Transportation in Negav

After doing the Negav map, I have been thinking a bit more about ways of transportations available and moving around the city .

I think the most common one would be portals linking several important zones. it's handy, straightforward and giving the nature of Felarya, such basic portals would be far easier to craft than in most other worlds. This would raise all sort of interesting questions though, in term of how people see themselves nearby or far away from a given point in the city and the grouping of districts. For example a poor district which would be technically at the opposite of a rich one would be, in fact, right next to it.

Also I'm currently in the middle of designing a type of flying vehicles, resembling a floating barge that would be maintained airborne by Eidoron rocks  underneath it. I imagine they would be used for emergency or important tasks ( police, ambulance, hydromancers ? ) when moving quickly and avoiding the intense traffic in Negav's streets is important.
It's very basic at this point but here is glimpse on it ^^



What design would you prefer to see being explored at this point ? Any remark, idea or suggestion is very welcome :3

To be honest, I don't think you should limit it. In our world, there are tons of different designs for similar modes of transportation - boats, trains, planes, cars, you name it! Each design could be more widely used for certain specific tasks or by certain businesses/factions. For example, design #1 looks really aerodynamic, so it might be best suited to tasks that focus on fast travel - perhaps cargo delivery or military escape transports - while #5 looks like it could both take and dish out some damage, so it might be a good design for a battle cruiser or exploration vehicle, and #2 looks more like a leisure vehicle, something rich families in Negav would take for a relaxing ride through the city or something. :3 I think all of these designs would, at the very least, go well with my latest idea - the flying city of Akaptor. ;33 (In stores soon. Product is not yet rated.)

Also, I have to say that the use of portals could be an interesting one. I'm not sure it would be useful within a single city as much, except for the case of important people like the Magiocrats or high-ranking officials of the Isolon Fist. But transport between different, possibly safe or secure areas of Felarya could make good use of a portal system.

Agreed, I think Negav should have a variety of aircrafts types. The law enforcement in particluar would want their aircrafts to be more Aerodynamic and faster than anyone else's, otherwise crooks could just hijack an aircraft and the law would have to pursue with vechiles that offer no advantage over the one that they are trying to catch up with.

The ones I like the look of so far would be 4, 5 and 7

Anyway I really like this idea, I always figured that there had to be some transport system. Jetbikes alone are abit small for major deliveries such as merchant shops, bars and resturants.

I like the idea. Being a sort of interdimensional hub, I'd imagine Negav to have lots and lots of vehicles and transportation.

That's me question what kind of airspace it has with all the various kinds of vehicles and airship (the more uncommon to take a look). But to be honest, I think both air and teleportation are needed. I can imagine that the mass using all sorts of portal highways (pedestrian style of course) to get around, while the more not/antisocial or gear headed people will use a jetbike or the bigger equivalent.

As for darkone's Air law priority. To enforce to have vehicles put governors on them would take away the fun in application and creation (even if your the enforcement too). So what i can imagine what something like a jet bike manufacturer would do, was that it would build a very generic class/body/style that anybody can use in the city that the magiocrats and the vishmitals are happy with, but that wouldn't want to stop people from bringing and using their own innovations to the table. (Which I would imagine if the person got too crazy, the vishmitals would look at the miscase with a smile and opportunity to salvage what ever the miscreant person built. Would help them grow back their empire and grow their technological prowess logically as I see it and bring a lot of fun and food to the table for everyone else.) Challenging capitalism at it's finest.

As far as what a common ship should be powered by, ever thought of something like solar sails (which is fiction and real world application for today) Like they showed in that movie...Treasure planet i think it was? Or something similar would like to see some sci-fi/high-fantasy mix in there for that !

I dunno, I think sails are a bit weird on a vessel that uses magic to fly, anyway. I like the designs of 7 and 1 the most, however. maybe make parts of the vessel look like they have wings, but not really be "wings" if you know what I mean? Or at least not make them sails. Though it does remind me of older anime films, which is cool nostalgia.

My personal taste at least. *shrug*

Thank you for your feedbacks ^^ I am going to continue to work on this . I may try and design some other type of vehicles too.

Well some advancement on the rendering of that previous picture and also thinking of some ship design ^^ the reasoning behind it will be to give the less grip possible to a pred using barbed bars to protect the crew for example

I actually like #2 the best.

Well I imagine the preds would still grip the masts, other than that it looks pretty good.

Have you given any thought into cloaking devices for these vehicles? Y'know, something magic-based, powerful, but not completely reliable, or having a certain weakness or part of the ship it doesn't hide? In case you have, are, or are going to think of this because I mentioned it, keep in mind how light works - light is produced by a source, bounces off physical objects, and enters the pupil and is registered by the retina and the images are sent to the brain. A lot of fiction I've seen - mostly cartoons - make the mistake of assuming that reflecting all light away from something will make it invisible, when in reality it would just make it look like a huge mirror, making it even more conspicuous. Rather, in order for something to not be visible, it has to have some way of making light either go through it or go around it, reflecting as little light as possible.

