Rate SL vehicle performance.

I cant enjoy SL vehicles at all and wish I could. How would you rate the use of them?

Fast cars (that means all of the one I tried, sadly) are too hard to use with the framerate and lag.
But slow ones are nice sometime (real slow, just a bit faster than running).

All in all, not very enjoyable for me.

Mostly poor. But I do have to say the bicycles made for Olde London are great for riding around sight seeing....especially in the new sims.

Most car's, motorcycles, and planes are more of a hastle to use because if the sim borders don't crash you then you get dumped somewhere for no reason.

One thing I really loved was Hank's hot air balloons but since float has been borked they don't even fly.

I had trouble manuevering my mobile home and that monster crawled.

Unfortunately as of now, SL vehicles are an exercise in frustration. I have a highend system with a smoking video card, so I don't normally experience crippling slowdown even in packed sims.

But between sinking into the road surface (or water..or ground), freezing at sim borders, slow rezzing obstructions and choppy or sluggish controls, vehicles are mostly frustration, with a few bright and gleeful moments tossed in here and there.

A wide open sim can still be fun for cruising, and some aircraft can be a bit of a kick, between freakouts.

But overall, vehicle movement and control just don't work well in SL.

One of the things I have learned so far in making vehicles is to know the faults that inhibit them.

People worry about lag in vehicles and rightly so as they are in essence moot when our avatars can fly.

But, a well textured and well scripted vehicle is sometimes very fun to fly and or drive.

Recently I posted Pictures in the gallery of my new Hornet. I am still working to tweak things before I get it out for sale but a good vehicle is worth the wait and patience to drive or fly.

So some advice when using vehicles...

1 dont scream at Mach 10 across a sim border at 5 meters off the ground in a jet you will get the dive into the ground effect as the newsim has to catch up and load all aspects of the Jet. Same goes for Hover bikes cars etc.

2. when you go into a crash or dive dont panic let off the throttle a little bit and let it recover. Sims are dynamic in this and if you are attentive you can recover and continue to travel with a modicum of fun.

3. environment..if you know you are going to a sim that will lag your avatar walking then a vehicle is even more omnious when trying to use it in that sim.

4. If your having major lag issues in vehicles look for vehicles with simplistic scripts. That Bling Bling Car of your dreams may be the lag night mare of your SL. In essence vehicles are tuned to the system you are running. If you have trouble with getting shiney or specific textures to rez quickly then the vehicle wont lag you but the entrance into the sim that your vehicle is going in may as it has to calibrate and rez all those images.

5. If you want to fly...fly High. Our avatars have a cieling limit that they can fly at. Using a plane or jet pack to go higher is a much more rewarding experience. At higher altitudes you can on occasion bypass the need to rez as your craft will be at a point that detailed images are next to nill and allows you to fly with greater speed.

6. But last of all know your route you plan to take. Know the sim dynamics on that route whether its a laggy sim or pretty much an open one.

I think this may need to be a feature suggestion latter down the road but a sim vehicle broadcast may be in order.
For example in the future have it so that the sim that your in has your vehicle data and the 8 surrounding sims get a vehicle broadcast letting it know that there is a possiblity that this vehicle may traverse that sim soon.
Thus allowing that sim to pull that data and have it on stand by if you fly into it.
In a sense this would allow for smoother sim crossings and could be used as a "Radar" for a craft.
If the surrounding sims would send a report back to the vehicle of its "Lag" quotient that may allow the pilot to redirect their flight path to avoid lag.
But this is something that is not currently available as there are no LSL functions to allow for precaching of a vehicle that may be enroute.
Yes we can detect sim borders but the other cannot be done currently.
Another useful feature would be truly making Airports and being able to manage air traffic.

Anyway I digress and I still love vehicle travel..

