NationStates Jolt Archive

RP Suggestions for a Friend

Introduction: Welcome to my rather brief guide to role-playing in space, mostly aimed at players like The Fedral Union and those who RP around him. The reason I’m keeping this OOC is to avoid all the IC issues that surround these nations and how they all seem to be pretty angry at one another and just love making accusations. Why am I writing this? Well lets call it a last ditch effort to slam some sense into a certain region of International Incidents, I did inform TFU that I would be writing something like this more or less to help him out… he can take it or leave it if he wants.

You would think that a lot of these nations have been role-playing space a lot longer then I have and would be more experienced at it, in general this is correct, but due to the fact that these nations commonly have arguments about number-wanking, tech-wanking, puppet-wanking and stat-wanking I think it’s about time we organised something to point out how role-playing etiquette fits into the space universe.

Please note these are suggestions, not laws or rules. They are not official and they are only being mentioned to hopefully point out some problems. Also note I will be changing this as I go along as I may have missed points… I’m fully prepared to change if someone has a better suggestion.

Why is it invite only then? Well that’s simple enough; because a lot of people like to take any opportunity to have a pop at the Fedral Union whenever someone points out their problems. This means that I’m forced to keep this between nations who generally RP with the Fedral Union and understand that if they are going to post in this thread they should be constructive… I will only warn you once before asking you to leave, if you do not leave then I will point out to a mod that you are being bothersome and they will warn you to leave. This is not an attempt to insult anyone, just help out with the arguments.


General Role-Playing Suggestions So that’s the basic idea of the thread out of the way, now on to the actual suggestions themselves. As many have noticed throughout the many role-plays in space, a lot of them in International Incidents have ended in arguments and claims that one player is ignoring the other, here are some tips to help avoid this:

> Work things out OOC: First piece of advise is fairly simple; you will find that when you start an role-play with a nation you may have combat with, you will find that most of the time you will both have different technologies and ideas on how the role-play will go. As such it’s important to work out any problems OOC before you start the RP. You can do this in MSN, telegram or even in a separate thread… if you don’t do this you may waste a lot of time arguing with the other nation over the power of your weapon, why they aren’t taking enough damage and so on. Work out how your technology will interact with one another… bare in mind people RP many different times and technologies and to say that yours is automatically better in every way will put them off role-playing with you. Work out an agreement.

> Spelling, Grammar and Format: This is a quick addition, but basically if you want to be understood you should make it easier to read for everyone else. Basically you should try and make sure that you’re spelling it reasonable, your grammar is ok and your format makes it easy for people to read. The best way to achieve this is to use a program like Win Word to spell check your post and maybe even point out some grammar problems. However your format is down to you. The best advice I can give you is to remember to space things out so it’s not all in one clump. Basically look at other peoples posts and see how they do it, who’s post is easier to read, which one looks neat… and so on.

> Its freeform baby! Yeah, I know I should have pointed this out earlier, but it goes without saying. You can RP anything you want and there is little anyone can do about it. However, while this is the case the little people can do about it includes the ignore feature, if you are being unreasonable with your latest idea people may choose not to acknowledge this. Remember, while you can role-play anything, you can also ignore anything. So while you can RP your nation being the best in the universe, everyone else can ignore such a claim and choose not to RP with you. That’s the beauty of freeform, and it’s greatest frustration. This is why you should be reasonable.

> Be reasonable: This one is related to the last tip, basically you are both about to role-play a story which may end in some form of combat, or maybe even start with combat. However you can’t assume that NS is a competition that you can win, think of it as a cooperative storyline where you each add a party and play out a battle. The winner can be determined by both of you depending on how well you do against the other; you can probably come up with an agreement as to the winner assuming you didn’t decide at the beginning. Don’t just assume that because Star Trek technology will automatically win against Homeworld technology… you are here to write a story, not wank over how superior your technology is. However, that said, if the other person admits they are weaker but are willing to role-play a futile attack/defence then fair enough, because it comes out as interesting for both players…

> Be descriptive: This isn’t really as important, but it makes the thread a whole lot better. The more description you put into it, the more interesting it is to read and the more you will enjoy the role-play on the whole. It also allows the other player to have a better idea of what’s going on. However, it’s possible to have too much description… its up to the individual player, but try not to let the information get drowned out by the description.

> Show (OOC) respect: You may or may not respect the player you are role-playing with, but if you are going to insist on role-playing with them I would suggest you don’t insult them or their role-play fashion… after all, you are role-playing with them right? So at least role-play with them without going out of your way to insult them otherwise you will end up with nothing more then a bitch-fest on your hands. However, on the other hand, don’t assume every OOC criticism is intended as an insult, if you don’t like it then respectfully ask them to not to criticise like that… in the end they can choose not to role-play with you if you won’t pay attention to their problems.

> Have fun: It gets forgotten a lot of the time but Nationstates is just a game; albeit an addictive game which takes a lot of time and effort for some people. The important thing is to have fun; if you are not having fun then you should try something else. Tired of having wars with everyone? Chill out and try something else, make peace with those you fight or have a peace conference… that way you automatically have a character/diplomatic role-play. Or perhaps you don’t have enough combat… again, you can probably find something to get involved with or if you want to keep a good reputation you can role-play war games or something. Just enjoy yourself.


Combat Role-Playing Suggestions: Now that we have the basics out of the way, I think it’s time to move on to the more important parts of looking at combat itself. The problems here are that players often do things like deny the other player of the chance to defend themselves and so on. So these are the hints regarding combat:

> Work things out OOC: Oh dear, I’ve mentioned this one before, however I feel that this one is damn important for a combat role-play. In space, or anywhere for that matter, you will find that the other people will have different weapons and different ideas on how effective they are. Hell, both of you are using fictional weapons in a fictional universe, so how about working out together how effective your weapons would be and so on. This is important because if you don’t you may not like how the other player role-plays the damage he takes and argue about it, which would damage the thread. You can also talk about the speed of the thread here too, like if you want to bother role-playing mobilisation and deployment, mentioned below. Different players work at different speeds, work it out first guys.

> The Basics: These are the actual rules you shouldn’t be ignoring but a lot of people do anyways. I shouldn’t have to mention these but I guess that with people acting as they do it needs to be included. We are talking about things like claiming other people’s damage, role-playing other players’ character/forces and generally taking all the fun out of the role-play for the other players.

Firstly there is the godmode that is claiming damage. Freeform role-play is designed around the idea that you can role-play anything you like however you like. However you can only RP your own stuff, and more importantly, to make combat fair the defender chooses how much damage he takes from an attack. It’s a godmode to claim their damage for them; however it’s a godmod for them to ignore damage completely. As we all know, you can RP whatever you like, but if RP something in a way others can’t agree with, they can ignore whatever they like, including you.

Then there’s simple role-play etiquette like role-playing another nations forces or characters. You have to get permission to do so otherwise you will be enforcing something they may not have wanted to do; they control their people and you control yours. Breaking this one is to me a rather serious thing and I generally ignore any action which RPs when I didn’t allow them to do so.

You also need to know that you can’t puppet wank. This is basically the description I use of nations who use puppets to make their nation stronger then it is. You have one nation, you can’t use puppets to make it have more people or more forces… you can’t control another nation and claim it’s an ally, basically put puppets shouldn’t interact. Each nation is independent and one player can’t use two nations for the same problem.

> Mobilisation and Deployment: Ah, we are now on to the good stuff, you will recognise these words as being distinctively military based. Well now we discuss the importance of describing how your forces got into the combat, sometimes you won’t have to do this because neither player wants to bother with it… after all; you have a battle to get to. But to be safe, I’ll cover it here because many nations feel it is important and adds a level of realism.

Mobilisation is the process of getting your forces together and organising them so they are ready for action. This process is usually costly and you can’t really have your forces mobilised all the time because that’s pretty expensive. For space, imagine if your fleet was always on red alert, you can’t keep it up all the time. However could probably be done fairly quickly but remember that your forces could be all over the place so it could take some time, future tech or not.

Deployment is the process of moving the prepared forces into the areas they are going to be needed in. This can take a while and it depends on the speed of your vessels, you can use deployment to your advantage to flank and position yourself in the best area… however it needs to be said that the other side has to do this too so getting a good spot isn’t always possible. Both deployment and mobilisation should take at least a post each. Mobilisation takes more time depending on how much you are mobilising and where they are at the time. Deployment takes as long as it takes you to get the forces to the area you are deploying too.

> Take Turns You are in a cooperative story, it only makes sense to take it in turns to take actions. Basically you make your move and then allow them to make their move, fairly simple really. However, you can make more then one post at a time if you are bumping the thread a little or adding new information but you aren’t doing any more actions. You can also post more then once to describe action which isn’t going on between you and your opponent, such as reinforcements (bare in mind you can only post for the reinforcements once for each time your opponent posts). Basically, you do your bit and they do there’s… its simple.

> Made up statistics mean very little: Lets face it, we all know half of International Incidents is filled with posts about the latest tanks, ships and space craft which are going to be the greatest ever. However, when it really comes down to it, and I mean really comes down to it; these statistics are often over looked and ignored by the majority of role-players. Do you know how much damage a 10’000 Terawatt Phaser will do to a 5ft plate of Unobtanium? No? Well neither do I… they are both made up weapons for fiction. It’s up to the defender to decide how affective your weapon is against his unit, and a lot of the time he’s thinking about what he can afford to take without being ignored, he may take some of it into consideration but he won’t actually research the difference between two makes of one weapon. As such having a ship with uber-statitics will end up performing the same as a normal ship of its type because a lot of people don’t care about your improvements.

> Logistics: This isn’t as important as many others, as some technology levels ignore this completely. However it’s something I felt should be mentioned because a fair few nations hold this as important. Basically logistics is the aspect of military operations that deals with the procurement, distribution, maintenance, and replacement of materiel and personnel. In modern warfare it is vital to an operation as your troops need supplies to keep fighting. In many space battles it’s not so important so I’m not going to be too harsh about this one, but generally it limits the range of your vessels as you have to re-supply after a while, the more combat you are in the more often you will need supplies. In the modern world you need ships to transport your supplies to your troops, these ships need deepwater ports to offload their cargo and then they need trucks to distribute them further and so on. The larger the operation the more complex it is, the smaller the operation the easier it becomes, but other factors like getting them there and how dangerous it is come into it.

In space this could be anything from having to go and get a proper system check done at a space station to actual supplies needed. It’s not often RPed but it can be important.



Realism Suggestions: I couldn’t think of a name for this section, but basically this the idea is to go into detail as to how to be reasonable with the forces of your nation and statistics, I know that these things aren’t always important, but people like to be detailed. This is a guide on how to be reasonable with your nation’s forces and cover some hints to help:

> Concept Your nation is clearly based on something’s, maybe you are using ideas you like from real life be they real or fantasy, maybe you are making it up as you go along, but you have an idea of how your nation is run and what technology it has. This is your concept. Iuthia is based on a benevolent dictatorship run in the fashion I would rule the world if I had the chance (who’s surprised about that one, I bet it’s not many). The Fedral Union’s concept is Star Trek’s Federation with some changes to suit the player.

This concept is important to helping you imagine your nation. You can make it up or your can follow some other fiction or reality, freeform is freeform after all, you can do what you like.

> Be Feasible: This is the more important hint really, a lot of nations seem to get a little lost in the concept which is all very well but you have to remember you aren’t the best nation in the world, there is no such thing. At best your nation may be brilliant at some things and poor at others, but there is no overall best and it’s quite common that someone is bigger then you, has more money then you or more naked then you. So don’t get caught up in being the best. You should try and stay true to your concept while bearing in mind that others will want to interact with you and won’t always agree that you are the best. Your concept may be better then you if you are role-playing science fiction, after all those fictions have an entire galaxy to use for their adventures, you have a nation with a set population. The population isn’t always important, but a lot of people take note of it so it’s important not to get carried away with your concept. For example; you are a Star Trek nation, if you RPed it as though you were just like them you would have the resources of the Federation with just under a trillion people and thousands of advanced ships, but then what if someone then RPed Star Wars? They would have an entire galaxy to play with, maybe hundreds of thousands of ships and hundreds if not thousands of trillions of people. How about Warhammer 40’000? Well then you have pretty much the same as Star Wars, only your ships are even more obscene, you have worlds which produce nothing but Titans and stupidly powerful space marines…

Everyone can RP an idea and some of those ideas are a lot more powerful then others, the trick here is to balance them out to an acceptable level. The acceptable level depends on who you are role-playing with, some people don’t mind you having several systems to yourself, and some people will ignore your extra population and obscene amounts of ships. Some will ignore you on site and others may even mock you, even though they should not. It’s up to you to strike that balance, who do you want to RP with? Personally I like to be pretty feasible and strike a balance. I hope you do to.


