Island Landscapers

[Dani]

I'll help you with the raktam road. I'm near the grotto anyway.

Anything but 'Signpost Trail'. That was seriously lame.

[Dani]

What about 'Santa's Road' since it connects to the grotto. Btw I'm there now.

[AlexanderRM]

Anything but 'Signpost Trail'. That was seriously lame.

That was mostly intended to be named after the character that built it (The Signpost), not the fact that the trail was made up of signposts, though I obviously realized that and thought that the double entendre would be interesting. Unfortunately, I don't think there's room on the signposts to explain it, and doing so would probably sound weird, anyway. Maybe if we made wiki pages about roads or something...

What about 'Santa's Road' since it connects to the grotto. Btw I'm there now.

Hmm... sounds like a fairly good name. Perhaps something like "Christmas Road"? Mostly the road should be used en route to York, Durham and the like, but I think it'd be OK to be a bit poetic there.
I'd still prefer to get input though, for some reason I feel like this road should be carefully considered or somesuch. I think I'll work on cutting the jungle while I wait, if we finish the line at -70.319 without getting any official input we can start setting up the signposts calling it "Santa's Road" or such.

"Christmas Road. North to Raktam, South (to Santa's Grotto and?) the Shartak Passage."

Feels like it should include Santa's Grotto, and if it does that should go before the Shartak Passage since you get to it first, but it seems like doing that makes the Shartak Passage into a secondary thing when it's actually the primary destination. Am I putting too much thought into this?

[Dani]

Christmas Road works for me.

If I understand you right, It's more of a bypass road than a main route. It happens to cut across the Grotto but that's just a rest stop, the purpose is to make a connection between Wiksik and the Passage (and you mean the southern road that we talked about earlier, yeah?)

As with most of these projects, there's a good chance it'll all be overgrown in a few weeks. With that in mind, getting input isn't that important, unless they're also agreeing to help maintain the road, and that sounds like too much to hope for.

[Dani]

Frankly, I'm more concerned about who's been smashing signposts. The problem doesn't seem to be going away and I don't see how we can figure it out unless someone admits to it.

[AlexanderRM]

Anyway, started signposting the road, at x-coordinate -70.319, writing "Christmas Road. North to Raktam, South to Santa's Grotto and the Shartak Passage". Ran out of driftwood maybe halfway there or so, so I'll have to go get more (unless you have enough to do the southern half, but I'll still want to stock up for whatever road I do next). Think I'll trim the jungle on my way south, though.

[Dani]

I should have enough to do the southern half.

[AlexanderRM]

Well, looks like that's finished now, though it looks like a fair portion of it was someone who didn't have the Ubermap (north from the grotto, I'm updating it with the signposts as I go). Are there any major roads left? I should really draw a map of the road network sometime.

The Dalpok-Wiksik road apparently isn't signposted, and I guess that's useful, also a road leading north off of the Durham peninsula to Dalpok and/or the Shipwreck directly. Then there's just Dalpok-Shipwreck (and possibly some Rakmogak-related connections), and that'd be all the useful inter-village connections, so the only things left to do would be to build roads out to other places (Ruins, caves, etc.) and of course maintain the roads we've already done work on.

Anyway, I think I'll work on the Dalpok-Wiksik road next; I'm in a convenient location and it's already an obvious path of clear jungle.

[Dani]

Well, I worked on the road north of the grotto, but i'm not sure what you mean about not having the ubermap. I connected it to the Raktam road.

I built a road awhile ago called the Durham Detour that breaks off from the dalpok-shipwreck road and connects to the Durham-York road. It may be overgrown, or it may be partially destroyed, I'm not sure.

[AlexanderRM]

I built a road awhile ago called the Durham Detour that breaks off from the dalpok-shipwreck road and connects to the Durham-York road. It may be overgrown, or it may be partially destroyed, I'm not sure.

I think I've seen that (wouldn't you have wanted to take it directly from Dalpok or something?), but it's a bit confusing. I think it's actually under-grown or was last time I was there, that is to say, all the jungle around it was burnt so that, even with the signposts, it was hard to keep track of where the road was. I should head back there and trim the jungle along that road sometime.

[Dani]

Why would pirates want to go to dalpok to get to the durham-york road? For one thing, it cuts east away from Durham, which is where I assume most pirates would want to go. For another thing, it's a hostile native village--they'd just get killed and have to revive.

Yeah, I caught the guy who's been making those fires. i think he's idled out.

[AlexanderRM]

Why would pirates want to go to dalpok to get to the durham-york road? For one thing, it cuts east away from Durham, which is where I assume most pirates would want to go. For another thing, it's a hostile native village--they'd just get killed and have to revive.

