Advice Thread OOC Future Tech Only

[Trailers]

Real men fight their battles at 100 feet. It's not a REAL battle unless the enemy bridge crew can see the rude gestures your captain is making at them.

I love you.

[OMGeverynameistaken]

Real men fight their battles at 100 feet. It's not a REAL battle unless the enemy bridge crew can see the rude gestures your captain is making at them.

I love you.

Hearts all around!


On a more serious note:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=257820

Something I've been pondering for a while. I'll throw the link up here and in the argument thread so that it gets its time in the sun, whether or not people like it. To avoid having simultaneous discussions in three threads, please confine all rage against my terrible idea/praise of my glorious and revolutionary thread to the thread linked.

[Feazanthia]

You know, I have been unable to decide on the number of planets and colonies I should have under my control, something from fifteen to thirty. Something reasonable for an isolationist state that has expanded a bit and accumulated a number of different species under its control.

>Isolationist
>accumulated a number of different species under its control

You have two fairly mutually exclusive things here. You're either imperialist or isolationist, you really can't be both.

Also 15-30 systems really is a large number for even a major interstellar power (in the current galacto-political landscape), unless those "worlds" are more minor outposts you send troublesome junior officers who piss off their betters. Keep in mind, resources are not an issue. Even space is not an issue, unless your people are majorly against orbital habitats. A population of ten billion humans (assuming few intra-civilization conflicts) would be extremely happy on two Earth-sized planets, doubly so with terraforming and food-production technologies available at even fusion-level energy densities.

Edit: Also, from a writing perspective, a small handful of habitable planetary systems is much easier to work with. It is far better to really flesh out one or two planetary societies (don't fall into the trap of making every society on every planet you own basically the same; think of the cultural differences between, say, Vermont and Texas, and they're within a few hundred miles of each other) than spread your man-hour and writing resources over a dozen or more.

From a more strategic perspective, even with a faster-than-light gate network, you'd be far better off expanding slowly so you can focus your military assets in a small number of locations. Even with wankonium speed engines, a single star system is a lot of territory to cover. After all, we launched Voyager 1 decades ago, and it only just recently left the Sol system and hit interstellar space. It takes light from Sol eight minutes and thirty-three seconds to reach Earth, and another five and a half hours to reach Pluto.

[Esternial]

You know, I have been unable to decide on the number of planets and colonies I should have under my control, something from fifteen to thirty. Something reasonable for an isolationist state that has expanded a bit and accumulated a number of different species under its control.

>Isolationist
>accumulated a number of different species under its control

You have two fairly mutually exclusive things here. You're either imperialist or isolationist, you really can't be both.

Also 15-30 systems really is a large number for even a major interstellar power (in the current galacto-political landscape), unless those "worlds" are more minor outposts you send troublesome junior officers who piss off their betters. Keep in mind, resources are not an issue. Even space is not an issue, unless your people are majorly against orbital habitats. A population of ten billion humans (assuming few intra-civilization conflicts) would be extremely happy on two Earth-sized planets, doubly so with terraforming and food-production technologies available at even fusion-level energy densities.

It's possible it has only recently become isolationist.

[Feazanthia]

>Isolationist
>accumulated a number of different species under its control

You have two fairly mutually exclusive things here. You're either imperialist or isolationist, you really can't be both.

Also 15-30 systems really is a large number for even a major interstellar power (in the current galacto-political landscape), unless those "worlds" are more minor outposts you send troublesome junior officers who piss off their betters. Keep in mind, resources are not an issue. Even space is not an issue, unless your people are majorly against orbital habitats. A population of ten billion humans (assuming few intra-civilization conflicts) would be extremely happy on two Earth-sized planets, doubly so with terraforming and food-production technologies available at even fusion-level energy densities.

It's possible it has only recently become isolationist.

Fair point, but it would reflect a relatively huge policy shift if said civilization has conquered several species. Remember the mantra of Civilization V - "Once you start down the warmonger path, forever will it dominate your destiny."