Thanks, that is the conclusion, for the time being, of my guide. I didn’t cover the points I wanted to, I wanted to get into numbers and so on, but this is a fairly open thing now. Anyone can use these hints and it will probably help you get along better with some. Remember, these aren’t rules, just suggestions.

I will take comments as you like and I’m not really looking for a sticky (though I have to admit, if the title is changed it would be nice) this is all because I want to explain, in detail, what you can do to improve your chances in role-play. Thanks, I hope you find this useful.

Pete – The Player behind Iuthia.

(Doh, I know I posted this on NS first, but I meant to post it here... :p)

Very good.

#Tags# for later reference.

Should be stickied on II :) Very nice suggestions for noobs and veterans alike.

I second the sticky. This is well thought out, well presented, and highly polished.

Should be stickied on II :) Very nice suggestions for noobs and veterans alike.

Most n00bs don't read threads like this, newbies however know how do take a hint and follow advice given to them.

I'm fairly happy I didn't get into specific figures like I first intended, this post comes out better like this, it's good for anyone and I can link it to people who make dire mistakes in threads I'm reading.

I Third the sticky option.

Upage!

Great work Iuthia, before I "offically" switched this nation to Future Tech, I read you post. Even if you don't learn anything new, it's a great reinforcer.

RGP- The player behind Hamptonshire and now The First Republic

this would make an excellent sticky :D

I think this is a great sort of thread for n00bs like myself....its informative

*returns to sit in his corner and remain silent*

excellent post Iuthia, truly splendid

Thanks,

I had intended on having a discussion with TFU about ithere , but I can do that in MSN and I kinda didn't write about the parts of TFU regarding the over powered technology and so on... it can be done in MSN so meh.

Still, I hope this is useful.

Iuthia, can I have a link to one of your space RPs?
Also, it is good for a sticky. Also you can do a modern one, and that can be stickied too...

( I am just wondering.)

well these are good suggestions

( http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=7059571&posted=1#post7059571 ) opnion on that ?

Good advice...
Im not sure if Im following the 'realism' part though :P
http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=356600
I feel I explained it quite well...

If it's magic then I wouldn't worry about "Realism" the important thing is to balance it out and be reasonable. This is a co-operative game so if people work together to make a good thread the outcome is a lot better... trust me on this, wars which have been conducted between two players who are reasonable and show respect are alot better then the crap fests we get in II most the time.

Your concept is more important then complete realism... so go with the flow but don't abuse it.

[taggagae]

Ive been trying to keep everything balanced, the main problem with magical stuff is that its unreliable, I dont really talk about it much in that topic, but one of my ships crashed in another RP because one of my minions got too close to the main power crystal, which overloaded the ships systems and blew out its steering...

Great post.

Stealth Tag

If I wanted to start a future tech intorductory RP; would I post it in NS or II?
(I've got a puppet and I'd like to try future tech RPing).

I suppose these days because International Incidents isn't always In Character (like it's described) and because Nationstates generally seems to wear alot more of the quality thread reside, it depends on the audience you are looking for.

My own nations OOC Guide (linked below in my sig) is in the NS forum because it's old, not to mention it seemed to fit at the time. I also used the NS forum to post a introductory post for my friends nation; the flame drake zoltan. However, I've seen many introductory threads in both Nationstates and International Incidents and I think I can give you the difference between each forum.

In NS you have a much slower forum where people seem to take their time, if you post an introductory post in that forum you may get some replies though it would depend on how much effort you put into it.

In II you have a much faster forum where people reply quickly to threads because it's more convenient and they don't have to construct huge posts to keep up... you will get alot more replies this way but they will probably be along the lines of "this looks good" and so on.


Personally, I would choose NS because the few people who read your thread will probably read it fully... but then again, I write threads like that purely for myself; when others join in it's a bonus.

bumpage!

bump cause it needs to be read by everyone.

I would like to ask something regarding population levels.

I think actual NS population should be ignored for space nations, because in space, you have the potential for many planets in your empire / nation.

A well developed space nation would have homeworlds with 10 billion people or so, and other planets of maybe 5 billion or less people.

Take the Sol system for instance. If one space age nation is based in Sol... Earth can support 15 billion people or more (better tech = more people), Mars can hold 5 billion people, terraformed Venus can hold 10 billion people, colonies on Mercury, Jupiter's moons, Saturn's moons, the Asteroid Belt, etc. The total population of Sol could be in the 40 - 100 billion range at most if you heavy develop all habitable and terraformable planets and space bodies.

Then we consider other star systems like Alpha Centauri, Wolf, Ross, etc.

Populations can run into the trillions if space systems are well developed (An empire spanning 100 solar systems can have anywhere between 100 billion to 1 trillion, depending on how developed the systems are.)

Also, if an empire is 10,000 years old or more, it could possibly build Coruscant type of cities on planets and dramatically increase population.


I guess what I'm saying is that a 100 million population would look pretty silly for a space tech / interstellar nation. 100+ billion for a large interstellar empire would be far more realistic.

Your problem would be that the spacedy nations not ignoring their population (Heck, I'm operating with 1/10 population, due to the excessive überness of my people) would tell you to fuck off if you just jump into their threads waving your very, very, very HUGE P... opulation around.

Sure, it works in closed groups were everyone agrees to it, and it works with invite only nations (Read: you TG before acting, asking if using your überwank nation is allowed, and if not, well, you twiddle your thumps or something), on a limited scale.

And for the record, yes, I have a nation (No, not this one, obviously) with a somewhat... Undefined population. I simply don't bother with it, and use the population as a benchmark for their fleet size (1 ship/ 1 mio people, which is in itself excessively wanky, and considering the tech level I claim, it is utterly ludicrous). However, this nation (Z'Ha'Dum) operates in a fixed univere, interacting with either canon nations (Vorlon Prime) or nations that did oocly agree to the wankiness beforehand. They do not just jump around 'RAWR, I R INVADEZ!11, simply because it would be (rightfully) ignored.

And, for the record: If I get a nice little ooc dialogue to organise things, I tend to accept a lot. Including such nations. But simply waving their OMG CLAIMED HUGENESS around will only serve one goal: Me flipping 'em the bird.

And again, such nations tend to generally have the problem that interaction with the average NS nation is... Somewhat limited, due to their design.

Another thing is, of course, why the fuck a spacedy nation needs an OMG HUGE population. Personally, I have no problem flying around in sol (No FTL, here), with a couple million people... And personally, I find stuff involving a few frigates & cruisers as large force, or exploration a la Magellan involving three ships far more interesting than fleets in the tens of thousands of ships & exploding suns.

Of course, there are 'special' options. One can, for example (And heck, I do) take the nation stats not literally, but merely as an... expression of industrial, as well as individual, capabilities. This is the reason I had (have) 90% of my population dying. Simply, because one of them is far more capable in basically... Well, everything than a normal human being, this making me going full population being somewhat... ludicrous.

Now, the opposite example... Lets say, spacedy orcs who basically... Suck. I see no reason why a nation with absolutely, hilariously crappy people (and eventually tech) shouldn't ignore it's population stats and go 'I'm bigger, but my people die like mayflies', thus balancing itself out to a level that makes capability comparison with 'normal' nations, based on simple NS stats, possible.

I guess what I'm saying is that a 100 million population would look pretty silly for a space tech / interstellar nation. 100+ billion for a large interstellar empire would be far more realistic.

If you wanted, there is nothing stopping you from RPing and entire universe full of people with more humans then stars in the sky. You could claim them all to the gods who live in luxury and smite down all who oppose them at a flick of a wrist...

But while nothing is stopping you from RPing what you like (concidering it's freeform) there is nothing from stopping the rest of nationstats from not role-playing with you and refusing to do so. It's that balencing force which causes alot of nations to stick to the population limit given by their profile so that there is a comparable figure which cannot just be made up...

Population can be made up as you see fit... but most nations prefer to follow the information given by the game, ignore that information at your own peril as some players take it seriously because it if they didn't new players would claim to be better then them without any work.

Like Der Angst stated, it's a balancing act.

I agree with the post. but Id add the following.

Before announcing you have 1000000000000 people in the middle fo teh war, tell them before. Its like playing future tech, if you attack them, then you cant use a fabricated advantage like that without their concent.

The best FT races are ones that use several different ideas. I try to mix some WH40K some fallout, the tiniest pinch of trek, a bit of a couple of Games ive played recently, and a few other ideas as well (from my own twisted mind).

One thing though, if you are being real sized. Ship building:

I think its fair to assume that costs have fallen, a small space fighter might cost maybe $25million or so, and merchant vessels with less than cutting edge technology might be a lot cheaper. Some of your richer people might have one instead of a boat or Porsche. Anyway the point is, that even then a ship still costs a lot.

I tend to use naval displacement as my guide. Multiplied up a bit. About 1.2-1.5 times. So a 10000 destroyer might cost you $250m to build in MT (build, not buy from another nations storefront, Spruance class destroyer have been known to retail at $300m before, or a,little over dpwn here and I have no idea what they actually cost so dont shout at me if im still being way to cheap), but a space tech corvette of say, 18000 tonnes could cost $500m maybe? the exact ratio is up to you. Its no fun to have three ships and be broke is it?
On the other hand, if you can make spacefaring cheaper than boats, theres some godmoding going on!

Now this tiny multiply might not seem much, but think about it! A 1 mile battleship is going to have a displacement of about 6 million tonnes. So its actually going to cost as much as $120bn! Sunddenly, its not so cheap.

So I have a budget of $1500 billion ish for my armed forces, and so after defences, I have about $1300bn to play with. Now assuming i spend 20% of their value maintaining each of my peices of hardware. I could only afford to run $6400bn worht if i want to occsionally procure new thigns and change a few minor details.

SO thats only 50 battleships. and my entire budget has gone. No escorts (except the ones in the hangars), no destoryers, no army, no sea navy, no corvettes, no carriers, no supply ships! Of course I dont do that, about half my military budget is in my navy, and i have less than 20 of these things. (infact a third of my military is in super capital ships, I dont intend on building any new ones, except to replace old ones, until im past 1 billion people though, I just know i sdont have to worry about buying any more for now)

What Im saying is, think before you send 1000 battleships in, each 2 trillion tonnes, because it would cost more moeny than you could afford and strip your entire psolar system of resources just to build 50!

Just a point I felt i had to make.

Just a point I felt i had to make.

It's a nice point but you have to understand I'm trying to keep it simple... afterall, these are simple guidelines to help improve the quality of RP all around.

Though it has to be said that you make an interesting point. I feel that it's important to avoid becoming too dependant on statistics. The real concern is being reasonable with people you incist on roleplaying with... if both players are willing to RP a giant galaxy vs. galaxy war then I'm not about to stop them so long as they don't force it on others or pressume that just because one person is willing to RP it; everyone else must accept it.

Recently I've watch alot of nations complain that The Fedral Union is a GODMODer or just a bad roleplayer. Ok, I'll admit that the guy is far from perfect as he's still learning... but he's not going to learn when half of the people who incist on roleplaying with him instead of ignoring him are in fact GODMODing just as bad, or worst in cases, then he is.

People learn from examples and experiences... if people want TFU to be a better RPer then they shouldn't drop so much crap on him themselves.

*cough* sorry for the side rant, it's not at you Orange... it's something which has anoyed me resentls.

As far as I'm concerned if more people treated Nationstates like a co-operative story telling game (i.e role-play) and not a game of numbers which you can win; this game would be a lot better.

yeah, true, I have no idea who TFU is.

I suppose it depends what you wnat from the game though.

I like a small sense of convincingness, though if two aprties agreed galaxy versus galaxywars. All fair play to them they both agreed, which is the most important thing. That said, numbers can make it more realistic and compelling, if you have a limit to your reasources it makes it more interesting. Its up to personal taste I guess.