Meh, I suppose so on the hostile native village count. I don't think it would increase the travel time (at least not much... no, I think the # of squares of movement would be the same).
My thought was mostly to save on road space by making a Dalpok-Durham road, which would let one go between Durham and the Shipwreck via Dalpok.
If there was an increase in travel time, one could make a relatively smallish road connecting directly between the Dalpok-Shipwreck road and the Dalpok-Durham road, just long enough to ensure minimal travel time (no longer than going straight north or south as soon as possible) which would also allow Pirates to pass a bit west of Dalpok rather than through the village itself.

I've been getting the impression lately that villages on the other side are a lot less dangerous than they used to be; AlexanderRM survived overnight in all 3 Outsider villages, generally sleeping outdoors. I suppose it's possible that Pirates are more prejudiced against than most groups.
I'd also imagine that the peaceful flag helps a lot, though I don't think we'd make many friends by putting in effort specifically to allow non-peaceful Pirates to more safely travel to Durham or York- the roads should be built with the intention for peaceful types to use them.

[Dani]

SHARTAK ROAD MAP - WORK IN PROGRESS

As many of you probably know, Shartak's road system is in better shape than it's been in for years: cleaner, regularly mowed, with more extensions and bypass routes linking all the villages. Credit goes to Trailblazer for much of the work, as well as the other members of Island Landscapers.

In the last few weeks I've been doing a survey of the road system, in order to get the GPS coordinates necessary to make a road map for Shartak travellers. The idea is inspired by the tunnel system map Schmoe made. That survey's largely complete, but unfortunately I don't know how to make such a map, and I don't have time to learn (or much time for Shartak in general shortly). So I'm putting the information out here and hopefully someone can make something cool that we can put on the wiki (and be able to maintain as new developments arise).

As it's a community project I'm looking for a volunteer, but the first person(s) to come through with a map will have the latest road, a bypass route connecting the Durham/York Freeway to the Eastern Shartak Trail, named for one of their characters...our modern road names are all pretty boring anyway.

If the link is broken or non-existent (as the case may be), use the Satellite Image Finder. For the prospective Cartographer(s), you may wish to use the GPS Locator to ensure that everything is where it's supposed to be. It's not as accurate as walking the route yourself, but it's mainly to doublecheck that I've labelled everything right.  

So, without further ado...Shartak's paths of glory:

Main Roads

Shartak Passage/Shartak Trail W/E
Startpoint: (at Memorial Freeway) [-70.638,+26.350]
Dangerpoint: [-70.426,+26.350] (fires over much of the road. keep going E and the path returns.)
Endpoint: (at Seether's Walk) [-70.114,+26.374]
condition: The longest running road in Shartak, with direct links to all the mainland villages except Dalpok (for now). Due to a miscommunication early in its construction it is generally written as the Shartak Passage in the West and the Shartak Trail in the East. Mostly paved and signposted but there are a few hiccups, especially around York.

Durham-York Memorial Freeway W/E
Startpoint: [-70.638,+26.350]
Endpoint: [-70.403,+26.350]
Condition: Name origin unknown, but it was in common circulation at least as far back as November 2007. Paved and signposted. Beware, the route from Durham is frequently attacked by vandals.

Dalpok/Shipwreck NW/SE
Startpoint: (at Shipwreck) [-70.541,+26.543]
Endpoint: (at Dalpok) [-70.442,+26.444]
Condition: Also called Jakota-Shubar Path. Paved and 'posted.

Dalpok/York Trail NW/SE
Startpoint: (at Dalpok) [-70.430,+26.442]
Endpoint: (at York) [-70.369,+26.321] (going N/S)
Condition: Also called the Woo Elephant Yeah Trail for the player who built it. Note that the road has an unusual split coming up from York - if you keep going north it turns into a 3-way intersection with links to the Dalpok/Wiksik road to the West and the Christmas Road to the East. Paved and 'posted.  

Wiksik/Raktam Road NW/SE
Startpoint:  (Wiksik) [-70.241,+26.407]
dangerpoint: (Wiksik Grasslands) [-70.255,+26.421]
Endpoint: (Raktam) [-70.315,+26.467]
Condition: Also called the Armacho Trail, named for the infamous Raktami PKer, Armadox the Butcher. Signposts lead out of both villages but they abruptly stop a dozen paces out on either end. This isn't too troubling because the original route passed too close to Crystal Lake to be effective, so it's high-time it was rebuilt. What's more troubling is that the road was fine in the last sweep a week ago.

Dalpok/Raktam Road NE/SW
Startpoint: (Dalpok) [-70.435,+26.448]
Checkpoint: [-70.429,+26.454] (route now goes North/South)
Checkpoint: [-70.429,+26.470] (route hugs the mountain going Eastbound with slight variation, until [-70.360,+26.470] when it goes due E away from the mountain)
Endpoint: (Raktam) [-70.326,+26.470]
Condition: Also called the Azuma road, presumably after the legendary Mountain Dalpoki. This looks more complicated than it is. The route traces much of the north-eastern perimeter of the Mountain, following its jagged cliffs, so signposts abruptly head NE, then SE, and so on. Paved and 'posted.  

