Buoys

[Sho]

Disclaimer: None of my characters has ever been on a ship. I therefore do not know all that much about them.

Buoys would be artificial landmarks on the water, but different from lighthouses.

A buoy would be cheap, maybe half a kilo of wood. The color could be chosen when the project was started. It would be carried onto a ship (or maybe it could only be built on a ship?). A ship at sea would be able to drop a buoy. The buoy would appear on the map as a dot of the color chosen.

Buoys would be useful as navigational aids. A ship could drop one on its way out from a place. On the way back, it would see the buoy and know exactly what direction and distance the port was.

Other possibilities:
Put notes on buoys. Visible buoys would have entries on the Location tab, and clicking on the name of a buoy would bring up a note. This note would be written onto the buoy before it was launched. Possible buoy messages: "Seatown Lakeside is 145 degrees and 5 days from this buoy." "Any ship that comes into Ladvicitavoi will have its crew thrown into prison. You have been warned."

Buoy decay. After a couple of Cantr years, buoys would disappear.

Buoy pickup. A buoy could be dragged onto the deck of any ship that stopped close enough to it. This would probably be a short project.

Buoy drift. With time, buoys might drift away from their original locations. This might be random, or it might be influenced by currents, which would have to be implemented separately.

[g1asswa1ker]

Very nice concept Sho

[Sniper]

Are you sure you've never been on a ship?

Excellent idea.

[Solfius]

Buoy drift. With time, buoys might drift away from their original locations. This might be random, or it might be influenced by currents, which would have to be implemented separately.

Not might, *will*, as soon as you drop it in. Bouys need to be weighted down and anchored if not physically fixed to the sea floor, so perhaps through some metal (possible in the form of an anchor object and a chain object?) and that should sort that out.

edit: otherwise yea it's a great idea for sea navigation. Don't let me trick you into thinking I don't like the idea by pointing out the little details that need adjusting; just trying to make it the best

[Missy]

I like this idea also. I have NO idea how to sail a ship.

[Solfius]

Sailing in Cantr isn't difficult, anyone can sail, it's just if they get to where they want to be or not that is hard.

I can sail in RL, tis tres amusant

[Anthony Roberts]

Yeah, I love this idea. Would be interesting.

However, Solfius is correct, the bouy would only move when dropped from the boat. And therefore would not drift away because it would be given a weight or anchor, would would purposly be long enough to dig into the ground. The bouy would move around, though, based on the length of the cord holding it. But it wouldn't go too far away, until the cord is taut completly, then it can't move anywhere.

Also, a few Cantr years, assuming "few" is 2, doesn't seem very long. 40 days and the bouy dissapears? In real life, bouys stay out for 10+ years at a time, so how about extending that to such a number?

Otherwise, great idea! I hope this can be implemented.

[Solfius]

yea, I see what you mean, maybe 10 cantr years is better? that's 200 turns.

[The Industriallist]

Considering the cost of metal, I would suggest a "rope" object and a "big rock" object as alternatives.

I like the idea of marking out a naval territory with these. "Ships beyond this line will be boarded"

[ephiroll]

I think this is about the best suggestion anyone has had in recent months, I'd love to see buoys in the near future. Or maybe I'm biased, four of my chars own boats, and one shares with someone else.

[nitefyre]

Again props to Sho.

Just one thing I'm a tad confused about, You see the bouy out on the location map like you see a boat. So I am asuming it will show up like it does for a lighthouse? Like you see a red bouy at 145 degrees.

Oh and one other thing, perhaps there should be not only different colors, but different types of bouys. Cheap wooden drifting ones without rope that die with in a few years and sturdy metalic/rubber ones with rope?

[Solfius]

Considering the cost of metal, I would suggest a "rope" object and a "big rock" object as alternatives.

A much better solution considering the bouys were suggested to be made out of wood. I had modern bouys in mind as I posted that, and they are all metal with a chain attached to an embedded block of concrete to hold them in place.

Of course, we would have to assume that the seas and lakes of Cantr are all the same depth, because else we would have to deal with different lenths of rope etc

Actually, as rope is a resource and is measured in grams it may be possible to have the requirements for "setting" a bouy include an amount of rope proportional to depth in addition to a "marker bouy" object.

If we wanted to have bouys which had messages then we would need to be able to write on objects, which isn't currently possible and requires some additional programming, seeing as there are a number of ideas revolving around this I wonder if it will creep up the PrD's priority list...

[boomhaeur]

Well rather than writing on the buoy maybe you could name them...


Overall, as an avid cantr sailor, I like the idea.

[Solfius]

Well rather than writing on the buoy maybe you could name them...

I like that even more! in RL you have charts to tell you what the bouys mean (you can tell some basic bouys, but others need the charts to fully understand) and naming bouys would then need charts to navigate off them, which is brilliant!

[Sho]

I don't think buoys should be visible the way lighthouses are. Most RL buoys are only a few meters tall at most and are not meant to be seen from long distances, the way lighthouses are. The easiest way to simulate this limited visibility in Cantr would be to restrict buoy visibility to being visible on the map graphic. If you think of the map graphic as the horizon, it all makes sense.

I personally have no opinions about the materials. In hindsight, I suppose all-wood buoys wouldn't make much sense, and I agree that buoys should probably use some iron or stone. I'd say iron for gameplay reasons; it would make it harder for newspawns on stolen longboats to mess up an area.

The main reason I gave "a couple of Cantr years" as a lifespan is that otherwise the sea might get rather clogged with funny-colored pixels.

My original concept was that buoys would change the Cantr map permanently and then just disappear. This would make retrieval, decay, drift and notes all impossible, and I have no idea whether it would make buoys easier to implement, but I like simplicity in Cantr.