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Are we ever going to be able to Fly in SL again?


Aishagain
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I don't mean flying like Superman, I mean flying aircraft.  My partner and I used to go gliding a lot, we enjoyed it as much as sailing, in SL.  Yet since the uplift long distance sailing using the World Map and any decent gliding using said map has been impossible.

So far as I know the World map is at best partial and most of the time utterly useless.  Tonight, with all of SL supposedly on the same server version, we found sim crossings very smooth but at about every third crossing the glider became totally unresponsive and we crashed on every flight (I mean "the glider fell out of the sky" sort of crash.

The two attempts at sailing recently we abandoned since we simply could not see on the world map any of the regions beyond the Main part of Blake Sea.

Now are our experiences atypical (too many scripts etc) or is sailing and flying in SL currently thoroughly borked?  I'd welcome some perspective from others.

Edited by Aishagain
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I can't say much as far as flying, since I do "some" but not near as much as I sail and drive. Sailing hasn't been a real problem outside the random bad crossing, and for the flying I've done it's been fine, smooth and clear. I don't bother with the world map, and not sure why other's do since it takes up too much screen (ok i know it can be shrunk but still..) also it doesn't show other boats or planes in real time. I use, what I've been using from the start, the mini map. It works great, does update in most places (though I've seen one or two spots where it shows old land configs, that's since changed) and most importantly it' shows other boats and planes around me in real time, and as a bonus. it's small and takes up little screen room. 

 

**a bit of a disclaimer - I'm using mini map in FS, I can't remember how it is in SLV, but I'm guessing not that much** 

 

When I go out to sail, or travel (otherwise done by heli ,car or even bicycle) I'm out for hours. Today for example, I sailed from Race Rock, up Bullring Bay, to the northern point of Blake and back in a Bandit IF..took around 2 hours or so, and didn't have an issue (beyond one slow crossing that's notorious for being as such) With my draw distance is set to 256, having mini map up. I can see all around me, and not just because I'm in a small boat. I sail the same way, at several locations, be it an IF or any of my other boats, and even in my N+K ships, and never have an issue seeing where I'm going or what's around me.  

 

You mention hang gliding, my wife and I have been out hang gliding using the same set up (mini map/draw distance at least at 256 to 320 ) and as for visibility and finding our way there wasn't any issues. One thing we always do is make sure neither of us have excess huds or heavy "bits and pieces" on keeping our script counts down. In fact I'm on a standard body which helps, and know several who will switch to one for sailing/driving/flying/etc.  

 

So I don't know if trying the mini map and using a larger draw distance will help or not, but I'd say its worth a try. I mean, it's been pretty crowded out on the waters, today especially, and I saw plenty of planes in the sky as well.  

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1 hour ago, animats said:

I just flew across most of Sansara, and everything went well until, flying at 350m over the Snowlands, I was shot down by someone's zero-delay,  no warning message security orb.

Don't you know you violated their inalienable rights to the airspace up to heaven (and beyond), you horrible man!  Shooting down is too good for you.

If we had a proper policy from Layabout Lab on this the map tiles would reflect where the security orbs are.

Actually flying itself has gotten easier since AWS, it's just you can't see where <expletive deleted> you are.

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2 hours ago, animats said:

I just flew across most of Sansara, and everything went well until, flying at 350m over the Snowlands, I was shot down by someone's zero-delay,  no warning message security orb.

I found after being shot down in Belli, sending a pleasant IM to the orb user and explain what just happened. usually moves them to adjust the timing to 10 or 15 seconds. That's plenty of time to clear airspace.

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There aren't supposed to be ANY security actions taken on the clear-fight zone of Bellisseria, which should be guaranteed safe c. 500m to 1900m. I do wish people would read the covenant!

Long discussions have taken place of the LH threads about the best way to deal with these when you find them. I have sent a nice IM to the owner advising them, and got a thanks back - " I didn't know". The censensus seemed to be to just AR them and avoid possible unpleasantness though.

Edited by Odaks
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I fully agree with @Vicious Hollow, not only the mini map shows avatars and land/obstacles around in real time, as it also lets you see sim/parcel lines. In Blake, this last feature can be helpful to let you find rezz zones (all regions there have at least one, at the NE corner).

