The Stranger's Preamble
You know me as The Stranger.
Architects of Egypt...
You have shown your willingness to erect extravagant testaments to your own wealth.
Let us see if you are capable of creating something to make the lives of your fellow citizens a bit easier.
Your scientists have invented the technology for building enormous water towers and pumping stations, that can be assembled into a system of Aqueducts, capable of bringing life-giving water to the most remote regions of this land.
Build such a system. You will not, however, be evaluated on the size of your creations.
In this Test, advancement is based purely on how often your aqueducts are used by others. I foreign concept, I know.
I give you: The Test of Life!
-- Gharib
"Create a system of aqueducts, starting with a pumping station in the Nile. Areas around some aqueduct towers will be hospitable to growing certain vegetables. Accumulate points based on which towers are most used for such agriculture, and which towers supply those with water" (UArch Test description)
Test Details
This is the Architecture Test from the Tale1 Monument. Design notes from Tale1 can be found here.
Tale 1 Monument Text
For generation upon generation, from the beginning of time, man has lived along the shores of the Nile or in a few oases spread across the desert, unable to make use of any land far from these sources of life giving water. Now the goddess Heket has looked upon the vast expanses of dry, dead land and grown unhappy. She has commanded you, the Architects of Egypt, to use your skills to bring life to those lands that have never known life.
You must search out plots of earth that Heket has blessed with the potential for extraordinary fertility. Build a pump, a cistern, and a system of aquaducts to bring the water of life to these fertile plots of land. As long as a plot is supplied with water, it will continue to produce a bounty of vegetables. But be warned, if the water supply is halted the vegetables will die, and it will take some time for them to grow anew when the water is restored.
Those architects who irrigate plots that see continuous, sustained use will be rewarded with the favor of Heket.
The detailed design for the Test of Life can be found at http://atitd.centauri.org/wiki/The_Test_Of_Life/Design
Benefits of aqueducts
Each tower has a water cistern that you can drink from and will give a 24 teppyhour (~27 RL hrs) +1 boost to a single attribute. The attribute boosted is dependent on the tower and is in addition to permanent stats and in addition to food. Only one attribute may be boosted by drinking (drinking from another tower removes the previous aqueduct bonus).
Towers also give a 3x boost to vegetable harvests grown within 4 coords of the tower. Again, the particular vegetables boosted are dependent on the tower and may appear to be none if the tower boosts grass-grown vegetables but is only surrounded by sand. You can also refill jugs near a tower, making them ideal locations to grow vegetables. The tower boost is in addition to other bonuses (I confirmed that the 2 beetle bonus of +6 is given on top of the 3x boost. The 3 beetle bonus for extra seeds works as well. - OldJoe).
Moss grows around the cistern on towers and may be harvested. Drinking from a tower potentially changes the moss type - you can affect it once per hour (drinking from other towers within an hour of your first drink has no effect on the moss). If someone is at the tower they may be doing moss tests, so it's courteous to ask before drinking (or drink from another tower first to ensure you won't affect their moss).
Herb seeds can only be planted near aqueduct towers - see the Herbiculture guide for details on how these work.
The various aqueduct project pages generally list which of their towers have which bonuses (see links at the bottom of the page).
Building an aqueduct
To begin an aqueduct, an aqueduct pump must be built 'near the Nile'. The definition of 'near the Nile' somewhat loose - some of the Karnak lakes are acceptable while other parts of the Nile are barely within the acceptable boundaries. A general rule is anywhere papyrus will grow (approximately X=200 to X=1600). To test specific spots, build an aqueduct construction site and see if it has a pump option (only appears in valid pump spots).
Once a pump is built, you can connect aqueduct water towers to it (and to other towers) to carry the water away from the Nile to more useful locations. Towers must be built on a hexagonal grid at a distance of 20 coords (320 ft) from the place it's connecting to. When you build an aqueduct construction site, a locator window pops up with a distance-to-valid-location indicator, so all you need to do is home in on a suitable location using it. You select the direction the tower should connect in when you choose the tower project from the site. The following picture shows the layout with distances should you wish to calculate coords manually (click tower_coords.jpg in the attachments below for the trignometric derivation).
