No Build Heights?

With our new wonderfull 4096 build limit, should we be considering how we control skyboxes etc for aircraft?
So much stuff is at 700m-800m already so that should be left for building, 4000m-4096m, should also be for building I guess.
I think perhaps we should leave a corridor between 1000m and 2000m and maybe one between 3000 & 4000.
Or should we just have 2 bands of bulding between 700m & 2000m and another between 3000m & 4096m? Or just 700m-4100m as building zone, aircraft can go higher or lower
I'm just saying as a general guide for larger projects and estates or to hint to people.
I'm thinking we should voulantarily gradually be removing anything below 700m unless it need so be seen from the ground.
Just a poll to get some ideas I guess if there is a feeling, all boxes are enabled so just tick any or all of the ones you think we should build at.
Should we put Residential and commercial at different heights?

I'm a little unclear on the concept here. If flying above cloud layer, what's the difference whether the altitude is 500m or 5000m? Everything above 4096 is (almost) completely clear anyway, so why reserve a band below that?

One thing: I used to just reserve everything between ground level and well above the cloud layer, except for structures actually planted directly on the ground, on the premise that this would keep sky builds more or less invisible from the ground. But ever since I got some higher elevation land where the clouds come very close to the ground, I've kept sky builds much higher. So I've revised my thinking, and am inclined to agree that the minimum altitude for responsible sky builds probably should be 700 or so, especially now that there's all that height to use.

Maybe there's no point in reserving empty bands at all, I'm sorta of just thinking out loud that there's a lot of space up there now, as well as more privacy we needed, we now have 4 times as much space to build chaotically, there's also going to be a lot of commercial landmarks in the sky that end up redundant, so falling from 1000m-4000m after TP is going to become common.
Previously I would just wait for the splat and see what was at ground level, but from 4000m it's quicker to put on a jetpack or TP out.
There's already heaps of stuff above the clouds up to 768m anyway that may never move, so no point worrying about it. And most people had put their skyboxes above 500m anyway for privacy.
Barring mountain peaks etc how high above sea level are mainland building sims, where I am is 110m.

As one newly interested in flying aircraft, I've found anything above 200 meters just about useless. You can barely see through the cloud layer to the ground. Above that you may as well TP, if you're flying for sight seeing that is. Arial combat and role play may be a diferent matter.

No prims including airplanes above 4096.

Dead wrong. You can't REZ a prim above 4096, but you can certainly rez it lower and fly above that height.

Agreed, and for that reason reserving a specific altitude band for aircraft travel is pointless. The only altitudes where it might make sense are all lower than 512 Meters. which is already cluttered with sky builds. If you did it at all, I'd choose 768 to 1000 Meters - just above what is already heavily built up. But you can't see the ground from up there, so why bother?

Can't support this idea. Sorry.

No, you can't. I've tried it. You can't move a prim above 4096m, and you can't sit on it and move it above that. The only prims you'll find above 4096m are the ones you're wearing.

edit: so yes, you can fly wearing your prims above that, but it's the only way you're getting them there.

My sky platform is at 600m, that's where I set it when the build limit was 768m.
I use it to build stuff and it also has the Egotherapy Club suspended beneath it.

My main home and shop is on the ground. I haven't moved the sky structure up higher because it's easy to jetpack up to and it's not normally visible from the ground.

If I go to a sandbox to build or to set up another of my sky things, I usually do so over 3000m.

In the last week or two, someone has built a huge black skybox almost next to my platform at the same height. I'd rather it wasn't there but I'm not in a hurry to move everything up.

My bad. I think Ceera may be right and I'll check tonight. Ceera was only responding to being able to fly above 4096.

As usual, you're right: I just tested. For some reason I thought a physical craft could go much higher, but they seem to go off-world right at 4096. Is it my imagination that, back when the build ceiling was 768, we could still fly planes much higher than that? (Hmmm... but I vaguely recall something about off-world at about 2Km back then.)

