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

[Qie Niangao]

1 hour ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

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.

Virtual Railway Consortium has an old, WordPress hosted website with links to some of our outposts, including one in the Snowlands. That one is just a short ferry crossing over a snowy river to an ONSR stop, and includes traffic maps of the ONSR specifically, and of all the old Mainland rail systems combined. (That's "old Mainland", as opposed to Bellisseria.)

1 hour ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

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 land permissions are parcel specific, so you can only reliably rez a train on rail adjacent an SLRR station. You can't actually hail the pods, etc., although they have some locations where they congregate. That's actually the point of the traffic maps, to be able to tell if a vehicle is approaching, or to just click where one appears to be approaching and teleport there to catch it.

But yeah: is easiest to just rez a locomotive at a station and ride.

[CaerolleClaudel]

16 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Virtual Railway Consortium has an old, WordPress hosted website with links to some of our outposts, including one in the Snowlands. That one is just a short ferry crossing over a snowy river to an ONSR stop, and includes traffic maps of the ONSR specifically, and of all the old Mainland rail systems combined. (That's "old Mainland", as opposed to Bellisseria.)

Ah, thanks! It occurred to me that if I got really interested in riding the rails there is probably some group or groups that I could join where people would probably give me some guidance. I will take a look at the links you at least.

18 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

The land permissions are parcel specific, so you can only reliably rez a train on rail adjacent an SLRR station. You can't actually hail the pods, etc., although they have some locations where they congregate. That's actually the point of the traffic maps, to be able to tell if a vehicle is approaching, or to just click where one appears to be approaching and teleport there to catch it.

But yeah: is easiest to just rez a locomotive at a station and ride.

Good to know about the limitations on where you can get on the SLRR! And thanks for the info on the pods. I had trouble seeing ahead on the one that I rode, and it literally crashed pretty fast: the tracks and the land stopped (did not run into the ocean, nothing was there) and the pods kept going down like on a hill into an underground place with a bunch of plywood and then finally crashed into a wall or just stopped, I don't recall exactly. IIRC at that point my viewer crashed. However, I was using FS at that time, which gave me trouble a lot of places and finally I switched to Alchemy, which worked a lot better somehow.

[Ingrid Ingersoll]

4 hours ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

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

I like that place. For a while that was the Welcome Hub, not that region but all the content. They re-purposed it for the newbabk park. 

[CaerolleClaudel]

3 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

ncluding one in the Snowlands. That one is just a short ferry crossing over a snowy river to an ONSR stop, and includes traffic maps of the ONSR specifically, and of all the old Mainland rail systems combined. (That's "old Mainland", as opposed to Bellisseria.)

Just tried the Snowland train. Took me a while to figure out that as with the pods, you cannot call a train (AFAICT). Using the SL page below I was able to TP to a station just as a train was passing through, and managed to 'jump' on (that thing was fast!).

So that is the good part. However, SL being SL, the bad part is rarely behind: Just like with the pod I tried, the train went a very short distance and then there was nothing except blackness. No tracks, no land, no nothing. The train just stopped. I tried to stand up and it crashed my viewer (Alchemy, which has been working quite well for me). So, I dunno. I might try it again some time but based on my experience so far the only reliable train transport is when using your own train, the SL ones suck.

If you have any advice or suggestions I would love to hear them! Thx!

[Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobia]

1 hour ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

Just tried the Snowland train. Took me a while to figure out that as with the pods, you cannot call a train (AFAICT). Using the SL page below I was able to TP to a station just as a train was passing through, and managed to 'jump' on (that thing was fast!).

So that is the good part. However, SL being SL, the bad part is rarely behind: Just like with the pod I tried, the train went a very short distance and then there was nothing except blackness. No tracks, no land, no nothing. The train just stopped. I tried to stand up and it crashed my viewer (Alchemy, which has been working quite well for me). So, I dunno. I might try it again some time but based on my experience so far the only reliable train transport is when using your own train, the SL ones suck.

If you have any advice or suggestions I would love to hear them! Thx!

Yeah, crashes happen.  Try to tune your draw distance.  If it's too high, your system will get overloaded and crash like that sometimes.  If it's too low, you don't see as much.

One of my favorite parts of the tracks is in the new areas.  Go to the woodlands, and rez your train at the Flotilla station.  Then,  ride the rails into the tunnel to the north.  They have a glass underwater tunnel, surrounded by undersea flora and fauna.  Then, it takes you through the premium plus ranch houses, and eventually over a bridge to the premium plus mediterranean houses.  There's some new construction on this route, so it's fun to see how it develops over time.

