Advice Thread OOC Future Tech Only

[Neo Miranda]

I'm new at FT, how much population is enough population, same goes for military, what % of my pop should be destined to my military forces

Always use your NS nation page for the percentage of your population in using your military. Like the 5% rule that most people stick to for their nations. In FT, your civilian population can largely be as big as you want it to be, so long as you roleplay it as accurately as possible. Having 4 trillion people and only a few worlds for them to live on might be stretching it a bit concerning food supply, etc, so just try to be realistic in those terms.

Like me, I keep my FT military under 5%, but my civilian population is in the tens of billions.

I have 54 billion in 10 planets and a few moons (year 3200 AD) people and 2% is part of my military, is that too low, or is it just fine to begin with?

[Thrashia]

I have 54 billion in 10 planets and a few moons (year 3200 AD) people and 2% is part of my military, is that too low, or is it just fine to begin with?

Sounds perfectly fine to me. Others can put in their input as well....

[Ularn]

Always use your NS nation page for the percentage of your population in using your military. Like the 5% rule that most people stick to for their nations. In FT, your civilian population can largely be as big as you want it to be, so long as you roleplay it as accurately as possible. Having 4 trillion people and only a few worlds for them to live on might be stretching it a bit concerning food supply, etc, so just try to be realistic in those terms.

Like me, I keep my FT military under 5%, but my civilian population is in the tens of billions.

I have 54 billion in 10 planets and a few moons (year 3200 AD) people and 2% is part of my military, is that too low, or is it just fine to begin with?

That sounds okay to me. I use a pop of 78.4 billion and 1% are in the military. Not had any complaints so far.

[The Fedral Union]

I have a question to ask : Whats your take on missile technology?

I know alot of nations use shells and guns to fire said shells but I think alot of people over look the versatility of missile systems.

[Ularn]

I have a question to ask : Whats your take on missile technology?

I know alot of nations use shells and guns to fire said shells but I think alot of people over look the versatility of missile systems.

Missiles will generally travel slower than shells (at least initially; unlike shells, they continue to accelerate for as long as they have fuel) which means that they are easier for point defence to intercept. On the other hand, they can track their targets.

This is how I usually RP my space weapons:

• Beam Weapons (weapons travelling at lightspeed, e.g. lasers, grasers, masers, etc) - Highly accurate but not very damaging. Since beam weapons travel at lightspeed, an enemy doesn't see the shot until it hits him, meaning you'll only miss if he happens to alter course to move out the way. Beam weapons produce a lot of heat but do not take up magazine space.
• Projectile Weapons (any sort of unguided warhead, e.g a shell) - Inaccurate but devastating when they hit. An enemy can see a projectile weapon coming and avoid it, or kill it with point defence. Projectile weapons produce less heat but the ammunition requires space
• Missiles (any weapon accelerated independently from it's launching unit) - As long as they have fuel, missiles will always hit their target and deal medium damage. However, they are limited by their low speed which makes them easy to pick off with point defence. Missiles produce almost no heat as the majority of acceleration takes place outside the ship firing it, but they do use a hell of a lot of magazine space.

As you can see, they all have strengths and weaknesses. All my ships have beam weapons and most have missiles. Projectile weapons are usually limited to a single one-shot-kill type weapon reserved to the larger ships. Another advantage of missiles is that they don't just have to carry explosives. You could also load a few in every salvo with ECM to screw with your enemy's point defence and increase chances of the rest hitting. This strategy was used quite heavily in the Honor Harrington novels by David Weber (awesome books!). Also. because my nation has a pretty nifty reactionless drive, I can have my ships and missiles pull bone-smashing accelerations and decelerations without killing their crew, making it feasible to put soldiers inside missiles and use them as boarding craft.

TL;DR - My take on missiles is that they can be awesome!

EDIT: You could also have a sort of missile/shell hybrid. It behaves like a shell, but has steering thrusters like a missile, allowing it to make some limited course corrections in-flight to account for the enemy trying to dodge.

[Thrashia]

That sounds okay to me. I use a pop of 78.4 billion and 1% are in the military. Not had any complaints so far.

1% of your NS population or your RP'd 78.4 Billion?

