Operating a ferry

Olympia: The Age of Gods PBEM (Oct 4 2000)

### 4.3.5: Operating a ferry

        Ferry me across the water,
        Do boatman, do.
        If you've a penny in your purse
        I will ferry you.

        I have a penny in my purse,
        And my eyes are blue;
        So ferry me across the water,
        Do, boatman, do.

        Step into my ferry-boat,
        Be they black or blue,
        And for the penny in your purse
        I will ferry you.

            Boatman, Christina Giorgina Rosetti

There are several commands useful for operating a commercial ferry:

`fee` | Sets the fee passengers will be charged
`board` | Passengers use this to pay their fee and board a ferry
`unload` | Unload passengers once the destination is reached
`ferry` | Signals passengers waiting in port that they may board

The captain of a ferry uses the `fee` command to set the fee charged to passengers boarding his ship (see See fee). The fee can be expressed in terms of the number of nobles boarding, the number of men boarding, the weight boarding or any combination of the three.

For instance, if the captain wanted to charge 1/2 gold per unit weight of the passenger's stack, he would issue ```fee` weight 500`'. (a 500 gold fee for every 10000 weight).

Note that like any fee, the fee set for a ferry will not take effect until the end of the month.

The fee is a property of the ship, not the captain, but will be cleared when the last noble leaves the ship. The fee may also be cleared with the `fee` command. If no fee is set, then the ship is not considered to be operating as a ferry, and nobles are may not use the `board` order to enter the ship.

Passengers issue ```board` ship`' to board a ferry. The order will fail if the ship is not present, or if it is not operating as a ferry (the captain of the ship has no fee set). `board` will cause the noble to pay the captain the required boarding fee, then move the noble's stack onto the ship.

The `board` command also prevents the ship from being overloaded. A stack that would overload the ship is turned away.

Note that the `board` command, unlike the `move` command, ignores the admit list of the ship's captain.