Search Requests

SEARCH REQUESTS

At game start, the map is completely unexplored and covered by a "fog of war" obscuring its features. New characters will be randomly dropped onto the island's shores; from there, to uncover tiles on the map and figure out more about where they are, search requests are required to document movement, attempt to uncover hidden materials and passages, discover or confront dangers, find old ruins and create new settlements, and potentially, solve puzzles related to the mystery of the island itself.

RULES AND GUIDELINES

Search requests are a required mechanic of this game. A search request for the current AC cycle must be submitted in order to pass AC without a strike.
Mistakes in search requests will never be penalized. Don't be afraid to eyeball a distance or make an approximate guess; if the math doesn't quite match up, or the path doesn't exist, I will offer alternate destinations and work with you in order to decide how the search request will resolve.
Search requests will rarely be immediately fatal. Unless your character is doing something intentionally reckless, I will do my best to offer paths of escape for any sudden dangers that arise.
You can be as precise or as vague as you want. If you want to exactly plot out the squares your character will travel through and search every IC day, that is totally fine. It's also fine to simply report that your character is staying in one place all month, or to give a starting point and a desired destination, with a general request to search a wide area. Just note that, the more vague you are in your request, the more I will extrapolate to fill in the blanks.
Retroactive/backdated search requests are allowed. They just can't be used for the current month's AC if they fall outside of the current month's AC period, or overwrite a previously submitted search request. Forward-dated search requests are also allowed as long as they fall within the same IC day that the request was posted (for example, if you post a search request on IC Day 30 morning, you can make that search request last for the entirety of IC day 30, not just the morning of).
Thoroughly searching a square, rather than just traveling through it, halves movement through that square. So if you choose to search every square along a path, you'll only travel half as far as someone moving with purpose to a destination. Remember that simply traveling through a square will still fully reveal it.
IC Days are split into three 8-hour increments. Each of these corresponds to one OOC day. Morning is from 4AM -> 11:59AM, Day is from 12PM -> 7:59PM, and Night is 8PM -> 3:59AM.
Several examples of search requests are provided below to help illustrate how they work. If you still have questions, please ask them in the FAQ (or in your search request!).

MAP REFERENCE/TRAVEL CONDITIONS

TRAVEL CONDITIONS | IC DAYS 15 → 17

MORNING

DAY

NIGHT

BEACH

OCEAN*

JUNGLE

FOOTHILLS

MOUNTAINS

4 squares/hour
(32 total)
3 square visibility

4 squares/hour
(32 total)
5 square visibility

4 squares/hour
(32 total)
1 square visibility

2 squares/hour
(16 total)
3 square visibility

2 squares/hour
(16 total)
5 square visibility

2 squares/hour
(16 total)
1 square visibility

1 square/hour
(8 total)
0 square visibility

2 squares/hour
(16 total)
2 square visibility

2 squares/hour
(16 total)
3 square visibility

1 square/hour
(8 total)
1 square visibility

1 square/hour
(8 total)
5 square visibility

1 square/hour
(8 total)
7 square visibility

1 square/hour
(8 total)
3 square visibility

*The average human can only tread water for three hours

LEGEND

- Preexisting Structure

- Ocean

- Reef

- Deep Water

- River

- Natural Landmark

- Beach

- Jungle

- Mangroves

- Character-Made Landmark

- Foothills

- Mountain

Click on any of the map tiles for details.

III

VII

VIII

XII

XIII

XIV

XVI

SUBMISSIONS

# | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
All new characters will be given a toplevel to this post. To submit a search request, fill out the below form and copy/paste it as a response to your toplevel.

IC DATES: The IC dates the search request covers (I would also recommend putting this in the subject line to make it easier to keyword search later). You can use whole days, partial days, or a combination of either. To verify what IC days line up with real-world days and events, consult the Calendar.

STARTING SQUARE: The square your character is starting their search request on, format TILE.COLUMN.ROW. This should line up with your previous search request, or your starting location if newly arrived/revived.

ENDING SQUARE: The square your character is ending their search request on. If you're not sure where they'll end up (the area is unexplored/your character has a vague idea of where they want to go/you're not sure on the math/etc.), you can give a more rough answer here. Something like "they want to make it to Tile II," or "as close to II.AA.3 as possible" are perfectly valid answers.

DETAILS: The meat of your request. This is where you describe:

The path your character is taking,
The squares you want them to search,
Any special actions your character is taking during this period of time (or inaction), and
Any other special notes or questions you might have about this request.

Again, you can provide as much or as little information as you want; saying that your character is simply moving from point A to point B without searching anything is 100% acceptable.

NAVIGATION

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Is anything different or discoverable about the transceiver after that?
Does anything happen if he puts in that same number on the keypad? Curiosity getting the best of him here.

