NationStates Jolt Archive

This isn't the Gameplay Forum but let's face it, no one really goes into there anyway. I would also like to mention ahead of time that I have searched for stickied threads on how this is done and have been unsuccessful in doing so, therefore I have decided to create a guide for new nations, and possibly even old, to get a military that near 100% of the players will agree with playing against, and how to use it in a way the majority will not find as god-modding.

Building an army consists of four steps. Let's begin with the percentages and calculations. The majority of Democratic nations today have a military percentage of around 0.5% of their populations. If you are not a democratic nation, you may want to consider mandatory service. At MOST this should boost you to 5%. From there the following statistics should still apply. During times of war a draft may be initiated raising percentages by 0.5%-1%. I will use my nation's population as an example for democratic calculations.

1. Get a calculator and plug in your current population. For me that's 3.834 billion, or once in the calculator, 3'834'000'000. Multiply that by 0.005, which is 0.5%. For me that equals 19,170,000.


2. IMPORTANT Realize that this amount is not necessarily the amount of fighting force you have, but the amount enrolled in the military. You have to take into account the base managers, mechanics, weapons engineers, etc etc. For the sake of keeping this simple, we will put all of these into a group called random personnel. They should take up at around 50% of your military (0.5), and for me actually take up 60%. Less troops, less vehicles, less bases, less weapons research, and less large vehicles equal less random personnel. A low tech nation will require less than a Modern or Future.

Taking 50% I now have a fighting force of 9,585,000. This may seem like a small number but realize this, 10 million is twice the population of a new nation, that military is larger than an entire population of people.


3. Now the second most fun part of creating your military, deciding what you want to specialize in. Do you want to rule the skies or master the ground? Dominate space or the depths? Be equally rounded at everything, or pick a bit of each? It's really up to you and what you think will serve you best. If you want to be good at everything, realize this will take time in order to pull off, at the beginning wars will be difficult. If this is you, simply divide your fighting force by 4 or 5, into something like pilots, navy, gunners/tank operators, infantry, and if you're future tech, space pilots. Remember, it is unrealistic to have the "super soldier" who can do everything, so dividing is essential.

I decide I want to specialize in naval battle and tanks, and that each section will take up 25%, 1/4, or 0.25 of my fighting force. I now have 2'396'250 troops specializing in each, which leaves me with 4'792'500 to divide among the rest. Because I'm lazy, I'll divide that by three for my remaining sections, leaving me with 1'597'500 troops in my air force, infantry, and space force. One thing to remember, not all these troops will be in active duty, there are National Gaurdsmen and such who are trained but do not serve actively on base.

For those of you interested in special ops, I suggest you take small amounts from various parts of your military. Special ops, although cool, are a relatively small part of the military in terms of size.


4. Although the most fun, this is probably the most difficult and inexact step: the manufacturing/acquiring of weapons and vehicles. There will be no hard statistics to follow in this portion, only general guidelines.

The most essential parts of getting vehicles and weaponry are
1. Your GDP
2. Your allies
3. Storefronts

Obviously as a new nation your National Budget, which you can find here (http://www.pipian.com/stuffforchat/gdpcalc.php?nation) is not going to be very high. Unfortunately this is what you have to use in order to purchase and manufacture weapons and vehicles. As a result, the ability to create things like space fighters, nuclear/biological weapons, and multiple fleets of naval ships will be difficult. More than likely you will have enough money to equip your soldiers with weapons, get a small fleet worth of naval ships, a few squadrons of fighters, and some tanks. Until one month or more old, nuclear weapons are completely out of the question, and (unless you’re future tech) so are space vehicles. Also remember that it takes more than one person to run most vehicles, so do your research and distribute your troops accordingly.

This is where allies come into play. Find people willing to help you for free first, especially those in your region. Often times they will be willing to equip your troops and possibly give vehicles. Next, check the storefronts. They often have good deals and it may be easier just to purchase from them.