[Neo-Mekanta]

NSFT, by and large, moves at a glacial pace due to the comparable inactivity of most of it's more venerable members.

The ones who don't have a nasty habit of just straight up vanishing, anyway.

Fair point, but it would reflect a relatively huge policy shift if said civilization has conquered several species. Remember the mantra of Civilization V - "Once you start down the warmonger path, forever will it dominate your destiny."

"We used to be ruled by Dinosaur Hitler. But then he took a railgun to the capital building."

Accumulated doesn't necessarily mean conquered, though. It could be peaceful exploration, but then they got burned and withdrew into their now-expanded borders. But in that case, fifteen to thirty is definitely too much, as opposed to... regular too much.

[Saurisisia]

Alright, so around 12-10 or less, gotcha.

Hmm, maybe my nation is actually a small power, like Italy or Belgium during the Age of Imperialism, that is semi-isolationist? I really need to flesh FT Saurisia out more.

[SquareDisc City]

Also 15-30 systems really is a large number for even a major interstellar power (in the current galacto-political landscape), unless those "worlds" are more minor outposts you send troublesome junior officers who piss off their betters.

I'd like to expand on this with something that occurred to me.

I concur that most nations should be looking at a handful of what I'd call heavily exploited systems, ones with major populations, both for reasons of balance/non-wankery and so that each system can get a decent level of detail. However, minor outposts might be another matter. Most nations are capable of travelling galactic distances without too much difficulty; we have to be, in order to freely RP with each other. Now to start colonising a new system, all one needs to do is go there in a suitable spaceship, park said spaceship either in orbit or on a world's surface, and that's it, step one done. We now know that most stars have planets, so provided one isn't picky about trying to find a perfect world then it'll be child's play to find systems to colonise.

In short, there's no technical barrier I see to a nation having some presence in a great many systems. The only thing I can see to limit such presences is other powers; minor outposts would be highly vulnerable to attack. The galaxy though is huge; with the number of FT RPers we have, there's easily enough room for everyone and thus in general little reason for any nation to contest any other nation's expansion. The outposts might still be the first places to go in the event of war, but in peacetime conditions they could thrive.

An omnicidal power that just goes around killing everyone they can for the sake of it would dissuade nations from overexpanding, but that seems somewhat unsatisfactory, especially since such a power would earn itself many enemies and thus must be massively overpowered to not be ultimately destroyed, but that overpoweredness will in turn encourage players to try and one-up it. A galaxy full of assumed NPNs would also prevent player nations from colonising everywhere in sight, but that again doesn't seem wholly satisfactory, it seems like it would imply an unrealistically high number of advanced civilizations.

So in summary, a small number of core systems plus lots and lots of outposts ought to be a reasonable and acceptable way to do one's nation. Views?

[Escalan Corps-Star Island]

Also 15-30 systems really is a large number for even a major interstellar power (in the current galacto-political landscape), unless those "worlds" are more minor outposts you send troublesome junior officers who piss off their betters.

I'd like to expand on this with something that occurred to me.

I concur that most nations should be looking at a handful of what I'd call heavily exploited systems, ones with major populations, both for reasons of balance/non-wankery and so that each system can get a decent level of detail. However, minor outposts might be another matter. Most nations are capable of travelling galactic distances without too much difficulty; we have to be, in order to freely RP with each other. Now to start colonising a new system, all one needs to do is go there in a suitable spaceship, park said spaceship either in orbit or on a world's surface, and that's it, step one done. We now know that most stars have planets, so provided one isn't picky about trying to find a perfect world then it'll be child's play to find systems to colonise.

In short, there's no technical barrier I see to a nation having some presence in a great many systems. The only thing I can see to limit such presences is other powers; minor outposts would be highly vulnerable to attack. The galaxy though is huge; with the number of FT RPers we have, there's easily enough room for everyone and thus in general little reason for any nation to contest any other nation's expansion. The outposts might still be the first places to go in the event of war, but in peacetime conditions they could thrive.

