• All submissions to this site are governed by Second Life Project Contribution Agreement. By submitting patches and other information using this site, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agreed to those terms.
MAINTENANCE ANNOUNCEMENT - JIRA will undergo maintenance starting 1:00am PDT through 3:00am on Saturday 2010.03.20. Please do not enter issues during this time as the system maybe restarted.
Issue Details (XML | Word | Printable)

Key: SVC-742
Type: New Feature New Feature
Status: Open Open
Priority: Normal Normal
Assignee: Unassigned
Reporter: WarKirby Magojiro
Votes: 44
Watchers: 13
Operations

If you were logged in you would be able to see more operations.
2. Second Life Service - SVC

Remove the unassisted fly height limit.

Created: 30/Sep/07 05:33 AM   Updated: 05/Mar/10 03:42 AM
Component/s: Physics
Affects Version/s: 1.18.0, 1.21.0 Server, 1.22.1 Server, 1.22.2 Server, 1.22.3 Server, 1.22.4 Server, 1.23.4 Server, 1.24 Server, 1.25 Server, 1.26 Server, 1.27 Server, 1.30 Server, 1.32 Server, 1.34 Server
Fix Version/s: None

Time Tracking:
Not Specified

Issue Links:
Duplicate
 
Relates
 


 Description  « Hide
At present, avatars are unable to fly higher than a certain distance above the ground. Something like 80m, I think. I remember hearing a linden say that this was originally a social decision. To encourage people to interact with each other more. With the many residents we have now, interaction is clearly not an issue. The flight limit is a fairly trivial obstacle, and almost anyone with a little experience will have a flight assist on hand at all time.

All these flight assists are just a little more lag, and physics calculation for the sim. The flight limit really isn't necessary.

So I'm proposing that it simply be removed



 All   Comments   Work Log   Change History      Sort Order: Ascending order - Click to sort in descending order
Mercia Mcmahon added a comment - 30/Sep/07 08:09 AM
Yes, it is pointless having a limit that most people get around with scripts or gadgets. The height is about 275m that you can reach, although on releasing the Page Up key you drift down until hovering at 140m. This allows you to fly over a parcel with access limits set, but not other a parcel from which you are explicitly banned. That might be the reason for the limit. It would, however, be better to raise to height at which a banned person may cross a parcel than lagging the grid with flight assist scripts.

Another advantage, it that it might reduce the amount of "Cannot Stop Flying on Region Crossing" incidents, as these are often the result of the flight scripts, but not always.

An interesting side-issue if that if you are on a high platform you can fly but a meter above the platform. To test this try flying on my Private Region of Urbana Spes.

As a Private Estate Owner I would not want to distinguish between Mainland and Estate. There is no point in protecting privacy when those intend on invading it will use flight scripts. Anyway, sky-platforms are much more common on Mainland than on Estates, where covenants often rule then out to keep the sky realistic looking and uncluttered.

Mercia


Lex Neva added a comment - 30/Sep/07 09:59 AM
The absolute z height at which you start losing buoyancy varies depending on the terrain. Worse yet, that height above the terrain itself is variable! In Suffugium, this height above the terrain is different than in Eldora, for example. If you have a flight assist designed to set buoyancy at a certain height above the land in Eldora in order to counteract the loss of buoyancy, it'll cause you to float UP in Suffugium. This inconsistency sucks.

WarKirby Magojiro added a comment - 03/Oct/07 11:22 AM
The reason for the estate thing, is as lex mentioned. Inconsistency. It would be fine to set a flight limit for your own private island, but to allow individual mainland owners to do it would create a lot of confusion, as you're flying along merrily and suddenly drop like a stone when you hit a parcel with a low max flight.

Unless specifically altered in estate controls, the fligiht limit should be a universal 1024 in all arteas. I say 1024, because Havok 4 is raising the simulator height to that, so it makes sense to plan ahead rather than being left to adapt when havok 4 comes to the main grid.


Mercia Mcmahon added a comment - 03/Oct/07 02:18 PM
Warkirby, Eldora is a Mainland Sim, Suffugium a private region. Lex made no mention of the Mainland/Estate distinction, just the inconsistency.

