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An Alternative Mechanical Approach
One solution to the various issues that face the Engineer of Items of Transport upon the Grid - though these issues I believe to be slowly but surely disappearing, hopefully to be banished into the annals of history, only to be brought out again to scare the newest of new residents, "the Sim Crossing Monster will eat you up and spit you out at 0,0,0 with your shoes in your rear end!" - is of course to design vehicles which are purely attachments.
These are sturdy, reliable things, and much can be done with them. Attention to custom animations is required, as well as careful attention to the current state of the wearer to instruct the device to behave as appropriate (see llGetAgentInfo and quite possibly llTakeControls; the former should be polled regularly on a timer, and appropriate link messages sent out for changes in status). Acceleration of the wearer, driver or pilot can be achieved with the use of llApplyImpulse or llSetForce.
I recently released photographs of my old compatriot Professor Gould's Hovering Chair Device Thingy, and last night was reminded of this particular form of movement by the approach of Per Lagerkvist in a rattly Motorised Wheeled Chair. On the ground it moves back and forward with spinning wheels, chugging away, and when one takes to the air, Rotary Wings are extruded to allow powered flight. The little flag upon the mast can even be changed to different designs! I was most impressed.
More can be found at the Lagerkvist Inc HQ, Jeju (250, 170, 84).
I recently make such a Personal Aerial Device, using llGetAvatarInfo to activate the animations as necessary. The AO keeps the avatar animated and in place (without that tilting the stock flying animation does) Being more than a bit of an inelegant scripter, I simply took a flight boost script and grafted onto the mess.
Inelegant or not, it works wonderfully, as a personal blimp (which, quite amazingly enough, is what it is). It crosses sims with ease, never gets asked to leave crowded parcels, and never a nasty crash at -10000000000 metres where the aforementioned 0,0,0 beastie lurks.
But. Disadvantages--it would make a less than realistic heavier than air device. Besides being incapable of Aerial Stunts, the controls are simply not at all akin to an aeroplanes. One moves laterally or up and down via direct inputs. No banking or pointing the nose up or down to alter direction. I suppose a clever scripter might be able to "fake" that, but I suspect it would still lack in feel (if one cares about these things).
The more troublesome point is that carrying passengers is a bit difficult. One cannot sit on an attachment. I suppose a small seat with a "follow me" script could me made with a SitPos in it, but have yet to test that out.
Still for flitting about solo, there is much to be said for this alternative.
Yes, I have a set of Mechanical Dragonfly Wings which I use for similar purposes, which are poorly-scripted enough to offer some Challenge when being used at least, but the level of detail is not the same as with a proper Vehicle. One simply cannot quite do the same, at least without great difficulty.
I have seen some things which appear to be Attachments but which allow piggy-back rides and so on - I should investigate really. The issue is that it is rather a challenge to test such items on one's own without bothering some poor soul immensely.
More on piggy backing attachments. I recently purchased a "two up" saddle for my horse, Pudding, who is attractive enough that many are willing to endure my company in exchange for a tour about the sim on her back.
I confess I also was curious as to how that worked, as horses are attachments "vehicles". It turns out that the AKK saddles, at least, are minature vehicles with two pose balls attached--one for the owner and one for the rider. The majority of the vehicle is hidden via No-Texture, and the poses are adjusted so that the horse animates correctly. Very nice work, actually, with multiple poses available for owner and passenger. I suspect the horse noises are keyed from the vehicle, but the understandable "no mod" permissions prevented me from investigating.
Ah, I see! Thinking about it, I would imagine that that would require a two-stage process - first sitting upon the "vehicle" part, and then putting on the avatar, or in reverse order of course. Awkward, but _I_ certainly cannot think of anything better; I'm sure all alternatives have been tried.
Miss Vee, I do hereby volunteer for "Bicycle blimp with a passenger" testing.
Yours most sincerely,
Hotspur
Well, the llMoveTo experimentation was singularly unpromising. I created a Teddy and gave him an offset and a llLookAt to line him up. But the silly thing seemed to have no notion of avatar rotation, so when I would turn to the left or right without movement, he would fall off the ship.
These issues might be surmountable, but the largest problem seemed to be the jerkiness asscoiated with the llSensorRepeat. I lowered it down to a .2 repeat, and it still was noticably lagging behind--and I understand it is considered bad form to repeat a scan more often than that (shared sim resources and all). So, this method is a tad inelegant, and unrealistic in appearance, I am afraid.