Race Cities (Multiple Villages)

Core multi-village travel system. Enables travel between different cities/villages with portkey allowance (default: 3 free travels/day, increases with mounts). Two road types: safer routes (50% encounter chance scaled by VE) and dangerous routes (66% encounter chance). Forest fights during waylay. Home city tracking with blocked features when away. Hogwarts capital has unique text and restricted services. Where you fast-travel between villages and occasionally get mugged by forest creatures en route.

Travel Allowance System

Daily Portkeys:

  • Base allowance: 3 free travels per day (admin-configurable)
  • Mount bonuses: Some mounts grant +extratravel (e.g., +1 or +2 portkeys)
  • Displayed in character stats: "Portkeys: [remaining]"
  • Resets at newday

Travel Cost Priority:

  • 1. Use free portkey (if available)
  • 2. Use forest fight (if portkeys exhausted)
  • 3. Can't travel (if both exhausted)
  • Message: "You don't feel as if you could face the prospect of walking to another city today, it's far too exhausting."

Counting Travels:

  • count-travels hook: available = setting + mount bonus
  • used = traveltoday pref
  • Free remaining = available - used
  • Increments on successful travel (not on waylay defeat)

Travel Interface

Accessing Travel:

  • Village navigation: "Gates" → "Travel"
  • Special case: If not in house + not at Hogwarts: "+?Get Sorted" button (forces Hogwarts travel for sorting)
  • Otherwise: Standard "Travel" link

Travel Selection Screen:

  • Informational text: "Traveling outside of Hogwarts can be a dangerous occupation."
  • "Pay careful attention to the signs as some roads are safer than others."
  • Collapsible description (collapse module integration)
  • Navigation sections:
  • Safer Travel: Lower waylay chance
  • More Dangerous Travel: Higher waylay chance
  • Cities listed with appropriate hotkeys

Waylay Mechanics

Encounter Chance (VE-Scaled):

  • Safe route: Base 50% chance
  • Dangerous route: Base 66% chance
  • VE scaling (reduces chance for newbies):
    • VE 0-1: 50% of base chance
    • VE 2-30: Linear scale 50%→100% of base
    • VE 31+: Full base chance
  • Example: Safe route, VE 15 = ~75% of 50% = ~37.5% encounter

Waylay Sequence:

  • 1. Roll random encounter check
  • 2. If triggered: Random forest creature (same level as player)
  • 3. "You've been waylaid!" header
  • 4. Standard forest combat
  • 5. Can Fight or Run (60% run success rate)

Combat Outcomes:

  • Victory: Gain exp/gold, message: "This fight would have yielded an extra turn except it was during travel." (no turn reward)
  • Defeat: Die, sent to shades with message: "travelling to [destination]"
  • Run Success: Escape back to origin city
    • If coward penalty enabled: Lose another travel/forest fight
    • Message: "In your terror, you lose your way and become lost."
  • Run Fail: Combat continues

Successful Arrival:

  • If no waylay OR waylay victory: Redirect to destination village
  • Location updated automatically
  • Travel cost already deducted (not refunded on defeat)

Home City System

Home City Tracking:

  • homecity pref: Stores your designated home village
  • Displayed in character stats: "Home City: [name]"
  • Set during character creation or via special events
  • Determines which services are blocked when away

Blocked Features When Away from Home:

  • Inn (can't rest away from home)
  • Stables (can't manage mounts remotely)
  • Healer (no away-city healing)
  • Gardens (home garden only)
  • Training (can't train in foreign city)
  • Rock (home-only)
  • Dwellings module (property at home only)

Available When Away:

  • Forest (can fight anywhere)
  • Travel (obviously)
  • Basic navigation
  • Some module-specific features

Hogwarts as Capital

Special Capital Features:

  • Custom village text: "All around you, the young witches and wizards of Hogwarts move about their business."
  • "Along various halls you see different classrooms."
  • Custom navigation labels:
  • fightnav: "Classes and Training" (instead of "Train")
  • marketnav: "Shops and Services"
  • tavernnav: "Seventh Floor" (instead of "Inn")
  • Newest player announcement hidden (capital is busy, nobody notices)

Blocked in Hogwarts (Capital):

  • Inn
  • Stables
  • Healer
  • Weapons shop
  • Armor shop
  • Bank
  • Gardens
  • Dwellings module

Hogwarts is hub for travel, not full-service village (forces return to home city for services).

