Couple of questions...

If you go to 'View' and then 'Movement Controls', it brings up a window with your various controls. Amongst those are a side-step or 'straif' set of keys, for moving from side to side. Is there a keypress on the keyboard to use these? I'm aware that you can adjust them in the code. Or at least, I've seen vehicle code use them. Can you assign these to keys somehow?

Can you make an avatar fly and perform like an airplane using only attachments? Or like a car?

Can you have a vehicle with both mouselook controls and button controls? What I'm asking is, can you have (for instance) a tank that moves forward and around using keys, but which the cannon moves around in circles using mouse look?

If the above is not possible, is it possible to be 'riding' two vehicles? Perhaps have the 'cannon' part a second 'vehicle', of sorts? How might you accomplish this?

Can you have multiple pilots for a single vehicle? Each controlling some different aspect? (Whatever those aspects might be. Just want to know if it's possible)

What is up with joints? Anytime I make them one or the other peice (or me) ends up flying off into an adjacent sim.

How do you add or adjust a pose in an object? I took the free 'Hoverboard' offered by the Lindens and stripped it of everything but the seat, which I then rode around for awhile. It still had the squatting pose, the arm-waving pose you do when you jump and the 'backflip' pose you do as a trifck when airborn. But these aren't in the contents. I don't know how you set this. I see them referenced in the code, but I don't have these poses (animations?) in my inventory, so I don't know what's causing them or how to add them.

I'm sure I'll have more questions, or follow-ups. I'm still abit new, but there are things I want to do. I'm in the concept stages still. I'll figure out what's possible or how to execute them after I figure out some things first.

Thanks in advance for any help or answers!

These answers are incomplete but hopefully better than nothing.

Hold shift and use the arrow keys to strafe.

Short answer: yes, but it's very difficult. You might try making the turret an attachment to your avatar. You might not be able to move in one direction and aim in another since you would have to be in mouselook to aim. This is obviously an imperfect solution, but easy.

The hoverboard uses universal default animations that can be referenced by name even if they aren't in the object's inventory. Search the scripting forums for one of the many poseball scripts for in-depth information about adding poses to objects.

Yes this is possible, but not easily coded. It's best to ask anybody who makes mouselook craft on how to do this.

No, actually, mouselook turning is downright simplistic. Just set the flag:

VEHICLE_FLAG_MOUSELOOK_STEER

And it will attempt to turn to the mouselook direction.

I was aware of how Mouselook worked. But I still am not certain if you can use both. Is it possible to be controlling a vehicle you are not 'sitting' in, and have it follow the mouse that way? Basically, a way to create the tank/turret combo I mentioned above. I'm not building a tank, but the principle is the same and best expressed this way.

Thanks for the answers so far. I still have afew more, which I think I'll just tag in here:

How can you tell the mass of your avatar? And of an object? I'm aware that attachments do not count towards your avatar's mass; please correct me if I am wrong on this fact.

When you sit on a vehicle, does that add to it's mass and effect the way physics work?