How big is a ship?

[ezzelino]

@One Shot

I thought I mentioned already, that for terms of spell casting, ships like cogs in HP are handled as T: Structure

That's problematic though -- how do you create one with Creo magics?

@One Shot

By ArM5 p.113 a Structure fits some 1000 base ind's, a Herbam Structure hence some 1000 shrubs of one cubic pace each.

Ah, that's interesting. I thought Structure fit about 1000 people, not 1000 Base Individuals of the same Form as the Structure itself (EDIT: in case it's not clear, I thought that way, but OneShot is correct, it's 1000 Base Individuals -- which basically means that using Structure or Individual yields approximately the same amount of stuff for the same magnitude).

[Xavi]

1000 shrubs sound extremely unimpressive when it comes to the amount of hard wood for building (or other stuff) they contain....

[Berengar]

@ezzelino

@One Shot

I thought I mentioned already, that for terms of spell casting, ships like cogs in HP are handled as T: Structure

That's problematic though -- how do you create one with Creo magics?

HP p. 65 uses there CrHe(Te) 45 'Conjuration of the Seaworthy Cog' (R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Structure, Ritual). Yes, this does not match ArM5 p.113 top box 'Targets and Creo', but is likely used to do away with Size modifier calculations.

@ezzelino

@One Shot

By ArM5 p.113 a Structure fits some 1000 base ind's, a Herbam Structure hence some 1000 shrubs of one cubic pace each.

Ah, that's interesting. I thought Structure fit about 1000 people, not 1000 Base Individuals of the same Form as the Structure itself.

If you reread ArM5 p.113 lower box 'Targets and Sizes', Target: Room and Target: Structure fit base individuals of the spell's Form - and the 'Conjuration of the Seaworthy Cog' above has Form Herbam. Would that little confusion be a reason to return to applying p.113 upper box 'Targets and Creo' strictly again? (EDIT: I see you have reread 'Targets and Sizes' in the meantime. And Arthur had it right twenty minutes earlier already. )

Cheers

[ezzelino]

@One Shot

@ezzelino

Ah, that's interesting. I thought Structure fit about 1000 people, not 1000 Base Individuals of the same Form as the Structure itself.

If you reread ArM5 p.113 lower box 'Targets and Sizes', Target: Room and Target: Structure fit base individuals of the spell's Form - and the 'Conjuration of the Seaworthy Cog' above has Form Herbam.
(EDIT: I see you have reread 'Targets and Sizes' in the meantime. And Arthur had it right twenty minutes earlier already. )

I'm not sure I follow you OneShot. What do you mean with "in the meantime"? Also, why are you quoting me out of context?
I clearly wrote, well before you posted (two, not twenty minutes after Arthur) that I had so far made an incorrect assumption about Target: Structure. Why misquote my previous assumption as if it were my current position?
Also, why do you keep that patronizing tone? For example when you write:

@One Shot

Would that little confusion be a reason to return to applying p.113 upper box 'Targets and Creo' strictly again?

I don't really mind it myself, but you don't make a good impression; and given you excellent grasp of English, I doubt it's something unintended. Incidentally, I fail to understand what the size of Structure has to do with the fact that Ars Magica 5th edition forbids "creation" magic with Targets other than Individual or Group: no matter the size of Structure, it seems to me that either the spell, or the "Targets and Creo" box would need errata, because they contradict each other.

[Berengar]

@ezzelino

I clearly wrote, well before you posted (two, not twenty minutes after Arthur) that I had so far made an incorrect assumption about Target: Structure. Why misquote my previous assumption as if it were my current position?

I need to take quotes of your texts before starting to answer them. You modified them after I took the quotes, and I could not even detect your modifications before posting. Hence I reacted to your later modifications only in the 'EDIT:'-remark of my post.

Cheers

[ezzelino]

@One Shot

@ezzelino

I clearly wrote, well before you posted (two, not twenty minutes after Arthur) that I had so far made an incorrect assumption about Target: Structure. Why misquote my previous assumption as if it were my current position?

