Let them stand up: Fixing vehicle auto-return

[Extrude Ragu]

So I think this can be done pretty inexpensively. LL Servers are tuned for fast ID lookups of objects and avatars in their cache. Objects and avatars have properties, like their name, description, and hidden properties such as vehicle type or whether or not the object is sat upon etc.

What LL would do is add a new hidden property called 'Personal Vehicle' to our avatars. It would contain the ID of the last vehicle you sat on. So if you sit on one car, the property is set, and then if you sit on another, the property is changed to the new car. This lookup would be just as fast as checking if we're sat on the object.

The main challenge as I see it would be defining what constitutes abandonment. Someone in their private parcel probably doesn't want you to drive on their lawn, let alone park there, but a mall might want you to be able to walk pretty far from your car and spend a long time shopping before the vehicle is considered abandoned. Admittedly, this part I am not sure about. Perhaps it needs to be a land owner setting. What that looks like, I'm not sure.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

2 hours ago, Extrude Ragu said:

You clearly did not read my post.

Oh I did read it.

That's why I said "OH HELL NO", because it's a bloody stupid idea that paves the way for a sh*t storm of griefing.

It's another classic example of Vehicle Fanatic Over-Entitlement.

 

"My vehicle makes me special, I demand the right to trespass, I demand the right to prim litter the places I trespass on, because MY IMMERSION!"

There is an Idiot in SL who built a privately owned railway. The Idiot turned off the auto-return, for the benefit of "bona fide travellers" so they can get off their trains and walk around. Hardly anyone uses the railway, but a significant percentage of the handful, LEAVE their trains on the track when they finish with them.

 

Your suggestion is "pander to the most over-entitled and least considerate group of people in SL, because My Little Car - Vehicles Are Magic, and so what if it helps griefers, and causes massive lag". That's why the ansswer iss...

 

OH HELL NO!

[Extrude Ragu]

Just now, Zalificent Corvinus said:

Oh I did read it.

No, you didn't, because you suggested something could happen that wouldn't be possible to happen, based on the implementation.

[Gabriele Graves]

8 minutes ago, Extrude Ragu said:

So I think this can be done pretty inexpensively. LL Servers are tuned for fast ID lookups of objects and avatars in their cache. Objects and avatars have properties, like their name, description, and hidden properties such as vehicle type or whether or not the object is sat upon etc.

What LL would do is add a new hidden property called 'Personal Vehicle' to our avatars. It would contain the ID of the last vehicle you sat on. So if you sit on one car, the property is set, and then if you sit on another, the property is changed to the new car. This lookup would be just as fast as checking if we're sat on the object.

The main challenge as I see it would be defining what constitutes abandonment. Someone in their private parcel probably doesn't want you to drive on their lawn, let alone park there, but a mall might want you to be able to walk pretty far from your car and spend a long time shopping before the vehicle is considered abandoned. Admittedly, this part I am not sure about. Perhaps it needs to be a land owner setting. What that looks like, I'm not sure.

I guess there would be a few edge cases to have to define though such as what happens during this time if an avatar rezzes another vehicle while their other vehicle is still rezzed.  Is it abandonment just to temporarily leave that parcel?  Is it a vertical range as well or just horizontal?

I don't have any fundamental objections in principle to such a scheme if it can be made to work well, especially if applied to LL public land and as long as it would not replace the existing system.  I'm not sure I would prefer to use it on my airstrip for example.  The auto-return works very well there.

[AmeliaJ08]

I did always find it a bit sad that you can't really explore via vehicle. You can with detailed knowledge of rez zones and parcels with long auto-returns of course but... most people don't have that knowledge.

Does anyone know what the return time is if you leave a vehicle on the average mainland road? is it the same grid wide?

 

[Zalificent Corvinus]

12 minutes ago, Extrude Ragu said:

No, you didn't, because you suggested something could happen that wouldn't be possible to happen, based on the implementation.

I'm calling bullsh*t on that, as there is NOTHING to stop a griefer dropping a "vehicle" script into a griefer cube, and riding it into a parcel, before dismounting, starting the griefer function and standing there while it does whatever horror it does, immune from auto-return because of some bloody stupid pander-to-over-entitled-fanatics feature.