I did a rather infamous experiment when I first started scripting. I put an airplane script into a house and it exploded over a few sims when I hit 4096 meters. Thought maybe per Ceera post that the limit had changed. Maybe as a worn object like Ghosty was suggesting?
Guess I'll hit the airport tonight

Sure, you can wear what you like over 4096m ... though I've heard that at extreme altitudes prims start behaving bizarre.

I've wanted to get into a system-clothes only suit and see just how high I can get. I have a flight-feather, and another script that moves me at around 70m/sec once I get some decent altitude. An overnight flight with a penny roll on the page-up key might bring some things to light

not this discussion again...

sit on crafts/vehicles counts towards the parcel`s prim limit
people don`t pay for their land so others can use it, if they keep a prim reserve for passing vehicles then great but enforcing a no build limit+prim usage is absolutly out of the question unless they finally remove those prims from the prim count

not for it or against it and looking at it from all land owners view

personally i wouldn`t care if people used my free prims to tour around if i wasn`t on my own island, but you also must admit that there are a crapload of vehicles that have follow prims, i had a guy trying to pass my land with a spaceship made out of +1300 prims once, needless to say i used the land tools to return his crap and he came crashing down hard heh

no prim count and i doubt many would resist and if people cleaned up their abandoned crap afterwards...

When I hit someones ban lines or no object entry while flying and get kicked from my vehicle, I'm not about to go searching the sim from 0-4096m looking for it to take it back, if it stays stuck in their boundry bad luck, that's what 3 minute autoreturn is for. If people would put Auto return on we wouldn't have vehicles hanging in the sky for 2 years because the landowner doesn't login.
There was no talk of enforcement by the way, just voulantary guidelines we impose on ourselves or really just a discussion on the subject.

I have a huge structure at around 3700 meters, but if you hit it you have to be blind. It has navigation beacons blinking on the structure, and also shoots a partical ball upwards every couple of seconds.

There is a heliport on the roof if you need to land

Well, things appear to have changed then. I just tried to fly my FairChang Mopheus helicopter past 4096. It vanished off-world when it hit 4096, returned to my inventory in Lost and Found, and I was left standing in mid-air at 4102 M up...

But the griefers and some experimental builders used to be able to use various tricks to push primwork well above the normal build limits. I recall one claim of a skybox at 10,000 meters. So something has changed.

Hmm wonder what the use is of having an infinatw sky if we can't fly up there? this means we should have a flying but no building band aomewhere.

For as long as I've been a member of SL, I don't recall ever being able to fly an aircraft above 4096m. I haven't tested that with every release, but I really doubt that's anything that changed.

With the build limit extended to 4096, I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I think it's cool that land owners (which includes myself) will be able to easily build tall/very high structures. On the other hand, as a flyer, I don't like the thought that once guaranteed clear airways may now be cluttered with people's stuff.

High altitude flying may be boring to some since there's no scenery to look at, but I like it. I can take off from my skyport, get up over 1000m and have clear sailing to Abbotts, Bay City, or where ever (well I used to, we'll see how the future holds). It's using the map to navigate your way somewhere without having to worry about running into something (it's not about the scenery, it's about the navigation). It doesn't take long, really. Get near, descend and either land or fly around a bit and fly back. It's like a cross-country flight but much quicker.

Of coarse, I like low altitude flying (and looking at the pretty scenery) as well.

--Hugsy

With a whole 4000+ of air space to work in you'd have thought a layer of that space might have been reserved for aircraft to move freely in. So there's a load of residents who've never travelled any other way than by teleport and probably don't get the point. But there's are a bunch of people like me who think flying/sailing/driving/walking is all part of SL. I can get in a sailing boat and sail all the way from Corsica to lower Nautilus without too much trouble (I do it regularly). I can drive all over the Old Continent , no problem at all (I do that regularly). I can walk and cycle anywhere. Try flying though and you won't go too far before you crash into someones ban lines...no warnings..no alarms..just 'object returned to your inventory'.