The transceiver itself seems completely unchanged - save the new callsign no longer showing up on the list, of course.

Assuming Senku hasn't been found and dragged to some shelter during his extended stint of unconsciousness (or that he at least comes immediately back to check on the door), when he inputs the same number into the keypad, it chirps twice, then the sound of several hefty locks unlatching comes from the door next to it.

ALAS everyone who would have noticed isn't at the airfield at the moment so guess he's just...stuck there lmao

You know he's gonna open that door though. Carefully, but he's still opening it.

The door is heavy - perhaps not surprising at this point, since Team Science has long since determined that the entire bungalow is surrounded by metal and concrete - but still moveable on internal hinges, swinging open with a tortured-sounding creak. The inside is small and quite dark, one room, illuminated only by a pair of dim overhead lights. The left third of the room is a set of counters and cabinets scattered with junk covered in a thick layer of dust. There's a terminal set into one of the countertops. The setup is reminiscent of a cramped science lab.

The right two thirds is dominated by some kind of massive machine. Four floor-to-ceiling bars sit in a circular track around a plinth, motionless, but bereft of the same dust and detritus found in the rest of the room. A layer of cracked and discolored safety glass separates the machine from everything else with an open space for a door in the center.

AMAZING

Senku has the flashlight attachment on the transceiver so he can use that to look around a little. Obviously the solar panels are powering this(?) but is there any sort of outlet or other access to the electricity running here?

Quick glance at the junk scattered around: anything immediately noticeable? He's not looking for anything in particular (FOR ONCE) but he's still looking around.

The machine: Is it obviously powered up? He's not going to go past the bars/open space yet, just looking from outside it for a second.

The terminal: If he can power it on, what does the display show? Is there any place to put in the code he reprogrammed with the Arduino, or any place to plug in the Arduino if he needs to run it from that? He doesn't have the Arduino on him right now; he can go get it if he needs it.

Day 024
Starting Square: IX.X.11
Ending Square: IX.X.11
Duration: 2 hours
General Search Results:

scrap circuitboard
transceiver skin - matte black with lime green stripes, patterned like the markings on a circuitboard

The junk doesn't hold much information aside from the Usual Fare (things that were probably brought in from the beach) and what's probably some more interesting technology buried under dust and light debris. What Senku finds above are what stands out the most to him from his cursory glance.

There are no visible outlets; likely, everything in here runs off of the floor- or ceiling-mounted simple plugs that Senku has observed in some of the other buildings, like the hangars. The machine has no obvious power source and shows no indication that it is currently turned on. The terminal, similarly, does not turn on or respond to any attempts to revive it via keystroke or other inputs. There is what appears to be a modified USB slot along the back of the monitor, which should (theoretically) accept the Arduino.

Oh, a cool transceiver skin! Keeping that and the scrap circuitboard.

First, he goes back to the debris there. Interesting technology? Gotta get a LOOK.

Then he goes back to the airfield for the Arduino. While there he picks up Dirk and Stephanie and they all go back to see what's up.

What happens when he plugs in the Arduino? Can he figure out what this machine IS or does before he actually runs anything like the debug program?

Day 024
Starting Square: IX.X.11
Ending Square: IX.X.11
Duration: 6 hours
General Search Results:

small magnifying glass
transceiver upgrade - a little square module with a USB-style plugin on one end and a tiny screen on the front, currently blank
seven handfuls of sage
eight pods of beach peas
4 oz of ethanol
plastic smoothie straw

Nothing happens when he plugs in the arduino - no response from it or the terminal. It seems that the terminal isn't connected to power, so the arduino can't tell it to do anything or spy on any of its internal files.

Even without any power or the ability to poke around in its files, context clues tell Senku that the terminal was likely multi-purpose. There are no other computer-like machines or spots for them in the bungalow, and the big machine at the other end of the room doesn't have an obvious control panel. Likely this was used for data storage and for controlling any other electronics that might have been in use here.

Dirk will look over the terminal to see if he can figure out how it's normally powered (like if there's a port for a power cord or any other indications of what powers it), and also check around the walls of the room for any outlets or cables or anything.

There are no obvious ports or cables that would indicate a line of power visible on the terminal. It is, however, directly bolted to the countertop, so it's possible that its connection to power is through the table somehow. This theory is bolstered when Dirk spots one of the simple recessed outlets under some debris on a different section of the counter. It's single-prong, in the same design as the other outlets found in other buildings across the island, such as the hangars and concrete bunkers.

Would Dirk or either of the others remember having seen any kind of cables that could plug into such outlets in any of the other buildings? Assuming there isn't one to find anywhere in here, of course.

No one seems to recall seeing a type of cable that could fit these particular outlets. Maybe they just haven't found one yet?

