Advice Thread OOC Future Tech Only

[Ularn]

Hello..

<_<
>_>

Er.. yes, so, I'd like to know - could one make a million ships that are top notch quality? I always thought the <Quantity---Quality> thing was set in stone as a rule for when making your fleet but someone I've met thinks otherwise.

You could do it...

...if you were both an antiquity nation and the single greatest roleplayer to have ever walked the planet. Anything less any you'll probably be accused of godmoding.

EDIT: A good rule of thumb people used to go by, but has fallen out of favour recently as far as I know, was that you could have one ship for every million of your population. It's not a fixed rule, but it gives you a decent guideline for a rough number of ships to have.

[Sskiss]

Hello..

<_<
>_>

Er.. yes, so, I'd like to know - could one make a million ships that are top notch quality? I always thought the <Quantity---Quality> thing was set in stone as a rule for when making your fleet but someone I've met thinks otherwise.

You could do it...

...if you were both an antiquity nation and the single greatest roleplayer to have ever walked the planet. Anything less any you'll probably be accused of godmoding.

EDIT: A good rule of thumb people used to go by, but has fallen out of favour recently as far as I know, was that you could have one ship for every million of your population. It's not a fixed rule, but it gives you a decent guideline for a rough number of ships to have.

No longer works, since most people now inflate their base NS populations by at least one order of magnitude, and sometimes more. Myself, and a few others still use their base NS population stats as is, but we're a rare breed nowadays.

[Vocenae]

The old rule that was enforced by a couple of people who are now thankfully gone was called 'thousand per billion', which meant you could have a thousand warships for every billion that was on your ns page. Basically it was a way of making sure the old guard stayed powerful and that younger or new nations would never have a real chance of challenging them.

Thankfully the two biggest enforcers of the rule are no longer around. One raegquit and the other one is now largely irrelevant in the ft community.

So now we use the rule of cool and the code of bro where you don't have to stress over meticulously planning and spreadsheets of numbers. however, though having a lolfleet made up of thousands upon millions of warships is considered pretty wanky and newbish unless you want every single one of those ships to be made out of tissue paper or go quarian with all of them and have only a few dedicated, highly power military vessels.

Rule of cool may eliminate alot of the stat wanking that is rampant in mt but you still have to put some effort into balancing your stuff so that it works with other players. Basically you can't give yourself an edge of invincibility unless you're a player who is trusted by the community to not god mod with it.

[Ularn]

Fair enough. Thousand per billion still seems like a good rule of thumb for whatever population you are playing. I used a population of 78.4 billion and 78,400 ships...

...actually feels a bit excessive. I already thought a tenth of that would be big for the fleet I imagines, and these are small ships by NS standards.

[Vocenae]

Most people don't have fleet numbers of more than a couple thousand now.

[Arthropoda Ingens]

The key things to the Empire's economy, as I have it written down as of now is;
Capitalist in nature, with very few regulations and 'socialist' reforms. Most economic related laws/regulations typically deal with destructive or harmful practices to the economy. However, rather than regulating companies, the government runs/controls/places regulations/whatever on its own companies, which compete against privately owned companies. These companies are typically run to make a profit (with a few, rare exceptions for companies or services that are essential, yet incapable of being run in a way to make a profit), and typically have no special benefits that an average company in its situation couldn't access. The benefits to this are 1) A source of income outside of taxes for the government, and 2) Companies that don't compete (either in terms of prices, or employee treatment) typically fall behind, so its one way of utilizing economic reform without actually utilizing laws and such.

Non-debt based economy... Loans, or at least, interest loans, either don't exist or are a very rare thing in the Empire's economy... And this is what I'm mostly wondering about. Unlike the US (global?) economy, companies don't have periods of expansion where they take a lot of loans to capitalize on investments and what not, and then fall into a period of recession when they cut back to pay off these loans. Instead, companies (and the economy in general) probably grows at a steady pace. Does anyone know if this would work out, or at least its pros and cons compared to a loan based economy?

