Argument Thread OOC Future Tech Only

[Balrogga]

I made this Thread to contain arguments about ship size, nation size, and other FT arguments that frequently pop up in threads, disrupting the RP.

Anyone who wants to use this to move a hyjack out of their thread are welcome and invited to do just that. Just remember, as the OP, I have the right to tell someone abusive to move on because these debates get heated at times (the JOLT Thread did) and I would rather not bring in Moderation if we can work things out ourselves. No trolling or flaming allowed.

Now, let us get onto business.

[Kilrany]

Alright, well I think a decent starter would be the simple sounding question of, "Just how many ships should one be able to have?"

A very subjective question quite obviously, but one I would like to see some opinions on. Even in MT where things are more concrete I've always had the problem deciding how large my military should be, and more often than not, cut its size down far smaller than I could have made it out to be. At the same time though, while I’m not foolish enough to think I can be all powerful, nor would I want to try and thus kill any potential RP, at the same time I do want effective, and I've always seen ridiculously huge fleets from 99% of other players.

Granted this is about roleplay, but if I want to RP a war, I’d feel it a requirement to know how many ships I had and what those losses meant to my forces overall.

[Auman]

Well, for awhile, I've always heard that a thousand warships for every one billion people in your nation was always acceptable. To that regard, I always considered the combat power of a vessel could be claimed to greater if you intentionally keep your force dispositions small. For instance, if you have 12 billion people in your nation and twelve thousand warships, that could pretty much be considered a cardboard fleet. Where as, in most cases, people keep their fleets very, very, small... Making the claimed ability of your fleets more believeable.

For instance, Auman has a population of something like 12.9 billion. I have a warfleet of 1,356 warships. Meaning I can claim my ships are capable of taking more punishment than a comparable sized nation with 2,712 ships. Of course, then you actually have to do a fair bit of writing explaining why your ships are so awesome or at least do some theoretical work and explain it when it comes to battle, at least.

The Aumanii military's total manpower is around 11 million souls, which I based off modern military numbers... For that I just went on wikipedia and counted the list of world militaries by manpower and that came out to about 11 million, so I figured it would be perfectly acceptable for my nation to have manpower along those lines.

[Balrogga]

For years the unofficial standard many in FT have been following is like he said, a thousand per billion NS population. This works out to where you need a million people to support a single ship either through civilian work, logistics, and crewing needs.

This is for average strength ships. If you want more ships, the quality drops and you will have yourself a "cardboard” and “tinfoil” fleet. This is because you are spending the same amount from the average fleet on more ships meaning the armor is thinner, the weapons are made with cheaper parts, ect...

The reverse would theoretically be true, the less ships you spend that same amount on the better quality ships you have. You have better engines, stringer shields, thicker armor, and more powerful weapons.

The strength averages out either way you do it but you will be losing a lot more ships with a poor quality navy but it will again be roughly the same percentage total losses if you went with a more quality version.

Currently, my NS population would allow me to possess about 11,471 ships but instead I also play with less than 700 vessels in my navy.

Finally, I wish to remind you this is only my view of the way things work based on the interactions of the RP circle I associate with. Your circle might accept other ratios but anything out there should be based on the NS population since that is the one single standard every nation has on NS and can easily be viewed by checking out your nation. Another thing to remember, most military interactions should also be worked out at least partially between players OOCly before they proceed far.

[Sskiss]

I opened up a thread a little while ago which is in my opinion related. Refer to link below.

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=8844

As for 'ships per X Population' it should also depend on the size of the vessels you are reffering to.

[Jakra]

I opened up a thread a little while ago which is in my opinion related. Refer to link below.

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=8844

As for 'ships per X Population' it should also depend on the size of the vessels you are reffering to.

But you could always argue automation, so you could have a kilometer long ship but only need several hundred crew. Or more ridiculous claims (ex; I has a 15mile ship manned by three people because I has automation) So there should also be a reasonable ratio or maximim set up on vessel automantion in addtion to crew.

[L3 Communications]

I opened up a thread a little while ago which is in my opinion related. Refer to link below.

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=8844

As for 'ships per X Population' it should also depend on the size of the vessels you are reffering to.

But you could always argue automation, so you could have a kilometer long ship but only need several hundred crew. Or more ridiculous claims (ex; I has a 15mile ship manned by three people because I has automation) So there should also be a reasonable ratio or maximim set up on vessel automantion in addtion to crew.

Or you could just say no people because your nation uses robots and AI to man all their ships. *cough*

[Balrogga]

Anything that takes the place of a person counts as a person as far as limitations. This prevents people from purchasing or building a billion droid army and not counting it as part of his population-based military forces. Yes, people have tried that in the past and been laughed out of Threads.

As far as ship size, how many average ships does it take to make your 15,000 meter behemoth? How much crew does it take? Remember, a ship twice as big takes way more than twice as many crew.

