Olympia & Ships

From: hauck@cs.washington.edu (Scott Hauck)

Date: Mon, 04 May 1992 17:48:28 +0000

Switching the Olympia discussion topic ever so slightly, I think
the way Olympia handles ships should be revamped.  First off, exploring with
a ship is very difficult in Olympia, because although sea routes are short, you
cannot explore the unknown very rapidly because you need to know the name of
the route you are going to travel before you travel it, meaning you cannot
explore in any one direction faster than one space per month.  One way to
handle this is to have a new form of the MOVE order, which takes directions
instead of routes.  So, let's call the order HEADING, and an example:

MOVE 1900 # Going south along the coast
LOOK
HEADING WEST SOUTHWEST SOUTH SOUTHEAST
LOOK
HEADING WEST SOUTHWEST SOUTH
LOOK
HEADING NORTHWEST WEST SOUTHWEST

What this sequence does is try to track the southeast coastline of an island.
The first move command moves along a known link.  The third line is a
HEADING command with a prioritized list of possible headings.  So, for the
line "HEADING WEST SOUTHWEST SOUTH SOUTHEAST", if there's a route heading west
take it, else take the southwest route if it exists, else the south route, else
the southeast route.  In this way, some headway in a given direction could be
made.  It would be perfectly reasonable to make these moves cost extra, say
3/2 normal days travel via the MOVE command, since the ship must explore the
route it's taking.  This probably could also work for land travel, though
this isn't critical, and brings up the question of what to do when there are
two south links.

The second thing I don't like is that apparently a single man can sail
a ship.  I propose that there be a new skill, called SEAMANSHIP or SAILING.
Levels of seamanship allow the captaining of seagoing vessels, and also serves
as MILITARY LEADERSHIP while the unit is aboard ship.  For a ship to move,
the head of the stack must have a SEAMANSHIP level high enough to pilot the
craft he is stacked under.  Also, there must be enough men aboard ship
issuing the ASSIST order to sail the ship.  Also, higher levels of
SEAMANSHIP would allow the skipper to sail in foul weather, make headway under
little wind, and possibly even make faster progress across ocean links.
BTW, with the advent of new ship types, which I believe has already happened,
it would be nice to have some ships have oars so they can move without wind,
and clipper ships that can move faster across ocean links a. la horses on land.
	BTW, as part of the proposal to have ship occupants ASSIST to move a
ship, those people aboard ship who aren't ASSISTing should be able to perform
normal activities.  There's no reason a mage aboard ship couldn't still be
studing his manuals, and it would be nice for the mage to be able to conjure a
wind to allow the ship to move faster.

Comments?

Scott Hauck
hauck@cs.washington.edu

References

Re: Olympia: opinions on magical research
gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)
Sat, 02 May 1992 20:19:26 +0000
Re: Olympia: opinions on magical research
srt@aero.org (Scott "TCB" Turner)
Mon, 04 May 1992 00:49:03 +0000
Re: Olympia: opinions on magical research
gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)
Mon, 04 May 1992 03:43:11 +0000

Referenced By

Re: Olympia: opinions on magical research
gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)
Sat, 02 May 1992 20:19:26 +0000
Re: Olympia: opinions on magical research
srt@aero.org (Scott "TCB" Turner)
Mon, 04 May 1992 00:49:03 +0000
Re: Olympia: opinions on magical research
gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)
Mon, 04 May 1992 03:43:11 +0000