Taxi's Back from the Shop

[Nika Talaj]

A divertissement while we're waiting for stilts!

A while back, someone mentioned Aley's VW Bug Taxi freebie.  I got one and was impressed by how smoothly & intuitively it drives and how stable it is, even with passengers.  It even has cruise mode, but you had to read the script to find out how to turn it on.   I was also amused by the way it seats new passengers just like a taxi does.  The 4th passenger (and maybe more, I stopped adding alts at 4), ends up outside on the hood, IIRC

It's full-perm, so now I offer you the Taxi Bug 2020!

[Many apologies for my alt.  I asked her to show up in a nice gown & pose like a hostess, but she has a small mind of her own, and this is what I got.]

I didn't do much to the actual driving experience, or change the 31-LI build.  Mostly I just added a few frills and a menu:

• Instead of honking whenever the driver presses the left mouse button (cute but ANNOYING, like my alt), the car now brings up a menu when the driver clicks on it.
• The menu allows you to honk (actually, now it's more of a beep-beep), eject passengers (new), turn the engine noise on/off (new), try to recover if the car's fallen over (new), and turn cruise mode (continuous forward driving) on/off.  It also has an "INFO" button (new) that will give you hints about using the Taxi.
• You can now create your own set of "gears" by putting a string in the taxi description field.  The default set (which it will use if you don't put anything in the description) is 5, 10, 14, 19, 24, 50.  As the numbers get larger, the force of the forward motion is stronger, and so it goes faster.  You can define as many or few gears as you want.
• It now is drive-able only by someone in group.  Passengers can still be in any group.

The taxi (and script) are still full-perm. There are quite a few scripts in it (to turn wheels and seat passengers, etc.) which I didn't even look at.  I haven't put my name on it anywhere, because I have experience with supporting full-perm scripts, yech.  Note that over the years, several people have made mods to the build or script and are selling them on the marketplace.  Altho there is no licensing statement on this freebie, personally I would regard that as clearly against the intent of whoever made it.

You can pick it up at my houseboat.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Kuga/168/144/21

This lands you outside on the beach, because it's kinda neat out there.  Set your DD to a little under 200 to see the lighthouse.  My boat has a seahorse on it.  Doors are open, and you'll see a box with the above pic on the table right inside the front door - just touch it.  If you hear frogs/crickets etc., that means it's nighttime and the lighthouse will be lit.  I like to veg out on the top deck in the evening.

Feel free to hang out, I have work to do elsewhere.  There's a couples dance ball, as well as yoga mats, on the deck.  I'll leave the box out for a week or two.

Do not let my grouchy cats out.  I'm grouchy enough as it is!

 

[MilleBliss]

7 minutes ago, Nika Talaj said:

A divertissement while we're waiting for stilts!

A while back, someone mentioned Aley's VW Bug Taxi freebie.  I got one and was impressed by how smoothly & intuitively it drives and how stable it is, even with passengers.  It even has cruise mode, but you had to read the script to find out how to turn it on.   I was also amused by the way it seats new passengers just like a taxi does.  The 4th passenger (and maybe more, I stopped adding alts at 4), ends up outside on the hood, IIRC

It's full-perm, so now I offer you the Taxi Bug 2020!

[Many apologies for my alt.  I asked her to show up in a nice gown & pose like a hostess, but she has a small mind of her own, and this is what I got.]

I didn't do much to the actual driving experience, or change the 31-LI build.  Mostly I just added a few frills and a menu:

• Instead of honking whenever the driver presses the left mouse button (cute but ANNOYING, like my alt), the car now brings up a menu when the driver clicks on it.
• The menu allows you to honk (actually, now it's more of a beep-beep), eject passengers (new), turn the engine noise on/off (new), try to recover if the car's fallen over (new), and turn cruise mode (continuous forward driving) on/off.  It also has an "INFO" button (new) that will give you hints about using the Taxi.
• You can now create your own set of "gears" by putting a string in the taxi description field.  The default set (which it will use if you don't put anything in the description) is 5, 10, 14, 19, 24, 50.  As the numbers get larger, the force of the forward motion is stronger, and so it goes faster.  You can define as many or few gears as you want.
• It now is drive-able only by someone in group.  Passengers can still be in any group.

The taxi (and script) are still full-perm. There are quite a few scripts in it (to turn wheels and seat passengers, etc.) which I didn't even look at.  I haven't put my name on it anywhere, because I have experience with supporting full-perm scripts, yech.  Note that over the years, several people have made mods to the build or script and are selling them on the marketplace.  Altho there is no licensing statement on this freebie, personally I would regard that as clearly against the intent of whoever made it.

