NationStates Jolt Archive

When I started NSing about 4 or 5 years ago I seem to remember there were 3 basic RP time frames. Strictly MT, PMT which made allowances for simple advancements on MT in custom made weapons and FT and the majority of us played MT.

Currently it seems that hardly anyone plays in MT which bugs the hell out of me and that the idea of Post Modern Tech has been twisted to mean that IRL in 10 years time we'll have US marines running around completely protected by battle armour, deploying from 1.5 Mile long ships with rail guns and being bombarded by massive space based missile systems, somehow without crippling the economy of the nation deploying them.

All international incidents seem to have become a confusing fray of mismatched weapons and ended by nuclear attacks, which to me seems entirely unrealistic.

I could just be an outdated player though, I don't know.

Comments welcome

I'm mainly doing a borderline MT/PMT timeline with a lot more technology in society rather than the military. It's justified because the cost of putting ultra-high tech in to practice is extremely expensive, and you'd have to do a shit ton of retraining for everyone to understand the new systems. So, pretty much an MT with some custom weapons, but most of the PMT is only seen in my non-military RPing.

For me, PMT technology is fairly limited in the military (mostly things like cybernetic or bioenhancements to soldiers, more advanced targeting software, better fuel and energy efficiency, etc.), enough to give them somewhat more effectiveness, for example some more accurate targeting and less combat mortality than a conventional MT force, but not overwhelming. No super-armor, space bombers, or perfect missile defenses. A few advanced things, like strong AI and sentient human robots are used, but mainly in the command and missile targeting fields. Most of our robotic citizens aren't big on military service. ;)

In other words, guns still shoot bullets, tanks and planes travel at reasonable, more or less current speeds, soldiers still suffer mortal wounds and everything can be killed or destroyed by MT weapons. If you've got a good MT force and command it well, you'll be more than capable of defending against my forces.

Exactly my point.

At least someone else still has a grip on reality.

Exactly my point.

At least someone else still has a grip on reality.

Yeah, it seems like the line between PMT and FT is really blurred; I mean, any civilization that can do significantly more than a modern one is almost certainly not going to be PMT. I tend to see PMT as the point between MT and a technological singularity or similar technological threshold (if and when one occurs in your nation), after which you're operating entirely in FT.

Even if you could develop some of these things in PMT, the cost would be astronomical; a 1.5-mile long ship is still going to cost you a massive amount of money and manpower, and it's going to cost you even more to propel the damn thing let alone the cost of having it travel at a fast enough speed to reach a battle zone. I mean, the Nimitz carriers are only 1/8 that size and they're extremely expensive to build and outfit...anything bigger than that would cost exponentially more.

But of course when you try and explain that to one of these gung ho minnows, they think your being a bad looser.

But of course when you try and explain that to one of these gung ho minnows, they think your being a bad looser.

That's sort of the problem. There's no accepted standard for anything past MT, so if I go in to one there's no guarantee that it's going to be a realistic PMT or outlandish stuff that should be put in FT instead. So, if I were to accidentally get in to the wrong RP, I might end up getting my ass kicked by a weaker nation just because their tech level is ridiculously advanced compared to mine.

This is why I only do MT/light PMT. Enough future tech to reflect where my nation is as a society, but within the range of MT weapons and vehicles to keep things realistic and understandable.

Practically speaking, I consider anything more advanced than my current level to be either future or alternate universe/galaxy so that I don't really have to take it in to account and can adjust accordingly.

I use exclusively MT, nothing in Skgorria is remotely PMT. The stuff we have in the real world is cool enough, so why not use it? :D

Almost exclusively FT since no one seems to have taken much interest in my MT revival. I started out in MT and it was a bit drab, then I found out I could go FT and eventually forged the idea of the Chronosian Imperium. The Fall helped me further define my nation, and I like to think I've made a name for myself over the years ;)

Vescopa is FT. Although, with the exception of their space ship propulsion systems, they're probably more PMT than the PMT people!

