Cyclone Watch

The sim Cyclone on Mobius lay quietly beneath us as we stood on the single rocky point above  a large, barren and open valley of green, with some otherworldly yellow lines surrounding the open space, just at the sim edge. The old rusting flight control building roasted under a cruel sun, as did the tarmac of the runway. It was the calm before the storm. With planes.
The address of this loveliness is, yes you guessed it, at the end of the post. Our visit began with some fast rezzing and a bit of a tech talk.

Luminalore Resident: Alright, perfect. Once Alex hops out we can begin! ^^

Royale Mobian: Alex please get out of the plane, we have a few things to say first before the fun begins

Lifted Pixel: haha telling safari not to sit

Royale Mobian: is there everyone?

Thirza Ember: yes, all here

Forest Azure: /me throws something at alex... a hearing aid

Thirza Ember: he may have some lag, give Alex a moment, he may not be able to move!

Lifted Pixel: we also love to sit

Roy sitting on the top of the building, explaining the game

Royale Mobian: alrighty. For those who don't know me allow me to introduce myself. I am Royale but you may call me Roy. We have enabled this region to see chat through the whole region.

Tosha Tyran: hi Roy, thanks for the invite

Star Ravenhurst: Hi roy!

Mal Burns: hi roy

Royale Mobian: Allow me to indroduce you to Versa. say hello

🔧 V e r s a 🔧: Hello, and welcome everybody! I'm Versa (or if you don't have display names: Luminalore).

Lifted Pixel: display names finally kicked in yay

Versa

Mobius is perhaps the only grid in Opensim to feature Display Names, like they have in SL, and if you would like to know more about that, please take a look at this Blog Post which explains how and why they did it.

Tosha Tyran: hello versa

Lifted Pixel: hello versa! it's nice to see you with all your anims :3

James atLLOUD: Hello Versa

Royale Mobian: Versa here scripted the planes we will be doing combat in today. no one knows these planes as well as they do so listen carefully. Versa you have the floor

🔧 V e r s a 🔧: Thanks Roy. Everything that you will see here is in heavy beta, and still a work in progress. Trust me a have WAAAAY too little time to work on this full-time. A brief bit of history about me. I actually got my start on Second Life under the account Welshlamb (yes I am Welsh. Cymru am byth!), I've been a resident there since 2011. But started to learn LSL in 2016. Over the years I developed many cool things and even run a store called Lumen Co. under another account, But after Royale introduced me to Mobius Grid, I was instantly hooked. While not perfect, OpenSim has some genuine advantages over Second Life and it's my interest to see those both exploited and used to it's fullest intent.

Lifted Pixel: love mobius grid, i can't believe y'all are this old

Royale Mobian: I started the place when I was 22 lol

Thirza Ember: vehicles, or  general scripty-ness?

🔧 V e r s a 🔧: General scripting. I can do a lot of stuff, and a lot of that knowledge does translate here too... I mean, SL to OpenSim anyway

Thirza Ember: can you name some of the advantages of opensim? compared with SL... not to put down Sl in any way, but...

lifted, Versa, and the planes

🔧 V e r s a 🔧: Sure, although I'll be specifically speaking in terms of what's used on Mobius Grid, so keep that in mind. You'll see that the planes here will have NPCs sitting inside them. The implementation of this is so much more easy to develop for than animesh as an alternative to NPCs. yengine specific features like advanced flow control are also very helpful for workflow and optimization. And ubODE turns out is a really, really good physics engine despite some quirks. At least in comparison

Petlove Petshop: that's so interesting! i never differentiated between animesh & NPCs - thought they were pretty much the same ... word!

Lifted Pixel: npcs and animesh are seperate things, opensim NPCs are like the dance partners, but ofc you can attach whatever to them including an animesh.Normallly you just script something to physically move around and attach it to an animesh object, but that can be heavy

Petlove Petshop: yah i'm just getting that now - ty!

