Skyboxes: Prims or pretty?

Here’s my dilemma:

I have a parcel of land that is 5440m with 1336 prims available. I intend to put skyboxes on it and rent them out.

I can buy a 10 prim skybox that is the usual ordinary skybox and give the tenant a few more prims, or I can buy a 29-33 prim skybox that has a little more style, but would give the tenant less prims to work with. Which would you choose?

Another question – I know I can stack skyboxes from 250m to 750m, and from side to side, leaving all with a 30m clearance. But other than prims and the boundaries of my land, am I limited to the 5440m? Say, if I had a house which fits on 512m, would I be limited to 10 skyboxes so that I didn’t go over 5440? I know this is probably a lame question, but I just want to be sure

Hard to answer the question without knowing the total number of prims you have to work with.

For instance, let's say you've determined you give each skybox 100 prims including the build. In that case the extra 10 - 20 prims is a big deal.

If you are allotting something like 300 prims per skybox, then it's not as big of a difference.

As for me, I rented a skybox only when i was new. It was very basic. This was good for me because it gave me extra prims and since I hadn't learned yet how to make the most with the least prims it was helpful.

I can recommend a little house which is servicably pretty and can be further stripped down to a handy 15 prims or so. Has an opening door and plenty of windows.

I will tell you what it is called when I finally get inworld later, if you are interested, I am at work at the mo. It is Copy/Mod/No Trans and costs a whacking great 200L$.

I used one as home for a while, in fact there were two homes on a tiny plot with a garden in the middle when I was holding the land for a group ... in some ways I miss that little place ...

Thanks Cherry, I'd like to see it.

I looked at several this morning before leaving for work. One was 10 prims, and was typical - two floors, slanted board "stairs", and was "ok". Nothing to write home to mom about.

The others I looked at range from 29-33 prims and were quite stylish.

I have 1336 total prims available. I was thinking 10 skyboxes. If the skybox was 10 prims, 10 boxes would be 100, and I'd like to allocate another 100 to ground landscaping and rental boxes, leaving 1136 for tenants - a fairly comfortable 110 prims each with 36 left over for incidentals.

However, if I go with a 33 prim skybox, that changes things considerably. We're then looking at 330 for the boxes, 100 for the landscaping, 90 for the tenant, and nothing left for incidentals...pretty tight.

Hence, my dilemma. I'd definitely like to see that 15 prim box tonight

The 5440 sq m is the land area on which you can build, and not the total floor area of your builds themselves. You can have as much floor area in your builds as your prims/building skills will allow ... as long as it doesn't physically overlap onto someone else's property

I choose prims. That said, with nice texturing a 10-12 prim skybox can look quite pretty.

Great, thanks for that. I suspected that was the case, but wanted to be sure!

You can let the renter choose. It's not hard to float a skybox up, on-order. Or let them build or rez their own. When you're first getting tenants, this is a little extra work, but once everything's full of happy tenants, turnover isn't that much of a problem, so you don't have to be rezzing new houses all the time.

The way I do this myself is to have a separate group for each rental, then deed parcels to the groups as they rent out. Then prims are automatically managed by the individual group parcels, and tenants can have near-Owner abilities without being able to accidentally hurt each other. Many tenants want more prims than they can get from a 512, so they rent another one or two or six--which obviously don't all need redundant skyboxes on them, using up prims. (Hint: try to rent parcels on the periphery first, and maintain as much separation as possible to allow for combining contiguous parcels in case the tenant wants to build something bigger than 16x32m.)

Incidentally, when the new physics engine hits the main grid, the 768m ceiling will go to 1024m.

Most people that will rent something like that would likely prefer to have as many free prims as they can get for the money, so I would keep it simple.

You say your 5440m parcel has 1336 prims available. OK, then if you put ten skyboxes over it, and nothing else at all, each person gets 133 prims for their own stuff plus whatever the skybox requires. A 33-prim skybox would leave them 100 prims for their stuff.

