Question about private regions and rentals

[melanatedaquarian]

Hi all, 

I'm in the very early stages of planning my own community and had a few questions. I'd like to create a mixed use rp city sim with residential (apartments and houses) public spaces (restaurants, parks, public services), and small-mid sized businesses. Though, I'd like the option to expand those in the future if business goes well and perhaps include a nightclub(s). However, lag is real! Is it possible to expand to regions and/or divide one up so that businesses or clubs don't negatively impact those living on the sim? 

[steeljane42]

32 minutes ago, melanatedaquarian said:

Is it possible to expand to regions and/or divide one up so that businesses or clubs don't negatively impact those living on the sim? 

If you have more than 1 region, it's possible (for a fee, if you're moving existing one) to put them next to each other. Then you can separate residental and business areas into different regions, so they won't impact each other. It is not possible to separate region's resources within 1 region (aside of LI per parcel), though. You can minimize impact of FPS "lag" by keeping residental/public areas on one level and business ones on another one, but that's about it.

[Chic Aeon]

1 hour ago, melanatedaquarian said:

Hi all, 

I'm in the very early stages of planning my own community and had a few questions. I'd like to create a mixed use rp city sim with residential (apartments and houses) public spaces (restaurants, parks, public services), and small-mid sized businesses. Though, I'd like the option to expand those in the future if business goes well and perhaps include a nightclub(s). However, lag is real! Is it possible to expand to regions and/or divide one up so that businesses or clubs don't negatively impact those living on the sim? 

If you are talking about a single region and "lag" then the answer is NO, but careful planning can help a lot.  Keeping your club area in a corner somewhat near the edge of the region will help lag in that PART of lag is dependent on viewing distance and happily not everyone has their viewers set to see across a whole sim (mine is typically at 120 which works well for me).  So buffer areas you expect to be busy with ones that are for show and green space.   

 

Watch trees as some can be very lag producing.   Unfortunately you can't do all that much about what your renters put in the homes and shops; you can only do your best to limit any issues.  If your houses have most of the windows pointed away from  streets and for example toward the sim edge and ocean, that will help.  

 

You might look at some role play sims. Some are good and some awful of course. Asphyxiation Point did a very good job with design but it is gone now.   Businesses will not necessary (and often not) have a lot of traffic so it is mostly the clubs that might be an issue.  You can also build underground in some places if that works with your plans.   

 

Something not pertaining to lag but very important is to test the LODs of the buildings and make sure that they don't break apart "at least" at LOD2 setting (lower would be better of course).    And watch your frames per second as you are setting up your areas to make sure that you didn't inadvertently use heavy mesh that contributes to molasses FPS rates :D. 

 

If you want to expand in the future you could use a homestead sim just for residential and parks and such. Keep any clubs off of those though. 

Have fun!!!!

Edited May 25, 2020 by Chic Aeon
spelling

[Tactical UwU]

2 hours ago, melanatedaquarian said:

However, lag is real! Is it possible to expand to regions and/or divide one up so that businesses or clubs don't negatively impact those living on the sim? 

A single region is allotted a fixed amount of resources. While prim limits and land size can be limited by the size of the parcel itself, parcels otherwise share all the region's resources with each other. Anyone's who rented in a region knows that one person who makes the sim run terrible which is why some rental groups have strict limitations on what can be on what sim with many downright banning certain establishments (namely clubs) due to the problems they cause for other tenants.

That said, if you want to host clubs or large businesses, it's better to dedicated an entire region for that purpose as opposed to lumping it in with a residential sim. Regularly high latency will quickly run off potential or current tenants.

[melanatedaquarian]

On 5/25/2020 at 4:33 PM, steeljane42 said:

If you have more than 1 region, it's possible (for a fee, if you're moving existing one) to put them next to each other. Then you can separate residental and business areas into different regions, so they won't impact each other. It is not possible to separate region's resources within 1 region (aside of LI per parcel), though. You can minimize impact of FPS "lag" by keeping residental/public areas on one level and business ones on another one, but that's about it.

thank you @steeljane42! When you say keep them on a different level do you mean putting them at different elevations?

