NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: Yes, I've RPed many times however I feel that I am weak in RP skills. I have yet to fully understand what kind of military size I should have, and what types of aircraft are superior as well as Naval vessels. Along with a Space Force, what is recommended.

As a nation of over 1.5 billion, this feels embarassing, but hell, I'll admit it!

Research! Either in RL stuff using google or looking at storefronts (for superiority). As to size, depends on how you run things, but 5% is pushing it save in war times (I keep 5% but how I do it is fun [not for the people, but the designing of the system]).

OOC: I only have 2% of my pop at any engaged in the armed forces, but I train every one of my citizens for war.

The lower percentage means my active military are better trained, better equipped, and more efficient than if I had a 5% military.

However, if someone were to declare war on me, I could mobilize 10% since every single citizen is a trained soldier. It all works out quite well :D

RP isn't neccessarily all about numbers. Check out the NS forum for some "story-RP." For military tech, generally I'd say these numbers:

10,000 or so aircraft
10,000 or so tanks
Less than 1 percent of the nation in the military
Less than 25,000 spec ops
Several thousand helicopters
Several hundred to one thousand or so naval vessels

Ermm... can't remember much more. Don't use my military stats much.

I go around 3%, keep in mind on some rping threads your nations economy is important. Military strength though is determine by several factors. Size of population, Economy, Draft are not, nationalism, and technology. Though some of these factors carry negative effects as well. Like if you draft your citizens to war they are less determine to fight.

Read the logistics thread (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=275828). Heck, read it several times. It's good. This (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=297064) is a great thread to help you figure out size.

http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=275828

Decide on your tech level. Space nations usually have a -smaller- front-line force than modern-tech nations in relation to size simply because of the cost of each vessel. It costs roughly eighty billion to build an average starship, unless you're looking at numberwankers and/or powergamers who think that the Enterprise (Startrek) costs less than a Nimitz-class carrier.

If you're developing a new tech, put a thread where you 'research' it. this way you can get feedback on feasibility, and power level. When doing this, try to keep in mind that it's no fun to go up against something that has no weaknesses....

After a certain point, it becomes absolutely pointless to have an ever-growing armor, simply due to the logistical nightmare involved. Remember: it takes time to transfer even a few thousand troops overseas. After reaching a million front-line persons, I don't think there's any point in growing your military.

I reccomend having an 0.1% to 0.4% front-line military force, with an additional 1.0% to 2.0% in logistics.

I have a front-line military at roughly 0.1% of my total population, with half of them on active duty and the rest as professional reservists (which means that I only pay half of them). An entire 1% of my population is in logistics, with most also on reserve and holding civilian jobs.

This gives me an effective combat force of nearly a million in times of war, whch is more than enough to repel an invasion, but has me paying for only half that number. Some of my army that's on active duty spends its time doing construction work on large projects, which recuperates some of the upkeep costs.

My RP generally concerns characters more than numbers of ships, etc. Unless the person I'm RPing with is a real stickler for that sort of thing, I usually only mention the main ships in a fleet and vaguely describe the escort. I'm pretty vague with troop numbers most of the time, too.
Military service is compulsory, and my military is also "co-ed" so I have a pretty good force. And everyone else is in the national guard. But obviously I wouldn't be able to mobilize more than 10% of them in wartime without totally running my economy into the ground.
Remember also that most of your force is not a front-line force. The vast majority of your military is concerned with logistics.