An omnicidal power that just goes around killing everyone they can for the sake of it would dissuade nations from overexpanding, but that seems somewhat unsatisfactory, especially since such a power would earn itself many enemies and thus must be massively overpowered to not be ultimately destroyed, but that overpoweredness will in turn encourage players to try and one-up it. A galaxy full of assumed NPNs would also prevent player nations from colonising everywhere in sight, but that again doesn't seem wholly satisfactory, it seems like it would imply an unrealistically high number of advanced civilizations.

So in summary, a small number of core systems plus lots and lots of outposts ought to be a reasonable and acceptable way to do one's nation. Views?

Yes. That's totally reasonable; the importance of outposts if only for warning and fueling purposes does seem to be quite overlooked.

[OMGeverynameistaken]

Spehs Russia maintains several hundred assorted claims, but the vast majority of those are >10,000 people. Generally small mining colonies, random Cossack outposts and so forth.

There are three large human colonial systems with populations in the billions, plus four major 'allied' systems with large native populations.

I feel that's just about right to have a good variety of people while still maintaining a population you can represent in some level of detail in your RP.

[Dubious Nation]

Spehs Russia maintains several hundred assorted claims, but the vast majority of those are >10,000 people. Generally small mining colonies, random Cossack outposts and so forth.

There are three large human colonial systems with populations in the billions, plus four major 'allied' systems with large native populations.

I feel that's just about right to have a good variety of people while still maintaining a population you can represent in some level of detail in your RP.

So I eventually settled on having a much smaller population with a more than average number of system, about 28 or so. my much smaller population is due to the home world having been lost 160 years ago and the number of systems is due to the four Migrant fleets colonizing a habitable system every twenty years.

every colony started out with one million people except for the colony named Nest due to unique circumstance during the twenty year interim between colonizing efforts. Some colonies such as the aforementioned Nest Flourished and their population boomed others stagnated after a point and some actually decreased in population.

So far I have it so 80 million people live in the four migrant fleets and 90 million live on Nest those are the only two population I have noted as I have not figured my total population yet. What do you all think about these numbers?

[Arthropoda Ingens]

Yes. That's totally reasonable; the importance of outposts if only for warning and fueling purposes does seem to be quite overlooked.

I can see the fueling purpose easily enough.

The warning purpose... Between having to spot fleets passing by at a distance of multiple lightyears, and fleets that don't pass anything at all because they do point to point transits, I'd call their value 'Questionable'.

[OMGeverynameistaken]

Yes. That's totally reasonable; the importance of outposts if only for warning and fueling purposes does seem to be quite overlooked.

I can see the fueling purpose easily enough.

The warning purpose... Between having to spot fleets passing by at a distance of multiple lightyears, and fleets that don't pass anything at all because they do point to point transits, I'd call their value 'Questionable'.

If the enemy uses jumpgates or some other manner of FTL travel that requires him to drop out at fixed locations to change direction, warning outposts would be handy. Even against things like Star Wars' hyperdrives it might be useful provided you know the general vector your enemy might arrive on, since, IIRC, you can't actually turn in hyperspace.

Outposts might also serve something like the role of fortresses in Enlightenment-era Europe. A modest garrison in such an outpost could, if not dealt with by the attacking enemy, simply slip behind their main fleet and do a bit of raiding in the enemy's own more 'rural' space. Or attack enemy supply lines. Or harass the enemy fleet itself from behind. Still the same basic role as above, of course. Delay the enemy as much as possible.

[Saurisisia]

I've got it: how about eight core planets and fifteen outposts, colonies, occupied territories, and protectorates. That seems quite reasonable a size.

[Dubious Nation]

So I am working on a prevalent Religion for my country and would like some feedback and suggestions.

Creationism centers on the idea that as Sapient beings it is our greatest duty to spread live where naturally there would be none. Creationism advocates using terraforming, genetic manipulation and uplifting to spread Life, sentience and Sapeiant through out the galaxy. Creationism is very loose with its definition of life though and includes Synthetic beings such as AI, both genetic and software, in their definition of life.

