Anyone sitting on a phantom prim in a damage sim is phantom too, and therefore effectively immortal.

Edited title of this issue to reflect this fact.

Completely defeats the point of having Damage.

It's extremely easy to make yourself invincible in a "combat" sim anyway, and if a griefer wants to cause trouble then all they need is one of the 9 million ridiculously over-powered super-nuke type weapons, or an automatic turret or something.

The damage system is flawed in far too many ways as it is, IMO having avatars on phantom prims become phantom too has a lot more potential. It is possible though that they could provide it as an option in estate controls, allowing you to make it so phantom prims do not make avatars phantom as well.

I don't see this as being an issue that will make it into the estate tools or how allowing people to be able to fly through prims because they have phantom on the plane their flying makes any sense at all. Might as well make everything phantom then.

However, falling back on any one system would require a massive level of cooperation between all major groups, and the potential for lag is ever present. Are we co-operative enough to embrace such a system? I'd like to hope so, but I'm versed well enough in the military history of SL to realise this probably won't be in our near future.

Discuss.

C.M.

I'm still not seeing the big deal though. People in combat sims don't need to be able to fly a plane through walls to kill you, not when they can rez invisible cubes that move themselves instantaneously to the target and then fire damaging bullets at them. Heck, you can also use non-physical movement to get yourself through walls, and teleport 700m+ instantaneously to wherever you want.

This doesn't really open up any exploits that you can't already achieve in numerous other ways.

It would make you a greifing god in a combat zone, but it would protect you from griefing everywhere else.

In non-combat areas this wouldn't be a new security loophole. If they can rez a phantom prim to get through your wall, they can rez a solid prim and edit through as well.

Being phantom would save me from being pushed and caged in Cordova and Sandbox Island. And everywhere else.

The hardest thing for me to overcome on my part is the fact that, sure, if planes/vehicles/anything pilot based were to be physical but not phantom, it would definitely cause the playing experience of the people on the ground to be much more fair; by this I mean it wouldn't take seekers, or a rediculous amount of bullets to bring down a plane. In this aspect I mean "Fair" based off of the velocity of the plane and the arms that it can hold (Completely unfair for poor saps on the ground) and the VERY small hitbox that is the avatar that you need to hit to bring it down. This would probably be my strongest "for" the change to stay, if you're going to fly a plane, make it fair. Dont make it impossible for anything but seekers and objects as such to kill. I mean hell, that's all ATA combat is now, mashing the seeker button and hoping to god one of your thirty hits the other guy.

Although being for it on a few aspects, heres why I'm actually going to support the change - Sure, maybe it's fair for most people on the ground, but I prefer the challenge of having something near impossible to kill firing at me with tons of explosives, rockets, and bullets. I figure most of the people who fly enemy planes cant do it effectively in most cases, and the phantom aspect is what balances it out. Face it, though, if you were to put 90% of the people in any military into a plane that died upon any 100dmg bullet, object, or otherwise, you'd have an airforce worth laughing at.

I just dont see it worth crippling the basis of a few major militaries in the long run, (AN, MC). Forcing 90% of combat into the ground would be more amusing, but with the months and months of work and hundreds of thousands of Linden put into the development of planes such as the Talon and the Sparrow, I dont think either of them would appreciate having it cut short by a simple change such as this. So, I vote for the change.

Although vehicles need a drastic change to prevent these things, I do not think making phantoms illegal in combat by making the person invincible is a good one.

I was given the following script by Disa Paine to repro this:

First - phantom only while sitting

default
{
state_entry()

}

The next phantom after you are stood, leave the sim by tp and back to normal

unsitAll()
{
integer num = llGetNumberOfPrims();
for ( ; num > 0 ; num -= 1 )

}

default
{
state_entry()

changed(integer change)
{
if (change & CHANGED_LINK)
{
key agent = llAvatarOnSitTarget();
if ( agent == llGetOwner() )
{ llVolumeDetect( TRUE ); llUnSit( llAvatarOnSitTarget() ); llVolumeDetect( FALSE ); } else
llUnSit( agent );
}
}
}

Regarding the avatar's "immunity" to damage, how does it work? Do the projectiles simply pass through them, or are they colliding but not actually causing any damage? I've been looking for a way to perform phantom (non-colliding) physical movements of objects with avatars sitting on them, but this is impossible when avatars still collide on phantom objects. I know it goes against the damage system, but to be quite frank; the current damage system is a joke, we really need a new, fairer one, or better tools for implementing our own via scripted systems (such as DCS etc.)

I re-opend this on yesterday saturday afternoon.... (it's currently sunday night) This is a regression and i'm sure it will be fixed as it was fixed promptly on the havok4 beta. Lets take a breather please and give them some time?

@Haravikk please create a new jira if you want to again debate the usefulness of the damage system.

This has bigger effects than the damage system, if you get stuck in phantom mode you can't walk around except for on the ground. It also enables people fly planes, cars, ect through physical structures as if they weren't there. Which is a regression.

default
{
state_entry()

changed( integer change )
{
if ( change & CHANGED_LINK )
{
key av = llAvatarOnSitTarget();
if ( av )
{ agent = av; if ( llGetParcelFlags( llGetPos() ) & PARCEL_FLAG_ALLOW_DAMAGE ) llSay( 0 , llKey2Name( agent ) + " , you are INVINCIBLE to the Linden Damage System. You should be able to die here, but you won't." ); else llSay( 0 , llKey2Name( agent ) + " , you are INVINCIBLE to the Linden Damage System. You should not be able to die here anyways though." ); } else { if ( llGetParcelFlags( llGetPos() ) & PARCEL_FLAG_ALLOW_DAMAGE ) llSay( 0 , llKey2Name( agent ) + " , you are no longer INVINCIBLE to the Linden Damage System. You should be able to die here, and you can." ); else llSay( 0 , llKey2Name( agent ) + " , you are no longer INVINCIBLE to the Linden Damage System. You should be able to die here anyways though." ); }
}
}
}

sit on an object with that script in it, then drop this in an object
default
{
state_entry()

}

This has NOT been fixed. I repeat, this is still active in the most UP TO DATE server.

It would make you a greifing god in a combat zone, but it would protect you from griefing everywhere else.

In non-combat areas this wouldn't be a new security loophole. If they can rez a phantom prim to get through your wall, they can rez a solid prim and edit through as well.

Being phantom would save me from being pushed and caged in Cordova and Sandbox Island. And everywhere else."

I so agree

basically: keep phantom but don't make immune to damage

phantom is very useful for physical vehicles where I'd rather use sim physics and not script a 20-child-script nphys engine,
to avoid the vehicle being broken by collisions

the bug is used boradly in sl and fixing it will destory Many inworld products relying on this bug

the bug overall does nothing more then being in a safe zone in comabt sims.

since the stand phantom bug if fixed and upcoming versions there is not potnial hazard for this 'bug' and using it wisly and it cam develpo new ideas then already is now used.

arguing the finer points of why this bug should remain fixed or unfixed should be on the new issue thread as it would be a change to the system implemented by the lindens, as the bug was obviously not broken on purpose or it would have been closed, working as implemented.

Another main problem:

"Immunity from the law"
Its extremely simple to make yourself invincible from damage. In the time it takes for an abuse report to be processed and handled, an alt could be used to trash every linden sandbox and newbie area. In the case that anyone does try to attack them, they simply have to sit on a phantom NPV, and they are immune from every "legal" attack. This leads people to attempt and develop TOS-breaking attacks. Of course, when these attacks are used on someone who attempts to and succeeds with bringing down several sandboxes, the attacker gets AR'd by the griefer and is simply banned.

There is no conceivable way in which total invincibility in a combat sim can be justified.

edit: I'd just like to point out that this issue will be celebrating its 12 month birthday in less than a week. All that is asked, is remove the ability for an avatar to be phantom, or at least to be invincible. It would probably be hard to execute latter, and is probably the reason this hasn't been fixed. The former method, would probably break some vehicles. It is conceivable why LL would be reluctant to fix it...