How about a layer up there at the top where we can fly up to, fly across and drop down. It's not about the view it's about going from A to B in an interesting/conventional/romantic way unimpeded by someones selfish restrictions.

Here's a thought..Bay City has an Air Ship docking tower..when was the last time you saw an air ship dock there..never. Wouldn't it be great if you could actually fly across the Old Continent in an air ship...setting off from one side, landing on the other. It may not be the quickest or most efficient method of travel, but it would be fun and make SL that much more interesting.

There endeth Perre's latest rant..

ok, my mistake there, as every time the subject came on it ended up there so might have jumped a conclusion to fast instead of reading it again

"Cluttered with people's stuff"?

You mean "people's stuff on land they're paying for"? What an horrible uncaring thing for them to do .

There are literally hundreds of "vehicle friendly" sims, it's not like there's a shortage of places to fly/sail/etc on/through.

Right, but we're talking about something like "guidelines for the considerate builder" here. For example, there's always been and will always be the Mainland problem of stuff hovering inexplicably below the clouds but unattached to virtual terra firma. Nobody really wants to consider a *ban* for such things, but considerate builders just don't do that.

And now that we know objects (other than attachments) just can't exist above the build ceiling, I'm seeing where there would be value to voluntarily reserving a band for "deep space" travel above the cloud layer, as a "builders' best practice" of sorts.

I'm guessing that lots of folks have already populated that band between 4000 and 4096. I'm thinking that everywhere between clouds and 768 is hopelessly cluttered (although I'm personally avoiding putting new builds there now). To have much utility, I'd suppose the band would need to be at least 500m or 1km deep, for whatever aerial acrobatics fliers would want, so... maybe 2500 to 3500?

Just my luck, of course: I've been sticking builds in that band just because it seemed the least likely to get crowded... and I had to go that high to escape the "aim" (ahem) of a neighboring adfarmer's particle spew. But it's certainly easy enough to move, and if I guessed correctly that this is the least popular building band, that would make it a good choice for the "free-fly zone."

Personally, if anything were to be left "open" for air traffic, I would say it should be something from just above to just below the cloud layer. Most people do NOT try to build a skybox at the same height as the original SL clouds, because the particle clouds would go through the walls, cause problems seeing, selecting and clicking on things, and cause lag in the skybox. And a lot of sims ban free-floating builds lower than 300 Meters, to reduce visual clutter in the sky that can be seen from the ground.

So perhaps a space between 150 and 300 Meters altitude could be reserved, with the caveat that a building that actually touches the ground can still intrude into that space? That way the few sims that push terrain right into the clouds remain usable, and a skyscraper could still be built. Aircraft would just need to fly around those, but they would be pretty hard to miss.

The issue of sat-on vehicles counting against parcel prim counts as they pass through is still a show-stopper though. If I have to pay money each month for X number of prims, why should I have to reserve 32 x however many vehicles at once worth of prims from my allocation, just to ensure that some stranger can fly over my parcel unimpeded? For example, to be sure that up to five 32-prim vehicles could cross my land's airspace at once at any given time, I would have to refrain from using 160 prims out of my prim allocation. Who should pay for that? If LL wants to be aircraft-friendly, they should find some way to ensure that vehicles crossing someone else's land have NO impact on parcel prim counts.

I agree that we should clear out buildings from about cloud level to the ground. That would make both the land prettier and easier for vehicles to fly around. I really don't think you can really 'clutter' the sky now with all the space available to build. It's HUGE! We only have a limited amount of prims to use and even if you were to try building a house on the ground and three houses in the sky (doubt if you'd have the prims) it would still leave a couple thousand feet of space between builds. It's like taking ten oranges out of a small box and putting them inside your living room. There's no way you can use those oranges to make your living room seem cluttered.