Just a tip, old pal! ^_^

[quote="Karbo"]Well some advancement on the rendering of that previous picture and also thinking of some ship design ^^  the reasoning behind it will be to give the less grip possible to a pred using barbed bars to protect the crew for example



OoO I want one.

Nyaha wrote:

Have you given any thought into cloaking devices for these vehicles? Y'know, something magic-based, powerful, but not completely reliable

No you can not steal my Atlanta cloaking device from AGA! XD ...Mostly since it's very unreliable. Honestly you'd be better trying something techy like the Romulan way or even light bending panels.

One day the Romulans will invent a cloak that's so good, they'll disappear for good.

Well, I guess it's time to give my two cents here. That'll teach me to have lagged from this place.

Anyway, I was familiar with the idea of transportation in Negav thanks to noting Karbo a bunch of times, and I already knew about portals and the airships. However, I think I must raise more questions. You say that pedestrians use portals to move around from district to district. That's nice, but how are those portals sprinkled across Negav? Are portals to certain districts only found in specific locations? Are they concentrated in one area, akin to a bus station, so that you don't need to travel through a series of portals just to get to one place? It's important to elaborate on that so we have a clear understanding of that transportation method. Just cause you mentioned that people uses portal doesn't mean we know how they are set up.

As for the ships, I'll have to do some changes in my stories (yay...), but ol' Darkie is right, having a universal ship for all services is a bad idea. Police cars, ambulances and firetrucks, just to name a few are all designed to be very good at a specific job, and when you make an all-purpose vehicle for all of that, they have to compromise for those other jobs, and so are less effective overall. Coming up with a base design, so that you can later alter and tweak for specific functions however, is a good idea I think. For example, ambulances could designed to be spacious because it needs to house a patient, possibly two, as well as a staff of healers in case it needs some preliminary care. Firetrucks could be designed with a water tank that the hydromancers can use to start putting out fire right now, while the others start to use the water to finish the job, or something like that.

I don't really have a favorite model in mind, but I have agree with Bael when it comes to the sails. The ships are already powered by magic, so why not give it some other form of propulsion, also possibly using magic, that takes less space than sails that probably don't do a whole lot?

One last thing I'd like to mention, why would the ships need protection from predators? I thought they operated in Negav. For what purpose would they need to leave the safety of Negav to go out in the immensely dangerous jungle? Again, that must be established, otherwise we can come up with a dozen of reasons, probably all of which far off from what you actually have in mind.

Shady Knight wrote:

One last thing I'd like to mention, why would the ships need protection from predators? I thought they operated in Negav. For what purpose would they need to leave the safety of Negav to go out in the immensely dangerous jungle? Again, that must be established, otherwise we can come up with a dozen of reasons, probably all of which far off from what you actually have in mind.

I suppose they would travel along the river, and I would also suggest they travel to Safe Harbor, but those rivers don't seem to connect (I often wished they would, and sometimes imagine an underwater canal that bridges the two). That would mean they'd have to get out of negav in the first place. Then there's the size issue. Those vessels look like a bus-size more than anything, and I'd have to wonder if they could fit on the streets at all. A vehicle in Negav would most likely have wheels. So someone is getting confused here and it's probably us.

There's just one problem with it and it's that there's no evidence that they would go to the Safe Harbor. Furthermore, is the Safe Harbor common knowledge in Negav? If yes, for what purpose would they need to go to the Safe Harbor? The wiki neither confirms, nor denies any of that, so all we can do is speculate until Karbo decides to give us a definitive answer. As for size, I don't think it's a problem. Aside from Cremona Maze, I think the idea is that the vehicles are small enough to land on the streets. Though once the vehicles are properly established in the wiki, a mention of the how wide Negav's streets usually are would be nice. I assume they're about the size of real life streets.

I assume they're about the size of one lane, or two lanes for the widest of streets. The city is dense, and small enough so that you can walk across it fairly easily. Remember, if it's about 90 sq miles, then its only about 9.1 miles along the x and y axis, and I run about half that in an hour or less.

edit: I run a 10k, which is 6.2 miles.

One lane how big? Big enough to allow two vehicles to pass one another? I think it would only make sense because, even though they can fly, the streets would need to be wide enough for the pedestrians to easily walk around vehicle when it's parked.

If they can fly, then who says they can't be parked off the ground? Like, having sort of 'air boat docks' on the roofs of small buildings and/or the sides of tall buildings, etc, so that they don't take up any space meant for pedestrians and street merchants. They could do this either by having, I guess, recharging or fueling stations at every dock that allow the vehicle to float while docked, and provide enough fuel/energy to refill its tanks even while it uses some of it, or by having cranes or cradles hold them up off the ground so they can be turned off for refueling?

