NationStates Jolt Archive

So I have a couple questions. How do you space folks handle the population thing? Because I really can't imagine having an interstellar civilization with a couple billion people.

Likewise budget.

Oh, and cross tech? How do you spacefolk handle stuff like Star Wars people coming up against BSG people?

The crosstech thing is the source of much debate, mostly turning into fanboy wars over whos continuity is better. I've always been of the opinion that things should be relative for NS, damage is damage, weapons are weapons. Too many people want to have uber shields or weapons that can't be beat, its idiocy.

As for population, I only really use my population in relation to calculating my military, but largely stay away from stats. Complicates things, detracts from the purity of good writing, having to throw numbers in all the time. Yeuch :P

Population, for me, is pretty much ok. I can imagine having about 7 billion citizens.

The crosstech thing is the source of much debate, mostly turning into fanboy wars over whos continuity is better. I've always been of the opinion that things should be relative for NS, damage is damage, weapons are weapons. Too many people want to have uber shields or weapons that can't be beat, its idiocy.

As for population, I only really use my population in relation to calculating my military, but largely stay away from stats. Complicates things, detracts from the purity of good writing, having to throw numbers in all the time. Yeuch :P

Population, for me, is pretty much ok. I can imagine having about 7 billion citizens.

Well that's great for you, but I've only got about 1.25 billion. Do I confine myself to one planet, or should I just wait until I get bigger to go FT?

Well being on one planet is fine for FT, or you could use European billions rather then American billions.

You could easily still go FT. Some people like to say they have more people than they actually do to facilitate a more believable experience. You could be limited to one planet, or say that you have smaller colonies on other worlds.

You could even be nomadic. What you should really do, is whatever you want. Make the numbers work for you, rather than trying to work around the numbers

I may say I have nine billion civilians, but I draw my military (ie the important bit of population), and my economy, off of my 1.7 billion odd NS population. (1.5% of my NS pop = military)

Well that's great for you, but I've only got about 1.25 billion. Do I confine myself to one planet, or should I just wait until I get bigger to go FT?

Well, to field this one, you could do what some do--multiply your population by a certain number, say five or ten times, and use that as your civilian population only, with military still calculated from NS Population. The trick is finding a good multiplier that enables you to colonize a goodly number of worlds in your possession without going overboard and seeming wanky. One user that informed of this process suggested 10% as a happy medium, which is why I picked that in my equation.....I know that this method might get you more systems to start with for sure.

I hope that helps. If not, then ask away.

EDIT: Ultimately, it's about how you run things, like Whyatica or Chron said. Trust them, they know what they mean...

Okay, last question. How about budget?

Okay, last question. How about budget?

Again, that's calculated using standard NS Population, using any ordinary economy calculator, and the "2-5% of your population in the military at most" rule still counts.

For my pop I use around 67,000 plus about 10,000 military due to the backstory of my nation (survivors from the cylon attack in BSG, but a different group then the Galactica's) Budget and other such worries are considerably different considering the situation my nation's in.

I avoid hard population stats. Sagit is a nation of explorers anyway, so it's more likely to have encounters involving single ships, like Star Trek did, so population is less of an issue.

Again, that's calculated using standard NS Population, using any ordinary economy calculator, and the "2-5% of your population in the military at most" rule still counts.

Well, it's just I can't really imagine building any of those huge spaceship with a standard NS budget. But maybe the cost went down. What do I know, right?

Well, it's just I can't really imagine building any of those huge spaceship with a standard NS budget. But maybe the cost went down. What do I know, right?

There is no hard-and-fast rule regarding prices of ships - Huntaer's Star Forge storefront is a good place to look if you want a very general price of what something SHOULD cost. Some people go by a "1,000 ships per billion population" thing, but I don't. I 'officially' have 500-600 ships in my navy, and keep 300 mothballed in case of attack (Like I am now, ha ha.)

A lot of it is up to you. What combat strategy would you want? Less ships, but more powerful, more ships but less powerful, it's all up to you. TG me if you have any more specific questions.

I use a far uglier system: my population is the number of star systems in my region of controlled space.

Thus, the Vah (Kafers [corrupted from the German “käfer” {“cockroach”}]) have 2.251 billion systems within their region of space. Since the usual density of stars in the spiral arms of a galaxy is 1 star per cubic parsec (1 parsec [abbrev. pc] ~ 3.26 LY), this translates into a sphere ~813 pc (~2650 LY) in radius (~1,626 pc [~5,300 LY] across), quite small when you consider that the Milky Way is 90,000 pc across.

(Actually, since the spiral arms are only ~1,000 pc thick, a cylinder would be a better approximation; that puts the frontier out ~846 pc (~2,760 LY) from the homeworld, meaning that Vah space is ~1,692 pc (~5,519 LY) across. This is still quite small in comparison with the size of the Milky Way.)

Now before you say, “OMG, 2.251 billion stars!?!?!” you should realize that: The number of star systems in my space would be half that (~1.126 billion).


About 70% (~788 million) of these systems would be multiples, which are too unstable to have much chance of harboring useful systems; that leaves ~338 million useful systems (solitaries).


