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Sunset > Papyrus

Papyrus - A Social Puzzle

The gathering, drying, and replanting of Papyrus is a dandy social puzzle that is worthy of some serious attention.

There's an interesting "Papy Thieves" thread in the forum with a summary of the Sunset Papyrus Guild's approach:
http://www.atitd.net/forum/showthread.php?t=5060
http://www.atitd.net/forum/showpost.php?p=45091&postcount=75.

Please consider the following major elements of the discussion:

And Finally:

Welcome to the stomping grounds of the Sunset Papyrus Guild. Guildmembers make several planting runs per week, starting at the 1475, 2240 Obelisk (where our Veneries are also located), and targeting the Papyrus growing area along the Nile that is bounded by 2440 and 2800. There are Papyrus Hieroglyph sculptures that mark each corner of that growing area, so that folks unfamilar with the area will have occasion to realize that it's a managed area.

Sunset Papyrus Guild == Promoting a Shared Harvest Model
Everyone is completely welcome to gather or plant in this area at any time, but you should be aware that it is a heavily trafficked area with multiple users, and that many of those users prefer to replant Papyrus during their final loop, and leave it standing, thereby Preserving a Shared Harvest.

Early in Tale 2, the Guild was told that we were crazy for locating a major guild complex in such a remote area. How much of the current population density along the RSO Nile do you think is attributable to Guild activities?

Sunset Papyrus

The Sunset Papyrus Guild is a Mentoring (New Member) Guild that's part of the Sunset group. The mood we aim for is that of a Quaint Historic Farm. We know that more advanced techniques are available, but we like to churn our own butter.

Expectations

As new members come from a variety of gaming backgrounds, it sometimes takes folks a few days to realize that

ATITD is not about
In your Face = Thud and Blunder
ATITD has plenty of challenges and conflicts, but the interactions between players are more subtle than you might at first realize.

Much of the fun in ATITD, especially during the first few weeks, comes from figuring out how everything works. We're not going to deny you that fun by doing everything for you. On the other hand, if something seems unreasonably hard, or we notice that you're struggling, help is readily available. Simply ask your question on the guild's chat channel, we were all new members not that long ago. If the peer answers are wildly incorrect, one of the Kinsmen, Patriarchs, or Elders will likely add additional information but, if you're close, they'll generally let you sort the matter out amongst yourselves. New friends, and shared success, will be your most treasured memories from the time you spend with us at Sunset Papyrus.

The Initiate's Papyrus Seed chest, on the south side of the 1475, 2240 Obelisk, has Papyrus Seeds that are only for planting Papyrus. Plant a few seeds anytime you're near the Obelisk so that visitors will alway be able to find some "wild" Papyrus near 2440, just North of the wide spot with the Date Palm Trees.

The Sunset Papyrus Guild wants you to learn all of the basic skills but, once you know how to find Slate and can crank out 50 Board per minute on a Wood Plane and can keep up with a Brick Rack array, or you're simply not in the mood, go ahead and use the Carpentry Benches and future Brick Machines even though you couldn't make an iron blade or gear if you had to.

If you go on a carrot growing binge, for example, keep what you need and stash the rest with the Guild. Somebody else will hate growing carrots, so it all averages out.

Courtesy

If you're conducting a tour, or training someone in the use of a particular skill, we would prefer that you use the Guild chat channel. Such conversations tend to draw related comments from other members, who may wish to join you, and you can never tell just when a concept is going to click with somebody that didn't quite understand it.

Everyone in the Guild participates in the Guild Channel. Keep it interesting. An extended conversation between just two people, unless it's Guild related, is best taken to a private chat channel. The /af <name> command, followed by F11, provides a popup with the online status of your friends, and provides an easy way to open a private chat channel.

If you can't use certain words and expressions in the classroom or in the office, don't use them on the Guild chat channel.

