Geography of SL, or, what is mainland, and what is it good for?

[Clem Marques]

3 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Some people have gone to great expense (not me, anymore!) to save Hector Lake which absurdly went on sale for cheap, didn't sell, got chopped, and was in danger of becoming a sea of "cities" (!) with cheap stacked-up sky homes and Brutalist architecture on the water mixed with ad farms -- but fortunately did not.

I share a parcel with a friend in a nearby region and I watched that situation happen to the Hector lake as well. I know what you mean. Such a waste. I'm glad it didn't end up wrecked.

[Qie Niangao]

12 minutes ago, Clem Marques said:

The only thing that really bothers me about the Zindra monorail is the sheer speed of it. Not enough time to really enjoy the view as you attempt to look around, sometimes the surroundings don't really rez in time, and having to pick left or right during every turn, at very fast speeds, can be mildly stressful. Region crossings in quick succession are also risky on slower computers like mine. Is there any way to make that vehicle go slower? Not sure if it's possible at all, but thought I'd ask anyway.

Not that I know of. It's possible to tap the down-arrow button to make it stop, but only *briefly*; if you don't tap the up-arrow button to resume within maybe four seconds, it poofs the pod and you plummet to earth. It doesn't seem to care how often you pause it, though, so it might be a little like pumping the brakes.

[Prokofy Neva]

1 hour ago, Ingrid Ingersoll said:

I still find it absurd that LL didn't designate all water "protected LL land". But that just one of many mistakes they made with the mainland. Hippie concepts don't work, they found out the hard way and basically had to start over with Belli. 

I don't think we will ever seen a new mainland continent, unless it's another Belli type. 

The greatest conflict generator on the Mainland, as I can attest from the days in 2004 when I dealt with first "King Kong on the water" and then Starax' sculpture of "Fisherman Plucked by Eagle" on the water -- is that yes, the Lindens sold the water all over the place, sometimes in strange zig-zags. BTW, not always deliberately and consciously, but sometimes very methodically as to "yes" or "no.". For example the Ravenglass sim which I bought on the auction in 2004 for $1501 US (yes, that's what they cost back then!) was not a full 65,536 with 15,000 prims but 58,000+ m2 or something because the water on it was Linden water and not sellable.

No, we shall not ever see another free Mainland continent. 

May I take this opportunity to point out that despite the Buddhist replication going on with this Heterocera continent and its concentric circles, the actual geographic center of SL is Ross, in Sansara, as our geologists have confirmed.

 

Edited Monday at 07:28 PM by Prokofy Neva

[WeFlossDaily]

What if the grid was round?

That would be cool.

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

50 minutes ago, WeFlossDaily said:

What if the grid was round?

That would be cool.

It is round!  Go visit Newbank and see for yourself!

Edited Monday at 08:32 PM by SarahKB7 Koskinen

[WeFlossDaily]

3 minutes ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

It is round!  Go visit Newbank and see for yourself!

If it's round, we should be able to circumnavigate it just like a real planet.

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

Unfortunately, the SL version of the International Date Line doesn't (yet) exist.

And neither does a Pac-Man style east-west crossover point. But it would be possible to do with an Experience Teleporter set up in two oppositely positioned sim regions at the extreme east and west of the grid. A north/south pole one could be made too. Unfortunately, no vehicle teleports are possible, so you'd do it by foot only.

However, if you're looking for the SL version of the Greenwich Meridian line, it's in the southwest corner (0,0) of Da Boom region, at the top of the rocky spire there.  It's the very centre of the grid and acts as both east/west longitudinal meridian line and also acts as the latitudinal equator of SL. Da Boom has the unique distinction of having grid co-ordinates of 1000,1000 on the SL grid.

Edited Monday at 08:58 PM by SarahKB7 Koskinen

[WeFlossDaily]

That would be a cool experience.

[Orwar]

3 hours ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

Vehicle: Boat.

   What kind of boat, though?