Nyaha wrote:

If they can fly, then who says they can't be parked off the ground? Like, having sort of 'air boat docks' on the roofs of small buildings and/or the sides of tall buildings, etc, so that they don't take up any space meant for pedestrians and street merchants. They could do this either by having, I guess, recharging or fueling stations at every dock that allow the vehicle to float while docked, and provide enough fuel/energy to refill its tanks even while it uses some of it, or by having cranes or cradles hold them up off the ground so they can be turned off for refueling?

That would support my fantasy that Negav has walkways extending across building tops like miniature bridges, so that pedestrians can also walk from place to place that way as well. For me that'd make Negav seem even more like a crowded city. Which it is. Negav was built vertically after all.

Also I doubt Negav was originally built with having vehicles in mind. That's why most European cities have narrow streets. Its how I've always seen Negav. Only the major thoroughfares would be really wide.

Park off ground, eh?  Can you answer me how you get off the "parked" thing, and more importantly, how do you get back on it?  Furthermore, how do you expect deliveries to be handled if these things never touch the ground?  Your idea of a "air dock" is the equivalent of a helipad.  Do you know how big a building needs to be for its roof to have a dedicated helipad?  How do you expect the small buildings, which you said yourself, are small, to have a helipad?  Especially since you mentioned recharge stations at every docks, even cranes, which would take even more space.  That's simply not feasible on the buildings, which you said yourself, are small.

Also, may I remind you that these vehicles are used for emergency situations? They're not taxi cabs, they're not buses, and they're not someone's personal car. They're firetrucks, ambulances, police cars, that kind of thing. Your air docks would only be at very specific places. The reason I mentioned wide streets are because I can see them being used as delivery trucks. When certain stores get their goods, these vehicles could viably act as delivery trucks, coming in and out of the gate with their cargo. For that, wouldn't it be practical that it can be parked right next to the store so you don't have to run up and down several flights of stairs just to get the merchandise in the storage room?

Shady Knight wrote:

Park off ground, eh?  Can you answer me how you get off the "parked" thing, and more importantly, how do you get back on it?  Furthermore, how do you expect deliveries to be handled if these things never touch the ground?  Your idea of a "air dock" is the equivalent of a helipad.  Do you know how big a building needs to be for its roof to have a dedicated helipad?  How do you expect the small buildings, which you said yourself, are small, to have a helipad?  Especially since you mentioned recharge stations at every docks, even cranes, which would take even more space.  That's simply not feasible on the buildings, which you said yourself, are small.

Also, may I remind you that these vehicles are used for emergency situations?  They're not taxi cabs, they're not buses, and they're not someone's personal car.  They're firetrucks, ambulances, police cars, that kind of thing.  Your air docks would only be at very specific places.  The reason I mentioned wide streets are because I can see them being used as delivery trucks.  When certain stores get their goods, these vehicles could viably act as delivery trucks, coming in and out of the gate with their cargo.  For that, wouldn't it be practical that it can be parked right next to the store so you don't have to run up and down several flights of stairs just to get the merchandise in the storage room?

Okay, all very good points that relate to things I either didn't think about or wasn't clear on. I was under the assumption they would be used like cars are used here for some reason. O.o Anyway, to answer each of your questions in order:

The same way as normal ships in our world: gangplanks.

I didn't expect that. But logically, if the streets were built before the vehicles, and these specific vehicles are meant to be able to make landings in these narrower streets, then they would be built smaller than the ones meant for services like the police force and fire department, right? Conversely, they could be larger, and use, for lack of a better term, tractor beams (or heck, just built-in cranes) to carry/levitate objects to and from the vehicle, that way it doesn't actually have to land at all.

No I don't know. But since you're bringing it up I'm going to assume quite tall. Which, I might remind you, Negav does have a number of pretty tall buildings, if only in the upper tier.

If small buildings can't have helipads, then I don't expect them to have helipads. But I wasn't really thinking in terms of Earth-equivalents here. And if I was, I was thinking more along the lines of docks at boat harbors rather than helipads. Also, by recharge stations, I was thinking of, like, fuel pump-ish, energy generator things that one would connect to the vehicle while parked, just like at boat docks. They could generate the energy the ships use for power on their own, or get the energy from a central generator located at the center of the city, that radiates the necessary energy to the smaller tanks at the docks through the air, which the tanks then condense into a usable form. Or, if these vehicles use actual fuel and not some form of magic energy, then the fuel could be pumped through the ground, up through the building. Of course, that would make these docks an investment, costing for the digging and installing of new pipelines and all that, so perhaps that particular idea isn't a very good one. So instead, if they use fuel and not energy, then they could have refueling stations like we have gas stations here on Earth, located on certain buildings.