Also, there are some interesting spots on this line, if you go south.  For example, if you throw the right switch at Three Sheets, then reverse at the tunnel to go across the big bridge, then you will arrive at the welcome areas.

[CaerolleClaudel]

42 minutes ago, Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobia said:

Yeah, crashes happen.  Try to tune your draw distance.  If it's too high, your system will get overloaded and crash like that sometimes.  If it's too low, you don't see as much.

One of my favorite parts of the tracks is in the new areas.  Go to the woodlands, and rez your train at the Flotilla station.  Then,  ride the rails into the tunnel to the north.  They have a glass underwater tunnel, surrounded by undersea flora and fauna.  Then, it takes you through the premium plus ranch houses, and eventually over a bridge to the premium plus mediterranean houses.  There's some new construction on this route, so it's fun to see how it develops over time.

Also, there are some interesting spots on this line, if you go south.  For example, if you throw the right switch at Three Sheets, then reverse at the tunnel to go across the big bridge, then you will arrive at the welcome areas.

Thx, great stuff!!

And yeah, I had my draw distance cranked up to 300m so I could see ahead of me. I guess I can try it dialed back some.

Thanks for the suggestions of new places to get on the tracks! I want to try more of this for sure!

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

@Patch Linden @Abnor Mole @Quartz Mole

It would be nice if LL or the LDPW put roadsigns on the mainland roadsides to promote mainland tourism.

We have useful brown roadside tourist signs in England (and in other countries) that are specifically colour-coded for tourism and feature places of interest, sometimes having a symbol or icon too for non-English speakers. These signs all share the same typeface font too, called "Transport".

Here are some examples I created for demonstration:

 

 

Some real world ones for comparison:

 

Larger highway-sized ones.

 

Sometimes, a tourist destination might appear as a brown panel on a regular direction sign.

"Secret Nuclear Bunker" !

 

^No longer a secret?!

However, it would be a full time job to maintain such signs in SL, as things often change on the mainland and the signs would need to be updated regularly.

Edited Tuesday at 02:04 PM by SarahKB7 Koskinen

[Ingrid Ingersoll]

6 hours ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

I had my draw distance cranked up to 300m

That'll do it. I keep mine around 100 usually

[William Gide]

For people who like exploring more or less at random to see what other residents have come up with, the mainland is perfect. It's a vast, interconnected space you can wander more or less at will, with only ban-lines and zero-notice security orbs as hazards. Random island hopping is something I used to try, but as often as not you'll simply be refused entry, and I don't like dropping in on RP spaces by surprise. It's a shame there's not a way to allow people to include a small amount of info about their sims that'd come up on the map, so you know what's there beforehand.

I myself own, with my partner, land crossing three sims in Heterocera, where we set up camp as a COVID sanity-preservation project. So, I've built up a forested region with hang-out spaces that I tinker with regularly (more during the North American winter months). It gives me something to work on when going outside is less fun. If I did this on a private sim (assuming I could afford that), I don't think I'd have as many visitors as I do now, sited as I am now next to a rail line on the mainland. We didn't build this as a money-making venture, and while I do have a few donation drops, mostly I just really enjoy seeing other people enjoy the space I've built up. Costs would be a bigger worry if I had a private sim. 

Of course, there are private sims I visit regularly, mostly music venues that DJs I follow are performing at, and The Nature Collective group has quite a few private sims among the membership, too. But for serendipitous discoveries, I find the mainland the best option, for all it's other faults.

Finally, if I can be forgiven for using this space to advocate for a change, this feedback item suggests a few workable plans to beautify the abandoned space on the mainland which I believe would make the whole area more attractive.

[Coffee Pancake]

7 hours ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

Umm ..

Da Boom is a bit of a **** hole, and some muppet thinks its "historical status" warrents L$8000 a sqm land prices.

Maybe we can get Linden to eminent domain it all and put up a statue of Philips sparkly crotch before we start trying to create "tourism".

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

@Coffee Pancake

There is already a "Philips Sparkly Crotch" exhibit in Da Boom. I know, because I put it there months ago... 😎

Edited Tuesday at 04:41 PM by SarahKB7 Koskinen

[AmeliaJ08]

19 minutes ago, William Gide said:

with only ban-lines and zero-notice security orbs as hazards.

To be fair this is a genuinely huge hazard and severely impacts ability to travel, especially with any sort of efficiency (by air).

I know I know, worn topic. It's not like you can expect to travel mainland without it happening though, you can try to follow roads etc but at any sort of speed this becomes impractical.

No, I wouldn't change it (there's reasons people use them and they're probably more legitimate than easy travel for all) but realistically many people will probably be put off exploration even if they are aware of the interconnected mainland grid because of these.

