For best effect, use two cars on parallel tracks attached by a large cable. The difference in the weight of the cargo is all you need to move. If you already have water pumps to keep the hole empty, you use the outflow of the pump to fill up a tank on the descending car until it's heavier than the ascending one, spill the tank at the bottom and fill the tank on the top one. Or use a large wheel powered by Giant Space Hamsters (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Giant_space_hamster are technically gnomish, but gnomes can be hired). Or a large earth elemental that pulls on ropes to move the cars. Maybe a wind elemental that blows on sails in a windmill at the top. Maybe do the humane thing and use captured humanoids in the large wheels that power the whole thing instead of defenseless hamsters.
Disaster scenario #31: a sewer breach for some reason or another happens and huge amounts of sewage cascade down into the pit, worsened at high tide by backflow through the channels. This scenario is a close relative of #1 "the river floods", which is only similar in effects to #11 "storm surge". Expected mitigations for surface flow include a large levee directly around the upper part of the hole and spare pump capacity in case the levees begin to fail. The last line of defense is the portal (portable drain type iii, model 2) from the sump of the hole that opens up above the wizard's college because they made the !@#)(* things and forgot where they put the other end. Life is hard at the bottom of the gravity well... Putting a drive wheel directly underneath each car greatly reduces the need for cabling, btw.
How about carts pulled up the inclined track by mountains goats? Gravity should get the carts down, and rope and pullies to control the speed of descent?
If I decide to keep the cavern I'm going to imply the use of water and gravity - a traditional water powered funicular (such as the one I've ridden on myself not that far away in Devon - the Lynton and Lynmouth cliff railway), where there are two carriages on opposite sides of the ramp attached to one another by a very long cable that loops around a large wheel at the top. The operator at the top decides how much water to load into the water tank underneath the carriage based on how many passengers he has, and how many are waiting to come up in the other carriage. Sufficient water is added to make the carriage at the top slightly heavier than the one at the bottom, so once the brakes are let off the movement is driven by gravity.
At the bottom of the ramp there will be a pool of waste water discharged by the bottom carriage to make it light enough to go back up to the top with passengers/cargo.
This creates something of a problem in this particular map, however, since the cavern is below sea level... at the moment... and there's no way to get rid of the waste water (never mind any deluges - magical, sewerage, or otherwise), so I might have to undo what I did yesterday and save this cavern idea for another city.
I'm trying to make up my mind today which way to go, and how to solve the problem if I decide to keep the cavern.
Keep the cavern!! It looks fantastic! As far as the mechanics of "getting down"....suspension of disbelief goes a LONG way in fantasy rpg. Perhaps Dumathoin, the patron god of mining and underground exploration grants it's power? Like the saying goes....Don't sweat the small stuff
The cavern could have a hole dug down to a large underground cavern, under the seabed - which would take all the deluge water/sewerage - until it too filled up, but heh, be 21st century - don't worry about the long term future - let the unborn bozos cope with that - we have profits to make.
Sue, you could make the cavern entrance a lot smaller, and set it higher than sea level (on a low hill, say) if the whole "flooding" thing becomes too much of a distraction. A quarry can be into a hillside, rather than into the ground, after all (many ancient and medieval quarries were simply convenient surface rock outcrops, for instance). Having the cavern then extend in whatever direction was desired from there, including even many miles out under the seabed, wouldn't be a problem for expert miners - real-world humans have managed it for generations, so fantasy dwarves should have no difficulties!
I can see what you mean, Wyvern, and if this was the real world I would probably do just exactly that - not have a gaping hole in the middle of the city like that. But now that I've done it, its sort of grown on me in a strange way and I really want to make it work.
I think there will be a much smaller hole in the floor of the existing cavern that is a gateway to some marvellous underworld - through which any downpour can conveniently drain away to wherever such things go on a fantasy world...
Such a special site must of course, have some kind of dwarven temple associated with it
Well, my computer keeps giving me the blue screen treatment. Win 10 and the processor security upgrades hit me really badly. I'm having a lot of trouble all over the place with all my apps, so I think it will be fairly soon I have to shut everything down and take it to the repair shop. That might take about a week, and even when I get it back I may have to reinstall everything from the backup, so...