(can use 17 instead of 17.32)
Anyone may connect to an existing aqueduct (no access permissions are required), but it's courteous to check with the owners of the pump and anyone living near the site of your tower. See the section below on maintenance for the cost your tower will impose on the aqueduct. Your tower may connect upsteam to only one other tower or pump. Branches are allowed, ie. the aqueduct can be a tree, not just linear.
In order for water to flow down the aqueduct, there must be a height difference of at least 5 ft between each tower (and between the first tower and the pump). Anyone may raise the height of the pump (by clicking on a tower connected to it) up to a maximum of 1000ft or raise the height of any tower. The height of the landscape is taken into account, so if you build your tower on a hillside, you can save the cost of raising it. When planning a route across the landscape, a barometer may be useful to measure altitudes.
Tower building cost
- 1 cistern
- 5 Copper Pipe
- 200 Raeli Tiles:black
- 100 Raeli Tiles:white
- 50 Raeli Tiles:yellowish
- 50 Raeli Tiles:redish
- 50 Raeli Tiles:greenish
- 50 Raeli Tiles:bluish
- 100 concrete
- 20 tar
Tower raising cost
To reach level N from level 0:- 2000 + (50 * N) bricks
- 2 * N concrete
- Round(1.5 * N) cut stone (rounded up)
- 5 + ( N / 50 ) pipe segments
To reach level N from level M:
- raising cost = (Total cost of level N tower) - (Total cost of level M tower)
Pump upgrades
It is now possible to increase the size of the pump's reservoir so that it holds more than the basic 100,000 units of water. See the aqueduct pump page for costs.
Aqueduct survey spreadsheet
A comprehensive Aqueduct Survey tool is available at Altitude Readings. The spreadsheet supports the use of several calibrated barometers, caluclates the coordinates of nearby towers, provides entry of X Y coordinate, barometer readings and time of day, and calulates the corrected altitude for the Tower Base. You can then indicate the required elevation of the Pipe, and the required height for the tower will be calculated. Best of all, a tab is included that allows you to cut and paste the entire survey into a Wiki page to get a nice map. See Keyhole Lake for a working example.
Maintenance of an aqueduct
After the capital costs of building an aqueduct (building and raising pumps and towers), there is also a component of upkeep required. In order to keep the water flowing in the aqueduct, the pump must be regularly manually 'wound up'. If the pump runs out of water, the whole network slowly drains away. A great way to help out is to spend a little time winding the pump up now and then.
The basic pump has a capacity of 100,000 units of water and each tower holds 250. The rate of consumption of an aqueduct is 1 unit of water per tower per minute (1440 per day). A network of 35 towers would totally drain a full basic pump's reservoir in about 2 days.
Anyone (permissions don't matter) can pull on the pump by clicking on a tower immediately next to it. Each pull incurs a 60-second endurance timer and adds 36 water to the pump's reserve, plus 36 additional water per strength point you have. If you have negative strength, you cannot pump water. Food and aqueduct bonuses help. While both attributes are both linear in terms of water/minute, the coefficient is much higher for strength, so pumping recipes are probably best focusing mainly on that. The following table illustrates the rate of water per minute in a ratio of strength vs. endurance.
| Strength | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 14 | 21 | 28 | |
| Endurance | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| 0 | - | 36 | 72 | 108 | 144 | 180 | 216 | 252 | 288 | 540 | 792 | 1044 |
| 1 | - | 41 | 82 | 123 | 164 | 205 | 246 | 288 | 329 | 617 | 905 | 1193 |
| 2 | - | 46 | 92 | 138 | 185 | 231 | 277 | 324 | 370 | 694 | 1018 | 1342 |
| 3 | - | 51 | 102 | 154 | 205 | 257 | 308 | 360 | 411 | 771 | 1131 | 1491 |
| 4 | - | 56 | 113 | 169 | 226 | 282 | 339 | 396 | 452 | 848 | 1244 | 1640 |
| 5 | - | 61 | 123 | 185 | 246 | 308 | 370 | 432 | 493 | 925 | 1257 | 1790 |
| 6 | - | 67 | 134 | 201 | 267 | 334 | 401 | 468 | 535 | 1003 | 1471 | 1939 |
| 7 | - | 72 | 144 | 216 | 288 | 360 | 432 | 504 | 576 | 1080 | 1584 | 2088 |
| 14 | - | 108 | 216 | 324 | 432 | 540 | 648 | 756 | 864 | 1620 | 2376 | 3132 |
| 21 | - | 144 | 288 | 432 | 576 | 720 | 864 | 1008 | 1152 | 2160 | 3168 | 4176 |
| 28 | - | 180 | 360 | 540 | 720 | 900 | 1080 | 1160 | 1340 | 2700 | 3960 | 5220 |
Because of the often-immense quantity of endurance herbs required to reach 28, in comparison to the strength herbs required to do the same, it is advisable both from a cooking standpoint and a logical one to focus on strength if possible. This is not to say endurance should be ignored, because of the multiplier -- even seven points doubles the use of the recipe. And, of course, if 21 points or above are reached in strength /and/ endurance, it may be wise to stir Cement when you're done pumping.