I know what you mean, Orange state has been in two wars, one was a pre agreed one which both sides were co operating, That was fun., the other was declared on me for no reason and 1000 battleships attacked. I just assume they are a lot smaller than mine (becuase that nation is a lot poorer) and didnt enjoy it as much.

It is a role playing game, I guess you want to check what role you are playing before hand and what they are playing.

Anyway, good thread.

That said, numbers can make it more realistic and compelling, if you have a limit to your reasources it makes it more interesting. Its up to personal taste I guess.

Thats my point really. I'm not saying people shouldn't bother with statistics and figures outright... but that they shouldn't depend on and demand them. Statistics, figures and the like are the fine detail in a post... but they aren't entirely required. I don't know how many troops I've got in Iuthia and I haven't got all my military worked out... I gave up on it because if I'm going to do it I'm going to do it right, down to the logistics and the support and so on. Instead of having huge lists in a conflict I use sense... I don't need to use it all and it's likely I'll have at least so much so I can afford to RP a small force and I don't have to worry about all my figures.

I don't need to know the make of my weapon, just that its a weapon and so on. It's down to preference like you said.

War Thread X

Post 1: Pre-battle post
*army A marches towards army B with x forces*

Post 2: Pre-battle post
*army B digs in on hill and waits with x forces*

Post 3: Battle post
*army A does direct frontal assault on army B*

Post 4: Battle post
*army B stays in trenches and fires at enemy*

Post 5: Game Master
>flips coin: Heads - army A wins Tails - army B wins (coin lands on tails)
>decides on logical casualties (since it's a direct frontal assualt on a trench on a hill and it failed, army A should lose 50-60% and army B should lose 5-10%)
*posts info*

Post 6: Loser
*posts casualty #s and decides to retreat instead of surrender*

Post 7: Winner
*posts casualty #s and pitches camp for the day*

-Battle ends-

Much simpler :)

> Mobilisation and Deployment: Ah, we are now on to the good stuff, you will recognise these words as being distinctively military based. Well now we discuss the importance of describing how your forces got into the combat, sometimes you won’t have to do this because neither player wants to bother with it… after all; you have a battle to get to. But to be safe, I’ll cover it here because many nations feel it is important and adds a level of realism.

Mobilisation is the process of getting your forces together and organising them so they are ready for action. This process is usually costly and you can’t really have your forces mobilised all the time because that’s pretty expensive. For space, imagine if your fleet was always on red alert, you can’t keep it up all the time. However could probably be done fairly quickly but remember that your forces could be all over the place so it could take some time, future tech or not.

Deployment is the process of moving the prepared forces into the areas they are going to be needed in. This can take a while and it depends on the speed of your vessels, you can use deployment to your advantage to flank and position yourself in the best area… however it needs to be said that the other side has to do this too so getting a good spot isn’t always possible. Both deployment and mobilisation should take at least a post each. Mobilisation takes more time depending on how much you are mobilising and where they are at the time. Deployment takes as long as it takes you to get the forces to the area you are deploying too.
> Take Turns: You are in a cooperative story, it only makes sense to take it in turns to take actions. Basically you make your move and then allow them to make their move, fairly simple really. However, you can make more then one post at a time if you are bumping the thread a little or adding new information but you aren’t doing any more actions. You can also post more then once to describe action which isn’t going on between you and your opponent, such as reinforcements (bare in mind you can only post for the reinforcements once for each time your opponent posts). Basically, you do your bit and they do there’s… its simple.

I feel I've already covered taking turns basically... I'm not setting rules, just suggestions which would improve RP. I feel that rules are not to way to solve things, but instead to change the mind of the individual through constructive criticism.

I understand about the population figures.

However, I'm not looking to number wank myself. The only reason why I proposed a scaling system for two reasons:

1. More tax money to build solid defenses and capacity to have more ships. In space, vessels can be much larger than naval vessels, but if you have space shipyards, you can construct a 8 kilometer aircraft carrier which would function, cost, and maintain similiar to a 1 kilometer long naval aircraft carrier. You don't have to worry about the 8 kilometer carrier sinking into water because space is just a 3-d void.

2. Homeworlds tend to be highly developed. If we make it to interstellar space in real life, by that time, Earth itself will likely have 15 billion people on it with cities and heavy infrastructure.

3. Another solution is to apply the same scale to the other opposing nation. Give both competing nations the exact same scaling.

4. What about non-war RP's? Exploration RP's? In those RP's there won't be a war "you must win" or "I must win! I refuse to lose" which leads to the inevitable god-modding.


Sorry I'm going off at an tangent. I don't like my nation's stats and such... like Sharina is now an Capitalist Paradise. I won't RP Sharina as that. I'm RP'ing Sharina as an real democracy (New York Times Democracy) or Democratic Socialists, or a Technocracy (Government by skilled craftsmen and scientists).

In addition, I don't follow or RP my nation's descriptions like "omnipresent government", "There are no minimum wage laws" (I did it just to boost my economy, nothing else), "Corporations are either above the law or corrupting it, " etc.

Also, I might RP my Uranium Mining as "Hydrogen Refining" (For my fusion power reactors), "Space Technology" (Industries devoted to aerospace, outer space, and technology for outer space), etc.

I honestly feel that I shouldn't follow the exact NS game provided stats for my nation. Where's the fun in that? NS game stats for your nation shouldn't dictate what you can RP and can't RP.

I'm aganist god-modding, and I'm never going to say or RP "I have 10,000 ships" or anything like that.


Sorry again for the rant, but I felt some things needed to be expressed from me to the NS community.

I don't even use my nationpage much at all anymore. For instance, my nation is a Complusery Consumer State or whatever. The Human Imperial Republic of International Incidents, however, is a communistic meritocracy. Not only that, but the one and a quarter billion population my page lists? Nope, sorry. I run under the assumption that I have several trillion spread throughout 25 star systems (And pretty much every habitable rock in them).

To be fair, however, my (quite sizable) space fleet is mostly taken up defending those various systems or sitting in spacedock. My offensive capabilities are rather small. Not to mention that I'm quite less technologically advanced than most nations.

Meh, it's freeform guys, RP what you want. These are just suggestions which cover my opinions on the game we are obcessed with. So take it or leave it.

I am mostly using this thread to link it to people I feel need to concider the points made.

Speaking from expirience, I find that attacking a 25+ strong alliance, while a good way to get your nation on the map, is also a good way to get your homeworld vaporized.

Sharina: good point too. But If you set colonies up you scatter your population thinly, resulting in possible breakaway nations of national size, which is the premise for mine, a colony that was left alone in a war and has recently left a short lived dark age.

But I guess it depends on what you want to do. I like the idea of scaling up if your opponent does, though really the attacker should have to scale down if they are scaled up. I guess its just down to who's more willing to give in and Rp a different sized nation, and what you agree on though.

I don't even use my nationpage much at all anymore... Not only that, but the one and a quarter billion population my page lists? Nope, sorry. I run under the assumption that I have several trillion spread throughout 25 star systems (And pretty much every habitable rock in them).

That's quite funny... if anything, the population and economic size of a nation from the nationpage should always come into account, unless there is a very good reason to ignore those figures.

it depends on whether your RPing partner agrees. If they dont mind, then you might as well ignore it. That said, the closer you stick to conventions the more people will RP with you. Its about balancing it to your taste.

I like to base my NS nation on the nation I play and vice versa. Its more fun that way.

I think its fair to assume that costs have fallen, a small space fighter might cost maybe $25million or so, Ludicrous. Observe: A F 15 is more expensive than a Sopwith Camel ever was. The opposite is the case: Stuff gets more expoensive and you're having less (This less does, however, have far more destructive capabilities)

Now this tiny multiply might not seem much, but think about it! A 1 mile battleship is going to have a displacement of about 6 million tonnes. So its actually going to cost as much as $120bn! Sunddenly, its not so cheap. Random comment: For me, the simple version (No FTL or shields or other shiny stuffpretty much hard SF) would be 160- 480bn. The über verison twice as much.

What Im saying is, think before you send 1000 battleships in, each 2 trillion tonnes, because it would cost more moeny than you could afford and strip your entire psolar system of resources just to build 50! Well, here we agree. Though personally, I like basing stuff on NS stats, rather than arbitrary 'I'm bigger' claims. And by that, having more ships just means that you're having less capable ships... So, 1000 Battleships ain't a problem, but I would enforce a 'Well, nice number... To bad they have problems facing a frigate. And then there is of course the size issue... bigger ships == less ships, hence, why I have nothing exceeding 550m/ diameter. And that is a single, silly exception from generally smaller stuff.

1. More tax money to build solid defenses and capacity to have more ships. In space, vessels can be much larger than naval vessels, but if you have space shipyards, you can construct a 8 kilometer aircraft carrier which would function, cost, and maintain similiar to a 1 kilometer long naval aircraft carrier. You don't have to worry about the 8 kilometer carrier sinking into water because space is just a 3-d void.

Aiee... Or rofl? Not sure.

Observe: Naval ship: 1. Far cheaper propulsion. Hate to bring this to you, but... ship's propellers are kinda... cheaper (Far cheaper) and easier to build than $Spacecraftdrive, possibly including FTL.

2. Different Environment. You do not need to protect your naval ship from constant high level radiation, from 2 Kelvin Background temperature, or, depending on the ship's velocity, asteorids/ spacedy dust. Your naval ship does (usually) not have shiny shields (tm), as quite a few spacedyships have (Mine don't, luckily). Your naval thingy doesn't need to be save from oxygen- leakage, it doesn't need to contain excessive amounts of said oxygen etc.

A cost ratio of 10:1 for rather advanced spacecraft, compared to naval thingy's of equal mass, is to be expected.

2. Homeworlds tend to be highly developed. If we make it to interstellar space in real life, by that time, Earth itself will likely have 15 billion people on it with cities and heavy infrastructure. 90% of whom will have problems finding food, only 10% making up an actual, industrialised population. BANG, this is what the average developed NS nation has.

3. Another solution is to apply the same scale to the other opposing nation. Give both competing nations the exact same scaling.
This comes without question, no? Applying different scales would be... Not questionable but outright assholism.

Problem is, of course, that some nations (E.g. me) might not want such scales, and interaction would be limited or impossible. Of course, this can happen in perfect ooc friendliness... It is merely closing possible RP windows.

4. What about non-war RP's? Exploration RP's? In those RP's there won't be a war "you must win" or "I must win! I refuse to lose" which leads to the inevitable god-modding. Definitely, and having a civilization of a galaxy- spanning race of hippy peaceniks ought to allow you to get through with a lot of things an 'average' (e.g. occasional conflict) nation couldn't get through with.

Sorry I'm going off at an tangent. I don't like my nation's stats and such... like Sharina is now an Capitalist Paradise. I won't RP Sharina as that. I'm RP'ing Sharina as an real democracy (New York Times Democracy) or Democratic Socialists, or a Technocracy (Government by skilled craftsmen and scientists).

In addition, I don't follow or RP my nation's descriptions like "omnipresent government", "There are no minimum wage laws" (I did it just to boost my economy, nothing else), "Corporations are either above the law or corrupting it, " etc.

Also, I might RP my Uranium Mining as "Hydrogen Refining" (For my fusion power reactors), "Space Technology" (Industries devoted to aerospace, outer space, and technology for outer space), etc.

I honestly feel that I shouldn't follow the exact NS game provided stats for my nation. Where's the fun in that? NS game stats for your nation shouldn't dictate what you can RP and can't RP.
There is a difference between ignoring everything negative in your stats and ignoring everything improbably/ things that simply don't work out/ ruin flavour'. Personally, I know of no one Who can RP his nation entirely after NS stats. And as for the examples you mentioned... That goes without question, ignoring (or rather, redefining) those stats is logical, and in no way questionable. Heck, I'm doing this kind of stats ignore quite a lot, myself (E.g. since my nation is currently suffering from a cataclysm killing 90% of the population, the political leadership falling apart, new sovereign entities forming... I consider my frightening economy to be imploded).

I run under the assumption that I have several trillion spread throughout 25 star systems (And pretty much every habitable rock in them). Well, this is something I wouldn't exactly hasten to recognise...

Well, this is something I wouldn't exactly hasten to recognise...

