Sailing around the SL world

I recently got a 42 foot Trudeau sail boat (with real sailing physics that uses SL wind) and am attempting to travel around the entire coast of the new continent. No, not in one sitting.

I have discovered that lots of people have up security grids that extend out far into the water. I have always been confused and annoyoed by the security that can be aggressive, but it raises the question. Why? What are we protecting? I can understand if someone wanst privacy and turns on a security field but if no one is home, what's the problem? Are they hiding secrets or just being selfish. Some of these actually have launched me out of my boat and across a sim. Some just block the water.

On a side note, I'm almost done my journey. It seems to be possible to sail all the way. I had to sail inland a few sims following rivers and waterways when I reached the delta regsions of the SE corner of the new continent because of some buildings in my way.

Overall is really fun and I meet nice people who join me for a while. I also have seen wonderful builds.

did you take any pictures? Would love to see some pictures of your trip

Catt

Sadly, I have a slow computer and bad GFX card so they aren't that good. But, I'll post them anyway. I have seen 5 different lighthouses, lots of SL wildlife like birds, dolphins, and whales of all sorts. Many waterfalls rushing into the sea as well as unique builds. My favorite thing to do in SL is explore.

First off, congrats on your trip. You must share the pictures with us sometime.

Second, I would like to hear more about the road blocks you encountered. Are you talking about:
a - parcels with restricted access (typically displays a bunch of red lines around the parcel
b- no outside scripts settings on parcels which may interfere with scripted objects such as vehicles
c- builds that extend so far out into the water that they block passage completely.
d- empty squares where sims should have been but never came to be. (as of yet that is)

It would help to hear which ones of these possible barriers you encountered the most.

Perhaps we can brianstorm what can be done to allow more passage. I for one have not thought about whether or not I should divide my waterside parcel into two sections, the water side with more privileges, and the land side where I build with less privileges for example.

One thing I am not willing to change though is banning outside scripts. There have been too many instances of sniffer objects owned by others creating more of themselves in the sky way above our lots. The sure way to kill them I was told was to disallow outside scripts on my lots. Is that still correct? And does banning outside scripts really mess up vehicle operations? Perhaps old timers can shed some light?

Troy

Thanks Troy.

I actually ran into some folks who built out into the ocean and prevented any passage. Ironically, while I'd love to have an open way, I don't blame the builders. You buy land and build what you want on it, I'm ok with that. Maybe the Lindens should have protected land on the edges.

But I mostly ran into the red grid, fence like barriers. I guess that's my biggest beef. I don't know much about scripting or how that can be a problem, but I guess that's a legitimate problem. However, I thought there were safeguards on that stuff that wouldn't prevent folks from passing through land. Perhaps I'm wrong.

Thanks for the insight!

On a side note, the huge majority of people and land I passed where nice. Folks seem to make items that they want seen. SL, in many ways, is a huge canvas and I am a visitor in a museum.

Heather this is a problem that was complained about in the past and its still an issue!
When sims are added with Linden waterway that snake around private lots and then members block passage with their builds on private lots it really does impair boat travel.

I found the same happens with planes and other flying machines. Just try to fly across sims to explore...you will encounter overly aggressive push scripts that read beyond the red line ban lines on a property. Many of these scripts will throw you right out of the airplane or flying maching while leaving your plane stuck above the build. You cant even retreive your plane!

I dont know why overly aggressive "security scripts" are still allowed. If I were to stand on the roof of my build and shoot passersby with a weapon having a very aggresive push script that pushed them away I would be subject to punishment for violation of the TOS.

Is there really a difference when I use an unattended security script to do the same act? There should not be.

SL cant be a place where you can fly all over to explore in planes or balloons, or sail on waterways, or drive on roads in cars, until this problem is addressed.

Maybe poor old Michael is just too swamped by tons of abuse reports now to worry about these issues, but overly aggressive security scripts really need to be addressed, especially now that SL is an even more insular experience because of P2P. Interaction and exploration must be encouraged!

Congratulations on your "Voyage of Discovery"!

I'm actually amazed you could even make it even a fraction of the way around the mainland's edge like that. I would have expected lots of builds that have land, buildings or docks that go right to the edge of the sim, and lots more privacy barriers...

