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Old 07-31-2014, 08:50 PM   #1
DataPacRat
 
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Default Not Quite the Clacks

After the apocalypse, there are some areas you shouldn't use radios, for fear of calling up sleeping killbots and worse things. The Mad Queen Bunny has gotten parts of an old robo-factory to work, and has had an idea: signal lamps, on towers, to speed up communications between the city-states on the south of Lake Erie...


I've thrown together a few thoughts from GURPS 3e's Vehicles on a possible design, but could use feedback, suggestions, and alternate ideas.

* General robofac tech level: TL9ish, with batteries nerfed. (As power cells, but 10 times weight and volume, though only 30% listed cost.)

* A 200-foot tower has a horizon distance of about 18 miles, meaning two such towers can talk to each other over about 36 miles. A 100-foot tower can see the top of another such tower about 24 miles away, and is much smaller and less expensive. With that range, a mere 14 towers could be used to stretch from Niagara Falls through Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, and Toledo to Detroit.

* In Vehicles, a 100-foot mast needs a main body to support it of at least 15,625 cubic feet. Given the formulae for top-deck area, and a few other things, that suggests a box about 12 feet tall by 18 feet wide by 72 feet long.

* Vehicles Expansion 1 has the 'multi-section' option, which lets you take a vehicle to pieces and store it (minus cargo space). The current design collapses the building-and-mast-and-gear into under 680 cubic feet, which lets two modular-towers to be stuffed into a standard 20-foot cargo container for easy transport. Assembly or disassembly is under half an hour, allowing for reasonably rapid repositioning.

* A rule-of-thumb I've heard is that for any one job that you want done 24/7, you need 5 people to cover all the shifts. So we can set up the building with that many bunks, and enough provisions for a month on their own.

* The initial comm device: A heliograph. Based on the stats from the relevant Vehicles book, it has a range of 30 miles with sunlight, or 5 with moonlight.


* Various upgrades can start to be slotted in as the system matures:
- Air-conditioner/heating system, along with a battery, windmill, and some solar panels to run it.
- To provide at least a bit of security, a keypad lock on the door, along with the electrified triple-row concertina wire from Ultratech. (And more batteries, and wind/solar generation capacity.)
- To let the tower crew be really independent, a 'Total Life Support' setup in which they can grow their own food. (And still pack it all up to move when needed.)
- First comm upgrade: A searchlight, with a searching range of 1.5 miles, when fitted with shutters allows for flashing signals at up to 30 miles away.
- Another comm upgrade: An infrared searchlight; visible with a pair of 'Nightshades' from Ultratech.
- Later comm upgrade: Flat-out Lasercom from Ultratech

* The total system as designed above: About $33k and 4 tons, not counting food-growing ($53k (mostly for solar power) and 2 tons) and lasercom ($5k).


A setup like that is fodder for all manner of plot contrivances, of which I've jotted down a few so far:

- Simply collecting teams of 5-or-so people to live at the towers, relay the messages, and maintain the machinery... and, possibly, defend it from post-apocalypse bio-engineered monsters, or bandits, or the like.

- Arranging for transport when a tower needs to be moved (due to political complications, hungry new neighbours, cheaper rent elsewhere, setting up a new branch line, etc).

- Passing messages containing information relevant to the tower operators themselves, such as a warning of an invading army of giant tree kangaroos that they might want to flee from.

- General complication inspirational material: Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals, and media based thereon.



Anyone want to throw further ideas into the pot?
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Old 07-31-2014, 09:47 PM   #2
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Default Re: Not Quite the Clacks

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Originally Posted by DataPacRat View Post
* In Vehicles, a 100-foot mast needs a main body to support it of at least 15,625 cubic feet. Given the formulae for top-deck area, and a few other things, that suggests a box about 12 feet tall by 18 feet wide by 72 feet long.
Why should this be needed? Isn't your tower anchored in the earth? The earth is a lot bigger than 15,625 cubic feet! It's not like a ship or an airship or an iceboat, which can tip over. Your tower might break, but the earth isn't going to capsize.

Bill Stoddard
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Old 07-31-2014, 09:56 PM   #3
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Default Re: Not Quite the Clacks

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....an invading army of giant tree kangaroos..
Are we taking cows with guns, or chickens with choppers?

Also, you can eat macropods, so dead tree kangaroo would be rather tasty....
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Old 07-31-2014, 09:57 PM   #4
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Default Re: Not Quite the Clacks

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
Why should this be needed? Isn't your tower anchored in the earth? The earth is a lot bigger than 15,625 cubic feet! It's not like a ship or an airship or an iceboat, which can tip over. Your tower might break, but the earth isn't going to capsize.

