(OOC / IC) Caledon Wellsian project

(OOC) I was contacted early Sunday by Desmond, seems he had a project for me. I port over to the new Wellsian sim (still being terraformed / tweaked) and see a HUGE gap / inlet. Turns out, we needed a railroad bridge. Per Desmond, something big, solid, and eye catching....and in 25 prims or less. I did it in 29...and Des squeezed out 4 more prims for the overage.

(IC) Hrm, a telegram from the administrator of Caledon Rail. A project for Caledon National Rail? In the rugged Wellsian mountains? Interesting.... With vastly limited resources? How unsurprising.... However, I take this as a challenge and I am not one to turn down a challenge of this nature.

Travelling to the newly surveyed Wellsian Province, I assessed the ruggedly mountainous nature of the site and determine that special materials (megaprims) will be required for the building. After acquiring the required specialized oversized steel beams, I conducted a second survey to determine the exact location of the railway roadbed. Completing this preliminary work, I began the task at hand. The rail administrator wanted something rather stylistic, so I designed bridge for appearance as well as utility.

In design, the bridge is a custom hybrid suspension-support design. The steel superstructure is composed of a series arcs and circles (in fact, I am told part of the upper part resembles a stylized and rounded 'W' for Wellsian. I daresay, this was NOT intentional on my part, perhaps it was a subconscious thought? Perhaps it was just manner in which the arcs intersected?). The reinforced steel deck is supported by suspension rods from the superstructure in addition to an upward curving steel substructure for it to rest on. Both ends are anchored into solid stone piers, built deeply into the solid rock of the Wellsian Mountains.

In the end, the bridge presents an appearance both solid (the decking, substructure and anchor piers), yet airy with the great arcs of steel above. I am quite satisfied with the final outcome of the project, based on feedback from the CR administrator and local residents who have visited the build site.

(OOC) A submarine that works!

Thanks to a wonderful fellow Caledonian (thank you again, Kandace Commons!), I now have a working submarine! Turns out, I cannot use a modified air flight script, even with hover ability, as it negates some of the flags like HOVER_HEIGHT_GLOBAL, which means I cannot cap altitude at the water level (with llWater() )...it just ignored it completely.

She took about ten minutes out of her schedule on Sunday to look at my code and quickly gave me a working script! The camera even follows behind with some flexibility, it doesn't RIGIDLY stay behind the sub which gives it more the illusion of free motion as the vehicle moves. I really like how it looks, especially with the first submarine being roughly shaped like a manta ray.

(OOC) Its a Submarine, sort of

OK, finally got it to where it works...for the most part. Having a LOT of dificulty capping the unit at surface level. If I try to prevent it from applying impulses via the linear.z props (setting it to 0 or -n when Altitude > water) results it in it slamming straight to the bottom... No idea why changing linear.z +=12; to +=0; causes it to slam to the bottom.


So I decided to use llMoveToTarget. Like most of LL functions, its nearly useless except for one or two SPECIFIC and LIMITED applications (like things that follow set courses)...you can't move it to ONE specified axis, oh no...have to do the whole XYZ. AND add in the joy it doesn't just move it to the coords and stop, it moves it to the coords AND KEEPS IT THERE until you issue the llStopMoveToCoordinates command. LL has a knack for making commands useless.



So on the surface it stutters....for some reason, even with a buoyancy that causes it to sink when stationary, it CLIMBS when moving forward or backward, making it hit the limit and stutter as its pushed back down. Underwater, it runs fine...just suface level motion is not good.