Getting Confused with Group Land Contributions

[Kether Farshore]

I recently deeded two adjacent Mainland parcels to my Group; a 2048 sq m and 512 sq m plot. I am a Premium member so I get the 1024  bonus  sq m allowance. I would like to stay in the 2048 Sq Meter Land Tier ( $13/month)

I am slightly confused about the Land and Linden window when I look at my land Group's settings. 

Total Land Use is correct: 2048 +512 = 2560 sq m

Land Available : I am assuming the 256 sq m is the 10% land bonus off the 2560 sq m  for deeding land to the group?

Total Contribution: So... 2560 + 256 = 2816 sq m. 

Your Contribution: I put down 2560 sq m since this is the actual Land I am using up. Is this the right number I should be using? Where does the 1024 sq m Bonus from Premium membership go?  Trying to avoid going up to the next tier. Somehow I screwed up the first time and will now be paying the next tier fee of $22 next month. 

Please enlighten me.

. 

[discussionbot]

This has honestly got to undoubtedly SL’s worst mechanic. It’s like eating glass and staring into the void trying to figure it out.

The only helpful post on it was @Qie Niangao explaining it really well, can’t find it. But here’s SL’s instructional page on it:

 

[Qie Niangao]

Embarrassingly, I don't do this often enough that I don't have to solve the puzzle from scratch each time. Here's how this one looks to me: That "(3072 max)" at the bottom says you've already authorized that 2048 m² tier level on top of your 1024 m² Premium "bonus" tier (3072 = 1024 + 2048). As you say, the 2560 m² Total land in use is the combined size of the two parcels, and if you contribute that much there'll be a 10% group bonus of 256 m² for the group to use however it wants.

Or you can reduce that 2560 until the "Land available" is 0 and the "Total contribution" is 2560. Usually I'm too lazy to calculate that contribution number and just whittle away at it by trial and error; there's no immediate consequences when your group is momentarily under-tiered other than scary magenta warning text in that dialog box. The number you seek, multiplied by 110% rounded down gives 2560, which will end up being 2328.*

Doing that you'll still be paying the 2048 tier level on top of your 1024 Premium bonus so you'll have 3072 - 2328 = 744 m² not donated to the group with which you can do as you please. You could get a sweet little 512 m² Bellisseria trailer (Linden Homes land can't be group-owned) with some left over. Or if you're not planning on getting a Linden Home, you can contribute that 744 to some group… like for example the same group as owns the 2560, meaning you'd contribute to that group the whole 3072 for which you're paying and it would have a total of 1.1*3072 = 3379 m² "Total contribution" of which it's now only using 2560, meaning it would have an additional 819 m² "Land available". (When closing in on a group's total available tier, it's easier to contribute the tier first and use "Buy for group" in About Land, rather than buying as an individual and then deeding to group, because individual-owned land can't benefit from that 10% group bonus.)

_____________
* In Excel, the formula is =CEILING(2560 * (1/1.1)) if you don't like magenta.

[Teresa Firelight]

you put down the amount of real land allowance you have. The system will add the 10% bonus to the allowed land. But the number you contribute will not reflect that.  For example, my premium alt gets 1024 allowance. The mainland she owns is deeded to her group, so she gets 10% extra. So she donates to group 1024 but the group gives her 1126 sqM allownace. Her group owns a parcel that is 1120 sqM (40x28).

 

[diamond Marchant]

@Qie Niangao is correct. To have your group own 2560sqm of land, you must contribute 2328sqm of tier to your group, which you get with your 1024 premium included tier and your 2048 paid tier.

Here is the BAD news. This is the MOST EXPENSIVE way to own this amount of land, on a YEARLY basis. Consider that an annual premium membership net stipend is $40US/year. The paid tier is $156US/year ($13US x 12 months). Your total per year is $196US. (The yearly total is $238US if you are paying your premium membership monthly.)

It is cheaper to do "premium stacking". Get 2 alts, give them annual premium memberships and have them contribute their included 1024 tier. The cost is $120US/year ($40US x 3 annual memberships). The $40 figure is used because they give you back 300L/week for 52 weeks.

Note that this example exhibits another unfortunate issue... being required to purchase more tier than you need. In this example you only needed to pay for 2328 of tier, but you are required to purchase 3072 because LL sells tier in ascending powers of two. As Qie points out, you can use this "headroom" to get a 512sqm Linden Home and/or buy more mainland.

My analysis is for people who plan to stay in Second Life for at least a year.

 

Edited November 30 by diamond Marchant

[Clem Marques]

3 hours ago, diamond Marchant said:

It is cheaper to do "premium stacking". Get 2 alts, give them annual premium memberships and have them contribute their included 1024 tier. The cost is $120US/year ($40US x 3 annual memberships). The $40 figure is used because they give you back 300L/week for 52 weeks.

Very interesting, I hadn't considered that. Going to take a look at my tier payments and see if the premium stacking strategy would help.

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

19 hours ago, Clem Marques said:

Very interesting, I hadn't considered that. Going to take a look at my tier payments and see if the premium stacking strategy would help.

I have a whole army of alts for this very reason, though it's not as much of a help as it used to be. I forget when the tier pricing changed to make it not as profitable, but it's still an advantage to use premium alts vs paying up a tier level, at least to a certain point on the tier chart. I think @Qie Niangaoposted an analysis of this at some point.

[Qie Niangao]

21 hours ago, Sylvia Tamalyn said:

I think @Qie Niangaoposted an analysis of this at some point.

Sounds like me. No telling whether that would still be valid in detail, so I did a version of it over again, just to get a sense of how the different subscriptions step differently through the more common (lesser) tier levels. Sorry 'bout the table's extra rows but it's the only way I know to show the actual step-function effect on a line chart.

[discussionbot]

2 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

#dataisbeautiful

[JUSTUS Palianta]

Somehow just lately my premium plus alt ended up in a situation where she was paying tier for her land when it should of been free.  Because i had put the land in a group then added more land and sold some i guess.  I fixed it by selling the group land back to herself.  So be careful this group land stuff is confusing.

[K9Mark]

When you've removed land from a group, remember to undonate the tier from that group, because it doesn't happen automatically. If you leave the tier donated, you end up having to pay for it even though you haven't got the land any more.

[Diablo Lioncourt]

I have tier in more than one group. I try to set my contribution to always show "0 available" in each group in order to have as many resources as possible free for any opportunity or need that may arise;) I start by taking the land I need and the multiplying it by .9. Then I round. After a while you just kinda do it without even thinking.

You may want to look after each land sale/deed to group even if you check the "remove tier" box, because sometimes the system rounds it off to 1 m2 below what you actually need, which will keep your people from rezzing.

In the example below 80,698 m2 of land is being donated, giving the skybox group 88768 m2 of actual land to use. So the Lindens are giving this group ~ 8k m2 in free land.

Edited December 4 by Diablo Lioncourt