TSE F1 Track Size Limit

[Etmil]

Hey everybody!

As we all know, making tracks with the TS editor has always sort of been a pain in the ass. We trackmakers have to paste in new tile information every time we edit something.. this of course does not apply to default tracks, but who makes those anymore? Nobody, it seems.

Anyway, to add to the hassle etc, we have the 2000x2000px track limit. We have several terrains, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to make the scenery of a track interesting and beautiful at the same time. If you want to do that, you would have to pick from either grass or sand as your main terrain and then use those transitions to other terrains to bring some variety.

There are several issues. But there's one issue that is bugging me more and more as I still keep on making tracks. Mostly F1 ones, cause that's what I've come to like creating. Anyway, when it comes to our TSE F1 league, main organizer dede has always told me that there's a 2MB track size limit, anything more than that is not acceptable. If I make a good layout, can actually fit it into 2000x2000 area and finally also want to make it look bearable to look at, the picture size will be way over 2 MB. Which also means I cannot use any other new tiles/terrain tricks to make the scenery look beautiful.

So now I would have to resort to any of the following:

1) make patetic short layouts so tracks would be under the regulated 2 MB limit
2) fill scenery with boring default tiles (houses, trees, terrains)

Which is basically forgetting about anything innovative, anything that involves trying to make an all-around good track. Either the scenery is boring or track layout not-so-good.

Would you prefer keeping the 2mb track size limit as it was before or would you be willing to have better thought-through tracks with nice scenery at the expense of a little bigger file size?

[shyguy1001]

Support this post.. lets allow the trackmakers to make beautiful scenery, who cares about a little longer waiting time at server..

[Lanz]

Support this post.. lets allow the trackmakers to make beautiful scenery, who cares about a little longer waiting time at server..

+1

[Jan]

In my opinion the file size doesn't matter that much. People should be patient enough to wait a few minutes before the race or come at the server 10 minutes before the race starts so it can start in time.

[dede]

Support this post.. lets allow the trackmakers to make beautiful scenery, who cares about a little longer waiting time at server..

if 2mb = 10min
then 4mb = 20min

[Etmil]

A solution I thought of would be to create a TSE tileset, combining all the best additional tiles from Hengari, Jazzyclub and also those city tiles by.. um whoever. You get the idea, though. It could be named TSE.til or something and would include all of the stuff that I mentioned. That way, it could be uploaded before the league for everyone to download and trackmakers could just include the tileset in their .trk file and use that to create properly good-looking tracks. dede will argue that when we do it this way, random players / dumb people (don't know how to install tileset) won't be able to participate in the league. But my question is, why'd we have random drivers in the first place? 'Cause the way I remember it from last season's discussion thread, people were stupposed to sign up for the league before taking part. But some were still allowed to race without registration, as I recall? Isn't that like making rules and then ignoring them yourself?

It could be very simple, dede advertises league, makes thread, people sign up (40 drivers max, I don't suppose we had as many last season in every race anyway). When we reach the limit, registrations will close and end of story. Everybody will download the tileset, otherwise not possible to race. In real F1, there aren't random guys around who just show up and say 'Hey, I feel like racing today.' This is just weird. Because if you don't plan to take part in all races, why take part at all? I don't think we need to 'advertise' the league or the game itself for other people who 'might become interested'. There's no real activity in the servers anyway, the TSE F1 League we have has had more than enough coverage with the videos Shyguy made last season, so.. basically it's just a league for people who have been around long enough to know what it's about. For the small community that still exists and hopefully will be around for many a year.

PS. Only problem is - I personally don't know how to create such a tileset / til files in general. So either Tinky/Eddie has to do it or someone who knows. Or someone could teach me how to..

What do you think?

[shyguy1001]

Or even better track could be released on turbosliders.com half an hour before event, giving us that time to practice (meaning all know the track better, better racing).

[Etmil]

Yes.. and downloads disabled on both servers. Link given to download, but no downloading from server. That means we have to exclude random drivers. But dede desperately wants to race with strange REIROMs who just accidentally show up..

