Weapons and Buildings in SL

Sorry if I am asking a question that has been asked many times before but......

I own around 9,000 square metres in the new tropical lands and it (as always) comes down to the same old issues, that is shall I sell it on at both fair (and profitable) amounts for end users or should I develop and hope to profit.

Well apart from the 3 Gov Linen sims (which are empty combat zones) I have noticed a dearth of alternative combat zones within SL. I am minded to consider developing a themed combat zone but am cautious because I do not entirely understand the relationship between weapons and objects (and neighbouring land/property).

In short can weapons damage objects either of my own, or my neighbours. This assumes that my land permissions are set to allow outside scripts with a specific okay for weapons use, and an assumption my neighbours land is set to the far more usual safe usage.

I hope you can understand my caution on this point. For example I would be one hell of a bad neighbour if somebody dropped a nuke and blew all objects away...............

No, they can't, not unless you specifically script objects to break on impact.

I advise you to establish clear rules on the sort of allowed combat and weapons in your land, though, rather than having it a free fire zone as in Rausch. Some weapons are potentially annoying to neighbours and LOTS of combat items are laggy. Also, without guidelines, you risk people coming in and boringly killing people automatically over and over again with mega weapons, which is no fun.

Hmmm, that's not quite true...

Objects in a damage enabled area are safe, PROVIDING they aren't physics enabled.

Physics enabled objects can and will be moved and/or unlinked by most reasonably powerful weapon systems. And some weapons systems have features which specifically disrupt physical objects.

10m objects bouncing across a sim are highly amusing, providing of course they are just targets, not components of something that took a lot of work...

That's true. Physics-enabled objects are vulnerable anywhere, though. I wouldn't put one in unless I was prepared to lose it or have it in an entirely difference place when I came back. (Which can be quite entertaining.)

Thanks for the helpful replies.

After having a read through, (and having met a helpful Avatar from one of the combat zones) it seems there is both far more issues to consider than I initially thought as well as absorbing the fact it appears the so called "arms race" in SL has ended for the time being.

Having been shown at first hand how an AV can pass through solid objects as well as accepting the fact I have been told there is both an almost invincible shield AND an attack weapon, I can now see why combat may pall.......

After all I still enjoy the odd game of Doom (older versions), and have all the cheat codes, but it is no fun using them except perhaps by restricting yourself to say 1 cheat per series etc. The fun element is in the hunt or stalk etc.

Perhaps later versions of SL may enable you to define or restrict more scripted actions on land (computing power) you lease, but until then I think on the war zone issue my mind is now clearer.

Any further replies welcome

There are some third-party combat systems around that do not use the SL damage system to count hit points and such, and presumably permit a more fair PvP combat. Two names that come to mind would be Frag-foo and Jillian Callahan's combat system (CCC?) (for air combat) - you might want to check those and others out.

Well, there isn't a megashield as of now. The meteor reigning as the winner in megaweapons. The idea of a third party damage system just might be the answer, good suggestion!

There is one that is in works coming soon to places near you...

(shields and damage point rpg systems both)


And yes right now MeteorStrike Hud rules the day by a country mile!!

- Calix

This might help as reported from other thread...

l"lSafe();

This function, when called, will return TRUE if the parcel the task is in is "safe" land.

This tool would be fantastic for weapons and shieldmakers.

On the offensive side, the responsible weapons scripters can disable push aspects of their guns, cut back on lag by disabling unnecessary sensor sweeps for tracking weapons and open channel commands for spell type weapons.

On the defensive side, the responsible shield scripters can also disable shell rezzing, remove sensor sweeps and physics disruptors, blockers, etc. further freeing up sim resources and thus removing lag. " ~ Ares Desmoulins


~ " As Calix notes, this is already possible in 1.9 preview, and will be possible grid wide when 1.9 is released. Please go to www.secondlife.com/preview to get a preview client and try it out!
__________________
- Kelly Linden "

I've already designed a corner of a sim combat oriented 'playground', and yes, using the safe command should stop objects from passing through. Make sure you check how particles will be affected, however.

Again many thanks for the helpful replies on this thread. I am afraid some of the scripting issues go over my head, I am just a builder and landowner.

However I witnessed a demo of the ability to pass through so called solid objects refered to by another poster here, and if this was possible across the grid reguardless of your land settings, would agree that this may need to be either controlled and/or blocked

Thanks Paul