Cantr II Discussion Forum

The lighthouse can be seen days before reaching land. I would hope a signal fire would only show if the vessel is within view of the town.

This keeps the need for the lighthouse. I think the signal fire is more to alert boats that you already see coming.

In real life it takes alot of effort to make a signal fire, so I think that for it to be worth while it should take a bit of wood. IRL you don't usually have one person leaving a signal fire burning for days, unless that is all you do. The goal is to wait until the opportune moment and show your presence.

New thought -Signalling mirror?

T-shirt wrote:I do like the small fire pit idea. You can make a create signal smoke project on a firepit.

creating signal smoke

Signal smoke can be seen from the sea, and help in navigation between places. All signal smoke within 80 pixels are visible to vessels on water.

Output per day of labour
* smoke signal (range 80 pixels)
* Automated project

Maximum output
* 10 days

Required resources
* 100 grams of fur
* 250 grams of wood

Required machines
* small fire pit

Skill used
* none

T-shirt wrote:

wichita wrote:It could be a cheap alternative to a lighthouse that is temporary (it decays with time) and cannot be uniquely named. Every signal fire will show up as "a signal fire" instead of "town x's signal fire".

I would think that we could piggyback the lighthouse code a bit and apply it to a new obejct which would be fixed in space, only built outside, will decay each day and cannot be repaired. When the fire burns out, a new one will need to be constructed to replace it.


Build requirements should include wood and bitumen (representing pitch, for that extra large smokey flame).

That sounds like my suggestion, apart from the bitumen instead of my my proposed fur. Had you read it?

Yes, I read it. Did you read mine?

You proposed a project, I proposed an object instead - which might make it a bit more straightforward for ProgD to implement, applying code from one object to another object.

Your project would go on the activities page, where it would be a bit less notable. My object would go on the objects page where it would stand out a little better.

You proposed a project duration, I proposed a decay rate. That would work out a bit even, mechanically.

I read yours. I posted a different technical approach.

Except an lighthouse is a location (i.e. a building vehicle or place) not an object from ProgD's pov - so the code is not immediately reusable

That said, an automatic project or an object created after a project have their merits - I'm siding more with the decaying object route - more effort to build in the first place (even if it's only a 1 hour project)

Anyway I've moved this to accepted suggestions (and changed the title to something more relevant)

The smoke should certainly be seen to land as well as it'll rise higher than the tower of a lighthouse. People might also want to burn bonfires during festivals. I've always wondered why the small fire pit is called small if we don't have a big or medium fire pit. What are you comparing it against?

I was planning on it being seen on land as well - it gives people something to do inland - the distance will be much less than at sea - we don't differentiate between land types so it will be a constant max distance for all land viewing

Beauty. And it doesn't add more clutter to the small firepit either! Yay!

It would be very nice to be able to use the smoke as primitve inter-communication signalling. That'd add an extra depth to it than it just being a beacon for ships.

Maybe the 'object' could have two states, which can be changed at will - one which is a lit fire producng smoke, another a lit fire not producing smoke, which wouldn't then interfere with decay rates...

Yeah, in primitive towns it could make a nice pre-radio distress call to other neighboring towns, and it would make a nice back-up signal in case the town you are trying to radio to has its radio person asleep, to call to everyone

Deterioration is applied once a day so a decaying object version should be designed with several day's life - the slightly variable lifespan is nice - bonfires aren't an exact science


(as an inhabitant of a town who holds the 2nd largest fire festival in Europe I've seen a few in my time ... see here for more details )


P.S. the1st is Las Fallas in Valencia

formerly known as hf wrote:Maybe the 'object' could have two states, which can be changed at will - one which is a lit fire producng smoke, another a lit fire not producing smoke, which wouldn't then interfere with decay rates...

As a cheap hack you could simply build to <100, then finish at will.

But it would be nice to be able to hold the signal fire in potential for emergancies. You don't want to be stacking wood when the pirates are on you.

I'm not known with the pixels in cantr, like if 80 pixels is far and stuff like that.....but is it enough so that non-coastal locations can make 'smoke-projects' that can be seen from the sea?

The implementation will be that people on water can see smoke from signal files at a distance of 40 units , people on land can see smoke from a distance of 20 units.

If an inland location is within the appropriate distance then the smoke will be seen. To be considered sea/lake side locations, a place has to be within 5 units of the coast - so some inland locations will be visible - others won't.

Implemented a few months ago. Details:
- distance is the same for people on sea and on land
- signal fire creates public event for everyone in area of visibility