On 5/25/2020 at 5:39 PM, Chic Aeon said:

If you are talking about a single region and "lag" then the answer is NO, but careful planning can help a lot.  Keeping your club area in a corner somewhat near the edge of the region will help lag in that PART of lag is dependent on viewing distance and happily not everyone has their viewers set to see across a whole sim (mine is typically at 120 which works well for me).  So buffer areas you expect to be busy with ones that are for show and green space.   

 

Watch trees as some can be very lag producing.   Unfortunately you can't do all that much about what your renters put in the homes and shops; you can only do your best to limit any issues.  If your houses have most of the windows pointed away from  streets and for example toward the sim edge and ocean, that will help.  

 

You might look at some role play sims. Some are good and some awful of course. Asphyxiation Point did a very good job with design but it is gone now.   Businesses will not necessary (and often not) have a lot of traffic so it is mostly the clubs that might be an issue.  You can also build underground in some places if that works with your plans.   

 

Something not pertaining to lag but very important is to test the LODs of the buildings and make sure that they don't break apart "at least" at LOD2 setting (lower would be better of course).    And watch your frames per second as you are setting up your areas to make sure that you didn't inadvertently use heavy mesh that contributes to molasses FPS rates :D. 

 

If you want to expand in the future you could use a homestead sim just for residential and parks and such. Keep any clubs off of those though. 

Have fun!!!!

Thanks so much for your detailed response @Chic Aeon! You're suggestion to place a club in the corner might be a good idea. I'd like to have a venue that can host maybe 20-25 avatars at a time - nothing crazy. So placing it in a corner on one side with perhaps a park and some light retail could help if I have residential parcels on the opposite side of the sim? 

I have much to learn though ultimately I would like to bring in a landscaper and sim planner to help with the process since this will be my first go and I really want to provide a rock solid experience for guests. 

23 hours ago, Secondary Lionheart said:

A single region is allotted a fixed amount of resources. While prim limits and land size can be limited by the size of the parcel itself, parcels otherwise share all the region's resources with each other. Anyone's who rented in a region knows that one person who makes the sim run terrible which is why some rental groups have strict limitations on what can be on what sim with many downright banning certain establishments (namely clubs) due to the problems they cause for other tenants.

That said, if you want to host clubs or large businesses, it's better to dedicated an entire region for that purpose as opposed to lumping it in with a residential sim. Regularly high latency will quickly run off potential or current tenants.

@Secondary Lionheart thank you for clarifying that bit! Since this will be my first sim I'd rather keep business on the smaller side (small-medium businesses and a small club that can host 25 avatars max) would that still bring a high latency for residents on the opposite side of the sim if there are small business and an open park (or some other large, relatively lightly used public space) between the two. To clarify I've been considering full regions since they can handle more people and have better performance since the sim will be a city/urban community sim with apartments and high-rises.

[Chic Aeon]

22 minutes ago, melanatedaquarian said:

 

@Secondary Lionheart thank you for clarifying that bit! Since this will be my first sim I'd rather keep business on the smaller side (small-medium businesses and a small club that can host 25 avatars max) would that still bring a high latency for residents on the opposite side of the sim if there are small business and an open park (or some other large, relatively lightly used public space) between the two. To clarify I've been considering full regions since they can handle more people and have better performance since the sim will be a city/urban community sim with apartments and high-rises.

So here is your problem so far as planning. There really is no way to  decide "who" will show up in your sim. You could make your club group only for the club but that would definitely limit your clientele.  So say you set the sim to 35 people max.  Even at that it will get laggy.  BUT to be fair typically residential users aren't at home all that much.  I have several places I rent in community areas and I rarely see others around. 

 

Clubs are typically "bad" for lag because of the avatars with scripts and heavy mesh and tons of accessories etc. So the texture and mesh download lag can be negated some by distancing, but scripts (I believe and if not someone will correct me) affect the whole sim.  FPS are almost always faster high in the sky so you "could" put the club up there --- but that pretty much breaks the neighborhood feel. 