Scarcity Economy... Kinda. If the Empire didn't have huge, colossal projects (from giant warships, to vast global defense networks, to terraforming, giant city-stations, completely new cities and infrastructure across several worlds to support a vastly growing population, to even war) it might well be... Just do to how vast space and its resources are, it's almost a sort of 'constructive' version of the government's purposely wasting resources on war from 1984 (the book, not the actual year), except rather than resources its more like huge, colossal investments for protection and expansion throughout the galaxy! The way I figure it, 90-99% of the resources the Empire collect is utilized in these sort of huge projects, while the remaining 1-10% typically filters to domestic products. However, I figure even this small sum is enough to make base material costs fairly trivial, and thus most of the cost of a product comes from the cost of manufacturing. So, things are still fairly cheap, and even a single parent family could leave a fairly well life (assuming they have a productive job).

Food would probably be the least scare... With bland, but nutritious hydroponic and algae food (if you've ever read Prelude to Foundation, think of the algae vats utilized to feed Trantor, except a few leagues better in taste) costing perhaps just a few pennies or dimes to feed someone for a day, with more expensive but much better tasting food (typically also hydroponic or genetically engineered algae grown) also being sold to those that have more money and are willing to spend it on such things (and people usually do).

Finally, I have concerns of it being a service based economy... Because, well, that's sort of what the US is doing now, and its not particularly interesting! I have it so that computers, while very advanced, haven't replaced the need for a pair of organic eyes to watch over them (and usually in most industries, beings and computers run in tandem, rather than isolated by themselves). I would like to make it a manufacturing economy (something along the lines of the US in the 60s), based on the need to maintain, run, and work on the above colossal projects the Empire undertakes, but I don't know if that would cover enough jobs... So it seems like a substantial percentage of the population would be working at Space McDonalds or Space Walmart, dealing with customers...

And if anyone even bothered to read the above, any suggestions or feed back would be greatly appreciated!

• Few regulations, and what regulations are there aren't conventionally enforced, but rather 'Suggested' by way of leading by example, YET there's no way to loan money? wat. Was there a massive brainwashing campaign complete with cerebral surgery?
• The concept of loans exists specifically to afford large-scale projects that can't be paid for out of the purse - no loans, no megaprojects (There's exceptions. More on that later). This - since 'Megaprojects' doesn't just mean pyramid-alikes, but also required investments in, say, a new production line, in infrastructure et al. All loan-based. 99% of newly-founded businesses? Loan-financed - rather significantly reduces economic growth. Essentially, a static economy. This isn't unfeasible - relatively static economies have been pretty common throughout world history, and a maxed-out space civilisation with technology- and population growth tending towards zero may move towards one pretty much automatically. And even when there is significant population growth... Eh. Then the GDPPC is the one that's relatively static
• You're dramatically underestimating domestic consumption. If just ten percent of Sertian's resources are invested in megaprojects, it'd already be obscenely, absurdly high. Domestic consumption, unless held back by force, is going to increase as available resources increase. Now, I realise that you're imagining an economy that'd be post scarcity if it didn't throw all its resources into shinies - but once again, unless domestic consumption is held back by force, it will go for a castle and small-country sized properties for everyone, if the means to acquire these things are available. Domestic consumption staying on vaguely RL-like levels while space pyramids (tm) are funded with the polity's vast resources is unthinkable - unless, once again, force is involved

Now, all the above criticisms cover basically modern-west-in-space nations. None of them - barring the first point, anyway - mean that your concept is impossible, they just mean that it's not the most effective way of doing things. Others, such as yours, are perfectly feasible, particularly when the nation's relatively isolated.

Looking at your factbook, I'm unsure what you're going for - Sertian's isolationism actually lends itself rather well to a space-china (Pre-opium wars) approach, where yes, megaprojects as you invision them, and distinctly non-capitalist economic models (I.e. a lack of loans and interest) function just fine (Who needs loans when you've taxes or taxes-in-all-but-name, such as government-companies providing essential services?). And since Sertian does appear to have a strong central government... I see no problem with this. It's not a way to make a nation particularly powerful, but it makes it interesting, and very much distinct from the run-of-the-mill-modern-west-in-space nations.

There is nothing wrong with that. At all.

It still needs to regulate private companies directly, and exert some degree of force on citizens to keep them from accumulating too much personal wealth by way of domestic consumption, though. Alternatively - and what I'd suggest you do, tbh -, you could cut down your inherent capabilities to the point where you don't need those megaprojects to deal with excess productivity because you'd have a scarcity economy, anyway, yet you still build them due to a nationwide paranoia concerning foreign threads, with only mild pressure by way of policing elements keeping the commoners in line, and - hooray - relatively limited personal wealth BUT epic space pyramids in space.