[shyguy1001]

I have no problem with "strange REIROM's" showing up and racing, but perhaps if track was released on turbosliders.com, we can direct them there, after all it takes 100x quicker to download there than in turbosliders itself..

[Mike Nike]

i like the idea of challenging other racing games, like mro and generally, in the gfx part.
im playing for over 8 years now and it still feels turbosliders has a relative small community - which is still not big enough compared to mro and gr. bit of a pity..

anyway, 20min/4mb sounds quite much. slow downloaders have to connect in time. fast downloaders may connect 10min later... - though i dont like that they have the possibility to practice local to gain a 10min "practice lead".

either way, thought about similar things like etmil, wondering about the problematic big sizes of tracks...and if there should be some bigger tileset..

whatever ends up in more activity, usually sounds attractive

[Whiplash]

i like the idea of challenging other racing games, like mro and generally, in the gfx part.
im playing for over 8 years now and it still feels turbosliders has a relative small community - which is still not big enough compared to mro and gr. bit of a pity...

If the gfx crucial thing for the size of community, the MRO would have only 1 player there, and that one would be it's developer.
TS already looks much better and it's gameplay is much more fluid. The only problem that TS has is that its developer is sleeping somewhere in the distance without feeling the need to do few more improvements which would up to date the game.
I would rather see some more gameplay changes, than gfx. I also think that TS website is one of the most important segments. It should contain some stable, intuitive and nicely organized overall ranking witch would be updating with some very short frequence, be directly connected to game servers, and give permanent motivation for all players (especially for newcomers).
Btw, I would say that T already showed that you need nothing more for a nice looking tracks. Maybe those tracks could be a little tighter in order to make more challenging overtaking.
Shyguy, I will support bigger track size only when it becomes part of some new TS version when it 'll be official. Unofficial changes are not welcome for me.

[pablinho15]

anyway, 20min/4mb sounds quite much

?¿

http://www.turbosliders.com/show_tracks.php

That the players download the circuits from the page (TS.com)


off: nick MRO?

T100 (rec Monaco )
T0

[shyguy1001]

i like the idea of challenging other racing games, like mro and generally, in the gfx part.
im playing for over 8 years now and it still feels turbosliders has a relative small community - which is still not big enough compared to mro and gr. bit of a pity...

If the gfx crucial thing for the size of community, the MRO would have only 1 player there, and that one would be it's developer.
TS already looks much better and it's gameplay is much more fluid. The only problem that TS has is that its developer is sleeping somewhere in the distance without feeling the need to do few more improvements which would up to date the game.
I would rather see some more gameplay changes, than gfx. I also think that TS website is one of the most important segments. It should contain some stable, intuitive and nicely organized overall ranking witch would be updating with some very short frequence, be directly connected to game servers, and give permanent motivation for all players (especially for newcomers).
Btw, I would say that T already showed that you need nothing more for a nice looking tracks. Maybe those tracks could be a little tighter in order to make more challenging overtaking.
Shyguy, I will support bigger track size only when it becomes part of some new TS version when it 'll be official. Unofficial changes are not welcome for me.

I actually said nothing about bigger track size, I guess that wasn't in the discussion.. it's fine, those leagues that want to use bigger tracksize use mods, simple. This is one of the main attractions about the great F1SL!

[Whiplash]

Shyguy, I will support bigger track size only when it becomes part of some new TS version when it 'll be official. Unofficial changes are not welcome for me.

I actually said nothing about bigger track size, I guess that wasn't in the discussion.. it's fine, those leagues that want to use bigger tracksize use mods, simple. This is one of the main attractions about the great F1SL!

Oh, somehow I read "scenery wide" instead of "scenery wise". Well, now I don't understand what that means.

[Etmil]

Oh, somehow I read "scenery wide" instead of "scenery wise". Well, now I don't understand what that means.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/diction ... ish/wise_3