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Bug_triage/2008-01-28/Transcript

[12:08] Aric Linden: svc-1253
[12:08] Aric Linden: let's simply grab this one and assign it directly to Sidewinder Linden please
[12:08] Squirrel Wood: 1253 was mentioned in a blog post about h4
[12:08] Soft Linden: SVC-1253 is definitely a regression. That'd kill combat sims
[12:08] Alexa Linden: ok
[12:08] Squirrel Wood: I think
[12:09] Gigs Taggart: 1253 may be fixed internally

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Bug_triage/2008-06-16/Transcript

[12:43] Alexa Linden: SVC-1253[c
[12:43] Alexa Linden: I think this would be expected
[12:44] Gigs Taggart: it's fix pending
[12:44] Gigs Taggart: "griefing in a combat sim"
[12:44] Gigs Taggart: is that possible?
[12:44] Gigs Taggart: hehe
[12:45] Aric Linden: heh

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Bug_triage/2008-09-29/Transcript

[12:02] Alexa Linden: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-1253
[12:03] Gellan Glenelg: already assigned to Andrew (by Andrew).. but no internal ID
[12:04] Squirrel Wood: hmm... I would say if someone sits on phantom prim, they become part of the linkset and thus phantom. So for me that works as it should.
[12:04] Bridie Linden: Looks like this got re-broken?
[12:04] Bridie Linden: Let's import
[12:04] Alexa Linden: ok
[12:04] Bridie Linden: Not sure Squirrel
[12:04] Nya Linden: I vote import too.. because that seems llike an easy way to avoid damage.

This issue received the most votes at the triage "http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Bug_triage/2008-06-16"

SVC-1253[c] - Votes: 85 - users sitting on prims, which are set to phantom are not affected by damage."

The second most received a mere 23. In addition, it does not appear to be fixed in 1.25.4. However you do need to be sitting in order to be phantom, and therefore immune to damage. The question is, is it possible to have a phantom, sitting avatar who is vulnerable to damage.

avatars who were phantom were vulnerable to damage, but the prims they sat on were not.
unlike un-phantomed avatars who were vulnerable to damaged (collisions w/damaged enable prims) acquired by the prims.

I also have cool content based on this misfeature.

I also consider it to be sensible to become phantom when the prim your sitting on becomes phantom. Not everything in SL revolves around shooting guns. ...but dont tell the gun makers I said that, or they will start abusing me again

Darling Brody

...Soif it's fixed in maint branch, why should it take so long to fix? if you need to reproduce it, here is the code:

default
{
state_entry()
{
 llSitTarget(<0.0001,0,0>,ZERO_ROTATION);
 llVolumeDetect(TRUE); }

}

default
{
state_entry()
{ llVolumeDetect( TRUE ); llSitTarget( < 0.001 , 0 , 0 > , ZERO_ROTATION ); llSay( 0 , "I am now ready for use. If you sit on me you will be invincible to the Linden Damage System." ); }

changed( integer change )
{
if ( change & CHANGED_LINK )
{
key av = llAvatarOnSitTarget();
if ( av )
{ agent = av; if ( llGetParcelFlags( llGetPos() ) & PARCEL_FLAG_ALLOW_DAMAGE ) 
llSay( 0 , llKey2Name( agent ) + " , you are INVINCIBLE to the Linden Damage System. You should be able to die here, but you won't." ); 
else llSay( 0 , llKey2Name( agent ) + " , you are INVINCIBLE to the Linden Damage System. You should not be able to die here anyways though." ); } 
else { 
if ( llGetParcelFlags( llGetPos() ) & PARCEL_FLAG_ALLOW_DAMAGE ) 
llSay( 0 , llKey2Name( agent ) + " , you are no longer INVINCIBLE to the Linden Damage System. You should be able to die here, and you can." ); 
else llSay( 0 , llKey2Name( agent ) + " , you are no longer INVINCIBLE to the Linden Damage System. You should be able to die here anyways though." ); }
}
}
}

I'll be happy to demo the bug for you in any damage zone if you need help to reproduce it

Obviously it's your call on what to do with this, but please consider that if you want to make it a "feature" to opt out of being vulnerable in a damage-enabled sim, you may as well just scrap the SL Damage system. I mean, if LL wants to have a default damage system, you have to support it. If you don't want to support it, drop it. Don't half-ass it. Either SL has a default damage system or it doesn't. I know that Linden Lab doesn't like being a content provider for specifically this reason. Fine. But it makes very little sense to have a system and then provide such little support for it that it basically no longer functions.

At least understand the choice that you are making and be honest about it. Is Linden Lab going to continue to support the SL Damage system or just let it become deprecated as bugs like this (and the offset bug) crop up and go unfixed? Please let us content creators who make damage-scripted weapons know so that we can make informed decisions as to whether we should continue to support this unsupported system.

Suz and Dime would never let CCS and DCS, respectively, get this buggy and unusable.

The basic issue here is really that this 'feature' kills LL Combat, if officially supported.

Now, having said that, I like the phantom-on-sit in other circumstances. Heck, I loved the way it stuck after sitting for a while there. Seriously, I'd like to get something like that back Non-sitting motion is just so much more nicer than nonphys, or having to sit.
But no matter how you turn it, there needs to be a way to circumvent the phantom immunity in damage zones, or to turn off the phantom effect there.

I'm all for keeping this feature, but it somehow needs to cope with the LL combat system. That, or in the end, the LL Combat System needs a redesign.
As Jahar said, keeping it in a half-baked state makes no sense. It'd be like saying 'This is a no-push area, but it only prevents pushing if the pusher is not sitting.'. Same animal.

You need to prefix that statment with the words "as far as you know ...." because there are more people building and scripting using this feature than some of the people here have been willing to admit. The fact is Andrew Linden recently viewed some "cool content" that used this. Without cool content SL would be very boring.

The fact is that this feature is increadably usefull for vehicles, while it requires specialized scripting to be used as a protection from combat which appears to be the main objection here. And why shouldnt someone have protection if they want it? As Jahar Aabye pointed out there are other combat ssytem that use simulated damage for those people who want control over when and where someone can be immune. As well as private combat regions who can automaticly UNSIT people who are sitting on phantom chairs.

As for teleporters. I can think of several ways to use it for some mega cool effects. Physical movment combined with particles can be very spectacular. I have not used it yet because I dont want to invest my time in developing something that might break.

Andrew Linden, there it is, a creater not following through on their inspiration because of the uncurtain status of the LSL scripting enviroment. That has got to be the saddist thing for anyone at LL to see. Lets give this the prim-stamp of approval so creaters can get on with creating.

Weapons and Phantom
---------------------------------

For a long time now gun makers have been able to use VolumeDetect bullets to shoot right through walls and kill people who are hiding inside buildings. We all said "hay that is cool" until we relized our $2000 fortress we go from SLexchange.com will no logner provide any protection when we are hiding inside it.

So... Why shouldnt those people inside the fortress be able to sit on a chair and avoid being the victim of bullets that are "cheating" by passing through walls?

At the moment we have a defence against these VolumeDetect bullets that pass through solid walls, thus making combat balaced. Jahar Aabye is a gun scripter who has made these VolumeDetect bullets that pass through solid walls to kill people, so clearly he has an interest in being able to maket his guns as "able to kill through walls" as has been the case for some time now. ...but what about the people selling the fortress to hide in while playing shooting games?

I have always been on the side of pro-choice and balance. My combat product line provides both Phantom Chairs, and VolumeDetect weapons, so the winner is determined by skill. That is how it should be.

I would also like to build teleporter effects that take advantage of the smoother physical movment, but I cant if the avatar is going to "bump into the roof and get stuck" after the next rolling restart. Please let me know when I can start making cool content based on this feature.

Darling Brody

I was at an office hours last week and Andrew Linden plainly said they were going to fix this bug. Let's hope that's the case, and to complete the job of repairing the Linden damage system, it's just as important to fix SVC-2450 to ensure that people don't get the benefit of the safe zone (invincibility) when they move onto a damage enabled parcel.

This bug breaks content. It breaks any content scripted with llSetDamage(). I expect it to be fixed. I don't think that this is an unreasonable expectation, nor do I believe that it is a controversial one. The priority should be for content creators who played by the rules and scripted content in good faith using documentation provided by Linden Lab, not for new "cool content" made by exploiting a bug in the system. This too is not a controversial opinion, I believe, and to the credit of LL and Andrew specifically, these situations in the past have been handled quite admirably, and I am glad that Linden Lab generally respects content creators who choose to play by the book.

Now, I have absolutely no problem with keeping the basic concept of allowing an avatar to be phantom, by itself. That would be a pretty cool feature, and I can see a lot of use for it, for example with vehicles. However, when it prevents the default SL Damage system from working correctly, then I have a problem with it. If this can be fixed so that the phantom behavior remains, but the avatars are still vulnerable to damage, then I wouldn't have a problem with it. If reinstating the normal avatar vulnerability means that we lose the phantom behavior, then so be it. We can go back and try to add that as a separate feature later. Let's focus on preserving the expected behavior of the SL Damage system first.