Don't be so hasty with the judgements, there. I try to be as realistic as possible when it comes to my nation and technology (Hence me not using any technology not based in current physics), and if you honestly think 2000 years of progression wouldn't yield a population in the trillions and 800 years of expansion through FTL travel would yield anything less than a dozen or so inhabited (and terraformed in the case of my nation) planets, you're plum crazy.

Not to mention how amazingly limiting it is in a space RP to have the resources of only a few planets and the money of a small, outdated budget (Especially considering that my nation is now a communo-meritocracy).

I RP the BORG collective from Star Trek myself. I try and follow their nature as faithfully as possible while only making small minor adjustments so I can do more than just RP a Cube assimilating somebody's ship. For population I usually follow the NS figures but only use the figures from the day I started the RP, because, due to their nature, I can easily send a couple 100 cubes to somebodies back door defeat them, but, since I *ADAPT* to my opponets technology, Assimilate it into the collective, AND upgrade my drones and ships, and continually sit on the Boreders of Godmod, I can never innitiate a war, I can't take part in most diplomatic functions, and for the most part, am cut off from 3/4ths of Nationstates. A price I am quite willing to pay.

Don't be so hasty with the judgements, there. I try to be as realistic as possible when it comes to my nation and technology (Hence me not using any technology not based in current physics), and if you honestly think 2000 years of progression wouldn't yield a population in the trillions and 800 years of expansion through FTL travel would yield anything less than a dozen or so inhabited (and terraformed in the case of my nation) planets, you're plum crazy.
*Scribbles a note* So, you're 2000 years in the future, and hence, not in my current timeline. 'k. I can live with that.

PS: You use no tech not based in current physics and have FTL? No, I wont question it... Hope you don't mind chuckling, though.

PPS: Realism isn't the point of the game. You can fuck realism all you want, the point is fairness and balance.

I RP the BORG collective from Star Trek myself. I try and follow their nature as faithfully as possible while only making small minor adjustments so I can do more than just RP a Cube assimilating somebody's ship. For population I usually follow the NS figures but only use the figures from the day I started the RP, because, due to their nature, I can easily send a couple 100 cubes to somebodies back door defeat them, but, since I *ADAPT* to my opponets technology, Assimilate it into the collective, AND upgrade my drones and ships, and continually sit on the Boreders of Godmod, I can never innitiate a war, I can't take part in most diplomatic functions, and for the most part, am cut off from 3/4ths of Nationstates. A price I am quite willing to pay.

That depends... As Voyager showed, the Borg do the occasional diplomacy (cooperation against 8472), and in the NS world, there are far more nations capable of kicking canon- Borg's ass than in ST canon, so one could probably adapt a policy of 'sneaky' Borg using diplomacy instead of sheer force as a survival/ expansion strategy. Granted, one would need to tone down on their assimilation capabilities (With regards to tech adaption, not assimilation of organics), but generally... There are far wankier nations out there, and I, for one, wouldn't mind Borg interaction, once it is reasonably organised.

Despite me disliking Trek.

Speaking from expirience, I find that attacking a 25+ strong alliance, while a good way to get your nation on the map, is also a good way to get your homeworld vaporized.

Heh. I remember that.....

Different Environment. You do not need to protect your naval ship from constant high level radiation, from 2 Kelvin Background temperature, or, depending on the ship's velocity, asteorids/ spacedy dust. Your naval ship does (usually) not have shiny shields (tm), as quite a few spacedyships have (Mine don't, luckily). Your naval thingy doesn't need to be save from oxygen- leakage, it doesn't need to contain excessive amounts of said oxygen etc.

I disagree. Not about the price (my best ships are 1 kilometer long, and cost over sixty billion Weyrs (seventy billion dollars) to build). But about the data.

(1) If you're smart, you'll put your ships away from the stellar elliptic. Natural debris tends to accumulate in a disk, on the same plane as the planets. In either case, ship shields and armor should be strong enough to withstand minor kinetic impacts, expecially if those ships are designed to go into combat. [[Unkles you're taking your ship into an asteroid belt for some reason]]

(2) Cold plasma should stop a good bit of radiation, and thick hulls should stop the rest. I'm assuming that we're talking about a nation some few hundred years ahead of the 'present'.

(3) @2 Kelvin degrees :: Modern prototype fusion reactors use magnetic fields to contain plasma. This is not done to prevent the walls from melting. This is done to prevent the plasma from transferring its energy to the walls and cooling down. The plasma inside a fusion reactor may be several thousand degrees kelvin, but its density is normally so low that the net energy of the stuff can't power a light bulb. It's a constant problem for people working on fusion -- getting the density high enough. In space, the particles may have near-absolute temperature, but their density is so low that it doesn't matter. A bigger problem for any vessel in space is -cooling- its various systems, -not- keeping them warm. [[why is I dislike te Star Trek tech -- a ship that radiates a few million watts of energy out into space is damn easy to spot]]

Sharina: good point too. But If you set colonies up you scatter your population thinly, resulting in possible breakaway nations of national size, which is the premise for mine, a colony that was left alone in a war and has recently left a short lived dark age.

But I guess it depends on what you want to do. I like the idea of scaling up if your opponent does, though really the attacker should have to scale down if they are scaled up. I guess its just down to who's more willing to give in and Rp a different sized nation, and what you agree on though.

I just don't like being limited to only 300 million, 800 million, 1 billion, or 3 billion people in space. With these tiny populations in the space age, even 3 billion nations won't be able to afford a decent fleet at all.

A 3 billion nation can field 1000 naval vessels with a All Consuming or Frightening economy (10x the amount of ships the USA has.... 300 million x 10 = 3 billion).

I know this is number wanking, but it can provide for good RP, like fighting 2 or 3 front wars. In addition, if a nation's population is multiplied by a factor of 10 or 100 in space age, it would provide more tax money.

Then you can have 1000 space vessels, just like you would have 1000 naval vessels in the modern age.

Also, your nation would be far larger if it is spread across several solar systems. Then population grows on all these planets, as well as terraforming. Then your population can keep growing. I'm not going to say "I have 10,000 warships to attack your fleet because I have 1 trillion population."

I could say that I have 1,000 - 3,000 security ships or patrol ships to prevent piracy and smuggling. These ships wouldn't last long in war or intensive combat.

Actual number wanking would be 1 trillion population and having 100,000 warships. 1 trillion population with 1,000 - 10,000 warships would be much less number wanking and much more balanced.

Hmmm.. Good stuff..
I concur.. it Should be Stickied..

#TAG# for reference later on..

:headbang:

For all of you people who think your RP is limited by not being able to have sixty gazillion planets and an OMG IMPERIAL NAVY!11!!, grow up and play some other game than NS.

Who says a nation of ONLY 3 billion or whatever can't afford a decent sized navy? I've got hundreds of ships man! That's PLENTY to roleplay with. Frankly, since I have difficulty coming up with names for more than say a hundred or so, I'm certainly not going to RP more than a handful of individual ships out of my entire fleet. So whats the limitation imposed by not having tens of thousands of 10 kilometer warships? Not enough compensation? Not impressive-sounding numbers? I'm not getting it.

grow up and play some other game than NS.

Dude... calm down. You don't have to RP with those people, personally I like my population and sometime I think it would be easier to make it smaller.

As has been stated many times there is only one problem with playing with whatever population you like. People can ignore you. If you incist on having a galaxy, hell why not have an entire universe, then you should accept that your nation is probably not going to be aknowledged by the majority of the other players... however that doesn't mean that everyone ignores you.

Here is the golden rule though:

Don't force your opinion of the game on another player.

If you don't like the way someone role-plays their nation then you don't role-play with them. It's simple, you ignore them because they don't exist in your universe. Criticism is different as it's a form of trying to convince someone to change so you don't have to ignore them... but they don't have to listen to you and there are no rules beyond those of freeform, ignore and forum rules (i.e no flaming, spamming and so on).

Currently I'm running a thread where I have just teleported a fleet into TFU's space which has it's smaller ships being sized around 1 mile long... the others are simply insane in size and it's probably one of the biggest GODMODs ever.

But it's conditional, it's controlled and it has permission from those who are roleplaying with it. If everyone you are RPing with accepts your RP then it can't really be GODMODing.


So calm down... I get anoyed when I see people ignoring figures too at times because I've been playing for over a year and I feel I've earned my nations power. But I don't have to accept those people who ignore the basic game statistics... whats more I can accept them if they are reasonable about it, like Der Angst said.

Be reasonable, balance it and work it out and little will do you wrong.


Addition Note for those wanting to copy this for their forums (I've had a few telegrams now and lost a few) you can copy this all you like for outside NS. I want people to see this thread and at least read it. Even if they don't agree it will get you thinking about how I want my RP.

Thanks, tek' care ont road.

<snip>You don't seem to get my point... At no point did I say it was impossible to make your spacedyship survive such conditions. My point is entirely that space is much more hostile than the ocean, and hence, spacedyships are more expensive than naval vessels.

Hence, listing ways to get rid of problems I mentioned as examples for a hostile environment, rather than as examples of why a spacedyfleet is impossible (Why the fuck would I RP one, then? A rather wanky one, too, in certain regards...), serves no purposes, even less so as you seem to agree with the issue I had, the monetary issue.

So, errr... Yeah.

*Scribbles a note* So, you're 2000 years in the future, and hence, not in my current timeline. 'k. I can live with that.

PS: You use no tech not based in current physics and have FTL? No, I wont question it... Hope you don't mind chuckling, though.

PPS: Realism isn't the point of the game. You can fuck realism all you want, the point is fairness and balance.

You know, for someone who thinks themselves so superior, you really are quite a prejudging jackass.

Have you ever seen me RP? No, I didn't think so. I've had more people tell me that I'm probably one of the most balanced future tech nations out there than people accuse me of god-moding. In fact, want to know how many people (asides from yourself) have accused me as such? None. Not due to my population size, that's immense. Not due to the fact that I don't spend money on my ships, that's cheap, but one of the benefits of being a communo-meritocracy. Not due to my technology (Which yes, all of it is at least partially based in modern physics. You would do well to check my technology thread; I'll give you a link, later), a few of them are actually quite powerful (mostly just my communications systems, though. Everything else is pretty managable. Believe me, I don't employ massive star destroying missiles of WHOMFG J00 DEAD!, I don't even have any planet destroyers. Sure, I could slag the surface, but that would take a long time).

You want to know why people say that of me?

Because I know how to limit myself.

I have a multi-thousand ship navy, 800 of which are capital ships. However, something like 90% of them are either employed throughout my space in defense of my territory or in drydock being refit. What remains is my offensive force, and I'm not stupid like most people, of the roughly 150 capital ships available for offensive actions, you'll see only up to about 20 in the largest of fleets. You know how most people send all their offensive forces into one battle as if it is their last?

I'm not dumb like that.

In fact, even the defensive forces are pretty fairly diseminated throughout my space, Alpha Station being the ONLY place in my space (Asides from Earth, of course) where you'd be liable to face an overwhelmingly large number of ships.

I'm being serious. You know people like TFU etc who will throw a thousand ships at someone and expect a result? The largest fleet that has so far left my space was around 35-40 ships, only 7 of which were capships.

Not only that, but I'm very into the logistics portion of things, as well. All my fleets leave home with an accompanying supply fleet, and destroying those supply ships will severely limit the amount of time my ships-of-the-line can stay out before having to travel to either an allied or an Imperial planet for resupply.

What you need to understand is that, though my fleet overall is huge, The Human Imperial Republic does not god-mode. I do not god-mode. I handle my twenty-five systems and multi-trillion population numbers well, paying attention to both the benefits and the drawbacks. For every extra worker it provides me, that's another head I must protect. For every extra system I own, that's another part of the fleet that must be drawn from somewhere else, depleting defenses throughout the Republic.

By the way, my technology thread can be found here (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=352433)

PS: By the way, if you think 2000 years is too far outside your time period, perhaps I should warn you to stay out of future tech altogether. Most of the active FT-RPers I've seen make me seem young by comparison. perhaps late space-tech, but before FTL travel is discovered, would suit you.

I was only saying that having 10,000 - 3,000 patrol ships, and 1,000 warships for a space nation that has 1 or 2 billion on its stats page would be realistic.

That wouldn't be god-modding at all.