Bear in mind that when you rent out vertically 'stacked' areas, the only way they can control access is with a security script. They can't have a parcel access list. They can't have seperate multimedia streams or streaming audio. And you can't control their prim count very well, without some sort of scripted gadget to track who is using what. SL isn't designed to take good advantage of the third dimension. The LL staff tend to think in terms of ground-dwellings, and usually fail miserably at accounting for sky builds.

You may find it much easier to simply divide the land into 512 M2 parcels and rent out the parcels, with or without a prefab or skybox on it. Then they can put whatever they like on it, at any altitude, and can control their own access and media streams easily.

i know of 2 nice skyboxes id suggest here are links to them on slexchange
http://www.slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=143560

and

http://www.slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=165817

she also has really low prim furniture sets

she did the homes and furniture sets to help people with small parcels and low prim allotment

her name is tyci kenzo if you would like to contact her directly

DOH! I didn't even think about the security and media. :/

This is island land, so I'm not sure how much I can do in terms of subdividing.

*suddenly feels like she's over her head* Anyone want to buy a 5440? lol

I agree with Qie, let the renter choose. Back when I was considering doing a rentals business my plan was to let the renters choose. Not everyone has the same tastes or the same needs. Since most houses are sold with copy perms, it would be easy to offer a choice of 3 and give the renter the option. When in doubt, always ask yourself what YOU would want and go with that.

Thanks! Those are pretty nice. I didn't see stairs though...are they there and hidden?

lol nope she used a picture and put a tp script in it to get to the loft floor or made a simple ramp she didnt like using stairs cuz it adds to many prims

I actually had thought about doing that. Offering 2-3 floor plans throughout the stack.

Is there a how to book anywhere on renting out land? LOL

Even better

We avatars with short legs really *hate* stairs. They're just embarrassing. (Phantom sculpty stairs with a hidden non-phantom ramp is prettiest and most functional--if you don't mind the stairs looking like an enormous latke for the first five minutes you're in the room. )

*looks down at the legs that come all the way up to "here"*

Never thought about that

I'm not crazy about stairs myself, really, especially those stupid round ones!

Hey Honeybear! Just a few observations about your plan here:

Skyboxes are great for retreating from the seedier side of SL. You can set them up in really bad mainland areas and it doesn't matter. So, why would you rent skyboxes on expensive island property? And does your estate owner allow that? (Sounds like you own a plot on someone else's estate)

Think about whether you should be using prims to landscape, if your tenants are up in the sky and can't even see the land. 110 prims isn't comfortable vs. 90 prims being tight. Both are tight.

Those are just some things to think about. Good luck with your business!

1) Because I can't sell the expensive island property and get even close to my money back *sigh*, and yes, already checked with the manager.

2) Not landscaping the ground level (which is two sides water, so a nice relaxing environment the tenants could use) would only mean an additional 10 prims to each tenant. I think it would go further in my plan to make the ground something they'd want to spend time in. Or am I off base?

If your tenants are living in skyboxes, then they won't be able to tell much difference between teleporting to the ground below them, or teleporting to Svarga. People pay higher prices to live on estate land because the surroundings are so nice. So usually, the skybox business model doesn't make sense on estate land.

If you're going into the rental business because you have to, and not because you love the idea of managing a property, then I would suggest you take other people's advice and let your tenants decide how they want to set up their own parcels that they rent from you. Either that, or cut your losses and sell the land. You don't want SL to become a dreaded chore. There's plenty of that in RL.

That's just my take on your dilemma. You're not wrong or off base. If the numbers work for your skybox plan, you should do it. I'm just offering you another perspective.

Actually, I appreciate that Avion, and after giving this thread a lot of thought, I think I'm just going to put the 5440m land up for sale. It's a beautiful property, corner lot with ocean on two sides, facing sunset. Hopefully, I'll get close to what I put into it, but if not, I"ll be cutting my losses.

I had to do the same a while back. Had a really nice 8192 M2 parcel, but got something better elsewhere. And couldn't get close to what I paid for it. Good luck.

I have a little 512 m plot away from my main land in another sim. I have a store on the ground and built myself a 4 prim skybox to have my own holiday home / retreat. Yes 4 prims. All the features are in the texturing. I love low prim skyboxes.