We're not very interested in how badly you're being treated by someone else. Use your /squelch <name> command, and ignore them until you calm down, and then /unsquelch <name>. If you can't resolve the situation by yourself, ask one of the elders to get involved. In particular, don't ever complain about people "Stealing Papyrus that You Planted." Papyrus is pretty, and folks are inclined to grab it when they see it. The Guild receives far more Papyrus Seed from donations that it ever loses when people gather "wild" Papyrus.

Graduation and Promotion

Our expectation is that most new guildmembers will take about 6 weeks to learn their basic skills, and to find their place in Egypt.

We expect you to struggle a bit with your initial skills but, once you've conquered them, you'll be a lean mean production machine. Boards, Bricks, Rope, Canvas, Linen, Papyrus, Veggies, Sheep, and Metals all have their fascination. The Sunset Papyrus Guild is the agricultural base of the Sunset Group. Some of our excess product is used internally for Sunset Group projects, but most of the excess product is contributed to various projects throughout Egypt, preferably to projects sponsored by our current guildmembers.

Learning basic Bonfire Skills is your main task while you're an initiate in Sunset Papyrus. You'll learn many other basic skills as well, but they are all more obvious.

Figure out how to use a Bonfire to create 50 charcoal, grilled fish, ash, and lime. You may come up with the raw materials by trading, or you can use guild facilities to obtain the raw materials, but getting the raw material is very much a part of the test, as is becoming familiar with the production techniques.

Once you convince an Elder that you understand the basic skills, the Elder will ask you to perform one or more of the above activities, using Guild resources.

The most likely test is to
Produce 20 or more Grilled Fish with 20 or fewer Wood
A promotion to Member or Kinsman requires more than the mere demonstration of basic skills. The Elder who promotes you assumes a continuing obligation that we take rather seriously, and the Elder must be convinced that a promotion would be good for both the graduate and the other guildmembers. Participation in Guild activities is the obvious way to develop the relationships that you will need for promotion to Member or Kinsman.

Keyboard and Mouse Commands

See Commands for a comprehensive list. The important commands are:

Forums, Wikis, and Technology Trees

You are explicitely encouraged to add information to this page. If you goof it up, we'll recover, and good wiki skills are a fundamental part of your ATITD skill set.

Foraging for Resources

Much of your time in ATITD will be spent gathering resources. The Test of the Darkest Night, as an example, is all about finding the proper Mushrooms.

Grass

All of the green areas, and many sandy areas with a green tinge, will activate the Grass icon in the upper righthand corner of the screen.

The easiest way to gather Grass is to select Emote | Gait: Walking, and the click on the distant edge of a grassy area. Simply click, click, click on the Grass icon as you're walking toward your destination.

Once you have the Rythmic Strength skill, a Papyrus Basket, and a Scythe, your Grass gathering efficiency will double.

Slate

Gathering Slate is similar to gathering Grass, except that you must be on the bank of a river, lake, or pond.

Silt

Silt can be found mear most bridges and in many low lying areas. Silt is used in making Fire Bricks.

Clay and Flint

Gather Slate is similar to gather Grass except that you must be on a patch of Clay, typically a grey area of low lying broken ground, and you must have Water in a Jug. You'll get some Flint about 5% of the time.

Wood

You gather wood by clicking on Trees, Brambles, and some pretty unlikely looking short palms. Your wood gathering ability is much improved if you have a good hatchet.

Thorns

You can gather Thorns from a dozen or so of the slow spiky plants. We don't seem to have Roses.

Herbs

You gather Herbs by clicking on any sort of plant that says, "This is some kind of Herb." The catch is that there are 12 different ways of gathering Herbs. The Foraging page is a good starting place.

Herbs are used in Kitchens and in Houkahs.

Mushrooms

Mushrooms are complicated. They only grow at night, for a couple of hours, and each kind of Mushroom favors a different sort of terrain. A few of the mushrooms are strictly regional, but most of the spawns shift location each night, and may be found anywhere, if you're both dedicated and lucky. Sign up for the Test of the Darkest Night if you're interested in Mushrooms. Mushrooms are used in Cooking.

