Enable damage on the Gulf combat regions
in progress
Jessicatz Fairymeadow
The problem: The Gulf combat regions are a popular space for vehicle and other combat, but are stuck with the old, closed-source and impossible to extend VICE system.
There is need to experiment with the new Combat 2 features but the regions are not damage enabled, blocking such.
Proposal: If the regions were damage enabled, people could start working and retrofitting new and existing gear. To keep innocent residents safe, it would be important to disable the death action on those regions and set them to None.
That way combat is an opt-in by attaching a meter/combat HUD the community would provide.
I believe this would go hand in hand with the future promotion of combat 2 and give new and existing residents more places to have fun.
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Jessicatz Fairymeadow
I've read through the feedback and collated some suggestions for actionable items to consider to make the whole endeavor more viable:
- Damage sound spam
This is annoying and a holdover from the old LLCS system that should probably be revisited, because with the of combat2 having a mandatory hurt sound doesn't make too much sense anymore. A viewer change is needed, I suggest not playing the sound at all when the region setting is "no-action on death", because that automatically implies the region has a HUD to handle damage consequences, and would conceivable play their own sounds.
- Non-participants can damage participants
This is the reason a opt-in HUD would be mandatory - so any damage from non-players would be ignored. I get this is seen as an extra step, but the the gulf already has something similiar with the VICE experience that handles the respawns, it'd be essentially the same thing. In detail, the HUD could query participants on region enter, and announce itself to others, which then effectively creates a list of mutual trust. There's edge cases to consider here but I don't feel they'd impossible to solve.
- Vehicle damage on crossings
There's is actually already a new parameter that disables collisions of avatars with their own vehicle which takes care of that once it's live, so new vehicles will make use of that.
- No enforcement of fair weapons
A big issue, and one that already exists even with VICE, with the difference that combat2 enables you to selectively track and block unfair weapons. Right now nothing practical exists to facilitate this however, so a tool for moderation is definitely one of the first tools the gulf would need.
For a start I envision an upper bound on damage, enforced by the opt-in HUD, with more control added later where experimenting shows it's needed.
I'd like to restate that the goal of this effort is to explore how and if the new combat2 features can be relevant to the Gulf, and how the Gulf can fit into the larger combat revamping efforts put forward by LL. A negative result is a valid result, too, but nothing is gained from ignoring opportunity.
Also I want to make it extra clear that this is a
process
which by necessity touches existing and new things at the same time, and there's no guaranteed outcome one way or another.Ariesviper Waifu
Jessicatz Fairymeadow
your second point's solution is non-enforceable, requires major changes to combat 2, and removes the ability to have intersim combat, thus negating one of the features of the gulf
on your third point, civilian traffic is still a thing, civilian vehicle makers have no incentive to add extra code for their civilian vehicles to play well with combat, this also negates a lot of legacy content people like to use. a lot of beloved assets people use are made by people who have passed away, or retired and cannot do any updates.
on the 4th point, yes, there are some unfair things in VICE, it isnt a widespread issue. damage caps also do not work for if you are having planes, ships, infantry, small gunboats, and tanks participating in the same combat
also, moderation tools do not do anything if there isnt anyone who can actually do anything to enforce it
Also, as a note, i should add that I have been making, or involved in moderating LLCS content since 2007, and i have been heavily involved in VICE since 2017. I was one of the people that push for the adoption of LBA in the SLMC as well, and I have made content that uses it. During all this time i have also been doing combat moderation to some degree. I like a lot of the stuff with Combat2, but I do not think it is a good match for the gulf, unless you are wanting the existing communities to leave.
another note, RoWP rezzed objects lose those properties once it leaves the sim, until this is fixed, no scriptless intersim bullets
And yet another note, i do think maybe a down vote option should be available for the feedback hub...
Vesca Starlight
I made stuff for LLCS and VICE, please do not make the gulf regions LLCS since most vehicles in the more common LLCS settings use a standalone meter system (LBA) already so the change is not needed and may encourage people to use older stuff not scripted for vehicle combat that will rez tracking "kill prims" which may grief non-LLCS enabled vehicles significantly and harm a large amount of existing content that uses the gulf as-is.
Edit to elaborate further:
Before LBA, damage was done via collisions where one collision was equal to 1 hitpoint from a vehicle, so a lot of anti-tank weapons would often use "prim bash" to deal say 25 damage; this involved rapidly rezzing 25 prims against an object (softlinked often in groups of 5 or individually) to deal the desired damage. Where this becomes a problem is that collision armor was until about 6-ish years ago still in somewhat common use in the LLCS communities including mixed-legacy support in LBA munitions. Mixed legacy support meant an LBA munition would check an object description for the LBA identifiers before dealing legacy prim bash AT if it didn't see the tag that it was LBA, problem is VICE, TCS, LANCE, and other systems in use commonly in the gulf will be seen as legacy armor by such legacy-supporting weapons. This means encouragement to use LLCS weapons there may cause older dual-mode or straight prim-bash weapons to be used which will generally do very bad things to ships and other vehicles physics including some of the aircraft with more realistic features like propeller damage on collision with objects not identifiable as part of the combat system its using.