 

[Extrude Ragu]

Just now, Gabriele Graves said:

I guess there would be a few edge cases to have to define though such as what happens during this time if an avatar rezzes another vehicle while their other vehicle is still rezzed.  Is it abandonment just to temporarily leave that parcel?  Is it a vertical range as well or just horizontal?

I don't have any fundamental objections in principle to such a scheme if it can be made to work well, especially if applied to LL public land and as long as it would not replace the existing system.  I'm not sure I would prefer to use it on my airstrip for example.  The auto-return works very well there.

Yes I am not imagining changing the existing system.

One way to do it might be a new parcel setting, which defines Personal Vehicle return?

 

Crude mockup, but something like this. As long as the avatar stays within the radius of the vehicle, it wouldn't be returned. Then if you're a store owner you could define parking that lets your customers shop as long as they like, without their vehicle getting returned. If you want them to be able to wander off to the whole region, you could type in 999. If you're Zalificent and want the cars to GTFO, you can type in 0.

 

[elleevelyn]

3 minutes ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

Does anyone know what the return time is if you leave a vehicle on the average mainland road? is it the same grid wide?

on mainland roads they are mostly either 5 or 10 minutes

 

[AmeliaJ08]

1 minute ago, elleevelyn said:

on mainland roads they are mostly either 5 or 10 minutes

 

That could surely be longer, say an hour. I know it might lead to littering of vehicles though... so maybe not. I know I've been out exploring with a car and a friend, it's fun to be able to get out and look at the things you see from the roadside but it usually leads to the car disappearing.

 

[Zalificent Corvinus]

10 minutes ago, Extrude Ragu said:

Yes I am not imagining changing the existing system.

Good.

</thread>

 

10 hours ago, Midnoot said:

Give a grace period before de-rezzing items. 5-10 minutes.

8 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Ok how about a 10 minute auto return? 

 

May I draw your attention to...

3 minutes ago, elleevelyn said:

on mainland roads they are mostly either 5 or 10 minutes

so you already have what you need. Non-Problem solved.

</thread>

[Extrude Ragu]

I don't know about you but I like to spend more than 5 minutes when I am shopping

</zalificent>

<thread>

Edited January 29 by Extrude Ragu

[elleevelyn]

7 minutes ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

That could surely be longer, say an hour. I know it might lead to littering of vehicles though... so maybe not. I know I've been out exploring with a car and a friend, it's fun to be able to get out and look at the things you see from the roadside but it usually leads to the car disappearing.

 

the times have gotten shorter since LDPW took over the upkeep

back in the day when Governor Linden was responsible then the times were all over the place, including in some places Auto-return = 0

the issue with the longer times was vehicle abandonment and lost prims, You be going down the highway and then can't go any further because next Parcel Full due to abandoned vehicles and random prims lost by builders on the region

Edited January 29 by elleevelyn
typs

[Love Zhaoying]

5 minutes ago, Extrude Ragu said:

I don't know about you but I like to spend more than 5 minutes when I am shopping

</zalificent>

<thread>

Maybe if the vehicle is an attachment, and you can fit it into the store..

[Extrude Ragu]

16 minutes ago, elleevelyn said:

the issue with the longer times was vehicle abandonment and lost prims, You be going down the highway and then can't go any further because next Parcel Full due to abandoned vehicles and random prims lost by builders on the region

Yes this is why I think that parcel auto-return timers are not really good enough, when it comes to vehicles. The amount of time a vehicle spends somewhere is not an indicator of whether it was abandoned. Timers will incorrectly return vehicles people are still using, and fail to return vehicles that people have since abandoned.

I really do think we need to be able to set vehicle abandonment based on if the driver/passengers remain nearby. This would more quickly return vehicles that are abandoned, whilst not annoying people by returning their vehicle prematurely when it wasn't abandoned.

