So, about the Land Impact Rating

[Rosemaery Lorefield]

I know this option became visible for Mesh, but I have noticed that I can use the land impact rating to benefit builds made with native prims and sculpts as well.

I have a question though. Recently I built a structure that is 147 prims but only 100 or so land impact rating. When selling an item, would you advertise the prim count, the land impact rating, or both?

I know that lots of people are using V1 clients, so they won't be able to see the land impact rating, but will they be able to tell the difference on their land info? As far as I know, it displays the prim limit, not Land impact limit, so they might not realize that they can place more items unless they do it accidentally?

Sorry, this might all be basic knowledge by now but I was ignoring the existence of Mesh until the last possible minute :)

[Princess Verwood]

Personally, I'd put the actual prims. But would somewhere mention for those who are able to see it, the land impact.

[Ciaran Laval]

Land impact is the only score that matters, that's the number that will actually take up space on a parcel, you may want to explain this to people but if they check a parcel's available prims before and after placing the item, they will see that the difference is the land impact score.

[Nalates Urriah]

Princess and Cairan make good points.

As yet the information as to how LI affects people is not common knowledge outside the builder's community. I'm not sure how many of them actually understand or are even aware of the change. 

The turnover in users is unknown to any outside the Lab. We do know that the typical user life expectancy of an SL user is about 2 years. (See: Retention in Second Life) This is a strong suggestion that the majority of SL users are new... or at least newer. That means all our promotional material needs to target new users.

Adding prim counts and land impact explanations in many ways is a turn off. How to convey the information succinctly is the trick. Much of what makes sense to merchants and builders is over the head of customers and new users.

When I go the prim route I say something like: 147 prims counting as 100 prims against your prim limits. In the MP field for prims I use 100. I figure this is the most explanatory since land owners are mostly using the term Prim Limit. Rental boxes and most other tools in SL have not made a change over. So, sticking with Prims makes for a bit more consistency.

Until a more user friendly way to explain the complex idea of Land Impact is found and adopted, I'll stick with prim counting.

[Qie Niangao]

A note about permissions:  If the object is set to allow the next owner to modify it, there's another whole level of potential confusion.  What if they scale it larger?  Or, god forbid, accidentally drop a script inside, doubling the land impact, and instantly the whole thing ends up in their Lost+Found?  Being legalistic about it, whatever they do to modify something is on their own heads, but that's not going to prevent support calls.

(That's certainly not to discourage no-mod items. I try very hard never to end up with anything no-mod in my inventory or on my land. It's just that optimizing for land impact makes it much trickier for novices to modify things.)

[Rosemaery Lorefield]

Yea, I figured it would be all complicated lol

I don't anticipate people resizing my things on a large scale...the structures would look odd unless they max out their avi size, same goes for the furniture. 

I sell homes, furniture and decor. I figured on using prim count for the smaller items since they always contain more sculpts- so they are less affected. The prim count/land impact tends to come out about the same either way. Since it is only the structures that I am really concerned with, I think maybe a notecard explaining the possible impact if they modify would be good to include in the purchase. I like the idea of advertising in terms of prim count as suggested. Ie. 147 prims, counts as 100 prims. If people don't know what land impact is, then they might not understand a land impact number of course. Then again, they might be all intrigued by the term and want to buy...hmmm! 

 

[Ciaran Laval]

Best thing to do is play about with linksets, if you set a basic prim cube to convex hull, it halves your prim count, so two convex hull prims equals one prim in land impact. Sculpts on the other hand are best left being sculpts in linksets with standard prims, the land impact can go up with complicated shapes in a linkset with the new counting system in mind.

[Toysoldier Thor]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

A note about permissions:  If the object is set to allow the next owner to modify it, there's another whole level of potential confusion.  

What if they scale it larger?  Or, god forbid, accidentally drop a script inside, doubling the land impact, and instantly the whole thing ends up in their Lost+Found?  

Being legalistic about it, whatever they do to modify something is on their own heads, but that's not going to prevent support calls.

(That's certainly not to discourage no-mod items. I try very hard never to end up with anything no-mod in my inventory or on my land. It's just that optimizing for land impact makes it much trickier for novices to modify things.)

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With so many factors allowing the LI to change dynamically, the only thing a Merchant can do that is fair would be that they mention the LI value buts state "Warning: This is the LI at purchase time and that any changes to the sold item can change the LI value".

So if I ever decide to sell Landscape Mesh terrains, I would state "LI on initial rez after purchase is 5"

Stating actual Prim Count now really has little meaning as prim count has no more bearing on how many prims are consumed off your parcel of land.  So stating it to a customer has NO MEANING or VALUE.

[Ciaran Laval]

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Toysoldier Thor wrote:

Stating actual Prim Count now really has little meaning as prim count has no more bearing on how many prims are consumed off your parcel of land.  So stating it to a customer has NO MEANING or VALUE.

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Indeed, which is why I said earlier in the thread that Land Impact is the only number that matters. However, as LL haven't introduced land impact to the masses via their communications, it's really down to merchants to tell people what they're getting.

[Rosemaery Lorefield]

Yep, I have been playing around with linksets and found a few to do's and not to do's!

I found out to never link a scripted object to a large linkset, and that USUALLY sculpts don't work out well on any other setting than "prim"! I was giggling yesterday making baskets when I decided to play around with the physics shapes and made a 14 prim basket have a 49 prim land impact, or something like that lol.

It has made a huge impact with my structures though. I love the new toys

[Rosemaery Lorefield]

Well, LL stated that they will keep the old prim count system in place for legacy prims- Native prims and sculpts. 

So if you make something and don't mess with the physics shape, the prim count is what will count toward "prim" usage on your land. If you mess with the physics, then it changes how it impacts land.

I don't think I'm going to bother saying anything about my furniture or nicknacks in regards to LI just now. Too many sculpty parts to bother with, I will leave them as is and count the prims.

I think I will put a notecard in with my structures though. Especially since the newest one I created has 3 scripted bits that will kill LI if they hard link them to the structure.