While making/pruchasing vehicles and weapons there is one major thing to keep in mind: vehicles do not have a one time only fee, and neither do guns. They all need to be well kept, need to be in good working condition, need to be supplied, and need to be repaired. As such, every vehicle has an upkeep, money constantly being put into them. So watch how many you buy and build, or they may start to fall apart…

Congrats! Tweak things as you see fit and your military is done!


HOW TO FIGHT A WAR (not strategy, simply how to fight)

This section explains how to engage in combat.

1. Have a good reason to attack. “Your nation stole a fish from our factories” is not a sufficient reason. Something more feasible (although very general, may want to narrow it down) would be “We don’t agree with the way your nation interacts with the rest of the world, and feel it is imperative to stop you."

2. Give warning via telegram.

3. Post in forum, put “War Thread” in front of the name and send the link to your opponent.

4. Deploy your troops. You may post your actual troop numbers, I personally keep track on my computer, as I would rather the enemy not know my exact numbers.

5. Allow your enemy to respond! He/she may be gone and might not have even received your telegram yet.

6. When you attack, simply say you are doing so and mention how you are attacking. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES DO YOU SAY HOW MANY OF THEIR UNITS/STRUCTURED DIED. THIS IS GOD-MODDING. And for God’s sake, RP. Don’t just say “I’m attacking with 300 men who open fire on your tanks.” One, it’s boring. Two, doesn’t give enough specifics, and the likely reply is “20 of my tanks die, they fire back.” If you don’t RP your opponent has nothing to RP back with. Keep track of how many of your men die, and be reasonable while taking casualties. If you have a mass of 400 troops all standing in a space with 2 ft between each and a tank shell hits, you will lose more than one guy. If you’re landing troops and his machine guns start raking your transports you will lose men. Fight fair or don’t fight at all.

7. GOD-MODDING A GOD-MODDER GETS YOU NOWHERE. Continue to fight like normal until other nations and or mods notice.

8. How the war ends is up to you and your opponent, it could be a mere exchange of words congratulating your opponent on victory or giving compliments upon their defeat. It may mean you have to follow through with consequences set before hand.

9. Lastly, take victory and defeat gracefully. No one likes a braggart, no one likes a whiner.

The following addition is from Clan Smoke Jaguar
An important distinction:

When you see an army that lists half its troops as combat, that should be saying that half the army is in combat formations. Combat formations consist of divisions, brigades, and occasionally independant battalions, that fulfill the role of frontline combat units. HOWEVER, even in these, many of the people aren't combatants.

Consider a US tank battalion (non-Force XXI). This has 604 total personnel, with the following combat units (including direct combat support):
-Main combat force of 58xM1A1 Abrams (4 personnel each, 232 total)
-Mortar section of 6xM1062 120mm Mortar Carrier (6 personnel each, 36 total)
-Scout Platoon of 10xArmed HMMWV (3 personnel each, 30 total)
That equals 298 of 604 personnel in combat roles, or about 49% combatants, and that's only at the battalion level. As you get higher, the portion of the troops in combat roles drops. The reality is that a combat division of 15-20,000 personnel will often only have 3000-6000 actual combat troops, depending on unit type (this includes direct combat support like helicopter, air defense, and artillery crews, which don't always fight, and aren't always considered combatants). Naturally, light infantry will be closer to 6000 while heavy armor will be more like 3000.
Thus, the reality is that only about 1/5 to 1/10 of the personnel in a military are actually fighting. The more advanced it gets, the closer to that 1/10 ratio. In the US military, it's one combatant for every eight support. In mine, there's even more support.

Now, as some have mentioned in the past, nations like the USSR had much more streamlined units. But this came with a price. You see, Soviet tactics were to give initial supplies to a group of units, and have them all attack along a wide front. Resupply and support like artillery and airpower would go only to the most successful. Thus, they were only really supporting a fraction of their military at any one time. The rest, well they were expendable. The result would be phenominal casualties and erosion of fighting ability in less successful units. Thus, the Soviet style will result in higher casualties and lower morale, and will only really be accepted in a totalitarian regime.