As I always fly in mouselook view, the world map is useless. And yes, it takes too much space on screen, even in it's smaller size.

A while ago, when flying one of my helicopters, it crashed after 23 sims — stopped responding at Nautilus - Caneth (wich is weird, as the region seems to be healthy, showing 100% Scripts Run and 1.8/9 ms Script Time ).

Edited by MBeatrix
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Might perhaps be the plane you are flying. There is the bug introduced when they went to the cloud that affects alot of people especially sailors.

Without Uggo or Carla's fixes the number of boats I can use.. I can virtually count on one hand. I don't fly much but presume they are affected the same way.  

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18 hours ago, Vicious Hollow said:

I can't say much as far as flying, since I do "some" but not near as much as I sail and drive. Sailing hasn't been a real problem outside the random bad crossing, and for the flying I've done it's been fine, smooth and clear. I don't bother with the world map, and not sure why other's do since it takes up too much screen (ok i know it can be shrunk but still..) also it doesn't show other boats or planes in real time. I use, what I've been using from the start, the mini map. It works great, does update in most places (though I've seen one or two spots where it shows old land configs, that's since changed) and most importantly it' shows other boats and planes around me in real time, and as a bonus. it's small and takes up little screen room. ...[read it all in the 2nd post of the thread]

This is an interesting perspective.  We do mostly sailing and often long distance.  The reason the Map, as opposed to the mini-map, is needed is for the planning phase of a trip.  If you are just wandering, then I agree, the mini-map and a 300 dd is perfectly fine.  But if, for instance, you want to start just in the very south of Belli, like where my Houseboat is, and try to see how near to Satori you can get, then you do really need the Map.

If you try flying it's the same thing, it's not for flying, it's for flight planning.  And this is also why I would like the info on banned parcels and orbs on it - I don't deny people their rights, but I would like to avoid them destroying mine.

However, with LL only paying lip service to fixing the map, the chances of any useful enhancements, that might attract more business to SL, seem nil.

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I hear you loud and clear on that, but something to try out (if you haven't already) is plot the course before heading out (using world map to set your waypoints) and use something like the USB by Uggo (Ultimate Sailing Buddy) the latest wind compass which also has a course feature. Once you've plotted the course, you won't need the main map, its just a matter of follow markers set by you. Plus if for example, you just want to set a start and finish point, it will show you the distance of how near or far you are.

When I started out taking longer runs, I found that method really effective in learning where certain spots are, how far point a to point b was, and so forth. Even though I've spent a ton of time on the water (too much at times if that's possible lol) I'll still break out the USB for the longer trips, if for any reason to see how much paths have changed.  

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Well, I hear what seasoned sailors are saying but for me being a VERY part-time sailor and glider pilot, most of those workarounds are not particularly useful for spur-of-the-moment journeys.  My loss, I guess! 😕

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For whatever reason I can't now quote posts in this thread. Oh well...

@Anna NovaWanting to have orbs showing on the map is unrealistic. You can't expect LL going around SL and check every parcel to see if there is an orb in it.

Parcel owners change from time to time, some in short times. Also, some orbs are set for specific altitudes.

What you can do is report orbs you find in your way that are set to zero time.

[EDIT] Try talking with parcel owners first, and only report them if they refuse to set their security orb properly.

Edited by MBeatrix
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On 3/24/2021 at 2:12 PM, Aishagain said:

Tonight, with all of SL supposedly on the same server version, we found sim crossings very smooth but at about every third crossing the glider became totally unresponsive and we crashed on every flight (I mean "the glider fell out of the sky" sort of crash.

 

Now are our experiences atypical (too many scripts etc) or is sailing and flying in SL currently thoroughly borked?  I'd welcome some perspective from others.

while Linden were moving the regions to AWS they rewrote the method/protocol regime used to transfer vehicles and avatars between regions. As a consequence transfers happen a lot faster now than they used too

most of the current commercial vehicle makers have adapted their scripts to the new fast regime and work pretty well

most commercial vehicle scripts have a polling loop on CHANGED_REGION. And some polling code written with the slow old regime in mind, have a narrow set of conditions to exit the polling loop. In the new fast regime sometimes the exit conditions in these older scripts are not met. The loop never exits, consequently the script events never fire and the vehicle doesn't respond to keyboard controls. it stops, falls out of the sky, etc

only way to fix this in these vehicles is to rewriting the polling code

 

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1 hour ago, MBeatrix said:

For whatever reason I can't now quote posts in this thread. Oh well...

