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Old 10-02-2014, 01:18 PM   #31
vicky_molokh
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Default Re: Navigation, maps and TL

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Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
No, it's a real English word. David Morgan-Mar is an engineer and a cartoonist, I don't think he was ever a commando or explorer.
Yeah, it's a real word. What I mean is that the way the skill aggregation occurred during the conversion, it seems that there's a reason to at least suspect (though not be sure, as GURPS trait names can differ from real-world definitions) that the orienteering courses are included in GURPS Navigation. Probably. Not sure.
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Old 10-02-2014, 01:19 PM   #32
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Default Re: Navigation, maps and TL

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Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
David Morgan-Mar is an engineer and a cartoonist, I don't think he was ever a commando or explorer.
Yes, but that's not really what was going on. For one thing, the name change was approved by Kromm and Pulver; it's in the Basic Set. For another, it's part of a general agenda of unifying things with similar functions under similar names, the same one that gave us Innate Attack and Expert Skill as categories.

Nothing prevents you from noting that the real world activity of orienteering falls under Navigation (Land).

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Old 10-02-2014, 01:27 PM   #33
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Default Re: Navigation, maps and TL

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Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
By "posts", I meant the literal poles that the boxes in a land-nav training course are set on. They are posts (you know, like some Lance Coporals and PFCs with a post-hole digger in 19__ probably put them there) in the middle of the wilderness and a box with a dog tag with a random string of digits on it. You have to find the box and do a rubbing of the dog tag, to complete the course. You are given a list of randomized boxes (there are more boxes in the course than any one student gets) and you have to find your boxes and return to the start. You have a certain amount of time, and like everything in military training in the US it is a race, the first people to return get extra points, and also the rest of the time off. You have a map, a protractor, a pencil and a compass (and certainly no DAGR or other GPS device).

Could you do that without a map? Because that is Navigation (Land).
That's an exercise in map reading, not navigation. Yes, I agree that map reading is required for a modern army. But if one just wanted to go for a walk in the woods, even if one haven't been there before, one don't need special talents.

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Most people don't have any training in Navigation.
Most people don't pay attention to their surroundings. I don't know if this is innate or they have conditioned themselves this way to cope with city life.
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Old 10-02-2014, 01:29 PM   #34
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Default Re: Navigation, maps and TL

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
Yes, but that's not really what was going on. For one thing, the name change was approved by Kromm and Pulver; it's in the Basic Set. For another, it's part of a general agenda of unifying things with similar functions under similar names, the same one that gave us Innate Attack and Expert Skill as categories.
When you guys wrote Low-Tech and when Hans wrote High-Tech you both seemed to treat Navigation pretty consistently as making navigable courses in unknown territory, though.
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Nothing prevents you from noting that the real world activity of orienteering falls under Navigation (Land).
Does it, though? The rules in both Low-Tech and High-Tech seem to say that it doesn't. Survival really does make more sense for it, IMO.
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Old 10-02-2014, 01:31 PM   #35
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Default Re: Navigation, maps and TL

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Originally Posted by shawnhcorey View Post
I don't know what you guys are talking about. I have gone for walks through woods where I have never been before ad I have always known where I started from. I do not need a map to keep things straight.
I have something similar. Though for semi-obvious reasons I've not gone for a walk in the woods. I thought my father had something similar, but discovered this summer that I'm much better than him at finding my way back to the beginning point in an unfamiliar place.
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Old 10-02-2014, 01:34 PM   #36
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Default Re: Navigation, maps and TL

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Originally Posted by shawnhcorey View Post
That's an exercise in map reading, not navigation.
That's weird since it's called a "land navigation course" not "a map reading course".
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Yes, I agree that map reading is required for a modern army.
According to the rules it's also required for Navigation in order to avoid the -10 penalty. This indicates to me that the GURPS skill is the skill of navigating with a map and not general orienteering.
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But if one just wanted to go for a walk in the woods, even if one haven't been there before, one don't need special talents.
Sure. I thought you were saying that was Navigation (Land), though. I don't think you need any skill at all to follow well-marked trails.
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Old 10-02-2014, 02:14 PM   #37
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Default Re: Navigation, maps and TL

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Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
This indicates to me that the GURPS skill is the skill of navigating with a map and not general orienteering.
If you can see a mountain, and set out to walk toward it, that's just Perception, or maybe Hiking to make good time or Survival to get through difficult terrain.

If you know that the temple you want to get to is on that mountain, that could be Area Knowledge or Navigation.

If the mountain is over the horizon, but you know that that river flows down from the area where that mountain is, and if you follow the river until you get the mountain in sight, that's probably Navigation. Especially if you have a map that shows where the river is in relation to the mountain, and a bunch of other landmarks, so you're relying on a cognitive model that's larger than you can perceive at once and includes places you've never been. But in principle the "map" could be, say, a long poem that describes landmarks and their relation to each other, and that you've memorized. In either case it's landmark-based Navigation rather than dead reckoning or celestial navigation.

If you say, "The mountain is at latitude X and longitude Y, and we're at latitude P and longitude Q, so we need to go thirty-eight miles 23° east of due north, and the map shows there's a river five miles east of here whose source is near the mountain, so we should first make for the river and travel along it," that's Navigation at TL5.

Where we drew the line was at relying on abstract coordinates in some form, rather than "Oh, now I need to turn left."

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Old 10-02-2014, 02:26 PM   #38
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Default Re: Navigation, maps and TL

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
If you can see a mountain, and set out to walk toward it, that's just Perception, or maybe Hiking to make good time or Survival to get through difficult terrain.

If you know that the temple you want to get to is on that mountain, that could be Area Knowledge or Navigation.

If the mountain is over the horizon, but you know that that river flows down from the area where that mountain is, and if you follow the river until you get the mountain in sight, that's probably Navigation. Especially if you have a map that shows where the river is in relation to the mountain, and a bunch of other landmarks, so you're relying on a cognitive model that's larger than you can perceive at once and includes places you've never been. But in principle the "map" could be, say, a long poem that describes landmarks and their relation to each other, and that you've memorized. In either case it's landmark-based Navigation rather than dead reckoning or celestial navigation.

If you say, "The mountain is at latitude X and longitude Y, and we're at latitude P and longitude Q, so we need to go thirty-eight miles 23° east of due north, and the map shows there's a river five miles east of here whose source is near the mountain, so we should first make for the river and travel along it," that's Navigation at TL5.

Where we drew the line was at relying on abstract coordinates in some form, rather than "Oh, now I need to turn left."
Sure, but that's what I'm saying. Most of what the people in this thread are talking about is "Oh, now I need to turn left" and not Navigation at all.
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Old 10-02-2014, 02:51 PM   #39
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Default Re: Navigation, maps and TL

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Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
Sure, but that's what I'm saying. Most of what the people in this thread are talking about is "Oh, now I need to turn left" and not Navigation at all.
Yes. The severe Navigation modifiers cited in the OP don't really apply.

The daughter of Austin Tappen Wright told a story of her father teaching her and her siblings to sail, and of her plotting a course formally for a place she meant to sail to—which she could see perfectly well across the bay, but she wanted to navigate!

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