installer and realised it was trying to connect to a dubious web site to download something. Instantly hit reboot and luckily no harm done, but you have to be so careful.

Which is why, tough love though it might be, it should be a condition that anything placed on the DLS has 100% in house dependencies (whether built in, official DLC or on the DLS). Otherwise it gets booted.

 

[pware]

Which is why, tough love though it might be, it should be a condition that anything placed on the DLS has 100% in house dependencies (whether built in, official DLC or on the DLS). Otherwise it gets booted.

I have come around to the same opinion.

I do not want to stop developers from creating assets and placing them exclusively on 3rd party sites if that is what they want. But if someone creates a route that contains "foreign" assets (i.e. from 3rd party sites) then they should post that route on one of those sites. Users who download and install it would do so with the knowledge that they may have to do some searching to get all its assets and may still end up empty handed with missing assets.

If something comes from the DLS then users should have confidence that all its dependencies are built in, in DLC or on the DLS. The constant hunt for missing foreign assets only hurts the Trainz brand.

My opinion.