Creationism fits with the general idea of survival that is prevalent through out the Combined authority but rather than focusing on genetic survival the creationist focus on cultural survival. They see the genetic survival of the species as ambiguous at best further down the evolutionary line or they just don't think humanity will last long enough in its own right. To a creationist the survival of their culture and society was far more important and would be better secured by creating child races that learn from their parent race, humans.

[SquareDisc City]

Please pick a different name for it. Otherwise it's fine, basically what the unseen aliens in 2001 were doing.

[Dubious Nation]

Please pick a different name for it. Otherwise it's fine, basically what the unseen aliens in 2001 were doing.

what would be a good name for it?

[Feazanthia]

Preferably something in the language of your nation.

[Steel Confessors]

I hate to bring it back to the topic of empire size, but how does 10 heavily populated fortress worlds spread out around the place sound? I had intended that each Legio would have a central post that would perform as their logistics base whenever they return from a crusade. There'd only be one per every sector that's under Confessor 'influence' (And I use that term lightly as its more of the area they roam around exterminating the filthy xenos and draw troops from friendly human populations.)

[Arthropoda Ingens]

>not being a space catholic complete with spacepope

[OMGeverynameistaken]

>not being a space catholic complete with spacepope

What if it's a zombie pope?
A gold plated zombie pope, I mean.

[Canuckland]

Someone may want to save this, or put it on the front page.

Small 12 to 14 feet so it is able to stick with infantry pretty well and support them in the much more chaotic urban environments. Their ability to easily turn in crowded spaces their vantage point over infantry heads, and comparable speed to an infantry man makes them create support units if they are properly shield from targeting. interchangeable weapons that can easily and quickly be refitted at a maintenance station would be good sens they are working in urban environments and might need a rapid refitting. a lightly armored version for general cheap infantry support and a heavy version for holding defensive position and mashing through blockades.

Something similar to the Mechs on avatar, Mass effect, and Aliens would be good. avoid gundum sizes and proportions as those are prime targets for anything that can aim. if you shoot a mech like those in the chest or head they will tumble over and you have a expensive scrap pile that did no one any good other than be big targets that can be easily targeted.

the mechs from the tau and Imeprium arnt that bad either the larger ones the imperium fields are a little off but they are good models.

Not everyone heard it. Could you sum it up for everyone?

1. THE LEGS MEIN GOTT THE LEGS SOMEONE SHOOT THEM.
2. Too much force to the chest sends it sprawling on its back.
3. BALANCE MEIN GOTT DON'T LOSE IT.
4. Has an extremely high profile, exactly what you don't want.
5. Guns can't be too big, because balance.
6. Misc.

Power armor, on the other hand...

Canuck a Tank can do anything a mech can do in an open field better. that's why there most important aspect is being able to operate in an urban environment where tanks usually get fried at. also most of those gun sizes look like they would knock a mech on its rear, which might as well be a death blow for a mech. a 150 mm cannon will bounce a 45 ton, which 45,000 pound, vehicle around if it doesnt have a large and bulky system for managing that much force, a mech standing on two legs would literally be blown backwards and on its rear.

My point smaller mechs are good sense they can avoid tanks and avoid their natural disadvantage of mechs, that also means much smaller weapons.

Plasma cannons?

They have no recoil, only the heat ejecting.

How big? the blow back from an exhaust could also threaten the stability, then it would just land on its face rather than its rear. also do you really want super heated exhausted being throw around near your soldiers?

a smaller sized plasma cannon so you can sink its excess heat into appropriately named heat sinks rather than all over your crew, it has to be small sense the heat generator would be temporarily stored inside.

Smaller calibers preferable missiles or exploding rounds so you can punch through the defense of blockades or lightly armored vehicles.

.50 caliber machine guns or an equivalent future gun would be great, a 20mm cannon would be great because you can store more ammo and take out most threats you expect to deal with. a 20 to 40 MM back mounted mortar that directed its force down would also work for clearly things around barricades by lobbing shells over the defenses.

