Colonization of SL Space

Heh, it would take too many prims, but it would be neat to put up a space background cube around a sim really high up.



Maybe in a future update the lindens can make it so that the really high up air alters the sky to be stars, so that all you have to do is fly up high to be in space, without leaving a sim.

One way to get objects into the sky; start with an object on the ground, then move it up to the desired height. that can be your base as you create objects on top of it.
Check out Olive for some kewl builds in the sky!

10k? FEH! FEH I SAY! I once spent a half an hour getting to 1,500,000 meters >=). Darwin has been to.. what? 3mil?

Also, the autorezzers above 768m are a myth. Any object that is rezzed by a box or that is moved or setposes, automatically comes back down tro 768. Objects bay be rezzed from the inventory up there, though.

Yeah, 3mil.

I think the highest I've been is around 74000 meters, and that only took a second. It was a demonstration of a very clever use of SL's pysics.

How do you make an elevator that goes up this high quickly and reliably?

I've been working on one that shoots you up to 210m and catches you there (most of the time ), but I'm curious to know how others have done it. It's still work in progress, but you can try it out at my land on the N,W corner of Tehema.

I tried with llSetPos, but it could only move 10m at a time, so with a loop you got a jerky elevator that can't go above 512m.
And with physics, things tend to be a little unreliable, like my current one. Or you tend to loose the elevator itself because the physics freak out.

I tried all three approaches I found posted in a thread on the scripting forum. They work fine for short eleavators, but not when you want a fast elevator that will take you up to 400m or more in a few seconds.

Little

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Checked out the space elevator in Gray. It's very cool, though it takes quite a while to get up to 700m. I fell of it at 500m and didn't find a way to call it back to the ground. Or maybe I just didn't have the patience to wait for it.

Little

Well getting up that high depends on how high you want to go.


I think the prim ceiling is around 750 meters up, and the flight limit is around 200 meters up.

What that means is that if you want to fly using normal means, you can fly up to 200 meters. Or you can sit on a prim, and alter it's altitude (z coordinate) to whatever you want, to be shot up.


To make an elevator go that high you could either use llSetPos and require people to sit down on it, or use physics.


There are a LOT of physical options. You can use llSetForce() to set a constant force on the elevator, and it'll keep going up untill it reaches the de-rez point.

For making Elevators I like llSetHoverHeight() since it's the easiest to use, and creates the least short term lag.



To go above the prim boundary you need to create a scripted prim and attach it to yourself. An avatar can go up as far as they want.

If you want to try that, you can just create a script like,


on_rez()
{
llSetForce(<0,0,50000>, FALSE);
}

and stick it on a prim, then attach it to yourself.

Space Elevator

Yeah, it's a work in progress. We've never gotten the call relays in place, so it tends to get taken up and left at high altitudes.

It uses llMoveToTarget, stepping in increments to move long distances. The speed of the elevator is a compromise that allows someone to ride it up while standing, and not get tossed too high when it comes to a stop. It is capable of going a lot faster but if you don't sit down the ride is like getting shot out of a cannon!

During testing with this method, you could ride it sitting or standing, and it went from the ground to 4000 meters up in about a minute.

Various people have experimented with using llPushObject to create lift tubes. The recent changes in how llPushObject works has made calibrating the tubes (and presumably bringing avs to a halt) harder, though. My lift tubes require one prim for every five meters of height, but I suspect that could be changed without too much trouble.

I had an elevator for a short time that used a llMoveToTarget loop... a little tinkering with the settings can produce a super fast, super smooth elevator that rides to any height. I had mine set to a speed that went up about 650 meters in a matter of about 5-6 seconds. It used a series of decorative ring lights placed every 50 meters to send call messages back and forth so that people on the ground could call the elevator when it was at the top. It required sitting, but that was only due to the speed. As Ananda mentioned, standing on a high speed elevator tends to have a launching effect.

As an alternative I wouldn't mind increasing the power on my Big Cannon to shoot you into space.

Just a suggestion for the space elevator. Couldn't the call relay be a physical object that get's shot up, shouting "third" or "first" repeatedly on some obscure channel. It then dies after about 8 seconds.

Would save you having to put prims every 50m to relay a message. You could even shoot it so that it hits the elevator and stops there (like the bow and arrows). Also, make sure you let people know that the elevator will take a while, so they don't stand there hammering the button thinking it isn't working.

Anyways, I posted a script on the high altitude elevator thread over in the scripting forum. It's more of a space catapult, than an elevator, but it works fine none the less. Of course, it's totally one way.

Little