[Ularn]

That sounds okay to me. I use a pop of 78.4 billion and 1% are in the military. Not had any complaints so far.

1% of your NS population or your RP'd 78.4 Billion?

1% of the RP'd population. Really, it makes little difference since I'm not getting into any full-scale war threads any time soon (small-scale, detailed stuff like espionage and covert ops is way more fun) so the numbers are just for background flavour. I will not be dropping seven-hundred million* troops on anyone's head in the immediate future.

*Actually, once you deduct the navy and support personnel, it's more like just 250 million

[Bristain and Ireland]

Have a few more questions. Number one, I will be creating associated articles about Laurasia, so where is a good place I could find conceptual images of planets (not just planets in our Solar System) on the web? Number two, should Laurasia be a planet completely covered by city or should it have a variety of climates? And finally, what fields (or subjects) should I provide information on in my article on Laurasia?

[Ularn]

Have a few more questions. Number one, I will be creating associated articles about Laurasia, so where is a good place I could find conceptual images of planets (not just planets in our Solar System) on the web? Number two, should Laurasia be a planet completely covered by city or should it have a variety of climates? And finally, what fields (or subjects) should I provide information on in my article on Laurasia?

See what people have put in their factbooks for subjects worth covering. There's also a sticky at the top of the Factbooks & National Information that will tell you how to write a good article and what to put in it.

Whether your home planet is a city, has multiple biomes or is a giant frosted donut is entirely up to you.

For pictures of planets, you could try a google search or maybe try searching DeviantArt. Either way, make sure you have the artist's permission before using their picture; it's just common courtesy. Better yet; draw/paint them yourself.

[Vernii]

Have a few more questions. Number one, I will be creating associated articles about Laurasia, so where is a good place I could find conceptual images of planets (not just planets in our Solar System) on the web? Number two, should Laurasia be a planet completely covered by city or should it have a variety of climates? And finally, what fields (or subjects) should I provide information on in my article on Laurasia?

City-worlds have a host of issues, namely ecological catastrophe, over-centralization of industry/population, and the simple physical issue of disposing of waste-heat (or else you'll find the world quickly becoming uninhabitable). Also, they're a bit boring.

[Bristain and Ireland]

Have a few more questions. Number one, I will be creating associated articles about Laurasia, so where is a good place I could find conceptual images of planets (not just planets in our Solar System) on the web? Number two, should Laurasia be a planet completely covered by city or should it have a variety of climates? And finally, what fields (or subjects) should I provide information on in my article on Laurasia?

City-worlds have a host of issues, namely ecological catastrophe, over-centralization of industry/population, and the simple physical issue of disposing of waste-heat (or else you'll find the world quickly becoming uninhabitable). Also, they're a bit boring.

Alright then. Then how should the capital world of Laurasia (also named Laurasia) should be. Like Earth?

[Sertian]

City-worlds have a host of issues, namely ecological catastrophe, over-centralization of industry/population, and the simple physical issue of disposing of waste-heat (or else you'll find the world quickly becoming uninhabitable). Also, they're a bit boring.

Gravitationally tug your home word into deep space and make it your largest space ship! Still not enough heat dump? GIANT RADIATORS EXTENDING INTO SPACE MAN! Think of the possibilities!

[Bristain and Ireland]

And finally, two more questions: one, what should be the name of the galaxy my Empire is located in, and number two, what type of calendar system can I use?

[Sertian]

And finally, two more questions: one, what should be the name of the galaxy my Empire is located in, and number two, what type of calendar system can I use?

Milky Way Galaxy, and either a metric calendar or the calendar of your home world!

[Bristain and Ireland]

And finally, two more questions: one, what should be the name of the galaxy my Empire is located in, and number two, what type of calendar system can I use?

Milky Way Galaxy, and either a metric calendar or the calendar of your home world!

What I mean by "name of the galaxy", the name as it is known in my Empire. Would would be a good name then? And by calendar, I mean by dates. Something besides BC and AD.

[The Fedral Union]

Anything you want.

[Sertian]

What I mean by "name of the galaxy", the name as it is known in my Empire. Would would be a good name then? And by calendar, I mean by dates. Something besides BC and AD.