MT, although, we are planning a Superdreadnought. It works on entirely MT tech and principles. Just scaled up to 950 metres long.

Many NS players claim MT means "anything we might have now or at least within the next five or ten years, if we could afford it" and then go on with the "NS nations are so much bigger than RL nations that they have multitrillion dollar military budgets and can afford ships that cost $8 trillion to develop, $800 billion to build, and another $50 billion or so in maintenance each year when they're not in combat"/"Our nation didn't have the Dark Ages so we've been continually advancing technologically since 476 AD so our ships and planes are more advanced than real ones"/"The F-35 is 1980s tech that wasn't made public until now, for all we know the military's developed invisibility and giant robot mecha and just hasn't told us".

I roleplay PMT; my nation is set in 2026 Gregorian and is scaled along real-life size standards, so I assume existing tech with some expected modifications and improvements. (Of course, that's about equivalent to a NS scaled nation set in 2006 Gregorian, so I would likely be labeled MT for not having infallible lasers, nuclear fusion powered tanks, and bombers the size of aircraft carriers.)

The definition of Modern Tech will never truly be unified, and Illior explained it quite nicely before.

I am exclusively FT at the moment. Although I use Battlestar Galactica/ Serenity tech, which is considered the low end of FT. I find that FT has the most flexible stories. Although I do appreciate the MT stories. With FT, it is easy to explain a new nation being created, it was on a planet, or system that was not found before. After all the galaxy is a big place.

*sigh*

Its Super Dreadnoughts not all one word and spelt with naughts.

Also NS MT is generally seen as up to about 2030 or you may call it close PMT. that would be MT with modifications.

I also note that you do not have to RP with someone if you do not wish to, it is quite possible for a nation with more population and a stronger economy than the whole world to produce a 1.5km long ship, there are arguments against them and thats quite fine, you can simply ignore them.

As for RL MT (what you would call MT) is not very popular, probably because its more fun to RP with wanked stuff and have an aircraft that suits your exact needs. Its more fun and you get different ideas appear, which leads to different tactics etc etc.

Im personally in about 2018 or something due to the fact that i use the Nakil IV and if i want to RP with it then i have to be past its release date according to Mac. What i point out here is the fact that these designs are possible in 10years time because put simply nations on NS ARE larger than the whole world and so can spend trillions (yes trillions, their economies are better than the whole of earths) and that means big time improvements in the military.

Of course you can also RP that you had a nation founded in 200B.C and that you did expand rapidly more so than in RL, and thats quite fine if you want to RP with someone like that. Its not godmodding or brining II down as long as the RPing parties agree to it.

Oh and i can nuke you in a past RP if you want, so i don't see why its got to be a PMT thing for everyone, after all we are all massive nations who to be this large and powerful in 1950 probably had nukes like the USA and Britain also had.

Raven corps is a " Late PMT " user. I have Dreads, I have advanced body armor ( no powered battle suits ). My weapons still fire bullets but my rounds are titanium rounds. I don't have orbital bombardment systems as this would propel me into the NFT realm. Of course the entity That I RP is not of a nation, the way the game plays for me is very different then that of a nation. From the garrisons I have captured preform all the tasks in which I need to maintain my military ( mining, ore refinement, manufacturing,ETC...). Have those operations being preformed by mindless drones of the form nations population makes for extremely low cost labor that never back talks.

My garrisons are nothing more then a super fortress that sits in the middle of the former nation. For hundreds of miles in all directions H.A.E.S.B. ( my anti-all-Air System) are deployed giving triple coverage for each battery.

For info on my soldiers you can read all you need to know on my website ( see sig).

I don't have orbital bombardment systems as this would propel me into the NFT realm.

Kinetic bombardment is possible NOW, since 1968 russia has had nuclear weapons in low earth orbit, but these have since been taken down due to restrictions from treaties. There are also rumors the US has carried out experiments of the orbital weapons bombardment type.

Near FT? Of course. Possible in 10 years? Yes. Could have already occurred? Possibly using God Rods, definitly with nuclear weapons.