The following addition is from Kazecistan
FT has a few differences which ought to be noted.

1. Support personnel are going to be fewer in FT than MT. In order from least to most support personnel, the list is something like PT, FT, MT, NFT, PMT. In PT, each soldier practically takes care of his own needs entirely (IDK, ~10% of total enrolled personnel?). In FT the Tech is great enough to take over much in the way of personnel requirements (~30-40%). MT is good at ~50%. NFT and PMT have more tech, but usually not in the way of logistics (~50-60%).

2. Sea forces and exclusive atmospheric flight are rare in use, devoting military to them won't get one anywhere.

3. Drones, A.I.'s, and Droids count against population when it comes to factoring military. In theory, a nation could have 5 million pop. and 100 million droids to run their entire military. That is seen as wank.

4. If RPed properly, all purpose ships can exist, but they are huge and costly, making them few in number. Equipping military ships with science labs and cargo bays reduces the need for non-com. ships, but makes the military ones either A) larger & more costly, or B) less effective.

Also, just a basic tech rule that applies to all tech levels. For every positive there logical and proportionate drawbacks; there is no perfect tech. If your weapon is powerful, it is likely slow on the fire rate and costly in energy. A list of positive and negative traits follows, use them in your creation of original tech.

Generic Positives:
Powerful
Fast
Accurate

Generic Negatives:
Slow
Weak
Inaccurate
Expensive to build
Costly to maintain / operate
Requires lots of energy
One time use
That’s it guys, hope it helps.

Who in their right mind would do the thing mentioned in 8?

I don't know, it was a big issue when I first started so I figured I'd throw it in.

should be stickied

Well although thats quite a good newbie/military clueless (that includes most of NS) guide on how to build an Army, it really only covers the very basics but then again what else do you need right?

However, I think you should recommend new players buy from storefronts or use existing Modern World equipment before getting them into building tech with the best of them.

Also Nuclear weapons are allowed at any age, just it's usually the younger nations who abuse this possibility. Hence people tend to ignore younger nations and n00kler weapons...

Oh and for reference, we have had these sort of threads before. I think they may have purged them however...

The problem with the population method is the fact it changes every day. So a good idea would be to update it every week or so or when you need to use them, just to be prepared.

what is this for?

To show new and clueless players how to begin a military, and give them the basics to battle.

How come when I did that NationStates GDP calculator thing, all my budget are 0?

You typed it in wrong. Just type =Spartanox next to what's already there.

bumped for the sake of new players.

This is good for people who are complete newbs, but I know for a fact that beginer's method is flawed. Then again, I've designed entire unique division types around my military doctrine, so I imagine I'm a tad more advanced than most people.

Excellent!!! I've been looking for a thread like this one! Thanks bunchs!

You're very welcome...I thought this thread went down the tube...

An important distinction:

When you see an army that lists half its troops as combat, that should be saying that half the army is in combat formations. Combat formations consist of divisions, brigades, and occasionally independant battalions, that fulfill the role of frontline combat units. HOWEVER, even in these, many of the people aren't combatants.

Consider a US tank battalion (non-Force XXI). This has 604 total personnel, with the following combat units (including direct combat support):
-Main combat force of 58xM1A1 Abrams (4 personnel each, 232 total)
-Mortar section of 6xM1062 120mm Mortar Carrier (6 personnel each, 36 total)
-Scout Platoon of 10xArmed HMMWV (3 personnel each, 30 total)
That equals 298 of 604 personnel in combat roles, or about 49% combatants, and that's only at the battalion level. As you get higher, the portion of the troops in combat roles drops. The reality is that a combat division of 15-20,000 personnel will often only have 3000-6000 actual combat troops, depending on unit type (this includes direct combat support like helicopter, air defense, and artillery crews, which don't always fight, and aren't always considered combatants). Naturally, light infantry will be closer to 6000 while heavy armor will be more like 3000.
Thus, the reality is that only about 1/5 to 1/10 of the personnel in a military are actually fighting. The more advanced it gets, the closer to that 1/10 ratio. In the US military, it's one combatant for every eight support. In mine, there's even more support.