Shadow

I find ground vehicles to be unmanageable. Flying vehicles can sometimes work (Cubey's hot air balloon is a favorite), but I actually have the most luck with boats. I've got an Airboat (has a big fan in back, like you might see in the Florida Everglades) that performs pretty well, even crossing sim borders. I've also got a sailboat (a Privateer I think it's called...got it at Busy Ben's) that Ingrid clued me in to that works really well, although its tall mast makes most bridges impassable.

I love the hot air balloon! I've been running balloon tours out of the Waterhead welcome area the last couple of nights. Usually its fun, but too often sim crossings are hit or miss with people getting tossed out of the balloon, or the balloon failing to rez properly on the other side, or worse. That and those $%^$%^ security scripts that throw you 5 sims away make for less fun flying. Not that I'll let that stop me.

-Ghoti

Fly one of Cubey's planes, everyday....

Also Enjoy Flyte's 4 in one vehicle as well....

and also enjoy Shiryu's cars, seem to handle the sim crossing and lag really well..

But depends on the day, somedays I can cross the world no issues at all, other days can't make more then 3 without falling to the ground and having to reboot..

I have to say that I’ve been testing Shadow’s jet, and that it’s been the most reliable of all the vehicles I’ve tried so far in Second Life – and there have been many. I would be very surprised if there weren’t some real innovations in the engine scripts for these planes.

However, I also think that there is a lot to be said for pilot experience. As Shadow pointed out, there are techniques that help you cross the sim borders, or deal with other types of turbulence. You learn to fly a bit higher, and with a certain rhythm that let’s you help the sim transfer you across to the new server. You learn to tell by glancing at the large map what various grouping of little dots might signify about lag. Or what it means when you see a big dark blob on the map and all the little avatar markers have the crossbar at the top. You learn not to fly through Waterhead (or whatever the current Welcome Center is). And you learn no to assume that a clear line of sight at a low altitude means you aren’t about to spear someone’s highrise.

Perhaps the day is coming when we need to provide some pilot training. Perhaps a certificate that shows you’ve been trained, which you can present to the creators of some of the higher performance aircraft to show you’re ready for the challenge. Or maybe we should consider forming a consortium of certified pilots for transporting passengers – perhaps based out of Gray?

As far as I am concerned, the vehicles are pretty to look at and park in our yards.

There, YES ThereInc, spoiled me as far as vehicles go. Sad, huh?

The higher I fly the more enjoyable the ride. My F-35 is a dream. My 'benz looks nice but as with most vehicles it sinks too often. My ships are OK but I have to be careful. If I propel myself too quickly into a new sim, all goes haywire. If I slow down and creep in long enough to let the new server and script catch up with each other it is OK.

My biggest gripe is that I bought a plane for skydiving that seats 10 and if I have more than 3 in the thing, the rest of the people fall out before we get to the drop zone. Great plane, great design but in practice it is not truly feasible for ten people.

You know Kathy thats actually a great Idea..

Grey huh??

No, vehicles don't have the snappy performance you'd expect from a dedicated racing game or a flight simulator. But with a little planning ahead, they can still be an enjoyable way to travel.

Along with the excellent tips mentioned earlier in this thread, I'll add this one: don't drive or fly across the corners of sims. When you cross a sim border, one server has to hand you and your vehicle to the other server, which doesn't always happen smoothly when you're zipping along. At a corner, you are potentially interacting with four servers at the same time, and updates are bound to be slower. I always try to fly across the middle of a boundary between two sims to avoid this problem.

Currently I find them too frustrating to use, but to put things in perspective, the grid is young and I suspect they'll improve over time. The first RL cars and planes didn't work very well either.

I only have problems with cars, falling through the ground, getting stuck on things you cant see, etc. I do enjoy going around the new continent and ocean sims in my submarine (complete with conning tower and interior) Or screaming over the continent in my Terran Wraith, but once somethign funny happened with lag.