@Anna NovaWanting to have orbs showing on the map is unrealistic. You can't expect LL going around SL and check every parcel to see if there is an orb in it.

Parcel owners change from time to time, some in short times. Also, some orbs are set for specific altitudes.

What you can do is report orbs you find in your way that are set to zero time.

[EDIT] Try talking with parcel owners first, and only report them if they refuse to set their security orb properly.

I'm going to have to disagree.  LL have total knowledge of what goes on in their simulators, it cannot be beyond the wit of programmer to detect security orbs which contain instructions that move avatars, and flag them on the map - it doesn't have to be done in real-time, it's just a background housekeeping task.

However, that is just a wish-list item.  The real problem is LLs pig-headed refusal to assign enough resources to fix the <expletive deleted> map in time for the next millennium. 

I agree about the right approach to orb-owners. One warning helpful suggestion, and you're ARed!   I have to say that my experience is that most of them in Belli (where there IS a covenant) respond well, but most on mainland either ignore your polite request or are very rude indeed, usually to the point of immediately banning you from their parcels.  And on mainland, or course, as there is no covenant, and they are within their rights to do so. 

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As far as the World Map is concerned, I have found that Cool VL Viewer appears to be working, though I am not 100% sure about the newest sections of Bellisseria. There are regions labelled but not visible on the map. It may be an under-construction problem rather than a map problem. But at least you can zoom out and still see the landscape. I am not sure if the map tiles are current, but something has changed. One or two versions ago I was seeing the basic ground/water, but no prims or mesh. So no roads. I think the map tiles are near-current now.

Firestorm hasn't changed map handling. If LL get the system working and Firestorm doesn't use it properly, it's going to be frustrating. It was just luck that I did a sanity-check on my Linux box with Cool VL Viewer.

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1 hour ago, Mollymews said:

while Linden were moving the regions to AWS they rewrote the method/protocol regime used to transfer vehicles and avatars between regions. As a consequence transfers happen a lot faster now than they used too

most of the current commercial vehicle makers have adapted their scripts to the new fast regime and work pretty well

most commercial vehicle scripts have a polling loop on CHANGED_REGION. And some polling code written with the slow old regime in mind, have a narrow set of conditions to exit the polling loop. In the new fast regime sometimes the exit conditions in these older scripts are not met. The loop never exits, consequently the script events never fire and the vehicle doesn't respond to keyboard controls. it stops, falls out of the sky, etc

only way to fix this in these vehicles is to rewriting the polling code

 

My understanding is that vehicle and passengers have always been transferred as distinct operations, but the order they arrived in was reliable. Under the new system, an avatar can arrive before the vehicle, and there's nothing to sit on.

I am not sure that a script can do the necessary checks to work around that. I did look at things, but it's way beyond my pay-grade.

I sometimes wonder if this sort of problem has its root in the farming out of the original Viewer 2 project. It's been a long time, and even if that had been Linden-written, maybe the people who would have understood the Viewer/Server processes would be long gone from the lab. But there are some very old assumptions that have been revealed.

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1 hour ago, Anna Nova said:

[...] LL have total knowledge of what goes on in their simulators, it cannot be beyond the wit of programmer to detect security orbs which contain instructions that move avatars, and flag them on the map - it doesn't have to be done in real-time, it's just a background housekeeping task. [...]

That's much easier to say than to do. They know what's going on in their sims to some extent but not all that really goes on.
Here's my own example: I have my security system configured to boot avatars not in the allowed list after 20 seconds if they are above 100 m altitude. On some Fridays, I have it set to allow everyone up to 2100 m altitude. What if I set it to cover only the area between 1000 m and 2000 m? Or any other option I choose? And if the map isn't updated real time, then what's the point?

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7 hours ago, MBeatrix said:

You can't expect LL going around SL and check every parcel to see if there is an orb in it.

Judging by the number of (what must be) bots that come through regularly - so regularly that I've got to memorise the names - everybody else seems to be able to survey the grid! 

100% support for getting the World Map back properly. I miss it badly for planning and the distance elements of the voyage.