Now, as some have mentioned in the past, nations like the USSR had much more streamlined units. But this came with a price. You see, Soviet tactics were to give initial supplies to a group of units, and have them all attack along a wide front. Resupply and support like artillery and airpower would go only to the most successful. Thus, they were only really supporting a fraction of their military at any one time. The rest, well they were expendable. The result would be phenominal casualties and erosion of fighting ability in less successful units. Thus, the Soviet style will result in higher casualties and lower morale, and will only really be accepted in a totalitarian regime.

Thanks for the addition, I'll add it to the main post.

I created this thread about a year ago, and feel that, since there is still no sticky for such a topic, this might be a good topic to bump. Hope it helps.

Ignoring medical units, for a standard non-mechanized infantry grouping of 20,000 men, how many personal would be needed to do the noncombat roles? And how many logistical vehicals (palletized loading systems, trucks, etc.) are generally required to support units in the field? And isn't 0.5% a little low for NS fighting forces? I thought 2-5% was considered normal. Right now I'm assigning 15 men per vehicle (since i usually only will deploy one army group which ends up having an armored-only army group attached to it. This just makes it easier for me to organize my forces, and I will not commit a group of infantry without armor to back it up) to account for mechanics/base personal, etc. Isn't most weapons development done by independent contractors anyway?

FT has a few differences which ought to be noted.

1. Support personnel are going to be fewer in FT than MT. In order from least to most support personnel, the list is something like PT, FT, MT, NFT, PMT. In PT, each soldier practically takes care of his own needs entirely (IDK, ~10% of total enrolled personnel?). In FT the Tech is great enough to take over much in the way of personnel requirements (~30-40%). MT is good at ~50%. NFT and PMT have more tech, but usually not in the way of logistics (~50-60%).

2. Sea forces and exclusive atmospheric flight are rare in use, devoting military to them won't get one anywhere.

3. Drones, A.I.'s, and Droids count against population when it comes to factoring military. In theory, a nation could have 5 million pop. and 100 million droids to run their entire military. That is seen as wank.

4. If RPed properly, all purpose ships can exist, but they are huge and costly, making them few in number. Equipping military ships with science labs and cargo bays reduces the need for non-com. ships, but makes the military ones either A) larger & more costly, or B) less effective.

Also, just a basic tech rule that applies to all tech levels. For every positive there logical and proportionate drawbacks; there is no perfect tech. If your weapon is powerful, it is likely slow on the fire rate and costly in energy. A list of positive and negative traits follows, use them in your creation of original tech.

Generic Positives:
Powerful
Fast
Accurate

Generic Negatives:
Slow
Weak
Inaccurate
Expensive to build
Costly to maintain / operate
Requires lots of energy
One time use

Ignoring medical units, for a standard non-mechanized infantry grouping of 20,000 men, how many personal would be needed to do the noncombat roles? And how many logistical vehicals (palletized loading systems, trucks, etc.) are generally required to support units in the field? And isn't 0.5% a little low for NS fighting forces? I thought 2-5% was considered normal. Right now I'm assigning 15 men per vehicle (since i usually only will deploy one army group which ends up having an armored-only army group attached to it. This just makes it easier for me to organize my forces, and I will not commit a group of infantry without armor to back it up) to account for mechanics/base personal, etc. Isn't most weapons development done by independent contractors anyway?

"Ignoring medical units, for a standard non-mechanized infantry grouping of 20,000 men, how many personal would be needed to do the noncombat roles?"

About 10,000 assuming it's strictly infantry.

"And how many logistical vehicals (palletized loading systems, trucks, etc.) are generally required to support units in the field?"

That really depends on how well equipped/supported you want your units to be. Obviously, the better equipped the more you're going to need. Think of an HMMV, it's not just a recon or combat vehicle, it also stores supplies. As a result, logistal vehicles are few and far between in those squads.