I need to take quotes of your texts before starting to answer them. You modified them after I took the quotes, and I could not even detect your modifications before posting. Hence I reacted to your later modifications only in the 'EDIT:'-remark of my post.

One Shot.

First, you fail to answer the main question of my post. Why this aggressive, paternalistic tone of yours?

Second, your explanation does not hold at all, in my opinion. See the timeline below:
8.25 Arthur posts.
8.27 I post (two, not twenty minutes after Arthur). I clarify within 2 minutes, and certainly no later than the next post.
8.34 Xavi posts.
8.47 You post. Either you started posting your four-five lines of text more than 13 minutes earlier (before Xavi's post) in which case the system would have notified you of intervening changes, or you started writing after Xavi's post, in which case you willingly quoted me out of context. In any case, when you did post, my post had been stable for at least 13, and possibly up to 20 minutes. Thus, if would have been nice if your EDIT had clarified that you had missed the extra information.

But, once again, this is really going beside the point. I really perceive an aggressive, paternalistic tone in your posts.
I don't really mind per se. But people generally do not behave like this unless there's something wrong. So, is there something wrong? Of course, it may be just my impression, in which case I'll just assume that's the way you want to present yourself -- case closed.

[Berengar]

@ezzelino

First, you fail to answer the main question of my post.

Which was what?

@ezzelino

Second, your explanation does not hold at all, in my opinion.

I fear, that your 'opinion' is not relevant here. It happened as I told you. There is no 'system' that tells me of changes you make after I take your quotes: try it out some time.
Indeed, changing your texts after you first posted them does not even change the timestamp of your post, or its position in a thread.

Also looking up quotes in ArM books takes a few minutes indeed, and brevity in writing does not imply quickness.

Cheers

[DIREWOLF75]

@ezzelino

The easiest way to think about it is that 1 Individual of Herbam is a little more than half a ton.

A small boat is then within a base Herbam Individual.

Large boats are within 10 base Individuals, so +1 magnitude. This is probably just a little smaller than the smallest longships.

Small ships, including most viking longships, galleys and smallish cogs, are within 100 base Individuals, i.e. +2 magnitudes.

Large ships, including the largest cogs, fall within 100 base Individuals, i.e. +3 magnitudes.

Ships larger than that start appearing only in later centuries.

Well, that isn´t quite true depending on how you look at it. Most of all because there were some huge ships in the Mediterranean during the Roman era, oversized wheat ships that could only go to half a dozen or less ports, due to size. After that, in Europe, there is mostly a disappearance of oversized ships, but there are some mentions that suggests a few big ones existed sometime during the mid to late middle ages.
Outside of Europe, well during China´s naval times, they had some absurdly big ships, there´s also some mention of possible big ships made by Arabs, Indians and in East Africa(likely very few and far between made for special reasons only).

[Janus]

I am reminded of a (possibly apocryphal) story told to my class by a history teacher 20 odd years ago...
The chinese empire was in the midst of a famine, so sent a small armada of grain boats, along with a few warships to guard them, who made their way along the coast buying up all the grain they could get. Eventually they reached the outskirts of the Roman empire, where they bought an entire province's supply of grain and meat animals. The roman ships reached about a third of the way up the grain barges.
Of course, the fleet went home, still mostly empty, leaving famine in their wake, as all the grain had been sold, leaving little behind.
Like I said probably apocryphal, but does anyone know if there is any truth to it? The romans and chinese empires both kept excellent records after all.

[ezzelino]

@DIREWOLF75

@ezzelino

Ships larger than that [very roughly 500 tons] start appearing only in later centuries.