Star Ravenhurst: NPCs are harder on resources than animesh

Royale Mobian: Animesh and NPCs are both useful for alot of the same things and tbh in our case if we didn't want to use the radar animesh would have been the better option however we wanted to use the radar and viewer combat features so we used NPCs, each has pros and cons depending on use case

Lifted Pixel: you can use both, or one or the other, but what the mobians said, they both have uses... but SL doesn't have NPCs

🔧 V e r s a 🔧: Anyway, I should get onto the planes. Once you sit inside you may find the plane will ask for you to join the eexperience. Just a disclaimer, some of the code used here involves acceptance of experiences. Certain parts of the plane may not function if you do not accept this and you try to use it. You have been warned.

Thirza Ember: Safari disclaimer - we are crap flyers, and will crash a LOT

🔧 V e r s a 🔧: That is okay. :3 I enjoy carnage.

Thirza Ember: then we are your peeps

Versa getting ready to take off on the demo flight

Like everything in life, the experience is subjective and one person's standard operating procedure is not another's. If you use your keyboard for gaming a lot, then the plane instructions will make complete sense to you. If you don't generally Crouch much when inworld, then you may need to spend a little bit of time figuring out how it works... worth it  because these planes perform beautifully.

🔧 V e r s a 🔧: Controls are pretty simple, Fwd/Back is pitch, Left/Right is banking, Jump/Crouch is throttle control! You can be in or out of mouselook, it's up to you. Holding left mouse button will fire the machine guns! Point at nearest target to deal damage.

James atLLOUD: Oh I'm glad we have choice of camera view!

Forest Azure: what is banking?

Petlove Petshop: tilting

Royale Mobian: basically turning

🔧 V e r s a 🔧: If you are at 100% throttle and hold the Jump button, you will engage the afterburners! You have a limited supply, this is shown on the HUD.

Petlove Petshop: You must have righteous dogfights !

Mal Burns: can't drive, can't do boat, can't fly and now you are gonna shoot at me? eek

Thirza Ember: This is the first plane in a set of planned styles of  airplanes is that correct? and is it also right that you plan to have games/battles with teams?

🔧 V e r s a 🔧: Yeah. The eventual idea is to have this as a fully functional team game with the NPCs integrated as optional bots to fill in the blank spots

Royale Mobian: the planes on the runway are not planned for the game's final version. we are using these skins as its a special event. The four you see off to the side are what will be flown as the teams in the final build

James atLLOUD: Nice colors. Oh - I left my Miles Prower outfit in my other avatar.  That always happens.

Parked off to the side, some of the prototypes of the
planes that will be used in the game when done

🔧 V e r s a 🔧: As far as combat is concerned, it's pretty simple: Hit things to deal damage, if you get hit you lose HP, run out of HP and you will crash and blow up.

Thirza Ember: so, much like RL

🔧 V e r s a 🔧: Yeah, although without the death  Just explosions, consequence-free! A few tips: Don't point the plane upwards too much, or you will stall out and plummet to your doom. Try to be level for a while before attempting any drastic vertical movements, this will allow the plane to have the 'energy' to stay airborne, if you find yourself falling while being level. Try to point the plane down and descent to increase your potential energy.

James atLLOUD: wow, amazing physics

Star Ravenhurst: i am not good at these sort of games...it sounds complicated

Royale Mobian: Versa would you like to show them in flight rq?

🔧 V e r s a 🔧: Yeah sure.

Thirza Ember: we really appreciate being the first outsiders to see this

Royale Mobian: everyone zoomed in on Versa?

Francisco Koolhoven: yep

Tosha Tyran: are there any 2-seaters?

Royale Mobian: they are single seater planes only. Versa is rezzing a single NPC so you can see combat

The base of operations

🔧 V e r s a 🔧: Not at the moment. I was going to make some extra parts to sit on the wings but

Petlove Petshop: nice!

Mal Burns: careful versa - i think you forgot to fasten yr seatbelt

James atLLOUD: oh - Versa was hit!

Drone AI v0.18: shouts: I'm hit!

Thirza Ember: with this level of physics, it becomes truly a game of skill

James atLLOUD: ah, the enemy is defeated.

Royale Mobian: the NPC died lol

Forest Azure: RIPNPC

Angelic Kisses: Great flying, Versa!

