signal flags

[Solfius]

so, flags would work by building a watch tower, and inside it you have the option to look down a road and see the flags.

Perhaps watch towers could work like road improvements a bit, in that the size of the tower relates to the length of the road.

The first tower sees down the shortest road, then you improve it to see down the next longest, then improve to see down the next longest, etc

[Crosshair]

Well again i have had my feeling of originality ripped from under me.

Same idea as above but on ships. Go figure.

[Wilmer Bordonado]

Signal Flags for ships & coastal towns could work this way:

The Flag's code woul only have six signs, each of them represented by an unique flag. For instance, two vowels and four consonants:

Flag A - Flag E - Flag Y - Flag H - Flag M - Flag S

A flag tower could be build in town (20k of stone + trowel or 25k of wood + hammer) and mast in ships (25k of wood + hammer). These buildings would allow characters to rise the six flags at once, not more, nor less.
Character's could their own codes to communicate town-to-ship, ship-to-town, or ship-to-ship, but not town-to-town, because of the distances: characters could only see flags when the ship or the town to dock are visible.
For example, HAMEYS code should refer to someone's death on board.

Flags could be build separately each other or in a set. The letters can be sewn of hide on a cloth. Each flag should requiere 50g of hide and 100g of cloth, and a needle.

In my opinion, this communication system could foment exploration of Cantr world, and keep characters on work while on board.

It's not a self-finished ideas, so feel free to add or quit any of its elements.

Wilmer B.

[sanchez]

Signal flags could use a binary system like an old (19th century) fax machine. This is very slow but would avoid colours. They gave both sides identical grids (all alphanumeric characters can take a minimal 3x3, plus space) and each follows line by line on the same path. The transmitter only needs to indicate whether a segment is filled in or open, with the receiver plotting this row by row on his own grid. After three lines, you have text like:

XXX_XXX_X_X_XXX
_X__XX___X___X_
_X__XXX_X_X__X_


But in any case, ship-to-ship communication within a range of maybe 10 pixels would be huge, as now we must rely on controversial docking procedures.

[SekoETC]

I started thinking about signal flags last night, but as I noticed by searching, they have been suggested several times in several topics. I don't think I've read them all, but there were some complicated suggestions involving towers and tiredness.

A simple item
Why make it so complicated? Just have an object "a pair of (material) signal flags", material being either cotton, silk or hemp. Silk and cotton should be about the same visibility, hemp slightly lower since the contrast of light brown is lower than that of white.

Coloured versions?
Later when dyes are added, the brighter the colour, the farther the signs can be seen. Yellow and red would be the best. (Yellow can be gotten from onion peels so I don't see why we couldn't have a project: dying a pair of cotton flags for big or medium stone pot, including some onions, and the result would be a pair of yellow cotton signal flags. But since people would then be complaining why nothing else can be dyed, that can wait.)

Using the flags
The pair of flags is a concealable inventory item. It has a use button, which upon clicking redirects the player to select signal screen. This consists of two drop down boxes or better yet, lists with radio buttons labled

Up
Up-diagonal
Middle
Down-diagonal
Down
Across

One list titled Left and the other one Right. The player will select position for both hands and click Ok.

The page is then refreshed, the previous sign showing in a log on the same page. (The log can include five or ten previous moves for reference.) The person can send another signal straight away.

Other people see the signals appearing on their event page, and the player him/herself will naturally see them as well while exiting the screen. Clicking on the Done button will redirect to events. Events should be in form:

You see a man in his twenties signaling: "Left: Up, Right: Down."
You see a man in his twenties signaling: "Left: Across, Right: Up-Diagonal."
And so on.

They might be bunched up or shortened somehow after the beginning, provided that there are no other events in the middle.

Stopping someone from signaling

If the person giving signals is spoken to, attacked or dragged while on the select signal screen, the player should be redirected into events the next time he or she clicks send. The latest sign is not sent (simulating broken concentration).

Visibility

If the messenger is in a town, the signals are visible to everyone in town and to people on sea vessels within range. If the messenger is in a coaster harbour or landing stage, the people outside in the middle of the town cannot see the signs, but vessels at range can. If the messenger is on a ship, people on decks of other ships or towns at range can see the signs.

Binoculars and such increase range of vision but they will most likely have to be actively used to have the bonus. And you can't work on a project while peering at signals.

System of signals
Code sheets can be found on Google but Cantrians should certainly develop their own sign languages instead of following a real life model. 6^2 = 36 possible combinations. If someone understands a code system without being taught ingame or seeing a note about the system in question, it should be considered a CRB.

[deadboy]

Impossible to inforce, people could just keep a copy of the note with one character and then just lie and say that they saw the note in a town with another. There is noway of checking what notes they may or may not have looked at

[Chris Johnson]

Yes there is .

[deadboy]

Really!? Wow... you guys can do -anything-!

[Wilmer Bordonado]

I think Seko's done it

I also like sanchez's idea. It's so simple and so efficient!

Wilmer B.

[wichita]

I am very interested in improving the capabilities of ship to ship communication. If ProgD can code it, RD can add it.

[Arlequin]

Could we go just for a simple flag for boats?

You got a flag, you can drop it aboard and it will show in the ship description:

You see the Blind Guardian (galleon) with flags: red, white.

That's way enough. Most things you want to say from one ship to another doesn't require to chat with some complex code.

I.e. you send some guys in a dingy and you agree that if they see a red flag they must return as soon as possible.

[sanchez]

I really like it that there is no colour in Cantr. I hope this can be done in a way that still leaves that free.

[Sicofonte]

Leaving colours free means no colours?

[Elros]

I have been thinking alot lately about suggesting Flares, so I searched and saw that this is somewhat along that line. I think the flags are a cool idea too, but I am suggesting flares at the moment. The could be used for so many things like:

1. If a boat is in trouble or needs assistance they could signal to the other boats in the area by firing a flare.

2. If a town is under attack or is in need of assistance from the other nearby towns they could fire a flare off.

3. It also could be used for organized crime to signal others of something they need to do.

4. It could be used in war for communication to all soldiers in the area.

ect...

I suggest that we have different color ones so that people can set up in advance what each color will mean, or can use certain sequences of firing different colored flares to communicate different things.

Example:
Red flare means town is under siege.
Blue Flare means criminal is on the run.
Green flare means they need a representative from the nearby towns to come to theirs for some kind of meeting.
ect...

Also it would be a good way to communicate to other ships as well. It would simply work like this. When you fire the flare all others in the general area would see a event saying:

You see a 'blue' flare in direction '180'. You are 'close'.

Or something like that.


What do you all think?

[haggismcbean]

Is this necessary with the implimentation of radios?

Unless the flares are fairly cheap to construct, then i'd say the only people who could make them are already rich enough to make radios in most places.

The only way i could see them as being useful unless they're cheap is for boats that don't communicate regularly, but one is in distress and in urgent need of help(for example a rich trader being plundered by pirates asking for the help of an explorer from another island.) In which case flags could do the job just as well.