   154.98 km in 203 minutes means an average of around 45.8 km/h, or 24.7 knots. That's very speedy for a regular sailboat - and extremely impressive for a row boat.

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

25 minutes ago, Orwar said:

   What kind of boat, though?

My 1966 era Batboat has a measured top speed of 51.88 knots (96 Km/h or 59.7 Mph) 😎

Edited Monday at 09:31 PM by SarahKB7 Koskinen

[Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobia]

1 hour ago, WeFlossDaily said:

What if the grid was round?

That would be cool.

The grid is round!  You flat gridders drive me crazy.  One day, I will discover a Western route from Bellisseria to Zindra, and we'll see who is laughing then!

There was a virtual world with a spherical grid, named There, and it was a lot of fun.  Kinda like SL, but with more game mechanics.  Skateboarding was awesome, and the questing was truly next level.  I ran into a There dev once, and he showed me the north pole.  They had an actual pole, striped red and white, of course, and santa claus was there.

While writing this post, I checked, and it looks like There is back online.  I might have to sign up for that.  I wonder if it is still round.

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

@Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobia

Not joking. If you perform an extreme cam away from yourself (with Camera Constraints disabled), you will see that the SL horizon changes from a perfectly straight line into a downwardly curved arc!

This suggests a theory that the entire SL grid is actually located on the inside surface of a gigantic hollow sphere or torus! Try it yourself!

Edited Monday at 10:05 PM by SarahKB7 Koskinen

[CaerolleClaudel]

7 hours ago, Ingrid Ingersoll said:

Wow it locked up? I "live" there and haven't experienced that on my plot. I've encountered laggy spots on the mainland but even laggier places on private regions that are highly decorated or clubs and event venues. I guess it all depends on what someone decides to put on their land. 

I almost started to post this last night, but the thread seemed dead at that point, so I didn't.

I think most of the problem was Firestorm (you may use that without any issues, extremely variable experiences seems to be the norm with pretty much everything related to SL) and it was loading textures really, really slowly, and in some cases not at all. FS loads textures as fast as anything else at the places I usually go, but at one place there is a large tree that FS never loads, even though several other viewers do it just fine.

I finally switched to Alchemy and things were way better, though still more sluggish on that continent than the others I visited. I spent pretty much all night exploring (using Alchemy) and also looking for a place to rent, and overall other than Zindra all the continents seemed slower to me than the private regions where I guess I am pretty much all the time I am in SL. That may be just me, though...

[CaerolleClaudel]

7 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

Yeah, the only times I've had a viewer "lock up" like that is during a heavy griefer attack, which are a lot rarer now than in the past (and viewers are a lot more robust to those events, too), but they still happen on Mainland more than Estates because it can take a while to get a Governance response.

I fortunately have never been in a Griefer attack. However, I have experienced a LOT of viewer crashes over the years, I think far more in recent years with the more complicated viewers. When I first came back to SL a few months ago, for whatever reason, my computer, sites I was on, how I had Firestorm set up, I don't know, we all seem to have extremely different experiences, FS would crash several times each time was using SL. Most common was when I was doing a lot of teleports in a row fairly quickly, such as sorting out dead LMs. I could tell it was going to crash when the TP progress bar got stalled. Sometimes I got the grayed out window that gave the choice of quit or read IMs, but sometimes I had to kill the process in Task Manager.

One thing I will say is that I have not whitelisted FS or any other viewer, and really have no intention of doing so. That may be the cause of most of my FS problems, I dunno. It sucks, though, because FS has exactly the features that I need and all the other viewers I have tried (most of them at this point) are missing something important to me, or a LOT of things important to me.

7 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

Couple things about the rail system. First, the Zindra monorail is quite different in implementation from any of the other rail systems. One of the boarding locations was "roped off" for years but it seems to be operational in a quick test, although the pod I was riding did eventually get "stuck".