Where 'Space Pyramid' is obviously a stand-in for 'Massive construction of questionable necessity that looks shiny and makes everyone proud'.

[Arthropoda Ingens]

Fair enough. Thousand per billion still seems like a good rule of thumb for whatever population you are playing. I used a population of 78.4 billion and 78,400 ships...

...actually feels a bit excessive. I already thought a tenth of that would be big for the fleet I imagines, and these are small ships by NS standards. :?

I'm now reminiscensing about this post from long, long ago~

Ah, scale~

[Sskiss]

Fair enough. Thousand per billion still seems like a good rule of thumb for whatever population you are playing. I used a population of 78.4 billion and 78,400 ships...

...actually feels a bit excessive. I already thought a tenth of that would be big for the fleet I imagines, and these are small ships by NS standards.

I'm now reminiscensing about this post from long, long ago~

Ah, scale~

Good post!

And all to true!

[Sertian]

• Few regulations, and what regulations are there aren't conventionally enforced, but rather 'Suggested' by way of leading by example, YET there's no way to loan money? wat. Was there a massive brainwashing campaign complete with cerebral surgery?
• The concept of loans exists specifically to afford large-scale projects that can't be paid for out of the purse - no loans, no megaprojects (There's exceptions. More on that later). This - since 'Megaprojects' doesn't just mean pyramid-alikes, but also required investments in, say, a new production line, in infrastructure et al. All loan-based. 99% of newly-founded businesses? Loan-financed - rather significantly reduces economic growth. Essentially, a static economy. This isn't unfeasible - relatively static economies have been pretty common throughout world history, and a maxed-out space civilisation with technology- and population growth tending towards zero may move towards one pretty much automatically. And even when there is significant population growth... Eh. Then the GDPPC is the one that's relatively static
• You're dramatically underestimating domestic consumption. If just ten percent of Sertian's resources are invested in megaprojects, it'd already be obscenely, absurdly high. Domestic consumption, unless held back by force, is going to increase as available resources increase. Now, I realise that you're imagining an economy that'd be post scarcity if it didn't throw all its resources into shinies - but once again, unless domestic consumption is held back by force, it will go for a castle and small-country sized properties for everyone, if the means to acquire these things are available. Domestic consumption staying on vaguely RL-like levels while space pyramids (tm) are funded with the polity's vast resources is unthinkable - unless, once again, force is involved

Now, all the above criticisms cover basically modern-west-in-space nations. None of them - barring the first point, anyway - mean that your concept is impossible, they just mean that it's not the most effective way of doing things. Others, such as yours, are perfectly feasible, particularly when the nation's relatively isolated.

Looking at your factbook, I'm unsure what you're going for - Sertian's isolationism actually lends itself rather well to a space-china (Pre-opium wars) approach, where yes, megaprojects as you invision them, and distinctly non-capitalist economic models (I.e. a lack of loans and interest) function just fine (Who needs loans when you've taxes or taxes-in-all-but-name, such as government-companies providing essential services?). And since Sertian does appear to have a strong central government... I see no problem with this. It's not a way to make a nation particularly powerful, but it makes it interesting, and very much distinct from the run-of-the-mill-modern-west-in-space nations.

There is nothing wrong with that. At all.

It still needs to regulate private companies directly, and exert some degree of force on citizens to keep them from accumulating too much personal wealth by way of domestic consumption, though. Alternatively - and what I'd suggest you do, tbh -, you could cut down your inherent capabilities to the point where you don't need those megaprojects to deal with excess productivity because you'd have a scarcity economy, anyway, yet you still build them due to a nationwide paranoia concerning foreign threads, with only mild pressure by way of policing elements keeping the commoners in line, and - hooray - relatively limited personal wealth BUT epic space pyramids in space.

Where 'Space Pyramid' is obviously a stand-in for 'Massive construction of questionable necessity that looks shiny and makes everyone proud'.