I know the overhead for setting it up would be insanely prohibitive, but personally, I would love to see a one-sim 'international waters' buffer surrounding all the mainland sims, and as many of the non-private islands as it at all practical. I live on the edge of my sim, and my home is on group land that is terraformed to be very close to the water line. There's a lovely 'void sim' to my North that looks like open water, but because there really isn't a sim there, you'd be hard-pressed to even wade along the waters edge in front of my home. Using a boat of any size would be impossible.

I agree that scripted security that violently pushes you away, without even a warning, are very bad things. I don't mind the idea of people keeping their land private, but a 'buffer area' where you get a warning would sure be nice. I think the main problem is that such security scripts virtually always follow the property lines exactly. There is no well-known way to specify a set-back or to protect just a defined subset of your property.

Wow Heather, what a great idea. I have the same boat and never thought about sailing it around like you did. Congrats.

I know what you mean about the blocked waterways. I have experienced the same thing on the little lake I live on. The one that gets me the most upset are the ones that just throw you out of the boat with almsot no warning. I have one like that. Landed up having to TP back to my house because I could no get out. Then I flew back around the property to get my boat back.

Like you, I can understand wanting to protect an individuals property, but not out into open water. There has to be some comprise that would offer protection and keep the water ways free.

Can't wait to see the pictures.

Congratulations, fellow Starboard Yacht Club member, on your explorations and your spirit. I see that you live by the guidelines included in my oft quoted line:

"Years from now you will be more disappointed
by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bow lines. Sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the tradewinds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
-- Mark Twain

Perhaps when you finish your exploration of the new continent you might do some island hopping and bring your vessel to Hollywood, the most popular sailboat racing venue in SL.

We could arrange a special confetti parade for your vessel in between races on a Sunday.

Talking about the ocean, is there anything in the bottom of the sl sea? One thing I'd love to do in here is to dive in scuba gear or a small submarine and see all sorts of sealife. Is this possible somewhere in sl?

I'd love if LL would put a one void-sim wide border around the periphery of the mainland. They could just name them something like "Ocean 1, Ocean 2, etc."

I currently have land in Gray that's waterside, but I can't really sail anywhere because the water doesn't stretch very far. If they had "ocean" void sims, I'd be able to sail from Gray all the way around the "world"

Anyway, just a little pipe dream of mine.

Kendra Bancroft and I were acompanied by Aimee Weber in a journey around the new continent, we got pretty much all the way around it untill we hit the bottom where it becomes all those shallow little canals then we got stuck. A border of ocean sims would be nice, I would guess they could run many void ocean sims on one server they wouldnt get much traffic. It would be really cool.

It was pretty fun anyway. I think there is a snapzilla of it.

It was a three hour tour ...

A THREE HOUR TOUR!!!!

(then the weather started getting rough...)

I ran into the same problem, I live in Brauni which is on the bottom of the northern continent, so trying to get around it, or getting to the southern continent is often hindered by peoples security, unfortunately.

And yes, it's a loooooooooong trip. Good for when you're bored and feel like exploring.

HEHEHE. Indeed! And it all came crashing on shore in Hollywood sim.

After reading this thread, I decided to give this a try. All in all, so far it's been a wonderful, relaxing experience with the occassional mishap from some security system or someone building out into the water. We need an SL Navy to do Freedom of Navigation operations to ensure that SL boaters can sail unimpeded!

ME FOR PRESIDENT!

I have found that most folks are really nice and their builds are open to everyone. I have met lots of really fun people who join me for awhile. The positives far outweigh the negatives and I will try to sail around the "Old World" next.

The perfect analogy for this trip is a little fishing hut I saw today. No store, no big prim value and no one would make a trip to see it, but it was cute and had character. Multiply that by 1000.

Just to add my 2L on this.

At one time I actually had a house udnerwater. The roof was at the water level like a big deck. and yes I had the red bars on. But they ended right at the water line. Only really protected the house.

As for why have them. I got very tired of coming home and finding complete strangers getting their yayas in my bed and getting rude with me for asking them to leave.

Locking doors did not solve the problem...they just sat on a prim and moved themselves inside via edit.

I do appreciate peoples feelings about blocked passages but I also see the landowners point of view as well.