In all these vehicles, there are occasional troubles when crossing region borders, and one can make that especially risky by wearing a lot of scripts (or using a vehicle with a lot of scripts). Also, separating the cam from the avatar as the avatar moves far away, like studying an attraction as an autonomous vehicle takes the avatar elsewhere, will eventually cause a crash; it's just a matter of time and distance.

Hmm, I don't remember the details of what I did on the monorail, or exactly when it crashed. Definitely screwed up my avi, though, I could not stop it from sitting. I finally relogged to clear it.

7 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

The Heterocera Atoll continent still has by far the most elaborate rail network, the SLRR, but it's most suited for those with their own locomotive to "drive" the tracks. It's easy enough when you get the hang of it, but meanwhile there are autonomous "pods" and "SLGI" and other vehicles that will take passengers some distance before transmogrifying into some non-rail transport to distant lands. (You can see where vehicles are and how they're moving shown on some traffic maps scattered around Virtual Railway Consortium sites on the SLRR.)

@Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobia clued me in on the SLRR, gave me a link to nice little train, and told me a place to get on! I took about a half hour ride last night, was nice. I am guessing you can rez your train anywhere on one of the lines and not at specific places, will have to try that.

My biggest problem in understanding the rail system maps and figuring out how to get on. I did find a pod system somewhere, but could not figure out how to call a pod. Finally I think one just happened by and I jumped on it. The experience was not as good as the train, I think in the future I would try to find the SLRR lines.

7 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

On the Sansara continent, the Snowlands have a rail system ("ONSR") as do the color regions ("GSLR"), not to mention Bay City's and Nova Albion's trolleys. They're all a bit different from each other, but overall, non-Bellisseria Mainland does not lack for rail transport.

I would love to do the Snowlands! However, I am not sure I am clever enough to figure out how to do that lol. Will give it a try sometime.

Thx!

[WeFlossDaily]

1 hour ago, Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobia said:

The grid is round!  You flat gridders drive me crazy.  One day, I will discover a Western route from Bellisseria to Zindra, and we'll see who is laughing then!

Pfff The grid lacks observable curvature. =P

1 hour ago, Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobia said:

There was a virtual world with a spherical grid, named There, and it was a lot of fun.  Kinda like SL, but with more game mechanics.  Skateboarding was awesome, and the questing was truly next level.  I ran into a There dev once, and he showed me the north pole.  They had an actual pole, striped red and white, of course, and santa claus was there.

While writing this post, I checked, and it looks like There is back online.  I might have to sign up for that.  I wonder if it is still round.

That looks fun. =]

[CaerolleClaudel]

On 9/15/2024 at 2:23 PM, SarahThe Wanderer said:

I have a love/hate relationship with mainland, a lot of times I say I'm  giving up on it, and one time I finally did, but few months out of mainland, and i'm already missing it, so I'm back again! 

I don't know what exactly is so charming about it, but it has this unique element maybe inclusivity? it's a bigger world with endless possiblites,  that all other private regions and bellisseria are lacking, I've been literally everywhere in SL , I had lands in every continent in mainland ( expect for the Geata 1 and 2 they never appealed to me, zindra too never had and never will ) multiple lands in private regions, have owned private region and homesteads, tried all themes in belliseria , also lands in horizons, I'v experinced it all, and if I had to choose just one place to be in; I'd choose Mainland above them all!
 Mainland is a challange for your creativity and most important thing your patience, it defnitly not for soft hearts : b

I'm impressed by the people who create beautiful places in mainland more than the ones who had it easy creating in private regions, mainland builders are in my opinion more creative and skilled than private regions ones; because of the challenges they have to deal with.

 Mainalnd also in my opinion mostly apeal to explorers and builders, the normal resident who only want to have a beautiful home may strugle there!

I spent pretty much all night last night (until 7AM this morning lol) exploring a lot of the continents. I did not find many clusters of stuff, but where I did, I agree that the creativity or maybe total lack of guiding design principles or rules or whatever was a lot higher than on the private regions I have been on. Unless I am confused once again lol. I have not lived on mainland in a long time, and forgot how interesting it can be!

