A Tale in the Desert/Travel

Egypt is a large place, and there are a number of different ways to get around.

1 coordinate = 16 feet = about 5 meters.

On foot
The simplest (if not fastest) way to get around is on foot. Your base travel speed is approximately 16 feet per second off-road; travel on roads is slightly faster at 20 feet per second. Running speed may be increased by increasing certain attributes: Higher dexterity allows you to run faster off-road, and higher speed allows you to run faster on-road. At 7 points of dexterity, off-road travel speed is the same as on-road speed. Carrying more than 500 bulk will negate the off-road speed bonus from dexterity.

Steep slopes or deep water will block foot travel. Ferries can be constructed to cross narrow rivers.

Chariots
Chariots provide a rapid, inexpensive means of traveling between regions. There is a chariot stop located in the center of every city. Each chariot stop provides connections to the stops located in several neighboring regions.

Chariots may be used in two ways: At specific times for free, or at any other time at a cost in offline travel time. Most routes are available for free travel once every 10-20 minutes. The cost in offline travel time and time remaining until free travel is available may be checked at the chariot stop.

The cost in offline travel time for using a chariot is five times the time it would take to cover the same distance on foot.

For the most curious ones, chariots travels at 2 coordinates per in-game seconds (aka 21.8 miles/hour or 35.1 kilometers/hour). But please take notes it takes a constant, stops dependant, amount of time to prepare the chariot for his trip back. ;)

Chariot Schedule

There is now a predicted Chariot Schedule and route planner created by Tialaramex. This lets you discover when it will be possible to ride for free without actually visiting the chariot stop itself.

(The same planner with a different front system is here).

Expedition travel
Every city center is surrounded by several expedition sites. There should be an expedition site located along every road leading away from a city center, about four minutes from the chariot stop.

The exploration travel skill, available at a cost of 2 leather from any School of Body, allows you to designate any one expedition site as your personal expedition site. (You must visit the site to select it.) In addition, you may designate any location in Egypt as your "home location", using an option under your navigation menu.

Once you have selected a personal expedition site and home location, any subsequent changes to either these locations will take two hours to take effect. You will not be able to use expedition travel for these two hours.

Expedition travel may be used in two ways:


 * Instantly move from your current location to your personal expedition site.
 * Instantly move from your personal expedition site to your home location.

Both forms of expedition travel cost offline travel time proportionate to the distance of the journey. Expedition travel costs 160% as much as chariot travel (8 times the time it would take to walk). There are no restrictions on how often you may use expedition travel.

Expedition travel may not be used when within 150 coordinates (note: unverified) of a chariot stop.

Waypoints
Several schools teach the navigation skill. Each different school you learn this skill from will increase your skill by one level, and each level gives you one additional waypoint. (You must learn each level of the skill from a different type of school.)

The following schools currently offer navigation: You may place waypoints at any location you want, using the appropriate option under your navigation menu. Waypoints may be moved at any time, and changes take effect immediately (unlike changes to your home location or personal expedition site).

You may instantly jump from your current location to any of your waypoints, at a cost in offline travel time. When traveling near home (both start and destination are within 600 coordinates of your home location), waypoint travel costs 75% as much as expedition travel over an equivalent distance (6 times as much as on foot). When traveling far from home (either start or destination is 3000 or more coordinates from your home location), waypoint travel costs 375% as much as expedition travel (30 times as much as on foot). For intermediate distances from home, the cost scales linearly.

To simplify: The farther you or your waypoint is from home, the more it costs to use a waypoint. Using waypoints to get around camp is cheap; using waypoints to travel between regions is very expensive.

You may not use a chariot for ten minutes after using waypoint travel.

Where should I put my Home location?
If you live in town, between the Expedition Site circle and the Chariot Stop, simply locate your Home in the middle of your camp. Chose the Expedition site that's nearest your Waypoint sites, not necessarily the Expedition site that's nearest your Home location. For example, if you live in town, but near an expedition point, you might want to run just outside of that Expedition Point, and then Jump to your selected Expedition site on the far side of town to get to your Waypoints, and then jump back to the Expedition Site and thence Home.


 * The cost of travel to a waypoint depends on how far you are from your Home location.
 * The inbound cost of travel to an expedition site, and thence from the expediton site to your Home location, is fixed.

Because you are too sweaty to use a chariot for 10 minutes after a wayport jump, as a practical matter waypoints are useless when placed near a Chariot Stop. Jumping Home from an Expedition Site to your Home, however, doesn't make you sweaty, so one very good strategy is to place your Home location near the Chariot Stop. At a cost of 30 minutes of wayport time, you can pretty much eliminate local running when you are inbound to a Chariot Stop. Outbound, just use a Waypoint. Unless your Waypoints are on opposite sides of Town, placing your Home location at the Chariot Stop is going to cost you some extra travel time.

If you are trying to conserve Off-Line Travel time, rather than running time, your Home Location should be near the center of the polygon formed by the Chariot Stop and your (up to three) Waypoint sites. You can use cheap Expedition Time when inbound to the Chariot Stop, you're going to run from the Expedition Site to the Chariot Stop in any case, so fudge your Home location toward the midpoint of your Waypoint locations. If you're really hurting for Off-line Travel Time, you can run back out to your Expedition Site and then jump Home rather than using expensive waypoint time, so put your Home location right in the middle of your waypoints.

As you accumulate Waypoint time, you can gradually shift your Home location closer to the Chariot Stop to minimize your running time.

Also, be clever about selecting an Expedition Site. The site nearest your compound is probably isn't your best choice as you can easily run to that point when you have errands in town, or when your're on your way back from the Chariot Stop.