NationStates Jolt Archive

A thread for the purpose of teaching new comers how to 'create' weapons, arms tanks battleships... and anything else.. Because we all know NO ONE really reads those silly FAQ (Myself included) :oops:

Annnyways... Here are some pointers.

First off, God modding and how to avoid it. God modding is basically cheating, or being cheap. It ranges from having a nation you started 'Today' and saying you own a huge fleet of battleships, nukes etc to playing a war and saying "Oh! I keep shooting down your planes, so you can't hurt me!"

Second. Tech level, Some nations play around in a Star wars universe, with starships, anti mater, and the rest, others are kingdoms were people buy and sell knights and small cannons. The majority of all nations are 'Modern' The real trick is different tech levels do not mix. It is generally frowned upon if you own a few starships and ivade some Nation with castles and swords.

Third. Money! "How do I get money? How do I spend it?" are the big ones often asked (took me a while to figure it out) so here we go, the 'Holy Grail' of figuring out how much money you have? Is right HERE->> http://www.esyn.org/SOTA/NationStates.html This link goes to a 'calculator' you input the name of your nation and Military budget, then gives you many options. For instance, my nation (as of 12/21/03) has the following

Population: 129,000,000
Civil Rights: Very Good
Economy: Reasonable
GDP per Capita: $7,500
GDP: $967,500,000,000
National Budget: $203,898,690,000
Percentage of GDP Spent on Defense: 1.05%
Percentage of Budget Spent on Defense: 05%
**Military Budget: $10,194,934,500**

I only spend 5% of my budget on Military, but I still have 10 Billion. The bigger and stronger your nation is. the bigger your budget. But again, be sensiable... Don't put 100% as your budget just to get a huge amount of money, you do have to spend it on other things.

Fourth. Getting equiped! "Where do I get an army? navy? Battle ships? Starships?" Well your in luck! On any day in here there are dozens of 'Shop' Threads to buy from. All you do is look at your budget. Decide what you want to buy, then post a message saying "I wish to buy this!" and POOF its all yours. If you plan on being a Serious RP'er, I recomend keeping 'Recipes' IE copying the text of your purchase, and then the seller saying "Ok you now own this" So you have records that yes indeed, you DO have those 500 Warships!

Annnywho, this is all for getting started and geting set up, for actually playing 'War and Peace' well, thats more complicated, and I recomend learning as you go. Just always remember to use "Common Sense!"

Peace out ya'all :o

Bumped, because I know this wont be a sticky, but I do think its useful for "Noobs"

Yes, a guy who was made a little more than a month ago really has the authority to tell NEW nations what to do. You're not that old yourself bud.

I know, I am not saying I am an all knowing Guru.. I just have noticed that the older nations that do know everything tend to be just a 'tad' snide and dismissive of new countries. I myself am new, and when I tried asking simple questions, about 90% of the time I got responses along the line of..
"You f***ing noob! You are so stupid Ha ha ha!" and so on...

So im just trying to be polite because hey Come On! being a new nation is tough, after all, we ALL were noobies once... Remember? :wink:

Yeah, it was rough for me at first two, still rough in some parts...

If I had this when I first signed up, it would have helped a lot ;)

Seems fairly well-written to me... No need to be so hostile towards the guy. :)

---Post deleted by NationStates Moderators---

Me too. Must-read for every newbie :)

Good post, but no offense, isn't this like the... fourth or fifth post teaching people to RP, aside from the 2 "RP Schools"?

Probably, Omz... Is that really a bad thing though? No matter how many FAQs and "how-to"s we post, there's always morons who can't RTFM... :|

Personally, I like mine better. :wink: :P

----
-TROUSRS
http://brandonsroom.board.dk3.com/2/index.php

Just a question? (I know it's kind of late but it's never late to ask) in the beginning I added a sum of money according to my economy. (10.000.000-80.000.000) every week. When I was financially strong enough, I dropped that and only counted on the money I make from export. Is there a real problem with this system?

Probably, Omz... Is that really a bad thing though? No matter how many FAQs and "how-to"s we post, there's always morons who can't RTFM... :|
Ah, welcome back.

But still, while this do explain things quickly for some, it is going to be the same -- n00bs who doesn't get the point of RTFM, n00bs who just can't RP. No offense to the thread's creator. Not saying that this thread's useless or pointless, but there are just too many of these "manuals" right now.

Good post, but no offense, isn't this like the... fourth or fifth post teaching people to RP, aside from the 2 "RP Schools"?

:lol: I think you mean 4-5,000,000,000?

-----
TROUSRS
http://brandonsroom.board.dk3.com/2/index.php

Very helpful, apart from the fact that the people of Harwich just want to get drunk and stoned and have sex when they feel like it. According to the calculator we have $78,450,000 to blow. Any ideas?

A great post, and the link to the GDP calculator (et cetera) is incredibly helpful. You may want to add that nations with large arms manufacturing sectors will likely have the following effects:

1. Little to no need to buy from forum storefronts. Harder to keep your forces realistically inclined, but when you produce your own weapons, you don't need to outsource from other nations.

2. Greater amounts of weaponry than those nations that outsource. Seeing as countries with storefronts sell their weaponry for profit, whereas your nation likely gets their weapons from low-priced weapons contracts in your own nation, your nation will be able to spend the same amount of money to get a larger amount of forces. Conversely, a nation that has an arms manufacturing sector but not a large military would be able to acquire the same amount of weaponry as outsourcing nations while spending less money to do so.

Thank you all for the helpful comments and advice.

I here alot of people talking other schools and RP lessons. But, I havn't found the, (well I have NOW thanks to your posted links) Point is, that when I was a noob, it was very hard to try and get started and understand how things work... Granted I am only a month old, but it is not like I don't have experiance else where, once you pick up the fundimentals, its easy to move along with everyone else.

I don't know who made the calculator, but I think it is the most usefull tool ever for the Nations here!

Cronoeria's comments were also very useful and make a lot of sense, should have thought of that myself :)

Bumped for newcomers :)

This is a great post, i took me 3 days before i figured NS out, i wish i had this post then.

Very good, very good 8)

Hooray for being a pacifist country with 1% of our budget going to the military!

Oops, shouldn't have said that for fear my enemies will attack me!

(wait a sec... what enemies?)

My friend had been NSing for a day or two and had read the stickies when I found out. I just had him explain the whole damn game to me in detail when I started out in the forums... which was my first day...

I got bored of the stickies after about two lines (they just went on and on and on and on, I was at work! I don't have that kind of time) wish I'd found this earlier on... but no matter, strongly advised for newcomers, short to the point and the link is a handy wee tool!

note someone who's been playing a month is proberbly more able to tell a newbie immediately useful and relevant information than people who've been about for longer... (like me and computers, I'm top notch and have real problems explaining to newcomers how things work becouse I don't need to think about how to write a bash script, or set up an oracle database coz I've done it a hundred times where as those just below me are good at it (not least coz I dragged them by their ties to shadow me!!! muhahaha))
Note -
excellent, too the point, precise, everything you need to know to get started and in something that wont put you to sleep, get you detention, or get you fired!

Since I first made this one, I have seen quite a few other, very helpful "How to" threads.. so my question is, with the constant flood of new states why arn't these Stickied?

bump