Only about half of these solitaries (~169 million systems) will have planets


About 65% of these (~110 million) are M-class stars (not to be confused with M-class planets): dim red stars that are unlikely to have large, useable worlds. They’ll have ice balls, a few scorched rocks, and the odd gas giant, but no “Earthlike” worlds.


Another 1% of the solitaries that could form planets won’t, because they’re O-, B-, and A-class systems that don’t last long enough for the cosmic debris around them to cool into planets. Scratch another ~2 million systems, leaving us with ~57 million systems in the “prime” part of the main sequence: F-, G-, and K-class stars.


1% of what’s left will be in the process of going nova and be giants of one kind or another, and will also be unusable.


The top of the F-class and the bottom of the K-class are unlikely to harbor useful planets either; that’s 55% of what’s left, taking us down to ~26 million systems.


Even if we assume that the average number of useable worlds in the systems that are left is 1 per system (very generous), 99.9% of these will be marginal, “Marslike” worlds; few of these will be major settlements. That brings us down to ~25,500 prime worlds.


Probably 80% of these will have their own biota, and these organisms will probably be hearty enough and hostile enough to render these worlds unusable due to bio-contamination. Now we’re down to a tad over 5,000 worlds.


Probably only 10% of these have been developed into major worlds; the rest are young colonies.So in all that space I have maybe 500 major worlds, making me somewhat bigger that Star Trek’s United Federation of Planets.

Then from there we get into starship costs, which I assume are staggering; I probably can’t raise more than 5,000-10,000 ships of all kinds, including merchants. As for population, you can work that out yourself; just keep in mind that once a species can spread out, there’s little reason to have more than 1 billion people anywhere but the homeworld. That means that you can probably raise a huge army, but then you have to pack it aboard ship and fly it somewhere. Which means, in the end, that transport capacity is the real limiting factor on your ability to project ground forces.

I use a far uglier system: my population is the number of star systems in my region of controlled space.

Thus, the Vah (Kafers [corrupted from the German “käfer” {“cockroach”}]) have 2.251 billion systems within their region of space. Since the usual density of stars in the spiral arms of a galaxy is 1 star per cubic parsec (1 parsec [abbrev. pc] ~ 3.26 LY), this translates into a sphere ~813 pc (~2650 LY) in radius (~1,626 pc [~5,300 LY] across), quite small when you consider that the Milky Way is 90,000 pc across.

(Actually, since the spiral arms are only ~1,000 pc thick, a cylinder would be a better approximation; that puts the frontier out ~846 pc (~2,760 LY) from the homeworld, meaning that Vah space is ~1,692 pc (~5,519 LY) across. This is still quite small in comparison with the size of the Milky Way.)

Now before you say, “OMG, 2.251 billion stars!?!?!” you should realize that: The number of star systems in my space would be half that (~1.126 billion).


About 70% (~788 million) of these systems would be multiples, which are too unstable to have much chance of harboring useful systems; that leaves ~338 million useful systems (solitaries).


Only about half of these solitaries (~169 million systems) will have planets


About 65% of these (~110 million) are M-class stars (not to be confused with M-class planets): dim red stars that are unlikely to have large, useable worlds. They’ll have ice balls, a few scorched rocks, and the odd gas giant, but no “Earthlike” worlds.


Another 1% of the solitaries that could form planets won’t, because they’re O-, B-, and A-class systems that don’t last long enough for the cosmic debris around them to cool into planets. Scratch another ~2 million systems, leaving us with ~57 million systems in the “prime” part of the main sequence: F-, G-, and K-class stars.


1% of what’s left will be in the process of going nova and be giants of one kind or another, and will also be unusable.


The top of the F-class and the bottom of the K-class are unlikely to harbor useful planets either; that’s 55% of what’s left, taking us down to ~26 million systems.


Even if we assume that the average number of useable worlds in the systems that are left is 1 per system (very generous), 99.9% of these will be marginal, “Marslike” worlds; few of these will be major settlements. That brings us down to ~25,500 prime worlds.


Probably 80% of these will have their own biota, and these organisms will probably be hearty enough and hostile enough to render these worlds unusable due to bio-contamination. Now we’re down to a tad over 5,000 worlds.


Probably only 10% of these have been developed into major worlds; the rest are young colonies.So in all that space I have maybe 500 major worlds, making me somewhat bigger that Star Trek’s United Federation of Planets.

Then from there we get into starship costs, which I assume are staggering; I probably can’t raise more than 5,000-10,000 ships of all kinds, including merchants. As for population, you can work that out yourself; just keep in mind that once a species can spread out, there’s little reason to have more than 1 billion people anywhere but the homeworld. That means that you can probably raise a huge army, but then you have to pack it aboard ship and fly it somewhere. Which means, in the end, that transport capacity is the real limiting factor on your ability to project ground forces.

See, this is why I hate math.

A different kind of future tech are my Eternals who are billions of years and in that time they have created a vast empire that consists of untold trillions of sentient life forms wit the Eternals acting as the leaders of this Empire. With their superior technology they have terra formed worlds, conquered enemies, and protected their people from all threats. Yet, the Eternals themselves have now evolved to the point that they themselves can control the very substances of the universe. Yet, I am only rp having superior numbers and technology if the person allows me to, but if not I usually like to rp on even grounds with them with similar levels of tech and numbers.