Warcrimes Enthusiast
Absolutely NOT. I am active in the LLCS community, dabble in the VICE community, and have been present for many of the Combat 2.0 meetings- VICE has a working, healthy community as it is and making the Gulf LLCS-enabled would absolutely destroy it. This request is being made by a near-total outsider to the community, and almost strikes me as outright malicious.
Ariesviper Waifu
Warcrimes Enthusiast
jessicatz didn't do it in as a malicious act, she was just thinking it might push us to change our stuff and get past some of the issues inherent to VICE, and it being a no mod system.
The issue is that since the gulf is a mix of civilian and military traffic, and not a dedicated combat area, the systems being used need to be entirely opt-in. We also have no way to enforce any sort of compliance.
yes, they have teleport home disabled on the stuff, but its too abusable in its current state, and even with the teleport home disabled, its still an opt-out system, but you also need to do an opt-in for the full thing.
if someone doesnt do the stuff to opt in, they can still deal damage without being damaged, and if we do try to use combat 2, any old LL damage enabled gun ever created can be used, and unless they specifically do stuff to fully opt in, there is nothing we can do to protect ourselves from the damage they deal, vs someone who is fully opted in.
unless someone does the stuff to opt out, they can be damage sound spammed, and need to deal with their vehicle colliding with them on crossings, dealing damage sometimes, and the sounds then. we already posted a video a couple weeks ago of me shooting warship with an old gun. if you do decide to do more than 10 damage, but less than 100, the target will hear the damage sound every time someone shoots them
pretty much, its easier to accidentally abuse the current combat 2 test in the gulf than it is to properly use it, and requiring some sort of opt out isnt fair to the civilian traffic.
there is no moderation system in place to ensure people are using compliant equipment, and 99.995% of things made for LLCS fall in the accidental abuse category. there are VICE things that cheat as well, but as VICE isnt as straight forward to work with, most content made for it falls under the mutual opt-in system.
yes, there might be some fun stuff that combat 2 can do, but when it comes to the gulf, and lack of moderation capabilities, us moving to adopt its use is asking us to make a fair opt-in system when almost everything else in SL would be considered a cheat item. in its current state its making us put in extra work specifically to opt out of it, and also discourages the civilian traffic
A
Abnor Mole
in progress
A
Abnor Mole
Thanks everyone.
We are experimenting with Combat 2.0 in the gulf. So far only the regions of Woodbine & Ustermann are set to utilize Combat 2.0. Please test in those areas and provide feedback comments here if you could please. :)
Ariesviper Waifu
As the intermediary for the Warship community, and the Gulf Project, I have a few concerns about enabling damage in the gulf at this time.
Yes, i am aware that they are trying it with teleport home disabled, which is indeed preferred,
So, first, when using a vehicle(particularly more noticeable with higher speed vehicles), on sim crossing, you register a brief collision, this collision can apply blunt force damage, and inflict health damage, flying a plane through the test sims, I am hearing the SL damage noises from this blunt force damage on many sim crossings, and sometimes i hear multiple in a single crossing.
Two, unless every vehicle is rescripted to block incoming damage, someone using LLCS weapons can spam people with damage sounds inadvertently, and unless people specifically rescript vehicles to prevent damage from hitting the avatar, this cannot be avoided.
Three, there is no way to prevent someone who is not using something designed for combat 2 against people using stuff that is made for it, such as an avatar holding a LLCS gun, shooting a combat 2 based vehicle will not be able do anything about the avatar wearing a gun that is able to kill their vehicle, but not be killed in return(this would normally be solved by the teleport home stuff, but without it, this is an issue)
Four, there is no way to prevent people shooting you from non LLCS2 enabled parcels, similar to the above issue.
All of the above issues affect both the combat, and non-combat traffic in the gulf.
I personally do not think combat 2.0 is the best fit for the gulf, it is not 100% combat focused, and the combat that does take place is with 3rd party combat systems such as VICE, LANCE, LBA2, or various other system. combat 2 you need to have stuff specifically scripted to opt out of some of its effects, and need to have stuff specifically scripted for it to opt into it if you are trying to use it. this coupled with the lack of ability to moderate peoples equipment (yes, I can return things in the gulf, i cannot remove avatars, and attachments cannot be returned) means that people can just go around using normally legitimate LLCS weapons, and just inconvenience people, even if sounds can be disabled, that is asking people to change their settings to opt out.
i do like some of the stuff for combat 2, but i think it should be kept to private sims and such
Warship Waifu
Warship Waifu
We already have a combat system and LLCS2 may cause many disruptions.
