Second Life Combat User Group: May 9th, 2024 summary

The following notes were taken from the Thursday, May 9th, 2024 Combat User Group meeting (also referred to as the Combat Committee User Group or CCUG, an abbreviation also used by the Content Creation User Group, and which I’ll not be using in these summaries to reduce the risk of confusion between the two). They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript.

Meeting Overview

• The Combat User Group exists as a forum to discuss improvements to the Linden Lab Combat System or LLCS to better support combat in Second Life.
  • The core idea is to provide additional events and capabilities which sit on top of LLCS to provide combat creators with better tools with which to create better combat systems for their specific scenarios.
• The meetings are the result of a proposal document on improving the native damage system in SL, written by Rider Linden, and which is the focus for both the meeting and any work arising from them.
• These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
  • By Rider Linden, with the support of Kyle Linden.
  • On alternating Thursdays (rotating with the Content Creation User Group) at 13:00 SLT. Meeting dates are recorded in the Second Life Public Calendar.
  • Initially in text, although voice might be included in the future depending on feedback from those attending.
  • At this location.
  • Discussion topics, requests, etc., can be found on the SL Feedback Portal Combat Board.
• Additional details are available via the SL wiki.

Work In Progress

• Rider has updated the simulator side of the combat system. This includes:
  • The most recent updates to Leviathan Linden’s Game Control event work for game controllers (see below).
  • Message changes in RegionInfo. There is now an optional CombatSettings block that can be seen by the viewer, it has all the region settings such as regen rate and damage throttle (this requires a viewer-side update to be visible, which is currently in the works).
  • Bug fixes, including for one in which being slammed into the ground is bad for your health and bypasses the damage functions. Also see: Allow Region To Modify Physical Collision Damage Factor.
• llDamage is in the process of being updated to reflect the work in this project.
• It is hoped that more detailed documentation on “Combat 2.0” will be produced.
• There is now a UUID / name for the combat log: COMBAT_LOG_ID or Brigadier Linden.

Comments and Requests

• A request was made to add onto the existing llSensor functions (or created a new function) that would allow the option to do an llCastRay (i.e. llSensorNew( string name, key id, integer type, float radius, float arc, float rate, list options )), plus, and when using raycast options, to just return the llDetected events based on successful hits.
  • This would allow an object to detect Agent or other Objects that is in full view of the object calling the Sensor event, and was seen as helping the likes of “wall safe” melee attacks and explosions all in one call.
  • The idea was favourably received by Rider and several at the meeting.
• There was a question on whether triggering llDamage at a target on safe land, would it trigger on_damage? The answer was no, it would just fail, and also a damage enabled object colliding with something on safe land will not cause damage.
• There was some confusion as to which has priority within a region: does the region’s Damage Allowed setting override the Safe setting at parcel level, or vice-versa – and exactly what the “Damage Allowed” actually does (“allowed” does not necessarily mean Damage is “enabled” on setting it).
  • Rider indicated that within the Camber updates he is writing for the viewer, the term has been changed from “Damage Allowed” to “Enable Combat” – which is clearer as to intent, but again, not necessarily indicative that setting it automatically sets the entire region to Damage “enabled”).
  • A suggestion was made to make the setting directly more granular at region level via a drop-down, e.g. “Always On”; “Use Parcel Settings”; “Always Off”.
  • This may become the subject of an additional discussion on the SL Feedback Portal Combat Board.
  • Rider also indicated that as follow-on work to the current project he intends to allow overriding things like the damage throttle and health regen on a parcel level.
• A request (feature request pending) was made for a damage over time function that doesn’t require additional objects.
• A general discussion on llRezObjectWithParams and potential improvements – these will be recorded as / when actual changes are made.

Game Controller Support Update

• This is a separate, on-going project by Leviathan Linden to provide better support for game controllers (such as X-Box controllers) in Second Life, and exposes input from game controllers to LSL.
• It is generally reported on in the weekly Simulator User Group meetings.
• Current status:
  • The feature has been merged into the same server code as Combat2, as noted above.
  • The viewer is still undergoing work, but a further pre-release viewer (for those on the SL Discord server) should be available in week #20.
  • The viewer-side work will eventually surface in a project or RC viewer.
  • Leviathan is additionally overhauling the Flycam options / Preferences tab as well – no details as yet, but updates will be appearing in a future version of the Game Control viewer updates.