Hey Taeolas,
Thank you for your thoughts about the SRN/NTN.
We (that's darparniox, SRN/NTN's current manager, me, SRN/NTN co-founder, and other members of the SRN/NTN team) have a lot of transportation plans for the new world. I'm aware, also thanks to your post, that the transportation situation is pretty unclear now for most players. What's been build now at spawn doesn't give a clear indication of the plans. We will prolly very soon make a post to clarify this.
[...]regarding the extensions of the SRN and NTN lines. From what I gather, it is done by a group of players who want to partake following certain design elements and so on. When would this come about and would the first stations of each direction be where the current paths end (just outside of the admin protected area)?
No, the SRN tracks leaving spawn in a north and south direction are just the beginnings of tracks, so that they're outside the admin protected area where it's complicated to build/change things. The stations will be further away from where the tracks stop now.
The other question is in regards to vehicles in the protected spawn areas. At least since the last I checked. We couldn't place/break boats or minecarts in these areas, would this change? For one, near my plot there's a dock built and there's two other docks on the other side of the castle walls. I like to take that path as a shortcut, but I gotta swim it rather than taking a boat between the docks. But secondly, I tried hitching a ride on the SRN from a random point to ride the track back in order to find the Spawn station. But I couldn't since the area was protected. This could also be an issue later on should a station not have minecarts available at the station.
Yes, I hope too that players will be able to place mine carts anywhere on the SRN track or inside the SRN Spawn Station. I'm gonna talk with admins about that. As for boats, I'm not fully familiar with whether the tools available to the admins will make it possible, but I surely would like to see that being possible too, yes.
Thanks again and I hope to come with more info soon.
o/