I would have to disagree with any statement that there is any generally accepted time period for MT as different numbers are always used, along with the, "Well MT is generally excepted as ... "

It's this broad ranging time frame that has limited my RPing I'm afraid because I don't particually want to run into some nation using Mazers, orbital rail guns or what have you that some people claim as being wholly pratical in MT. I prefer to roleplay in an MT time period that gives me roughly five to ten years, usually in the lower end of that. I have a handful of custom designs, but not a one of them is any kind of technological leap forward, they all use what's actually availeble right now.

And unfortunatly the arguement that becuase this is NS and nations are larger, thus larger budgets just doesn't fly. Sure you're nation is at four billion or more and you have more income, but your expencer per person doesn't stop at a population of five hundred million. Depending on your style of government you still have to spend a great deal of money on each person, same goes with the military, people seem to forget that, yes the scale income has gone up, but so has your expensises.

Now I'm not trying to say everyone has to RP such a way, or even get into every minor detail of how a real nation works, I don't. I don't have to time to research every little thing, I have a job to maintain. But this constant bluring of the lines prevents me for getting involved in many RPs.

Used to be you'd see PT, MT, PMT and FT. But now you get people claiming late MT and some such, it makes me skittish about getting involved. I have no problem loosing, but I don't feel like taking my guys, armed with AK-74Ms into a combat zone only to find my enemy using railguns and partical weapons. It's just not in my opinion, fun for me.

heh, I'm probably going to regret posting this, I'm horrible at expressing my opinion in writen form, always leave out some little detail, or sound like an ass, but I guess this is my two cents, which is more then my opinion is likely worth anyway.

*Edit*
I would like to add one thing, fifty years ago both Russia and America thought they'd have functional ABMs within a decade, and even now they don't have a reliable system, add to that, people seriously believed fifty years ago that we've be flying about in hover cars and jetpacks by now.

*Second edit*
Ah hell, my spelling was attrocious, that's what I get for not proof reading.

And unfortunatly the arguement that becuase this is NS and nations are larger, thus larger budgets just doesn't fly. Sure you're nation is at four billion or more and you have more income, but your expencer per person doesn't stop at a population of five hundred million. Depending on your style of government you still have to spend a great deal of money on each person, same goes with the military, people seem to forget that, yes the scale income has gone up, but so has your expensises.

The reasoning is as follows:
We have (say) 8 billion people.
These 8 billion people make an average of (say) $40,000 per capita.
Thus we have a GDP of $320 trillion.
We levy a (say) 20% income tax, and the basic necessities cost (say) $54 trillion, on a comparable scale to . OR Our nation is uber-privatised and the only things the government controls are the military and police force. OR Our nation is a military junta.
This leaves us ~$10 trillion to spend on our military.
Because this is 20 times more than the United States spends, we can afford 20 times as much US style equipment. (as a side note: this would mean close to 20 million combat personnel, 140 000 military aircraft, something like 20 000 combat ships, etc.)
We only have 10 times as much equipment as the US, making it twice as good. (?) OR Our society is so militaristic, etc. etc., that we can afford to have 20 times as much equipment as the US [i]and have it be twice as good.
We haev teh superdreadnoughts.
As you can see, it starts to get a bit shaky; many people also claim far better economies than any RL nation and thus have GDP/capitas of $50,000 or $60,000. I don't think very many people have delved too deeply into it, tbh.

That is a good breakdown, and assuming everyone actually made that much money in your nation, then I suppose you're right, you could justify a large budget. I still find it a bit over the top, but I'm sure I've done things like that in my nation as well. I try and keep most things within reason, but that's as subjective as NS time frames I suppose.

most people are aware of what you used to see, i used to RP with RL tech when i first joined and that was the norm.

As for having larger expenses whilst thats true you may also note the fact that nations have increased spending on the military anyway and even if i based myself on an RL nations military budget i would have more to spend on research anyway. For example:

Nation A is and RL nation. Its military budget goes something like 30% R&D, 10% Procurement and 60% to any operations, training, upkeep etc.