In addition, if I do bring my nation into space age, I won't make 10 kilometer long ships (except perhaps just one to serve as flagship)... the largest I might build would be 3 kilometer long battleships or carriers. No larger than that.

As has been stated many times there is only one problem with playing with whatever population you like.

I think there are several problems, actually, but whatever.

People can ignore you. If you incist on having a galaxy, hell why not have an entire universe, then you should accept that your nation is probably not going to be aknowledged by the majority of the other players... however that doesn't mean that everyone ignores you.

Yeah.


Here is the golden rule though:

Don't force your opinion of the game on another player.

How is it possible to force that? Find someone, tie them down and threaten to shoot them if they disagree? Or just, like, words. Making, like, rules that you expect everyone to conform to. Rules like your golden rule. ;)

Maybe I think there should be other rules as well. Maybe I'm just describing what I think is good RP and what I think is not. Lay off my case, I'm not uncalm.

I also think just cause you have controlled wank, doesnt make it any less wanky. There's this perception that its just not interesting unless there are TRILLIONS of people, TENS OF THOUSANDS of warships. Or unless everything is subjected to PLOT. Or even the lowliest character who's of course a martial arts master with 160 IQ. People come from many different RPing backgrounds, obviously, but too many want to just import other games into this one and do everything EXCEPT national level politicking.

I also think just cause you have controlled wank, doesnt make it any less wanky. There's this perception that its just not interesting unless there are TRILLIONS of people, TENS OF THOUSANDS of warships. Or unless everything is subjected to PLOT. Or even the lowliest character who's of course a martial arts master with 160 IQ. People come from many different RPing backgrounds, obviously, but too many want to just import other games into this one and do everything EXCEPT national level politicking.

Meh, I've done national level politicking for a while now... but it's nice to get around and do something I find interesting, especially because normally I'm so reserved as a nation.

I see your point though and the wording of "Golden Rule" was pretty stupid, everything else I've worded as a guideline because thats all we have.

I was only saying that having 10,000 - 3,000 patrol ships, and 1,000 warships for a space nation that has 1 or 2 billion on its stats page would be realistic.

That wouldn't be god-modding at all.

In addition, if I do bring my nation into space age, I won't make 10 kilometer long ships (except perhaps just one to serve as flagship)... the largest I might build would be 3 kilometer long battleships or carriers. No larger than that.

1. It isn't.

2. That depends on whom you're interacting with, and how.

3. I love the way spacedyships seem to be constructed, here. Apparently, bigger == better.

Unfortunately, it's bigger == heavier == less acceleration == slower == sitting duck.

Please, ask yourself, why does it have to be so big? I will grant you, ships in the 1000m range make sense for one purpose: Orbital invasion. Simply because they need to carry a real fuckton of stuff.

But for ship to ship combat? Nothing above 500m makes sense. I simply don't see why?

Please keep also in mind that a smaller ship is harder to hit. Or more to the point, with energy weapons, you hit it for a shorter amount of time.

So... Sure, you can build your monsters, unfortunately, they don't exactly make sense.

Oh, and then there is the materials issue... Lets say, rectangular (easier maths) battleship, say, 500m x 50m x 50m vs. rectangular 1km monstrosity. 1000m x 100m x 100m. Since OMG ÜBERBIG WEAPONS are a very bad idea in space (Takes way to long to target your (moving) enemy with a 1m/ diameter maser... You will never score hits... Yes, velocities in the tens of kilometers per second mean a problem for your artillery), both ships will use comparable weapons... Of course, the bigger ship will be able to field more weapons, having a surface area of 420000m^2, compared to the 105000m^2 its smaller opponent has.

No doubt in its superiority, with regards to firepower.

Unfortunately, the big ship has a volume of 10000000m^3, compared to the 1250000m^3 of its opponent.

For approximately four times the firepower, it needs eight times the materials, costs a minimum of eight times as much as its smaller opponent (It also takes approximately eight times as much time to build it than its smaller opponent... Twice the time you would need for four smaller ones fielding the same firepower. And of course, a single ship is easier to be destroyed than four ships.).

With individual weapons that are in no way superior to it's smaller opponents weapons, there are merely more of them.

As has been stated many times there is only one problem with playing with whatever population you like.
I think there are several problems, actually, but whatever.Like not knowing what style $nation plays, this making interaction somewhat complicated when it is a style you don't want to interact with. And adding a detailed description to every thread one posts in is annoying. Hence, why the NS stats have a purpose (Well, usually).

Or the tendency of people to simply make themselves bigger and badder, completely ignoring just about everything, and turning NS even more into a dickfencing competition.

My backstory says I can!

Well, if the only backstory you could think about was to make yourself very big and very huge, rather than adding some, uh... Originality... I pity you.

But have fun, I certainly wont try to ruin it for you.

First of all, I was saying that an interstellar nation with 1 - 2 billion people should be able to field 1000 - 3000 patrol ships of 50 to 100 meters long purely to combat pirates and smugglers, or quick response to rescue situations.

Think of it as interstellar police force and fire department.

They should also have 1000 warships at max (For example... 50 battleships, 25 carriers, 125 cruisers, 200 frigates, 300 destroyers, and 300 support ships)

An interstellar nation that spans several star systems should be able to afford these numbers. At least that's enough ships to give a solid defense of your empire. If you cut it in half... 500 warships for assault warfare, and save the other 500 for defense, it would give nice numbers to attempt tactics. Sorta like Napoleon or Caesar.

A real number wanker would introduce 10,000 warships bashing down your front door. I wouldn't do that, never have and never will.


Moving on...

I realize that smaller ships can overwhelm a larger ship. But think for a minute here.

A 10 kilometer long ship is far harder to destroy than a 500 meter long ship. They can take quite a beating, but at trade-off of speed and manueverability.

That is why when / if I move my nation to the interstellar stage, I'll build only one flagship at 10 kilometers long to give it prestige and long durability in battle. Then the largest warships I might build would be carriers at 2 or 3 kilometers long (because of the need for space to store and launch space fighters / bombers). After that, battleships could be 1 kilometer long, to provide firepower and such. My cruisers would be 500 - 700 meters long, then frigates at 500 meters long. My destroyers will be 300 - 400 meters long.


Take the Japanese giant battleships the Yamato and Musashi for example. They took a severe beating of 10+ bombs and torpedoes and still remained operational. That kind of damage would outright destroy cruisers and light battleships.

You also need to know that you can’t puppet wank. This is basically the description I use of nations who use puppets to make their nation stronger then it is. You have one nation, you can’t use puppets to make it have more people or more forces… you can’t control another nation and claim it’s an ally, basically put puppets shouldn’t interact. Each nation is independent and one player can’t use two nations for the same problem

I have to say this is a problem for future tech nations. I mean how the hell can you have your galatic empire when your population is less then the Smallest nation on earths. IT IS REALLY HARD. ALso, your GPD is nothing more then if you had one world, you want to have eaps of worlds, not a small city on some little crappy moon. And when people try to find a way to change it so their future tech nations are able to be REAL, people won't RP cause they accuse you of goddodding. THINK ABOUT IT!

I have to say this is a problem for future tech nations. I mean how the hell can you have your galatic empire when your population is less then the Smallest nation on earths.Emphasis mine

You got it. You don't.

I'm sorry, but there is no need to compensate for certain issues by being OMG TEH GALACTIC PWR!!!11. What's so bad about a loose coalition of semi- autonomous colonies spread out over a few barely inhabitable star systems? Ya'see... There will still be 'stronger' and 'weaker' spacedynations, but they will sort of... Work with basic NS stats.

If you want to claim an OMG HUGE population, balance it with this population being shit (e.g. orcs, or spacedyants, or whatever).

And if you want your OMG GALACTIC EMPIRE, do what is necessary for it: Get nations to work with, thus getting the necessary ressources.

Nations from Different Players, not puppets.

Of course, you can claim whatever you want. Nobody can stop you fro claiming it. Unfortunately... here's the fun of living in a bubble universe with no limits whatsoever? I'm curious... Where's the fun in it? Explain?

Well, if the only backstory you could think about was to make yourself very big and very huge, rather than adding some, uh... Originality... I pity you.

But have fun, I certainly wont try to ruin it for you.

I call your OMG STRAWMAN FALLACY and raise you a brain.

Oh shit, looks like you don't have one.

Oh well.

In all honesty, however, I highly suggest you confine yourself to a pre-FTL period if this stuff bothers you so much. You obviously are far too easily irritated to deal with too many people at once, and space-tech is pretty under-populated in comparison to future and modern tech.

Is there any reason in particular that you sound rather annoyed, using insults rather than careful explanations as of why you're needing your OMG HUGE! population (I am, obviously, far to stupid to understand it, as you found out yourself... So, feel free to explain it, I'm eager to learn), the very moment someone doesn't agree with your fluid- spreading claims or the hilarity of 'My Backstory says so!'?

You know... I don't want to sound insulting, but from here, it looks like you have serious compensation sisues, needing to be very big, perhaps even being The biggest, and I'm somewhat... Shall we say, mystified by the whole idea.

Oh, and I'm also rather amused that you're trying to suggest a techbase for me. After all... Do you know what techbase I am?

From some of things you're saying, you sound rather like a troll to me. Not many people are dumb enough to use a strawman without knowing it.

I'll just step in and say this.

Calm. Bloody. Down.

No need to resort to insults, just put your views out without simply insulting as if it's the answer to every and any questin.

Attempt to justify puppet wank.

It's one thing to ignore your nations population profile... alot of players may ignore you if you don't pay attention to population, but it's your choice to pay attention to it.

However, multiple nations are just that... they are seperate nations with their own agendas and politics. It's generally accepted by most role-players in this forum that using a puppet nation to supplement your main nation can be concieved as abusing the game to get instant power.

As for small population nations finding it hard? I've seen a few new nations (Wyre is one example) who are reasonably new nations who have managed to come across as good role-players and have a degree of power. A new nation isn't going to become a super-power over night but you can make up for what you see as a dis-advantage. What most players don't accept is a new nation making 10+ other nations to support himself because he thinks he's too small.

We were all new once... we've all been through it.


Meanwhile: Der Angst, Industrial Experiment... if you can't argue without resorting to insults and accusations then don't argue at all.

Industrial Experiment: You can RP what you like, but personally I'm not going to acknowledge you with Iuthia (my main nation) because you are in the future and generally not in line with my timeline. It's not really my problem if you don't like my stance... I'm probably not going to change it no matter how well you justify it.

It doesn't mean you are wrong, like I said, you can RP anything you like. But as a player myself who it's up to me who I acknowledge and who I don't. It's freeform RP and thats how it works.

Der Angst: Like me you don't acknowledge this nation because of time or your opinions on realism... whatever. Now that you've established that, your arguement with Industrial Experiment is probably not needed unless you feel you can come to some form of concession with the guy, personally I can't see it happening.

Right. Calm down peoples, its not the end of the world yet. :P And we dont want this nice thread of Iuthia's locked. At least, I don't.

But anyway, DA has got a point - he usually does, annoyingly. Furthermore, the smallest nation in NS has what, 6 million? Thats quite a bit more than many RL nations, plus it triples every few days. RL nations are NOT shaming NS nations anytime soon.

Anyway, what you can get a few close RPers to agree with is one thing, but when RPing in the forum in anything but invite RPs, you gotta realize not many players appreciate tiny NS's acting like Galactic Empires. And the mere DESIRE to be OMG HUGE is... well, it makes me wonder why. You can have plenty of good RP, good stories and good politics without requiring hundreds of billions of population. Ditto with spaceships.

Was the Aliens series just awful, since there were only a handful of ships we ever saw? Part of the enjoyment of RP is NOT having it all, not being super powerful, because that creates interesting conflict. Part of the problem of RP is when people don't like interesting conflict, and want to win with as little effort as possible, and not surprisingly a lot of players who do invent massive space fleets with massive space ships based on millions of planets. Controlled or not, this kind of thing eventually incourages others to do the same thing (if you can do it, why cant I) and it perpetuates, leading to crappy RP and people who don't know any better because they learned only from the OMG HUGE empire types.

