The recent Premium Gift from Linden Lab for Second Life paid users was received with mixed feelings – it’s a great looking steampunk airship, but the land impact was 502LI. My initial excitement was tempered by regret – it looked great, but was so costly in land impact that most people would never bother to rez it unless they were in a sandbox.

I ran into Inara Pey inworld when I first got my Marauder, who later blogged about the high LI of the original.

Well, Dhughan discovered today when he went to grab a copy, that a new version is included that’s “low impact.” Well, 145LI, which is better… but I had stuff in inventory that came in at around 30LI or less (granted, not so elegant and with no cannon broadsides available to play with).

The comments on the notecard:

Hello Residents,

Due to some popular feedback we’ve decided to include a simple, low Land Impact version of the Linden Marauder. This version does not utilize lower LOD’s to greatly reduce Land Impact. The means in order to compensate for the lack of lower LOD’s, you may need to increase your LOD Rendering Factor to at least 2, if not 4, in the Debug Settings panel under the Advanced menu.

1. To enable the Advanced Menu, go to Me>Preferences, Advanced tab, and check “Show Advanced Menu”
2. To open the Debug Settings Panel, go to Advanced>Show Debug Settings
3. In the empty field, type RenderVolumeLODFactor and set the value to at least 2, but preferably 4.
4. Press enter and close the Debug Settings Panel.

The physics shape has also been greatly simplified, as the Land Impact of an object can also be affected by large and complex physics. This means the blimp and nose will no longer collide with other objects, but collision on the deck will remain the same.

With both versions now included, feel free to sail the high seas as you wish: In style, or with performance!

I rezzed it at a public rez zone on the road near my Pini shop, and sailed majestically up Route 1 with all deliberate speed.

The nice thing about its stately progress is if you’re in a clear area, you can be under way and work on blog posts ::coff:: or chat with friends ::coff coff:: and only occasionally have to steer around tall builds and bluffs. Very relaxing, and I enjoyed the sights as I sailed up Route 1 – there are some good builds on the Mainland in some areas. Must explore more.

I fiddled with Windlight settings more on that last one – lighting is Dynamic Richness and water is Phototools: Ship light (it’s water like tropical glass). I also messed with some other graphics settings and fiddled with the nVidia card to take on more of the graphics load from the viewer. I fell out of the ship at least twice due to security orbs – one time was really frustrating, because when I flew back up, I could almost catch it, but couldn’t get seated. So off it sailed in lonely grandeur – someday it’ll find its home port again by way of the Lost and Found folder. Fortunately, it’s copiable, though I wish to God it was modifiable.

Some of the “mixed feelings” and popular feedback on the thread I started on SLUniverse prompted me to pull out every airship and flying vehicle I had in inventory (I have even more in deep storage, including a truly awesome flying bathtub). I flew them around the airstrip near Sandbox Mirificatio and compared LI, or good old fashioned primmage.

The Bondar Foehammer Mini-Airship Aurora 32LI

Anana Farstrider’s Junkyard Dreams – steers and climbs fast, no weapons, old school primwork for 161 LI

Sidney Arctor’s Lil Zepplin – furnished and still only 29LI

Weka Steam Air Ferry – 28LI

Here are some more images from my Snapzilla feed, which is based at SLUniverse and something that I’ve been playing with (it’s like the Postcards that I used to send to Flickr).

And I used the Tweeter to thank SL for listening to the bitching and moaning feedback, and actually got a reply, so there’s even more evidence that LL is actually listening to residents and (in small ways) acting on our suggestions and criticism.

@LelaniCarver It may not look as great from far distances, but glad it's more reasonable for some folks!

— Second Life Official (@SecondLife) July 24, 2014

Actually, with LOD display set to 4.00, it looks pretty damn good from a fair distance, although it still has a top speed/climb rate of about a meter a second, the same as the original version.

That first day, 3 of them were rezzed out at the Mirificatio sandbox and airfield, about 1506LI total.

They were certainly striking, and stable, but not to be hurried:

Inara Pey: “looks like a fish, moves like a fish…. steers like a cow. Flew straight into the second moon of Jaglan Beta.” “Really?” “Yeah, but nice lines….”