Hi all,
Is anyone interested in a little bit of competition? I do - so I've been thinking about how a competition could be organised, and the rules that might need to be introduced. This thread for discussion of the idea, not an announcement.
My opinion is that the only difficult bit is the voting system, but I think this could be achieved as a poll by Auran on this board, or by UKTrainz on their board (I'll ask both if people are interested, but I make no guarantees on either of their behalfs. I would not have a poll on both, because getting the aggregate result is not as simple as adding the results together).
Rather than say "this is the competition", here are a set of rules that would be implemented for a competition, and I would like to know if people are interested.
Things that wouldn't be restricted are time period, gauge, traction type or colour scheme. There is nothing wrong with mixing time/traction as well, so you could create a system where 1930s trams nestle with the latest high speed trains and broad gauge chuffering along in the back. This is an opportunity to create a spectacular short route, not to start counting rivets of the stock that a user could change in any case.
Reminder - this thread is not to announce a competition, only to put my thoughts forward for dicussion. It also relies on the cooperation of Auran so we can use the vote facility, so could someone representitive of the forums have some inpute. Naturally, we would need to start a thread to register all of the entrants, and just before the final closing date a poll would be set up containing these entrants' usernames (and the layout name for reference).
BidMod.
EDIT: Been thinking further about the exceptions to the DLS rules, and I think assets from VSR and HP Trainz should be exempt, simply because they are so widespread. Post what you think should be added to the list. No payware.
Is anyone interested in a little bit of competition? I do - so I've been thinking about how a competition could be organised, and the rules that might need to be introduced. This thread for discussion of the idea, not an announcement.
My opinion is that the only difficult bit is the voting system, but I think this could be achieved as a poll by Auran on this board, or by UKTrainz on their board (I'll ask both if people are interested, but I make no guarantees on either of their behalfs. I would not have a poll on both, because getting the aggregate result is not as simple as adding the results together).
Rather than say "this is the competition", here are a set of rules that would be implemented for a competition, and I would like to know if people are interested.
- British theme (perhaps someone else could run another themed competition in parallel)
- No more than 15 boards (otherwise testing and opinion finding would take forever)
- Must contain a railway (seems obvious, but I bet someone doesn't)
- 1 man (or woman) 1 layout; though "man" could be substituted with "team" so 1 team 1 layout - team members must not enter another layout
- Must be uploaded to the DLS for easy access
- Must contain only DLS assets for easy access
These two rules are to ensure that the layouts are available to everyone anywhere, rather than to produce a community split I fear coming over the DLS issue
Another alternative would be to create a list of acceptable sites and include a detailed list of assets and locations in the readme. - 1 man (or woman) 1 vote
- Deadline for layouts to be set in August, to allow the best layouts to be developed
- Session also to be uploaded to demonstrate the layout's potential.
- Compatbility is not guaranteed across all versions, so it is up to the developer to decide which version of TRS will be used. Common sense dictates that the ideal solution is to use the lowest version possible, however this is not always possible.
- Somewhere in the description add the line "2007 route builders competition" spelt letter for letter - this will allow people to search the DLS using that term to find all of the routes in the competition.
- No Payware please - a discussion about this is for another thread I think.
- All work must be your own.
- Entertainment value - this is by far the most important
- Operational potential
- AI operation - does it operate without conflicts with each other etc.
- Good use of space available to create a suitable landscape
- Prototypical appearance - this does not mean the layout has to be modelled on a real place: this refers to aspects such as signal positions, track alignments, corner radii etc.
Things that wouldn't be restricted are time period, gauge, traction type or colour scheme. There is nothing wrong with mixing time/traction as well, so you could create a system where 1930s trams nestle with the latest high speed trains and broad gauge chuffering along in the back. This is an opportunity to create a spectacular short route, not to start counting rivets of the stock that a user could change in any case.
Reminder - this thread is not to announce a competition, only to put my thoughts forward for dicussion. It also relies on the cooperation of Auran so we can use the vote facility, so could someone representitive of the forums have some inpute. Naturally, we would need to start a thread to register all of the entrants, and just before the final closing date a poll would be set up containing these entrants' usernames (and the layout name for reference).
BidMod.
EDIT: Been thinking further about the exceptions to the DLS rules, and I think assets from VSR and HP Trainz should be exempt, simply because they are so widespread. Post what you think should be added to the list. No payware.
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) and most of the judges may be British too, so have a greater knowlege of how the british railways work 