I think it's just a manifestation of the godmode, in that of course, having huge chunks of the galaxy and ships and planets out the ass makes you hard to kill. Seemingly impossible, without equal wank. I'm 12th in the world for defense spending, but of course everyone can afford bigger, badder, more ships than me cuz of their 1000 trillion loyal servants whereas I'm stuck with 3.5 billion. So I'm forced, if I want to compete ICly, to acknowledge and join the wankfest, or just ignore. And you know I hate ignoring, because all ignore really is is a failure to RP. If I wanted to not RP, I wouldn't need to post on this forum at all. I'd rather everyone could be a little more reasonable and stick to how NS and you define your character-nation. While I'm at it, I'd rather we had world peace and someone other than Kerry or Bush next president...

Alas.

Well, thats all from me on this subject.

Industrial Experiment: You can RP what you like, but personally I'm not going to acknowledge you with Iuthia (my main nation) because you are in the future and generally not in line with my timeline. It's not really my problem if you don't like my stance... I'm probably not going to change it no matter how well you justify it.


I have no problem with this, I kind of encourage it. Modern tech versus future tech tends to be a one sided slaughter.

However, forcing limits on me, or judging me without hearing the limits I place upon myself, is unacceptable in my eyes. I know how to limit myself, but I feel it gives me more creative freedom to have more resources available. So, I compensate so as not to be too god-modish. Unfortunately, it really irks me that Der Ansgt would judge me before seeing my role-play.

However, forcing limits on me, or judging me without hearing the limits I place upon myself, is unacceptable in my eyes.

Well, lets face it. As Santa Barbara pointed out previously you can't physically force limits on a nation... and I don't think Der Angst is doing that seeing as he wouldn't have the authority to do so and he is only expressing an opinion... not rules.

Asfor judging you without seeing your RP... well I can't stop that from happening but it's a fact of life, in the end if you are a good RPer and he's ignoring that because he doesn't like your description then it's his loss... assuming he looks at it like that. So meh, you can hate just methods of quickly judging a nation but there isn't much we can do to stop that. Hell I've done it myself at times because it takes effort to look at everyone, but I try to do my best.

Back up a bit... big ships being vulnerable..

is true, Id say that if your ship is a bbit bigger than the enemy its got an advantage, but simularly a third of its tonnage in tiny ships also has the advantage.

For instance to destroy enemy 500m ships Id either use a load of fighters and bombers, or an 800m ship. To destroy enemy fighters I use my otherfighters or my corvettes. to destroy enemy super capital ships I use either my OAG anti city cannon, or a fleet of corvettes (used like fighters/bombers) to destory capital ships Id use a few destroyers with torpedos to hit and run... and so on.

Super capital ships are pretty limited in scope really, as they cant swarm bigger ships, but they are pretty much unbeatable in one on one combat.

NationStates Wiki - "Wank" (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Wank)

No, this isn't obcene, it covers the basics of the various forms of "wank" that inhabit nationstates including but not limited to statwanking, numberwanking and techwanking.

It's a good artical and basical covers my opinion on the whole habit of posting huge lists in the place of actual RP.

With future tech I think its helpful if people explain things before they use them. Maybe its just me, but the first time I sue a weapon I like to say what it does, as that way my enemy know how much damage it does and can ost damage accordingly.

EDIT: eventually it loaded, I agree with some of it, but other parts. I use super Uber troops, but Im a 800 odd million (slightly less i think, but not much) and I have 600000. SO thats not too bad, its a trade off. Nothing wanky about needing 6 men to kill one of mine in shot swap, because those 6 men probably cost about the same amount of time money and equipement as one of mine. (and porbably the same amount of logistics too)

Its like taking tanks, its not wanking to have a tank army provided (though perhaps a bit foloish, but bear with me) becuase instead of say 1 million infantry, you have 80000 tanks, which have different weaknesses and strengths.

Its only wanking when these super troops are used in the same numbers as normal troops.

Personally it is my opinion that smaller ships will be more advantagous over the godmod 400 KM ships.

I have only one type of ship that is 10 Km. The only thing that would run away from it are asteroids. Yes, they are mining vessels.

Other than that, the closest are my carriers and the dreadnaughts I began constructing. I will never own more than 4 dreadnaughts at any one time. One is reserved as the flagship for my emperor, the rest will guard important instalations or systems.

The next size vessel I have are my Explorer Class ships. They are 1 Km because of the possibility of discovering hostile cultures while exploring alone.

Every other destroyer, battleship, frigate, ect... is less than 600 meters.

They are not only cheaper to build and maintain but also cheaper to crew. If you build a ship that needs 150,000 to crew, wouldn't you beter utilize those men in 150 ships crewed with 1000 men each?

I never really understood the need of something so huge but I have noticed they are favored by either some of the notorious players or by those players who are playing the "enemy" in a Thread and used it like the villian in a movie (Deathstar, SSD, ect...) and let the other players eventually learn how to overcome the ship. The good guys commanding a LEXX will quickly become the bad guys to the other players.

I think it has to do with the absolute power corrupts saying...

Also, everything you develop should be posted on NS. Not on your regional boards, or on any of the other side boards that are attached to NS the various alliences use. The posts have to be available to any who can run a search of your nation's posts.

enough babbling...my apologies

10Km? small?

My biggest is about 1 mile long, with regular increments going down to about 80m for my corvettes. I only have about 30 odd 1km+ ships

My fleet are well made and flexible, plus in largeish numbers, I prefer it that way.

OOC: that was meant to be as Ornage state. But I messed up... and posted ad NQP instead.

Its only wanking when these super troops are used in the same numbers as normal troops.

All "wanking" is relative (who would have thought I'd be saying that today) seeing as alot of nations like to be detailed in their RP, over powered soldiers and super magic spells... the link wasn't a set of rules but a set of defitions.

The trick isn't to avoid these... I've seen alot of wank done perfectly legitimately in the past during RP, alot of it is excepted, like Automagfreeks "Sentinals" and so on. The real trick is to be reasonable when using something over-powered or over-detailed.

Personally I hate when a war degrades into nothing more then a bunch of nations who post army lists, ship lists or whatever... but some nations are ok with that, others feel they need the long lists of numbers. Whats important is to find some middle ground both players can agree on.

There is alot of future tech I would ignore if they tried to force an RP on to me... and there is little anyone can do about it because as I've said before, part of freeform is the ability to RP whatever you like, and ignore whatever you like.

I didn't post this link to tell people not to do this, but so that they understand what I mean when I say "thats a stat-wank".

true.

I dont think anything else needs saying on that.

The good guys commanding a LEXX will quickly become the bad guys to the other players.I'm supposed to be a bad guy to begin with...

~ His Divine Shadow

Also, everything you develop should be posted on NS. Not on your regional boards, or on any of the other side boards that are attached to NS the various alliences use. The posts have to be available to any who can run a search of your nation's postsClogging the forum with Statistics I do not *want* to know about? Made up stuff without negligible scientific or technological base? No, thanks. As far as I am concerned, it is simply unnecessary, and I am indeed not doing it. If someone wants specifics (Specifics I don't have) He can ask, oocly, I will find/ make up some basics.

Of course, there are definitely people who will call that asspace.

They are free to ignore me. But personally, I simple wont *care* about such things. I want to *play*, not read through endless made up statistics.

They are free to ignore me. But personally, I simple wont *care* about such things. I want to *play*, not read through endless made up statistics.

I happen to agree... I have innumerable technologies and ideas which I use for nation states and only a few of them even come close to having statistics. I do like to have explainations for the more exotic technology around, but I only have them for easy reference... I don't think any has to have such explainations in the Nationstates forums, I just think that it's handy to have them ready...

When you are getting ready to have some war with another nation and you are sorting stuff out OOC, it's pretty important to be able to explain anything which isn't understood... but that can be sorted out then, you don't need to have statistics in the forums.

I agree that this should be a sticky.

You people seem to think the larger ships will be less useful because they're easier to hit and can't field as many weapons as the smaller, more numerous ones because of surface area. This is wrong. All of the advanced energy weapons are going to need lots of... energy. To fire a 10-terawatt laser, you're going to need 10-Tw of energy, plus waste. Let's say my Leviathan class warship is 10 times the size of your ships. You have 10 of them. Ok, my reactor is 10 times larger than yours, and *more* than 10 times more powerful because of Economy of Scale. My weapons have more total energy output and thus more firepower than yours. And with all that space and energy, my ship can also hold a 10-times-larger shield generator. This is also more efficient, and simply by being larger, it can reduce your attacks by a much greater factor. Want to send missiles or fighters against me? My shield rips them to pieces before they come close.

Now my ship attacks one of yours. Pow. My more intense lasers easily penetrate your less intense shielding. You have to overcome my entire shield capacity, while I only have to overcome 1/10 of yours. Now I move on to the next ship. Pow.

...Which is not to say that large ships are necessarily more powerful. After all, those ten ships can be ten places at once, wrecking my shipping lanes and bombarding poorly protected planets. Basically, you need to end your prejudice.

Big ships. Don' hate.

Even if so, the rule about big ships with weaknesses is still true. Even my 500km warship concepts as them. When I did my 'Planets I' fact book version that contained a description of them, I als put in why they were driven from their original home.

And mind we forget such as the SSDs, Death Stars, and other various large baddie craft that bought it for the glory of the movie ticket?

Big ships are fine. But if they are invinicble to 'anything', it's godmodding. And besides, everyone has the worry about big ships because of overbearing agressor rpers that want to kick everyones butt, because their ego tells them to.

A good rper takes into account 'all' the avenues of a space battle, including fighters. Real tactics have to take this into account too. You think the Nimitz Carriers and former Iowa Battleships would have been fine if a real conventional WWIII had borken out?

Realism and detail is the key, no overbearing power. No one likes that.

While there are benefits to big ships (extra power as mentioned above, as well as shock value) the resources needed to build and maintain a single uberdreadnought are massive, and IMHO would have been better spent on smaller vessels.

@Kindura, there is a slight problem with your scenario. Generally the more powerful a weapon is, the longer its going to take to reload. Unless you have backup reactors, your dreadnought is going to be dead in space recharging that main gun while all the smaller ships will be hitting it over and over. Also, larger ships are harder to manuever than their smaller counterparts, thus making the task of actually hitting a small ship more difficult.

We're probably envisioning different tech systems. The way I see it, the power of the ship's energy weapons would be limited mainly by the available power from the main reactor. As I said, my single, large reactor would be more efficient than the enemy's ten smaller ones, IE, more total power output. Furthermore, these are energy weapons, they don't "reload". The point is that my ship is going to be pumping more energy into the enemy ships than they can shield against. My attacks will be concentrated, while theirs will be diffuse.

However, in addition to the weakness I mentioned above:

1. My ship's hyperdrive is going to really tear a hole is subspace. (Take THAT subspace!) It will be detected MUCH earlier than the ten small ships, allowing advanced preparation.

2. My ship will need to resupply. The way I picture logistics in space, it won't need supply ships, unless it's going very far afield. Instead it will dock at a friendly planet. The enemy can dock it's ten ships at ten different planets, spreading out the economic load. I have to dock at only one, potentially devastating the local economy.

3. If one of the enemy ships tries something truely unwise (like coming up right next to me and overloading their reactor, or entering hyperspace with me in their wake while also inside a heavy gravity well) it won't be good.

I might come up with more, but it's not necessary.

Basically, a large ship is about concentration. I'm better able to concentrate my shields, and also better able to concentrate fire on a smaller, weaker enemy ship, taking them out piece by piece. All of the larger ship's weaknesses also revolve around being concentrated, rather than spread out.

You people seem to think the larger ships will be less useful because they're easier to hit and can't field as many weapons as the smaller, more numerous ones because of surface area. This is wrong. All of the advanced energy weapons are going to need lots of... energy. To fire a 10-terawatt laser, you're going to need 10-Tw of energy, plus waste. Let's say my Leviathan class warship is 10 times the size of your ships. You have 10 of them. Ok, my reactor is 10 times larger than yours, and *more* than 10 times more powerful because of Economy of Scale. My weapons have more total energy output and thus more firepower than yours. And with all that space and energy, my ship can also hold a 10-times-larger shield generator. This is also more efficient, and simply by being larger, it can reduce your attacks by a much greater factor. Want to send missiles or fighters against me? My shield rips them to pieces before they come close.

Now my ship attacks one of yours. Pow. My more intense lasers easily penetrate your less intense shielding. You have to overcome my entire shield capacity, while I only have to overcome 1/10 of yours. Now I move on to the next ship. Pow.