[Coffee Pancake]

53 minutes ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

@Coffee Pancake

There is already a "Philips Sparkly Crotch" exhibit in Da Boom. I know, because I put it there months ago... 😎

It needs to dominate the entire region, anything less is too small.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

Ideas for road signs:

"HISTORIC GRIEFING AREA AHEAD"

"LAST AFK CLUB FOR 20 REGIONS"

"ADOPT-A-ROAD" signs for Anti-"Litter" (In SL I guess this would be "blight") campaign with name of groups for each "stretch" of road (this is a real thing in the US)

 

[CaerolleClaudel]

1 hour ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

To be fair this is a genuinely huge hazard and severely impacts ability to travel, especially with any sort of efficiency (by air).

I know I know, worn topic. It's not like you can expect to travel mainland without it happening though, you can try to follow roads etc but at any sort of speed this becomes impractical.

No, I wouldn't change it (there's reasons people use them and they're probably more legitimate than easy travel for all) but realistically many people will probably be put off exploration even if they are aware of the interconnected mainland grid because of these.

Yeah, I rediscovered several annoying things I had forgotten about, not having traveled about on mainland for quite a long time. I fly everywhere because walking the roads is soooooo slow, and constantly ran into ban lines. Sometimes I even ran into the lovely thing of winding up in a dead end, with ban lines in front of me and on both sides (‘surrounded on three sides’ as the phrase goes lol). I would rather a 5-second orbit, but I guess ban lines just absolutely keep people out. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[CaerolleClaudel]

10 hours ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

It would be nice if LL or the LDPW put roadsigns on the mainland roadsides to promote mainland tourism.

What I would love is to have maps either in SL itself or online with those points of interest LM’d. Way more work than even putting up road signs, of course! But might encourage extremely lazy people like me to explore more lol. 

[Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobia]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Ideas for road signs:

"HISTORIC GRIEFING AREA AHEAD"

"LAST AFK CLUB FOR 20 REGIONS"

"ADOPT-A-ROAD" signs for Anti-"Litter" (In SL I guess this would be "blight") campaign with name of groups for each "stretch" of road (this is a real thing in the US)

 

Designate Jesse as the historic griefing area, LOL

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

38 minutes ago, Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobia said:

Designate Jesse as the historic griefing area, LOL

😎

Edited Tuesday at 07:03 PM by SarahKB7 Koskinen

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

You've given me another idea, @Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobia...

Outlands: https://secondlife.fandom.com/wiki/Outlands

Remnant of the Outlands Wall still survives in Jessie. A section is also preserved at Ritch Prim Museum.

Edited Wednesday at 12:56 AM by SarahKB7 Koskinen

[SarahThe Wanderer]

19 hours ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

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.

Yes, you misunderstood my point a bit, I meant the residents who choose to build on mainland they are the ones who are more skilled than the builders who only build in private regions, and what I meant by that, is their creativity of finding solutions for hard and odd shapes land, where they can't terraform the grounds or being surrounded by eyesores all around; like skyboxes on ground level for example.

And they do it in a very skilled way, as in this picture ( it's a random bad shot, but it's the only picture i could find for that amazing sim, sadly )

This was a rainforest in mainland expanded in 2 regions, I used to rent there even though I didn't need to, I already have my land in mainland, but who wouldn't want to have a place in this paradise!

The picture don't do it justice, it's only a very small part where I rented the house in front and the draw distance was low too. 

These two regions didn't have water access, except for 2 parcels if I remeber correctly, the builder with great attention to every detail made waters, huge waterfall, mountains, islands in a sim that originally didn't have any waters!

even from behind with these huge mountains covering up the bad sight, it's done in a tasteful way where you can see nice mountains with vegetation and trees instead of huge walls.

 I also remember there was a great grand canyon in the sharp continent, it had a really majestic view, done by a skillful builder who saw a potential!
 it was one of the best builds I've seen in mainland.

There was also a tropical themed place where from the outside you see a nice beautiful build but nothing out of ordinary, but somewhere in the middle of it, you'd find a cave that leads into a breathtaking hidden lagoon, that's been built under the surface! 

This just a small example of what I've seen in mainland, with plain looking hard and odd shape lands that no one would want, but a creative skilled builders see a potential, a possibility to create masterpieces and they did!

Sadly the builds I mentioned are long gone now.   

 
 These places are hidden treasures of mainland, and finding them is very rewarding at least for me, that's why I love exploring mainland, you never know what you'll find, just don't stop and keep walking ( yes I explore by walking : b )  I like to take my time in every region.