HEAT rounds or just HE rounds would be good for your mech 20mm

a bunch of small charged particle weapons with independent tracking would also be good if they back tracked their exhaust into a heat sink so as to not bother your infantry.

Well, this ruins my dreams for Anti-Armour mechs, they're now made for anti-infantry, seeing as I can't use anything more than 40-60mm.

Infantry carry small weapons than that and they take out tanks, you just have to be firing more advanced rounds if you plan to take on a tank with a mech.

a single 30mm or 40mm with proper supporting and recoiling system could be mounted on the side but it be kind of bulky, firing anti-tank rounds would be a good anit-armor in urban combat. along with good reactive armor or deflective plates you could take, maybe one direct round from a tank, and a few rounds from your faster firing gun would take out a tank.

A 50mm what? Smoothbore? Modern MBT's can take 105mm rounds and keep on chugging!

I would point out a an RPG can do some serious damage to a tank three or four similarly powered rounds would do a number and the faster firing rate of the smaller caliber would mean a Mech designed for anti-armor could take out a tank in an urban environment. A tank could take one or two or maybe even three rounds from the 50 mm but the Mech would have mobility over a tank in an urban environment and as such would be in a good position to get out 4 or 5 rounds. If the Mech had throw-away armor of sorts to absorb the impact of one tank shot then it could potentially also fire out those other 4 or 5 shots before the next round hit it. besides the anti-tank mech would have half or a third the cost of tank so you could build three more for the same price.

I'm conflicted here.

I'm choosing between Smoothbore, Plasma and Laser Weapons on my mechs.Charged and Super Charged are only going to be on the Titan Mk. 3 and Percival.

Once you decide you're going for mechs, but you want to allude to at least some design sensibility, lasers are an excellent choice. High-powered lasers ahve their own issues, espeically in the atmosphere/dust- and smoke-filled battlefields, but 'laser versions' of .50cals up to like 20mm or even 37mm calibres should work well, especially at short ranges. Pulsed lasers can inflict tremendous amounts of 'burst damage', to put it in gaming terms, because you can charge your capacitors over the course of several minutes, or even hours, and then discharge them very rapidly before disengaging to recahrge for a second volley. Keep in mind though that capacitors need to be pretty heavy and/or big in order to store a lot of energy. Tiny laser, big capacitors is unavoidable, especially in this case.

Alternatively, plasma weapons offer some interesting alternatives. If you store the plasma in dedicated canisters in fire-ready form, the amount of heat that needs to be dealt with to prevent operational hazards to allies can be reduced considerably, though it binds you to ammunition-type liabilities such as running out of canisers, or getting hit in the canisters and suffering a sudden case of exploderitis.

Smoothbore weapons have VERY limited use on mechs. due to their nature, mechs simply cannot handle recoil well at all, nor can they be heavy to help deal with those issues, so unless you start fiddling with gravity you want your mechs to be light and without stronhly recoiling weapons. That being said, I can understand the sentiment of wanting a big-ass cannon on your mechs, so let me put forward something for you to consider. Coilguns in general have considerably less recoil than standard chemical guns and railguns, though this still not a drastic enough difference to allow for the usage of full-on cannons on mechs. However, if you insist on using large-bore guns, you could use howitzers. Howitzer-type guns have less recoil than cannons of the same calibre because they fire a lower velocity shell, hence their frequent usage in the artillery business. If you use coilgun howitzers, you could further reduce the effects of recoil by spreading out the application of force along the barrel length for a similar end-velocity.
That being said, if you want 'classic-style' cannons, you are probably better off putting them on tanks, unless you think the plasma alternative is close enough.

[Caecuser]

Canuck, almost everyone here is already aware of the arguments for and against mechs.

[Yes Im Biop]

Thanks man But most of us know most of that.

[Canuckland]

Canuck, almost everyone here is already aware of the arguments for and against mechs.

Well I just needed to save that somewhere where it won't get lost too easily as well.