🔧 V e r s a 🔧: And there you go.

Royale Mobian: So who wants to fly?

🔧 V e r s a 🔧: Alright, just keep in mind. If you do ram into another plane. It does deal damage. Including hitting static objects. Friendly fire is on, so uh... Yeah. Landing is just a case of making sure the wheels touch on the ground.

James atLLOUD: How do we land?

Thirza Ember: carefully!

Forest Azure: crash and jump or crouch

Mal Burns: crash james - obviously

 James atLLOUD: OK thanks I get the picture Safaristas

Petlove Petshop: page up & down & arrow keys ?

Hitching a totally illegal ride on the wing of James' plane

🔧 V e r s a 🔧: Yeah, that works

Royale.Mobian: I will be on the ground rezzing my planes incase you crash too early

James atLLOUD: I'm goin' for it

Forest Azure: oh, brave james!

Petlove Petshop: cya James!! Don't forget to write!

Star Ravenhurst: James is the brave one in the group!

🔧 V e r s a 🔧: Now just a heads up, you might not do too well your first few times. But just be patient, experiment, and most importantly. Have fun! If you could all wait for one to take off before hopping in a plane, that would be great!

Thirza Ember: if there was a passenger seat I would go

Royale Mobian: ok so find your planes starting from the front do not take off until we say so

🔧 V e r s a 🔧: Once we're all up in the sky I will start spawning NPCs. You all have about... 5 minutes before then though, just to get used to flying.

Petlove Petshop: oh no james is tempting fate!

Tosha Tyran: can you please tell the npcs to avoid me? I get dizzy too easy

James piloting his plane with an unwanted passenger on the wing. Just to make life harder.

Of course it didn't go anything like the way Roy and Versa had planned, because we are (with perhaps two exceptions) really bad at flying/reading instructions/being serious about a game. It didn't take too long for me to discover that if you click on certain parts of the wind, you can do a ride-along which tbh was way more fun than continually crashing on the runway.

Lifted Pixel: hope these don't cost too much

Mal Burns: i exceeded the sim barrier and crashed underwater

James.atLLOUD: I killed Thirza  :((((((

Thirza Ember: it's fun being the passenger

Star Ravenhurst: I saw that James, and have photo evidence

 Royale Mobian: 1 minutes until the NPCs attack

 Forest Azure: /me is hunting planes

 Tosha Tyran: are they expensive? covered by insurance

🔧 V e r s a 🔧: Yeah I work for insurance I'm sure it's fine.  I won't bump up your premiums next year, promise. ouo

Thirza Ember: how many have we trashed??

James atLLOUD: 2x for me

Petlove Petshop: i think six lol

James atLLOUD: Is there a HUD?  I didn't notice it.

Royale Mobian: allow the Experience

🔧 V e r s a 🔧: Huh. That's strange. Are your attachments full?

In reality, while some had not accepted the Experience (that's a very Opensim thing, to decline things that popups want you to do, I wonder why we're all such contrarians) it seemed that for many, the HUD was on screen, but - you know how sometimes HUDs attach almost completely off on one side? This one was top left, only a tiny fraction of it was visible, but a quick edit brought it into view. This is how Roy explained it:

Royale Mobian: if you have a screen size smaller than 1920x1080 (aka 1080p) check if your HUD is off screen

Tosha Tyran: oh, that was fast

Petlove Petshop: shortest flight in history!

Mal Burns: i found myself flying in the air without the plane that time, it just vanished somewhere

🔧 V e r s a 🔧: 2 NPC'S ON THE LOOSE, GET EM

Lifted Pixel: lol i think the enemy team just has to wait and we'll take ourselves out

Royale Mobian: ramming each other will hurn your HP

Mal Burns: for the first time it is not safari crashing the sim - it is the sim crashing us

Lifted Pixel: amazing voyage

James atLLOUD: everytime a plane appears, an avi has died.

Thirza Ember: i'm crying in rl it's so funny

Forest Azure: i'm falling off my chair in rl

Lifted Pixel: ahahahah

Tosha Tyran: I am crying too - for all the dead avatars

Petlove Petshop: i think i took out 3 that time! so sorry!