And as an aside, for those who say that in RL a wall stops damage.....a friend of mine had the bad luck to be on the other side of a wall from a rocket blast while on deployment in Baghdad. He survived, thank G_d, and he'll be OK, but he'll be the first to tell you that a wall doesn't do %$#% in RL to stop weapons.

Phantom Avatars = Pointless.

• LL Combat Sims become a joke.
• Cars are not supposed to be phantom, especially not the drivers. Quote from DB: "The fact is that this feature is increadably usefull for vehicles, "
• If you need a temporary Phantom Avatar, make llVolumeDetect only work on avatars for a set amount of time. Such as, 5 seconds? + Make it only able to be used once on the avatar until region change/relog. That, or for 5 minutes or so, just to make sure the temp phantom is not abused in combat sims.
• Can you think of any other reasons for a collision-less avatar? Anti-griefing potential? I think not!

• Not turn people phantom if they sit down on phantom objects in damage areas
• Unsit phantom avatars and/or turn them and their vehicles physical on entering a damage area

I can't think of other alternatives, except the literal removal of the phantom 'feature'.
The above would however remove all the concerns (and even make safezones safer ;P). Of course I don't know if it can be pulled in a computationally simple way.

I would like to see that llVolumeDetect will work again and so would all the users of my alternative NPV!

I do agree however that this function should not work on damage enabled parcels.

default
{
state_entry()

changed(integer i) { if (llGetOwner() != llAvatarOnSitTarget()) return; if (!(i & CHANGED_LINK)) return; llVolumeDetect(1); llDie(); }

on_rez(integer i) {
llResetScript();

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-2570

That one indeed has been fixed. But this issue here is about avatars sitting on phantom prims still being phantom and invulnerable. :3
I don't think the phantom-after-sitting bug will make it back as a feature, as it had certain complications with the sim floor and being bounced repeatedly.

I have yet to see an inworld product, other than some kind of shield relying on this bug.

Sure, I use it! I figured I might as well have fun using it while it lasts. I thought it was going to be less than a month for it to be fixed, yet here we are... What, 6 months later? - I find no significant use for a Phantom avatar. Cars? The only reason why a car would need a phantom driver is if the driver is driving around some sandbox trying not a crash into anything... Else the SL car for all I know is driven on tracks or roads.

Anti-griefing uses? - No, of course not. The trick to avoid being griefed is to sit down. Now you're safe from being pushed. What if we make that box we just sat on turn us phantom? Wow, now those banana phones or batman boxes go through you. - What's the gain? You already can't be pushed, and you're not in a combat sim so being killed isn't a factor. + Now you cannot stand up and remain phantom (Not to mention you can still be pushed via llPushObj when Phantom and flying).

Teleporters? If you use the non-physical movement functions correctly, you can achieve smooth movement. And no, if you do it correctly, it's not laggy. Most of my Non-phys movement scripts use 4-6 scripts and use less than .040ms of script time. No need for a phantom avatar here.

The only two significant uses for a Phantom avatar are...

1: Damage Immunity, which is currently being abused.
2: A Ghost Avatar. Not a big loss.

What ever creator is relying on llVolumeDetect to make there user phantom made a big mistake relying on a bug. NEVER! Rely on an exploit/bug.

If you want an Anti-Griefing function, allow use to create Phased Avatars. That has strong anti-griefing potential.

1: You can no longer be detected by sensors. That means,

• Most griefing weapons like that of the PN will no longer target you.
• Low-End Combat Systems will not be able to target you. (which some people buy because they're cheap, and they know they're eventually going to get banned).
• If you are targeted by a Low-End follower, just hop onto the Phased NPV and it will no longer follow you.

2: Any 'Land Protection' system that relies only on tracking avatars via llSensor is a poor quality system anyways.

• llGetParcelPrimOwners = Detects the NPV Owner
• llSensorRepeat + SCRIPTED = Detects the NPV Owner (Using llGetOwnerKey)
• Store the avatar UUID's and track their position via llGOD = Detects them while phased.
  The above are all really simple ways to track phased avatars. They only require about 5-20 lines of extra coding.

What the Lindens need to do is fix Phantom avatars, and restore Phased NPV's. That solves two problems.

1: Combat Sims will once again make sense.
2: SafeZones (non-Combat, IE: Sandboxes) will be safer.

I hope you consider this.

Like I said, it's already been discussed, it's a non-starter.

Ok, getting back to this bug, I did some testing with CCS, DCS, and the Pure Combat HUD health meters. Sitting on a phantom box prevents all three from registering damage. Similarly, my "Who-Shot-Me" gadget did not register any hits either, confirming that sitting on a phantom box prevents any attachments from registering collisions. Sitting on a regular (non-phantom) box does not.

So now I can safely say that this bug breaks even more content, the DCS, CCS, and Pure Combat health meters, and likely any other resident-designed health meters and combat systems. So it's not just the default SL Damage system, this bug borks any combat in SL, period. Again, if I had to estimate the total damage in terms of cost of products that this affects, it is in the tens of thousands of USD. I don't think that there is any question that this needs to be fixed now. I also think that a fix will have to take into account more than just Damage-enabled regions now. Either collisions need to be passed along to scripts in worn objects, or the entire phantom thing just needs to be removed. I don't care about "cool new content" when people have spent thousands of hours working on existing content in good faith using established scripting functions that is broken because of this bug.

Any script that MUST know who is nearby or in the sim is pretty rare, all there really are is visitor counters and Land Security. To fix that, the creator can simply add in what I explained above in my last post. Besides, the Phased NPV requires script and build, so it will only work in a few locations. Restoring the Phased NPV will not break anything. If there's a Work-Around for a issue, it's not a bug! Especially if it's a simple work around!

What's the worst the Phased Avatar can pose as? Un-Huggable? Undetectable by basic scanners? Ungriefable?

You have to remember the reason the Phased NPV was broken. It was due to an inexperienced scripter complaining that his weak security system could not detect Phased Avatars.

That is why I'm proposing the restoration of the Phased NPV in exchange for busting the Phantom NPV.

@ Darling Brody....plenty of people bought weapon systems such as the one you make before this "god-mode" bug, and being able to shoot people through walls is more interesting and fun than not being able to kill people in any way at all. Combat zones can be fun if the environment makes people use some skill to stay alive (and there is more that you can do to stay alive besides just hide behind walls), instead this bug is allowing people to go to combat zones and sit AFK or otherwise not pay any attention to whats going on around them, because they are essentially in "god mode" after they take a whole 1 and a half seconds to sit on a phantom prim. This bug actually endangers your products, because people a) can find freebies or make their own objects that will make them impossible to kill, which means they wont need to spent 2000lin on SLX for one of your "fortresses" to hide in....and b) combat has become so lame from what i have seen this week in Rausch, I don't understand why anybody would even bother to go there, nobody dying= boring, unless you play the "Who has the most annoying followers in their HUD?" game, which is not what damage enabled combat zones were intended for.....I have talked to some "combat junkie" friends of mine that say they have all but quit playing SL over the issue, and myself, I know until I see this bug fixed I am done spending any time in combat areas, or any money on any kind of combat system.

You miss the point. This is a cool mis-feature that has little to do with combat.

All that needs to be done is honor the damage enabled prim in collsions with phantom objects while permitting phantom avatars to remain phantom to non-damage prims. Then everyone can be happy.

Darling Brody

I spoke to Andrew about this at his office hours last week, and he indicated that his intention was to fix the phantom bug first, since that repairs the currently created content that it breaks. Then, once that's done, he said he'd look into adding this in as an officially supported new feature, once the collision issues are worked out. I think that's a good idea, because right now, this is unexpected behavior that was introduced unintentionally. It would be much better for everyone involved if this were behavior that was designed and documented before being added in as an intended feature, with QA and beta testing and all that good professional stuff. That way in the future we could see cool content made using this sort of function, but in a much more controlled and integrated manner so that it doesn't break existing content.

You say it has little to do with combat, but it has totally made weapons that deal actual damage in damage areas nearly useless....you say you have cool content based off of this, but could care less if gun makers are left out in the cold..... you say the way things work right now is "balanced", when really it has polarized damage area combat only to suit HUD systems like the one you make.....you say that everybody (and I mean everybody, even total n00bs) going into god mode on a non-phys vehicle leaving everybody with only spam to attack each other with requires skill, when really the few people actually in Rausch right now are probably down there reading their e-mail, because attacking each other is nearly pointless..... You say they should change the way SL deals with all these "phantom" issues so that phantom avatars remain intact, when it's probably far easier for them to just get rid of them, and at the same time SL and it's content creators got along just fine without them for years.