SOB

Okay, terminal isn't connected to power. ~~Can he see HOW it connects? I assume it's the same plugs as everything.~~ Maybe I should learn to read! Ignore this since I saw Dirk's comments above.

He still looks through the shelving debris for anything that looks like a power cord that plugs into these weird ass plugs, though not a lot of hope on this one! Ah well, scientific discoveries have to experience failures before successes.

Edited 2023-09-18 13:28 (UTC)

As the search continues past the end of Day and into Night, suddenly, the machine at the other end of the room starts to spool up.

It starts with a high-pitched humming noise, like the whine of a power line under a lot of load. Then a deeper, more ominous-sounding rumble. Then the vertical arms start to move, spinning on their tracks in the ceiling and floor, slowly at first, then rapidly increasing in speed. By about a minute in they've reached a truly blistering pace; it's impossible to see what's going on behind the rotating arms now. Aside from the constant electrical background noise and the disturbed air, the machine is oddly quiet through this whole process.

There's the briefest flash of something between the rotating arms - a bright, blinding white light. Then the electrical hum fades, the arms slow, and everything rolls to a stop. The machine is exactly as they left it, save maybe the arms landing in a different place.

Do they continue to explore the bungalow after this point, as you've described?

Steph is going to see if she can figure out exactly where those noises are coming from. If she happens to be looking at the machine when it flashes, is it at all possible to tell where exactly the light came from?

Most of the noises are coming from the mechanical components of the machine itself, although she can trace a lot of the background electronic humming to somewhere underneath it, apparently through the floor.

Looking at the machine during the "flash" doesn't do much other than make Steph temporarily blind. The light is coming from somewhere behind the rotating arms, but that's all she can figure from the other side of it.

EXCITING

But for tonight, no, they're going to bail. (Steph and Dirk might come back sooner)
Senku plans to come back and just check to see if the machine runs again the next night at the same time, but not go actually near it (we're saving that for later since meeting Leopard is more important to him rn)

Dirk leaves with Senku and Steph initially, but his curiosity gets the better of him and he returns to take a look at the thing soon after. He's being careful about it, though, and he'll first find a pebble to lob at it from a distance through the open doorway in the safety glass to see if there's any reaction to motion or contact.

Night 024
Starting Square: IX.X.11
Ending Square: IX.X.11
Duration: 8 hours
General Search Results:

transceiver upgrade - a screw-in antenna attachment, retractable, which can telescope out well past the antenna already installed on the transceivers
small coconut crab
canned meat - tuna
playing card - Queen of Hearts, eyes scratched out roughly with pen
beach towel
4 oz of ethanol
seashell (medium)
pillowcase

Few details jump out at Dirk about the machine. There's a central platform, the four vertical metal arms with some embedded tech on the insides that resemble solar panels, and that's about it. The machine remains dark and inert, even after he throws a pebble at it. The rock bounces harmlessly, albeit with an unholy loud clatter, off of one of the vertical metal arms.

Dirk initially grabs everything but the crab, stashing it all in the pillowcase to look through later. But after his experiment with the pebble, he goes back to catch the crab and gently tosses it similarly at the machine, aiming for the space in the middle of all the arms. Sorry lil guy, it's for science.

The juvenile coconut crab struggles, but its little arms are too short to do anything to Dirk as he picks it up, then underhand tosses it into the center of the machine. The machine does nothing. The crab curls up into a tight ball for a minute or so, then quickly unravels and tries to scuttle out of the bungalow.

The crab is free to go after its contribution. Dirk finally steps through the doorway in the safety glass himself, and (provided he doesn't instantly die somehow) he'll take a closer look at the machine to see if he can figure anything out about what it does or how it works.

The machine doesn't do anything when Dirk steps inside, and it keeps its secrets well-hidden from him. The interior of the spinning arms seems to have some kind of material under the surface, reminiscent of solar panels, but they're sealed shut. The platform in the center is frustratingly nondescript. No other details stand out to him as especially significant.

Except jk Dirk doesn't give up that easily. With nothing new discovered from a closer examination, he notes the time it had activated earlier and sits his ass down in the main room by the terminal. He'll just camp out in here overnight, lightly snoozing, to see if it comes on again at any point.

While chilling before getting a bit of sleep, he goes through the stuff he found earlier and tries out that antenna attachment to see what it does.

Edited 2023-09-23 02:17 (UTC)

The antenna attachment doesn't seem to do anything at first, until Dirk checks his incoming messages. Each message now has a number next to it formatted as "XXX.X" (for example, 015.7). Based on how the smaller numbers are next to messages from people Dirk knows are nearby, it's a safe bet that this is some kind of distance measurement.

The machine does not stir at all overnight, or at the start of Morning 025.

(no subject)

timaeus - 2023-09-24 04:06 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

glencolans - 2023-09-25 14:48 (UTC) - Expand

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