"And isn't 0.5% a little low for NS fighting forces? I thought 2-5% was considered normal."

No, as a matter of fact even .5% is a little high for realism purposes. As stated, a nation with a 5% military population is most likely drafting or has mandatory service.

"Isn't most weapons development done by independent contractors anyway?"

That's true, but where does the funding come from? Governments usually pay their contractors to develope weaponry, which in fact raises the prices. The money being used towards arms themselves isn't necessarily production cost, but paying your inside contractors. This is one reason why storefronts are frequently used, because many nations don't want to have to deal with that portion of arms manufacturing.

FT has a few differences which ought to be noted.

1. Support personnel are going to be fewer in FT than MT. In order from least to most support personnel, the list is something like PT, FT, MT, NFT, PMT. In PT, each soldier practically takes care of his own needs entirely (IDK, ~10% of total enrolled personnel?). In FT the Tech is great enough to take over much in the way of personnel requirements (~30-40%). MT is good at ~50%. NFT and PMT have more tech, but usually not in the way of logistics (~50-60%).

2. Sea forces and exclusive atmospheric flight are rare in use, devoting military to them won't get one anywhere.

3. Drones, A.I.'s, and Droids count against population when it comes to factoring military. In theory, a nation could have 5 million pop. and 100 million droids to run their entire military. That is seen as wank.

4. If RPed properly, all purpose ships can exist, but they are huge and costly, making them few in number. Equipping military ships with science labs and cargo bays reduces the need for non-com. ships, but makes the military ones either A) larger & more costly, or B) less effective.

Also, just a basic tech rule that applies to all tech levels. For every positive there logical and proportionate drawbacks; there is no perfect tech. If your weapon is powerful, it is likely slow on the fire rate and costly in energy. A list of positive and negative traits follows, use them in your creation of original tech.

Generic Positives:
Powerful
Fast
Accurate

Generic Negatives:
Slow
Weak
Inaccurate
Expensive to build
Costly to maintain / operate
Requires lots of energy
One time use

I'll put this into the first post, nice addition.

Wow, I feel special! *does happy dance*

It's just so rare that a sticky 'how to' thread covers FT at all. I've read nearly all of the links in the II Consolidation Sticky, and there's rarely any mention of FT. FTers need direction too.

"Ignoring medical units, for a standard non-mechanized infantry grouping of 20,000 men, how many personal would be needed to do the noncombat roles?"

About 10,000 assuming it's strictly infantry.

"And how many logistical vehicals (palletized loading systems, trucks, etc.) are generally required to support units in the field?"

That really depends on how well equipped/supported you want your units to be. Obviously, the better equipped the more you're going to need. Think of an HMMV, it's not just a recon or combat vehicle, it also stores supplies. As a result, logistal vehicles are few and far between in those squads.

"And isn't 0.5% a little low for NS fighting forces? I thought 2-5% was considered normal."

No, as a matter of fact even .5% is a little high for realism purposes. As stated, a nation with a 5% military population is most likely drafting or has mandatory service.

"Isn't most weapons development done by independent contractors anyway?"

That's true, but where does the funding come from? Governments usually pay their contractors to develope weaponry, which in fact raises the prices. The money being used towards arms themselves isn't necessarily production cost, but paying your inside contractors. This is one reason why storefronts are frequently used, because many nations don't want to have to deal with that portion of arms manufacturing.

Thanks, I'm guessing that my ratio isn't too far off (since i'll rarely field 2 army groups in a foreign invasion unless I can guarantee logistics are taken care of) on the ground front. I also think it is worth adding that advanced EMT skills can be taught on the relatively cheap side to a military (if the government is willing to institute a program) helping to reduce the number of dedicated medical personel. As for logistics, I think a dedicated corps could handle logistics work for an army group, since most light vehicals can be used as cargo carriers (like a CH-47 can fast-supply reasonably well). Now i just need to get around to organizing my air force...

FT has a few differences which ought to be noted.