A 1 meter cube takes up 1 cubic meter (1X1X1=1). A 2 meter cube takes up 8 cubic meters (2X2X2=8). Using this progression a 15 KM ship would use 3375 times the crew a 1 KM scale version of the same ship would (15X15X15=3375). If your 1000 meter ship needs 100 crewmembers, the 15000 meter ship would theoretically need a crew of 337,500 people. Of course this s all just theory based on volume differences between different scale models.

[Sskiss]

It gets even more complicated when one considers certain technologies that a particular people are none for. In other words, their tech expertise in that field is overall, superior. Of course the reverse is also true in with regards to 'technological liabilities', where the people in question are known to be sub par in a particular technology or field.

In other words, you can't be good at everything!

[Capsule Corporation]

Just because I think in terms of a storefront, and because I'm trying to compare relative value... What would each of you say is the cost price on the most typical ship in your fleet?

My Kryptonite Class (see factbook), is produced in only small numbers, and I'd probably value each one at a cost of about 300 billion USD.

Now, personally, I despise the thousand-ship fleets...especially when they're so huge and powerful and expensive that they'd be nigh impossible to maintain. But that's beside the point. If you're the type to RP massive fleets and brute force, so be it. As for me, I prefer the small tactical force ^_^

anyway, value of your most common warship? (not counting fighters etc)

[Great Imperium Romanum]

A brief question i'd like to regard to you more experienced RPer's (i've been here a year and a half but oh well).

Technically speaking, how do people deal with situations when you have space faring war vessel of a drastically different tech "type"?

For example, if I pitted an Imperial Star Destroyer against a UNSC Destroyer from the Halo Universe, what would the implications be there with regard to rople play?

On the one hand the Star Destroyer had sheilds and ample numbers of small fighters to throw at the UNSC Destroyer, but on the UNSC's side is the adoption of mass acceleration cannons which to be utterly frank would punch it's way through the Star Destroyers sheild and out th eother side of the ship. Anyone here ever played in such a situation where the technology utilised is so different that the tactics used are drastic to deal with the differences?

Sorry i'f i'm going off on a tangent but i'm greatly intrigued.

[Balrogga]

I cannot put a pricetag on my ships, they are alive and part of my military, literally.

The largest group of ships I normally use is my carrier based Battle Group. it is one of my carriers and it's 18 ship escort. I don't like large group fleet battles so I rarely use more than a battle group or two unless plot demands I have more involved. These details would be worked out over MSN or through telegrams but I usually like to use as few ships as possible.

As far as differences in tech, you would again benefit greatly if you were to talk to the other players to figure this out.

[Capsule Corporation]

It gets even more complicated when one considers certain technologies that a particular people are none for. In other words, their tech expertise in that field is overall, superior. Of course the reverse is also true in with regards to 'technological liabilities', where the people in question are known to be sub par in a particular technology or field.

In other words, you can't be good at everything!

Haha, coming up with tradeoffs is fun. For instance, people of my race treat Aerospace and astrophysics the way most others would treat a sporting event. They are masters of realspace. They can use "FTL" as their most powerful weapon. Tradeoffs for these benefits are that my prime world almost completely lacks fossil fuels, meaning their progression through the ages has been much different than most. They posess no craft capable of supersonic travel beyond a couple of experimental rocket sleds. Likewise they've never developed the ability to make high-power engines. This makes their ships comparatively slower than most. Also they have an isolationist independent mentality that compels them to do everything themselves... They will not use someone else's technology. This gives them an odd mix of technology levels. Also (not including keflek), they have a serious distaste of structured militaries, meaning that most of their ships are operated by militia force or civillians. It's kinda fun

[Auman]

The backbone of the Fleet is the Gorgon class Aumanii Battlespace Dominator, a comparitively large, though usually small by most standards, command vessel with extraordinary firepower, speed and agility, which deceives its size. An Aumanii Battlespace Domination Task Force is organized as follows:

-One Gorgon.
-Four Hellespontos battleships.
-Twelve Noriesqua guided missile cruisers.
-Twenty-four Au-170 frigates

This fleet is designed to engage in medium scale engagements within a combat radius of ten thousand light years. The fleet is built to be broken up into smaller flotillas and usually don't fight in a large formation... Unless a point is trying to be made. The Au-170 is about 280 billion ToI.

[Kilrany]

Technology versus technology is always going to be a problem. Personally I try very hard to remind myself that given FT tends to only be limited by one's imagination and ability to copy from elsewhere coupled with the ability to RP it, there really is no superior technology.

Personally I drew from a lot of science fiction sources, but the Homeworld series was a major inspiration ship wise. My re-intro for FT saw me in a space battle with stock standard Federation starships from Star Trek. Had I attempted to claim any sort of superiority, it would have killed the thread and likely degenerated into a morass of arguments over what’s ‘better’, when neither is wrong.

So yeah, I don’t particularly care how long someone has been around, I believe one simply can’t claim superior tech just because you happened to read it where someone else didn’t, or you simply think its better. Only the other player gets to decide if he’s using inferior your ships or tech.

