Moar Halp plzkthx (Armidale group stay out)

[Serpentine]

I expect this to come up tomorrow, so swift help would be appreciated >.>

Some of you may (or, more likely, won't) remember that I've asked for some advice before. Weeeell, continuing on from that... I need some technical help. As (I think) I've mentioned, the party will be expected to help defend an Abeil hive-fort against hoards of marauding soldier ant swarms and giant ants. The fort has a system of watchtowers all around it, that will have a fairly complex communication system, and stretch out some way from the fort itself. I want to give the party a few days to prepare between the ants being spotted by an outermost watchtower and reaching the fort. It's in a jungle, but the towers will stretch up above the trees, so line of sight shouldn't be too much of a problem (in fact, I think it's pretty reasonable to think that the trees would keep growing, but as soon as they threatened to block line-of-sight, would be severely trimmed, possibly carving a trench through the tree canopy). How much distance would there be between the towers? From that I can work out how many I'll need, but if you want to work out "number of towers per day of travel by a ravening hoard of vermin that only pauses to sleep in the middle of the night and maybe not even then", it would be quite useful.

I may ask more questions later...

[Frosty]

This will most likely depend on what kind of communication system there is. If based on sight, then the towers have to be close enough for the communications to be seen clearly. In ancient China, large fires were lit as a signal that enemies are attacking. In that case, the towers could be set far apart because it's easy to see a large bonfire. But if communication is more sophisticated and details need to be seen, the towers may have to be closer together.

Oh, and why the purposely mispellings in the title?

[Serpentine]

Answer the first: Dammit, should've put more detail >.< It would be based on sight, with fires burning non-stop. The part of the system that's likely to come up is that when the first tower spots the ants coming, they'll douse the fire with a touch (a lever dropping water or somesuch). At night, the next tower will see the light go out, and during the day they'll see the smoke. They will cause their fire to flare once. The next will cause theirs to flare twice, the next thrice, and so on, the number of flares by each tower being the number by the one before it plus one for itself, letting the fort know how many towers out was the one that had the original sighting. More information can be communicated by throwing certain substances into the fire to change the colour, intensity, etc. of the flames. The dousing would mostly be an emergency measure, a just-before-he-dies sort of thing.

Answer the second: I like lolcats v.v

[Frosty]

The Intensity throws a wrench into things. I mean, I think it's pretty hard to see how intense a fire is without being close. At least, it's hard to tell unless there's only two settings: Low and High.

I dunno, gut instinct says two towers should be one mile apart?

Oh yeah, what is lolcats? A comic?

[Ward.]

By the way I read your explanation, wouldn't it be easier/ faster for a messenger to simply leg it to the next tower?

Lolcats is one of the funniest things on the internet.

[Admiral Squish]

Oh yeah, what is lolcats? A comic?

How have you missed this? Jeeze... I don't even know where to point you first! Probably I Can Haz Cheezeburger for some examples. Wikipedia explains it, if rather blandly. I'll see if I can turn up more in the way of examples.

[Jasdoif]

Well, in the interest of simplicity....The section on wilderness terrain states that a forest fire can be seen up to 2d6x100 feet away. I imagine if the arrangement is designed for visibility it'd take the max, or 1200 feet. I don't think Spot checks are necessary, since naturally the guards will be alert to any change in these fires as its part of their job function and the fires themselves will be placed in plain sight.

As for the rest...Giant ant soldiers (and workers) have a listed speed of 50 feet, which means they can walk 5 miles an hour, so they can walk 40 miles in a day before the risks of forced marching need to be addressed. This rate is impacted by terrain conditions and the like, of course, for that I'll have to refer you to that section of the SRD. But to summarize the basic jungle terrain conditions....They'll move at that rate along a highway or other major road, three-quarters that rate over smaller roads, and a mere one-quarter over trackless terrain.

[Reinboom]

As a half-aside...
Isn't it rather inefficient to have the fires burning constantly? It takes a lot of resources to keep a signal fire going, and firewood may not always be plentiful (even if it is a jungle), and more importantly, storms are going to be very annoying.

[Rutee]

Frosty is so cute in his internet innocence. It's like watching a huge, intelligent child.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

5 bucks says I can get him to look at Tubgirl if I really try.

[Serpentine]

The Intensity throws a wrench into things. I mean, I think it's pretty hard to see how intense a fire is without being close. At least, it's hard to tell unless there's only two settings: Low and High.

I dunno, gut instinct says two towers should be one mile apart?

