Accurate(?) Cavern Map

larryf58 · **Posted:** Thu May 21, 2015 6:05 pm

ChloeRhodes wrote:

Okay, did a quick edit of your map with some of my resources, your placement and overall shape of Ae'gura is off

You've moved it up and to the right? How do you account for it no longer being in the center of the coordinate system?

The GZ is the origin point for navigation, and should logically be at the confluence of all the directional radii. We also know that the zero meridian runs through the Arch, so that isn't making sense to me either... Unless the entire GZ mosaic is wrong with its radius markings, and if that's the case, I might as well give up now because an accurate map is impossible.

As for the size of the Island, I got the KI coordinates of the overlook outside the library courtyard to find out how far it was from the GZ. I then calculated that according to my map scale and sized the model so that the distance was as close as possible to it as I could get.

The shape of the island? I used a bot to fly above Ae'gura and took a KI photo. Then I edited everything from the photo that wasn't part of the Island, color enhanced it, and plopped it down on the map. That's a low-resolution photograph of Ae'gura, not a drawing. I don't know how to make it any more precise than that!

ChloeRhodes · **Joined:** Wed Apr 11, 2007 3:29 am **Posts:** 520

larryf58 wrote:

ChloeRhodes wrote:

Okay, did a quick edit of your map with some of my resources, your placement and overall shape of Ae'gura is off

You've moved it up and to the right? How do you account for it no longer being in the center of the coordinate system?

The GZ is the origin point for navigation, and should logically be at the confluence of all the directional radii. We also know that the zero meridian runs through the Arch, so that isn't making sense to me either... Unless the entire GZ mosaic is wrong with its radius markings, and if that's the case, I might as well give up now because an accurate map is impossible.

Good question, the map that I'm getting the placement for the Aeugra from, as well as its relative shape and size is the map that the GZ's floor was derived from (or in the reverse the map was drawn from the GZ floor mosaic, I'm still waiting to here an answer on that one.) In any case the map that I'm basing it off of has a similar set of radii as the GZ floor however it is correctly centered on Aegura, meaning that the circular pattern around it actually cuts through the cavern even more than the GZ one does. Its my belief that the GZ floor map was created from this map, but because of cutting off too much of the cavern floor they centered it inside of the the outside radii perimeter, this meant that less of the cavern got cut off, but also threw off the number designations on the perimeter as well as the radii so they drew new ones more accurate to the texture.

larryf58 wrote:

The shape of the island? I used a bot to fly above Ae'gura and took a KI photo. Then I edited everything from the photo that wasn't part of the Island, color enhanced it, and plopped it down on the map. That's a low-resolution photograph of Ae'gura, not a drawing. I don't know how to make it any more precise than that!

I hear ya. Just remember that the shape of the island would have had to change when future updates added the extra districts on Ae'gura, the mountain and consequently the backside of Ae'gura were going to have to be enlarged and changed in a future update. One should not use flymode or other tools to get a accurate glimpse of places that we can't see from within game without these tools for this very reason, if you can't see it from in game without the use of tools, chances are you weren't supposed to by design until things were updated and changed.

larryf58 · **Posted:** Thu May 21, 2015 6:54 pm

Flying for a photo was the only way I could get the island for the map. I've searched, and there are no images of it other than partials available. Flying for a KI photo was literally the only tool I had to get that outline.

ChloeRhodes · **Joined:** Wed Apr 11, 2007 3:29 am **Posts:** 520

larryf58 wrote:

lying for a photo was the only way I could get the island for the map. I've searched, and there are no images of it other than partials available. Flying for a KI photo was literally the only tool I had to get that outline.

Oh I know. Not telling you that you shouldn't, just that if your going for accuracy something to keep in mind is that if you can't see it from the ground, but can with flymode, the flymode shot may be inaccurate in the future.