Papyrus

Papyrus is a shared resource. The Sunset Papyrus Guild is working very hard to ensure that some "wild" Papyrus is always available on the West bank of the Nile, just North of 2440.

We have a Papyrus Hieroglyph Sculpture at each corner of the Papyrus run, entitled

Sunset Papyrus Guild == Promoting a Shared Harvest Model
If someone wants to argue with you about stealing their papyrus, point out the sculpture and explain a bit about our objectives.

Planting and Gathering

Papyrus seeds are always available in the chest behind the Guildhall. Whenever you're in the area, plant a few seeds. This will ensure that some "wild" Papyrus is always available for our visitors to find.

Papyrus along the Nile provides the best yield during mid-day, from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm. We've been getting about 3.6 Papyrus per Seed. In our area the offset is 200 coordinates to the North, and the delay is 30 /time minutes, or about 12 minutes real time. During darkness the Papyrus Seeds are dispursed of a semi-circular area, and the apparent yield along the Nile will be lower. The recommended approach is:

Drying Racks and Flax Hammocks

There are two Papyrus Drying Compounds up on the mountain directly West of the main RSO bridge at 2300, and some Drying Racks as well. Just follow the road up the ramp. There's a fabulous wood run, and use a high F7 view to look at the scenery.

There's a Drying Compound just to the right of the upper ramp, and another up on the very top of the hill to the left. Both compounds have several Flax Hammocks (4 minutes) and Drying Racks (20 minutes). The perspective is tricky, and the height difference between the two locations isn't as great as you might think when looking from the West side. Both compounds seem to give the same results.

Alway dry Papyrus bundled 20 at a time. Partial bundles don't do well. We've been averaging 2.2x Seeds per Papyrus in both compounds. The yields are very random. We've seen everything from 0 to 80 seeds per bundle of 20 papyrus.

A Hand Loom is available for making Papyrus Baskets.

A Paper Press is available for making Papyrus Paper.

If you end up with more than you can carry, a contribution of Dried Papyrus or Seeds will ensure that there will always be Papyrus along the Nile.

Sunset Papyrus Guild == Promoting a Shared Harvest Model

Fishing

The tuition for the Fishing Skill (a fishing pole, actually) is 1 Board and 25 Twine at a School of Body.

Fish are distributed in diagonal bands about 150 coordinates North to South. Within each band the fish are grouped as follows:

During the night, between 8pm and 8am with a couple of peak hours that vary for each person, we've been getting 6 deben fish, on average, with about 60% of the casts yielding fish. If you fish repeatedly in the same spot, the fish will either get bigger on average, or smaller, as useage seems to make a difference. We're still gathering data, but here's what we're seeing on the West side of the Nile, near the Guildhall.

Westside Catch
2280 Cromis
2275 Ripples
2270 Chromis
2265 Chromis, Phagrus, Tilapia (Water Mine)
2260 Chromis, Phagrus, Tilapia
2255 Chromis, Phagrus, Tilapia
2250 Chromis
2245 Tilapia
2240 Tilapia (North side of inlet)
2235 Tilapia, Catfish (back of inlet)
2230 Tilapia
2225 Tilapia, Catfish (South point)
2220 Catfish
2215 Catfish
2210 Catfish
2205 Catfish
2200 Catfish
2195 Catfish
2190 Abdju
2185 Catfish, Abdju, Perch
2180 Abdju
2175 Perch
2170 Perch
2165 Perch
2160 Perch
2155 Perch
2150 Perch
2145 Perch
2140 Perch, Oxyrynchus (back of bay)
2135 Perch, Oxyrunchus, Carp
2130 Oxyrynchus (out on the point)
2125 Carp
2120 Carp
2115 Ripples

You can grill fish over Bonfires, to obtain +2 endurance food. Your cycle time on a Flax Comb, for example, will drop from 60 seconds down to 45 seconds, which increases your productivity by 33% for a few minutes.

Processing Resources

Once you've gathered resources, you can then process them.