Michelleawesome1994 Resident
Warship Waifu no one likes vice.
Warship Waifu
cool opinion, feel free to visit tulagi sometime
Jessicatz Fairymeadow
After gathering some feedback off-site to this the biggest roadblock around this seems to be centered around lack of moderation capabilities to deal with potential sudden changes.
Enabling the whole Gulf at once for all LLCS2 combat could create a relatively sudden influx of non-Gulf combat groups and be a nuisance to sailors/pilots/existing Gulf combatants who have not yet had a chance to try and develop tools to deal with the new features. Limiting it to one or two regions at first could test the waters more safely for everyone.
If that turns out to be successful then from there it could be expanded in steps to more regions as to not overwhelm existing residents/Gulf players and give them ample time to figure what works and what doesn't.
It's important the long running Gulf community can rely on a stable foundation to work with without major sudden changes.
Soanos Pacer
Jessicatz Fairymeadow
Would this combat system you are proposing be opt-out? Because the major issue here is that there is a lot of non-combatant traffic there too, and an average user cannot be trusted to have enough trigger discipline to not indiscriminately open fire on civilian pilots/sailors/drivers. And getting TP'd home because someone randomly shoots you down will get old pretty quickly (Same goes for the 0-second ban orbs, but that's not the topic of discussion here).
Vice, despite of its lack of extendability, has the benefit of it being entirely opt-in and requires the user to manually enable it to participate in the combat features. This lets the non-combatants pass through with little more than the nuisance of explosions and particles around them when someone decides they don't like your name or your dot on the map.
Over the course of time I have been fired upon quite a few times for no reason than passing through the region they happened to be camping.
I am all for helping the RP combat communities evolve, but as a civilian aviator/sailor I'd like to be able to opt out. I would be ok with this proposition, provided LLCS2 is opt-out.
Jessicatz Fairymeadow
Soanos Pacer The way I proposed it to be configured is actually effectively opt-in to combat, which I think is what you are trying to say. You want nothing to happen to you
unless
you say "I want to participate in this". That would be the default that I proposed.Participating would require attaching a HUD, if you don't, then damage can't affect you (e.g. teleport you home like in the old system).
Soanos Pacer
Jessicatz Fairymeadow
Well, in that case if it require a separate HUD to opt in then I'd be ok with that.
I was not sure how the LLCS2 works, I assumed it was like the old "unsafe zones" where there was not an option to opt out of it.
AlettaMondragon Resident
Jessicatz Fairymeadow I'm still in the dark about this. If you suggest a meter/HUD system to make this work, why is damage enabled in the regions important? Metered combat systems don't need LL damage since the system itself calculates damage, disables or teleports the avatar upon death, etc. Also, I have never heard of "disabling the death action". Damage is either on, and you take damage and die, or damage is off and then you don't take damage and don't die.
Jessicatz Fairymeadow
AlettaMondragon Resident "combat2" is the name of new region and scripting features uplifting the inflexible existing linden health and damage system that's being rolled out across the grid. If you're not familiar, the wiki has an overview of what it is: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Category:LSL_Combat2. What to do when health reaches 0% is no longer necessarily an automatic teleport, instead scripts can decide what happens (effectively means a HUD is required to decide what to do then).
These new linden combat features, just like the old ones, only work when damage is enabled on the region, that's why I suggested turning it on on a small section of the Gulf to start developing it.
Unlike the old linden combat system, what happens when you die and take damage is no longer dictated by the system itself and can be changed per region and per script. For example what happens when your health reaches 0% is now a region setting, instead of always teleport home (this is a new feature in combat2). Turning the auto-teleport off on a region makes sure nobody gets sent home by accident, and what should happen instead can be decided by a script, e.g. a HUD.
Therefore the HUD, made using the new combat features, is essentially the opt-in to combat in these regions. The difference to other existing HUDs is that this system is the official standard and likely to become widespread. The combat community is already making efforts to develop for it and LL is pushing combat using it as an activity for new users already.
Turning damage on means all new and future developed content for this system that works everywhere else on the grid can be used in the Gulf area as well instead of being locked to the current VICE combat system which is closed-source, inflexible, incompatible with other systems and prone to breakage.
AlettaMondragon Resident
Jessicatz Fairymeadow Thank you, I didn't know about this! Knowing how LL's greatest upgrades turned out lately this doesn't make me excited, but what you're saying makes sense now. VICE and some other combat systems are gravely outdated so integrating user-developed systems with LL damage as a base platform sounds good. It brings up questions like how to keep it safe from exploits, and probably because of that a good option for testing would be to copy the Gulf to the beta grid and do this testing there. There it could be on all Gulf regions and could be tested properly without interfering with the main grid until it is good enough to implement in live.
Kyle Linden
under review