...Which is not to say that large ships are necessarily more powerful. After all, those ten ships can be ten places at once, wrecking my shipping lanes and bombarding poorly protected planets. Basically, you need to end your prejudice.

Big ships. Don' hate.1. You forget the limit there is to energy weapons. I'm given to understand that you will be extremely lucky to manage 5% efficiency in a EM radiation (X Ray laser, Laser, Maser) weapon.

That is, of the 100% energy you pour into it, only 5% are actually used in the beam (Here, they are rather efficient, though, since the entirety of the beam energy will be delivered over the beam's Rayleigh Range), the rest is... thermal radiation.

Now, 10 Terawatt... that's almost 2.5 kilotons. Nineteen times that ends up in your ship, as thermal radiation. It takes roughly 10 kilojoule to vaporise a cubic centimetre of just about everything. To prevent this excess energy melting, well, a good chunk of your ship, you will need a lot of techwanky superconducting heat radiation area. And the more energy you're pouring in, the worse it gets (There's a reason I'm staying decidedly under the 1 terajoule mark. And that's including waste.).

And then there is the alternative. What your opponent might do 8And what will really fuck you over). 'Watt' suck. Given the velocities in space, you might easily have a relative velocity to your opponent of, uh, 10km/s. Of your 10 terawatt, only a fraction will actually hit the target, and those will be spread all over it. Negligible damage.

I would use microsecond pulses, with ~ 1 second between each pulse. all the energy will hit the target (Assuming that it hits the target to begin wit. But that's no different from your laser). I can easily use 1/ 100 of the energy you're expending, and still do significant damage.

2. Shields are pointless. Lets assume a) that you need to expend as much energy on your shield as your opponent is firing at it to prevent amage and b) that the shield is hullhugging.

So far, so good.

Unfortunately... Surface area of a 1000m*250m*100m ship? 750000 squaremeters.

To take a random opponent example (Me): Heavy X Ray Laser, 900cm^2 beam area, energy density (excluding waste energy): 50 megajoule/ cm^2. Enough to vaporise straight through 5000cm of hull (I doubt you have 50m thick hulls, do you?)

Now, your shield needs to expend 50 megajoule to prevent this from getting trough.

50 megajoule per cm^2 of hull.

Or in other words, 7500000000 times 50 = 3.75e11 megajoule. 375000 terawatt. 375 petawatt.

No, wait... It was a microsecond pulse, so times 1 mio. 375 zettawatt.

You see how ludicrous it is getting? But ok. You're spacedy, you're advanced, you can afford some energy getting through the shields, and your armour should be able to take the 10 kilojoule.

Still, your shields need to be fed with 37.5 petawatt.

To defend against a No FTL, fairly backwater spacedy nation.

Now try the same against a somewhat more advanced civilisation... While your reactors are melting due to the annoying waste energy.

And realise that it is vastly better to just fire first, rather than to waste energy on the shields.

this post was brought to you by the 'Terawatt are pointless!' foundation of DA. Have a nice day.

these are energy weapons, they don't "reload".

Sorry, but I think you missunderstand. By "reload" he means the cool down time between shots. If you constantly fired superheated energy, the weapons would melt and fuse togeather. There has to be a cooling time between shots. The more energy you pour into a weapon system, the longer the cool down. You can speed up the cooling time by reinforcing the structure of the weapons, but that will just make the weapons even bigger, more expensive to build/maintain, and more space would be required to set them, meaning less weapons overall.

Sorry, but I think you missunderstand. By "reload" he means the cool down time between shots. If you constantly fired superheated energy, the weapons would melt and fuse togeather. There has to be a cooling time between shots. The more energy you pour into a weapon system, the longer the cool down. You can speed up the cooling time by reinforcing the structure of the weapons, but that will just make the weapons even bigger, more expensive to build/maintain, and more space would be required to set them, meaning less weapons overall.

Thank you, I did mean recharge.

Oh dear. I have a horrible feeling that my 400-600 metre capital ships are going to be outfought at every turn.

2. Shields are pointless. Lets assume a) that you need to expend as much energy on your shield as your opponent is firing at it to prevent amage and b) that the shield is hullhugging.


You're assuming this someone is using sheilds which;
1) don't store energy
2) have their 'strength' distributed evenly over their surface.

However, most - especially 'generic' sheilds - effectivly store X amount 'in the barrier' with their watts rating representing recharge. Incomming energy dissipation is also typicly allocated amoungst the sheild as a whole, or a particular sheild 'arc'/generator(s).

The popular alternative to counterforce is the 'energy sink' type, which basicly routes incoming energy into a capasitor system, and the energy unit per second rating represents dissipation.


Everyone has their own technobabble explination(or not), and I'll not bother touching on matters of IDIC beyond that, but such are the most common systems I've seen to make energy shields practical.



*IDIC = Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combonations

Oh dear. I have a horrible feeling that my 400-600 metre capital ships are going to be outfought at every turn.

I would think that capitol ships would be bigger than 400-600 meters...

edit - never mind, most navy battleships are around 400 meters at most.

I would think that capitol ships would be bigger than 400-600 meters...

edit - never mind, most navy battleships are around 400 meters at most.

Blue Water Navy maybe. Space Navies typically use ships much larger, unless you have good skills in microization or whatnot.

Blue Water Navy maybe. Space Navies typically use ships much larger, unless you have good skills in microization or whatnot.

Granted, but I still think that any ship larger than 6km is ridiculous.

Actually, "10-Terawatts" was thrown out as an example. The Enterprise-D used (I think) 1-2 Tw for it's phaser. That's when it had a single, huge phaser ring with access to the entire energy reserves of the ship. On the other hand, most empires seem to have technology well in excess of anything seen in ST or SW (crossing the galaxy in a matter of days or weeks, complete energy absorbtion, etc.)

In any case, Nanotech army tells me that IRL, smaller generators are more efficient after all. Not that this necessarily applies to future-tech.

In any case, we know nothing. NOTHING.

N-O-T-H-I-N-G

So, in the absence of any real knowledge whatsoever, let's just suppose that large ships have the advantage of concentrated power, while small ships have the advantage of diffused power, and are still needed to support the larger ships.

K?

Heh, even the Star Destroyers were only 1k in length, and designed to maximize surface area. The SSD's and Deathstars were mainly designed to instill fear, rather than actually fight.

So, in the absence of any real knowledge whatsoever, let's just suppose that large ships have the advantage of concentrated power, while small ships have the advantage of diffused power, and are still needed to support the larger ships.

K?

Well, there is the N-squared law and big gun battleships iRL.

Basicly, the big ship being able to reduce enemy firepower by knocking out the individualy smaller, weaker ships.


IE: take one unit with 10 firepower and 100 'hitpoints' vs 10 ships, each with with 1 firepower and 10 'hitpoints'.


Round 1:
Super: HP 100 DP 10
Fleet: HP 100 DP 10

Round 2:
Super: HP 90 DP 10
Fleet: HP 90 DP 9

Round 3:
Super: HP 81 DP 10
Fleet: HP 80 DP 8

Round 4:
Super: HP 73 DP 10
Fleet: HP 70 DP 7

Round 5:
Super: HP 66 DP 10
Fleet: HP 60 DP 6

Round 6:
Super: HP 60 DP 10
Fleet: HP 50 DP 5

Round 7:
Super: HP 55 DP 10
Fleet: HP 40 DP 4

Round 8:
Super: HP 51 DP 10
Fleet: HP 30 DP 3

Round 9:
Super: HP 48 DP 10
Fleet: HP 20 DP 2

Round 10:
Super: HP 46 DP 10
Fleet: HP 10 DP 1

Round 11:
Super: HP 45 DP 10
Fleet: HP 0 DP 0


Oversimplified, but it's basicly the idea behind every battleship built after the HMS Dreadnaught



This is enhanced by sheilds, which can prevent damage to the weapons of the larger vessel for much of the engagment.

Now, didn't the N Squared Law show that the strategy of building superships (they used the Japanese Yamato ships IIRC) is a bad idea in the face of a country that produces more less-powerful battleships?

Now, didn't the N Squared Law show that the strategy of building superships (they used the Japanese Yamato ships IIRC) is a bad idea in the face of a country that produces more less-powerful battleships?

((Most likely.))

Now, didn't the N Squared Law show that the strategy of building superships (they used the Japanese Yamato ships IIRC) is a bad idea in the face of a country that produces more less-powerful battleships?

In general, yes, but from what I've seen, only provided that the smaller ships are substantially more cost efficent, which isn't necessarily true with some FT tech bases. iirc, the Yamatos were only 15-35% more theoreticly effective for something like 5 times the expense.

Sheilds further bolster large ships in such cases by delaying the errosion of their weapons in combat. And also presents the potential ability of a large ship to engage and destroy smaller forces in detail without notible damage and the yard time that would result.

Oh, one more thing. Warp interdiction. One ship prevents the use of warp/hyperdrive by another, either using it's own hyperdrive, or some specialized device.

Let's suppose warp interdiction requires that the interdicting ship be substantially larger than the target. Large ships have the clear advantage.

Now let's suppose the interdicting ship can be say, 1/10 the size of the target. One of the smaller ships can interdict the behemoth and hang out of weapon range while the others beat the crap out of the enemy infrastructure. Small ships have the clear advantage.

However, most - especially 'generic' sheilds - effectivly store X amount 'in the barrier' with their watts rating representing recharge. Incomming energy dissipation is also typicly allocated amoungst the sheild as a whole, or a particular sheild 'arc'/generator(s).1. Well. I admit that such is, indeed, possible (IRL). It is called matter. After all, simple armour is nothing but 'frozen' energy with minimal dispersion.

So your 'energy' shields are, in fact, armour?

(I will admit that in *some* cases, it isn't *too* unrealistic. Abusing electromagnetism & a slight bit of techwank, an ion cloud to reduce the yield of particle beams/ EM radiation weapons shouldn't be impossible. However, doing such with non- matter based energy forms (Photons) sounds more than just 'slightly' wanky.)

2. No. you're dealing with fire coming in at either c or 0.999c. Dispersion over the entire shield is just... No.

Well, there is the N-squared law and big gun battleships iRL.

Basicly, the big ship being able to reduce enemy firepower by knocking out the individualy smaller, weaker ships.BEEEP! Wrong. You're confusing space with the ocean. For a wet, pre- nuclear navy, this might, eventually, work, due to limitations with regards to, well, guns. Simply because velocity limitations for projectile weapons (Hard to hit a target behind the horizon with a projectile exceeding escape velocity) create a need for excessive calibres, which, in turn, creates a need for excessive armour. Which resulted in the battleship developments from ~1900- 1940.

In space, hypervelocity projectile, c/ very close to c weapons with excessive energy densities negate this advantage (And note that for your beloved shields, a smaller ship has a smaller surface area to protec. Of course, reactor space grows faster than the surface area, but HERE we come back to the 'my reactor melts my ship!' problem.), as every shitty patrol vessel is capable of dealing out serious damage to a battleship.

For a pre- nuclear navy, heavy armour nd überguns made sense. A destroyer was no serious opponent for a battleship.

In space, it is quite simple. The side firing first wins.

Interestingly enough, this is actually rather close to modern navies. Ever noticed how battleships came out of fashion? A friggin missile frigate is capable of achiving a mission kill (Yes, I know, modern antiship missiles cannot break through WW2 battleship armour. There is, however, a reason armoured ships aren't seriously considered. It is vastly easier (and cheaper) to develop and produce an armour piercing missile than it is to develop and produce an armoured battleship).

And I do find it amusing that you're using pre- nuclear arguments for space applications.

You know, where some nations (Me, The Territory) simply fire bombgrasers to poke holes into opposing ships, followed with superheating a part of their internal atmosphere, this resulting in a neat 'lil blast...

1. Well. I admit that such is, indeed, possible (IRL). It is called matter. After all, simple armour is nothing but 'frozen' energy with minimal dispersion.

So your 'energy' shields are, in fact, armour?

(I will admit that in *some* cases, it isn't *too* unrealistic. Abusing electromagnetism & a slight bit of techwank, an ion cloud to reduce the yield of particle beams/ EM radiation weapons shouldn't be impossible. However, doing such with non- matter based energy forms (Photons) sounds more than just 'slightly' wanky.)

