Been here before Maybe they don't really want to fix it? A rant I guess.

My very first purchase in SL was a motorcycle. which didn't work very well. Soon after that I bought a plane which was no-copy, but fun to fly--till I lost it to a security orb.

Eventually, it learned to recognize well scripted vehicles, I found scripts that let me build my own. I learned to modify them and now I make vehicles as good as, and better than the ones I used to buy, (Except for Argents Moewe, which I'm in awe of.) I even built a spaceship house that actually flies.

But I don't travel much by vehicle. There are just too many gotchas out there for a moving scripted prims.

It's not like the lab is unaware of the issues with ban lines, full parcels, security orbs and sim borders.

Maybe vehicles are too hard on the servers and they don't want to encourage their use?

Or maybe there just isn't enough demand for it. Even before I learned of all the issues around traveling by vehicles, I never saw the point. The signal to noise ratio on the mainland is just too poor to be worthwhile, while private archipelagos lack the variety.

I see enough posts on the subject here to believe that there are significant numbers of residents who want better vehicles, but I don't know anyone in-world who uses them to travel other than touring well-defined areas.

One persons signal to noise is another persons engaging search. In my early days of SL, I'd log on, pick a direction, and fly about the grid, checking out whatever interested me.

As for there being no demand--IMHO, people don't use vehicles because the trips are unreliable. And the issues that make vehicles unreliable are known and well documented.

Will script limits cause vehicles to work better? Or will limits kill vehicles altogether because they are heavily scripted?

Some of my best memories of SL experiences are what I found when I got in a car or onto a horse and traveled down a road finding new things and meeting people along the way. I've been known to fly planes (or my house) across the lake my property borders to visit friends.

But that, of course, is just me and my opinion.

But if there is no demand for vehicles, how do you explain the way the USF got control of the Blake sea for their sailboat races? Everyone else was giving up their homestead sims. The USF got the Lindens to to (arguably) sponsor theirs. I wouldn't say that sort of thing represents lack of interest.

This isn't going to become another "ban lines" thread, is it? Please?

*Shrug* banlines are one of the issues vehicles face. And while I don't think it's fair that people have the ability to block waterways I don't think banlines are the biggest issue in operating vehicles. When it comes to resident created obstacles, that would be rudely configured security orbs.

But I'm more interested in the technical issues that plague flying driving and sailing, and why after all this time, nothing is done about it.

If you're talking of motorcycles then LL have been putting roads in on mainland, I don't see the issue with travelling on the roads with the exception of the sim crossing issue.

I have property that has road access and sits on the shore of the largest public lake.

What the Lindens do on other continents don't really concern me much--unless they happen to be making changes that cause vehicles to run better.

I've built cars. But most often I build things that fly. I'd like to be able to fly my spaceship home across the lake and visit with friends who live on the other side.

Sim crossings may be the most common issue, but they're not the only one. Trust me on that.

I don't think it's so much a directed effort as it is a combination of technical limitations (sim crossings for example), social conflict (to limit property access or not), and a bit of return on investment (the isn't enough money in providing extensive open spaces).

all these factors limit the kind of mobility that encourages vehicle use.

Your conclusion seems to agree--"they" (Linden Lab) has no interest in fixing things so that vehicles can operate in a satisfactory manner.

Seems to me like the Lindens are really dropping the ball here.

not necessarily a lack of interest... they can't fix peoples desire for private space, the demand there is huge, as would be the backlash if they took that away... for reasons beyond simple privacy. in the case of sim crossings, I'm sure they have quite a bit of desire to fix that, but so far it's proven to be more problematic than they are able to cope with. the only real lack of interest on their part has been in creating much more extensive open areas, although they have done some work in this area, it's just not financially feasible to do it as extensively as many vehicle require.

Granted, sim crossing isn't the only problem, but I think it's a really hard technical problem, and until it's solved it seems almost pointless to do anything about the other problems which have non-technical difficulties of their own. (That's where I appreciate Kidd's argument about lack of demand: the sim-crossing problem is bad enough to greatly limit the number of people having fun with vehicles.)

