Olympia PBEM

16.4: Ferry synchronization

Suppose now that the captain has a ship, has set a fee, announced his service in the Olympia Times and with post, and is now ready to ferry passengers. What should he tell them? How will the synchronization work?

Passengers should travel to the port the ferry will be arriving at and issue `wait ferry ship'.

When the ship arrives at port, the captain should order unload to eject his current load of passengers, then ferry to signal any passengers waiting in port that they may now board.

Note that passengers should not use wait ship to wait for the ferry. Otherwise, they will attempt to board as soon as the ship reaches the port. The captain's unload order may not have executed at this point. In this case, board orders might fail because there won't be any room to enter the ship until the existing load of passengers has disembarked.

Example:

Posted by Captain McCook [3402]:
"Captain McCook's ferry to Drassa departs each
 Sunsear on the 15th.  The fee is 1 gold/wt.
 Issue WAIT FERRY ht34 then BOARD ht34 for
 ferry service.   Arrr!"

Captain McCook's orders:

> fee 100                 # 1 gold/wt. is our fee
> sail ...                # arrival at port
> unload                  # unload current passengers
> wait day 15             # wait until stated time of departure
> ferry                   # sound our horn
> sail ...                # on to the next port

Passengers wishing to travel on McCook's ferry:

> wait ferry ht34             # [ht34] is McCook's ship
> board ht34                  # pay our gold and embark
> wait loc destination          # Captain McCook will unload us at the
                              # end of the journey, so wait until we
                              # find ourselves in the destination city.