Naturally that just risks creating all new problems and I’m never really sure where to stand on the whole bloody thing, and just try to use some common sense and ability to compromise to not ruin the RP.

[Capsule Corporation]

If you watch star wars, note the benefits and suck-itudes of the Star Destroyer:

benefit: it is fast. Very fast. It uses engines that take up almost half of it's total volume. The Falcon couldn't hardly outrun them and it was the 'fastest ship in the fleet.'

Suck: it is succeptible to kinetic energy (asteroid smack = boom) (crashing a-wing = boom)

benefit: it is huge! It's a mile long in standard!

Suckitude: it has some obvious design flaws... The biggest being that it was made cheap by the lowest bidder in mass production. Also, it presents its testicles on an altar for anyone to kick (deflector shields)

Benefit: it is -really- cheap. If one or even 100 gets destroyed, no one cares.

Suckness: its weapons are pretty weak, at least when compared to the heavy weapons on a Halo-ish vessel.

Benefit: it is always ready for any situation... A space fight, a ground assault, a dogfight, a science investigation...

Suckaucity: they are crewed by idiots, flown by the blind, and their captains keep dying by the hands of their supervisors.

Benefit: they are more powerful in numbers

suck: they are fiercely impotent when alone.


So, a star destroyer versus a halo-ish ship? Simple. Look at the above facts... Do you really think the empire would ever send one ISD against a thing like that? Of course not. One UMSC ship would be able to take on 3 or 4 ISDs without an issue... But 10 or 12? Well then the empire may have the advantage.

Be sure to take into effect the assumed trade-offs. The empire won't send ships one on one. Heck, they sent a half dozen after the falcon.

Now, alternatively, a vessel from star trek might be suited for a one-on-one fight, as it is agile and adaptable... Unfortunately I don't know too much about the ships from Halo.

[Auman]

Arguments for why everyone should buy Gorgons.

With a seventeen thousand light year jump range, this baby is a steal of a deal at only thirty five trillion credits. Her guns have a firing rate of 1,200 rounds per minute, with twelve guns spaced over six turrets, this bad boy can put out over 52, 560gt of death over the span of sixty seconds. This mother fucker can co-ordinate warfare in multiple systems while its crew lives in extreme comfort, sipping iced tea and reading porno mags while her minions make your enemies taste hot death.

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

[Capsule Corporation]

I just find it incredibly fun to exploit the technological disadvatages and advantages of a situation- makes for great RP!

[Feazanthia]

Just out of curiosity, is there a good place to put up a list of my military hardware? I have scattered posts on NSDraftroom (though about half are outdated), and I want to put it into a neat, concise list.

[Bryn Shander]

Just out of curiosity, is there a good place to put up a list of my military hardware? I have scattered posts on NSDraftroom (though about half are outdated), and I want to put it into a neat, concise list.

Yes.

[Capsule Corporation]

Feaz, it's called the factbook forum. I'm just creating one long thread just for my info... And I'm breaking it up into seperate linkable posts with a table of contents in the first post. It works pretty well. Mine is still a work in progress ^_^

[North Suran]

The reverse would theoretically be true, the less ships you spend that same amount on the better quality ships you have. You have better engines, stringer shields, thicker armor, and more powerful weapons.

This does have its issues, though.

I recall an FT thread where one nation with a few ships had nigh-on impenetrable shields that were bearing the brunt of an entire fleet, and - by the owner of the ships' own description - "the shield strength gauge flickered slightly".
This inevitably ended up in an OOC storm about unfairness and implausibility.

The main problem with Future Tech is that, because there are no 'restrictions' as such, people can basically come up with anything they like.
Without a real-word to dictate the technology, anyone can invent superweapons and megabattleships, and no one can really object to them.

It's why I favour FT Character RP over FT Nation RP, since the latter just degenerates into tech-wankery and pew-pew lazer storms.

[Feazanthia]

...
*facedesk*

Thanks guys. I'll figure out these new forums some day.

[The Xzarian Union]

Um, can I just butt in here a bit, a lot would depend on the size of your empire and such, for example, let's use some FT and Sci-Fi shows as reference, now in Star Trek, most Trekies (like myself ) estimate that The Federation, has roughly between 6,000, and 6,500 vessels, The Dominion had roughly 10,000, and The Borg had roughly 29,000, The Klingons have 6,000, The Romulans have 5,000 and The Cardassians have about 2,500. So as you can see, you have to judge on not only population, but also amount of space, as well as the type of your species and how you RP it, such as, if you RP something like say The Cardassians, you're going to be about 2,500 - 3,000 ships strong, and if you RP as say..... The Borg, then you are obviously going to have an extremely large fleet, so all of these things play into how many ships you have.

[Phenia]

With regards to whose imaginary spaceships are better than who else's, it really comes down to the wank-power optimum for that player and NS.

the factbook forum. I'm just creating one long thread just for my info... And I'm breaking it up into seperate linkable posts with a table of contents in the first post. It works pretty well. Mine is still a work in progress ^_^

Sounds like a good idea! Thanks.