Dar'nay · **Posted:** Fri May 22, 2015 7:42 am

ChloeRhodes wrote:

larryf58 wrote:

lying for a photo was the only way I could get the island for the map. I've searched, and there are no images of it other than partials available. Flying for a KI photo was literally the only tool I had to get that outline.

Oh I know. Not telling you that you shouldn't, just that if your going for accuracy something to keep in mind is that if you can't see it from the ground, but can with flymode, the flymode shot may be inaccurate in the future.

In which case you corroborate what you see with what sources are available and get ready to update the map should anything change.

Pretty much the way it has always been, really :wink:

.

larryf58 · **Posted:** Fri May 22, 2015 12:14 pm

The working map is made up of layers of elements, which are flattened for the display version I'm showing you. The display image is a bit over 4 MB. The master is over 8 MB. I can add, change, or swap out pretty much anything that isn't part of the outer ring of land. That's why I was able to add an island south of Ae'gura to represent Katha. In a pinch, I can swap out my model of Ae'gura for a better one without a lot of fuss.

Aitrus' map is terrible for getting factual info from. I'm trying to get an idea of where the tunnel to the South Gate mentioned on it is. That map has lots and lots of angle measurements which only measure course shifts. Nothing to show azimuths from the GZ. Even the numbers listed in the bottom legend aren't making any sense to me; the number "15" is mentioned for the first node, but there's no explanation of what it's fifteen of. Sigh.

There are also mentions of passages to Irrat and Rudenna in different sources. Want to try to find out if there is any clue to their locations.

Dar'nay · **Posted:** Sat May 23, 2015 1:00 am

larryf58 wrote:

There are also mentions of passages to Irrat and Rudenna in different sources. Want to try to find out if there is any clue to their locations.

Passages? I thought that Irrat, being the prison that first Anna and the Veovis were kept in, was only reachable by boat?

Rudenna, I am sure someone has some idea of where these are supposed to be.

larryf58 · **Posted:** Sat May 23, 2015 1:29 am

Irrat, Rudenna, Rolep and, apparently, South Gate are caverns. Anna was kept prisoner on an island in Irrat.

The passages were either dry or wet depending on the relative elevations of the caverns. We know that Irrat and Rudenna both have lakes. Irrat, because it's mentioned in the BoT, and Rudenna because we see it. So it would make sense that the passages to them were canals, possibly with locks to change elevation.

Rolep may be dry, although that's not certain. In Words, the Watcher mentions "the stairs of Rolep". It's unclear whether that's a place in Rolep like the Great Stairs on Ae'gura or part of the passage. The South Gate may also be dry, since it's a waypoint in Aitrus' Journey to the Surface and is shown as part of a tunnel system.

The Rudenna Passage is mentioned in the history of the great excavators as well as the BoT. The final two great excavators, Burrower and Rock Biter, were made in DE 6430 (1227 BCE). Their first job was to widen the Rudenna Passage. No reason why they needed to is mentioned, but it may have been to facilitate increasing boat traffic.

Dar'nay · **Posted:** Sat May 23, 2015 1:57 am

Interesting! I shall have to begin my reread sooner rather than later

.

larryf58 wrote:

The Rudenna Passage is mentioned in the history of the great excavators as well as the BoT. The final two great excavators, Burrower and Rock Biter, were made in DE 6430 (1227 BCE). Their first job was to widen the Rudenna Passage. No reason why they needed to is mentioned, but it may have been to facilitate increasing boat traffic.

Perhaps it was to get themselves through? They were gargantuan, after all, and as such a standard passage/canal may well have not been large enough to accommodate the larger machines (if they had not, indeed, been used in the initial construction).

larryf58 · **Posted:** Sat May 23, 2015 2:10 am

Dar'nay wrote:

Perhaps it was to get themselves through? They were gargantuan, after all, and as such a standard passage/canal may well have not been large enough to accommodate the larger machines (if they had not, indeed, been used in the initial construction).

BoT holds that answer to that one. All four of the great excavators were routinely broken down into relatively small sections for transportation. That's how they got them on site to dig the Great Shaft, and they were disassembled again to take them back to D'ni. The miner's guild had the process down to a fine art.