Lex's point is that the grid is inconsistent, because of the differing terrains, something that your feature request does not address.

My point is that Private Estate owners do not need to be treated differently. If this feature was implemented and an Estate Owner thought there was a need for separate provision, then they can submit a feature request. Mainland and Estates do not currently have differing flight ceiling limits (just inconsistent ones), so why complicate your feature request by calling for this. It is a sub-task at best.


Lex Neva added a comment - 03/Oct/07 02:48 PM
Actually, what I was trying to say is that the flight ceiling IS inconsistent between those two regions. I'm not sure it even matters that one of them is a private estate. Generally, the unrestricted flight ceiling is about 50someodd meters above the terrain height. That's the height at which you start losing buoyancy. However, I've found through experimentation that that height above the terrain VARIES, and I don't know what makes it vary. That means that it's impossible to write a consistent flight assist script that completely removes the flight height restrictions.

ZigZag Freenote added a comment - 01/Dec/07 03:18 AM
Buoyancy limit should be made consistent, probably simply absolute. I would certainly like to have it raised and the falling slower, but I can see script makers scream. Are there any serious mountains on the grid?

Flight limit falls into the category I call "part of the experience". There are 'off limits' skyboxes, and for noobs so it should remain. The business changing it would kill is probably not big Ldollarwise, but it could be it's a common freebie one uses to attract customers.

What use is the limit if anyone can get a flight assist? It's not a limit, it's what I call "a lock with a key in it". If it's not yours, you know you should not unlock it. It's up to you what you do in the end, but it works pretty well. And is actually much friendlier than the dreaded access lines.

As for the additional calculation - I wonder how much. A clean solution would be to simply allow a script to modify these parameters instead of counteracting them. Probably flight assists are not a big business anyway. Although, that would mean third party viewers would probably simply add it to the menu. Well, maybe it should be in the debug settings of the LL viewer.

And yes, settable limit would cause a massive confusion.


ZigZag Freenote added a comment - 01/Dec/07 03:23 AM
PARTIALLY OFF TOPIC - Let me expand on the performance impacts many submitters mention. The "every little thing helps" attitude simply doesn't work for software performance. Anything below 1% simply doesn't count and is not worth the time and effort. That effort is much better spent reducing something from 20% to 10%.

CONCLUSION - So unless there is a proof (or a word from a Linden) that such scripts do have a substantial influence, I would remove this aspect from consideration and further discussion.


WarKirby Magojiro added a comment - 01/Dec/07 08:04 AM - edited
Mercia. This proposal DOES address the inconsistency

Unless specifically altered in estate controls, the flight limit should be a universal 1024 in all areas
I'll have to put that into the description

ZigZag. I don't like the idea of keeping a silly technical limitation for social reasons. If you don't want people coming into your skybox, put up a security orb. Flight assists are already available widely and freely, in any case. I had one on my second day in SL.

Relying on the flight limit to keep people out is unfair and inefective. And as Lex has mentioned, the flight limit causes problems for high altitude builds.

The concept of the light limit in general is irrelevant now, I think. I'd support just removing it completely without the estate-settable part.


Jacob Cagney added a comment - 02/Feb/08 10:12 PM
Late post....

Instead of setting the flight height to be dependent upon terrain height.. change it to an absolute..

Set the flight height to relative to the water (sea level)

Almost every height measure in the real world is done this way.

Denver, Colorado, USA is the Mile High City because it is 1 mile above sea level.

Change the build height from 700+ meters to 600+ meters and set an absolute flight corridor (for planes, etc) to the region above 700+ meters that is the current build height limit.

This way those who want to fly can do so above the maximum build height without crashing into, or invading the privacy of skyboxes and avatars would be able to fly up to the build height to create their skyboxes up to that limit.


WarKirby Magojiro added a comment - 03/Feb/08 03:24 AM
Hi Jacob. You're missing a small point there. The sea level in SL, unlike the real world, is NOT absolute.

All measurements in SL are taken from the sim floor, which is how this should be taken too. The south west corner, I believe.