If I do use that option, it will probably just be "low" and "high", as a sudden flare. I'm not sure about one mile, I'm certain that, say, the real-world medieval equivalent could go much further than that, terrain permitting.

By the way I read your explanation, wouldn't it be easier/ faster for a messenger to simply leg it to the next tower?

Trudging through miles of tangled jungle, with an excellent chance of getting lost, or at best jogging down a rough track over which logs and branches would have fallen, along with wild animals wandering around the place, verses the speed of sight and signalling? I doubt it.

Well, in the interest of simplicity....The section on wilderness terrain states that a forest fire can be seen up to 2d6x100 feet away. I imagine if the arrangement is designed for visibility it'd take the max, or 1200 feet.

Is that through trees, though? They'll all be spaced and maintained (they're bee people. They're organised) to maximise visibility, raised up over the treetops.

As for the rest...Giant ant soldiers (and workers) have a listed speed of 50 feet, which means they can walk 5 miles an hour, so they can walk 40 miles in a day before the risks of forced marching need to be addressed. This rate is impacted by terrain conditions and the like, of course, for that I'll have to refer you to that section of the SRD. But to summarize the basic jungle terrain conditions....They'll move at that rate along a highway or other major road, three-quarters that rate over smaller roads, and a mere one-quarter over trackless terrain.

Two questions: Would ants (particularly swarms) be effected by jungle terrain much? And how tired would ants get? I know a lot of these would be houserules - I appreciate you checking the rules for me, but just to let everyone know, I'm happy enough to get flexible with them - but I know soldier ants are nearly constantly on the move. Would "no walking for more than 8 hours a day, or you'll be hustling! " rule apply to something like them?

As a half-aside...
Isn't it rather inefficient to have the fires burning constantly? It takes a lot of resources to keep a signal fire going, and firewood may not always be plentiful (even if it is a jungle), and more importantly, storms are going to be very annoying.

Well, magic and/or alchemy would probably be involved, possibly a variety of fuels (oil? natural gas? Abeil building-paper (I described the buildings as an especially sturdy waxed paper-like substance)?), most of the tower would be storage and/or drying-space, and it would have a roof and possibly some other protection from the weather.

Thanks for your help everyone, 'preciate it. Does anyone know anything about the function of real-world watchtower systems?


Just cuz it seems to be getting a bit bogged-down in my usual needless complexity, here's the basic version: There will be a fairly intense system of watchtowers around a fort in a jungle. The towers rise up over the tree-line, and communicate using fire and smoke. The main question is, how far apart would they be? Secondary questions, which you can answer for me or I can just work out from the first question, how long would it take a person or a hoard of ants hustling (or simply walking for most of the day) to walk between them, and how many would there be in a line?

[Frosty]

Frosty is so cute in his internet innocence. It's like watching a huge, intelligent child.

And I still haven't discovered 4chan yet! Something in the back of my head keeps warning me to keep away for some unknown reason. Or maybe it's other internet users.

[SoD]

5 bucks says I can get him to look at Tubgirl if I really try.

10 says you can't.

[Tokiko Mima]

I wonder what it is about the internet that drives it to crush innocence as quickly and ruthlessly as possible? Despite what you might first imagine, being jaded actually kinda sucks. Everything was more fun and more entertaining when I was a newbie.

More on topic, I don't know how the flaring would work. It seems like if the next watch tower so much as blinked, it would miss the message. You need to know ahead of time to watch for the message.

If they wanted to communicate a message, it might be easier to do with mirrors or other reflective materials once the fire was lit using a Morse code style system.

[Serpentine]

I was thinking there could be a sort of "look here!" message first. 'course, even a flare would/could last at least a couple of seconds.

[Illiterate Scribe]

Serp -

Thanks for your help everyone, 'preciate it. Does anyone know anything about the function of real-world watchtower systems?

It's something that was rarely done in the real world, simply for material reasons, but it helps if you have each one covering another. Things should be set up so that you can't attack one without having to march through the range (either visual or weapons) of several others. Also, a radial arrangement is important - keep the network with as many routes back to the centre as possible.

10 says you can't.

I raise you 50 that I can redirect him to Last Measure, or at least deploy Astley, if I'm feeling generous. Watch those links, Frosty ...

[Jasdoif]

Is that through trees, though? They'll all be spaced and maintained (they're bee people. They're organised) to maximise visibility, raised up over the treetops.

Yes, I suppose that figure is through trees. Let me think...sparse forest is described as having small trees (small enough that a character can occupy the same square as the tree) on 50% of the squares, and if you're making Spot checks to detect the fire it says to treat it as a Collosal creature (so -16 to the Spot DC) for the purpose...I imagine the figure includes the possibility of having a mostly-obstructed line of sight to some part of the fire.