I think I see your "point" just fine, point is you'll come on here and say anything to ensure this bug remains no matter how terribly false or one-sided of an argument it is..... how shameful, this JIRA is for SL residents to report bugs and request features that make SL a better place for everybody, not for content creators to tell half truths or outright lies to manipulate the lindens into protecting their business interests. This bug has made damage area combat a joke by encouraging griefer spam warfare over actual damage as the "norm" in damage enabled zones, and has made the thousands of lindens I and many others have spent on various guns and HUDs a waste because everybody can just find a freebie hoverchair and sit in Rausch AFK, totally oblivious to what happens around them.... this bug needs to go.

@Pygar Standish

What is with the abusive tone towards me? Was I disrespectful towards you? Don't your remember it was Andrew Linden who said he had seen cool content (non-combat) that used this mis-feature. I have noted how much easier it is to script vehicles using it as they dont get stuck on things like prim grass which people have forgotten to turn phantom and other such issues.
You keep refering to my hud, but you forget that I have both kill prims and shields in the hud. So remove this feature or keep it, my hud will lose somthing.

I for one think the ability to opt out of collision can be very handy. I dont see why people would object to adding detection of objects with damage to restore the ability to kill. Of course one must ask, dont noobies have the right to avoid being killed too? This stuff has been an ongoing thing for years. with offworld bots, underground sit targets, megaprims used as bullets, sensor probes to find people hiding, etc. whatever somthing comes up with will eventurly be countered by somone else. I do not thinkt he JIRA is the right place to be pushing for one product to have an advantage over anothing one.

Darling Brody

It is certainly true that those sims do have people to enforce rules, but that doesn't change the fact that this is a serious bug prevents those systems from working properly. Now, they could simply shrug and try to work around it, but it seems rather silly when it's a bug that can be fixed. My point is that it extends beyond just Damage-enabled land.

Now, if the option for an avatar to be phantom were to be re-added as a new feature, I wouldn't be surprised if it were possible to make it so that the collisions were passed on to scripts that the avatar was wearing, in a VolumeDetect-ish fashion. Similarly, if it were added as a new feature, I'm sure it could be set up so that avatars would still take damage on Damage-enabled land. This is why it makes sense to fix this bug now, and then look into re-adding the phantom avatar behavior as a documented new feature in such a manner that it does not break existing content, possibly including the measures that I've mentioned here. The important thing is to do it in a deliberate and careful manner. Leaving this bug in place makes very little sense given the problems that it causes.

Also, as to why this method of damage immunity is different than others: This involves unexpected behavior. The expected behavior is that if a damage-scripted object collides with an avatar over damage-enabled land, it should damage or kill the avatar. This is the same reason why SVC-2450 is a bug that will hopefully be fixed soon. A shield is not unexpected behavior, since it blocks the damage-enabled object and prevents it from colliding with the avatar. Underground sittargets are not unexpected behavior either. They simply place the avatar underneath the ground, preventing an object that cannot penetrate the ground from killing the avatar. Should a damage-enabled object be placed underground and collide with the avatar, the avatar dies.

It's not about pushing for one product to have an advantage over another, but about keeping the default SL Damage system operating in a clear and expected manner as documented, so that people whose sims utilize Damage (and it's more than just Rausch, there are plenty of SL Militaries that use Damage) and people who create content that utilizes llSetDamage() can have reasonable expectations of how the system will handle their content. SL is not a randomly evolving system, it is a carefully created environment. Bugs may pop up, but that doesn't mean that they have to stay, even if someone finds them useful. The documentation from LL on how various functions and features are intended to work should always be the final determining factor in these decisions. I don't think that's a very controversial point.

Andy Linden quote: "I had a long discussion with someone last week who was making "cool content" that takes advantage of this misfeature and was dismayed to find out I still consider it a bug."

@Darling: I dont think my tone is any more or less abusive than I would be to anybody I felt was being dishonest for thier own gain, and yes you did disrespect me, by thinking I am too dumb to know when somebody is trying to BS everybody (and you just tried to do it again)......bet you 5lin I can guess who Andrew Linden was talking to in the above quote. Phantom Avatars are a bug, and you are the only person that likes them. Combat in damage enabled areas has become either a giant griefer war with people not only spamming each other, but doing so BEFORE THEY EVEN TRY A DAMAGE BASED ATTACK, because they have become so accustomed to damage being useless....or, people just sit AFK for hours on end.

You mentioned a whole bunch of past weapons that were considered a problem in places like rausch before (which got "nerfed" just like this one will), and none of those problems were as pronounced as this one is now, with 90% of people in rausch exploiting this bug. At least with "offsim" avatar devices there was some learning curve and disadvantages to using them foremost being a rather steep buy in cost. The people in rausch who are phantom do not include newbies, they still get zapped pretty much just as fast as they always did, trouble is they have an even smaller collection of viable weapons to help them out than they ever, and if they stick around long enough to learn about phantom avatars, they are just joining the giant stalemate that everybody else is locked into.

I tried to reason with you before Darling, I think this bug does your combat HUD line just as much harm as it does good.....I know for sure what it has made "combat" in open combat areas more ridiculous than at any time in the past...... Damage areas should be for damage combat, and people who don't want to be "killed" should stay home, or learn to cower in the safe zone like a scared animal in a lightning storm.....and anything that grants an avatar immortality in a damage zone should be removed by the lindens.

Maybe while we all wait for this bug to be fixed, we should all go to rausch and go phantom, and file Abuse Reports against anybody who uses a non-damage based attack, especially the really spammish and inflammatory ones.

This bug certainly makes Rausch even more of a cesspool than it already was, but looking only at Rausch ignores the hundreds of other regions also affected by this bug as well. I just don't want this to get sidetracked by looking solely at those three Linden-run regions. This bug creates a fairly pervasive problem in hundreds of other regions across the grid as well. Focusing solely on Rausch makes this bug seem like a parochial concern, when it certainly isn't.

And you would guess wrong. Andrew was not talking to me. He was talking to someone who dosnt make weapons.

I have not lobbied Andrew Linden on this issue at all. I have both damage weapons, and phantom shields in my product. Break phantom, or leave phantom, somthing in my HUD will break either way. Based on the needs for my HUD product I am undecided on this issue. However I too have seen non-combat content using phantom avatars and this other non-combat content makes me think that we should keep phantom avatars, even if it means some weapons will be less effective until they are re-scripted.

Do you honestly think we are so important that we should be able to break a feature that other creaters have been using for a year now? Is it not too late to be removing this after a year?

Would it not be better to create a compromise where objects with damage set are able to collide with phantom avatars, in this way everyone is happy. The DCS system can make a 1% damage on a bullet to enable their collisions, or they can unsit people who are over the combat parcel. There are lots of things that can be done to accomodate the needs of both groups of people. It is unfair for one group to break somthing the other group is using without even considering a compremise. When I make a suggestion about how it can be retained while keeping damage people are unwilling to explore this. Why? Why not try to find a way to make both sides happy? Why do the weapons makers always demand their way or not at all? I don't understand why so many of us are so disrespecfull towards the needs of others.

"I tried to reason with you before Darling, "

You talk to me as if I am being unreasonable. The fact is that I have a different opinion, that does not make me unreasonable. It is unreasonable for you to disrespect my right to have a different opinion. It is unacceptable for you to call me dishonest just because I do not agree with you. My name and my products are well known, I am not hiding anything. If I wanted to hide I would be posting under another name. When people attack me on a personal level they are just saying they have nothing further of value to add to the JIRA about the issue. When this happens those people should shut up, because noone at LL wants to read through their opinions of me.

Darling Brody

I dont work with DCS because I dont make guns like you do. I assume that the problem is when someone sits on a phantom chair and then shoots people who are not sitting on phantom chairs? With the result of the people sitting win, and the people standing lose.

Now I suggested unsitting those people who are sitting and you said that would not work because you have poseballs. So, why not tell the DCS to ignore collisions with objects if the object owner is sitting? After all people shouldnt be shooting while they are on the poseballs in a disco or whatever. Combat people should be running around, not sitting? yes?

I am sure the issues can be solved with a little creative thinking. Then everyone gets what they want. isn't that better for SL as a whole?

Darling Brody

"Would it not be better to create a compromise where objects with damage set are able to collide with phantom avatars"

Yes, it would be great if they can find a compromise that leaves phantom avies for people who want them while repairing the broken damage aspect- But this is the problem with this bug, it seems to have little or even nothing to do with collision...it has everything to do with your avatar just being removed from the damage system. Area effect weapons, even huge ones that "nuke" every unprotected avatar within 96 meters do nothing, and as far as anybody knows, bullets are actually colliding with these avatars, but just not doing damage as intended... and the same goes for attacks that "stick" to an avatar like lighting them on fire, no effect.

