We need A floating highway!

I don't know if I should have put this in either feature suggestions or projects... so here it is in General Discussion

So, we have all these new land vehicles, thanks to our groovy new LSL commands. We even get a free one by the Telehubs.

If only we had a place to DRIVE.

Look, vehicles are neat and all, but they don't do much good unless you can get more than 4 feet with them before crashing into something.

Sure, you could just make all sea/air vehicles... but then that defeats the purpose of this post, doesn't it?

What we need is a multi-purpose, public highway system. I submit to you that we need these, if only to improve transportation options.

Imagine, if you will, a futuristic-looking, freefloating highway system, with wide lanes and lit corridors. "on-ramps" could be simple elevators going up to the highway level, or, even simpler, they don't exist at all, having players move up to the level of the highway themselves before deploying their vehicle.

The initial freeway system would follow the general paths of the Telehubs... people could drive to each of the central areas that the TH provide.

The highway system should be built several tens of meters taller than most buildings, but not high enough as to be invisible to the person walking around on the ground.

So, we have vehicles... who wants to make a highway system?

Your friendly urban planner,

Lordfly Digeridoo

build it and charge tolls.

I second MJ.

Alas, there lies problems with that idea..

charging tolls would require the highway to have the land underneath it owned in its entirety by the highway system group.

This should really be a Linden-owned land, if only to prevent snags such as eminent domain

LF

Why not just fly up really high and then drive? Unless you mean for non-flying vehicles, in which case this would be rather cool, but I doubt the lindens would really want to do it. No offense of course, I just think it would be more of a large resident-type thing.

well I mean *I* could build the dang thing, as long as it's tax-and-primcost free

And yes, I meant land vehicles.

Roads would certianly help to add a sense of order to the world.

There is no reason why you'd need to build a physical road.

I was thinking of an idea a few months back of making an automated road/fight way.

The basic idea would to place sensors on the ground that would tell the flying craft wich way to go.

A customer would fly up to the sensor pay a small fee and be hooked up to the system. Everything after that is automatic. The Driver just sits back and enjoys the view till they arrive where they want to be. Then they just take controll of their carft when they wish to leave the roadway.

Having no scripting knowledge myself it's just an idea. It'd be neat if something like it could be built.

Max:

Garth Fairlight built something very similar for the late lamented Americana sim - a scripted "tour" vehicle which would travel the roads in the sim and bring riders to the various sights.

He might be willing to share his insights into that project should you decide to build your automated similar roadway.

=Sinclair

(Roads in a sim - concept! )

I think the idea here is a road for ground vehicles, because prescripted flight paths might be convenient (although, what are telehubs for then?) but part of the fun of flying is being able to control it yourself. The real problem (I think) he's trying to address is land vehicle driving space. That'd be a cool project to work on.

I really wouldn't mind getting Linden support behind it, either... it'd be fairly low-prim, too.. just slabs of virtual concrete tastefully done, going in straight lines across the game.

LF

With some kind of rails, I would hope...don't wanna have motorcycles falling 50 meters into your house by accident even if it isn't gonna hurt you. lol

Quite right. The problem here isn't transportation, it's having someplace to use our new vehicles.


I think a permenant highway would be nice, but if I had time and motivation I could create a highway that would only exist while in use. It would res in highway sections for maybe 50 meters in either direction of any highway user, and make them disappear as the person travels.

SuluMor and I were working on it already! lol...however, we will join this project, of course. I was calling it the "Hover-Highway"

If done right you could always script your vehicle to rez a highway in the manner that Relee suggested, once bugs are fixed I will start this idea.

Unless it is done on an *extremely* limited basis, I do not like this idea. It has the potential to make the sky ugly.

I hate billboards for the same reason.

Perhaps some or all of the future sims could have some type of ground based right of way or parkway included on release; even a smooth, fairly level area would probably be adequate to make the drivers happy

Agreed, the only place i can drive my hovertec is in my city (akar), please, do a highway, ill help as much as i can.

I think a highway in the south area of SL would be especially good, since the skyline down there is already pretty ugly. LOL

We could make the textures on bottom of the highway into paintings?

Or just make them see-through so that you can't even see the highway.

Some roads exist already but most of our vehicles are too tricked out to have fun on them. They're too short, or the turns are too sharp.



I agree about the billboards. Angel Leviathan put up a bunch of them around my part of the world. They're really well made but kind of obtrusive.

Of course this is from me, who was planning to make an advertising blimp.

Yeah, we could always make the bottom part of the highway mostly invisible... is the alpha channel bug still around? We could use that, make it completely invisible

LF

After last night I changed my mind. I dont think they are needed.

I will just say this..

motorcycle + Mt Fuji = BIG AIR.

woot!

Vehicles weren't created so that SL's focus could be turned towards them or their transportation aspect, vehicles were created for the sake of having working vehicles.

However, I understand the problem of "having a place to use them" and believe that perhaps a "Motor City Highway" is in order, perhaps a 3x3 block of industrial-looking themed sims with $0 build/tax and a gigantic awesome highway.

Although if you're looking for a road, LindenWorld has a nice 2x1 grid going.

SSshhh dave! Linden world has enough lag without everyone testing their vehicles there!

I don't agree. I wouldnt want some highway in the sky if I had some fantasy or let's say prehistoric theme on the land below. I agree with Huns that it will just create clutter in the sky.

Hmm...actually, what's wrong with the two sims (well, more really) that are almost totally empty now? Why isn't anyone driving their stuff in Plum, etc? It's not totally "flat" but the hills should just make it more interesting.

Since 1.1 Olive seems to have become the vehicle playground...why?

i like the idea of a highway system.. but if it was in the sky, please make it transparent to anyone on the ground. i cherish my views, and wouldnt really want to look at the belly of the super highway all day long.