Thanks for the feed back! The loan thing will probably have to change then, as in my mind the Empire has been growing rapidly in its little corner of the galaxy, and is reaching the point that its limited isolationism with the galaxy at large is coming to an end (both because its military is starting to enter the public knowledge, as in the current Riah debacle, and because its sphere of economic influence is starting to reach more and more major powers rather than the sparse nations around it). So, if loans are dramatically essential to new investments and companies (rather than hard earned savings), could it be worked as a near nonprofit service by the government's bank or some such? Something along the lines that doesn't have an interest so long as you pay x amount per fiscal year or some such, or at least very little of one (1%, maybe less?). As you mentioned, I'm trying to do something a bit different, but I'm also trying to do something that makes sense... And it's virtually guess work with my limited knowledge of economics.

If that really wouldn't work out (or prevent a debt based economy from emerging) I suppose I'll just bite the bullet and give it a fluctuation cycle something like China as of right now, with large periods of expansion and very short, brief, periods of recession... Without the whole crippling old age community in a few decades, of course. But maybe I'll try doing some research in my free time for other economic models that might make sense in an interstellar economy...

A note on everyone building huge mega-pyramids, there is actually a bit of a limit on that. One of the major policies in both this rendition of the Empire (and its old/canon Empire) is something called the Eden Doctrine, which effectively limits and places controls of the inhabitable population of a planet, as well as a few other regulations dealing with inhabitable planet. I think I wrote down the guidelines to the entire thing somewhere, but I could see something along the lines of 'thou shall not build a huge castle in the middle of nowhere' could work with it.

Of course, there could just be a huge, huge disparity between the rich and the poor, but the huge wealth of resources means that even the poor lead lives approaching that of middle america.

[YellowApple]

Hello..

<_<
>_>

Er.. yes, so, I'd like to know - could one make a million ships that are top notch quality? I always thought the <Quantity---Quality> thing was set in stone as a rule for when making your fleet but someone I've met thinks otherwise.

From how I envision it, a realistic quantity:quality ratio would be influenced by the following factors:

• Population (for manufacturing the ship, operating the ship, and maintaining the ship)
• Available resources (generally provided by rocky planets/moons, asteroids, and the like)
• Maturity of shipbuilding industries (which includes not only building the ships themselves, but also the industries driving computer/electronics, power plant, weapons, munitions, and food manufacturing, among others, as well as one's R&D ability in all aforementioned industries)
• General economic strength (you ain't gonna be building any ships without money, are you?)
• A number of other factors that I'm too lazy/full of flu to think of right now

A million high-quality ships would be reserved for nations that have quite literally conquered the entire universe - not just the known universe, but everything, including every single parallel universe; if they can do that, they can build 1 million high quality ships no problem. Seeing as that is logically impossible (or NS would cease to exist, other than "Thanks for joining NationStates. Your country is now controlled by an omniscient and omnipresent empire. Glad you had fun!", well, yeah.

That above is a huge exaggeration, but you get the point; sure, a million ships of impeccable quality is possible, but it's not fun. At least not for me.

[Sskiss]

[list]

[*]Population (for manufacturing the ship, operating the ship, and maintaining the ship)

Many on FT/NS verse have decided to inflate their populations while some (such as myself) have chosen not too. The result? A skewered bias to those that inflated their base NS populations...

[*]Available resources (generally provided by rocky planets/moons, asteroids, and the like)

Rather common once you reach FT levels of technology. Also, based to some degree on populations.

[*]Maturity of shipbuilding industries (which includes not only building the ships themselves, but also the industries driving computer/electronics, power plant, weapons, munitions, and food manufacturing, among others, as well as one's R&D ability in all aforementioned industries)

Again, it will favour those who have inflated their populations.

[*]General economic strength (you ain't gonna be building any ships without money, are you?)

We have done fairly well without the concept of currency or banks etc.... Remember, we are alien, and aliens may have found different solutions - especially given long time-spans. Also, economy can be measured in "industrial efficiency". At least that how we see it.

In truth, I've been toying with the possibility of increasing my base population stat on NS. But haven't settled for anything definite as yet.

[YellowApple]

[*]General economic strength (you ain't gonna be building any ships without money, are you?)

We have done fairly well without the concept of currency or banks etc.... Remember, we are alien, and aliens may have found different solutions - especially given long time-spans. Also, economy can be measured in "industrial efficiency". At least that how we see it.

In truth, I've been toying with the possibility of increasing my base population stat on NS. But haven't settled for anything definite as yet.