I really don't like the idea, but maybe SVC-1100 (remove the linden damage system if it's not going to be properly supported) is the way to go. Sad, because while systems like DCS or CCS would be able to remain with the exception of the occasional person that cheats by going phantom, lots of other weapons in SL are made for the linden damage system, and though they could be modified, they would really have no place in DCS/CCS environments unless they fit the particular kind of "RP" supported by specific groups.

Now, if an avatar uses this phantom bug, then when a bullet collides with the avatar, the collisions do NOT get passed to the scripts that the avatar is wearing. There is no way for the meter to know that the avatar has been shot. So there is no workaround possible here, because for all intents and purposes, a collision is simply not happening as far as the scripts are concerned. I suppose that the meter could automatically de-activate itself when the avatar sits, but this would be extremely frustrating in many situations. For example, in the Lost Angels sim, which is the main CCS sim, there are several restaurants and bars, where people congregate. They usually leave their meters on, and combat does occasionally break out in these places. It would be extremely difficult for everyone involved if the meter was turning off every time the avatar sat and turned on when they stood up. Furthermore, when the meter turns off, the avatar is no longer gaining experience points, which would cause some serious consternation among users.

The DCS and CCS systems have been around far longer than this bug has. Similarly, the SL Damage system has been around even longer. DCS and CCS and other resident-designed combat systems came about, ironically, to address the many shortfalls of the default SL Damage system. The amount of content that has been created and sold for these systems is staggering. I am not exaggerating when I say that it is in the tens of thousands of USD, and that is just Black Ops alone, to say nothing of Breach, Carlos Inc, C-Tech, and many other companies that script products for use with these systems. We spend a lot of time and effort making sure that our products are compatible with these systems....and in fact the majority of our effort goes into working with these systems because so many of our customers use DCS and CCS. In fact, I have been spending the past several weeks working on upgrades to our products to keep them compatible with new changes in these systems (changes completely unrelated to these issues, involving how enhanced-damage is calculated).

SImilarly, there are dozens of SL Military groups out there. Each of them engage in combat with the SL Damage system. There is even a neutral site for all militaries to engage in free-for-all combat, called New Jessie Combat, that also uses the SL Damage system. That region would be a good starting place to see examples of the things that thousands of people have been doing with the SL Damage system. I know of several military groups, such as the Merczateers, Ordo, AN, and plenty of others who have been around far longer than this bug has.

But you know what? The whole "this has been around longer than that" issue, and the "this has more content than that" issue are still not even the most important reasons for why this bug will be fixed. It will be fixed because, in the end, Linden Lab does not and will not punish content creators who scripted content in good faith based upon well-documented LSL functions, just to reward people who coded based upon exploits that were known to be bugs. This is unexpected behavior, and no matter how "cool" some of the content that people created with it might be, that doesn't change the fact that this is not how the system is intended to function. This behavior is cool, I agree, but it is best to fix this first, and then find a way to work this behavior back into the system in a careful and well-documented manner that makes sure to avoid the problems that we are seeing with this bug.

I personally think this makes little sense, this is definitely a feature, not a bug. Having away to completely avoid damage in a damage zone has brought about a new era of 'tanks' and other such things. While there may be a few abusers, they are normally quickly dealt with and otherwise removed. On the whole the combat community is "OK" with this as we setup our own special rules to allow it. In smaller circles like those who frequent the red and blue camps, will probably see more abuse (though, those regions are already heavily 'abused').

As for DCS and other systems, it is up to them to find a suitable way to avoid people exploiting this (as we in the damage areas seem to have dealt with it fairly well), as I doubt it is part of the sim designs for barstools to ahve this, as such anyone who dislikes this persons behavior can just take off thier meter and deprive the phantom from gaining any fun from it.

Of course griefers can use this to, but it means little as this bug does not block banning, ejecting, or freezing.

This I definitely agree should be a supported misfeature.

I am '''STRONGLY''' against this being fixed.

Look. It's a damage area, and people are supposed to take damage if a damage enabled prim manages to intersect with the av's physical bounding box.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a proper seperate 'phantom' feature that lets non-sitting avatars be like ghosts, however this should quite simply not apply to damage areas. Letting this avoid damage in damage areas despite all conditions (prim intersecting with av) being met is the same like letting everybody push in no-push. Letting everybody rez in no-rez, letting everybody put any objects into no-entry zones from outside. It completely defeats the set land flag. This isn't just a bug, it's an exploitable bug and needs to be treated as such.

Again, I'm all for a real 'phantom' feature that is supported and implemented, but it should not work around any land settings, including damage enabled land.

can someone confirm this is still an issue on Second Life Server 1.26.4 ?

if so, can you please provide a solid repro

otherwise will move this to a meta issue.

Note tho that you have to find an actual 1.26.4 server with damage enabled yet. I do not know if Rausch already is on that server version.
If no damage enabled land is available on that version yet, this repo will have to wait.

1. Go to damage enabled land. Rausch is easy to find - search for 'combat' or 'sandbox' in the map search
2. Rez a normal cube
3. Put this script in:

default
{
  state_entry()
  {
     llSitTarget(<0,0,0.5>,ZERO_ROTATION);  
  }
  changed(integer change)
  {
     if(change & CHANGED_LINK)
     {
        if(llAvatarOnSitTarget() != NULL_KEY)
           llVolumeDetect(TRUE);
        else
           llVolumeDetect(FALSE);
     }
  }
}

4. sit down on it.
5. Rez another cube. Give it a nice size of 5m
6. Put this script in:

default
{
    state_entry()
    {
       llSetDamage(100);
    }
}

7. Move the cube above you
8. Set it physical and let it fall on you.

If you didn't die, the bug still exists.

What has happened is a LOT of cool content has been created now that avatars dont GET-STUCK
on other prims when they move around.

Vehicles have made good use of this new feature, both in and out of the combat community. Many
vehicle creaters would never look in on this jira because it talks about damage to avatars in the
description, which is of no interest to most vehicle makers.

The shield making community finally have a defence against people who use volume detect
bullets to shoot through walls.

The HUD based community are able to defend against teleporting bullets.

The older collision based gun roll play community have added auto-unsit scanners to their
combat areas to ensure no one is cheating by using this new feature.

The newer sensor based roll play guns are not effected by this at all.

All up I would say this has been a good thing. To reverse it now would break a lot of stuff made by
a lot of people who are under the impression this is NORMAL and not a mis-feature.

setting to major as major loss of functionality in respect to damage functionality.

updated description with repro, confirmed on 1.26.3 - as not addressed in release notes will assume (until a 1.26.4 is rolled to a damage sim I can visit) that this still exists in .4

will see if can get update from server bug triage meeting w/Prospero Linden

Here are two JIRAs that suggest allowing people to be phantom, including vehicles, when being outside damage zones:

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-2542
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-1547

I personally am all in favor of them as they allow this functionality, without breaking the very core mechanic of the Linden damage system. I'd strongly encourage people to vote for them.

This very JIRA tho, is about a bug in the damage system, so should be handled accordingly.

As far as the damage system goes it is a choice that evens the playing field
against people using volume detect bullets and teleporting bullets.

@Drew Dwi

I agree with Andrew Linden that this mis-feature has been around so long that it need to become officialy supported.
Therefore I am not going to offer comments on the technical aspect, because I dont consider it a bug.

When I last spoke with Andrew about this at Office Hours, and this was admittedly many months ago, he had implied that he intended to fix this bug in an upcoming server release, but I have no way of knowing whether that will be 1.27, 1.28, or if he has not yet managed to implement a fix for this bug. However, he did state at the time that he intended to fix this bug.

As for whether this mis-feature has been around long enough to become officially supported, I do not know. However, if it were to become officially supported, that would itself require some work. Either the documentation regarding the LL damage system needs to be reworked to state that it is "optional" and including instructions for how to "opt out" using this bug (which is fairly ridiculous if you sit and think about it), or else LL needs to try to patch things so that the desired behavior here remains without breaking content. And yes, as this bug currently stands, it breaks a fairly large amount of content, as I have already described in previous comments. The extent to which this breaks content gets into the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of USD.

The first step is probably to fix this bug outright. If people have created content that relies on this bug, well, it sucks to be the scripter who relied on exploits that he or she should have known would be fixed, but incompetent and/or unscrupulous scripters are not my problem. Every good scripter knows not to rely on code that is known to involve buggy or unexpected behavior.

