Combat/Systems

Introduction

Some areas of Second Life are designed for the sole purpose of combat, in other areas combat is part of a larger role-playing theme.

There are two types of combat system in second life:

• The built-in Linden Lab Combat System (LLCS)
• User-created combat systems

Linden Lab Combat System (LLCS)

The Linden Lab Combat System is in effect in any parcel that the owner has designated as "unsafe". When you are in one of these areas there will be a heart with a percentage next to it on your upper menu bar. When you see this meter, it means you can be killed in the area. When this percentage drops to zero, you are then 'dead', and you will teleported to your home location.

Please note that being killed is not a big deal. You have to teleport back into the combat simulation from your home location, if you want to return to the combat. You will not lose anything (money, attachments, inventory) if you happen to die in this manner.

In the LLCS, damage is dealt by collisions with scripted objects that have used LlSetDamage to make themselves damaging. Residents also take damage when they collide with any object, or with the ground (as in falling), at sufficiently high speed.

There are several ways to defeat the LLCS. The most prominent method involves forcing your agent to become phantom. This is accomplished by sitting on an object, and then having that object enable Volume Detect. The agent will be “phantom” and no objects will be able to collide with that agent.

To instantly kill an agent, that agent must be hit with an object that has its damage percent set to 100%.

Here are the conditions that will cause death:

• Agent is not sitting
  • Agent can be killed by any non-physical, non-phantom object.
  • Agent can be killed by any physical, non-phantom object.
• Agent is sitting
  • Agent is phantom
    • Agent can’t be killed
  • Agent is not phantom
    • Agent can NOT be killed by a non-physical object.
    • Agent can be killed by any physical, non-phantom object.

Damage "heals" gradually over time.

If several agents sit on an object and a collision occurs with a damage enabled object, the damage will be spread evenly across each agent.

So, what regions support combat? For the beginner, places like New Jessie and Rausch are good ideas. They all cater to different tastes, so check them out.

New Jessie - LLCS community hub and combat arena

New Jessie

New Jessie is an open combat sim which is unaffiliated with any military and where everyone is welcome. When you land here, you can set your home here so that during combat, you need not teleport back when you die. There is a healthy mix of close quarters combat in a small town there, as well as a pair of bunkers and a shorefront with barbed wire and tank spikes. On top of all of it, there is a hub featuring a weapons shop, many free weapons, and a combat museum detailing the history of early combat in Second Life. New Jessie is the premier sim for conventional combat in Second Life.

Public LLCS combat areas

Some of the most popular public LLCS combat areas are Rausch, Blue Base, and Red Base. These three sims are free-for-all sandboxes. There is a "safe zone" in the Rausch sandbox where you can't be attacked. It is usually surrounded by big yellow markers, and people have a tendency to gather in this area. (Please note that the "bases" are not really "bases" for anyone. They are free-for-all maps.)

The difference between Rausch and other combat sims is that Rausch is a public sandbox region, as opposed to a private combat sim. Anything is allowed here, so you're very likely to be killed before you know what hit you - although it also means you can kill others the same way.

The fastest way to find these regions is to type "combat" into the places search.

Rausch Safe Zone SLurl

Regions using LLCS

There are also many other regions & groups specifically for combat or military (light) roleplay, which are running the LLCS damage system, among these are:

• New Jessie
• All Hollows
• Chaos Indivisvm
• Coercion
• Kkamagwi Paramilitary Corporation
• New Rome
• T'koi
• SilverHawks
• XAF

User-Created Combat Systems (UCCS)

User-created combat systems do not use the built-in LLCS (and for this reason are sometimes called "safezone" combat systems), but instead use scripted objects both to track and to deal damage.

This type of combat system can be used in any area that allows scripts to run. Usually these systems require the player to wear a "tag" or a "HUD" in order to play. This monitors your health, and various other stats, as well as add various special features like heals, spells and miscellaneous weapons.

These systems usually come with their own sets of rules that disallow the use of anything from advanced weapons to Bots to shields to instant-killers with the exception of basic weaponry and in some rare cases some small explosives. Sometimes the UCCS' rules include the neccessity of Roleplaying, but some again are just straight forward killing. Some advanced UCCS keep stats of the players such as kill count, death count, level etc.

When the player dies, unlike LLCS, they will not be teleported back home. They will typically either "respawn" after a few minutes or some advanced systems will move the player to a respawn location. The exact effects of "death" depend on the particular UCCS in use.

It is important to note that many UCCS discourage Defenses (shield, auto orbit), Advanced "guns", Large Scale Explosives (+5 m), Automated Turrets, orbit, lag bombs. Most UCCS simulations also recommend using High quality basic weaponry that do not cause Lag within the SIM.

A Few User-Created Combat Systems:

'DSB' (Dynamic System Brazilian)

'CCS' (Community Combat System)

'DCS2' (Dynamic Combat System 2)

'VICE' (Vehicle & Infantry Combat Environment)

Because user-created combat systems generally depend on cooperation between scripted damage-dealing objects and scripted damage-sensing objects owned and worn by the player being damaged, there is a great potential for 'cheating', by writing scripts that appear to be obeying the rules of the system, but that in fact make the player very hard to damage, very good at dealing damage, or both. Also meter resetting during play is common using these systems. While most users of these combat systems enjoy competing legitimately, there are always a few who try to cheat, and different combat communities and combat systems have taken various approaches to detecting, preventing, or discouraging the cheaters.

An example user-created combat system with rules book and source code is Myriad Lite Preview 5 which contains a link to a tabletop pen-and-paper roleplay construction kit and the working preview scripts demonstrating the early fundamentals for a "metered" combat system with hand-to-hand, melee, and ranged combat, armor, healing, a practice target, and quests.