Alex, with two passengers, managed to get right across the sim before the inevitable happened

Alex Salamander: sorry

Forest Azure: /me looks for a bandaid... it is a long walk back

Royale Mobian: if you sit on a plane take the first open one up front, the planes shoot when you click the mouse, hold left mouse button to fire your gun

Forest Azure: shoot? can you shoot?

🔧 V e r s a 🔧: Alrighty, unleashing the HOOOOORDE ...Oh god I may have spawned too many... last wave if there ever was any btw

Red for danger - attacking drones with NPCs

Tosha Tyran: argh, caught in the electric fence... james, you are a fantastic pilot, though my seat is not the most comfortable

Thirza Ember: wow star is holding on tight

Forest Azure: did the dress make it?

James atLLOUD: Lol - well, we seem to have survived!  I almost landed, but cut too much throttle on approach. sigh

Star Ravenhurst: that was fun

Roffellos Kisses: freeeking enemy

Star as a passenger on a dangerous flight

James atLLOUD: I think that's enough for me.  I'm now going to spectate.

Angelic Kisses: i enjoyed watching it too...I was too tickled

Petlove Petshop: so, people can come and fly your planes when you're not using them?

Mal Burns: def more fun to watch than do lol

lifted pixel: the NPCs are too funny, i like how they bumpercar

Royale Mobian: had fun though?

James atLLOUD: Yes, very spirited.

Petlove Petshop: a lot of fun yes!

Tosha Tyran: I have yet to understand the thing of throttle or not

🔧 V e r s a 🔧: So, funny you all say that... Thank you so much for participating, as a reward. You're all getting a civilian version of these for free. :3  They don't shoot, but hey

lifted pixel: neato

...and suddenly just like that Roy's Display Name kicked in. That's classic Safari.

𝓡𝓸𝔂𝓪𝓵𝓮 𝓜𝓸𝓫𝓲𝓪𝓷: I have a civilian version I will be giving you all copies as a gift.They only fly, no combat, no experience tools needed

Petlove Petshop: that is very nice of you!

Star Ravenhurst: thank you

🔧 V e r s a 🔧: Royale decided it would be nice. But in any case. There'll be more of this in the future. I also have my own region where I'll be working on other fun things.. But that's still under construction. >w>  The planes are scripted for ubODE, please keep that in mind. If you try using these in BulletSIM I can't guarantee they'll work.

lifted pixel: this has been wonderful. everything is always lovely here

James atLLOUD: yeah, this is one fantastic grid and community.

 🔧 V e r s a 🔧: it's a 5x5 but I'm building a city and working on some other things.Thirza actually saw me driving it around in the anniversary Heheh

Roffellos Kisses: that is a lot of fun and a lot of work for you ..thank you for letting us ermm crash all over the place

James atLLOUD: Yeah, I wrecked at least 6 planes.

Forest Azure: oh, this was so very good for my health! laughed and laughed so much!

Angelic Kisses: this was very interesting

Star Ravenhurst: that leaves me out then. i hae bullet regions

🔧 V e r s a 🔧: Sorry, I have yet to work on anything for bullet. But maybe in time!

Forest Azure: thank you so much! this was really great

James atLLOUD: Thank you Royale and Versa.

lifted pixel: happy 10 years mobius grid!

🔧 V e r s a 🔧: Thanks for visiting. You may see me around from time to time working on things. You're all free to come around and visit.  I'm so surprised everything held up too! NPCs+this many avatars was really nice.

Tosha Tyran: yes, the performance was great, what was not so great were the pilots

𝓡𝓸𝔂𝓪𝓵𝓮 𝓜𝓸𝓫𝓲𝓪𝓷: and as always our regions handled you guys with 0 issues

Petlove Petshop: Yes Thanks very much for sharing this with us.  So fun!

Alex Salamander: nice idea

Star Ravenhurst: Well it all went beautifully! great visit!

 HG Address hop://main.mobiusgrid.us:80/Cyclone/829/837/70