TheVille

So, in the current map, some of the Nether Rail lines are very long, and people have built tunnels jutting out to the sides of the rail where they are building. My experience has been that, because my cart just zooms past these side tunnels, it's very hard for me to find where people have been building, even if they have marked it with a sign.

So, what I propose is that, when building Nether Rails after the server resets, we should put put in a series of "stations" where people have to get off the rail, pick up their cart, and put it down on the next section or rail. At each station should be a medium sized room from which other people can start their rails.

• If building a rail from the spawn, the first station should be roughly 150 blocks away.
• If building a rail from another station, put a station every 200-300 nether blocks (maybe 400 if it's really far away from spawn).

This means that if one is building 5000 overland blocks from the spawn, one would have to change rails twice, and if one is building 10,000 blocks away, one would have to change rails 5 times. However, it would also mean that it would be much, much easier to find the location where other people are building.

Though it would be resource intensive, perhaps we could have short trains and long trains. Some that stop at every station like you say, and another rail that takes you to faraway stations without stops.

I thought there was a way to build things where you only continued if you held forward, but I could be wrong... maybe the unpowered rails? Someone correct me...

Speaking as somebody who lives about four and a half minutes of rail time away from spawn, and as somebody who laid about three minutes' worth of that rail (1437 rail tiles), the two switches (for a total of three lines) I do to get "home" really sits at the limit of what I'd be willing to tolerate in terms of getting from A to B. I even went so far as to mob-proof "my" section of line for the sole purpose of being able to safely leave the computer while I transited the last leg to my destination (or my first leg out).

I thought for a little bit about ways to maybe automatically run a cart from point A to point B by dialing in a destination ahead of getting on the track, but I don't think that I could get such a system working for more than one person riding at a time. Even then, I think that the limitations of redstone (re)transmission means that the epic lines from spawn to my place would not be workable in terms of automation.

At the end of the day, places where building occurs may or may not be intended to be "discoverable." In my opinion, those who are doing the building should decide whether or not they need a stop, and/or whether they want that section to -be- discovered/visited by others (by extension). Others have built at the end of my rail (adding their own, and doubling back), and that's great -- I personally would have been somewhat upset if somebody hived stations into the middle of my line.

I understand that there's a desire for resource re-use. I co-located with existing tunnels for a segment of my line, and I widened those tunnels when I put my line in... explicitly so that there would still be a nice, horse-friendly area that people who wanted to visit other segments down that way could take. Unfortunately, I don't see any obvious mechanism by which we can have rail lines that both serve multiple stops, _and_ provide us long-commuters the ability to safely get up and leave the keyboard, coming back to find ourselves at our destination.

We had stops on the red and blue overland rail lines two maps back (the one with the giant floating KRG skull near spawn). The cart paused at the station for like 2 seconds and if you didn't jump out continued going down the line. This would allow someone to AFK during their long ride.

What ever happened to our well-organized nether rail system we had?

Flash wrote:We had stops on the red and blue overland rail lines two maps back (the one with the giant floating KRG skull near spawn). The cart paused at the station for like 2 seconds and if you didn't jump out continued going down the line. This would allow someone to AFK during their long ride.

yeah, now we just need the person who made it to make it again

Oh... I think I could figure out how to do that. Some powered rails on either side of a small raised section, a detector rail at the top of the raised part, so when you go over the detector rail both the powered rail segments turn off for a few seconds...

That sounds like a reasonable compromise.

On the current map, the build was very disorganized due to initial lack of interest. I built the original nether rail station at spawn, and the long west tunnel, almost as a matter of personal convenience. I was far away from spawn and wanted that connection, and at the time, most other folks online were of the opinion that horses would replaces nether rails. Over time, with the limitations of horses evident, people began attaching willy-nilly and other routes were built from spawn, without a real plan. Those far away built long tunnels too, but there wasn't a centralized effort. People tore down other peoples' wayfinding signs to put their own, tracks were broken and redirected without consultation, and it got quite messy. We can certainly do better.

There have been two very good rail systems in the past, in my opinion, both done on the surface rather than in the nether. One is the one mentioned above (with the brief stops where you could hop out, or automatically continue), and the one on the pre-nether map where I did the Capitol, where we had a giant hub, and you launched on a different track depending on who you were visiting. Both of those systems were solid. Certainly the former, with the auto-stops, is more resource-friendly if we're able to recreate the stops. The main downside is that the reason people build nether routes is for speed and convenience, and few people want to make their route take more time so that it can go to somebody else's place on the way. The latter option (personal tracks for each build site) is more desirable from a travel time perspective, at cost of significant investment in materials.

One of the best rail systems I remember (wow this was a long while ago) was back when there was a giant obsidian skull... tbh that's the only other thing I remember about that map incarnation... anyway, it was a really good nether rail system. There were a few main hubs and each of those branched off and were clearly labeled.

Anyway, what would be possibility of a hybrid approach be? A grid of some sorts with auto stops for a few seconds at main hubs? Honestly, quick and easy travel is one of the most useful things on a server, especially when many magic useful tools are set up at spawn (or even in the end).

I'd be interested in working on one as either a main or side project, but obviously resources are going to be hard and it's definitely more than a 1 person effort.

Alizée Fan wrote:There have been two very good rail systems in the past, in my opinion, both done on the surface rather than in the nether. One is the one mentioned above (with the brief stops where you could hop out, or automatically continue), and the one on the pre-nether map where I did the Capitol, where we had a giant hub, and you launched on a different track depending on who you were visiting. Both of those systems were solid. Certainly the former, with the auto-stops, is more resource-friendly if we're able to recreate the stops. The main downside is that the reason people build nether routes is for speed and convenience, and few people want to make their route take more time so that it can go to somebody else's place on the way. The latter option (personal tracks for each build site) is more desirable from an time perspective, at cost of significant investment in materials.

If anyone was interested, here is a video showing that pre-nether rail hub.

Thanks, Plas - that's the one. It has a good reminder of one of the cool things done with that station - It was built large and expansion-ready, with "open track" starts located around it. People were largely responsible for bringing in their own connection and linking up to the main tunnels appropriately, and could then run their track to one of the open spots for use.

man, that brings back some memories...

This is a hair off topic, but I always will love Betteh's SAAART Skyrail, with it's oldschool alpha slingshot-boosters. It shared a server with Buzzy's Blue Shell Transit System, which I believe was the first cart & rail transport network built on a Ville MC server.

Many good thoughts here.

I am not opposed to having the new map closed for a day, while a very small team of admins go in and setup the spawn portal and nether rail hub. In creative mode. Do a very nice job and do nothing else. I nominate Alizee and Gizanked.

The hub is the thing. Once people start building all over the map, their rail systems are kind of up to them.