Now it could happen that the overall military budget for nation A is 1million USD.

Nation B is an NS nation with the same GDP/Capita, same tax, budget percentages etc etc but for times the population. This means the military gets four times the military budget on nation A. That gives it an R&D budget 4x the size of Nation A. So with this larger budget you can spend $300,000 to get the same technology in the same time. You can spend the other $900,000 spent on R&D on either putting more people onto that research or into researching something new.

And all this whilst nation B's government is spending as much/capita as nation A. So in 10 years time in theory i could get 40 years lot of research assuming i have the genius' from my 4times larger population.

Of course there might be arguments against it but i'd say there are of course counter arguments and we all have the right to ignore if you disagree :D.

And this is where I regret posting, heh. I end up not expressing my opinion clearly. Flaw in my ability to write I suppose. To add slightly to my own thoughts, one would have to add that yes, you have more money there, but your higher end weapons also tend(I use this in a general sense, since not all higher tech weapons are actually more expensive) to cost more to maintain. That and research doesn't always tend to pan out in the end. Something that never happens in NS, and I will admit I've been guilty of this one.

Bringing up budgets was a bad idea on my part, as you said arguements can be made for either case, and I'm not hear to win an arguement, I just wanted to try and state my own opinion in some ego trip attempt to sway you to my point of view, ;) , which is really the same thing, heh.

Seriously though, to sum up my opinion, I simply prefer using technology that I can, without any doubt in my mind, use. I don't need to bring up theories or scientific articles about feasibily, everything I have has been used in some way with results I can redily see in affect.

[QUOTE=Naestoria;12627785]Many NS players claim MT means "anything we might have now or at least within the next five or ten years, if we could afford it"/QUOTE]

Yes, and many claim MT = what we have right now. You can't set MT at a timeline because "modern" can mean anything. I mean, in 1980, people would have laughed at the technology available today in military warfare. Modern is undefinable.

Unfortunately, economies don't scale up according. They scale up exponentially. Furthermore, population =! economy.

US Population: 301,656,000 estimate
US GDP Nominal: $13.77 trillion

Germany Population: 82,401,000
Germany GDP Nominal: $2.89 trillion

Japan Population: 128,085,000
Japan GDP Nominal: $4.911 trillion

China Population:: 1,317,000,000
China GDP Nominal: $2.68 trillion

India Population: 1,126,000,000
India GDP Nominal: $984.21 billion

As you can see, size=! economy. There are nations like Whyatica which is an e conomic powerhouse but still quite small, and nations like Kroblexskij which are quite large but have crappy economies in comparison.

Insofar, while you may try the "sore losers" argument, whenever I see the "UR BIG SO UR ENCONOMI MUST BE WEKER DAN MYN SO THA GAIM IS FAIRE" its always tried by smaller nations that know they don't have a chance at winning if they're attacked. I have yet to see the opposite, I would like to be shown wrong.

NS is where everyone builds an army then writes up a country around it. What else do you expect than people pushing the boundaries all the time? Most people here in II think they can 'win' at NS.

With the population of 8.227 billion realism goes out the window. thats why I have left the MT, PMT, and NFT realm altogether. And as being around as long as some of us here have I am amassed that even they have not yet converted to CT ( Celestial Tech). I have touch base on Celestial tech And when you do you lose even more realism. And the story become all that is important. but even then the story is no longer one of tactics but one of plot devices. No longer is it a matter of tactical grace and the story of how you would command troops but to a delicate dance.

I really don't understand this complaining. I play with a bunch of MT people and we generally accept the rule as anything that is possible in 15 years. There's quite a bit of prototypes out there that will be done in 2020, so we have them cause it falls into the time frame. I have yet to come across in MT nation with powered armor and mecha. And about everyone having nuke, well, now everyone has ABM systems. Plus there's an unspoken rule that nukes are never used unless as a plot device. SD's have always been questionable, its on the border of an MT-PMT nation. However most MT nations accept them, some think its wankage.