Re-implementing this as a New Feature would require working out the following "fixes" to ensure that the ability to have a phantom avatar does not break content:

1. Collisions with a phantom avatar must still be passed to the scripts worn by the avatar. After all, isn't this the definition of what "VolumeDetect" means? Thus this behavior should be expected to occur, but it does not currently happen. This is important because otherwise this behavior has the potential to prevent resident-designed combat systems that depend upon bullet collisions from functioning properly.

2. Either LL damage (llSetDamage()) should apply to phantom avatars, OR, this phantom behavior should cease over Damage-enabled land (either by making the object and avatar non-phanom, or by UnSitting the avatar).

I do not recall the default LL Damage system being documented as "opt-out" or "optional" except to the extent that one can opt not to enter Damage-enabled land. When a resident sets their land to Damage, they expect that llSetDamage() objects will cause damage if they collide with an avatar over that land. If, for some reason, invulnerability on Damage-enabled land is desired, then one separate solution for that is to enable the option for such an ability to be granted to members of the Land-Owning Group (either individually or as part of a Group Role).

Of course, resident-designed combat systems have long had the ability for sim admins to enter "administrative" or "safe" mode as part of their duties, and many resident-designed combat systems also include a "non-combatant" mode that residents may use. This is how the free market has adapted to the shortcomings of the default Damage system. Unfortunately, the behavior documented on this ticket threatens even these systems, while allowing complete invulnerability to anyone with 5 seconds to drop a script into an object. What good is a combat system if nobody has to actually accept damage but can still fight anyways? That's like punching someone in the face in a non-contact sparring match....only really desirable to those with a complete lack of any sense of honor or self-discipline.

I can see cases where it would be good to allow avatars to not take damage, for example if you want to have combat with spectators or a referee or something.

The impact of the bug is quite evident by going to Rausch and watching people sit invincibly on phantom NPVs and dousing each other with a combination of lag inducing particles, colliding phys traps, followers, sound & text spam etc. in hopes that they might 'kill' their opponent by dropping their frame rate to near zero and/or crashing their client or computer. Alternatively, people try to win the day by attacking the simulator to either reduce TD to intolerable levels or causing the server to crash.

As long as the bug / feature is in effect, the Linden damage system is completely irrelevant except to attack combat neophytes who don't yet have an NPV phantom vehicle, and these other 'methods' become standard practice.

Though to be perfectly blunt the Linden combat system is so utterly worthless that I don't really care what's done with it to be honest; I avoid areas with it enabled like the plague, because what you're describing is what the combat sims are always like, whether you can retaliate or not you're going to get bombarded by spammy weapons; forget the idea of challenge or skill when anyone can bring a multiple rocket-launcher to the show disguised as a wrist-watch. Really this bug is the only thing making it possible to survive in them for more than five seconds anyway =P

Damage zones are for damage, people using scripted objects to escape damage in places where damage is turned on is just as unacceptable as a bug that would allow people to create objects that inflict damage in places where damage is shut off. Since damage is optional and going to areas with damage is optional, there really is no reason for there to be such an easy way to remove yourself from the damage system. If you dont' want to "die", don't go to damage zones or figure out how to zap other people before they zap you.

Current environment in Damage enabled areas like rausch is totally worthless because of this bug......nobody except people who have never been there and havnt learned the little trick can be damaged, and the majority of people there are so used to this bug being the reality, chances are they wont even attempt a damage based attack against you, instead the only combat occuring is all particle and prim spam..... I don't even understand why the people who are still pretending to be engaging in "combat" in places like rausch are even bothering with it, except for lack of anything better to do with themselves.

The bug needs to be fixed or the damage system removed, it's a total joke (and not a funny one) the way it is now.

This bug breaks content. It's that simple. If I take a prim, make it physical, script it with llSetDamage(100); and drop it on an avatar in a Damage-enabled zone, then every bit of documentation provided by Linden Lab says that it should kill the avatar and they should be teleported home, and yet this bug prevents that from happening. If this bug is to remain unfixed, then what explanation do you give to the hundreds of people who have scripted objects based upon LL's documentation, or the thousands of customers who have purchased these items, now that they do not work?

Linden Lab created a default Damage system for combat. They need to support it and maintain it, and ensure that it continues running according to documentation. This bug is undocumented and unexpected behavior, and I am confident that it will eventually be fixed, although I do understand that there are likely more pressing matters for them to deal with.

If Andrew Linden believes that this issue is resolved, then Andrew should resolve it. As this ticket has been assigned to him, he gets the last word on it.

If you would like, the ticket can be renamed so as to replace "Phantom" with "VolumeDetect." However, it is quite clear throughout the ticket, in the reproductions given, that the bug involves VolumeDetect.

Please do not mark this ticket as Resolved again without Linden input.

In a small damage-enabled plot on our testing sim, running server version 1.26.4, I created a basic cube prim with the following script:

default
{
    state_entry()
    {
        llSitTarget(<0.0,0.0,0.5>,ZERO_ROTATION);
        llVolumeDetect(FALSE);
    }

    changed(integer change)
    {
        if(change & CHANGED_LINK)
        {
            key av = llAvatarOnSitTarget();
            
            if(av != NULL_KEY)
            {
                llVolumeDetect(TRUE);
            }
            
            else
            {
                llVolumeDetect(FALSE);
            }
        }
    }
            
}

I then created another prim, 5x5x5 so as to be large enough to ensure a collision, I then set it to physical, moved it directly above me, and observed that it fell through my avatar without colliding.

I then added the following basic script to the object:

default
{

state_entry()
{

llSetDamage(100);
}

}

I then repeated the exercise, moving the prim above my avatar and dropping it.

Expected: I should die and be TPed to my home location (in another sim)
Observed: The prim fell around me and did nothing

When I stood up (the damage-prim was large enough that it was surrounding me), I was then teleported to my home location, demonstrating what should have happened upon the initial collision.

Go check the definitions of bugs.

The fact someone has to use a specially scripted object, and also remain sitting on it means this is not somthing that is goign to happen to someone without them wanting it to. therfore it is not breaking content unexpectadly. It IS giving new desirable behaviour on demand!

This issue was originally set to "Critical" priority. It was imported, given an LL Dev number, and assigned to Andrew Linden with the priority set as "Critical." You are the sole individual who has moved it to "Normal." There have been multiple times that Andrew Linden has left comments on this ticket while it has been set at Critical. I am certain that if he felt that the ticket's priority had been misfiled, he would have changed it himself.

Please stop changing the priority of this ticket. The fact that this is the third time that you have done so, and that it has previously been set back to "Critical" each time, which was the priority at which it was imported and assigned, ought to be enough to make it obvious that you need to stop doing this.

As for why this ticket deserves a "Critical" priority, perhaps you have misunderstood (or simply ignored) many comments from many individuals who have pointed out that this bug breaks content. I do not understand why this is difficult to comprehend. Actually, I think that you comprehend this quite well, you simply do not care.

This bug prevents objects that are scripted using the function llSetDamage() from working properly. The documented behavior of llSetDamage() is that any object scripted with llSetDamage() will cause a set amount of damage to an avatar's "health" if it collides with that avatar on land that has been set to allow Damage. This bug prevents this from happening.

As a result, objects that are scripted with llSetDamage() will not function correctly if they collide with an avatar who is sitting on an object that has been set to VolumeDetect. Andrew has stated several times that this behavior is buggy, and that it will be fixed. Thus we have:

An acknowledged (by the assigned Linden) buggy behavior....

That causes scripted objects to function incorrectly or fail to function, and/or a failure of a specific feature or scripting call.

This is a good explanation of what a "Critical" bug means. It is clearly a bug, and it clearly breaks content, it is a "Critical" bug. If you attempt to change the status of this ticket again, I will request that your JIRA priveledges be restricted. This is a serious service intended to track bugs in the program, not some sort of game where you can just go around changing tickets you don't personally like. If you have some information to contribute to this bug fix, by all means, please leave a comment. But please leave the status alone.

Go check the definitions of bugs.

The fact someone has to use a specially scripted object, and also remain sitting on it means this is not somthing that is goign to happen to someone without them wanting it to. therfore it is not breaking content unexpectadly. It IS giving new desirable behaviour on demand!"

Ah, the half-truthiness of it all. It doesn't break D Brody's content so therefore it's not breaking content? Wrong. Not only is it breaking content, it is breaking a whole system of content- damage zones are meant for combat simulation, and with a "godmode" ability so easily available it breaks the whole game....people can't die, so nobody wins, nobody loses- total stalemate. Saying it is "optional" to wear one of these shield systems, like D. Brody's, is highly laughable since you will either use a shield like this in damage zones or you will get repeatedly owned with no real chance at retaliation.

