Sextant

Revision as of 16:52, 5 August 2008 by Tancred RedStar (Talk | contribs)

A Sextant is a navigation tool that displays your coordinates when used. Although traditionally associated with nautical navigation, it works just as well on land. No skill is required to use a sextant.

To use a sextant, double-click it and your current coordinates will be displayed over your character's head. Coordinates 0°0'S,0°0'E is the "center" of the coordinate system and coincides with Lord British's throne, located in Castle Britannia in Britain. Sextants do not work in dungeons.

Sextants are created with Tinkering skill, although the skill pre-requisite is zero, so anyone with Tinker's tools can sucessfully create one provided they have Sextant Parts(which actually require 30.0 Tinkering skill to create from 4 metal ingots!).

In real maritime practice, a sextant is pointed at the sun using the eyepiece. A free-swinging arm, pointing down due to gravity, determines at what angle the sun is from the horizon. This angle is then checked against the time of day and various nautical tables to reveal one's position on the Earth.