Last night I fired up SL Go (from NWN partner OnLive) on my musty old Dell laptop to try and fulfill a goal I've had for many years: Travel across the Second Life mainland in one continuous trip in real time, without flying. My first attempt went, well, way wacky -- watch:
As you can probably tell, I haven't driven a motorcycle in Second Life in a long time, and this particular model has a twitchy engine and steering system that's hard to handle. (That is to say, it's like an actual turbo-charged motorcycle.) If you're an SL biker, I'd love your suggestions for a bike that's easier for an amateur. Because I’m definitely trying this again: One cool thing about using Second Life with SL Go on an old laptop (I observed very biasedly) is the seamlessness of crossing through sims at high speeds, without the long pauses and laggy display you would otherwise get.
As Second Life oldtimers might remember, New World Notes has a history with cross-continent expeditions:
I twice led a band of intrepid SLers across the entire world -- but that was back in 2003/2004 when SL was still a single, small continent. While most of SL is composed of tens of thousands of private islands, the original continent still exists, and has grown and evolved in ways that are worth exploring. So once I find a motorcycle that works for me, I’ll be crossing that continent in a single trip. If you’re interested in coming along, let me know in comments, and we’ll try to make it an Easy Rider-style group trip.
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lol go on the roads you vandal. jejeje (:
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if you post a time and date on here for a bike meet then I be in
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about bikes
i like the PREFABRICA SGP1000 Samurai superbike. It goes pretty good cruising in low gear. Can also go fast as well being a superbike
can also get a free Zoomer scooter off them as well. Which might be better for you than a big bike q; (: It goes pretty good tho does the scooter
is here inworld the scooter: PREFABRICA (129, 182, 24)
superbike in the motor shop same sim
Posted by: irihapeti | Friday, January 09, 2015 at 06:41 PM
now that is a cool idea to explore the mainland
Posted by: jdtrue writer | Friday, January 09, 2015 at 06:56 PM
I still love biking the continents, especially the Snowy Lands, but they have these things called roads you know ;) The only suggestions I've heard for managing sim crossings is use a low prim bike, reduce the attachments and scripts on your person, reduce your inventory (but who can do that).
Posted by: val kendal | Saturday, January 10, 2015 at 05:34 AM
Prefer to roll my own (I like to be able to cruise and type at the same time so need different control setup and also attempting to dual build for various opensim installs) but for a neat little zip about I second the Prefabrica.
Or grab a great little set of bits from KCP and whip up your own chopper :)
Posted by: shirc desantis | Saturday, January 10, 2015 at 08:57 AM
shirc, what a great suggestion. The ability to do something like put together your own chopper is a big part of the virtual world experience. And, while Hamlet has personally demonstrated a lot of SL features, Hamlet, I don't recall a story where you explore the build tools. Aside from the (cough) downside of its TOS, can you build a chopper with SLGo? I would love to see a video.
Posted by: Kim Anubis | Saturday, January 10, 2015 at 12:25 PM
Some person, whose opinion I trust, said that main impact on quality of sim crossing is delivered by avatar's scripted attachments. Next time you'll go cruising, try to wear just system clothes and see how it goes.
Posted by: Ugh | Saturday, January 10, 2015 at 03:58 PM
Thanks for the tips, irihapeti!
Posted by: Wagner James Au | Saturday, January 10, 2015 at 06:08 PM
#sllooksgoodtoday
Posted by: Ezra | Sunday, January 11, 2015 at 12:39 PM
I'll join you on that road trip. I'm more of a muscle-car than motorcycle type (in both SL and RL, where I own a very cool '70 El Camino), but I do have a very nice bike in SL that I found better for trips than my prize, a SL '67 Pontiac GTO.
When you organize this, I'll even sign up for SL Go for the occasion. I did road trips for many years until sim crossings became a nightmare. I'm still Ignatius Onomatopoeia in SL when you send round the invites to the road trip.
Posted by: Iggy | Sunday, January 11, 2015 at 05:27 PM
Ok im not a expert on sim crossing (lol yesterday i just sailed for 5 hours stright, around LL mainland waters).
So my humble advises, in how to ride a bike in mainland (Sansara but also Corsica and Satori or even Nautilius, Athol or Zindra, name the continent, i did them all).
If on SL Go, use LL option, firestorm is all but a cross sims viewer.
Make sure your draw distance is 128m up to 160, on mainland roads higher then that is not needed.
Detach your ao, make sure all your clothes are unscripted, don't need to be ruth to travel, but just assure your mesh body, feet, hands, (so yes, avoid slink, matreya, belezza and all the brands that don't allow for deleting, even if only via hud, of scripts, with the lame excuse of fear of copy bot, when all hairs are mod) hair, clothing and so on, are free of scripts.
Grab a bike, no matter how old (kcp scripted bikes from blur done in 2008 are still lovely, amazing to travel and cheap and there are quite a few free bikes, be on marketplace or in world shops or Mc's).
Again, Make sure that your ao is detached or at least off.
Make sure you don't gear up more then 2nd unless you did your own bikes (as i did).
Go slow. Is the best way to manage to cross sims.
And if you do really make sure you will not have issues with regions being down, have your map open. Drag it to a corner but in a way you can see if the region ahead is up and running.
Posted by: zz bottom | Monday, January 12, 2015 at 02:20 AM
Great advice, ZZ, thanks!
Posted by: Wagner James Au | Monday, January 12, 2015 at 10:41 AM
Personally I think the vehicle has more influence on the region crossing than what one is wearing. That is, if one is using a vehicle.
As ZZ said, getting the right balance of draw for your system is critical. Too low and it'll slow you down, too high and it will slow you down.
I did a couple of road trips last year myself. One was a long walk from Waterhead to Bay City along the road, with a side trip to the Shelter. I ran out of road a couple regions away from Morris, I took to the waterways to get close to Morris, then headed to Ahern and took the road west from there. Ran into a Linden along the trip.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cronocloudcreeggan/13782726655
Another was a walk along the road in Heterocera
I'll probably do it again this year.
Posted by: CronoCloud Creeggan | Tuesday, January 13, 2015 at 06:59 AM