Talk:Laws/Watch Dog

Watch Dog Questions and (sometimes) Answers

This is a good place to have a dialog about what Watch Dogs can do and what they cannot do. As the Legal Petition has no real good place for Use Cases, this page can expand on how, where and whys of Watch Dogs.

Please add your questions or comments (hopefully useful ones).

What are Watch Dogs and what do they really guard?

First, think of the Dog as full sized CP that is yet unbuilt. Think of it as a square or rectanglular area that is the size of a maximum building + 10 coordinates on each side.

If you put the Dog down in the open landscape you will claim an area that is the maximum sized CP you can build with a bit of comfort zone around it.

If you have a single existing compound (more complex use cases to follow) and put your Dog down inside your CP it will guard your CP plus a comfort zone.

The Dog guard areas are flexible because not all CPs are squares or rectangles. Some CPs have unique shapes. So the Dog will guard whatever the shape is of the compound plus the comfort zone.

Another way of thinking about Dogs is that they are effectively an Invisible Building that is bigger and overlapping your own.

How do I know what is being guarded?

All Dogs have a "show me the guard area" as an option. This is essentially a Walls Up option.

When you do a "Walls Up" on any dog you can see what is included or excluded from the boundry.

I want to guard my camel pens can it do that?

If you place your Dog in the open area, it will guard the Max Builing Area + 10 Coords. If you use the Walls Up option you will be able to position your Dog so that the "Guard Area" covers your camel pens.

But it doesn't have to guard just a camel pen, it can guard any area, like a clay bed or a marble quarry spot or a future Arts Building site or even your front lawn.

So whats this No Overlapping Areas Bit?

It does sound rather extreme but the original concept is in alignment with the Basic Building Codes of Egypt. There are no overlapping graphical footprints allowed.

The overlapping items is considered an exploit but in fact it is done all the time on Landscape Objects, like woodplanes, vineyards, greenhouses and bonfires.

Items inside buildings are strictly enforced; you cannot build 2 hackling racks on top of each other or 2 chests on top of each. You can place them side by side but not on top.

That Dogs are already a second building larger than your current one, and sitting on top of it, there is already a overlap and having multiple Dogs doing that might be more of an issue for Teppy. (I was trying to get it approved not vetoed).

Is there a way I get Overlapping Areas Protected?

Yes!

Using the Walls Up option on the Dog you can see what is sticking out. If you have more than one Dog you can place and position your other Dog in a way to cover up the exposed area.

What about having my own Dogs with Overlapping Areas?

Teppy indicated that this was an area of confusion.

There really isn't any reason against an Owner having his Dogs placed with overlapping areas other than the "no overlapping graphic footprint rules".

If these are suspended for 1 Dog they could be suspended for all. It's really a Teppy call about how many Dogs he wants to allow to have overlaps.

Cosmetically it would be nice to have 2 or 3 Dogs with animated patrols moving around your CP.

If this were allowed it might be a tad bit easier to manoeuver the placement of Dogs to gaurd an oddly shapped area or camp.

Extreme Overlap Concern

If Owners can have their Dogs overlap consider the situation with Guild Donated Dogs or Players with many mules/alts.

If a Guild gets 10 Dogs donated and sets them all down next to each other, thats 10 overlapping items in the same place. This might cause some problem with the existing system.

Well I have more areas than I have Dogs

You get one Dog per cornerstone. If you have a spouse, alts, mules you can have more Dogs.

Dogs are supposed to be limited. Like cornerstones that can move around, you have to decide how to use these limited resources.

That is until someone figures out how to have puppies.