Land Questions (yes, I read the sticky)

Just some basic questions. Sometimes I'm a bit thick I know...But I need things explained a certain way I guess.

Land OwnRshipp 4 DummYs?

Okay...so...

How big is a full sim?

Can you own bits and pieces all over SL and it adds up to a full sim (tier sure thinks so)?

Do you need to 'join parcels' if they're scattered over other sims and CAN you join parcels in different sims? How do you join parcels in the SAME sim and must they be physically bordering each other even in the same sim?

Once you own enough bits and pieces or a full sim, no matter what you paid or if you bought it off a fellow resident - can you then buy a Homestead? (Just asking)

Or do you have to buy a full sim intact and from the Linden Labs directly, to qualify as a full sim and as eligible for a homestead?

Any other tips? Such as saving tier, etc.? Good prices for a sim?

I'm looking at a patch of land just over 16,000 sq m is why I ask. But assume I need to know all this anyway. Answer what you can or what you will.

Thanks.

"How big is a full sim?"
A full sim is 64k sqm

"Can you own bits and pieces all over SL and it adds up to a full sim (tier sure thinks so)? "
While the tier can add up to that, to my knowledge LL only treats it as a full sim is you own that much land all in one piece.

You can only join parcels in the same sim, and they have to be adjacent.

"Or do you have to buy a full sim intact and from the Linden Labs directly, to qualify as a full sim and as eligible for a homestead?"
This is my understanding yes. Though you could buy the full sim from another land owner.. But it would have to be a full transfer, not renting no matter what it is called.. LL is part of the process if you really buy a sim.

Hope that helps, maybe one of those with a lot of land experience can help you with tips. I am a just a small timer.

256x256 meters = 65536 sqm



Yes



No you can't, parcels need to be in the same sim, but there is no need to join.
if you have let's say 4 parcels in one sim, all 1024sqm, not joined, then you can use in that sim 937prim, on any of those parcels.



I think this goes for estate owners only, although on the new land presentation, there were indications that might change

Every _region_ is 65536m2 or 256m wide and long. Full, openspace, homestead - all of them are this size.

A region is the 65km2 chunk of land on the grid. A sim is the sofware that simulates that land so people can go there and be laggy. Many use 'sim' when they mean 'region' and that's ok - I just make the distinction here because I'm feeling picky ATM.

For questions like sharing prims between parcels and joining/splitting parcels and stuff like that, just remember that these functions are done by the sim so anything like this that requires more than one sim (like joining parcels on two different regions) won't work.

I'm going to give my 2 cents worth on this one because people really don't talk about it much and actually make some invalid and possibly costly assumptions.

There are actually 2 ways to get your tier costs down if your total ownership is less than 1/2 sim and maybe up to a full sim:

1) Add premium accts and pay qtrly or yearly. I have a full write-up that shows at what points it is cheaper to add another premium acct rather than bumping up tier.

2) Even cheaper than adding premiums is to rent tier. Elanthius' group (something Ninja or Ninja something) is who I rent from and there probably are other groups that do this. I have a short write-up on the costs of this compared to premiums and tier also.


ETA: There is actually a lot of very good info and step-by-step instructions for land related stuff in the Wiki -- buying land, deeding it to group, joining and splitting parcels, etc.

.

Either, really; just something nice. I love water.

I've been hoping to help out someone who wanted to bail on a sim for financial reasons; but keep seeing abandoned land or overpriced parcels.

The parcel I was thinking about was 500 USD (actually a bit more) for 16,000 sq m. If it was a full sim and all then maybe...but that isn't a full sim is it.

For now I'm fine on a tiny patch of land but I just might be getting land fever...Lol. And not for profit...for beauty! I want to find and maintain land in a sim that wants to upkeep its beautiful look. I just hate seeing someone put out an eyesore - or worse, some huge thing that purposely blocks someone's land or view! I have seen a huge skinny 'mountain' in the middle of water a few times now...usually the person is trying to sell their parcel and blocking someone else's parcel that's on sale. Oughta be illegal...

ETA oh and thanks all so far and those (hopefully) to come. And:



Link plz?

L$125k for a quarter sim?

Seems.. er.. a bit steep.. Is this really, really, REALLY nice land??

Well - I had hesitation because it's mostly brown land, and a lot of the neighboring parcels have strange or junky things out. It borders water is probably the only reason. But yes it did seem steep! You can buy a whole sim for what, $750 usd? And this was over $500.

Lots of gougers out there, I find as I fly about looking at what might be available. Which can be fun but mostly is disheartening.

Just one correction to the answers you've got so far. The parcels of land that you join do have to be in the same, as was said, but they *don't* have to be adjacent.

Oh cool - that's good to know. It's hard to find land adjacent or in one big patch, for a reasonable price. Thank you.

Ummm huh? Seperate parcels on the same sim automatically add their prim allotment together. However to join the parcels, physically, to make a larger parcel, they do have to be adjacent. To make for a bigger parcel, that is. It's only the prim allotment that is automatically joined, when the parcels are in the same sim.

There aren't many reasons to actually join non-connecting parcels, and you may not want to join them (if you get some). The prim allowances of all the parcels you own in a sim are added up and you can use them on any of your parcels in the sim. Joining parcels isn't needed for that.

So what does joining parcels do?

I just know it is something most people seem to do or want to do.

To make a larger parcel, e.g. for a larger building, of course they need to be adjacent, but seperated parcels can be joined as long as they are in the same sim. They can be in opposite corners of the sim and still be joined as one parcel.

I only know of one good reason to join seperated parcels - traffic Anyone walking across a remote area will add to the main area's traffic.

That and parcel-wide settings like description, music/video, ban lists, etc..

And parcels that aren't touching can absolutely be joined as long as they're on the same region. I think the KB said differently for a long time but this topic came up here in the forums not-too-long-ago and somebody went in-world and verified that they can be joined..

Wow learn something every day! Now, I wonder how you join them, when you can't drag the edit terrain line across the property line, because they aren't adjacent?

Sindy may be thinking of the time that I found out about it here in the fourm, which wasn't too long ago. I'd seen three 16m non-adjacent parcels joined as one 48m parcel, and I thought that Lindens had some special power to do that. People put me straight about it, and I've joined seperated parcels ever since then.

You join them in the same way you join adjacent parcels - drag the yellow highlight box over part of the parcels to be joined, regardless of other people's parcels in between. The system will then join only your parcels.

You can drag the edit terrain box across as many "alien" parcels as you want between your parcels. Even if they're on opposite sides of a sim.

It freaks people out if the landing point for a parcel is a little 4x4 square 200 meters from the parcel they were trying to get to.

The differences in short:

Mainland tier: 195
Estate: 295 (except for grandfathered class 4 but forget it, almost impossible to get)

Controls on estate are more:

- restart sim
- send message to region
- set terraform limits for residents (if you parcel and sell off parts)
- always able to reclaim a sold parcel
- View top scripts to see what might cause problems
- same with view top colliders
- Up/Download RAW files for terraforming
- Bake terrain: you can make the terrain that you have the default.
- asign estate managers
- water all around cause the 8 spots directly connected to the sim are protected
- set your own terrain textures. sand, grass, rock, whatever you like, and
- play with texture height settings.

And more.

Downside: you cannot use your 512sqm tierfree on estate that you own.
No way to down tier by using group owned land and let people contribute.

So if the extra's are worth 100us for you, that's what you need to deside yourself.

Anyone else that knows differences that are important to consider, complete the list