The damage system is a feature of the Second Life server. Despite its inherently poor design, it is still used by many private regions, and the Linden combat regions.
Perhaps there should be a meta issue for the Linden Damage System.

Is there a reason to allow users to choose when they are affected by damage? Yes. It can be very useful for spectating battles up close. Moving the camera for more
than a certain distance leads to clipping problems and such.

However, this (phantom) is taken advantage of as a user can become completely invincible to damage, WHILE still being able to kill others.
Assume that if someone is in a combat area, and there is a chance other people with weapons will be there, then they will be using this bug. This is not far from the truth. (In Linden combat regions).
Assume that if someone enters a combat area without using this bug, that someone will kill them. This is also not far from the truth.
This scenario can only lead to any number of people taking advantage of this bug. The point of combat is that you can kill people and they can kill you. This, for the most part, is no longer true.
Therefore, there are two outcomes: the people are all friendly, and nothing much really happens. Alternatively, the people are all/some hostile, and seek out other forms of
"eliminating" their opponents. Needless to say, the world servers would have been much happier without having to send all those packets of spam.

It is desirable behavior, but the kind which is self-defeating.

Darling Brody: Those people who are making the choice to avoid damage by making their avatar phantom are getting the result they expect.
It is not like people are becoming immune to damage in a situation where they didnt want to.

While it is nice to be protected from the various means of assult, this logic could be used to say "Those people who are making the choice to steal credit card numbers due to a security flaw are getting the results they expect. It is not like the people are stealing passwords when they didn't want to."

Her other main arguement is that

Darling Brody: The HUD based community are able to defend against teleporting bullets.

This does make sense, but teleporting bullets are another issue altogether which could be fixed in another JIRA. Bugs tend to be bad ways to make up for features and fixes.
There is no intuitive use for this other than "I don't want to die." Invulnerability to damage should be limited to users who cannot attack/affect negatively others, and server/region
administrators and other users given the privledge to provide a better experience for normal users.

Your World. Your Epic Stalemates.

According to Andrew in SVC-264, "This is by design and is not a bug. The intended behavior is that the avatar cannot become phantom."

Which is the cause of this bug, however I liked the bug due to the fact that bullets interpolate walls and can kill avatars on the other side. Dispite since already collided with the wall and thus making it unlikely they would of actually of died. (if this was fixed, this bug has no major use other then to make an avatar phantom and/or god-mode, of which only phantom avatars still have thier uses).

And as for tanks and other "armor" qualities for vehicles and structures, there's stuff that's been developed and is being developed and used that allows for that behavior using resident-designed (and free) systems. Tanks won't go away if this bug gets fixed, they'll still be around. You just won't be dependent upon random glitches in the physics engine like this. I love the idea of tanks, I just hate having to rely on unstable behavior. This bug just really screws with a lot of intended behaviors, mucking things up for everyone else who expected llSetDamage() and avatar collisions to work properly.

This so called "new" behaviour has been around for almost 2 years now. That is 33% of the totaly life span of the secondlife platform. Dosn't sound all that new to me.

Is it really fair to say the products are in their infancy when they are using a side effect that has been around so long?
What of the customers who own the products?
What of creaters who joined SL in the last 2 years and dont know some people consider this a bug?

In combat, I have always been one for balance, there is no balance when bullets can be phantom, but avatar's cant.
(I personaly like to turn phantom and sit on the sidelines to watch other people slug it out)

In vehicles there is nothing to replace this. So we will be getting snagged on stuff again.

In elevators and other smooth moving physics based stuff there is no replacment. (nonphysical movment is a script intensive memory hungry laggy alternative)

This jira is full of weapons people. Shield people want to keep it, and gun people want to nerf it.

The other people not involved in combat who use this side-effect dont even know this jira is here. Who speaks for them?

Now, I said I drop oposistion, but only because I ahte to argue, so let me post some basic facts and get out of the way for the remainder of this discussion.

That said, the change is made before all that feedback starts coming in, (Angry people who never look at the jira unless something they like is broken). So far as things stands everything works more or less exactly as it should with this bug in place, including things that rely on it. Obviously people can become immune to damage, but due to the nature of VolumeDetect, collision events are still being passed to scripts. Any problems with the attachments recieving collision data should be brought up in thier respective jira entries SVC-1989 and SVC-3120.

The only major change to this being fixed, is that people die when shot no matter what they are sitting on. So far it has been well handled by military groups who can just clearly ban them and they generaly do not get used. But this has been said before.

So to finish, I like the bug, I love the bug, but do what you need to do..

As for closing SVC-4288, that is currently linked to this topic, when this topic is resolved, that one will also be resolved. (won't finish or fixed, etc)

Nah, this is mainly about scripters in the bloatware camp that need the bug to cover it up; before the bug, bloatware systems always got pwn'd by weapons with tight scripting and design. Since U make a HUD that includes 'gun' like functions that are nerfed by the bug yet begging Linden not to fix it, can we assume you're in the bloatware camp? O.o

It is not nessisary, helpfull, or permitted under the TOS to direct personal comments at people in the way you have. please stop now.

Your comment did nothing to progress the technical discussion of the jira. It did not even focus on a complete point from the post it quoted, as the quoted text was a preamble to reminding people there are non-weapons people who have not seen this jira. While your responce was a personal attack on a poster based on your opinion of their products. There is no place in the jira for such behaviour.

Please avoid being reported and banned by not doing it anymore.

thank you.

As far as furthering the technical discussion, the real problem seems to be hinged on the fact that the linden damage system is meant for avatars and not for objects.....sure people want shields, fortresses and vehicles for protection, but the way it's working right now that "protection" is equating to godmode, which is breaking the fun factor.

Lets not !

It's against the TOS and unhelpfull to further this JIRA in a usefull way for the programmers at Linden Labs.

There are other methods of contact in-world where you can have this type of discussion with me. It dosnt belong here.

We can receive damage from :-

• a collision with ground, physical prim, or non-physical prim. With the damage being proportional to the speed of the collision.
• a collision with an object using the llDamage function.

It is the llDamage command that spoiles the fun for people wanting to hide behide objects while having a shootout .
It is this function that lets HUDs do an instant kill, and the phantom bullets to turn nonphantom and kill you after passing though walls.

Without llDamage health would be lowered by a bullet hitting you hard, and
it would take several shots to kill someone, making the whole gun fight a lot more fun.

However without llDamage a lot of other really cool weapons would break, like weapons that are high on special effects and drop the
damage prim on the avatar at the last moment.

This aregument has become accedemic now anyway as there are new viewer programs that not only make your avatar phantom, they remove the avatar from sensors totaly!

If you want to ban it from your sim, you are free to do so.
Many sims allow it however.

Shouldn't people focus more on seekers and phantom rounds?
Those are a way more annoying feature.

I get that Linden Lab has absolutely no care for the LL Damage system, my guess is that you guys regret ever having implemented it in the first place, since resident-designed combat systems have taken over and done far more (including armor) than LL Damage could ever have done. But if you're gonna have a default damage system built into SL, you really ought to be removing the godmode hacks when they're found.

Please make the LL Damage system work as documented, remove this stupid volumedetect bug, so that people on Damage land can be killed by Damage objects.

Or else just admit that you no longer support the LL Damage system, that it's deprecated, etc.....

The fix failed, now the bug is just regarded as (mis-)feature (what I decline, but that does not matter). So why not close the issue as "won't fix" or "works as expected". That would be a decision, so we get rid of this unclear status. It could be documentated in the wikis so also new people had the chance to know about it. Meanwhile more irritating than the bug itself is the indecisiveness.

"Invincibility on combat enabled sims is now officially a simple click-sit away! Either sit on a phantom vehicle or sit on any vehicle that's scripted to place it's root prim in the safe zone while offsetting the avatar outside of the safe zone (SVC-2450). Of course avatar older than 7 days will learn these simple methods, and the result is a lag inducing stalemate of fruitless attacks that we must now disallow.

Attacking any avatar that's using our new invincibility features will be considered a violation of community standards, and since it's not immediately apparent that a target avatar is sitting on phantom vehicle or otherwise projecting itself out of a safe zone, you must avoid attacking any sitting avatar, and attack only standing avatars that look menacing and give you explicit verbal permission to attack them. If the avatar that your attacking subsequently uses our invincibility features, you must immediately withdraw your attacks to avoid causing simulator lag. We hope you enjoy our new kinder and gentler Linden combat system."

