Difference between revisions of "Second Life Transport Authority"

Revision as of 11:20, 8 May 2014

NOTE: THIS ARTICLE IS UNDER DEVELOPMENT. ESTIMATED FINISH DATE: MAY 10TH 2014

One SLTA base in Westport sim, Sansara

Under this name are the vehicles released in traffic by AnnMarie Otoole (also known as AnnMarie Oleander). The name comes from the initiales written on some of the vehicle bases and vehicles, where it appears sometimes as SL Transport Agency and SL Transit Authority. Second Life Transport Authority (or SLTA) is the largest transport company by the number of vehicles and the second largest company by land coverage, after the Yava Script Pods. It is a well organised company, with its own bases and a multitude of vehicles. If we consider the high number of bases, the amount of land holdings and the high variety of vehicles, SLTA is in first place at logistic potential.

Bases

One SLTA base in Corsica

The vast majority of bases look like gas stations, only that you don't find gas. Some stations have the sign SLTA or have modified names after oil compaies (like Hell after Shell). Important names from the auto industry are also present. Land is owned by the group Convicts. There, a traveler will most often find a vehicle waiting for passengers. Not all bases look like gas stations, some of them have unconventional design. Many other vehicles can be rezzed on command. Still, position of all bases is not known. From a total of 70 SLTA bases, about half are listed below:

Corsica

Banyan sim
Timescape sim
Cavedweller sim
Roclaren sim
Muskeg sim
Birchwood sim

Gaeta 5

Seyfert sim
Gergonne sim

Heterocera

One SLTA base in Heterocera

Plusia sim
Apoda sim
Crumbi sim
Manduca sim
Lupulinus sim
Epirrita sim

Jeogeot

Putiki Fold sim
Yeot sim
Eunpyung sim

Nautilus

Straminsky sim
Borgatti sim
Effingham sim

Sansara

Horseshoe sim
Westport sim
Netherbeck sim
Dauphin sim
Svan sim
Eldora sim

Satori

St Maur sim
Gangkhar sim

Sharp Continent

Snicket sim

Vehicles

Duncan Farm Truck

There is a huge list of vehicles available at the SLTA bases and on the roads. The list includes everything, from classic and old cars to trunks, garbage cars and even micro-cars created for pocket avatars. Majority of them are freebie vehicles. Their presence is noted also by the engine sound they create and many times by the huge amount of smoke. It is not a good idea to stay in front of a SLTA vehicle, majority of them are not phantom and might push you away.

The list of vehicles include:

1923 Model T
Bethillac Fleetwood
Bugatti Royal
Carbon Copy MGB
Carbon Copy Austin Haley
Carbon Copy Midget
Chevy Impala Convertable
Chrysle Convertable
Duncan Farm Truck
Garbage Car
Ice Cream Car
Tanker
M60 Tank
Oui Coupe Roadster (micro car)
SL Transportation Bus
Steam Tractor
V-Metrobus
Yellow Taxi Cab

and not only.

Movement

Carbon Copy MGT

SLTA cars are roaming vehicles. They don't make a tour. They have a program that allows them to move and find their way along the roads. Many people call them drunk cars.

It is very important to know that not all SLTA cars behave the same. Some of them have a really chaotic movement, some are more clever. Not all cars have the same speed. There are vehicles that have a constant speed, while others are pushed by a multitude of small impulse. The speed is usually lower then that of the Yava script pods, a very important thing that helps avatars survive sim crossings. Also, there are a few vehicles that slow or even stop at a sim crossing.

These vehicles have a very interesting behavior. They turn left or right, avoiding obstacles. They know where is the border of the road. If the road ends or they hit an obstacle, they turn back and try a different approach.

Still, sometimes SLTA vehicles behave strange. There have been observed vehicles running out of road, getting blocked at parcel borders or even flying. Sometimes, these cars end up in the top of a tree. This is the risk of the ride and this makes the ride mor einteresting.

There are convertable vehicles that become boats and move on water surface. Also, on Heterocera they follow the Guide and run on the railway.

Passenger Commands

A SLTA base East River

Vehicles allow a few commands: Touch to start, touch to stop, touch the engine hood for reverse. When somebody climbs on board, usually a message tells this. Passengers have a chance to purchase one free car plus a movement script for 100 L$.

Vehicle removal

There is a function that removes used or stocked vehicles from the roads. Other vehicles are auto-returned when they got stocked.

Land coverage

SLTA vehicles are found on all roads of major continents, but their density varies up to high limits. They are most often found close to the bases. In some parts of the grid, like the inner atoll of Heterocera, they are extremely rare. An estimation made by Second Life Geography team is that vehicle frequence vary from one at every 10 minutes to one at a day.