But I guess you're right, for a perfectly clear line of sight the visible range would be longer. Just to "pick" a notably bigger number, let's say 1760 feet; exactly one third of a mile.

Two questions: Would ants (particularly swarms) be effected by jungle terrain much? And how tired would ants get? I know a lot of these would be houserules - I appreciate you checking the rules for me, but just to let everyone know, I'm happy enough to get flexible with them - but I know soldier ants are nearly constantly on the move. Would "no walking for more than 8 hours a day, or you'll be hustling! " rule apply to something like them?

Ordinary ants? They wouldn't be meaningfully affected by the terrain, they're small enough to squeeze around most obstacles and they can climb over rough terrain...but their size also means they move slow. I guess I'm seeing the ant swarms riding along on their much bigger giant ant cousins. Giant ants, meanwhile, are Medium-sized (at least the most common ones); so I imagine they'd be as impacted by terrain as other Medium creatures are.

As for matters of endurance. Well, the rules assume that eight hours a day is the normal amount for walking overland, and the rest of daylight is spent "making and breaking camp, resting, and eating." Now flex the rules a bit....I would guess ants have no need to make or break camp, and perhaps they're able to eat on the go (or are they marauding because they need a food source and this fort happens to be the best chance they know of?), so maybe they can fit in 12 twelve hours a day. In that case, I'd just halve their overland rate and say they're on the move 24/7. It'd average the same as if there were two groups, one moving during one set of twelve hours and the other during the other twelve hours, but it's more aesthetic to have them all moving together. Also means they can defend themselves if attacked.

I was thinking there could be a sort of "look here!" message first. 'course, even a flare would/could last at least a couple of seconds.

I was thinking something like is done with fireworks--bags of a metal or other substance that burns a different color then the fire normally does. It'd be difficult to mistake the fire turning purple, for instance. Also you could work out a code that would allow to send the same message in less time (for instance: purple = +3 and count is continuing, green = +3 and count is complete, blue = +2 and count is complete, red = +1 and count is complete), but that might be overcomplicating things

[Frosty]

I raise you 50 that I can redirect him to Last Measure, or at least deploy Astley, if I'm feeling generous. Watch those links, Frosty ...

... Rutee, protect meeh!

[Illiterate Scribe]

... Rutee, protect meeh!

Beware the tinyurl. It is all I shall say.

[Frosty]

Beware the tinyurl. It is all I shall say.

tinyurl? As in a small-font web address?

[Illiterate Scribe]

tinyurl? As in a small-font web address?

As in the lazy-man's trolling tool; hide anything behind those letters, and Cillit-bang! and your soul is gone.

[Frosty]

As in the lazy-man's trolling tool; hide anything behind those letters, and Cillit-bang! and your soul is gone.

I have no idea what that means, and I will roll my Will Save to resist using my google-fu to find out.

[Jasdoif]

I have no idea what that means, and I will roll my Will Save to resist using my google-fu to find out.

To sum up, tinyurl.com has a free service for redirecting URLs. You put in a long URL, and it returns a shorter URL that will redirect there. It's handy for things like forum signatures and posts, where you have a limit on characters and each character in a URL link counts against it.

The problem is that since it's a redirect, you won't know where it actually goes until you click on it. Which does not necessarily reflect what the poster claims it is.

[Illiterate Scribe]

To sum up, tinyurl.com has a free service for redirecting URLs. You put in a long URL, and it returns a shorter URL that will redirect there. It's handy for things like forum signatures and posts, where you have a limit on characters and each character in a URL link counts against it.

The problem is that since it's a redirect, you won't know where it actually goes until you click on it. Which does not necessarily reflect what the poster claims it is.

Exactly. The 'cillit-bang' reference was one of my few worksafe ones - it was a famous, cheesy TV advert in the UK. Forget that, here's the proper url, the first one was just showing how easy this sort of thing is.

Anyway, to go back to topic:

Two questions: Would ants (particularly swarms) be effected by jungle terrain much?

It depends on your level of realism. In real life, the fact that ants can walk up trees is because they're tiny; large ants would fall off.

If you want to make them just as scaled up ants, though, they wouldn't be affected by Jungle terrain much - it might even make them nastier, since you can fit more ants into a complex 3D space than a simple 2D plane.

[Chosen_of_Vecna]

My absolute favorite rick roll ever: Here.

[Illiterate Scribe]

My absolute favorite rick roll ever: Here.

Ah damn, I can't believe you've done this.