Bill Stoddard
It started because I don't have any handy stats on cost, weight, or setup time for radio-style towers (with or without guy wires); but given that heliographs need to be manned to work, being able to ship both tower and bunkage seems to be a reasonably plausible approach.

Or, if you've got a replacement idea, I welcome alternative suggestions.
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Old 07-31-2014, 10:03 PM   #5
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Default Re: Not Quite the Clacks

I suggest that you read up on the semaphore networks that preceded the electric telegraph. The first was I think the Chappe network in France about 1790. They were common in France, the UK, Sweden, Prussia, Russia, the USA, Canada and several other countries until about 1850. The last optical telegraph line to be taken out of service was about 1880. Those will give you benchmarks on practical tower heights, link lengths, staffing levels, transmission rates, and latency. There is a bit of information in the article in Wikipedia.
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Old 07-31-2014, 10:14 PM   #6
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Default Re: Not Quite the Clacks

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Originally Posted by DataPacRat View Post
It started because I don't have any handy stats on cost, weight, or setup time for radio-style towers (with or without guy wires); but given that heliographs need to be manned to work, being able to ship both tower and bunkage seems to be a reasonably plausible approach.

Or, if you've got a replacement idea, I welcome alternative suggestions.
I'm thinking that you just build the mast and assume that the "vehicle" isn't needed.

Or, if you want, assume that there's a second mast sunken into the earth, with the same size and cost as the one that sticks up. Kind of handwavy, but probably good enough for gaming.

Bill Stoddard
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Old 08-01-2014, 06:41 AM   #7
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Default Re: Not Quite the Clacks

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Originally Posted by DataPacRat View Post
...
* In Vehicles, a 100-foot mast needs a main body to support it of at least 15,625 cubic feet. Given the formulae for top-deck area, and a few other things, that suggests a box about 12 feet tall by 18 feet wide by 72 feet long.

...

A setup like that is fodder for all manner of plot contrivances, of which I've jotted down a few so far:
...
- Arranging for transport when a tower needs to be moved (due to political complications, hungry new neighbours, cheaper rent elsewhere, setting up a new branch line, etc).
...
Put wheels or tracks on that box and a drivetrain and controls in the box, make it possible to mount the mast horizontally on top of that 72-foot length for shipment as well as vertically for operation, and you've got your transport. (Your 18-foot width spans three lanes of a highway, IIRC, so you'd have to drive around Hamilton rather than taking the bridge if you want to get one of these to Toronto.)

You might want a secondary power supply to provide motive force; the power supply for day-to-day signals operation probably wouldn't be enough for any decent speed (read: could be slower than 1 km/h). Alternately, tow the box with a "big rig" tractor and don't install controls in the box.
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Old 08-01-2014, 06:43 AM   #8
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Default Re: Not Quite the Clacks

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Originally Posted by DataPacRat View Post
It started because I don't have any handy stats on cost, weight, or setup time for radio-style towers (with or without guy wires); but given that heliographs need to be manned to work, being able to ship both tower and bunkage seems to be a reasonably plausible approach.
The crew might need to sleep during transport or before setup is complete. Just put the bunks in the shipping container. Once the tower is up, the empty cargo space also makes for decent living/recreational/storage space to make long deployments more palatable.
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Old 08-01-2014, 07:40 AM   #9
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I don't have any handy stats on cost, weight, or setup time for radio-style towers
... but Google does.

http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp...ire-(ame25-10c)

See the last post, especially:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r155...struction-cost

http://www.eham.net/articles/16837/
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Old 08-01-2014, 11:08 AM   #10
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Default Re: Not Quite the Clacks

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Originally Posted by Agemegos View Post
I suggest that you read up on the semaphore networks that preceded the electric telegraph. The first was I think the Chappe network in France about 1790. They were common in France, the UK, Sweden, Prussia, Russia, the USA, Canada and several other countries until about 1850. The last optical telegraph line to be taken out of service was about 1880. Those will give you benchmarks on practical tower heights, link lengths, staffing levels, transmission rates, and latency. There is a bit of information in the article in Wikipedia.
Yep, I've been burying myself in that source material.

One difference seems to be that the semaphore towers are only a few stories tall, and tended to be placed about 6 miles apart; while I've got masts maybe four times as high and up to four times the distance. Having a quarter of the installations could prove to be a significant cost savings, not to mention providing only a quarter of many places to have to defend.

(I'm mildly amused that one optical telegraph line got its funding through a lottery, and am considering that option for the Mad Queen, too.)
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