Land coverage depends on continent. SLTA vehicles can often be found on roads of Sansara, on Satori, Jeogeot or Corsica ,a bit mroe rare in Heterocera and more rare in Gaeta 5 or Sharp Continent. They are not seen on unconnected roads (like some roads of Nautilus, fragments of roads in Gaeta 5 or Gaeta 1, Bay City or the mountain road in Heterocera. Inside Zindra, their presence has not been observed. Roads of Zindra don't allow objects entry in many places and as a direct result no transport company can operate there properly.

Importance

SLTA vehicles are owned using multiple accounts and that made a bit difficult the estimation of their number. About 80% of all roaming vehicles found on continental roads are SLTA owned. Since there are a lot of bases releasing vehicles into traffic, these vehicles have a very good land coverage.

These vehicles are not made for tours, they don't follow a specific route. They take passengers into the unknown because you never know for sure where they will go. There have been seen passengers on the SLTA cars, usually not for long distances. Residents sometimes thake a moving vehicle to reach faster their destinations. The main importance of these vehicles is decorative, roads would have no reason to exist without vehicles to move on their surface. It makes a road much more realistic when vehicles are seen on it and they move like a vehicle should do. Travellers that don't have their own cars or don't find a rezz zone take these vehicles when they are available.

As they provide free transportation, there have been noticed situations when a SLTA car has 3 or more passengers. The Yava Script Pods are too small for more then two people. The random movement of these vehicles makes the trip really interesting, since there is no way to clearly know where the car will go. There are cases when a vehicle is followed by its passengers for hours. The fact that speed is much slower, makes a sim crash more unlikely. Tourists taking SLTA vehicles have a higher chance of discovering unknown places because SLTA vehicles don't follow a route.

The other importance of SLTA vehicles is that their presence encouraged also other people to make automated vehicles.

Comments

On the sites, forums and groups, there are many discussions about SLTA vehicles. Some people want them to be removed from the roads, while some people like them to exist on roads.