Sanctuary is still in progress. I've just hit an unavoidable delay of approximately a fortnight to 3 weeks. During that time I won't be able to see or speak - cut off from the virtual world. (I can't believe how much anxiety I feel about that prospect - its just nuts).
I haven't died. It just my machine that's dead - for now.
I might try to delay this inevitable event for another couple of days and take it to the shop on Monday morning first thing, but I just thought I'd warn everyone now, in case I forget to say anything just before I pull the plug.
Sue, I hope that you can get your computer up and running again. We'll miss you while you're gone.
Mine has been giving me fits on occasion too so I know how you feel. Every major update causes my task manager to go blank and I have to repair system files. I know a full reinstall of the OS would fix me up, but I'm just too lazy to do it. I just have too much software I'd have to reinstall and I don't feel like it. I was going to do it after the 2017 Fall Creators Update but just keep putting it off. I'm pathetic. LOL
I have to go and pay someone to plug in more RAM, check the fans and all the other bits and pieces are working properly, and finally clean 3 years of dust out my machine.
I'm so pathetic that I'm afraid to open the thing up myself. I think that's because its the only PC I have. Its not like I have a spare if I mess it up.
Feeling slightly sick about this now, since I've just been trying to back up to an external drive, and it appears the external drive isn't working properly, so I'm also going to have to pay for the man in the shop to back up my drive before he does anything to it. *rolls eyes*
We sound like a pair. My backup drive died back in the fall.
Good luck with this Sue. If you were in the US I could point you to a reasonably priced backup drive that might cost less than paying someone to do it. Alas, we have a big pond between us.
LOL! And that pond costs about £40 for the smallest parcel to cross - without the postage. That's what the customs charge the recipient in this country for anything that's been spot checked at customs, and for some reason they ALWAYS check parcels coming to me!!!
I think its because I once had an American boyfriend... or something.
I understand the whole customs thing. My husband is an amateur WWII historian and often orders books and scale models from across the pond that just aren't available here. It gets expensive but it keeps him happy.
Your hubby sounds like a sweet man with a loving wife
I've just checked the drive and found nothing wrong with it, but still the backup won't work. I BET this is Win 10 at fault... AGAIN!!! This OS is so riddled with stupid holes I wish every day that I'd stuck with 8.1. In fact, if I discover its not going to cost as much as I thought to get the RAM and the cleaning job done, I might just ask them to reinstall 8.1 for me - even though that would mean a complete and total reinstall of absolutely every last piece of software I own. It would be worth it to get rid of Win 10.
Part of the problem is that they keep adding stuff to Windows10 and some of us have slightly older systems that just bog down with the excess. My laptop is four years old now and I hope to get another year out of it. I'm just happy that CC3+ runs well on it.
Well, I'm off for the night. I hope everything works out for you!
I have Win 7 on my main computer - and no problems; and Win 10 on my laptop, with only a few problems, mainly because i hardly ever use it unless we go away, and then not much (and we only go away once a year for more than an overnight stay). I'll be sticking to Win 7, until I get better reports
Posted By: Loopysue[...] if I discover its not going to cost as much as I thought to get the RAM and the cleaning job done [...]
You may well find yourself happily surprised about memory prices. I recently bought 32 GB of ram and was surprised that it had come down so much since last I checked: Two 2x8 GB Corsair Vengeance Pro 1600 MHZ DDR3 Kits for $139.99 per kit ( 32 GB total ) ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00D2LGRLK/ ) And Corsair Memory Fan for $29.53 including accent covers in all three colors. ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GU9UG9A )
Still waiting for the backup to finish - now that I've actually got my laptop to 'see' the external drive.
Very bored. Now that I've got it working I dare not do anything in case I upset the equilibrium.
But its nice to know that I will probably be able to afford to bring this back to its original state - a perfectly usable Win 8.1 machine again. Thanks
This version has been a while coming. I've been fiddling around with things that seem quite small, but which have taken a lot of thinking and planning - new breakwaters, colours, relief shading and road patterns...
Comments
Thank you so much, Joe!
I haven't had a good laugh all day till now.
I see how it should work now... but I'm still seriously tempted by the giant space hamsters :P
The ramp is 50ft wide, so there should be more than enough room.
I've just realised I forgot to put any shadows on the towers! Doh!