I guess the name for the galaxy you'd come up with would depend on where you're located in the galaxy (thus if it'd appear as a band of stars, a mass cloud, etc). As for dates... Well, I go with a date being set since the founding of the Empire's current government. But any major date should work as year 0.

[Vernii]

Things like a calendar system are generally secondary priority to more important things like figuring out your governmental structure and ideology, fleshing out important figures, and so on. Worry about details like what year it is later.

[Bristain and Ireland]

Things like a calendar system are generally secondary priority to more important things like figuring out your governmental structure and ideology, fleshing out important figures, and so on. Worry about details like what year it is later.

Alright then...

[Vernii]

As much as this link is going to bring about bitching from the soft-scifi brigade, Atomic Rocket has a useful page on interstellar government that you may find handy.

[Balrogga]

I am not going to bitch about AR, it is a source and it can be used in whole or in part as the player needs. Sources are just that, sources. The fault is in imposing ones ideas upon other unwilling players is when the bitching starts.

(I am not pointing fingers at anyone here, just making a general statement that goes both ways.)

[Neo Miranda]

For defences I have, space-time alteration inhibitors (FTLi) around my star systems that block everything trying to warp nearby except military spaceships (specific areas are unblocked by request of the ships so they can warp). These inhibitors are protected by gun stations loaded with missiles and high power toroid cannons and one singularity generator (one use weapon activated if the inhibitor is destroyed, it disrupts space around it tearing apart everything within it's 0.5 AU range)

[Vocenae]

Ah, FTLi.

You'll find that FTLi is better off used for near orbit/important deep space facilities. Due to how badly it was used by newbie nations in the past and the massive wave of ignores that it brought on because said nations were more interested in winning than making a fun story, using it on the scale you want to is considered horribly bad form. In fact, FTLi is so disliked by the community that it's one of those things that needs to be cleared OOCly which your fellow players before using it.

Also, people seem to forget just how goddamned impossibly big space is. It's going to be next to impossible to guard a single planet, much less have some sort of magical device that keeps people from getting into a whole solar system. Even with overlapping orbital defenses and multiple fleets in close orbit, the enemy is still going to have ALOT of places in which they can just swoop down and land on the ground.

Space is big. Even lolhueg multi-kilometer ships are going to be dwarfed by the sheer vastness of it. Hell there is so much room in space and so many resources just sitting out there floating around in asteroids and comets that really anyone could just carve out their own empire and live in isolated peace from everyone else. Space is impossibly big and even wank-level nations need to realize that it's going to be impossible to guard AU of it, much less every single inch.

[Neo Miranda]

Ah, FTLi.

You'll find that FTLi is better off used for near orbit/important deep space facilities. Due to how badly it was used by newbie nations in the past and the massive wave of ignores that it brought on because said nations were more interested in winning than making a fun story, using it on the scale you want to is considered horribly bad form. In fact, FTLi is so disliked by the community that it's one of those things that needs to be cleared OOCly which your fellow players before using it.

Also, people seem to forget just how goddamned impossibly big space is. It's going to be next to impossible to guard a single planet, much less have some sort of magical device that keeps people from getting into a whole solar system. Even with overlapping orbital defenses and multiple fleets in close orbit, the enemy is still going to have ALOT of places in which they can just swoop down and land on the ground.

Space is big. Even lolhueg multi-kilometer ships are going to be dwarfed by the sheer vastness of it. Hell there is so much room in space and so many resources just sitting out there floating around in asteroids and comets that really anyone could just carve out their own empire and live in isolated peace from everyone else. Space is impossibly big and even wank-level nations need to realize that it's going to be impossible to guard AU of it, much less every single inch.

Thanks, so I'm better of just FTLi-ing important cities and planets instead of the systems

[Vocenae]

You're better off not using it at all, but if you just absolutely have to, then yes, consolidate them for extreme close range defense around installations and planetary orbit. If you want to guard your cities from orbital bombardment, use shields even though I find those a bit wanky as well, especially if they're impervious to any and all damage and have a infinite source of power.

RPing shouldn't be about winning, it should be about writing a fun story where you've got a equal chance of winning or losing. If you try to RP to win, in the end you'll have less fun and more people who just toss a ignore at you. I know it can be a alien process to some people, but losing and rebuilding can be just as fun as winning.