The only wank-tastic in-house thing I have is a totally AI controlled airforce, along with about 70% of my nation's total air traffic, yet I RP myself as being around 2010ish. How? I have a super computer (named Earth Array 1) that's so rediculously big, it takes a pair of power stations to keep it going. That much power helped my nation's scientists develop the current type of body armor being used by my soldiers, as well as ensure that my airforce is top notch (currently holding the intelligence of dog... ish). So yea, I do have an effective airforce (granted, these are regular planes converted to be controlled by computer), it just comes at a rediculous cost.

The only wank-tastic in-house thing I have is a totally AI controlled airforce, along with about 70% of my nation's total air traffic, yet I RP myself as being around 2010ish. How? I have a super computer (named Earth Array 1) that's so rediculously big, it takes a pair of power stations to keep it going. That much power helped my nation's scientists develop the current type of body armor being used by my soldiers, as well as ensure that my airforce is top notch (currently holding the intelligence of dog... ish). So yea, I do have an effective airforce (granted, these are regular planes converted to be controlled by computer), it just comes at a rediculous cost.

And herein lies the problem:

Someone trying to 'explain' PMT and FT technologies into a MT setting.

My point is that you can't claim to play MT and then turn around and say

"gee, I like the look of that [insert weapon here] from [insert star trek movie here]" and use the fact that you are in complete control of of your nation's story to work them into a MT setting. This is similar to the 'my country skipped the dark ages' argument.

I suspect Kilrany has exactly the same concerns as me.

Particularly his comment about marching AK-47 armed troops into rail guns
The problem with a blurry PMT border is that you don't know what year your fighting in untill you realise that stormtroopers are beating up WWI tommies!

On the topic of SD, I would love to see someone try and work through the physics of a ship that size. Questions like how does it turn, or move at all? How the hell did they build the thing (how did they build it on the water or how did they get it out of a dry dock and into the water)?

Modern tech, with a couple of things that are early pmt, but nothing that major..Or at least I hope not.

Am doing some research related to ft, though..For a possible ft version of Carbandia.

I suspect Kilrany has exactly the same concerns as me.

Particularly his comment about marching AK-47 armed troops into rail guns
The problem with a blurry PMT border is that you don't know what year your fighting in untill you realise that stormtroopers are beating up WWI tommies!

On the topic of SD, I would love to see someone try and work through the physics of a ship that size. Questions like how does it turn, or move at all? How the hell did they build the thing (how did they build it on the water or how did they get it out of a dry dock and into the water)?

We've been through this many many times, and we even have a pair of maritime architects who will tell you its not impossible, its just hard. Do you actually know WHY you claim it won't be able to turn, or move? Or are you just saying that "because its big?"

I've been mistaken. I have no problems personally with the idea of SDs, just when they pop up in my happy little MT or early PMT world.

I was curious to know. Interesting to note that people in the field agree it would be possible.

Yeah, I've never had a big problem with an SD if they're roleplayed decently. Large ships like that are feasible if you invest the time and money to go through the process of building them.

I do get a little confused when I see them travelling at speeds greater then that of smaller ships that have less mass to push along(accelerating faster as well on occasion), but I'm not a specialist in any kind of field such as this. I only have a limited knowledge on such things and I've been wrong before about them.

I don't think you can assign any kind of set level for technology as I believe someone has mentioned, but the thought of getting involved in what looks to be an MT RP only to suddenly find yourself surounded by genetically enhanced super soldiers who can somehow shrug off armour piercing bullets just prevents me from getting involved in many RPs I would like to.

I know that's an exageration to some extent, but I do recall seeing such things happen, and it's not encouraging. I like to think I'm a decent RPer, as little as any here have actually seen me, and I think I could do well in some of them. Maybe I'm just to focused on what I consider to be MT and get involved reguardless and just see what happens.

Google, why don't you just start an MT Rp, you'll find most people don't put 'Stormtroopers against soldiers with Ak's"

You can play some wargames with me, even