Travel Special Events

Random Events During Travel:

  • Chance for travel-specific special events (default: 7%)
  • Fires instead of normal creature encounter
  • Uses standard event system (module_events)
  • Examples: Unique NPCs, treasure finds, mini-quests
  • If event has no navs: Continues to destination

Mount Travel Bonuses

extratravel Mount Pref:

  • Mounts can grant bonus daily portkeys
  • Example: Thestral grants +2 portkeys/day
  • Configured per-mount in mounts module
  • Displayed in mount features: "Travel: +2"
  • Stacks with base allowance (3 + 2 = 5 portkeys/day)

Strategy Guide

Efficient Travel:

  • Use safe routes when low HP (lower encounter risk)
  • Use dangerous routes when grinding exp (more fights = more exp)
  • Save portkeys for emergency returns to home city
  • Travel at full HP (preparation for waylay)
  • Get mount with +extratravel for frequent travelers

Waylay Survival:

  • Dangerous routes: Expect 66% encounter (2/3 trips = fight)
  • Running costs travel/turn (coward penalty)
  • Better to fight and win than run (preserves resources)
  • Death during travel = normal death (shades, -exp)

Home City Choice:

  • Pick home near preferred hunting grounds
  • Consider inn/healer proximity for recovery
  • Hogwarts NOT recommended as home (too many blocked features)
  • Choose based on clan location or friend concentration

Technical Details

Key Hooks:

  • villagetext: Custom text/navigation for Hogwarts capital
  • village: Adds travel navigation, blocks features based on location
  • travel: Adds city navigation links
  • count-travels: Calculates available/used portkeys
  • cities-usetravel: Consumes travel/turn, returns success/type
  • newday: Resets traveltoday counter

Danger Scaling Formula:

  • VE 0-1: dlevel = 50% of base
  • VE 2-30: dlevel = ((VE-1) * (50/29) + 50) / 100 * base
  • VE 31+: dlevel = base (unscaled)
  • Designed to protect newbies from constant waylays

Admin Configuration

Settings:

  • allowance: Daily travel allowance (int, default 3)
  • coward: Penalize running? (bool, default 1)
  • travelspecialchance: % chance for special event (int, default 7)
  • safechance: Safe route waylay % (range 1-100, default 50)
  • dangerchance: Dangerous route waylay % (range 1-100, default 66)
  • Validation: dangerchance must be ≥ safechance

Limitations

  • No Direct Routes: All travel goes through selection screen (no hotkeys from village)
  • Travel Cost Non-Refundable: Defeat doesn't refund portkey/turn
  • Blocked Features Frustrating: Away from home = limited functionality
  • Hogwarts Underwhelming: Capital has fewer features than villages
  • No Fast Travel: Can't teleport without using portkey/turn

Race Cities: the core travel system where you get 3 daily portkeys to fast-travel between villages, except "fast-travel" means "66% chance to get jumped by a forest creature matching your level" on dangerous roads (50% on safe roads, but who takes safe roads?). When away from your home city, half the game's features are blocked—no inn, no stables, no healer, no nothing—forcing you to actually return home occasionally instead of living as a perpetual vagrant. Hogwarts is the capital city with custom flavor text about young witches and wizards moving about their business, but ironically has FEWER features than regular villages because apparently the largest magical school in Britain doesn't have a weapons shop or bank. At least when you die during travel, the death message helpfully notes you were "travelling to [destination]" so everyone knows you died being productive instead of just standing around the village like a chump.