How do you come up with your projects?

[TrabantDeLuxe]

Hello,

It's a cloudy afternoon, and I thought I'd ask you all a question. A lot of us do projects, either payware or freeware (it's in the name of the forum after all), so I wondered, how on earth do you pick what you're going to spend your time on next? For me, the following comes in to play

• Esthetics. Some of us love raw power, I'm more a fan of esthetics. Generally, I believe that locomotive construction took a completely wrong turn in the twenties, so I'll limit myself to pre-1920's stock. I'm a bit of a sucker for anything steampunk with loads of brass, copper and well-placed greebles. Also I fancy ridiculously ornate colour schemes.
• Quirkyness. I just love me anything that doesn't fit the usual. Despite my username, I am in fact a bit of a citrophile.
• Can you add extra features, using the existing TS tech? I like engines that are a bit of a challenge to drive. Complicated braking systems for instance. The idea of early electrics, that actually had pyrometers and would trip fuses if you'd apply too much juice, has much more of a charm to me than most modern rolling stock. To me, it harks back to an age in which individual craft and skill was much more appreciated than now. I'm 27 and shouldn't be saying these things?
• Last but not least, source material. There are a couple of steamers I'd really like to do one day, but alas, as far as I know only basic diagrams survive, and 1 or two models. A real shame, but maybe someone knows the url to the J.A. Maffei archives .

Cheers!

[gougha]

For me it was fairly easy.

I'm building the NYMR. I visit it numerous times a year and grew up living just down the road from it. Ive got thousands of pics and when i visit i take hundreds more. So when it came time to decide what to build it pretty much chose itself.



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[BigVern]

In terms of route building it can be as simple as browsing through an on line map or a site with historical information and seeing something that takes my fancy.

That could be anything from a section of Russian main-line to a long abandoned or even never built section of line in the UK. Sadly my current success rate at getting anything actually finished these days is about 1 in 100 (of started projects) and I have several routes in various stages of incompleteness currently sat in all three of the main sims. Resolution for 2017 is to knuckle down and try to finish at least some of them, before starting anything else!

[AndiS]

I just never stopped wanting to know how stuff works. Doing so, I am thrown between wanting to shape some part of what I learnt into something others can look at or understand or digest or enjoy, on the one hand. I call it "bringing books to life". On the other hand, while doing that, I get drawn deeper into the subject, or a neighbouring subject. It's a crazy combination of feeling better because you know more and feeling worse because you met more stuff that you don't know and that you had to leave unexplored.

And then there is this attraction of helping and sharing without any burden. You don't need to go to some meeting and hang out for hours before something interesting takes place. You skim through the forums or webpages and met oodles of ideas, questions, pieces of information, feelings, easy to fulfill requests, all at no costs. Helping in small chunks is addictive and it gets into the way when you ought to concentrate on some project. But being helped really compensates it. You type in a phrase and find a few people who have already answered your question. It helps if your topic is technical. Don't try to find help on the net for real life issues.

From first contact, I was fascinated by the fact that computers can do what cannot be done otherwise. That draws me into the wildest projects first, the more unrealistic, the more interesting. Anyone remembers World of Rails? How about combining some macro economic simulation with a traffic (flow) simulation, or detailed role play of non-player characters figuring as railway staff? Of course, it is just pipe dreams. But doing what others have done never attracted me, as a hobby.

In terms of era, I'm not sure where limitations would be. If someone explains the finer details of boat towing to me, I might as well get into canals. Sail ships were a big dream of mine very long ago. Between them and modern times, choo choos provide tangible action. You still feel the spirit of putting a wagon onto some form of track. But thanks to the steam engine, there is more action and a few new technical challenges compared to canals and tramways. Then again, after reading a book or two on early electrics, I guess I could get interested in that, too. And Zusi people caused me to get interested into the basics and development of OHLE. So I seem to be quite flexible.

I can't get the attraction of modelling what you see today on Google Earth and Youtube. Instead, I would be most interested in positive what-if scenarios. Like 1930 without WW I and Black Friday. But any other era will do. It is just sad to see traffic peak at war times. The good thing with distant past is that it is so distant. You cut out the social situation (like the health of employees) and enjoy the technical details. With anything post 1960 or so, I find it hard to mentally lock out the omnipresent decline.

[DominusEdwardius]

I'm a person who hates doing the same thing for extended periods of time, I choose projects often on a whim with things that I find interesting, or are LMS locos(because I'm very biased and they are the best). I truly love doing quirky things (like the G2) or things which haven't been done before (like the battery loco), but more than that I love learning the physics behind them and doing the scripting to model them accurately. The other criteria is access to sounds (or close approximations) and enough pictures and or plans that a model can be made (doesn't have to be a lot at all, the battery loco was built from about 40 pictures and no plan), usually this means something which runs at or has run at the East Lancs Railway (my local railway). Quite often projects are my all time favourite engines (like the A class) although strangely the G2 started off as me not knowing anything about it and going off a reputation (so terrible ) but I came to love it and it is now probably my 2nd favourite engine.

My hatred of doing the same thing over and over often leads to things being drop or put on hold while I re-find my interest (much to the infuriation of everybody). That combined with my almost obsessive nature to get it the model and simulation perfect means long delay time, but I suppose that is what I enjoy and I only really do this for enjoyment

Oh and interesting brakes are always a plus, I love modelling brakes for some reason

regards

Edward