Well, that isn´t quite true depending on how you look at it. Most of all because there were some huge ships in the Mediterranean during the Roman era, oversized wheat ships that could only go to half a dozen or less ports, due to size. After that, in Europe, there is mostly a disappearance of oversized ships, but there are some mentions that suggests a few big ones existed sometime during the mid to late middle ages.
Outside of Europe, well during China´s naval times, they had some absurdly big ships, there´s also some mention of possible big ships made by Arabs, Indians and in East Africa(likely very few and far between made for special reasons only).

I was indeed only looking at Mythic Europe.

Other places (including places in Faerie etc.) may well have bigger stuff (in fact, out-of-proportion objects are the staple of what you find in foreign lands). And Rome did have grain barges passing the 1000 ton limit (so probably barely in +4 magnitudes territory).

However, I'm not aware of ships larger than about 500 tons anywhere in Mythic Europe in the middle ages before the 14th century (C&G pushes that to 800 tons, but a) I'm not sure where the authors got this figure and b) the half ton/Herbam individual is vague enough and close enough to include them in the +3 magnitudes limit.

[DIREWOLF75]

@Janus

I am reminded of a (possibly apocryphal) story told to my class by a history teacher 20 odd years ago...
The chinese empire was in the midst of a famine, so sent a small armada of grain boats, along with a few warships to guard them, who made their way along the coast buying up all the grain they could get. Eventually they reached the outskirts of the Roman empire, where they bought an entire province's supply of grain and meat animals. The roman ships reached about a third of the way up the grain barges.
Of course, the fleet went home, still mostly empty, leaving famine in their wake, as all the grain had been sold, leaving little behind.
Like I said probably apocryphal, but does anyone know if there is any truth to it? The romans and chinese empires both kept excellent records after all.

Sadly, China got new leadership who really hated the thought of having his subordinates daydream uselessly about sailing away to distant shores, and ordered records destroyed. Only a tiny amount of records survived, with the occasional reference or indirect mention made in other source material.

It is however extremely unlikely that the story is anywhere near true, because the Roman empire and the Chinese naval adventures were probably separated by hundreds of years in time.

However, your description may come from a mixup of stories, there was a Celtic/Gaul people who used freaky huge ships, so big that when the Romans conquered them, they had BIG problems with their ships, which isn´t strange when a comparison made was that the masts on the Roman ships often barely went above deck of the others ships. An offshoot of the Veneti people IIRC?

[DIREWOLF75]

@ezzelino

However, I'm not aware of ships larger than about 500 tons anywhere in Mythic Europe in the middle ages before the 14th century (C&G pushes that to 800 tons, but a) I'm not sure where the authors got this figure and b) the half ton/Herbam individual is vague enough and close enough to include them in the +3 magnitudes limit.

Ah, my objection was first of all that you phrased it as something only happening LATER. Aside from that, you can find some vague sources that points to the possibility of a very few leftover oversized ships, or maybe even built later, and since this is MYTHICAL Europe after all, i would say chances should go up quite a bit for those very uncertain myths to actually be true.

And Rome did have grain barges passing the 1000 ton limit (so probably barely in +4 magnitudes territory).

Even bigger. For example, even if the Nemi-ships were built in the middle of nowhere, they were still completely functional ships, 71m long by 33m wide and 73m long by 15m wide(sadly these two wrecks burned up during WWII)...
Then there´s the ship mentioned by Lukianos, giving actual measurements, 180 feet long, >45 feet wide and with a cargohold at least 44 feet tall... A quick check with Springsharp (ship modelling program, freeware, not designed for this, but can give a vague guesstimate at least) tells me that you simply wont get a ship like that down to around 1000 ton. Not even close. Even a minimally low estimate puts it above 2000 tons.

Then there´s Hatshepshut´s obelisk ship, a similar ships carrying half as heavy obelisks, were stated to have been 63*21m. Her ship is guesstimated as weighing in at 800 tons without cargo, capable of carrying 1500 tons. At 1500 BC. Not exactly an ocean vessel for sure, but clearly showing the ability to build BIG.

And THEN, there´s also some vague talk about the Fenicians having some few supersized ships as well