Clay and Water Jugs

Some Clay on a Pottery Wheel will allow you to make a Wet Clay Jug that you can then fire in a Kiln.

Water Jugs and Flax

You can get 4 Flax Seeds from the SArt every few minutes, and you can grow Flax in any grassy area.

The primitive strains of Flax only require weeding, most of the high yield strains require both weeding and watering. Genetics (which still isn't available in Tale 2) allows improved strains of Flax to be created.

If you don't weed and water your Flax, or if you're too slow, the Flax Plants will go to seed. You can harvest seeds for several cycles.

Flax is used for roof thatching. Dried Flax is pretty much worthless. Flax that has been rotten in water is used for cloth.

Water Jugs and Veggies

Clay, and thereby Water Jugs, allows you to water Flax, Barley, and Vegetables. You can get 4 Vegetable seeds from each UWorship.

As soon as you're familiar with the basics of life in Egypt, you should take the grand tour and collect a full set of 28 Vegetable Seeds. Visit the ULeaderships as well, and get your Pyramid skills up to level 7.

Onions and Sheep

Sheep eat Onions, about 10 Onions per day per Sheep.

Straw and Camels

Camels eat Straw, produced by either drying Grass or by processing Flax. Straw is also valuable for making Bricks. A male camel eats 300 Straw per day. A female camel eats 100 Straw per day. Female camels will also produce Milk when they've eaten a bit of Honey.

Wood Planes and Carpentry Benches

Wood Plance consume Stone Blades as you'll only get about 20 Boards per blade. If you pin the popup window and click click click on Plane Wood into Boards, and have some extra Stone Blades in your pocket, a single Wood Plane can generate 1 Board per second.

Carpentry Benches consume Iron Blades (made on an Anvil), and a good quality blade is good for several hundred Boards. A Carpentry Bench has a 50 Board automatic mode that will run so long as you stand in one place. Even if you click continuously, a Carpentry Bench enforces a 10 second cycle.

You can use Hot Keys to keep several Carpentry Benches going concurrently. You have to set your Chat Options so that your Chat area can be minimized, and then keystrokes will be directed to whichever device the cursor is hovering over.

Brick Rack Arrays

Brick Racks can be stacked several deep. A skilled player can easily produce 120 Bricks per minute, using a couple of stacked arrays. Bricks need Straw. Fire Bricks need Silt.

Flax Processing

Twine (for Fishing), Canvas, Rope, and Linen are the end products of Flax processing.

Flax Combs and Hackling Rakes

Flax Combs and Hackling Rakes will be your first introduction to the Endurance timer. You can only cycle the equipment once every 60 seconds, but a performance boost from eating a Grilled Fish will reduce your cycle time to 45 seconds.

Distaffs

Distaffs take a while, but they sure beat spinning Thread, Twine, and Rope by hand.

Student Looms and Hand Looms

You can make Canvas and Linen on a loom. Female avatars have a shorting Endurance cycle than Male avatars.

Art & Music Initition

You need 100 Boards, 10 Rope, and 4 Linen to build a Sculpture. A single Sculpture can contain up to 25 objects. The objects may be move and rotated in 6 dimensions, which allows for a lot of creative designs.

Box Kilns and True Kilns

Use box kilns to make Fire Bricks. Use a True Kiln for everything else.

Charcoal

You can make Charcoal in a Hearth, but using a Bonfire is a lot more convenient, and a lot less frustrating.

Bonfires

Bonfires are kind of interesting, and suprisingly efficient if you understand how to use them. The basic idea on Bonfires is that they operate on a 10 Teppy second cycle.

Bonfires don't provide any feedback. Other than the wood consumption test to determine the temperature, you won't know how you're doing until the Bonfire burns itself out.

Certain goods are converted when they are added to a Bonfire. Other than Wood for Charcoal, all of the ingredients should be added before you light the Bonfire. The Bonfire must remain at the correct temperature long enough to convert the total number of each ingredient, one per cycle. Even though the result if always Grilled Fish, each type of Fish is treated as a separate ingredient.

