Some time ago, I made some concerted enquiries regarding the two major systems that are used for “Role Playing” upon the Grid, with the intention of writing a piece in my Journal on the subject, with special attention to the interests of Gunsmiths. As is typical, it has turned out that I have entirely failed to do the latter, and in fact, others have written pieces far before me - see, for instance, Mr Onder Skall’s excellent piece in New World Notes.
Regardless, the time has come to put my effort to some purpose, even if it is not terribly informative. Herein are contained certain Notes of interest to those wishing to produce Weapons for use within areas which use either the DCS2 or CCS systems.
There are two distinct classes of weapon: ranged and melee. For those wishing to damage people at range, the firing of a physical projectile will achieve this. Said projectile must be travelling at over 17.5m/s at impact, which quite frankly most bullets are. This causes a standard flat amount of damage.
Close combat weapons, to be used in a melee, are detected by means of control inputs. The attachment that each participant wears detects the appropriate controls and launches an attack based on that, so all that a manufacturer of weapons really needs to do is have a weapon which animates and activates when the mouse button is held, and a movement control is pressed (excluding up and down). It really doesn’t matter, as far as I know, exactly which control is pressed - my latest weapons, the wrench, stiletto and so on, have different animations depending on the direction but they should all have the same effect.
There is an API available for developers for the CCS system which allows the use of such things as poison, direct changes to various statistics and so on - there is I believe no open equivalent to this for DCS2, and one must become some sort of “accredited developer”.
Do note that in both cases, certain weapons, whilst technically effective, may well be banned. Scripting being what it is, it is very simple to create a weapon which abuses the existing situation most abhorrently, or, perhaps worse, creates unbearable lag. Consulting the “GM” of whichever sim a weapon is to be used within is a good idea. In some of them, for instance, automatic weapons, or those with a magazine capacity beyond a certain level, are prohibited.
~ Ordinal would like to note at this point that she would be extremely happy to compile a general list of RP systems and their restrictions for general information, and if anyone would care to provide more specific details, she would love to make them available to the public. ~
The reason that I have been driven to make this post now is that I have been informed of a most unusual situation as regards DCS2 weaponry. Apparently, from consultation with a “GM” of Toxian City, weapons which fire temp-on-rez physical bullets are banned there, and I am told in a number of other DCS2 sims as well.
This may not mean an awful lot to the casual browser, but, to explain quickly: “temp-on-rez” is a property of a prim which means that it does not persist in a sim for a long time and vanishes after a minute or two, but does not count against the prim limits. “Physical”, I would hope you were aware of, but it basically means “subject to the laws of physics” - has a velocity, is affected by gravity and collisions and so on.
I would wager that 99% of the firearms available within Second Life fire bullets which are temp-on-rez and physical, for the obvious reasons that bullets need to move and should not be affected by the current prim count in that parcel. However: I have been told that there is an indication that large numbers of physical temp-on-rez prims in an area cause a risk to sim stability, and that this has been taken up by GMs of many DCS2 environments as a rule.
This is by no means something that I have experienced or heard of through my various Scripting Chums, but really, there is little that I could do to change the opinion of sim owners in any case. Thus I am issuing a warning to those who are making firearms that might be used in DCS2 environments - make sure that your bullets are not temp-on-rez, and that they also have a time limit on their existence (a timer going off after a few seconds which makes the bullet llDie) and furthermore that they also llDie on collision with anything at all.
I myself will be making some alternate versions of firearms which correspond to this as soon as I have the opportunity. Not, mind you, that it is really feasible for anyone to tell.
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July 15, 2007 at 12:19 am
Day Oh
I think that’s ridiculous! On the contrary, I have recently been caused a great deal of grief because I rezzed alot of prims on a sim, and on one of the parcels that was full, it actually caused one or more of the objects (a big chunk of someone’s building) that were supposed to be there, to be returned (or deleted, haven’t found out yet). And on the other hand, when I normally rez hundreds of prims across a sim (to do things like sensor sweeps) I use temp-on-rez, and the worst that has ever happened is my viewer doesn’t properly clean up all the prims (*client side*) so it looks like they’re still there, but they can’t be interacted with. When I relog, they’re gone.
If people fire non-temp bullets on the sim I try to keep clean, I often don’t find them for ages, and they bother me P: I’ve been trying to get people to use temp bullets for as long as I can remember.
This also reminds me of how sim owners are opposed to texture animation because they think it causes lag. It doesn’t make any sense to me, and tests using hundreds of texture-animated prims didn’t back it up. It just seems like some fanatical scapegoat thing.
July 15, 2007 at 10:07 am
Ordinal Malaprop
Well, as I say I haven’t ever seen any indication of it myself either; all of my bullets have die-on-collision and die-timers in any case, simply to keep sims clean, but every now and then one will fail to activate for some reason, and having the prim temp-on-rez means that no cleanup is necessary.
But I would also say that I do not exactly have much experience in dealing with sims where large numbers of people are firing large numbers of bullets at the same time. It is quite a small modification to have a version of a gun that fires non-temp bullets, even if it is a bit of a pain in the backside, so I might as well spend a little time doing so, just to be on the safe side. I wouldn’t want some poor soul spending money on my weaponry only to find that it was not allowed in a DCS2 environment.
July 16, 2007 at 12:47 am
Day Oh
Thanks for the heads-up, of course… but oh, the poor market! The poor asset server!
July 16, 2007 at 2:59 am
cala
er, I believe this is an overusage of a good build rule.
