routes on the DLS

Just like people post a: "Test Thread" just to see if it actually shows up on the Forum ... Some spend a 1/2 hour laying track with so sharp of curves, that a trolley could not negotiate the super tight curves and sharp turnouts ... and they want to quickly see whether it actually uploads onto the DLS ... Others see their 3 - 1/4 whole days work, as an absolutely wondrous masterpiece, a completed finished work of art

I do agree with you, but since I first downloaded Trainz, I've been looking a lot more closely at real railway lines, and I was surprised to find that there are, in fact, some very tight bends. In addition, I had been worried that some of my gradients are steep, but once again I find that in real life (with electric power) our city* trains take on some very steep gradients.

* Perth, Western Australia
 
Hello folks, I am up here in beautiful mountains of Southern California. Me and my family r doing well with nature's forest....

In re to junk routes, have 👍 agree, I wasted countless hours of time looking for something in particular, many times no preview, but or worse!! No description or a cryptic description of what the route is which makes it really tough to find what you're looking for in a particular type of route.

Take care all..... I feel your pain for sure..... 😎
 
False Routes

In my early days with Trainz some twelve years ago, I used to find great pleasure in looking at the Download Station to see what fellow enthusiasts had created as new routes. Sadly, this is no longer the case. Having a browse just now through the latest ten pages, I found several routes named "New Route" - the illustration showed merely a view of a bare baseboard, with one or two lengths of track, and in some cases "on edge". A good few others seemed to be versions of routes which were built in with TRS2004 - I have no intention of looking at them to see what modifications, if any, have been made.

Of course, it is not possible for "routes" which are uploaded to be checked to make sure they are genuine. But if any creators of "non-routes" read these forums, perhaps they would like to think things over and realise that a couple of lengths of track are not a route!

Why do they do it?

Ray
 
In my early days with Trainz some twelve years ago, I used to find great pleasure in looking at the Download Station to see what fellow enthusiasts had created as new routes. Sadly, this is no longer the case. Having a browse just now through the latest ten pages, I found several routes named "New Route" - the illustration showed merely a view of a bare baseboard, with one or two lengths of track, and in some cases "on edge". A good few others seemed to be versions of routes which were built in with TRS2004 - I have no intention of looking at them to see what modifications, if any, have been made.

Of course, it is not possible for "routes" which are uploaded to be checked to make sure they are genuine. But if any creators of "non-routes" read these forums, perhaps they would like to think things over and realise that a couple of lengths of track are not a route!

Why do they do it?

Ray

Mobile routes, Ray.

The mobile devices have little or no storage and the users upload their routes to the DLS for storage.

It would be nice if N3V had included a filter of some kind to remove mobile routes from the general population by giving them a different build version that we can filter on.
 
I am relatively new at route building, and must admit really enjoy the challenges involved to make a route interesting and practical for those who choose to download. My first route was the Blue Mountains Line v2 which currently has around 1500 downloads. This encouraged me no end. So much so I embarked on building BR Southern Region-Brighton Line which is also arousing interest. The philosophy used here is that if it [route] bores me, then its probably going to bore you. Of course that could be construed as a subjective philosophy, but none-the-less go by it. With the emergence of SP3 route building has improved greatly and I for one may well become prolific for both large and small, old/modern. But it all takes so much time to get it right, and learning the ropes, never ending . Some enthusiasts may well be a bit laxed with their imagination and a tad impatient to get the results of their efforts to the DLS but eventually may come up with something amazing and should be encouraged and guided with a bit of constructive critique. I have always requested feedback from anything I upload, especially from the veterans. And their comments, guidance has, and will, always be appreciated. However, having said all that I do agree the DLS has some pretty awful stuff in it.

Cheers,
Val.
 
Hi All --

I thought N3V had a "star" system in which one can vote for best or worse item, or in this case a route?

Ish
 
I have downloaded some pretty lackluster poorly made routes, and have picked up some rather interesting dependencies, and and examine their assets how they used them, and I use those assets that I never knew existed ... then I delete the bad routes ... one was: "Suffragette City V1.0 by kurtnielsen", "NEC Wilmington - Philadelphia Big Trains Full Version by hummer19971", and "E123 - by ecb03" ... pretty fun routes though
 
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It seems that the DLS has a lot in common with the rest of the Internet. A few gems scattered among a lot of chaff. How do you tell the genuine Facebook posts from the frauds or the good "tweets" from the "fake news tweets"? How do you sort out the "gems" from the "rubbish" on the Internet when Google delivers both in equal quantities?

There are plenty of followers of a very well known person who believe totally in every tweet he makes, to them they are real gems. Just as many believe that they are the ravings of a narcissist lunatic.

Do we want a community where everyone, regardless of age, infirmity or talent, can contribute or only the "selected few"?
 
I don't want to discourage creativity and it's not about the quality of the route, I don't like the Content Manager being used as a storage facility for users with mobile devices.
If I and other route creators used the CM for storing 'saves' then the servers would groan under the load :D
So why give them a free storage facility? I have to buy mine!
It wouldn't be too bad though if they removed their saves before/after each update to their route.

N3V need to find a workable solution for this problem or users might just give up looking for completed, workable routes regardless of it's quality.

It's end of school term here now and we know what that means...... aarrggghhhhhhhhh!!
 
My system is to NOT look at any route less the 500kb and then look for a good thumb nail picture and/or a good description and/or a good route name for anything above 500 kb.

It seems to work for me.

Dave
 
Rather than trying to impose a solution that not everyone will like on the DLS, a bit like trying to impose a solution on the Internet, it would be better to provide the tools, techniques, etc at the user end so individual users can decide what they want and what they like. As Dave has pointed out in the post above, and others have in this and similar threads, use a common sense approach such as looking for routes with a good thumbnail and description, a decent size (although size is not everything), a support thread in the freeware forum, etc. Do a bit of research first.
 
It is indeed sad to see thumbnails with a rail and grid and curves that are really unrealistic. N3V has to add a filter for mobile or has to stricten the rules to upload a route.
 
It is indeed sad to see thumbnails with a rail and grid ....

This is a perfect example of part of the problem. There are some very good routes on the DLS where the creator has correctly placed all the track according to data from maps and some have provided the correct landscaping (according to TransDEM or Google Earth, etc) but have not added any textures or scenery. The creator was simply not interested in that aspect of route creation - it is very time consuming. They have left that task up to the user, if they are interested.

So you cannot judge a route just by its book cover - the thumbnail.
 
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Just to get back to the root of the problem, the uploading by mobile users of works-in-progress. Is this by design or one of those unintended consequences of a solution to an unrelated problem?
 
Im sure most people are aware of this already, but if you use the download station and click 'Download details' on any route and then click 'Download FTP', the route will download without dependencies to any chosen storage folder. It can then be loaded into Content Manager and can be inspected in its basic form to see if the terrain or track hold any interest, also you can check how many dependencies it has by applying 'show dependencies / installed false'. This is quick and gives enough of a view to decide whether it is worth re-downloading with dependencies. If not, usually the case, it can be zapped in seconds.

ingha
 
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Sometimes the title says it all.

I avoid routes that have names like:

This is the bestest route ever.

My cool route

Crahsing Tarins

The big wrek

Super steam

All diesels, British Midlands, and Highland Valley
 
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