More Minkata

Hrrm. Did the last two parts today. Got my stone ring. Hooray for me. There were some difficulties along the way – such as me having missed the fact that if the absolute coordinates are both in the negative, one must ass 180 degrees to the resulting polar coordinate. I spent an hour figuring that one out – my sketches claimed I should go around 210-220 degrees, but my trusty OpenOffice Cals sheet claimed 32. 180 added to 32 is 212m which was right on the money.

So, how did I do it? Well… First I noted the distances and angles of each leg of the journey. I subtracted 90 degrees from each angle. Then I used X=L*COS(RADIANS(D)) and Y=NEG(L*SIN(RADIANS(D))) to calculate the X and Y coordinates of each point, relative to one another. Once I has the relative coordinates, where, let’s say point 3 was described as being -1049, 0 relative to point 2, some simple calculations gave me the absolute coordinates of each point – and most especially, the final point. Then, using the absolute coordinates (that is, the coordinates relative to the starting point, the Origo – in this case, the Cage) I applied L=SQRT((X*X)+(Y*Y)) and D=DEGREES(ATAN(X/Y)) to get the polar coordinates (Length and Degrees) of that final point. Using the compass on top of the Cage, I simply walked in the direction my math had pointed me. I also plotted the original course in a graph program since the shape was needed for additional navigation later on (and also, it alerted me that something was wrong when , in fact, there was something wrong with the calculations)… I had preciously timed myself running to various flags near the Cage, and had estimated that each unit in the book was roughly 0.04 (the Guild of Greeters use 0.0416, I think). So, distance multiplied by 0.04, straight into the desert. Once or twice I had to walk around for a bit before I actually found the caves, but most of the time I was spot on. Very, very nice.

One more into the books. Now I’m more or less back where I was before my hiatus – I still need Delon and Tsogal. If you’re planning on making a run, or if you’re interrested ion doing one, please – don’t hesitate to contact me.