1. Support personnel are going to be fewer in FT than MT. In order from least to most support personnel, the list is something like PT, FT, MT, NFT, PMT. In PT, each soldier practically takes care of his own needs entirely (IDK, ~10% of total enrolled personnel?). In FT the Tech is great enough to take over much in the way of personnel requirements (~30-40%). MT is good at ~50%. NFT and PMT have more tech, but usually not in the way of logistics (~50-60%).
Not quite accurate. A modern western force, at the division level, is about 60-70% logistics. Light infantry would be around 60%, maybe a bit less, while pure armor would be around 75% logistics. But, to be frank, pure tank divisions are nonexistant at division level, as there is a very real need for mechanized infantry support. PMT and NFT are actually a bit lower, but not by much. The actual RL trend is to reduce logistical personnel requirements. Mostly to cope with downsizing, but that is the trend.


For the record, when I researched my Light Infantry Divisions, I came up with roughly 600 trucks and 1500 HMMWVs. But that was with only 2 infantry brigades. With a third, it would be another 50 or so trucks and 200 or so HMMWVs. Also, most of the trucks are 2 1/2 ton units, with some 5-tons thrown in. The bigger PLS and HEMTTs are mostly for mechanized units. For the HMMWVs, about 250 of them would be armed versions.
A 20,000 man light infantry force would probably have about 1000 trucks, 2000-2250 HMMWVs, and at least 12,000 perosnnel in logistics

Ummm... Not too bad...

But I've also seen 2-5% standard out of war, up to 10% in war (if you have a rather large draft). Also take into accout that some countries may require military service...

Ummm... Not too bad...

But I've also seen 2-5% standard out of war, up to 10% in war (if you have a rather large draft). Also take into accout that some countries may require military service...

Exactly. That 5% is no universal law.
If both genders are used and the whole population is committing itself to the war effort, 15% can be achieved. This usually results in lower morale and inability to train them all efficiently, but if military budjet is great enough, the culture is fanatically militaristic and propaganda manages to convince them about the absolute necessity to turn the country to a big army camp, 15% is perfectly possible.

This state of affairs can however hardly be sustained when the country is not in a major war.

Not quite accurate. A modern western force, at the division level, is about 60-70% logistics. Light infantry would be around 60%, maybe a bit less, while pure armor would be around 75% logistics. But, to be frank, pure tank divisions are nonexistent at division level, as there is a very real need for mechanized infantry support. PMT and NFT are actually a bit lower, but not by much. The actual RL trend is to reduce logistical personnel requirements. Mostly to cope with downsizing, but that is the trend.


For the record, when I researched my Light Infantry Divisions, I came up with roughly 600 trucks and 1500 HMMWVs. But that was with only 2 infantry brigades. With a third, it would be another 50 or so trucks and 200 or so HMMWVs. Also, most of the trucks are 2 1/2 ton units, with some 5-tons thrown in. The bigger PLS and HEMTTs are mostly for mechanized units. For the HMMWVs, about 250 of them would be armed versions.
A 20,000 man light infantry force would probably have about 1000 trucks, 2000-2250 HMMWVs, and at least 12,000 personnel in logistics

That's why I don't RP MT, I don't know all of the exacting statistics and don't much care to. I've heard 50% logistics for MT forces quite often, and that's what I restated. I felt it logical to have more logistical personnel in NFT and PMT because in general logistics advance slower than front line units. And with all of the front line advancements, logistics would be stretched to handle it, thus requiring more bodies in its ranks. There's a bit of play room there, I suppose, in that one could have advanced logistics further than front line units but that would be an RP preference and an overall disadvantage. (less advanced weapons and defences = losses) I figure it as in a certain amount of time (that between today and PMT/NFT) only so much advancement can be made, where one chooses to make it is up to them, but *usually* they're best off in front line units.

A very good thread.

Hmm... I wonder, shouldn't it be made 'sticky', or shouldn't a least a link to it be provided in one (or more) of the 'sticky' threads? Many new players would find it useful, I am thinking...

