Telephones

[The Pigeon Master]

Like talking, only from farther away.

Cities would have to build telephone lines along the roads and then people would have to build telephones. They would be assigned a number or maybe could make one up.

This would make it easier finding people who write those ad notes. Instead of saying, "Talk to Joe Schmo," it could say, "Call 1920 and ask for Joe Schmo."

Then we would know who we're talking to is who we think it is, since people can lie about their identity.

[Jos Elkink]

The idea for a phone line exists for a long time already, but is more or less on purpose not introduced. We want to stimulate travelling and letter writing ... I can imagine introducing this at a later stage when other things are already more developed.

What do people think, would introducing phones reduce travelling and letter writing?

[The Pigeon Master]

Not really, cause you wouldn't be able to send a map through the phone (unless you decided to come up with fax) and you can't send resources through the phone.

People would still move to move stuff. But if someone wanted to talk to someone about moving stuff, then a phone would be handy.

Example: Joe call Jane to order 1000 grams of wood in exchange of 1000 grams of stone. Jane can tell Joe, "No deal" without Joe travelling for several days and wasting a bunch of time.

[Meh]

It would reduce travelling and letter writing.

If the system could be damaged then it is not a bad thing. It is something a region can earn though stability and a inital large project build out.

Rather than telephones I would recommend telegraphs. Two way real time conversations are rare as it is. Sending text in one direction and having a code/decode project would make it function better in game terms.

In that way travelling and letter writing would increase. There would be more purpose to travel and more letters written to encode in the telegraph.

[kasuo]

Rather than telephones I would recommend telegraphs. Two way real time conversations are rare as it is. Sending text in one direction and having a code/decode project would make it function better in game terms.

That'd be really interesting. Imagine people using their own form of the Morse Code to have private telegrams that only those select few who know the specific code can decode.

Or, there will be the use of standard Morse Code but then most people don't remember anyway..

[Meh]

.. / -.-. .- -. / -. --- - / -... . .-.. .. ...- . / -.-- --- ..- / - --- --- -.- / - .... . / - .. -- . / - --- / ..-. .. --. ..- .-. . / - .... .. ... / --- ..- -

[Flak Jacket]

Phones require electricity, and if electricity was introduced to Cantr, then Cantr would end up very modern.

[Sho]

You don't need to make an argument against a suggestion that hasn't been commented on in over a year.

[Pie]

well, we alredy have a sports car.

[Crosshair]

Granted, and does that need fuel? I do like this idea of telegraph poles, but how about this.

In the Peninsular war in the early 19th Century, A technology called telegraphs was introduced, this was not electrical, but was used to signal another station using certain configurations of large wooden masts and flags attatched to those masts. the two towns would need one at each end of the road, and i would like to see it need a hell of a lot of resources because this is a big undertaking.

Also, the signal would be readable inside the building, but there is no way you know when it is signaling, unless you have someone on watch.

1300-5: you enter Comms Tower #1
1301-3: the tower in Djorf signals, saying "hey, erm... so what are you wearing?"
1301-3: you leave Comms Tower #1, entering the central area of whatever town is next to Djorf.

[Sho]

More commonly known as a semaphore, yes. Implementable, certainly. I'm not sure it's a good idea, though.

[Crosshair]

Nah, not semaphore, thats people with flags.... but anywaaaay erm yeah i liek the idea but i also agree with Sho that it shouldn't be implemented till muuuch later, perhaps not even at all.

"Hi i'm in the bath!"
"but your still an arse... i hope you drown and goodbye!"

[Sho]

Semaphore is not restricted to people with flags: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaphore_(communication)

To make a completely irrelevant but somewhat interesting reference, semaphore towers play an important part in some of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books.

[Crosshair]

Yes! Clacks arent they called? *makes a prayer to the God of on topic, asking to preserve him*

(clacks is a play on fax by the way... oh the wit)

[Savanik]

Yeah... nothing says we have to stick to 'real world' equivelents. Clacks towers would be cool!

Or other signalling methods... Carrier pigeon networks! Then we can implement RFC 1149 - CPIP (Carrier Pigeon Internet Protocol).

Here's a transcript of an actual CPIP session.

Script started on Sat Apr 28 11:24:09 2001
vegard@gyversalen:~$ /sbin/ifconfig tun0
tun0 Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol
inet addr:10.0.3.2 P-t-P:10.0.3.1 Mask:255.255.255.255
UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST MTU:150 Metric:1
RX packets:1 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0
RX bytes:88 (88.0 b) TX bytes:168 (168.0 b)

vegard@gyversalen:~$ ping -i 900 10.0.3.1
PING 10.0.3.1 (10.0.3.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=6165731.1 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=255 time=3211900.8 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=5124922.8 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=6388671.9 ms

--- 10.0.3.1 ping statistics ---
9 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 55% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 3211900.8/5222806.6/6388671.9 ms
vegard@gyversalen:~$ exit

Script done on Sat Apr 28 14:14:28 2001