How long should my script wait for a reply?

[Innula Zenovka]

I'm working on an in-sim tp system which works like this -- user touches a unit, unit polls all other units on the sim with the user's uuid, using llRegionSay(), other units check the uuid against their access lists and settings, and, if the user is able to access that particular unit, replies, using llRegionSayTo(),  to the unit that's initiated the inquiry.    

That unit then builds a list of destinations the user is allowed to access and presents him or her with a menu.

Obviously, I don't know in advance how many units there are or how many are likely to reply.   

How long should I wait before I generate the menu of possible destinations?   In testing, anything over 2 or 3 seconds seems a very long time,  but I've no idea what's likely to happen -- and neither am I really in a position to find out by experiment -- on a laggy sim with a couple of dozen units.

[Darkie Minotaur]

Just go to one of the popular sandboxes - you can set up as many units you want and it usually is dead laggy. Apart from that, I wouldn't go over 3 secs or choose a centralized approached, possibly based on an outworld db

[Rolig Loon]

I've had that same question myself and have settled somewhat arbitrarily on 2 seconds.  It seems to be enough time.  At least I haven't lost any messages yet.

[Void Singer]

also may depend on what else the scripts do, or might be caught in the middle of doing....

[Innula Zenovka]

---

Void Singer wrote:

also may depend on what else the scripts do, or might be caught in the middle of doing....

---

Very good point.  In this instance, all they do is sit and wait either for people to touch them or for other units to poll them, so in practice I don't think they're likely be caught doing much.    They rez a teleporter disk once you've selected your destination and then wait for the next person to happen along.

[Rolig Loon]

Well, then, a wait of a couple of seconds isn't bad.  You can play a pleasant little sound file or fire off a few particles to distract people for that long.

[Void Singer]

or even just tell them something like "retrieving access permissions" and then amaze them that it only took a few seconds (because most users encountering that type of message will expect a wait).... even if you can't safely hack the script to go faster, you can always hack the users perception of how long it should take >=)

of course the alternative would be to send an catch rez messages, to know how many items should be responding, then count both positive and negative replies with a 1 sec timeout.... but the logic can add a lot to the scripts and probably isn't worth the extra effort.