Communication repeaters/relays

Greetings,

I am a fairly new SecondLifer that is slowly but surely becoming a full-fledged addict. Even when I'm not in SecondLife, I'm thinking about SecondLife. (sound familiar?) IRL, I am a software developer so the scripting in SL is almost second nature.

I would like to know what techniques there are to increasing the communication distance between objects to beyond 100m (llShout()). I have read about llEmail(), but I do not like the fact that you must check the queue by calling llGetNextEmail() in order for the email() event to be called.

I have thought about creating an intelligent mesh network inside of SL that is capable of using movable objects or agents to act as relay points to increase the communication distance on specific channels.

Of course, tons of problems arise from a system like this - discovery overhead, message duplications, route calculations, etc. I don't have a need for such a system a this time (100m is plenty for my tasks), but I am curious more than anything if someone out there has done something this slick in SL and the details of the success/failure.

PS: (why isn't a long distance communication system between objects with event notification already implemented?)

Thanks,

Exxon Tiger

Well, it's not much of a problem to call llGetNextEmail with timer(). Certainly less bother than a network of shout repeaters!

Linden Labs are currently developing a O2O(Object to Object) communication.

Right now we have to rely on current tools for this.

Just a heads up that there will be a better way soon.

It's also worth searching this forum for posts by Foolish Frost - he started quite a long thread on this topic about 2 months ago, and has got some development ideas in it.

Thanks everyone for the quick and helpful replies!


Ordinal Malaprop: I just hate the thought of another timer loop running on the sim as well as being limited to the time of a timer call to obtain the next message.

Kairen Overdrive: Good to hear, I can't wait to test this out one day. Do you know if it will work against the grid or be limited to a region?

Eloise Pasteur: Thanks for the heads up, I will do a search and read up on his progress.


See you on SL,

Exxon Tiger

The Email even tells you if there are more e-mails waiting to be picked up. If there are, call llGetNextEmail() again.