Motor Boats

[tiddy ogg]

Well, why not. Fitting an engine to a boat is no different, perhaps easier, than fitting one to a car.

[WojD]

Yeah, it's obvious - sloop with engine will have doubled speed... Nice idea...

[Sho]

I don't know if the coding is in place for engines to increase speed. Even if it is, if we were to have powered ships, I'd prefer that there be new ships that only move with engines; I'm no expert but it seems to me that retrofitting a wooden galleon with a gas turbine engine might not work out too well.
Also, I think you'll find lots of people just screaming at the idea of a dinghy moving at 3000 speed. A boat that can dock to everything and be docked to by nothing is bad/awesome (depending on your point of view) enough; that boat moving fast enough to keep up, lightly laden, with your average overloaded trading ship is a bit scary.

[Sunni Daez]

I don't think the current boats need motors.... if a boat recieves a motor...it should only be a smaller boat....fast boats with large holding capacity will only encourage theft..

[BlueNine]

It could be a steam engine thats attached, requiring a project to be run to power it (that requires coal or something) so that they'd only be faster when they're powered but when they're not they're slower (the engine adds weight)
It'd prolly be quite hard to implement though

[wichita]

There has been some talk among at least a few of us in RD about working towards motorboats. I can almost guarantee that they will have to be more expensive than cars, though, but the gains in speed and cargo capacity should be well worth it.

I don't think it will require much extra programming, unless there is something about the mechanics that I have not been told yet. A new engine will probably have to be designed though, or we can put that engine B to work, or the helicopter engine? If I am guessing wrong here somebody in the know please chime in.

[Surly]

You should be careful what you wish for... if we start changing boats, we might notice how overlly good the sloop is, and have an urge to change it...

[Thetaris]

will only encourage theft..

Sorry for you to be the one I have a go at... But so many people say it.

This is a society simulator, not a newspawn net.

As in, if it encourages theft, then that's normal- that's what SHOULD happen.

Don't not implement things, guys, just because it will cause something revolutionary in Cantr. If it does that, then this is a good society simulator. Otherwise...

[Sho]

In Cantr design, realism means something more than just simulating aspects of real life and dropping them into the system, because Cantr has fundamental differences from real life. One is that Cantr characters have response times that are generally slower and always less predictable than those of people in real life. That is one of the reasons theft is far more common in Cantr than in real life, and it also means that speeding things up in Cantr can encourage theft to levels far beyond what's seen in real life.
Therefore a change that encourages theft in Cantr can be unrealistic even if it precisely models real life.

One more thing: Not everyone agrees that Cantr's primary purpose is to be a society simulator. Some say that Cantr is not a society simulator at all; many others, like me, say that while it is a society simulator, other considerations, such as playbility, can take precedence.

[wichita]

I believe that faster ships should fall under the category of Awaiting Game Progress, honestly. Though even if implemented, as I tried to say earlier, these ships will probably be vastly more expensive than their current counterparts and use materials like rubber and aluminum. I seriiously doubt they will be predominantly wooden. Imagine them being on par with building the bus. So we will never see one built, ever! HA!

They will be very important for intercontinental travel, which would be very cool to see, I believe, though that will - as with everything - come with it's own problems. Dinghies with outboard motors could be pretty cool for traversing a few lakes more efficiently, maybe bumping the speed just above a longboat?

Just throwing numbers out (and no I don't have the building menu for boats memorized yet so back off Surly! :p ):

Small motorboat
wood 3000 grams
iron 1000 grams
outboard motor

Outboard motor
steel 100 grams
rubber 50 grams
magnesium 80 grams


Blah blah blah Hopefully the possible speed issue will not throw the theft balance for a whirl too badly.

[WojD]

Small motorboat
wood 3000 grams
iron 1000 grams
outboard motor

Outboard motor
steel 100 grams
rubber 50 grams
magnesium 80 grams

Perhaps too cheap
Or maybe this should be equal to raft or canoe Small, suitable for one person, dockable to all motor boats... And with FAST docking speed - this help with trade.

For intercontinental travels maybe something like this:

iron 5000 grams
steel 10000 grams
rubber 3000 grams
oil 2000 grams
small ship motor

Can be built in Coaster harbour [ or maybe in SHIPYARD (!!!) ]

small ship motor
steel 3000 grams
rubber 500 grams
magnesium 800 grams


Yeah - shipyard is solution for motor boats construction...

[Talapus]

Then we would have a use for the shipyards that were built long ago. Anyway, one thing to keep in mind, is that boats probably won't be so fast as that you could miss the existance of a location as you sail by (at least I hope so).

[wichita]

Yeah, the shipyard idea is good, and should be doable with existing programming, I think. And if you notice in the rest of my rambling post, I was syaing that my motorboat idea was just for something to get across lakes quicker without having to build a longboat or something like that. Just a thought. I think WojD's numbers are more what I had in mind for seafaring engined vessels.

As for sailing past locations to quick to see them, I don't think that would be such a problem because of the docking messages, and a good mapmaker would slow down to carefully map the coast if that is what he was after.