Alligator Road NE/SW
Startpoint: (Wiksik) [-70.236,+26.414]
Checkpoint: (road goes N/S) [-70.226,+26.424]
Checkpoint: (road returns to NE/SW route) [-70.226,+26.431]
Checkpoint: (road returns to N/S route) [-70.222,+26.434]
Checkpoint: (road turns E/W) [-70.219,+26.464]
Endpoint: (Tarak's Spit)  [-70.186,+26.464]
Condition: Named for the Alligator Hunt put on by Team Tathers, this is a good example of a bad road. The route has been extensively vandalised so it can be a guessing game trying to find the main path, and the jungle overgrowth makes it impassable in places. However, it remains the only road that goes to Tarak's Spit, so it's still of some use. The road also cuts through a nearby cave entrance (Burning Fields?).

Intersection Roads

Shartak Main Crossroads NS/WE: [-70.319,+26.407]
Condition: Almost dead center of the island, this is the major artery for the Native villages, and appropriately marked by a skullpost. N/S is the  Raktam/Shartak Passage (Christmas Road), W/E follows the Dalpok/Wiksik Road.

Christmas Road N/S
Startpoint: (intersection of Shartak Trail) [-70.319,+26.374]
Endpoint: (Raktam) [-70.319,+26.462]
Condition: So named because it cuts through Santa's Grotto. Paved and signposted.

Seethers Walk NW/SE
Startpoint: (intersection of Shartak Trail) [-70.113,+26.373]
Endpoint: (Derby) [-70.092,+26.352]
Condition: Named after the irascible Sheriff of Derby, the trail formally ends at the site of The Hanged Misfit. Paved and signposted.

The Wiksik Detour NE/SW
Startpoint: (intersection of Shartak Trail) [-70.269,+26.375]
Endpoint:  (Wiksik) [-70.243,+26.401]
Condition: Paved and signposted.

Path of Spirits N/S
Startpoint: (crossroads of Shartak Trail) [-70.218,+26.374]
Checkpoint: [+70.218,-26.384] (trail proceeds NW to Wiksik)
Endpoint North: (Wiksik) [-70.236,+26.402]
Endpoint South: (shoreline due Midway) : [-70.218,+26.368]
Condition: Name is presumably a reference to Midway Isle or the Wiksik Spirit Hut. Signposts abruptly stop at [-70.224,+26.390] going NW to Wiksik, all else is properly paved and signposted. PoS holds the distinction of being the only known road that connects to an outlying islet.

Dalpok-Wiksik Road W/E
Startpoint: (intersection of Dalpok/York Trail) [-70.395,+26.407]
Endpoint: (Wiksik) [-70.242,+26.407]
Condition: Paved and 'posted.

The Durham Detour N/S
Startpoint: (intersection of Dalpok/Shipwreck Road) [-70.479,+26.481]
Dangerpoint: (heavy fires in the area) [-70.479,+26.471]
Endpoint: [-70.480,+26.350]
Condition: Heavy fires in the region seem to be a constant. Road continues N/S from [-70.475,+26.467] for some distance, before returning to the standard route.  

York Road NW/SE
Startpoint: (intersection of Shartak Passage) [-70.403,+26.350]
Endpoint: (York) [-70.374,+26.321]
Condition: Paved and 'posted.

Access Roads

Note: This mainly refers to intersection roads that lead to boatyards and aren't very long. It may also refer to roads leading to ruins or other rest-stops.

Driftwood road N/S
Startpoint: (intersection of Memorial Freeway) [-70.491,+26.350]
Endpoint: (boatyard) [-70.491,+26.345]  
Condition: Paved and 'posted.

Driftwood road N/S
Startpoint: (intersection of Memorial Freeway) [-70.595,+26.350]
Endpoint: (boatyard) [-70.595,+26.345]
Condition: Paved and 'posted.

Driftwood road N/S
Startpoint: (intersection of Shartak Trail) [-70.309,+26.374]
Endpoint: (boatyard) [-70.309,+26.368]
Condition: Paved and 'posted.

Driftwood road N/S
Startpoint: (intersection of Shartak Trail) [-70.238,+26.374]
Endpoint: (boatyard) [-70.238,+26.365]
Condition: Paved and 'posted.

Temple Road N/S
startpoint: (Pirate's Arch) [-70.539,+26.543]
Endpoint: (Temple) [-70.539,+26.532]
Condition: Paved and 'posted.

[andrewbuff]

did you guys do this road woodys on? with the countdown of paces to a specific locale? im gunna attribute it to you, so good job with it. its really helpful and just all-round cool.
edit:

Stuck in the ground is a makeshift sign. It reads “Derby: 62 East. York: 214 West. Please keep this trail at density 5 for maximum speed of travel.”

[Dani]

probably. That looks like ARM's work for the Shartak Trail.