Dar'nay · **Posted:** Sat May 23, 2015 2:59 am

larryf58 wrote:

Dar'nay wrote:

Perhaps it was to get themselves through? They were gargantuan, after all, and as such a standard passage/canal may well have not been large enough to accommodate the larger machines (if they had not, indeed, been used in the initial construction).

BoT holds that answer to that one. All four of the great excavators were routinely broken down into relatively small sections for transportation. That's how they got them on site to dig the Great Shaft, and they were disassembled again to take them back to D'ni. The miner's guild had the process down to a fine art.

True enough, and I had forgotten the detail. Still makes me wonder whether all of the tunnels that the D'ni constructed were of identical dimensions and, thus, were able to permit such large pieces of machinery to pass.

Of course this just makes me wonder about what else I have forgotten

... now where did I put my hardcovers?!

larryf58 · **Posted:** Sat May 23, 2015 12:49 pm

Dar'nay wrote:

True enough, and I had forgotten the detail. Still makes me wonder whether all of the tunnels that the D'ni constructed were of identical dimensions and, thus, were able to permit such large pieces of machinery to pass.

No way for me to know for sure, but as a guess, I'd say no. In the early days of D'ni, they mostly had handheld and small scale excavators and rock burners. It took a long while for them to work their way up to the giant tunnel boring machines that the surveyors were using in BoT.

Once they had TBMs, the tunnels would have been more or less standardized, but before that, probably not. When people are digging tunnels by hand, there's a tendency to only move as much dirt and rock as they have to. Also, once the earth is removed, they must have sufficient and strong enough material to build supports for it. The invention of nara would have made it possible for them to have very large, stable tunnels, but nara wasn't invented until 5307 DE. Up until then, it would make sense that they'd just make the tunnels as large as they had to be, and no bigger.

That idea has some support from the fact that they had to go back and widen the Rudenna Passage. Best theory is that the anticipated traffic when it was dug was not correctly estimated, and they eventually had to make it bigger to allow smooth traffic flow.

Erik · **Posted:** Mon May 25, 2015 3:21 pm

I'm not entirely sure (it's been a while), but I think that if you import K'veer from MOUL (or perhaps K'veer from Myst V?) into URU:CC, you do get KI coordinates there. They are missing in the MOUL version. Perhaps they could be restored as a fan contribution?
Those coordinates might help establishing the exact location of K'veer.

larryf58 · **Posted:** Mon May 25, 2015 3:42 pm

I've tried that, and didn't get a KI reading. I'm in the habit of checking that method, which is why I know as much as I do. Maybe someone else will have better luck.

Speaking of K'veer, something I'd been intending to do is get a close-up of the incomplete Ae'gura model they used for the distance shot. The bulk of the island is missing, but the arch and the spire are both there, as well as a rough version of the stalagmite ridges ringing the harbor.

[Reveal] Spoiler:

I followed a straight line from K'veer to get this, and ended up slightly to the right of the arch.

It's pretty clear (from this model, at least) that K'veer is no more than maybe one degree east or west of the zero line. The arch and spire are as close to perfectly lined up as they can be, and you can't see the space where the Great Stairs would be because the arch is in the way. Not definitive by any stretch of imagination, but it's data.

janaba1 · **Posted:** Mon May 25, 2015 4:27 pm

I just tried that too, looking for coordinates in Uru TPotS, my version, and I've been looking into MOUL's K'veer as well as into the URU TPotS version of K'veer ... MOUL's version doesn't have coordinates, resp. only zeros are displayed, but in the original TPotS K'veer there are coordinates being displayed ...

So, aren't they the same?, but maybe they're not, otherwise you'd have seen them too ... Ok, good luck further on ...

Edit: Just in case I've uploaded the pictures I've taken of the coordinates in the TPotS version ...

[Reveal] Spoiler:

Accurate(?) Cavern Map

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