I looked at a LOT of rental places, which were almost exclusively on the water. Most of these were crammed together with the walls between them, and rows of houses separated by small bits of water. Pretty much anything and everything all mixed in lol. I had forgotten about all that.

[WeFlossDaily]

1 hour ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

Not joking. If you perform an extreme cam away from yourself (with Camera Constraints disabled), you will see that the SL horizon changes from a perfectly straight line into a downwardly curved arc!

This suggests a theory that the entire SL grid is actually located on the inside surface of a gigantic hollow sphere or torus! Try it yourself!

The grid is either flat or hollow!

[CaerolleClaudel]

7 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

GTFOs

What are these? I did see some places on the map labeled with that. I assume that means Get the ***** Off, but not sure what the context is? If someone owns that land, can't they keep people off anyhow??

7 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

There's no zoning on the Mainland

That is pretty much immediately obvious lol. I had forgotten about that.

7 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

But Ingrid is right, there are some really nice areas there which are like the best-kept secret of SL. I recently picked up some abandoned land in Tethea sadly let go by someone with a nice cafe with a BBB stamp due to RL issues and I tried to fit in with the wonderful builds there. I flew all around up and down the roads there and was amazed how good it is. I try to keep my own areas nice as do some of my long-time neighbours but I often feel I'm on an oasis in a sea of blight consisting of large tracts of abandoned land dotted by giant pieces of plywood, huge towers no one lives in, strange box clubs with no traffic, huge breedable barns, etc. Some people have gone to great expense (not me, anymore!) to save Hector Lake which absurdly went on sale for cheap, didn't sell, got chopped, and was in danger of becoming a sea of "cities" (!) with cheap stacked-up sky homes and Brutalist architecture on the water mixed with ad farms -- but fortunately did not. It's a struggle

😢

[CaerolleClaudel]

6 hours ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

If, like me, you can do this whole route by boat in under 3 hours 23 minutes , you can call yourself a mainland expert! (No teleporting, no flying, no cheating!).

Start: Giuseppe (NE corner of GaetaV).
Mid-point: Lordshore (Southern-most connected Jeogeot water region).
Finish: Fillip (Northern tip of Heterocera).
Total time: 3 hours, 23 minutes, 12 Seconds.
Sims: 699.
Distance:  154.98 KM (96.3 miles)

Vehicle: Boat.

Three-and-a-half hours pretty much exceeds my level of interest. I mean, I spent all last night, but kind of jumped about a lot, mostly guided by the low-resolution Map.

[Anastasia Loxingly]

1 minute ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

What are these? I did see some places on the map labeled with that. I assume that means Get the ***** Off, but not sure what the context is? If someone owns that land, can't they keep people off anyhow??

GTFO means Get the Freight Out, its a user made game about hauling cargo from GTFO Hub to Hub using an assortment of vehicles. Those GTFO signs are advertising a hub where one can load cargo and are often the most well designed places on mainland.

[CaerolleClaudel]

6 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

I am sorry, I have no idea what this is in response to, lol. My total cluelessness sounds like a good target tho! 😉

[Aethelwine]

GTFO stands for Get the Freight Out.

It is a game for vehicle owners doing deliveries. Places on mainland marked as GTFO are intended to be welcoming, the idea is someone using the system can record deliveries to and from each of the locations marked as GTFO hubs

[CaerolleClaudel]

4 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

May I take this opportunity to point out that despite the Buddhist replication going on with this Heterocera continent and its concentric circles, the actual geographic center of SL is Ross, in Sansara, as our geologists have confirmed.

I did seem to find far more stuff, with a lot of places to rent, in Sansara.

[Rowan Amore]

17 minutes ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

I am sorry, I have no idea what this is in response to, lol. My total cluelessness sounds like a good target tho! 😉

It was not directed at you at all.  

[CaerolleClaudel]

5 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

It was not directed at you at all.  

Well, it would have been apt if it was, lol. I am pretty slow. Hopefully that came through in my response!