Im flying full speed over the new continent, doing loops and other maneuvers just above the clouds or right above the treeline, it is right above the treeline I cross a sim, the wraith all of a sudden just starts falling, it hits the trees, but goes back to where I was, still at full speed when it finishes I regain control, I didnt notice though that in my.. confusion.. of simcrossing lag, I point the nose downward and crash into a clearing right next to two wackos running them sex anims upon each other in the middle of the woods.

AND THEY THOUGHT NO ONE WOULD NOTICE THEM "DOING IT" IN A PG SIM, NO ONE WITHIN 2 SIMS OF THEM!!

Where's the option for "love how they plow into the ground while going uphill"?

~Ulrika~

for me vehicles are awesome as long as i never ever cross a sim border. that's the only time they suck. but that's when they suck hard.

I've had a splendid time sailing in my boat (orig. christened 'Last Call', I think, beautifully built by Germaine LaFollette, thank you!) It's nippy enough, but very easy to handle. I haven't been able to get a car ten feet without crashing, so I was not very enthusiastic about vehicles, but one trip in this boat and I was hooked. And it is such a cool way to see all the waterfront builds.

I haven't had any issues with sim crossing, except the dreaded corner crossing, and that happens if you're on foot. So far I've avoided sailing off the edge of the world, I hear that can be pretty unnerving!

The only issue is having to get out when you can't fit under a bridge, or those large blue squares with no water in them <grin>.

So hurrah for boats, and water sims!

I designed a ground-based vehicle once. I think I can shed a little light onto why so many of them are... difficult.

Do this. Take a chair (or a table, a table's good), make sure it's a chair without wheels, and if it's the traditional four-legs-on-the-floor chair, even better. Carry it outside and set it on slightly uneven ground. Now push it around. Push it here, push it there, push it everywhere, push it up a hill, push it over rocks and grass and dirt, and see what happens. No picking it up, you're not allowed to pick it up, though if (for some inexplicable reason) you get frustrated, you can put some kind of lubricant on the bottom of the legs. No wheels, though. Wheels can spin, you see, and roll over things, and you can't do that. You don't move around with wheels in this little game, and it goes without saying that you have no shock absorbers. You push things.

Okay. Now do that AT MACH SPEED.

<<<LOL thats why I make Hover Bikes/Jets/Helo's and Subs..

Shadow

Hello Pol, I made the Privateer and had your same problem. Have you tried to touch the rudder bar and fly over them?
I found bridges to be really annoying, but didn't want to change the design cutting the mast cause on a sailboat, it should have to be much longer than the hull. So I added the flight feature... mostly to pass bridges.

Flying vehicles are the most reliable tho. About border crossing, doing it slowly and decisely gives you some more chance. And we definitely need Hav... HAVO... I can't neither spell the word.

Boats and hot air balloons for me! I like both because they are easier to navigate. I have Ale's classy looking privateer sailboat... love it. And Cubey's hot air balloon that seats 8 people.

Here are my favorites:

Overall Design: Barracuda A3, Cubey's Orca, Vancouver, Biplane, and L-18 (the last three being beautiful classic designs)

Flight: R-Type RA-3 Hammerhead (lockable variable speed passenger hovership with afterburners and mouselook pitch/yaw)

Ground: Shiryu's Supra (bar none)

Water: Francis' Jetski, mostly for the water spray and the fact I can lounge on it. (The Privateer is a pretty kickass sailboat, too)

Submarine: Cubey's Dolphin is stupidly fun. I've used the booster to clear the dam at Sutherland, and it's funny to shoot out of the water and land next to somebody on the land with the engines still spraying water.

Jillian's NOTOR helicopter holds a special place in my heart for being my first vehicle which I used for my first night of exploration in SL... especially since I could afford it as a newbie.

By the way, are there any mouselook cars/ground vehicles on the market someplace?

Hee hee. Yeah I did this in testing. I managed to boost all over the (then) empty snow sims.

Hey, maybe the new sims would be good for that!