Combat

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Combat in Second Life is a dynamic and ever changing world. This article will try to teach you some of the basics of this world.

Introduction

Some areas of Second Life are designed for the sole purpose of inter-resident combat, in other areas combat is part of a larger role-playing ambiance. There are two basic 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. However, NEVER set your home to an area that has Damage enabled, or else you may become stuck in an infinite teleport loop by a weapon that continuously kills you.

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. Upon standing, the agent will be “phantom” and no objects will be able to collide with that agent. To reverse this effect, sit on an object and have the object disable Volume Detect. Additionally, Volume Detect can be enabled before the agent sits, and the phantom status will be applied to the agent only while it is sitting on the object. If the agent teleports out of the region or crosses a region border, it will lose its phantom status.

To instantly kill an agent, that agent must be hit with an object that has its damage percent set to 100% (via llSetDamage()). Here are the conditions that will cause death.

Agent is not sitting
- Agent is phantom
  - Agent can’t be killed
- Agent is not phantom
  - Agent can be killed by any non-physical, non-phantom object that has its damage percent set to 100%.
  - Agent can be killed by any physical, non-phantom object that has its damage percent set to 100%.
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 that has its damage percent set to 100%.

Damage "heals" gradually over time.

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

===New Jessie - an Open Combat Zone=== [needs update as sim cant be found]

New Jessie SLurl

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. Full prim and currently undergoing a major rebuild, 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

Themed Military Roleplay Combat Areas using LLCS

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

Gravity Zero Public Combat(Silver Side Bay) SLurl

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, varying among the combat systems.

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 the LLCS, they will not be teleported back home. They will typically either "respawn" after a few minutes or some advanced systems will spawn a "spawn ball" which the player sits on and they will be able to respawn at a random location in the combat area with full health. The exact effects of "death" depend on the particular UCCS in use.

It is important to note that many UCCS frown upon 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 Notable User Created Combat Systems are 'DCS2', 'RPS', 'CCS', 'GM (Gorean meter)', 'C:SI', 'Spell Fire', 'RPCS', 'URCS', 'BNWCS', 'VICE', 'XRPS', 'FFRP'.

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. 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.

Weaponry

There are hundreds of weapons in Second Life to choose from, compatible with various different combat systems. There are two types of weapons "melee" and "ranged" weapons. Malee weapons are held by a Avatar (swords). Ranged weapons shot a projectile (guns, bows). They fall within numerous commonly known Classes:

Basic Guns - Guns that fire basic physical bullets. These are stopped by most quality shield systems.
Advanced "Guns" - Guns that fire tracking, non-physical bullets. These can't be stopped by all but the most advanced (and expensive) defense systems.
Explosives and "Nukes" - Self explanatory. These range from basic explosives to nukes that can kill everyone within 96m of the detonation point.
Advanced Weapons - The most effective and powerful weapons often combine a number of different effects with sophisticated, often HUD-based controls. There are several quality HUD-based combat systems available, as described below.
Robots and Turrets - These can be remote controlled, or set to fire on certain targets automatically.
Annoyance weapons - Stuff like caging guns, anything that flings people into the air, and in general things that annoy rather than, or as well as, dealing combat-system damage. Considered "noobish" and frowned upon by experienced combat people.

For more information, see Weapon.

Combat Vehicles

Sadly, the use of combat vehicles has reduced in second life. While they are very fun to fly, most vehicles will be "disrupted" by shields in actual combat situations, causing them to fly away. The only way to avoid this is to use non-physical vehicles.

Defense

Defense plays an important part in combat life. An undefended avatar can be obliterated by modern weaponry, ruining the fun for many new combat players. There are several ways to defend yourself in Second Life.

Shields
Offsim Bots
The Phantom Glitch

Shields, for the most part, have become obsolete with todays weapons. Any shield that offers true 100% protection will be using the Phantom glitch, by means of an object that you sit on.

Offsim bots place your agent out of the current sim, while moving your camera so you see through the eyes of the bot. This technology works well against less sophisticated weapons, but it can and has been defeated.

The Phantom Glitch was discussed in detail earlier in this article. When your agent is phantom, bullets and "killprims" can't collide with you, making you invincible.

Note that many role-play areas disallow some defensive items.

Non-Lethal Warfare

There are some weapons that can be used to disrupt or annoy another player without actually killing them.

Orbiting is the term used when one player causes another player to be flung up insanely high in the air.
People use "traps" to render a physical avatar unable to move.
"Lag-Bombs" are devices of various kinds that eat up Sim resources and cause lag, thus slowing down the target Resident's activities.

While this kind on non-lethal device can (sometimes) be appropriate to delay or detour a legitimate opponent in a combat game, they are also commonly used by griefers against unwilling victims in both combat and non-combat areas. They therefore tend to have a poor reputation, and to be looked down upon in many combat communities.

In the area of defense against pushes and pulls, most combatants use a device known as a "non-phys". A non-phys makes your avatar non-physical, in other words immune to being pushed or pulled. Period. A non-phys is basically a prim that you sit on, usually it becomes invisible once you sit, and you steer it around just like you are moving normally. When using a non-phys, you can pass through objects and walls.

If a non-phys is not handy and you are in danger of being orbited, just create a prim box and sit on it.

Advanced Weapons

The most powerful weapons in Second Life are advanced weapons systems. Because many of the currently popular weapons in this class use Heads-Up Displays (HUDs), they are sometimes referred to as "Combat HUDs". They usually offer a substantial arsenal of attacks that you can deploy, other than the standard "kill person" command. These include orbiting, "burning" people, trapping, auto-killing, etc.

Some advanced weapons are designed primarily to deal damage and provide defense in a single combat system (either LLCS or a user-created system); others support two or more different combat systems in a single device. Still others concentrate on the non-lethal actions and annoyances described above, and merge into the category of griefer and anti-griefer devices and away from legitimate combat.

Some system within this class should be considered problematic. They should be used with care.

Extreme Optimizations for Combat

Perhaps nothing is more demanding on the SL server system, connectivity, and your PC/Mac then combat. To win you must be fast. To be fast requires a good connection, a good too great computer and a SIM that is well managed by its owner. All are essential to your success. But ..... there are some things you can do to "tweak" your system to win and make over all combat gaming better for all those involved.

Reduce your graphics settings as low as possible.
Disable all unneeded features in the preferences HUD.
Remove all unnecessary HUDs and OAs from your AV
Wear clothing and hair with the least amount of prims. possible. This will lower your Avatar rendering costs (ARC). Fighting naked on most SIMs is prohibited. Wear some form of clothing.
Do routine maintenance on your machine before engaging in combat. (Defrag, check disk and remove junk files)
Use range weapons with a reasonable rate of fire. Ranged weapons that fire too fast cause lag. Be considerate of others.

In short you want to run as "lean" and well running a computer as possible.