Aside from that, your suggestion of reducing the build height is definitely not going to happen. Havok 4 is raising the build height. To 1024 when I last checked, though I've heard its now 4096 from some people. I can't get inworld to check ,due to a broken PC. So it would be neat if someone could log into the beta grid and confirm it.

I'm thinking, the unassisted flight limit should be exactly the same as the build height, or possible the physical object max altitude.


darling brody added a comment - 19/Feb/08 05:19 PM
According to the other JIRA's on havok4, the new build height for physical and nonphysical objects will be 4096 under havok4.

We should be able to fly up to anything we build. Why not set the flight height limit to a usefull limit like 4096? Most people dont need to fly higher than that on a regular basis, and those who do will just wip out their old flight assist. This will make the terrain height irralavant, restoring consistancy accross all regions, and removing the need to wear a flight assist for most people.

Darling.


Khyota Wulluf added a comment - 24/Jan/09 07:53 PM
Updatin, yay! i would really want to see this gone.

Ezian Ecksol added a comment - 24/Jun/09 03:04 AM
I would like to know, what was the original idea of setting a flight limit? Who needs it and what for?

Argent Stonecutter added a comment - 26/Jun/09 11:49 AM
No! Nobody would buy my flight feather!

Wait on, most people don't buy it anyway.

Carry on!


Ezian Ecksol added a comment - 26/Jun/09 12:56 PM
Q: Who needs it?
A: The flight feather industries
A: Advanced users that want to impress new users

Okay, these are good reasons. Let's brainstorm for more reasons


Argent Stonecutter added a comment - 27/Jun/09 08:15 PM - edited
You failed your saving roll against sarcasm.

(or did I?)


Ezian Ecksol added a comment - 13/Aug/09 02:31 AM
I read somewhere (forgot where) that the reason for the flight limit were social reasons.

Nowadays where it's difficult to find in sandboxes even in great heights a place where you can build undisturbed I think this reason is deprecated.


Domchi Underwood added a comment - 08/Oct/09 07:35 AM
I kind of like the artificial default, and I think it's a sensible default. I'm definitely not for removing it.

For example, when I build labyrinth high in the air, I want to know that avatar can't just fly over it - while having a platform to observe avatars moving through labyrinth, and not wanting to disable flight near the ground.

On the other hand, I like that Argent's script exists, and from what I measured, it's effect on sim resources is barely registrable, let alone noticeable.

While I think that the limit shouldn't be removed, I definitely think that maybe more control over the limit should be given to landowners - maybe a way to control it in parcel controls?


Ezian Ecksol added a comment - 09/Oct/09 01:43 AM
Domchi wrote: ... For example, when I build labyrinth high in the air, I want to know that avatar can't just fly over it

But they can already fly over it. So called flight feather scripts enable flying over the limit for everone already. This mechanism is in almost every HUD you can buy, and it's easy to script yourself. A restriction everyone can override and everyone overrides is pointless.


Domchi Underwood added a comment - 09/Oct/09 02:23 AM
Ezian, there is a world of difference between a default and a default modified with custom gadget, no matter how easy it is to get that custom gadget. Mere existence of this issue in JIRA proves that a little effort is a lot more than no effort, same as getting something for free and for L$1 is a significant psychological difference.

I like the fact that when I get into a sandbox, most people build on the ground. If I want to socialize, I build on the ground too. If I want peace and quiet, I go up. If I want isolation, I fly above 1000m. I believe that existing limit influences those decisions even though I use flight assist all the time. I also believe that if limit was removed, it would have delicate influence on SL culture I'm not sure I would like, and therefore, I'm against removing limits completely. I believe that putting control of the default into landowners hands is better approach, or at least a good experiment which would prove that a limit indeed needs to be removed completely.


Ezian Ecksol added a comment - 09/Oct/09 03:13 AM
Don't mind. This issue won't ever finish anyway cause of small ll dev resources, so it's just a theoretically discussion.

Zai Lynch added a comment - 07/Jan/10 11:57 PM
Adding more recent server versions to the list of affected versions. I'd really like to see this happen since everyone is using scripted objects to bypass this.

Irene Muni added a comment - 05/Mar/10 03:42 AM
This limit has no sense. As Zay said everyone use a item to bybass that limit. It's easier LL removes the limit.