Travel Calculator

Create a tool that calculates time and plausibility/difficulty of a journey. The best way to explain what I’d like is to give an example.

In a swords/sorcery fantasy tale, Joe is in Pittsburgh and desires to travel to Philadelphia. He can walk, ride a horse, ride in a wagon, or take a roundabout route by river. He can follow a well-developed road network, less-traveled roads, or he can set out cross-country. His decision on how to make the journey are heavily impacted by the time of year/season. Mountains might be unpassable due to snow for a couple months a year. Rivers might be unfordable due to rainy season or spring melt. Less-traveled roads might be too dangerous due to brigands, and the well-developed road network might be too dangerous due to the king’s forces looking for him.

Whatever the reason, each of those characteristics have a price and will factor into his decision. Maybe on horseback in fair weather on the well-developed road, it takes him five days. If it’s spring rain season, maybe that adds 1 day to his ride, it adds 3 days if he takes the lesser-known route, and 8 days if he strikes out across country. If he takes a roundabout path down rivers, across to the sea, and up the coast to Philadelphia, it might take 12 days, but that’s unavailable from December to April due to high river conditions and/or stormy weather at sea.

I would like Sudowrite to examine the route, consider all the factors, and give possibilities for his trip so I can decide which to use. It would add a degree of realism/consistency so Joe doesn’t go from Pittsburgh to Philly in 4 days on a horse and makes his return ride in 2 days.

This tool could also be used in many other genres. Romance writers might use it to calculate how two characters can start in different places in Everytown and have their fateful encounter next to the cozy coffee shop. Crime/thriller writers might use it to track their perpetrators and victims around town to ensure their plot/action is feasible.

It would require the user to input the data, but once it’s entered, it’s there to use forever and could be used for multiple stories/series. Essentially, it all comes down to a mathematical table and a formula Sudowrite uses to calculate the various options.