Welcome to the Monthly Track Contest (MTC) for July 2018, hosted by Arkive!

In the MTC your task is to build a track on a given theme. Later, all the entered tracks are rated and a winner is found.

Theme of the Month: Flip the Record
Build a course which can be taken in both directions!


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Theme Specific Rules

• Two courses will be submitted, one for each direction
  
  • Both courses should be named similarly, but with some form of distinction (such as "MTC Map [Side A]" and "MTC Map [Side B]")
• The start of the first course will be the primary end of the second course and vice versa
  
• The order of CPs for the second route must be taken in reverse order of the first route
  
• There may be no differences between the two courses except for the following:
  
  • The start and primary end pieces will switch places
    
  • The start and primary end blocks may be changed between versions, so long as their positions are correct
    
  • CPs may be placed in reverse direction
    
  • Any and all block skins may be changed, though the block itself may not be rotated or moved
    
  • Other non-course elements (such as Mediatracker, medal times, etc.) may be changed freely
• You may have alternative ends, but they may NOT be the fastest end for either course
  
• A multilap start may be used. If it is used as both the start and primary end, it should be flipped backwards for the second course

General Rules

• You may submit ONE TRACK PAIR maximum
  
• Duo tracks are allowed, but each map pair counts as one submission for each author involved
  
• MTC should be present in the track name. Example: "MTC - Double Back Side A" or "deja vu alt (mtc)" (check that any special characters do not break in the TM or MX track name)
  
• The track should be built in the most recent version of the game
  
• The author time should be between 30 seconds and 90 seconds
  
• All environments are allowed
  
• Envimixing is allowed
  
• Embedded custom objects are allowed
  
• Blockmixing is allowed
  
• Custom Titlepacks allowed this month include: TM2, TMAll, and MrSloppi's
  
• All other custom titlepacks are NOT allowed
  
• Custom mods are allowed (don't forget to use locators!)
  
• Maps which require OpenPlanet are NOT allowed
  
• Press Forward (or other Press X) tracks are NOT allowed

Feel free to ask me to clarify any rules or even to propose changing a rule!


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Deadlines

• Your track should be uploaded before the end of Sunday, July 22nd at midnight EST. Submissions will continue to be accepted until the thread closes, which will occur the following morning
  
• Public voting will go from July 23rd to August 5th
  
• Results are calculated and posted soon after



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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 top 3 winners will receive a showcase of a track of their choice (< 10 awards)

How to Submit

• To submit a track pair, upload both to MX and post a link to both of your submissions here:
  MTC July 2018: Submissions Thread
  
• You can update your tracks within the deadline as many times as you want
  
• Submitted courses may be updated within 24 hours of submissions closing, in case of any last minute changes; new courses may NOT be submitted in this time frame

Judging: Public and internal
We will use a 50/50 mixture of the public voting system and the internal judging

• Everyone is allowed to judge, even players who submitted a track, but the vote for your own track will not count (give your own map a 10)
  
• You must have access to all environments and vote for all tracks for your votes to count
  
• Every track will be judged with marks from 0 (bad) to 10 (good)
  
• The internal judging will note some detailed feedback with points based on categories (Theme [20p], Creativity [10p], Fun [10p], Detail [10p])

Good luck, and if you have any questions, please ask!

Really interesting theme ! but I have some questions !

Are alternative roads for each side allowed, or do you must drive the exact same route ?
I mean, if I build something like this, is it ok :


we can see that obviously, each side have a different path even tho the use same CPs and start/finish placement.

Also, this one :

finish line is placed wrong way to allow the jump into it, so when I make side B, do I need to put the start in wrong way too or am I allowed to turn it around ?

Alternative routes are completely allowed; so long as your course follows the proper CP order, anything between is fair game.

The start/end question is an interesting one. I'm going to say that the direction you enter the end piece from is what's important, so placing the start like you've suggested is correct.

I'm confused. This:

Arkive says:

There may be no differences between the two courses except for the following:

• The start and primary end pieces will switch places
  
• CPs may be placed in reverse direction
  
• Any and all block skins may be changed, though the block itself may not be rotated or moved
  
• Other non-course elements (such as Mediatracker, medal times, etc.) may be changed freely

You may have alternative ends, but they may NOT be the fastest end for either course

A multilap start may be used. If it is used as both the start and primary end, it should be flipped backwards for the second course[/list]

and this:

Arkive says:
Alternate roads are completely allowed; so long as your course follows the proper CP order, anything between is fair game.

...seem to be saying completely different things?

What am I misunderstanding? Do the tracks need to have "no differences" or is anything outside of CP order "fair game"? Restricted-use alternate ends (only), and "Alternate roads are completely allowed" are entirely different things...

The difference is in how the track is built versus how it is driven. The track itself must remain the same between versions aside from the given exceptions, but the route taken in each version has no restrictions except for those given. Let me steal Shadokk's lovely picture to help illustrate this more clearly...



Each line represents one version of the course, with the only differences between the versions here being the start/end positions and the CP's direction. Were any other block placed differently (for example, moving the freewheel block to the other side of the CP for one version), then the maps would not be following the rules anymore and would risk disqualification.

Notice, however, that the two routes do not follow the same path. Route A cuts a corner Route B has to take, while Route B takes a higher road that Route A simply cannot reach. Both routes still have to pass the CP (and if there were multiple CPs present, the order each route took would matter) and each route must still end where the other starts, but Route B doesn't have to be a simple reversal of Route A.

(I'll go ahead and edit "roads" to "routes" in my previous post to help make this more clear)

Thanks for the clarification!

Is Backwards driving allowed? If so: do both A and B have to be backwards?

I will allow backwards driving, but I will say that the direction the car is facing when it crosses the end will affect how the start is rotated. That is, the start should always face in the opposite direction than the direction in which the car was facing when it finished. If anyone wants additional clarification on this, please ask and I'll provide some picture examples.

Since the routes do not need to be related except by CPs and starts/ends, the routes do not need to both be forward/backward. You may have one route forward and one route backward if you wish, so long as it complies with the start orientation.

i have another question: Can we use Custom Start/Finish Objects? If so, what if there is no similar counterpart e.g. Turbo Start. Can I mix&match it to be as similar as possible (Blockmix+street decal)?

Custom objects are absolutely allowed, be they start, finish, CP, or other items. As for the starts/ends in particular, I'm primarily looking for their positions to be correct; don't worry about the blocks themselves. I'll update the main post to reflect this better.