You can pick it up at my houseboat.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Kuga/168/144/21

This lands you outside on the beach, because it's kinda neat out there.  Set your DD to a little under 200 to see the lighthouse.  My boat has a seahorse on it.  Doors are open, and you'll see a box with the above pic on the table right inside the front door - just touch it.  If you hear frogs/crickets etc., that means it's nighttime and the lighthouse will be lit.  I like to veg out on the top deck in the evening.

Feel free to hang out, I have work to do elsewhere.  There's a couples dance ball, as well as yoga mats, on the deck.  I'll leave the box out for a week or two.

Do not let my grouchy cats out.  I'm grouchy enough as it is!

 

Hehe this looks awesome, I will grab one next time inworld! Thanks!!!

[Leora Jacobus]

26 minutes ago, Nika Talaj said:

A divertissement while we're waiting for stilts!

A while back, someone mentioned Aley's VW Bug Taxi freebie.  I got one and was impressed by how smoothly & intuitively it drives and how stable it is, even with passengers. ...

 

Thanks a lot. My alt got it and tested it but could only drive it on her own land not into the street. What did she do wrong?

 

[Nika Talaj]

2 minutes ago, Leora Jacobus said:

Thanks a lot. My alt got it and tested it but could only drive it on her own land not into the street. What did she do wrong?

Nothing, it should just work.  I tried it with non-owners in Belli; let me do a little more testing.  For some reason the script keeps track of what region you're in, maybe its something to do with that.

Because so many people had touched that script, it was a real mess.  I cleaned it up a little, but didn't chase down every little oddity.

[Nika Talaj]

double post

Edited November 11, 2020 by Nika Talaj

[Leora Jacobus]

I rezzed it on my land (at least my groups land) clicked it said drive and went along till I got to the street - then it behaved as if running agains a wall of glass.

[Nika Talaj]

Hmm.  See your direct messages.

ETA: Just tested again, drove it all over 3 regions.  Also brought on an alt who is not a group member or friend, set the taxi to group to None, and SHE drove it all over the place.  Could there be some sort of invisible barrier, or large boundary box on a non-phantom object, that you're trying to drive through?

Edited November 11, 2020 by Nika Talaj

[Nando Yip]

I'm a terrible driver and a little big for the "Beetle" but I loved the experience of driving through Bellisseria and destroying some gardens.
Thanks

[Nika Talaj]

I've been meaning to try just stretching it, taking it back into inventory, and re-rezzing it (to be sure the physics get set up right) - that probably would work.  But looking at your pic, Nando, for you I think it's just fine this way   It's so cute that you've somehow gotten into this little bug!

[Emma Krokus]

Thank you Nika, I picked up a bug this morning !

As SL's worst driver by far, I especially appreciate being able to set gear speed (dead slow) and the cruising mode - awesome.

 

Emma

 

[Anita61 Anatine]

Thank you Nika! Great car

 

[Nika Talaj]

8 hours ago, Emma Krokus said:

As SL's worst driver by far, I especially appreciate being able to set gear speed (dead slow) and the cruising mode - awesome.

I've never played much with vehicle scripts, but when I noticed that this one just had a list of constants to define the gearing, that was what drove me to make this mod.  I've never bought an SL car that let me define the gears!  I think vehicle scripters don't account for the fact that much of the driving experience is determined client-side, by things like network speed, network latency, draw distance.  If I need to keep my draw distance at 64 in order to see things rez, I'm going to have to go more slowly than someone who can see halfway across the region!  The only SL cars that I've bought that go slowly enough for me are the wonderful Mudskipper, and @Arduenn Schwartzman's equally wonderful golf cart.

Another thing I really like about this car's script is the way its cruise mode works.  Many vehicles, when you put them into cruise mode, go at a constant speed determined by the scripter.  This cruise mode (which was already in the script, I just gave you a button to use it easier) lets you change speed as usual, and holds whatever speed you last set.  So easy!

Edited November 17, 2020 by Nika Talaj

[VERYDYNY]

@Nika Talaj part of the fun is exactly that size of the car somehow looks like the 2d drawings.  And the cruising driving mode was what made me cross most of the traditional regions, I drove for more than 1 hour using a distance of 180 meters and it was really cool to see the landscape from inside the beetle.  only another taxi did also @Foneco Zuzu give me this fun.