 

[CaerolleClaudel]

@SarahThe Wanderer I didn’t want to quote your whole post so am just tagging you!

I am sorry I misunderstood what you meant. Thanks for the awesome explanation and the detailed information! I can tell that you really love this aspect of SL, and that is great.

Btw, I was not being sarcastic about the creativity I saw. I was infelicitous in what I said, sorry. What I meant was that I saw creativity in so many of the houses and properties, and that probably the lack of ‘zoning laws’ or ‘HOAs’ enabled that sort of variety of expression. Hopefully that makes more sense.

1 hour ago, SarahThe Wanderer said:

Sadly the builds I mentioned are long gone now. 

Yes, so many wonderful aspects of SL have been long gone. I guess some new wonderful aspects have replaced them, but to me SL is a very different place than it was back in the day. I guess a lot of people would say that is what SL is all about. I just know I have so many good memories and I wish new ones were being made of those same experiences.

Also, wow, walking!!!! I admire that and can see the advantages of that, but I always want to know if there is something more interesting somewhere else lol. What I more tend to do (in RL as well as SL) is to quickly explore a lot of options at a high level and then drill down into the ones that look interesting. Not just ‘physical’ locations in SL itself, but topics or themes in SL and about SL. For example, digging into railroads, which I have discussed in this thread. I love new experiences (yes, inconsistent with wanting the same experiences to continue for decades, but that is how I am) and am always looking for some new interest, even though I already have far, far more interests than time. I am defs a hardcore dilettante lol.

Thx again for the great post! Enjoy exploring!!

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

The Mainland continents in order of creation/completion:

(Linden Homes/Premium/Nascera continents ignored, because they aren't "Mainland")

0. LindenWorld* (Early 2002 (Early Creators/Alpha Test Grid) - 31 October 2002 (deleted))

(*Where else do you think The Man Statue, Steller's Beanstalk, Governor Linden's Mansion and all other pre-November 2002 stuff originally came from?!)

1. Sansara (1 November 2002 (Beta Test) - Uncompleted)

2. Heterocera (21 March 2005 - 2 December 2005)

3. Jeogoet (20 December 2005 - 19 March 2008) 

4. Satori (21 February 2007 - 18 June 2007)

5. Nautilus (24 April 2007 - 12 November 2007). 

6. Corsica (1 August 2007 - 9 April 2008)

7. Gaeta V (14 April 2008 - 25 May 2008)

8. Gaeta I (4 June 2008 - Uncompleted)

9. Nautilus City (17 October 2008 (single day))

10. Zindra (23 January 2009 - Uncompleted)

11. Sharp/TSL Continent (22 January 2011 (as part of the main SL grid))

Edited Wednesday at 05:59 PM by SarahKB7 Koskinen
Added LindenWorld to list

[diamond Marchant]

On 9/16/2024 at 9:55 AM, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

If, like me, you can travel this whole route only 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.

This map is a nice illustration of something very important (to me) about mainland and the water-rezzable parcels of Bellisseria.

I view mainland as composed of two types of parcels, namely (1) those coastal parcels adjacent to connected-protected water and (2) the rest of mainland, that is, the parcels not adjacent to connected-protected water.

Some of us prefer the Ready Player One sort of world where vehicle travel is valued. If you reside on type 1 mainland, you can sail or fly to thousands of regions without fear of hitting a banline or orb. Similarly for water-rezzable Belli parcels.

Obviously the type 1 parcels command high prices, either for the water view or the possibility of leaving a vehicle permanently rezzed on your parcel which later can be used for travel, just like in real life. Perhaps because it is expensive real estate, people tend to construct nice builds that relate to the coastal theme (not always but mostly).

Note that the water-rezzable Belli parcels also are in high demand, I think for similar reasons. Also note that there is no yellow line on Sarah's map that goes through the Belli Fantasy Theme. A one region connection to Jeoget would address this issue.

 

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

22 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

Also note that there is no yellow line on Sarah's map that goes through the Belli Fantasy Theme. A one region connection to Jeoget would address this issue.

I was only one sim region from entering Fantasseria when I passed through Rigamarole. There was no need to go south through Fantasseria to northern Jeogeot. And I didn't want to disturb their sleeping Kraken...

Edited Tuesday at 10:56 PM by SarahKB7 Koskinen

[HeathcliffMontague]

On 9/16/2024 at 11:23 PM, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

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

My Speed Maniac CHALLENGER XLL (RCX MOD) can easily cross water region after water region at 300 - 400 kp/h. Wouldn't recommend that speed unless you really have clocked a serious amout of hours, though.