[elleevelyn]

about carparking at my inworld shop (if I had one, which I never)

Big sign: "Free parking for paying customers. Please pay the parking meter L$10 for 1 hour. You can park for as many hours as you want ok. When you buy something in my shop then I refund your parking fee. if you don't pay the parking fee then your vehicle be towed away by Return-To--Lost&Found Towing Services. Thankyou and happy shopping !!"

😻

 

[Zalificent Corvinus]

27 minutes ago, Extrude Ragu said:

I don't know about you but I like to spend more than 5 minutes when I am shopping

</zalificent>

<thread>

Use public transport teleport, only anti-social prim-pollution spamming people feel the need to DRIVE everywhere.

Shopping, it's what Teleporting was invented for.

[Extrude Ragu]

Just now, Zalificent Corvinus said:

Use public transport teleport, only anti-social prim-pollution spamming people feel the need to DRIVE everywhere.

Shopping, it's what Teleporting was invented for.

No :u

[Zalificent Corvinus]

8 minutes ago, elleevelyn said:

if you don't pay the parking fee then your vehicle be towed away by Return-To--Lost&Found Towing Services

A better option would be to make ALL vehicles NO COPY, then if they are left illegally parked, they get CRUSHED.

Vehicle fanatics would have to learn to take better care of their vehicles.

[elleevelyn]

3 minutes ago, Extrude Ragu said:

I really do think we need to be able to set vehicle abandonment based on if the driver/passengers remain nearby. This would more quickly return vehicles that are abandoned, whilst not annoying people by returning their vehicle prematurely when it wasn't abandoned.

based on llGetObjectDetails then I think vehicle type is a property of the script, is not a property of the prim. So I think vehicle for this purpose would be any prim sat on

[Extrude Ragu]

Just now, elleevelyn said:

based on llGetObjectDetails then I think vehicle type is a property of the script, is not a property of the prim. So I think vehicle for this purpose would be any prim sat on

I don't think this would cause a problem, since the sim knows about script properties of prims (otherwise, how would it run the scripts and send the output to your viewer?)

[elleevelyn]

2 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

A better option would be to make ALL vehicles NO COPY, then if they are left illegally parked, they get CRUSHED.

you are channeling Crusher Collins now !! (google new zealand politician) Ms Collins is total ruthless when it comes to hooligan car drivers :😲

[elleevelyn]

3 minutes ago, Extrude Ragu said:

I don't think this would cause a problem, since the sim knows about script properties of prims (otherwise, how would it run the scripts and send the output to your viewer?)

is some nuances that have to be catered for. Like Rider Linden had to change Damage to be a property of the prim (from being a script property) when he developed llRezObjectWithParams. This was to save server time in identifying objects deliivering/receiving damage without having to interrogate the script(s) within. And I think Linden would want to save time in the same way with the vehicle object for this purpose

[Love Zhaoying]

@Extrude Ragu, once an avatar "unseats" from their vehicle to go shopping, wouldn't the vehicle be added to the prims / LI count "used" on the parcel?

If so, wouldn't this potentially lead to "parcel full" errors, etc.?

(Sorry, I did not see this in your OP.)

If your intention is that "personal vehicles with no seated avatar do not add to prim / LI count", then that "sounds" like a departure from the current rules.

(It's my weak understanding that vehicles with seated avatars are treated as "attachments", in the aspect that they do not add to the parcel prim / LI count.)

 

[Extrude Ragu]

3 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

@Extrude Ragu, once an avatar "unseats" from their vehicle to go shopping, wouldn't the vehicle be added to the prims / LI count "used" on the parcel?

If so, wouldn't this potentially lead to "parcel full" errors, etc.?

(Sorry, I did not see this in your OP.)

If your intention is that "personal vehicles with no seated avatar do not add to prim / LI count", then that "sounds" like a departure from the current rules.

(It's my weak understanding that vehicles with seated avatars are treated as "attachments", in the aspect that they do not add to the parcel prim / LI count.)

 

It's a fair concern, one solution might be to simply not count it towards LI if it's a non-abandoned vehicle that's just not currently sat on. Basically treat it the same as a vehicle that is sat on.

[Extrude Ragu]

With that said, I think that vehicles do count towards LI? I seem to remember hitting a parcel border in the past and being told I can't enter because the region is full.