N
nachoman
The biggest gripe I have with the "classic" freestanding table is that it's a horribly inefficient use of space. As has been pointed out in this thread building a layout like that would make the rest of the room unusable in most situations.
Depends how you look at it. If I had a room without two doors and a window, around-the walls is what I would prefer. But for me, a duckunder or lift-out is not an option. And blocking a window I would claim to be a "waste of a window". And if i blocked access to the closet, then that would be a waste of space. Given that criteria, my only other option was to locate the layout in the center of the room, and 4x8 is as large as i could get.
You can check my trackplan in the current edition of the gauge e-mag. I tried to get rid of some of the 4x8 issues by 1) hiding the curves in tunnels, and 2) creating enough topographic relief so one cannot see more than one scene at a time.
I see one drawback to an around-the-walls type layout as being lack of depth of scenery. Backdrops have to be done quite well to serve as a foreground object, and care must be taken with lighting to avoid casting shadows on the backdrop (ruining the realism).
I am nowhere near complete, but I am very happy with my plan sofar.
Kevin