2. No. you're dealing with fire coming in at either c or 0.999c. Dispersion over the entire shield is just... No.


First, I'm speaking in general terms, not specificly what I use.

Secondly, I thought that I've already made it clear that real physics are fairly optional in sci-fi and NS Space-tech - I was describing gameplay mechanics, not technobabble; when speaking in general terms, technobabble possibilities are too diverse to bother debating.




BEEEP! Wrong. You're confusing space with the ocean. For a wet, pre- nuclear navy, this might, eventually, work, due to limitations with regards to, well, guns. Simply because velocity limitations for projectile weapons (Hard to hit a target behind the horizon with a projectile exceeding escape velocity) create a need for excessive calibres, which, in turn, creates a need for excessive armour. Which resulted in the battleship developments from ~1900- 1940.

In space, hypervelocity projectile, c/ very close to c weapons with excessive energy densities negate this advantage (And note that for your beloved shields, a smaller ship has a smaller surface area to protec. Of course, reactor space grows faster than the surface area, but HERE we come back to the 'my reactor melts my ship!' problem.), as every shitty patrol vessel is capable of dealing out serious damage to a battleship.

For a pre- nuclear navy, heavy armour nd überguns made sense. A destroyer was no serious opponent for a battleship.

In space, it is quite simple. The side firing first wins.

Interestingly enough, this is actually rather close to modern navies. Ever noticed how battleships came out of fashion? A friggin missile frigate is capable of achiving a mission kill (Yes, I know, modern antiship missiles cannot break through WW2 battleship armour. There is, however, a reason armoured ships aren't seriously considered. It is vastly easier (and cheaper) to develop and produce an armour piercing missile than it is to develop and produce an armoured battleship).

And I do find it amusing that you're using pre- nuclear arguments for space applications.

You know, where some nations (Me, The Territory) simply fire bombgrasers to poke holes into opposing ships, followed with superheating a part of their internal atmosphere, this resulting in a neat 'lil blast...


And I find it ammusing that you assume that the ballance of offence/defence existant in the - admittedly more realistic - tech base you use is universally applicible.

My use of the N-squared comparison stems from the similarity in the ballance of offence and defence of the time to the balance common in most sci-fi.


Again, most sci-fi tech defies physics to some degree; doing otherwise is volentary. And something I respect, belive it or not. Just don't narrow your views to exclude all else.

First, I'm speaking in general terms, not specificly what I use.

Secondly, I thought that I've already made it clear that real physics are fairly optional in sci-fi and NS Space-tech - I was describing gameplay mechanics, not technobabble; when speaking in general terms, technobabble possibilities are too diverse to bother debating.
Well, I guess that we disagree with this part, though I will admit that from a neutral point of view, you have a point.

The thing is, of course, that I start cringing when even basic geometry is ignored by the far SF kind of nations... But then, I'm admittedly having my own not-so-realistic thingies that pose a 'little' problem to feasibility.

Which brings me to...

My use of the N-squared comparison stems from the similarity in the ballance of offence and defence of the time to the balance common in most sci-fi.But what's the point of playing S/F when you're effectively ignoring all it's most basic & specific oddities, requiring you to, well, think different. I simply don't see the point (Admittedly, I don't see the point of Captain Hornblower in space, either. it bores me to death). Personally, if I would be interested in, well, a paradigm like yours, I would RP a 1900 nation.

But then again, this is quite probably individual preference.

Which brings me to...

But what's the point of playing S/F when you're effectively ignoring all it's most basic & specific oddities, requiring you to, well, think different. I simply don't see the point (Admittedly, I don't see the point of Captain Hornblower in space, either. it bores me to death).

'Most basic & specific oddities' is a little narrow minded; most basic & specific to hard sci-fi, prehaps, but 'eggshells with sledghammers' is readily in the minority of the sci-fi I've seen. That's just a force dynamic that happens to result in specific tech bases.

Sci-fi itself is a massivly open genra; there's no reason to limit one's self to such preconceptions.



Personally, if I would be interested in, well, a paradigm like yours, I would RP a 1900 nation.

But then again, this is quite probably individual preference.

Hey, it's not just about the mechanics behind naval combat; that's only a small aspect(and rarly as mundane as sitting around and pounding on someone until they die; you can easily spice things up tactics-wise - or use an alternate dynamic).

Personally, I like the freedom it gives in creating your nation, your technology, your navy, your people, and in what you can then do with it.

What you can do in the 1900's is very much different from what you can do is a sci-fi setting.

Hell, you can think up a force dynamic that you think would be fun but totally impossible iRL, past or present, and then flesh it out and make it work.

Err, right. The whole reason shields were "invented" was to compensate for the overbearing power of futuristic weapons.

Again, the larger ship would be better at this. You mentioned a smaller ship wouldn't need to shield as much area. True, to a point. Let's say the shield manifests itself as an area of space (possibly extending far beyond the ship itself) in which "hostile" phenomena are muted out, and their energies harmlessly dispersed. The small ship has a shield generator of power X, which can extend this area 500m from the ship. A lasers/particle beams/plasma bolts of a given intensity will lose say, 45% of it's intensity crossing this area before hitting the ship. The shield proves it's worth, but you're going to feel the hit. Now, a large ship has a shield generator of power 8X. The shielded zone fills 8X the volume as that produced by the small ship at the same intensity, 2X the distance from the ship. 90% of the energy is dispersed harmlessly, with the remaining 10% possibly being ablated by the ship's armor.

Furthermore, the problem of surface area can be corrected by simple creativity. Don't have your guns in big turrets on the surface. Keep the actual machinery deeper inside your hull, and then channel the lasers/particle beams/plasma bolts to small aiming platforms, where they can be directed at the enemy.

bump for kicks and giggles

Hey anyone got a link for a star trek/ space wars rp by any chance???

Bump and Rant:

Basically I'm tired of seeing the odd FT nation calling damage, drum rolling attacks and automatically assuming their sensors pick up hidden enemies that I feel that it's time I bumped this and pointed out a few reminders.

Firstly, on mobilisation and deployment: While not everyone thinks it's important to RP something like this, it's still important to remember that it takes time to send forces to somewhere, even in space... it may be fast but it's never instantanious as that would be concidered a godmod. So when you state you are sending forces, keep in mind that they will not automatically arrive before your opponents have managed to notice their mobilisation and travel towards the warzone. After you start mobilising forces, even if you have forces ready, you should give your opponent the chance to respond; even if you are going to be there in a couple minutes there is always a chance their long range scanners could detect you and at least prepare, if they do detect you then I would expect them to explain at least a little on how they did it, even if it's pretty simple. If they don't think they can detect you or you don't mind them noticing then you won't need to worry about it further... but you shouldn't deny the other the chance just because you think your technology is perfect.

Secondly, on attacks... even if you are just posting something basic like the start of a war, claiming damages is generally frowned upon and for some it's outright godmoding. Sure, you are likely to cause damage, especially while attacking a week target, but by claiming damages you are affectively assuming what their defence is and RPing their people, which defears the point of a joint RP. Some people are willing to accept damage if they really don't mind it, but usually it's very bad form and just because some people accept it doesn't mean everyone does.

Finally, there are many ways of accidently RPing damage, for example if someone is attempting to hide then it would be like RPing damage if you assume you automatically find them using sensors. In cases like this you "attack" saying how you are looking for the hidden troops perhaps using your normal sensors even, and then they say if it works or not explaining why if it hasn't concidering that perfect stealth is also a godmode.

I mean really, some of this stuff should be pretty basic stuff... what it really gets down to is not RPing what happens to other peoples troops, I know it can seem hard, but generally you'll be ok if you just say what you are doing and who it's likely to effect. If they are hidden, you search. If you are attacking you say what you are doing and they take the hit depending on what their defence is. If you are moving large numbers of troops a long distance to attack someone, they get a chance to notice that huge fleet before you arrive.

*shrugs*

Maybe I'm expecting too much from people, I know it's all about fun but alot of the stuff I see seems not to be very co-operative and instead relies on the enemy accepting what you are doing, and they won't always accept it because often it means you've ignored their cabilities, sure you may be awesome but we all think we're awesome and if it's going to be done fairly then you generally have to let people do their own thing instead of telling them what happens to their stuff. You know, co-operation.

Actually, I've generally thought of stealth as the 'attack' side of things, the reason being that sucessful stealth grants enormous tactical and strategic advantages one would not normally have. Thus, attempting stealth is to seek to gain an advantage over your opponent, which is, in gameplay terms, an offencive action, and this being a freeform RP enviroment, that places the sucess or failure of detection in the hands of the guy behind the sensors.

I thought I'd post this here... since earlier in the thread it spoke of pop size...

Usually people take their military by their population size.. such as in war time, as much as 2% to 5% of your population is in the military. Peace time, about .4% to 1% or so.

But, is it a problem to anyone to Role play that your nation has a population of say... 20 billion, hell, 20 trillion if you want to take it that far... but you used your Nation States population of 2 billion to figure your military...

If I confused anyone ask for clarification and I will try to make it better...

Actually, I've generally thought of stealth as the 'attack' side of things.

I suppose it depends on the situation. In some respects you could concider it to be like a combat where both are attacking and counter attacking, it's just that in the examples I saw the problem was in that one player was automatically assuming they knew where the other was (who had made the effort to say they were hiding). Eitherway, I suppose the idea is for the person hiding to RP how they are doing it and then the other player to RP how they are trying to find them... if they aren't hiding very well (like say they are just lying down) and it wouldn't take much to find them, but that comes down to the circumstances and the person hiding should admit that any real search would find them fairly quickly. However, if they are using some top of the range well thought out technology then it would be unfair to just say "my sensors find them" so you would explain how you are looking and they would judge that attempt based on their technology.

It's not always simple, but really it's a matter of common sense. It's not always easy to hide, especially if you are in the open, and it's not always easy to find someone if they are hidden in a city of millions or have loads of concealment from their environment.


But, is it a problem to anyone to Role play that your nation has a population of say... 20 billion, hell, 20 trillion if you want to take it that far... but you used your Nation States population of 2 billion to figure your military...

Technically you can roleplay at any population/military that you want, there is nothing from stopping you from claiming you have a population of two trillion if you feel it's more suiting to your space empire, but you have to bare in mind that most players in nationstates prefer to use their actual populations (i.e on their home page) rather then to RP more to fit their concept and these people will often concider such a extension of your population to be a godmode because in many respects it is.

That said, others are ok with it and frankly there is nothing wrong with a godmode if the people you RP with accept it; just don't force it on others, lets them make their own mind as to if they want to RP with someone who is RPing an empire and not a nation.

I know a few future technology players who like to claim their population is actually several trillion and not several billion like everyone else, they do it in order to fill up their empire so they can RP huge conflicts on galactic scales and it's acceptable to their own crowd. One the other hand, most of the FT nations I RP with prefer to stick to their actual populations and keep their holding small in comparison... there are no rules saying how much people you must have in order to be a space nation, it's more a matter of choice and concept whether or not you decide to go with a inflated population or not. If you do then I would expect many more nations are likely to avoid you because they wouldn't concider it to be fair.

As for military... personally I try not to get lost in the numbers for military, but I keep in mind some basic realities when concidering how much forces I'm using. Generally Iuthia, even as a pseudo-FT nation, sticks to less then 1% of it's population for it's military, even less for its active military personal with a good number of them being logistical and administrative support. Frankly militaries cost alot of resources and I would concider figures over 1% of your population to be losing quality depending on how much more you are claiming. Typically in the RL world the more advanced a nation gets the smaller and more advanced its military becomes, the only example we've currently got of a 5% military in the RL world at the moment is North Korea, who's people are starving in order to feed its military and it's economy is little more then a basket case. Understandably during wartime these figures can rise... but personally I've never been in wars which demand me to have millions of soldiers, it's a nightmare to mobilise a million soldiers, nevermind actually deploying them. So personally I just use what I need and avoid invasions all together... they are way to costly in this day and age unless you are facing a vastly inferiour opponent. War is about making the enemy yield, not taking them over entirely so often you can do just as much by destroying their ability to fight or hitting just the right place at the right time, like their leadership. These meat-ginders we see everyone RPing just aren't the way to go about it.