proTEC Shield System
Published April 19, 2008 in Weapons
Second Life's most venerated and complete shielding system just got an upgrade.
OVERVIEW
The proTEC HUD Shield System is an HUD (heads-up-display) system designed to protect you from combat- and griefing-related inconveniences such as orbits, deaths, pushes, and traps. Utilizing the latest in aubreTEC's shielding research, the proTEC system utilizes multiple approaches to layer you in protection from the malicious actions of other Second Life residents.
THE HUD INTERFACE
The proTEC HUD is a discreet, minimizable 14-button interface that attaches to the very top of your screen. Almost all features have a dedicated button for quick and easy access, and a central status screen displays pertinent information such as changes in shield status, detected threats, and notifications. Additionally, the buttons themselves display important information about the shield's current effectiveness given land permission settings.
FEATURES
The completely-revamped v2 of the proTEC system offers a wide variety of intuitive features in addition to powerful protections. Redesigned from the ground up with ease of use and quick implementation in mind, proTEC gives you easy access to everything you need:
* Four toggleable shield layers for projectiles (inner shield, outer shield, interceptors, and neutralizer)
* Effective push resistance (movelock)
* Complete visual feedback (detected threats, notifications, and warnings via status screen)
* Aggression settings (aggressive or passive operation)
* Push-immune sit-shield (non-phys)
* Invisibility from local scanners (phase)
* Damage avoidance and push immunity (underground)
* Invisibility (cloaking)
* Smooth non-physical movement with simulated inertia (in non-phys, underground, and phase)
* Easy switching between walking and flying speeds/animations (in non-phys and phase)
* Easy return from "death" teleports and mega-push weapons (mapback and anti-orbit)
* Deformed avatar repair (courtesy of Ryozu Yamamoto's unDeform System)
* Remote return attack upon "death" teleportation (vengeance)
* Instant rescue from untenable situations (OS shield)
* 25-color palette customization (inner shield, interceptors, phase, non-phys, underground, and interface)
* Attractive, classy effects (inner shield, interceptors, outer shield, phase, non-phys, and underground)
* Invisible operation modes (innershield, interceptors, outer shield)
* Known enemy proximity notifications (early warning)
* Complete psiTEC integration (psiTEC sold separately)
* Built-in help system and active website assistance (support tickets, online manual, and user forums)
* Lightning-fast operation, intelligent threat detecting, and efficient scripting
* Free and automatic update system
* Intelligent land permission-checking with visual feedback
FREQUENTLY-ASKED QUESTIONS
Q: I have the proTEC version 1. Do I need to buy a new one?
A: No! proTEC version 1 came with free updates, as does proTEC version 2. Take your version 1 proTEC to any flagship aubreTEC location (find in Search) and find the proTEC updater (it's a silver-and-blue column). Follow the instructions to receive your free version 2.x system.
Once you've upgraded to version 2.x, all future updates will come automatically as soon as we release them.
Q: What makes proTEC better than other shielding systems at protecting my avatar?
A: Simply put, we've been at this the longest, and we know what we're doing. Many "combat systems" advertise flashy features that, frankly put, don't work as well as they're advertised. proTEC is a dedicated system, meaning that all it does is shield, and shield well. proTEC's scripting is as fast as we can make it; it's designed to respond quickly, with a minimum of unnecessary calculations, so it can react quickly and efficiently to protect your avatar. We know from experience what scripts need to operate on their own, how best to pare down script execution time so that it works as fast as possible, what kinds of actions are needed to avoid attacks, etc. etc. Also, aubreTEC has innovated some of the most advanced methods of avatar attack available in our own psiTEC, Black Widows, and invinciBOT, so we know what we're up against.
Q: What makes proTEC better for general use than other systems?
A: There are a bunch of factors that make proTEC your best option. For starters, proTEC is a dedicated system, meaning that it's easy to operate quickly and access the functions you need immediately. proTEC was designed to be used quickly and easily; there's no need to wade through endless blue menus to get at your interceptors, inner shields, etc. - turn on the functions you need with our attractive and easy-to-use interface, and get exactly the information you need, from avatar threats to land permissions.
Additionally, proTEC is, we think, the most attractive full-featured shielding system available, and certainly the most customizable. Rather than forcing you to display a bunch of stupid crystals or badly-designed effects, we've opted to make our effects subtle but impressive; our interceptors more tasteful, inner shield effects more classy, and outer shield collisions more... uh... nifty, than other systems on the market. Plus, nearly every aspect of proTEC is color-customizable without effecting performance, and the effects can even be turned off if you want discreet protection. Whether you're a magical wizard a tech phreak, or just an ordinary (but well-dressed) avatar, proTEC is going to look good on you, and not embarrass you with ugly shields and newbie particle systems.
Lastly, proTEC is designed to affect you as little as possible while still providing acute protection. It will generally not send others in your vicinity flying around unnecessarily, or send innocent vehicle users flying into space, or cause your own objects to fly away from you. You may, however, choose to disable some of these conveniences in order to ensure the absolute fastest protection available.
Q: What's the big deal about version 2? Version 1 came out ages ago.
