Martian towers in Space 1889

[Shrale]

Originally Posted by Hans Rancke-Madsen

What I can't seem to come up with are some environmental obstacles along the way. Preferrably problems that are due to a lack of power or a genuine breakdown of some sort of machinery.

Hans

Well, if there's weather (as in Earth-like weather or something that's noticeable) MA's idea about some cult cut off, could be doing water collection, unless the thing already has indoor plumbing that works. A cistern could be up top someplace, taking rainwater or any other atmospheric chems it can collect and store them. That could be just waiting to malfunction and cause the players trouble (as in tidal wave from above). No one's used them in X years and they're overflowing is an obvious one.

The water could also be bled off to run a water-wheel style electrical generator (unless that's taboo). Such that they could find a way to activate some interesting puzzle of technology. The idea is that excess water is used during this experiment or that the players realize with some finagling they can get power to a level by utilizing a cistern.

Otherwise obstacles are probably going to be obvious blockades. And that they find a homing pigeon coop or trained monkeys on a level and the animals are able to show that the level above the block is open/free and they must do some climbing along the outside architechture, then come down for the others.

"Look here, this tome describes Shebol's Trap, a mechanism that allowed the
previous inhabitants to seal-off the building at the 32nd floor. Look at the
physics involved in making it impenetrable...If we were only up there. It can
be countermanded by releasing this series of..."

<looks out the window>

"By Jove! That monkey who took to Sanborn on the last level. He could take a
rope up the outside to the level above the trap and our two stoutest could
climb up and release the mechanism and further our passage!"

<smiles>

"Now fetch my slingshot and those peanuts, we shall have the little furball up
the side of this thing in no time!"

>

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by Hans Rancke-Madsen

What difficulties are associated with walking up 200 stories worth of stairs? how long would it take?

Assuming approximately 3m per story, that's 6km worth of stairs. Be kind and call it 5895m - that's the height of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Wikipedia claims that it takes 5-9 days to climb Kilimanjaro and return, but the mountain doesn't have a set of stairs going straight up.

So... I'd think it'd take approximately two days to climb to the top of one of these towers (lighter gravity is irrelevant; you still have to put one foot in front of the other), and another two to return to ground level. Pack some oxygen and plenty of fluids with your lunch, and mind the altitude sickness.

[Hans Rancke-Madsen]

Originally Posted by robkelk

Assuming approximately 3m per story, that's 6km worth of stairs.

It's 600 m.

So... I'd think it'd take approximately two days to climb to the top of one of these towers (lighter gravity is irrelevant; you still have to put one foot in front of the other), and another two to return to ground level.

For some mysterious reason, Mars turned out to have a gravity roughly 90% that of Earth. Unexpected, but very handy for running adventures on Mars. ;-).


Hans

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Hans Rancke-Madsen

It's 600 m.

2,000 feet. I think hikers reckon that each thousand feet change in altitude is as much work as walking a mile.

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by Hans Rancke-Madsen

It's 600 m.

Right. Obviously, I can't do math.

So, it's a 2/10 day trip up the stairs, or (gets out calculator, to be sure) 4.8 hours. Pack one lunch, instead of four days' worth of supplies.