Search Requests

[glencolans]

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

2 squares/hour
(16 total)
1 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.

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

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.

<b>IC DATES:</b> <b>STARTING SQUARE:</b> <b>ENDING SQUARE:</b> <b>DETAILS:</b>

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:

1. The path your character is taking,
2. The squares you want them to search,
3. Any special actions your character is taking during this period of time (or inaction), and
4. 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

Comments

[glencolans]

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.

[timaeus]

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.

[glencolans]

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.

[timaeus]

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.

[glencolans]

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.

[timaeus]

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.

[glencolans]

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.

[timaeus]

Well shit, that's potentially useful.

Are the numbers static (as in each one seems to be distance at time of the message) or do they actively change to reflect current position? Do they change if Dirk moves around himself, or does it look like it's more based on where he was at the time of the message? And are there any similar numbers on the list of callsigns or only on messages?

[glencolans]

The numbers are static, and they do seem to be message-dependent rather than callsign-dependent; they only show up on the messages, not the callsign list, and different numbers show up on different messages sent by the same callsign. If Dirk moves relative to a stationary recipient and sends a message, the number next to the sent message will be different.