This year, I have only one new year’s resolution: I will no longer use “lol” in conversations. Especially in real life.
Everyone has DIY fever!
Are you a Second Life aviation buff? Are you a hot-shot aircraft designer? Or maybe you’ve never built a plane, but have a keen design sense? Now’s your chance to show your stuff.
The competition is simple: out of parts in the Terra DIY Plane Kit, design an original airplane and submit it by noon on Saturday December 17. If the judges like your creation, you could win one of three fabulous prize packages.
Prizes
Winners will be announced at 5:00pm SL time on Saturday, December 17.
1ST PRIZE
6 Cubey Terra vehicles of your choice, L$3000, and a trophy.
2ND PRIZE
3 Cubey Terra vehicles of your choice, L$1500, and a trophy.
3RD PRIZE
1 Cubey Terra vehicle of your choice, L$500, and a trophy.
How to submit your entry
When you complete your airplane design you can submit it BEFORE NOON ON SATURDAY DECEMBER 17.
- Go to the south side of Abbotts Aerodrome and find an unused exhibitor’s pad (it’s a disc).
- Click the pad to reserve it. You can reserve ONLY 1 PAD.
- Leave your plane on the pad.
Due to prim limitations in Abbotts, we may run out of prims. Get there early to reserve your spot.
Da rulez
- MOST IMPORTANT RULE: The plane must use only the parts included in the Terra DIY Kit, which is available at Cubey Terra’s shop in the northwest corner of Abbotts. You can duplicate and mod the prims if you want (e.g., the kit includes 2 wings, but your plane can have more).
You can get a DIY kit for L$1 here: Abbotts (37,236)
- No custom textures. Use only the textures that are on the DIY kit prims, or textures that are available in the Library folder in our Inventories.
- Maximum 30 prims.
- The plane doesn’t necessarily have to fly. This is a design contest, not a scripting contest.
- 1 entry per person, no exceptions, no alt accounts.
Good luck! We’re all looking forward to seeing your designs!
Shiny new hoverbikes
I don’t know how it happens, but even when I try to take a break from Second Life, it somehow pulls me back in and I update another vehicle. This time, I dropped in to do a major upgrade to the Terra Hoverbike. What’s new? Check out this:
- It now carries 2 avatars, so you can take a friend with you.
- It can fly! That’s right, it works like a hovercraft as usual until you switch to “helicraft” mode. Soar above the clouds like a jet-powered birdie.
- I added the Terra Combat System, so now you can duel with other hoverbikes or any vehicle with the Terra Combat System.
- It now changes colour on command. Choose from one of the lovely preset colours or enter your own RGB code. Any colour at all.
Drop by my shop in the northwest corner of Abbotts and have a look.
Abbotts Aerodrome appears in NY Times article
In an article by Stephen Totilo, Abbotts Aerodrome gets passing, vague reference as “an extravagant airport where users can purchase the ability to skydive”. (Actually, skydiving is free, and you can choose to buy an upgrade to a better parachute from Al Bravo.) My name isn’t mentioned, but I guess I shouldn’t complain — it’s the NY Times, right? There’s also a screenshot that includes the Aerodrome tower and one of my planes.
Link: New York Times: Do-It-Yourselfers Buy Into This Virtual World (registration required)
Take that, Red Baron!
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.