Passing The Test of Life
The objective of the test isn't merely to built an Aqueduct, but rather to build a useful Aqueduct. Test points accrue to the owner of each tower through which water passes, once the water is used for growing vegetables. For each planting that is harvested, the tower at which the harvest occurred and all the towers upstream from it will receive 1 point; as such a tower nearer the Pump will accumulate more points than the downstream towers. The only score that counts is that of your best tower. You can check your current score via the Tests->Test of Life menu (score is updated irregularly, normally around passing time). Once a week, the 3 (or sometimes 7) people with the highest score will pass the Test.Once someone has passed, their towers are no longer considered. Towers cannot be transferred (but can be DPPRAed) so it is not possible to pass a good tower on to a friend.
Random snippets
- A system message: Scientists at Egypt's Great Universities of Architecture announce that it has been determined that Aqueduct pipes are always fabricated in 320 foot (20 coordinate) segments, and suggest that this be taken into account when placing a pumping station.
- Is there a maximum number of tower sites per pump/cistern?
- Simple Answer - Yes.
- Complex answer - Max towers is variable based on ability to keep the pump cistern filled. Consumption from pump cistern is 1 water per tower and pump per TeppyMinute (aka 3 egyptian minutes). Pump cistern fill rate is strength dependent.
- How long will it take to fill a new water tower?
- One full fill a few seconds after build
- Conversation with Pharaoh
- Trathien: If a pump is built using the locator will it connect to any adjacent towers built correctly using the locator or must you build a tower precisely 20 coordinates from the pump
- Pharaoh: Any.
- if someone DPPRA's a tower, do they then accrue its points & pass with nothing more than the claiming of the tower?
- do not believe they will be effected by DPPRA as it is part of an entire system tearing one down would effect every tower after it
- on the other hand, it seems to have passed people that've claimed towers ;)
Aqueduct Guilds and Group Efforts
|
Pump Location
Who?
Status |
| Pump Location | Who? | Status |
| 830 6160 | PBBB Pharaoh's Bay Bucket Brigade | Pump builtNorth Egyptian Water Supply |
| 830 6160 | Nile Delta Water Works | Pump built North Egyptian Water Supply |
| 1150, 7321 | RAC Pump | Pump Built |
| 1537, 2249 | RSO WaterWorks | Pump built |
| 1130 -952 | Karnak Water And Power | Pump built |
| 635 0 | Red Sand Glass Emporium | Pump built |
| 2839 5412 | Sinai Water Works | Pump builtNorth Egyptian Water Supply |
| 861 -3563 | LN-FP Pump Station Project | Pump Built |
| 512 3143 | Keyhole Lake | Just a Survey for a future DoS Aqueduct |
| 737, -2777 | Fumeologist Water Pipe Co | Pump Built, line to 84 cabbage complete |
| 970 -2198 | Lower Karnak Plumbers Union | Pump built |
| 700 5332 | Thirsty VoK | Pump built, line to VoK complete |
| 1430 3450 | The Place of silence | Pump built |
| 840 6760 | Projet Shadock | Pump built, working on towers |
| 747, -1956 | Village Aqueduct | Pump built, working on towers, recruiting tower builders (see linked page) |
| none selected | Upper Nubia Aqueduct | Gathering resources |
| 830 6160 | Egyptian Water Works | Pump built. Guild is no longer active but wiki link is preserved as routing information to PB and VoK for various scenarios are there. |