Fish don't burn until the temperature reaches 10, so you can add Fish at the outset, before you light the fire. All other ingredients are consumed on every tick, regardless of the temperature, so you need to wait unti you reach the desired temperature before adding them to get your full allowment of Ash or Lime. You can also intentionally waste the initial few ingredient ticks just for the convenience of not counting ticks.

Likewise, the amount of wood consumed per tick in the same as the temperature, but 1 Wood is just as good as many, per tick. You can add one Wood per tick = 10 Wood for a Stoked Fire. You can also start with 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10 = 55 Wood for a Fire and Forget Fire that will reach exactly the same temperature, without counting or timing the ticks.

While a full list of ingredients is avaiable at Bonfires, the Bonfire products of interest for the graduation test are:

Ingredient Product Temperature Production Yield per Cycle
Just Wood Charcoal 4-8 0.5 per wood
Charcoal Nothing 13 or higher 0.5 Charcoal is comsumed if the temperature gets too high
Any Fish Grilled Fish 10-20 1.00 per Fish
Dried Papyrus Ash 5-10 0.45 per Papyrus
Limestone Lime 2-6 0.1 per Limestone
Limestone Lime 7-9 0.7 per Limestone

Steady State Bonfires

Build and Burn

The amount of Wood burned at the start of a cycle depends on the temperature during that cycle. If you're willing to waste a lot of wood, you can build a huge fire, light it, and simply watch.

You can grill 21 of each type of Fish in a 191 Wood Bonfire, as an example, because of the following Build and Burn temperature profile.

Cycle Temp Wood Blind Result
0 0 191 Nothing
1 1 190
2 2 188
3 3 185
4 4 181
5 5 176
6 6 170
7 7 163
8 8 155
9 9 146
10 10 136 1st Fish is Grilled
11 11 125 2nd
12 12 113 3rd
13 13 100 4th
14 14 86 5th
15 15 71 6th
16 16 55 7th
17 17 38 8th
18 18 20 9th
19 19 1 10th
20 20 0 11th
21 19 0 12th
22 18 0 13th
23 17 0 14th
24 16 0 15th
25 15 0 16th
26 14 0 17th
27 13 0 18th
28 12 0 19th
29 11 0 20th
30 10 0 21st Fish is Grilled
31 9 0 Nothing
32 8 0
33 7 0
34 6 0
35 5 0
36 4 0
37 3 0
38 2 0
39 1 0
40 0 0 Bonfire goes out

Convenience is expensive though, as you've used 191 - 11 - (30-10)/2 = 170 more wood than the Steady State approach.

Stoked Bonfires

You can get exactly the same results starting out with 20 Wood and 21 of each type of Fish.

If you add 1 Wood on alternate cycles, once you reach a particular temperature, you can maintain that temperature indefinitely.

Mining

Our mining, metalworking, marble, and pyramid related activities are sponsored by our sister guild, Sunset Foundry.

The Test of Mentorship

Mentor Shrines

The inlet to the West of the Guildhall is the preferred location for our Mentor Shrine Garden. It's entirely appropriate to include the Shrine Garden in your tours, point out Shrines that you have placed for others, and point out Shrines that others have placed for you, but don't ever demand a Shrine, beg for a Shrine, or even assume that you deserve a Shrine.

Mentor Shrines have no direct relationship with the "Mentor" menus displayed by Immigrants.

Each player with a paid account, and 24 hours of in-world experience, has the option of placing one Mentor Shrine.

Kinsman

Member Compounds

Members in the Sunset Papyrus Guild are under no obligation to disclose the location of their personal camp, nor to guild any of their machines or facilities. If you do chose to donate one or more of the machines in your camp to the guild, you are encouraged to post the location of your camp here on the Sunset Papyrus Wiki page.

There are two reasons, really.

If you decide to drop out of the Guild, the property in your camp will be transferred back to you upon requrest in most instances, although the Elders do have the option of retaining property that was created for the most part using guild resources, or as compensation for damages.