All this talk of using this as a "misfeature" as armor misses the point. "Armor" is just a hit-meter that determines when to remove the invulnerability. As long as someone is seated on a volumedetect prim, they are invulnerable, plain and simple. It is not like a shield, a shield at least operates within the system, by stopping the Damage-scripted object from colliding with the avatar. Sitting on a volumedetect prim, by contrast, simply grants full and total invincibility from anything other than an ejection or ban from the parcel....except, of course, that there is no way to actually know that someone is sitting on a volumedetect prim.

Finally, this bug also really screws the pooch when it comes to the vehicle combat systems that currently exist in SL, as it allows for invincible tanks and planes in those systems that do require collisions for the system to work. Oh well, so far at least it hasn't been overly abused in those systems. I guess it's up to the admins there to deal with it.

Meanwhile, content creators who work with the LL Damage system have to try to figure out whether this bug will ever be fixed, whether future bugs will be fixed when found, and really whether Linden Lab intends to support the built-in Damage features or simply leave them deprecated in favor of third-party developed systems. I mean, don't get me wrong, that's fine for me, I have plenty of experience working with the various third-party combat systems in SL. But then again, not everyone does, and the simpler LL Damage system is and always has been a good way for beginners to learn how to do combat scripting, so they're the ones who are being hurt here.

Andrew called it a mis-feature a year go when he spoke to non-weapons people who thought this was an official feature.
Now two years on it has been around for 1/3 of the total time SL has been in existance.
The majority of people on the grid were not even playing SL under havok1 when phantom avatars would collide.

I suggest people adopt it and make use of it. Write your scripts with this behaviour in mind and you will find it useful.

Darling Brody

It would be useful the current status would be confirmed. Would be bad if people put a lot of work in new scripts and some months later this issue is fixed. Or damage retired. Or whatever.

Was only asking for a for a final decision by the Lindens. But if one does not have long conversations with Lindens about "cool content", all this jira contribution went unheard.

I'm just saying that it has some very useful side effects outside of combat. Especial for vehicles and smooth movment throught he physics engine.
Far to many things have been broken by the combat community filing jiras which other communitys in SL didnt know about.
eg: link distance for avatars broke teleporters after someone suggested a stupid fix to stop orbits, which LL implemented.

For me damage combat like Rausch is pointless and boring since H4 cause of this bug, so there was no reason to make a product not having financial interests in mind but simply user fun.

With yours and Andrews logic I don't understand why SVC-2570 / MISC-1407 wasn't accepted as misfeature (even related to this issue), it was same level of helpfulness against attacks in no-damage parcels like this issue is for damage zones. Andrew even liked the idea first, but it would have saved the people some weapons that would have been unnecessary, so it had no lobby, so Andrew just abandoned it silently. But here, it's something else. Exploiting this bug was nice business for weapon makers, we have a lobby here, so it just needed someone "who was making 'cool content'" to talk to Andrew and, puff, we have a new misfeature I think I understood now more aspects of politics and decision processes in jira. Thank you.

But even if we were to buy this argument that somehow we should all have been scripting with this "misfeature" (or whatever cute little buzzword you wish to use instead of BUG) in mind, what the hell could we script? This bug makes the user invulnerable to all forms of damage. What exactly is someone supposed to script to get around that? There is literally nothing, not even dropping a damage-enabled prim on the person manually, that will kill someone who is sitting on a volumedetect box.

I'm currently working on a tank that uses two different combat systems that have armor programmed into them. If you want "armor" in the LL Damage system, then make it a feature request and have it as a documented feature built into the system. Don't tell people to just work around this bug and treat it like it's some sort of useful byproduct.

But finally, seriously, if this bug, and other bugs related to the LL Damage system go unaddressed and unfixed for so long, what guarantees do content creators have that Linden Lab intends to continue to support the LL Damage system. I believe that LL needs to fix this bug if it intends to send a message to content creators that they intend to take an active role in supporting the features provided with SL, such as the default combat system. Otherwise, the message that I'm hearing loud and clear from Linden Lab in this regard is "combat is a very low priority for us. If you want combat with features that work as documented, support from its creators, and timely bugfixes, use a third-party system." Not too much different from their policy on client features and bugfixes either, I suppose.

->> There is no more or less griefing on the grid.
->> There are less Abuse Reports against people using an auto-kill.

Can we stick to facts please. if you have some data to back these assertions up, please include it with your opinion, which you've made known in this thread many times over.

Linden Labs publish this data. Its the Police Blotter.
Under havok1 there were lots of people getting in trouble in regions like rausch for denial of service through killing people constantly.
Now you never see that offence listed.

So just throttle it a bit. The lab is so good in giving arbitrary delays to LL commands, but where we need them, they dont do it. Just give the people 60 seconds after TP'in where lLDamage cannot affect them, to allow them to get prepared. You should have addressed that issue by a separate jira rather than abusing this bug here to solve your denial-of-service misbehaviour (I had seldomly problems with that. Maybe you had the wrong enemies).

They just dont do anything or fail here over years and then eventually declaring this to a feature because we do have "this bug now for so long" (Andrew). But we have this bug so long because they just did not manage to do they work in a appropriate time frame.

I shut up here now cause contribution to issues where decisions are made completly by lindens backdealing with lobbyists is pointless. Have fun and lot of profit by exploiting the spoiled damage system.

Wow, that was rude.

Just do like myself and so many others have done over this issue......Quit SL and go find a real video game to play.

The die is not cast. Your allogations are false.
Furthermore personal attacks on another poster to "win a point" like some kind of immature forum flamewar has no place in the jira.

I didnt bother replying to you because your comments were clearly personal and I didnt want to encorage you.
Do not take my lack of reply as confirmation that you were correct in your rude allogations.

If you have somthing to contribute on the technical side of things it is still most welcome.

@Darling Brody, I did not attack you at all. Just asked to not put your financial interests higher than the interests of us normal SL users. Please refrain from further arbitrary attacks against my person (or any other person, who does not agree with you in jira), if you need further discussion feel free to contact me inworld. Thank you and have a nice day

You did insult me by suggesting that I have put my financial interests ahead of the grid. I find such accusations offensive.

Logically it makes no different to my weapons. Keep this behavious or remove it, my weapon products will be on the same footing as anyone else.

My argument is that there are lots of other uses for this that are being used by other scripters who are not represented here.
They dont know this jira exists. In fact the name of this JIRA will most likly discorage non-weapons people from looking at it.

A better name for this jira might be "Remove the ability to set a sitting avatar phantom", and then you will see how many creaters object to it.
The current name is only attracting combat related people.

However, it certainly does make it easier for offenders to repeatedly grief in combat regions when they have to
compile their own scripts. Other protection requires more advanced technical knowledge and time to setup.
One script dropped in a cube is easy:

default { state_entry() { llVolumeDetect( TRUE ); } }

Most of the legitimate features that would be removed could be duplicated in more controlled manners.

Any "cool content" depends only on the ability to make the avatar unaffected by collisions, or moving a prim underground:
Use LSL to control which sitting avatars are phantom or not, or if all sitting avatars are phantom/nonphantom. Without being immune to damage.

"Armored vehicles":
Use LSL to allow vehicles to offer protection (health) from damage. When the vehicle runs out of health, sitting avatars could be killed/forced to stand.

Legitimate invincibility:
Give estate owners/land owners/group the ability to grant invincibility to people. AND/OR allow people to opt-out of combat, preventing them from
giving or receiving damage/push and possibly displaying (Not in Combat) on their nametags.

But all of this improvement requires first fixing this bug. Then once we've removed unrestricted invincibility, all of these other things can be added in as options. If the Damage system really needs Estate-level invincibility or the ability to give a vehicle armored status, then let's add those as features. There's no good reason to rely on a stupid and dangerous bug like this to do that.

it's a feature

2 years and running.

More people have joined SL in havok4 than before havok4.

Based on that the majority of SL creaters will be seeing this as normal behaviour, because they never saw it any other way.

accept it and more on.

Please Please Please stop arguing/commenting about whether this is a bug or not. If it is expected behavior A LINDEN will resolve it as such. Until that time IT IS A BUG.

If you have technical contribution, feel free.

People are arguing because LL has taken so long in fixing this. People are arguing because they are afraid that this bug may very well get fixed, "breaking" content that was scripted based on behavior that was known to be buggy.

The real question is whether LL is even noticing or caring. They have other bugs to fix too, and my guess is that they're busier fixing a bunch of other things, maybe they'll get to this eventually, although my guess is that enough venom has been spewed on this ticket to make most Lindens want to avoid this like the plague.