Who says they have to only be for emergencies and can't be used purely for transportation? I would assume the rich nobles in the upper tier would have access to smaller leisure vehicles, and since they may live in or have access to the taller buildings there, wouldn't be too much of a stretch for them to have their own docks. Especially if they could be built onto the sides of the buildings, like flying boat garages or something. I would assume bus services would be feasible with these vehicles as well. After all, there are numerous modes of transportation in our world, so why would Negav only have 'portals' or 'walking' as choices for its residents?

Yes, not having to go up and down stairs to transport the merchandise from the delivery vehicle to the storage room would make sense.

Alright, let's see here. First, the crane. These, again, would take a lot of space and require a lot of hardware, forcing the ships to be even bigger just to accommodate for them. But, let's keep going with your idea for now. Let's assume these ships are big enough to hold that. Where would the cargo/patients for an ambulance be loaded for the crane to put in the ship, or reach into the ship, to put back on the ground? Your idea of a gangplank is more sound, but there is a problem. In your idea, the ships hover high enough above the pedestrians that they can't reach them, which means somewhere around ten feet over the ground. Since a gangplank is essentially a ramp, it would have to be a VERY long ramp just to make sure it's at a comfortable angle, especially for an ambulance, which will be loading patients who are in very bad conditions. For such a thing, both the crane/tractor beam and the gangplank are terrible idea, because they could severely compromise the patient's condition, which defeats the whole purpose of an ambulance. Now for trucks, just imagine the cargo is very fragile. The tractor beam makes the most sense, but what happens if it shorts out partway while levitating fragile cargo, or worse yet, a patient in critical condition? Think of it like using force fields as doors for a prison. Guess what happens to all those doors when the power goes out?

The way I see it, they're kinda like hovercars, only they use magic instead of technology. When "parked", they're still hovering, just about one-foot of the ground. Plus, you can make streets wide without having to think of vehicles in mind. Have you ever thought that maybe the streets are wide so it's easy for a crowd of people to move around in a single street?

When you say they would be used by the rich of the higher tiers, all I have to say is this: go back to the very first post of this entire thread. Karbo made it clear, there is a network of small portals already connecting the districts together. There's absolutely no point for these vehicles as personal cars. These vehicles are for tasks that a portal network just won't cut it. An ambulance: the person is in no condition to move, and chances are you are not qualified to move such a person yourself. They need a vehicle to carry that person to the healing guild for treatments. A truck: they carry a lot of merchandise or what have you, so much that you can't carry with your hands, so it's more practical for it all to be loaded in a cargo area and transported directly to its intended market. A police car: when giving chase, a bird's eye view is better to avoid pedestrian and keeping you from losing the suspect when they take devious turns. Not to mention, since they don't have to worry about pedestrians and the road, it's also simpler for multiple vehicles to trap the suspect from multiple angles.

Okay, get it straight. The gangplank is for the people, simply getting on and off the shop, and the crane, which doesn't even have to be a crane - it could be a mage or a group of mages using levitation spells - is for the cargo and would be separate. It's not meant to be one or the other. This levitation system could be used for lifting cargo on its own, or even for lifting platforms which can hold hauls of cargo or, in your ambulance idea, could be used to lift people in stretchers between the ground and the ship (via putting them on the platform, which could theoretically be, like, the actual hull of the boat). Seriously, why am I the only one using my imagination here?

I don't accept that they all have to be for industrial/business use only. It happened with TVs, the internet, and satellite devices: all of them were originally intended for strictly military/business use in their initial designs, but ended up becoming used for recreation and entertainment as well. I don't see how the same wouldn't apply to these vehicles.

Nyaha wrote:

I don't accept that they all have to be for industrial/business use only. It happened with TVs, the internet, and satellite devices: all of them were originally intended for strictly military/business use in their initial designs, but ended up becoming used for recreation and entertainment as well. I don't see how the same wouldn't apply to these vehicles.

That depends how much a craft costs, they could be out of the price range of even the rich and are only afforable by the government using the city's budget.

...Unless some currupt individual high up claims expence from the budget and then spends it on getting himself a private craft (which surely would piss everyone else on the corporate ladder for wasting the company's money and have the craft revoked) then I don't think anyone could just get one.

Also Negav would probably want to limit these crafts so they can be easily regulated, they can after all fly over the city's gate detectors and for all everyone knows could be carrying something like a swarm of dusk nymphs that have snuck into the hull of the craft. In the name of secuirty the guards at the top of the wall will have to stop and search every craft that wants to fly over (and will sound the alarm if a craft refuses to abide to this requirement) the more crafts there are, the harder it is to regulate the crafts this way. Hence the limit to only industrial/business use only.