 

And yes, you pretty much CANNOT put a club on a homestead (or any kind of busy commercial area). That was very easy to see when a popular H and G creator had a huge sale and had to limit teleports to ten people. It was NOT PRETTY!!!  LOL.   

 

All that being said, Asphyxiation Point typically had over 30 people in the sim (all one level except for the sewers which weren't used often). It ran well.  You COULD limit the scripts on folks coming into your club (but again -- not all that conducive to traffic).  Keep in mind that it typically takes quite awhile to get a new "tourist" or even rental region up and popular. Sometimes it never really happens. So you have time to tinker with what IS and what ISN'T working.  The most important thing IMO is to enjoy the process.   

[steeljane42]

21 hours ago, melanatedaquarian said:

When you say keep them on a different level do you mean putting them at different elevations?

Yep. If you want to keep residental/public areas at the ground level, then put business ones above 1k metres. I believe at 1k metres viewer stops rendering ground/water as well, so it might help a bit to save some fps for business area visitors. But like others said already, nothing will help with server side lag caused by extra scripts and other rezzed stuff, as all region's resources are shared regardless of where you put anything.

21 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

BUT to be fair typically residential users aren't at home all that much.  I have several places I rent in community areas and I rarely see others around. 

And from my experience renting many parcels in the past, typical residental users spend a lot of time at home, some also tend to leave their avis on 24/7, too. What I noticed that the larger their parcel is, the more time they spend there. Which, I guess, makes some sense, not much to do at 1/64 of region with 250 prims. Unpack some boxes, try demos and new outfits, maybe talk with some friends and go back to exploring. But when it's 1/4 of region with 5-7.5k prims, then people enjoy building and rebuilding their places a lot, and then have more place and tools available to have something to do without leaving their homes for too long, and to invite their friends over to enjoy it with them.

[Aethelwine]

You might want to take a look at a few biking sims to see how they build on different levels. With KatyProxima roads it is pretty easy to build connecting vertical road system with maybe a level every 400m. That way you can spread out texture and object lag vertically across the region. You can house more people, have a club space, urban area(s), parks and beach area at ground level and allow people an alternative to a teleportation system for getting around.

(You can quite easily make roads from prims, but nearly everyone uses Katyproxima's roads now. There is something magic about them not being bumpy at joins unlike the way other mesh or prim roads are)

[Prokofy Neva]

On 5/25/2020 at 3:48 PM, melanatedaquarian said:

Hi all, 

I'm in the very early stages of planning my own community and had a few questions. I'd like to create a mixed use rp city sim with residential (apartments and houses) public spaces (restaurants, parks, public services), and small-mid sized businesses. Though, I'd like the option to expand those in the future if business goes well and perhaps include a nightclub(s). However, lag is real! Is it possible to expand to regions and/or divide one up so that businesses or clubs don't negatively impact those living on the sim? 

Most people attempting what you are planning have to put the club or events space on its own separate sim in a cluster of sims. You simply cannot combine clubs with residential rentals because the clubs, even if they only meet at certain hours, or the events, fill up the sim and then people renting homes can't get home to their home they are paying for. People coming to clubs and events generally aren't paying for anything except maybe dropping a dime in a tip jar. So take care of the residential people first, they pay your tier.

I stopped renting to clubs 14 years ago as they are nothing but trouble, up and down. A club on a sim ruins its use often. I have suffered through this many times to the point where I simply won't buy any land where there is anything like a club, and will move out and sell the land rather than stay where there is one. But I wait 30-60 days, as most clubs fail in that time.

Many landlords make the mistake that they need to provide clubs, events, parks for their tenants. They don't. The tenants don't need or want this. They make their own lives. Unless you have a theme or RP or category like "furries" or "LGBT", don't expect the club to be relevant. Focus on residential first, add the others later. 

Don't expect that stores will pay for your club. They won't. Shoppers won't come to a laggy sim and store owners may not rent from you for that reason. Stalls with vendors are a different story if you think people will buy as they are going to the club as distinct from coming into the sim from outside not for the club, but the store. You can't go wrong by putting in the club last in my view. But most people planning these things really love the idea of a club. So do that if your heart is in it, you have a group of people who want to be there, but then expect to pay the tier yourself.