Atomic Jet Tricycle

When I first saw this tricycle, while looking/perusing for parts for in progress and future builds, I knew that I'd have to buy it, and exactly how I was going to build it! Everything seen, except for the jet engines, are from the same creator, the back wheels (spindle mounted, spoked wheels from a slingshot dragster builder kit, but not seen) are from a third creator, and the motorcycle foot rests are from a fourth creator. As sold, the original tricycle spoked front wheel, and pedals, are one mesh object (as is, similarly, in real life). First, I unlinked the front wheel/pedals, copied the x, y, z locations, then pasted those to the motorcycle wheel, so that it would be exactly centered on the tricycle wheel/pedals. Using a shrinker script, I sized the motorcycle wheel to the size of the tricycle wheel, eyeballed (roughly centered) the foot rests into position, then deleted the original wheel/pedals before linking the three objects to the rest of the tricycle. I used the same method to place the replacement back wheels, though I moved the originals out of the way, once I'd copied the x, y, z positions before pasting them to the replacement wheels, and working one side at a time, this way. The replacements did need one Z arrow tick out, for their respective sides.

For as simple, and generally as straight forward as this build was, it did present me with three challenges, two of which occurred after scripting and setting the sit position (I created a custom site pose, to replace the one that comes with the scripts). Originally, I'd used jet engines the same as what I'd used for my jet slingshot dragster, but when I shrunk them to fit the tricycle, they developed a LOD issue, in that beyond 10 meters viewing distance, they disappeared. Having used the jet engines pictured in other builds, I rezzeed them, shrank them down to size, and they remained visible. Once finished, scripts and replacement driving/sit pose were in, and sit position set, it was time to test at the drag strip, to be sure it went straight. It did go straight, over the course of my two test runs (one in each lane), on a 1000 foot track, but it flew to about 5 meters above the track, for most of the way, before losing altitude near the finish line. Adding scripted down force cured the flight problem, but the last challenge presented itself, when I tried to tune it for a coming 'Exotics' drag race, at another drag strip.

When trying to tune for a 4.0 second ET index, the trike kept wanting to wander to the right, as I'd moved from pre-staged to staged. It had done, to a lesser degree, at the track where I'd tested it, but once shifted into Drag gear, it'd align straight, and run straight down the track. At the track I was intending to debut it at, I also discovered that the owner had moved the start/foul line so close to the staged line, when I'd shift to Drag gear, and due to the rightward drift, the root prim would trigger the red light. Cars from other builders, but using the same scripts that I do, occasionally have wandering staging issues, at this particular track, so with the "wandering staging penalty" of the staged to start/foul line distance, I postponed the debut. Having done some root prim adjustment (length and width; adjusting my X axis sit position, as necessary), during my scrapped 'Exotics' drag race debut attempt, another drag strip, about a week or two later, had scheduled a Top Fuel (dragsters) vs. Jets drag race. When attempting to tune for that one, it staged fairly decently, just slightly wandering right, but straightening up, once I shifted to drag gear (known as auto-align, in Second Life drag racing). On launch, it tended to drift right; crossing the center line, from the left lane, or riding the right side wall, from the right lane (a few times, a momentary SL glitch would cause the wall to go phantom (avatars and objects can go through, as if there's nothing there).

Having pretty much given up on a second debut attempt, I took my jet tricycle back to my inventory, instead of deleting it from the region, for having done more root prim adjustment to it, and teleported to another drag strip, to tune a car for the race coming up thee. While there, I got to talking with their track manager/race director about the handling issues, with my (then) new jet tricycle, and he offered to watch me make a couple of passes with it, to see if there was anything he could offer, to fix the issue (he has experience with building motorcycles, in Second Life, which is, essentially, what I was dealing with). After a couple of passes (tuned to breakout, on purpose), and with the trike actually making it the full 1000 feet with only a slight drift to the right, he suggested that I add x amount of friction, and x amount of gravity, via the Features tab in the Edit window, and with that, all drifting, while staging or running, stopped, so having tuned a car for that track, I headed back to the Top Fuel vs. Jets track, and tuned the jet trike for its debut race. As it turned out, I blasted my way to a 1st place finish, racing a Top Fuel Dragster, for the final match. At the Winner's Circle, the 2nd place driver jokingly mused "I just got my [butt] kicked by a tricycle!" 😋🤣