Ok, but I've still got to work out how to fix the hamster wheels on the side
I'm giving away all my secrets in this city! :P
1) handwavium.
2) description
Otherwise I have no idea how to represent that.
Life is hard at the bottom of the gravity well...
Putting a drive wheel directly underneath each car greatly reduces the need for cabling, btw.
Joe - Hmmm.... Maybe the cavern wasn't such a massively splendid idea?
Maybe I should do a massive ziggurat instead and go the other way? Save the cavern idea for another city?
At the bottom of the ramp there will be a pool of waste water discharged by the bottom carriage to make it light enough to go back up to the top with passengers/cargo.
This creates something of a problem in this particular map, however, since the cavern is below sea level... at the moment... and there's no way to get rid of the waste water (never mind any deluges - magical, sewerage, or otherwise), so I might have to undo what I did yesterday and save this cavern idea for another city.
I'm trying to make up my mind today which way to go, and how to solve the problem if I decide to keep the cavern.
I'll keep the cavern. I can see I am deficient in the imagination department this morning. Great ideas both of them.
I think there will be a much smaller hole in the floor of the existing cavern that is a gateway to some marvellous underworld - through which any downpour can conveniently drain away to wherever such things go on a fantasy world...
Such a special site must of course, have some kind of dwarven temple associated with it
Sanctuary is still in progress. I've just hit an unavoidable delay of approximately a fortnight to 3 weeks. During that time I won't be able to see or speak - cut off from the virtual world. (I can't believe how much anxiety I feel about that prospect - its just nuts).
I haven't died. It just my machine that's dead - for now.
I might try to delay this inevitable event for another couple of days and take it to the shop on Monday morning first thing, but I just thought I'd warn everyone now, in case I forget to say anything just before I pull the plug.
Mine has been giving me fits on occasion too so I know how you feel. Every major update causes my task manager to go blank and I have to repair system files. I know a full reinstall of the OS would fix me up, but I'm just too lazy to do it. I just have too much software I'd have to reinstall and I don't feel like it. I was going to do it after the 2017 Fall Creators Update but just keep putting it off. I'm pathetic. LOL
I have to go and pay someone to plug in more RAM, check the fans and all the other bits and pieces are working properly, and finally clean 3 years of dust out my machine.
I'm so pathetic that I'm afraid to open the thing up myself. I think that's because its the only PC I have. Its not like I have a spare if I mess it up.
Feeling slightly sick about this now, since I've just been trying to back up to an external drive, and it appears the external drive isn't working properly, so I'm also going to have to pay for the man in the shop to back up my drive before he does anything to it. *rolls eyes*
I'm still working up the courage...
Good luck with this Sue. If you were in the US I could point you to a reasonably priced backup drive that might cost less than paying someone to do it. Alas, we have a big pond between us.
I think its because I once had an American boyfriend... or something.
I understand the whole customs thing. My husband is an amateur WWII historian and often orders books and scale models from across the pond that just aren't available here. It gets expensive but it keeps him happy.
Your hubby sounds like a sweet man with a loving wife
I've just checked the drive and found nothing wrong with it, but still the backup won't work. I BET this is Win 10 at fault... AGAIN!!! This OS is so riddled with stupid holes I wish every day that I'd stuck with 8.1. In fact, if I discover its not going to cost as much as I thought to get the RAM and the cleaning job done, I might just ask them to reinstall 8.1 for me - even though that would mean a complete and total reinstall of absolutely every last piece of software I own. It would be worth it to get rid of Win 10.
Well, I'm off for the night. I hope everything works out for you!
I'm busy overheating the device now by defragging it! LOL!
I recently bought 32 GB of ram and was surprised that it had come down so much since last I checked:
Two 2x8 GB Corsair Vengeance Pro 1600 MHZ DDR3 Kits for $139.99 per kit ( 32 GB total )
( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00D2LGRLK/ )
And Corsair Memory Fan for $29.53 including accent covers in all three colors.
( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GU9UG9A )
Still waiting for the backup to finish - now that I've actually got my laptop to 'see' the external drive.
Very bored. Now that I've got it working I dare not do anything in case I upset the equilibrium.
But its nice to know that I will probably be able to afford to bring this back to its original state - a perfectly usable Win 8.1 machine again. Thanks
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The larger image is here.