Nav Hud 20250301

The Drivers of SL grid drive came out yesterday, so it's time for another adventure in Second Life, driving along roads, flying, playing with a trolley and enjoying many wonderful views.  This weekends grid drive starts in the Nautilus continent and is sponsored by Olympus motors.  *All credit for the map goes to LorenFox. Her map package is free on the marketplace and has rezz zone nc's and a finderhud*

On this drive, you will be using, in this order, a road vehicle, a plane or helicopter, a train, and a road vehicle.  The drive is not too long, just 5 legs to go through, but you will have a nice, scenic trip for the majority of the drive.

For my first vehicle, I started with the Olympus motors Happy Family vehicle.  I did run into a couple of regions that were laggy, but if you keep your vehicle's speed on the lower end, gear 1 or gear 2, you can get through the worse of it with little issue.

For flying, I went with my trusty Spijkers & Wingtips MD 500 helicopter.  I did get this helicopter free from the group, along with the paint job you see here on it.  I'm not sure if it's still for free but it is a super easy helicopter to learn to fly and very user friendly.  *I popped over to the airfield and it is still there.  You just join the group, which is free to join*

You end up over in Second Norway, which is really an amazing continent to drive through, and you grab a train, or in my case, it was my trolley.  It was a fun drive, which was easy enough to drive and enjoy the scenery, which I did.

Trains are fantastic, especially if you are going through areas that are really wonderfully built.  You can enjoy the view and because trains are so easy to work, you can take a photo, if you feel like it.  The trolley I'm using is by Brit Balogh, called the San Francisco trolley.  

After my lovely trolley ride, there was a little visit to a local pub and after a brief rest, you will need your next road vehicle.  This portion of the drive is really great, with you driving along in Second Norway, which is an amazing area to drive along.  It's also bigger than I thought.  There are some stops along the way, and the roads twist and turn a bit, which I recommend keeping the speed down, so you are not driving off of the road constantly.  As for the last car I used, it was the C.H.C Bambino.  It's a small vehicle but it travelled well, along with being uber cute.

When you have gone through all 5 legs and reached the end of the drive, you will head over to the Olympus Motors store, where you will receive this beautifully built vehicle.  I did test drive it already and it handles wonderfully.  Thank you to Olympus Motors for the fantastic gift!

Last, but not least, a huge thank you to the Drivers of SL team who put together this grid drive, this weekend.  It was a great trip that I thoroughly enjoyed doing.

Nav Hud drive 20250222

Weekly drives are created and hosted by the amazing group, Drivers of SL.  It is through their hard work and dedication that these weekly drives are possible, so all the praise and thanks goes to them.

This weekends drive was sponsored by Capital Motors and at the end of the drive, a really generous gift is given out.  

This weeks drive was actually a shorter one and I have to be honest, the grid was not playing well with the drivers, at times.  There was crashing that occurred, which had me flipping around with different vehicles, to see if I could find one that the grid would not argue too heavily with.

I found that the Surplus Motors Insetto worked the best for me.  It's a smaller electric car, which I have found seems to thrive on lag.  Whenever I find the going is rough, this little sweetie gets me through it.  However, it hates badly made roads.  It will get stuck in certain areas of Bellissaria, where the roads are not quite as cleanly built. (It's the original Bellissaria area, when the moles first made the roads).  Put the car in edit, slide it over the rough patch and you are good to go.

This drive called for a road vehicle (any road vehicle) and a small or medium boat.  For this drive, I was in a more relaxed mood, so I pulled out my Bandit Bambino, which is created by Analyse Dean.  

The Bambino is slower moving, since it is a small Dutch tug.  Though it's not a speed boat, it is incredibly easy to use and fantastic for someone who just wants to putz slowly down the waterways, enjoying the view, while driving on the water.  Because the hud was having issues on this drive, I was glad I went with a more slower vehicle, since the hud direction finder had several drivers going back and forth.  

NOTE: I did go back, before posting this entry, and it was much better compared to Saturday, when I originally did the drive.  There are some regions that are still laggy but it's better than before.

I don't know how the amazing team from Drivers of SL do it, but they do find some of the most amazing places to see and visit on their drives.  A wonderful example is one of the spots that we saw along with the way, which I did take a photo of.

The photo is not edited, it's simple windlights and click, but as you can see, it's beautifully built.

During the last leg of the drive, there is a third vehicle, which is provided for you, which is a plane.  

You grab the blue one, you take it for a flight and you are suppose to fly under some cranes.  I will admit, I utterly fail with planes.  I have one speed with them, when I finally get them out of the water, which is Crash.  I can fly a helicopter, I'm great with my air balloon, and for some bizarre reason, I have a plane called a Goose that I can fly, but anything else is ending in hilarity and wild antics from me.  In this case, the plane was treated like a sub, for a brief moment, until I dragged it out of the water and then I bounced off of a few building before clearing that area.  When I got to the cranes, there was more bouncing, more water and eventually utter failure as it drowned.  I do wish everyone luck though and I'm sure you will do much better than I did.

If you haven't grabbed the Nav Hud yet, pop on over to the Drivers of SL Headquarters, grab it and have fun.