Edited by Odaks
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On 3/23/2021 at 6:12 PM, Aishagain said:

.  Tonight, with all of SL supposedly on the same server version,

I live on an estate where the regions abut and where the owner had requested all regions be on the Main  server in January  to aid region crossings since we fly, sail individually , and have scheduled trollys,  trains, airships . It did help. 

Then they recently took some regions off Main and put on them on release versions for "testing" regardless of owners request and the improvement we'd enjoyed as tier paying renters. Per recent ticket , won't switch them back.

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8 hours ago, arabellajones said:

My understanding is that vehicle and passengers have always been transferred as distinct operations, but the order they arrived in was reliable. Under the new system, an avatar can arrive before the vehicle, and there's nothing to sit on.

Either avatar or object can arrive first. Either case will break some vehicles.

Quote

I am not sure that a script can do the necessary checks to work around that. I did look at things, but it's way beyond my pay-grade.

Vehicle scripts can work around this, but it's a pain. You have to do a fair amount of work to detect that the region crossing is totally complete, all avatars in place. Then you request permissions again, reset the avatar animation, take controls, and reset the camera. The same things you did when the avatar got in or on the vehicle have to be re-done after each region crossing is complete to get reliable behavior.

The CHANGED_REGION event means the vehicle has crossed. The avatars are probably still catching up. You know when an avatar has arrived when it is both a child of the vehicle and the vehicle is the parent of the avatar. That's the extra check that makes it work. Check that the OBJECT_ROOT of the vehicle and avatar are the same, using llGetObjectDetails on both. When the OBJECT_ROOT keys match, they're connected properly.

During a region crossing, the vehicle shows the avatars still sitting, as checkable with llAvatarOnLinkSitTarget, but the avatar is not sitting on anything. This asymmetry is the cause of most of the minor problems. CHANGED_LINK events just mean it's time to go check all the seats with llAvatarOnLinkSitTarget to see what's changed, if anything. You can get a CHANGED_LINK during a region crossing even when nothing much has changed.

Once you realize you're observing a process, not responding to a single event, region crossings makes more sense.

Simon Linden tried to hide this by delaying vehicle script restart after a region crossing until either all avatars had arrived or a time delay ran out, so scripts didn't see the intermediate states. That tended to result in out of control vehicles, because the script couldn't stop the vehicle during the period the avatar was still in transit and could not brake or steer. Driving into a region crossing on a curve did not go well. I think that change was backed out.

That's really it. If you do all that, minor region crossing problems go away. There's still about one or two total fails per hour, where either vehicle or avatar crosses and the other never arrives. That's a known server bug.

 

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6 hours ago, Odaks said:

100% support for getting the World Map back properly. I miss it badly for planning and the distance elements of the voyage.

I want it back and working properly, too. But having it showing security orbs?! LL doesn't even know when a region is messed-up until we open a support case to tell them...

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13 hours ago, Mollymews said:

while Linden were moving the regions to AWS they rewrote the method/protocol regime used to transfer vehicles and avatars between regions. As a consequence transfers happen a lot faster now than they used too

most of the current commercial vehicle makers have adapted their scripts to the new fast regime and work pretty well

most commercial vehicle scripts have a polling loop on CHANGED_REGION. And some polling code written with the slow old regime in mind, have a narrow set of conditions to exit the polling loop. In the new fast regime sometimes the exit conditions in these older scripts are not met. The loop never exits, consequently the script events never fire and the vehicle doesn't respond to keyboard controls. it stops, falls out of the sky, etc

only way to fix this in these vehicles is to rewriting the polling code

 

Most seems a trifle exaggerated when I don't know of any that have, at least not in the boating world. They all need third party fixes to work (and even that isn't infallible).

I don't have many flying vehicles, but of those I have I don't recall any updates for them. Last time I tired flying a few weeks ago I made two region crossings before the plane stopped midair on a crossing.

 

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4 hours ago, Aethelwine said:

Most seems a trifle exaggerated when I don't know of any that have, at least not in the boating world. They all need third party fixes to work (and even that isn't infallible).

I don't have many flying vehicles, but of those I have I don't recall any updates for them. Last time I tired flying a few weeks ago I made two region crossings before the plane stopped midair on a crossing.

 

you are right, by most I should have said most newly built/scripted vehicles made since the faster region crossing method was introduced

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