a little vehicle confusion

how does an object (linked or otherwise) become classified as a vehicle?

do said vehicular prims NOT count against anyone as long as the object is classified as a vehicle?

what can make vehicle revert to normal object status, thus causing it to count against someone's prim limit?

for example, if i have a sailboat sitting at someone's dock over their land in a sim in which i own no land, does that count against their prim limit?

This is my understanding of it:

1. Any attachment does not count against anyone's prim count.

2. Any prim or linked set of prims, if sat upon, do not count against anyone's prim count. However if you stand up (eg: no one's sitting on the object) it does count against the prim allotment. Your boat would count against the person's prim allotment. It isn't so much that something is a "vehicle" but rather that it is sat upon (or whatever method was used to link and avatar to the object (sitting, driving, get on, fly, etc) links the avatar to the prim(s). That's why a 31 prim object will not "drive" physically, because an avatar sittong on it makes it 32 prims (there are some tricks to get around this but this is the general law of physics in SL -- that is, the av counts as a prim too).

I'll wager that the code is looking for avatars linked to prims and ignoring those linked sets as far as prim allocation goes. Soon as you stand up though I'm sure the object then becomes a prim burden for whoever owns the land under it.

The reasoning for such a system seems simple and practical. It allows people to freely drive/fly/boat, etc across other's land without inhibiting their prim counts. The system encourages vehicles, but definitely does not encourage parking lots, docks, tarmac, etc (where the vehicle may sit, unused). Thus docking your boat at your friend's dock definitely will ding his prim count, until someone sits on it anyway.


I haven't done this but an easy test ought to be:

1. Look at your land info, how many objects you have available to rez.

2. rez your boat. Check land allotment again, it should have decreased by the number of prims in the boat.

3. Sit on the boat, check land allotment again, it should have increased by the number of prims in the boat.

4. stand up, decreased. etc etc.

Try the same on your friend's land, you should see the same results.

Bos

I flew my plane onto someone's land, and they had the land set up to automatically return other people's items to their inventory. The second I got off the plane, zap!

This is a very interesting thread. I am eager to see the answers here. Hopefully cars, planes ect dont count against anyones prim counts except maybe the creators. /shrug

yeah working in the middle of the night is a drag I miss my SL.

Cat Cotton

this is all correct. thank you all for the answers.

the prims only don't count when an avatar is sitting on them (they are attached to an av). they do count otherwise against me if i'm in a sim where i own land, or against the local land owner if i don't.

if each avatar counts as a prim, then a four-seater would have to consist of only 27 prims right? guess i better work on that texturing a bit more huh?

thanks again for the clarification. i feel much better now.