Temp-on-rezz objects cause just as much server-side and asset-side lag as non temp-on-rezz. Every one of them has a UUID, and belong to the owner that created it, and has physics properties and can collide - thus, hits the asset server. The “is not blocked by parcel prim limits” is a great thing for specific cases - like bullets, where they’re not intended to stick around.
Where they’re *awful* to use is for permanent builds on a sim- just to get around the sim prim limits. Seeing gardens flicker is not just an eyesore - it’s steadily pounding the asset server for the owner of those temp-rez controllers, 24-7, and can contribute to the Download Queue backlog. (interpreted to english: this can be bad.)
Where they’re *perfect* to use is for objects that should only exist for a few moments - visual effects, and bullets are great examples. It’s totally valid to point out that even well-scripted bullet “auto-cleanup” scripts sometimes won’t fire, and then some GM is going around picking up “Roleplay Droppings” - won’t that be fun. Temp-on-rezz is a great universal engine designed exactly to handle that process for you. :\
July 16, 2007 at 3:02 am
Tyffany Flintoff
I’m going to take a shot in the dark here (excuse the shocking pun), but might the owners of that particular sim be selling their own “approved” weaponry?
If they aren’t they need some business advice.
July 17, 2007 at 1:54 am
Amber Palowakski
Very informative post, Lady Coyote, as I am tentatively reaching out into the murky world of weapons building myself. Thank you!
July 17, 2007 at 2:01 am
Amber Palowakski
And don’t ask me why I called you Lady Coyote, I have no blessed clue. And I can’t blame it on the drink, I’m only half-way through my second beer! My deepest apologies, Miss Ordinal!
July 25, 2007 at 12:10 am
Cliff Dieffenbach
Well, yes and no.
I’m the owner of the sim Dark City (which is now continued on the sim Obsidian City) and have worked closely with Miss Wright (owner of Toxian City) concerning her standards for weapons.
The standards for identifying sim-friendly weapons (a list she created that I fully support) is below…
1. Bullets MUST die on collision (with anything). The no temp on rez rule is for things like arrows that stop in front of your body and linger in the air. The rounds must also be phantom.
2. No casing/magazine ejection. This causes collisions (very bad ones at that). Collisions are VERY bad for the environment. This is ironic since the popular “Springfield” guns from Black Ops have magazine ejection (not even phantom clips) that you can’t turn off.
A quick story on collisions and temp on rez…
I assisted another combat sim before mine opened up and a player was goofing of with the Abranimation’s exploding avatar–which most know uses temp on rez pieces of body parts. These pieces basically scatter about, then roll around on the ground before disappearing.
An intestine got stuck between two prims. This alone cause so much collision it crashed the sim. When the sim came back up, it crashed again. Again the sim came back…and crashed. This went on for a while before we had a Linden investigate and found the stuck object. This was a temp on rez object guys, so yeah the concept is good, but don’t assume it’ll just “go away”.
Miss also sent me a texture of her collision report displaying a comparison between a bullet and an extracted magazine. The figures were stunning to say the least (I’ll have to look it up if you want hard numbers).
A little further on collisions. Toxian City uses Linden ground for their “streets” which “absorbs” collisions compared to simply walking on prims (my Dark City was a 3-tier urban env so 98% of the sim necessitates walking on a prim). The biggest culprit of high collisions is walking up steps (followed closely by noobs running into walls ;p). Putting an alpha ramp over steps (if you *must* use steps) greatly reduces this, or just use ramps.
Back to the list…
3. 30-50 round limit (sim depending) before a reload is required. This is nothing more than RP and has very little if not no relation to the sim environment.
4. No auto fire. Yeah, all a combat sim needs is more lag.
5. No explosive rounds.
6. No push rounds. Again, RP based.
7. No caging.
Hopefully that cleared the fog some.
Also, the api for DCS enhanced damage is shared only with a small pool of individuals who are also DCS developers as I understand it. You have a better chance of touching the face of god before getting the api in your inventory.
With that said, DCS is a universal system, so the vast majority of weapons on the market will register damage on it; any weapons maker can make their line of products to be used with DCS. The catcher here is if the weapons are friendly enough to use on those sims who have the above guidance established for their environment. On the flip side (expanding on what Tyffany was suggesting) the api allows for enhanced damage, basically securing the DCS/Carlos/S&C/Tiger Armor/Black Ops place in the market.
In short, anyone can make a weapon and it’ll work with DCS, but if you want just a bit more kick, get one that’s DCS enhanced.
July 25, 2007 at 9:25 am
Ordinal Malaprop
Ah. That’s very helpful. So, the no-temp-on-rez rule is really only for “persistent” projectiles which don’t immediately die on collision? (And which must also be phantom?)
A general ban on casing ejection is useful to know about too; I shall make sure to have the owner be able to switch this on and off.
August 1, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Cliff Dieffenbach
Yes, exactly. Saying “no temp-on-rez” is admittedly vague, but that’s how I understand that rule, as it’s how it was explained to me.
No casing ejection, 30 rounds or less before a required reload & no magazine ejection and you’ll have the base of a very DCS sim friendly weapon.
Other things that will be considered is textures & overall script performance. Breach apparently had a red flag over it’s weapons because of this. Script performance would jump horribly when just simply wearing them (30k ips with the Uzi), so you could imagine how sim owners wouldn’t want that weapon in their estate (in all fairness to Breach, they have put out new Desert Eagle pistols that compare nicely to Black Ops who are one of the preferred weapons on DCS sims, but the Uzis (if there is an update) hasn’t been tested as far as I know).