@@ Line 2: / Line 2: @@
 [[File:SLTA Sansara.png|200px|thumb|right|One SLTA base in Westport sim, Sansara]]
-Under this name are the vehicles released in traffic by AnnMarie Otoole (also known as AnnMarie Oleander). The name comes from the initiales written on some of the vehicle bases, where it appears sometimes as ''SL Transport Agency'' and ''SL Transit Authority''. Second Life Transport Authority (or SLTA) is the largest transport company by the number of vehicles and the second largest company by land coverage, after the [[Yava Script Pods]]. It is a well organised company, with its own bases and a multitude of vehicles. If we consider the high number of bases, the amount of land holdings and the high variety of vehicles, SLTA is in first place at logistic potential.
+Under this name are the vehicles released in traffic by AnnMarie Otoole (also known as AnnMarie Oleander). The name comes from the initiales written on some of the vehicle bases and vehicles, where it appears sometimes as ''SL Transport Agency'' and ''SL Transit Authority''. Second Life Transport Authority (or SLTA) is the largest transport company by the number of vehicles and the second largest company by land coverage, after the [[Yava Script Pods]]. It is a well organised company, with its own bases and a multitude of vehicles. If we consider the high number of bases, the amount of land holdings and the high variety of vehicles, SLTA is in first place at logistic potential.
 == Bases ==
 [[File:SLTA Corsica.png|200px|thumb|right|One SLTA base in Corsica]]
-The vast majority of bases look like gas stations, only that you don't find gas. Some stations have the sign ''SLTA'' or have modified names after oil compaies (like ''Hell'' after ''Shell''). Land is owned by the group ''Convicts''. There, a passenger will most often find a vehicle waiting for passengers. Not all bases look like gas stations, some of them have unconventional design. Many other vehicles can be rezzed on command. Still, position of all bases is not known. It is supposed that on small continents like [[Sharp Continent]] vehicles are rezzed manually. The following is a list of SLTA bases:
+The vast majority of bases look like gas stations, only that you don't find gas. Some stations have the sign ''SLTA'' or have modified names after oil compaies (like ''Hell'' after ''Shell''). Important names from the auto industry are also present. Land is owned by the group ''Convicts''. There, a traveler will most often find a vehicle waiting for passengers. Not all bases look like gas stations, some of them have unconventional design. Many other vehicles can be rezzed on command. Still, position of all bases is not known. From a total of 70 SLTA bases, about half are listed below:
 [[Corsica]]
@@ Line 51: / Line 51: @@
 [[File:SLTA Truck.png|200px|thumb|right|Duncan Farm Truck]]
-There is a huge list of vehicles available at the SLTA bases and on the roads. The list includes everything, from classic and old cars to trunks, garbage cars and even micro-cars created for pocket avatars. Majority of them are freebie vehicles. Their presence is noted also by the engine sound they create. It is not a good idea to stay in front of a SLTA vehicle, majority of them are not phantom and might push you away.
+There is a huge list of vehicles available at the SLTA bases and on the roads. The list includes everything, from classic and old cars to trunks, garbage cars and even micro-cars created for pocket avatars. Majority of them are freebie vehicles. Their presence is noted also by the engine sound they create and many times by the huge amount of smoke. It is not a good idea to stay in front of a SLTA vehicle, majority of them are not phantom and might push you away.
 The list of vehicles include:
@@ Line 77: / Line 77: @@
 == Movement ==
-SLTA vehicles are roaming vehicles and if you follow them, they will take you nowhere. They keep on moving, turning left or right and sometimes even turning back. Even on a straight road, they don't move in a straight line, they keep turning left or right just like the driveris being drunk. This strange behavior helps vehicles to find an alternative way when the road turns left or right or at an intersection.
+[[File:SLTA Carbon.png|200px|thumb|right|Carbon Copy MGT]]
-It is important to know that all these vehicles behave differently. Some of them have a really chaotic movement, some follow a much more straight line. There are vehicles with smooth movement, while others are not. Some of these vehicles change their speed often. The great variety of behaviors can be explained by a big variety of scripts. There are also vehicles (for example the Chrysler Convertable) that transform into a boat when they reach water surface. Then, they start sailing until they reach another slice of dryland.
+SLTA cars are roaming vehicles. They don't make a tour. They have a program that allows them to move and find their way along the roads. Many people call them ''drunk cars''.
-[[File:SLTA Carbon.png|200px|thumb|right|Carbon Copy MGT]]
+It is very important to know that not all SLTA cars behave the same. Some of them have a really chaotic movement, some are more clever. Not all cars have the same speed. There are vehicles that have a constant speed, while others are pushed by a multitude of small impulse. The speed is usually lower then that of the Yava script pods, a very important thing that helps avatars survive sim crossings. Also, there are a few vehicles that slow or even stop at a sim crossing.
-There have been noted cases when SLTA vehicles leave the road and enter private parcels or when they fly above the road after reaching the top of a hill. Their behavior is very interesting. If they reach a dead end, they will turn back and try to rotate, to find a way out. Thanks to this behavior, they manage to escape majority of unwanted situations.
+These vehicles have a very interesting behavior. They turn left or right, avoiding obstacles. They know where is the border of the road. If the road ends or they hit an obstacle, they turn back and try a different approach.
-Some people name these vehicles ''drunk cars''. This is partially true, because some of them really behave like the driver is heavily drunk, but this is not a rule. There have been observed cases when a vehicle is moving in a stright line along a road and then, without any logic, it turns left or right over the road axis or even out of the road, just like if a drunk driver has lost control. It is important to notice that some of them are cars with much smoother movements, cars that know to follow a more clear path, to move on right side of the road or to follow road center.
+Still, sometimes SLTA vehicles behave strange. There have been observed vehicles running out of road, getting blocked at parcel borders or even flying. Sometimes, these cars end up in the top of a tree. This is the risk of the ride and this makes the ride mor einteresting.
-Also, SLTA vehicles know to follow the ''Guide'' when they reach a railway in [[Heterocera]].
+There are convertable vehicles that become boats and move on water surface. Also, on [[Heterocera]] they follow the [[Guide]] and run on the railway.
-=== Passenger Rights ===
+=== Passenger Commands ===
 [[File:SLTA Sansara E.png|200px|thumb|right|A SLTA base East River]]
-Some vehicles allow a few commands: Touch to start, touch to stop, touch the engine hood for reverse. At some point, the vehicle plus a movement script are offered for sale. Also, passengers have a chance to purchase one free car plus a movement script for 100 L$.
+Vehicles allow a few commands: Touch to start, touch to stop, touch the engine hood for reverse. When somebody climbs on board, usually a message tells this. Passengers have a chance to purchase one free car plus a movement script for 100 L$.
 === Vehicle removal ===
-There is a function that removes used vehicles from the roads. Other vehicles are auto-returned when they got stocked.
+There is a function that removes used or stocked vehicles from the roads. Other vehicles are auto-returned when they got stocked.
 == Land coverage ==