Map of Egypt

F3 Map Location
----

Guild or Name
----

Emphasis
----

The table is sorted by location, Top/Bottom (North/South), Left/Right (West/East).
F3 Map Location Guild or Name Emphasis
1073 2514 Gems and Metals The mining complex is concealed in a hollow to the right of mid-ramp. The equipment is usable by anyone, but the chests are controlled by Sunset Foundry
978 2462 Papyrus Drying Complex This is the pretty building off to the right of the upper ramp, past the trees. By cycling between the Nile and the Mountain, you can easily triple your Papyrus holding each hour. (The Guild gets a lot of donations when folks realize they've harvested more than they can carry)
1478 2440 Papyrus Sculpture This is the point, 200 coordinates North of the south inlet, where you are most likely to find Papyrus planted by Sunset Papyrus.
969 2432 Papyrus Drying Complex Ifur also has Flax Hammocks, that are useable by Anyone, on the South Peak. They're a bit higher, with yields that are a bit higher as well. The site is tough to reach but, if you're a purist, it's worth the struggle.
1064 2429 Brick Factory This is our primary high volume brick area. It's located near the base of the ramp, near the lake, and has a pair of 60 unit Brick Rack stacks and plenty of storage capacity.
1114 2420 Board Factory This is our primary high volume boards compound. It's located near the base of the ramp, in the middle of a good wood run, and has 7 Carpentry Benches.
1452 2384 Sheep and Veggies Each of the Sunset Guilds has a chest with seeds for Barley, Flax, and all of the Veggies. There's also a Grain Oven, Malting Tray, Wine Barrels, and a Toxin Kitchen. The related Greenhouse is just a bit to the North, by the Camel Pen. Just across the Nile, Northwest of the Main Bridge.
1404 2352 Sheep Spawn Wild Sheep can usually be found at this location. There's a catch, however. Don't call a GM, just try to figure out what's going on.
1450 2340 Sunset Papyrus Our entry level mentoring guild focuses on basic skills, including Fishing, Growing Flax, Preservation of Papyrus, and Grass Production. The Guildhall is just West of the Nile, on the South side of the Main Bridge to the RSO Chariot Stop.
1224 2334 Apiary There's a cluster of 5 beehives on the ridge to the South of the mountain road, and other's on the hilltops parallel to the road.
1466 2304 Flax, Pottery, and Glass Our primary Jugs, Flax, an Glass compound. It has a Glory Hole and several Glazier's Benches, with a Mason's Bench and a Rock Saw thrown in for good measure. Just across the Nile, Southwest of the Main Bridge.
1458 2259 Carpentry Benches Aberdon's compound has 5 Carpentry Benches, useable by Anyone, with plenty of nearby trees.
Elsewhere
-1418 2769 Desert of Shades From the Chariot Stop, head East into the desert. You'll see mile after mile of mile after mile. There are, however, some wonderful little pockets in the Desert of Shades, if open space appeals to you. It's about 30 minutes on foot, across open country, or you might prefer following the recently built road.
2318 2283 Red Sea Oasis From the Chariot Stop, follow the main road to the West, and across the Nile. Sunset Papyrus will be on your left, you should be able to see the Welcome Banner, and the Drying Complex is further to the West, at the end of the road. It's about 20 minutes on foot, following the road.
647 -169 Karnak Ten Paper Presses. Bring your own Linen. Across the Nile West of Karnak. Sponsored by The Brotherhood of the Sphinx
826 -3653 Lower Nubia Lower Nubia Chariot Stop.
1209 -4600 Papyrus Drying Complex in Lower Nubia 10 Flax Hammocks (Useable by anyone), 1 Hand Loom (Useable by anyone). PapyrusSeedsSupplyDepot.
605 -7663 Upper Nubia On top of mountain, 4 Flax Hammocks, Public Seed Chest

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Last edited January 3, 2006 11:44 pm by MarvL (diff)
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