Banner by   Keissla.wp

Welcome to the Monthly Track Contest (MTC) for May 2024!
The MTC is a track building contest hosted by TrackmaniaExchange which challenges you to build a map with a specific theme. Later, all the tracks are rated and a winner is found.
There are no prerequisites or qualification requirements to enter; just read the theme below, hop in your editor, and submit a track before the deadline!

When's the last time you considered how much your map cost? Sure, every map here might be free in terms of cash, but don't forget that each one has a performance cost to play! Some particularly fancy maps might be too much for some players to run. So, this month, let's cut some corners and try to get as much out of our map without racking up the display cost.

Theme: Budget Build

• Build a map with a display cost of 2,000 or less
  
• You will receive a 1% reduction on your final score for every 10 points above a display cost of 2,000 (a display cost of 2,001-2,010 gets a 1% score reduction, a display cost of 2,011-2,020 gets a 2% score reduction, etc.)
  
• You will receive a 10% bonus to your final score for every 500 points below a display cost of 2,000
  
• You can find the display cost in the upper left of the editor, under your username. It's also displayed under the thumbnail on the map details screen when you save the map

General Rules

• One entry is allowed per user. Multi-author maps count as the single entry for all authors involved
  
• "MTC" must be present in the track name as it appears on TMX. Example: "MTC - Out of Stock" or "(mtc) not so great depression "
  
• All entries must be built using the latest version of the game
  
• All entries must be built specifically for this MTC
  
• Blockmixing, Offgrid mapping, and Embedded Items are allowed
  
• Texture mods are allowed
  
• Royal tracks are not allowed

If you have any questions or would like to contest a rule, feel free to ask!

Submitting and Deadline

• Submit your course to the MTC mappack before the deadline below
  
• Submissions may be freely updated within the submission period
  
• The earliest deadline for submissions is the end of June 3rd. Submissions will continue to be accepted until I officially announce closure in this thread
  
• Everyone will have 24 hours after submissions close to make any last minute edits to their submissions
  
• After this, you may not make any more updates until after the results are published

Prizes

• Honour and the right to brag! (Jozii used to say that. I wasn't around then, but maybe some of you still remember him? )
  
• The winning track will be featured on the TrackmaniaExchange front page!

Judging

• For judging, we will be using a public voting system
  
• A server will be opened for about a week that anyone can play the MTC maps on
  
• Anyone can vote by using the server's karma system
  
• More details on this will be provided in this thread once voting opens

Good luck! If you have any questions, feel free to ask in this thread or in Discord! Now then, get to building!

2000 or less seems really generous? These contests are always more fun, IMO, when you have to really lean into the theme.

How about 1000? Or even 500?

Edit: Or at least maybe some bonus % ranking based on how much under 2000 you are? 2000 is too easy, IMO.

The idea is that it would be hard to make both a track and good scenery within 2000 cost, since it's really easy to go over that if you're not paying attention to it. I mainly didn't want to force people to sacrifice scenery just to keep the route in budget, which is why I went for the easier 2000 cost limit rather than a tighter 1000 limit.

That said, I like the idea of a % points bonus for keeping even further under the limit. A boost every extra 500 points under sounds good to me, but let me mull it over for a bit before committing to anything.

Arkive86 says:


That said, I like the idea of a % points bonus for keeping even further under the limit. A boost every extra 500 points under sounds good to me, but let me mull it over for a bit before committing to anything.

As a scenery enjoyer I don't like the idea. Mappers could simply sacrifice scenery to get more points. Or make a shorter map.

Having mulled for a bit, this is where I'm at:

I'm thinking of making a change to the rules. To incentivize going for even tighter budgets, I'd like to add a 10% bonus to participants' final scores for every 500 points under the primary 2000 display cost they are. For example, an entry with a display cost of 1000 or less would get a 20% bonus, and a score of 4.0 would become 4.8. Basically, I want to reward builders who voluntarily try and make a good map with an even tighter budget, but don't want to make that bonus so large that you feel like you have to go for a tighter budget to win.

I'd like some feedback before officially making it a rule (if it gets added at all). So, what are your thoughts? Too big/small a bonus? Suggestions for a different reward system? Prefer adjusting the primary display cost threshold instead? Prefer not touching the rules? Any other thoughts?

I like it, obviously, and will probably be going for the <500 mark. That being said, I'm not going to be too bothered if you decide not to follow through.

LuckieNoob says:

As a scenery enjoyer I don't like the idea. Mappers could simply sacrifice scenery to get more points. Or make a shorter map.

As far as this goes, if someone just completely sacrifices scenery, then they'll get marked down for it accordingly, so that's not a problem.

You're right though, that someone could just make a really small map and have a seeming advantage. Perhaps a minimal map length? That could also be worked around by just making it a slower map, but at least it would be harder to exploit?

I was just wondering what the minimum length a track can be. This concept sounds fun, and I'll probably participate this time!
-from an extremely heavy object user





time to start building!

I didn't get much feedback, but it's been almost a week so it's probably time to make the ruling official. You'll now officially get a 10% bonus for every 500 points under the 2,000 point build cost limit your map is, same as I suggested earlier. The main post has been updated.

RedstoneGram says:
I was just wondering what the minimum length a track can be.

Whoops, skimmed over this assuming it was a musing and not a question. Sorry about that!
There's no minimum track length. Of course, if you're going to make a really short map, make sure it's really good; it's up to anyone who votes whether a short map deserves a ++ or not.

And as an aside, feel free to send me a DM either here or on Discord. It's a good way to poke me if I forget about something, and at the very least I might be able to explain what's taking so long.