A: We are very picky about how we determine our version numbers. While a lot of SL developers will slap a new number on a product every time they add a feature, we only change whole version numbers like this when it's a whole new product. To create version 2.0, we scrapped everything - scripts, builds, the hud - and started from scratch to make sure that our new product was really a new product. proTEC v2 has been totally rebuilt from the ground up.
Sub version numbers (such as 2.1) indicate a significant change in behavior, such as additional features. Sub-sub version numbers (such as 2.11) are given to bug fixes. So you know when we say version 2, we mean a whole new product.
Q: Some other shields advertise that they push the bullet back towards its source. The proTEC does not. Why?
A: Because it's a bad idea to do so, for a few reasons. The first and most obvious reason is that pushing a projectile back towards its source requires more power and time than simply altering its trajectory. Attempting to do so requires pushing against the bullet's current momentum, whereas a simple nudge in an errant direction uses the bullet's momentum to send it flying uselessly off-course.
Additionally, pushing a projectile back towards its target requires precious calculating time, using the bullet's speed and direction to determine the right force to send it back. While this kind of calculation may only take 0.2 seconds or so, this is typically not time that can be spared if your aim is to stop or deflect the bullet, which is usually traveling at high speeds.
Lastly, this kind of approach is highly unreliable. Push in Second Life is tetchy at best, and it is very unlikely that doing so would result in a bullet being deflected in a precise enough direction to actually hit its original source. Plus, if a bullet is smartly scripted, it will be programmed not to register collisions with its owner, therefore making the whole exercise pointless.
This is what we mean when we say the proTEC Shield is designed to actually protect its owner, rather than simply looking flashy on paper.
Q: Why not simply combine psiTEC and proTEC to make one all-powerful combat system?
A: We have, really. The aubreTEC a-LINK system allows proTEC to communicate with your psiTEC, bringing up retaliatory menus when threats are detected, using your psiTEC Enemies list for our Early Warning function, etc. They're even available together at a reduced price.
We've kept them two different objects for a few reasons: a) Some people don't want to play combat; they only want protection from griefers, and don't need to pay for extra weapon features, b) Shields should be easy to activate instantaneously, and bogging down the interface with features from two products is counter-productive to this, and c) The visual effects used by psiTEC require a non-HUD attachment anyway.
Q: Does proTEC have a bunch of stupid, garish effects, like "crystals" or badly-textured metal plates or whatever?
A: Nope. proTEC goes the more subtle route. Our visible shield functions are designed with color-customizable, toggleable effects, and we've endeavored to ensure that these effects are cool-looking in a way that is not over-bearing, doesn't overload your particle renderings, and complements almost any avatar style. And hey - if you don't like then, you can turn them off for completely invisible operation.
Q: The [fill in the blank] system is cheaper. Why shouldn't I buy it instead?
A: You get what you pay for. We charge only what is necessary to enable us to spend the time in research and development to make our weapons, gadgets, and shields the best available. We charge this much because we spend a lot of time testing, refining, designing, and re-writing code in order to present our best work. We could have taken a couple of days to hammer out a $500L shield, but there's plenty of junk like that available on the market and we wanted to invest the time to come out with something really extraordinary.
Q: What is a sit-shield?
A: A sit-shield is a shield that you sit on. Our sit-shields (non-phys, phase, and underground) are some of the most complete protection systems you can use. Since you are actually sitting on an object, you can't be pushed. And since we're using non-physical movement (flight/walking that is not actually limited by physics), we can do really cool stuff, like keep you invisible to local scanners (phase) or bury you deep underground where bullets can't hit you.
Q: I heard that non-physical movement is jumpy and hard to navigate. Is this true?
A: Not the way we do it. There are quite a number of items that offer cheap non-physical vehicles, items that simply move or rotate in small increments when you hold down an arrow key. We've taken the time to make our non-physical movement engine as smooth as possible. We've even taken pains to simulate inertia, acceleration, etc. so that you get the most realistic non-physical movement possible.
Does it take a little getting used to? Sure. We could spend years working on this and not quite match Havok physics movement; non-physical movement is still limited by sim lag, LSL reaction times, etc. But give it about 5 minutes, and you'll be zipping around SL like a pro.
Q: I've heard aubreTEC Labs doesn't do customer support. Is this true?
A: Oh, hell no. aubreTEC Labs provides excellent customer support; in fact, we have an employee dedicated to that task alone. We also have a website, user forums, support tickets, a discussion group - there are several ways to get help for any aubreTEC product.
The confusion comes from the fact that Luc Aubret is not our support contact. aubreTEC has a whole line of products and is expanding its operations; it's no longer one guy handling the whole thing, as it was a year or so ago. So we created the avatar aubreTEC Commerce and set him to the task of answering all questions personally. This results in much faster customer support than trying to have Luc script and answer questions and manage business and... well, you get the picture.
So if you have a question, just pop an IM to aubreTEC Commerce, or go to our website at http://www.aubretec.com/support to view manuals, jump on the user forums, submit questions, request support, read about products, see the development blog... there's a lot of stuff on the site.