Moreover, the technical challenge of handing off a script between sims is exacerbated by an embarrassing bit of Linden-internal politics: it's worse with Mono-compiled scripts than with LSO, but LL is eager to retire LSO, so... kind of a depressing situation for Development.

Not much consolation, but: the fact that scripts make border-crossings more difficult has motivated many vehicle scripters to minimize the number and size of scripts in vehicles (and attachments); at least those vehicles won't be affected by script memory limits. And another bit of goodness: the extensions being considered to make scripts more memory efficient will be of immediate and direct benefit to vehicle scripting.

How can you loose an object you own to a security orb. I consider myself a pretty good scripter, and know even better ones from the scripting forum, and, as far as I know, there's no way to loose an object to a scripted device.

fly through a laggy sim get tagged by a trigger happy security orb using llTeleportAgentHome, or in some cases eject will work... vehicle goes sailing off into oblivion... av doesn't go with it...

I learned that its's important to always buy copy vehicles. But when I was young and stupid, i bought a no copy flying bike. It is scripted to call on me when left unattended. But it is a pain to get the flight interrupted and wait until that damn thing stat to message me it's coordinates. Buy copy.

Or use freebies. There are just too many ban lines (not to.)

Void Singer already answered that one better than I could have.

I also have a bad habit of hopping into planes I'm developing for a "short hop" and something goes wrong. Then I have to wait for it to be returned, or, try to track it down. OK, so that one is all my fault.

Has anyone heard if the coming script limits are expected to cut down on sim crossing or vehicle issues?

One of my favorite planes is the Privateer Space (*sniff*) Space Bug. In fact, the scripts I usually use now were modified from it.

But sometimes I like to fly the ornithopter I got from Caledon a couple years ago. Or Argents Moewe.

Excellent post. Let's say what we mean though shall we? BAN LINES, SIM CROSSING BUG, LAG, SCRIPT LIMITS (they already exist and are enforced but totally secret and unwritten..you know you've exceeded them when your things stop working). Those little issues are what make trips "unreliable."

The lab? Care about fixing issues? Good one!!

[ps: read the JIRA and look at the dates/demand on random things]

Why travel on a bicycle when we can actually fly?

Okay, clearly you have never tried some of the better motorcycles.

You're right. Like I said, it was my first vehicle, and I bought it, pretty much on a whim.

I did buy a better motorcycle later, that happened to be based on the ones from Akira. I'm not sure if they're considered one of the "better" ones, but it's as stable as any other land vehicle I own. (better than most) And it's one of the few vehicles that I am able to operate in mouselook. I think there's a picture of me on it in the undying thread somewhere.

I am experimenting with a system of navigational aids to help us circumvent some of these problems.
I am testing this initially in Comet and Sentry and the sims adjacent thereto.

I've not heard any Linden say so, but there are logical reasons to expect a small improvement as a result. (I mumbled about this above, and it may all be obvious anyway, so apologies for the redundancy.)

For one thing, newly-scripted vehicles will be able to take advantage of the new functions being developed for memory efficiency--and we know that sim crossings are better the fewer assets that need to be dragged across the border, such as extra scripts in child prims or to circumvent built-in delays, some of which will be obviated by those new functions.

Secondly, there must be some (small) share of bad crossings due to pre-existing sim thrashing. At least that share shouldn't happen after the limits are in effect.

Also, I guess vehicles might be more viable for the average casual user. Those who use vehicles regularly know to remove as many attachments as possible, especially scripted ones, but there must be folks who give up on vehicles in frustration--trying to use them while festooned with resize-scripted hair, boots, collar, cuffs, a couple heavy-duty HUDs, etc. At least after the limits are imposed they won't be able to load up on that many scripts before even boarding the vehicle.

You don't learn, do you?