Having once been a hardened addict of Sierra’s “Red Baron” (the original, not RB2), I’ve had a yearning to add something to let my planes dogfight. A couple of problems stood in my way. First, regular guns require the ability to rez objects (the bullets), and most open spaces in SL are no-build Linden-owned land. Second, I didn’t have the knowledge (or time) to design a way around that.
But this weekend, all the pieces came together and I bashed together what I call the “Terra Combat System”. If a plane has this combat system installed, it can attack and be attacked by any vehicle that also has this system. It uses sensors rather than bullets, so bystanders are completely unaffected.
As of today, only three vehicles have this system installed, each with different hit points, which represents how many direct hits you need to destroy it: the Terra Cormorant (10 hit points), the Terra Airship 3 (30 hit points), and a free plywood demo plane (3 hit points). I’ve seen interesting scenes already, where an Cormorant takes on a passing airship or vice-versa. In that case, the airship usually loses, because it turns like a cow.
If you just want to go sight-seeing, you can just turn off the combat system and you’re invulnerable.
The system is flexible enough to be extended to attachments and gun turrets. I plan to add the Terra Combat System to most of my vehicles, which should lead to some interesting ad-hoc match-ups. Imagine a hoverbike taking on a sub. Or a Futura heli-car taking on a WW1 biplane.
Grab a friend and drop by my shop in Abbotts to try the free demo. It has only 3 hit points, but it should give you a good idea of how it works.