Somebody please sticky this?! O.o

An excellent thread. Thank you for taking the time to write this, it will help us newbies bunches.

Excellent stuff. :D

This is v useful stuff.

should be stickied

No, shouldn't. It's largely already covered in existing stickies, and the new material [such as outright endorsement of calculators, endorsement of the nonexistant age limits on nukes that would mean Israel and France couldn't have them and the illegal note about demanding passwords after wars] is stuff that's of dubious worth or isn't allowed in stickies because it's not generally agreed on. Godmoding is also with two Ds, not three.

No, shouldn't. It's largely already covered in existing stickies, and the new material [such as outright endorsement of calculators and the illegal note about demanding passwords after wars] is stuff that's of dubious worth or isn't allowed in stickies because it's not generally agreed on. Godmoding is also with two Ds, not three.
^ What GMC said. We already have a consolidation stick with several dozen links to threads that have already said all of this. I also don't think that setting out a "This should be your military percentage" figure in a sticky is very helpful. This happened once before, and everyone ended up having 5% military *shudder*. I for one don't want a return to something like that. Also, if you must define a calculator (which the newbies, who dont know any better, will assume is Law on this forum) must you really pick Pipian, the oldest and least helpful out there? Militaries also do not "pick specialisations" and randomly shunt funds in there. Sometimes they do, to meet specific strategic requirements, but as a matter of course, they do not. The idea that they do (again, a throwback to the heady days of '03 and '04) is an extremely cartoonish distortion.

FT has a few differences which ought to be noted.

1. Support personnel are going to be fewer in FT than MT. In order from least to most support personnel, the list is something like PT, FT, MT, NFT, PMT. In PT, each soldier practically takes care of his own needs entirely (IDK, ~10% of total enrolled personnel?). In FT the Tech is great enough to take over much in the way of personnel requirements (~30-40%). MT is good at ~50%. NFT and PMT have more tech, but usually not in the way of logistics (~50-60%).

2. Sea forces and exclusive atmospheric flight are rare in use, devoting military to them won't get one anywhere.

3. Drones, A.I.'s, and Droids count against population when it comes to factoring military. In theory, a nation could have 5 million pop. and 100 million droids to run their entire military. That is seen as wank.

4. If RPed properly, all purpose ships can exist, but they are huge and costly, making them few in number. Equipping military ships with science labs and cargo bays reduces the need for non-com. ships, but makes the military ones either A) larger & more costly, or B) less effective.

Also, just a basic tech rule that applies to all tech levels. For every positive there logical and proportionate drawbacks; there is no perfect tech. If your weapon is powerful, it is likely slow on the fire rate and costly in energy. A list of positive and negative traits follows, use them in your creation of original tech.

Generic Positives:
Powerful
Fast
Accurate

Generic Negatives:
Slow
Weak
Inaccurate
Expensive to build
Costly to maintain / operate
Requires lots of energy
One time use

May i ask what those abbreviations mean?

May i ask what those abbreviations mean?

PT = past tech, usually pre-gunpowder

MT = modern tech, roughly what you'll find in the "real world"

PMT = post modern tech, stuff that doesn't really exist yet, but likely will exist someday.

FT = future tech, Star Trek, Star Wars, other sci-fi stuff.

NFT = near future tech (I think). Probably between PMT and FT, though I don't know what the dividing line is between them.

PT = past tech, usually pre-gunpowder

MT = modern tech, roughly what you'll find in the "real world"

PMT = post modern tech, stuff that doesn't really exist yet, but likely will exist someday.

FT = future tech, Star Trek, Star Wars, other sci-fi stuff.

NFT = near future tech (I think). Probably between PMT and FT, though I don't know what the dividing line is between them.

[ Neo or Near Future Tech.

NFT ships have no FTL, usually use railguns, and have limited energy weapons. Missiles are usually nukes, fusion missiles, or chemical explosives. There are no shields, as well. ]

Great stuff you have here .