I didn't mean literal currency per se, but rather whatever said nation uses to obtain resources and finance it. That could be currency, barter, ability to steal things, ability to conquer people and steal things, whatever.

The other points are valid. I'm more talking on the IC level; if someone rolled in with a million wanktacular superdreadnoughts and called it a "scout fleet", said player had better have a damn good explanation on how he/she can ICly afford that.

[Arthropoda Ingens]

Thanks for the feed back! The loan thing will probably have to change then, as in my mind the Empire has been growing rapidly in its little corner of the galaxy, and is reaching the point that its limited isolationism with the galaxy at large is coming to an end (both because its military is starting to enter the public knowledge, as in the current Riah debacle, and because its sphere of economic influence is starting to reach more and more major powers rather than the sparse nations around it). So, if loans are dramatically essential to new investments and companies (rather than hard earned savings), could it be worked as a near nonprofit service by the government's bank or some such? Something along the lines that doesn't have an interest so long as you pay x amount per fiscal year or some such, or at least very little of one (1%, maybe less?). As you mentioned, I'm trying to do something a bit different, but I'm also trying to do something that makes sense... And it's virtually guess work with my limited knowledge of economics.

If that really wouldn't work out (or prevent a debt based economy from emerging) I suppose I'll just bite the bullet and give it a fluctuation cycle something like China as of right now, with large periods of expansion and very short, brief, periods of recession... Without the whole crippling old age community in a few decades, of course. But maybe I'll try doing some research in my free time for other economic models that might make sense in an interstellar economy...

Eh... It's technically possible, but by doing it this way, whoever provides the loans will actually build up debts - they're not making a profit with their money. Throw in inflation, and their monetary resources are continually shrinking. To sustain it, one would have to continually throw money at it. Additionally, it would indeed not prevent economic downturns such as, say, the latest one IRL from occuring - it wasn't caused by interest, it was caused by the reckless distribution of money (And money is, incidentally, only one of many possible resources that can cause such. Fundamentally, it's just a traded good like any other. A pretty important one, since everyone's using it, but still). Overavailability of money, in a sense. And a healthy dose of speculation. Whether one would have to pay interest on one's loans or not is irrelevant - if the loan goes bad because the market experiences catastrophic change (The bubble bursts), it goes bad, cue the loan-provider being shit out of luck.

However, cultural tweaks - say, valuing the manufacturer or farmer ahead of service providers like merchants or bankers. Something distinctly chinese, btw. Confucian, to be specific - can significantly reduce this issue. Again, this occurs at a cost in terms of average economic growth, but in a society that doesn't just consider monetary net worth, but also how this money was acquired before assigning social value - which have existed historically -, well... Sure. Why not?

How such a society manages to survive into the space-age rather than being thoroughly annihilated by the rising bourgeoise is a different question, but eh. There are far worse offenders in terms of social consistency.

[Thrashia]

Many on FT/NS verse have decided to inflate their populations while some (such as myself) have chosen not too. The result? A skewered bias to those that inflated their base NS populations...

People that have inflated their populations have done so in regards to their civilian, rp'd population so that it is more fitting for interstellar empires and nations. Most, that I am aware of, still maintain their military based off their NS-page population count. Or at least I do. I still hold on to the 5% military limit.

[OMGeverynameistaken]

Population doesn't really have as much of an effect in FT, unless you're one of those "LOL I RULEZ A GALAKSIIII" nations.

Besides, those of us with larger RP'd populations often have a casual disregard for sentient life (at least, the lower orders of sentient life, like peasants,) which causes things to balance out in the end.

Relevant:
http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/4851 ... isrich.jpg

[Sertian]

The idea of society valuing jobs of manufacturing, production, and research does appeal to me..! So I might actually steal that one. So, even if many of the jobs ARE service based in nature, there's still a cultural stimulus that places emphasis on these sectors! I like it, even if it would have its down falls, but hey, nothings perfect!

Of course, the 'tiers' of socially valued jobs is probably something along the lines of soldier > government employee/representative > research > manufacturing/production > service jobs... I just have to make sure it culturally fits with the rest of what I have so far! It might not be a strict social caste system, however, but it'll at least be there in the socioeconomic background and skew the numbers slightly.

[G-Tech Corporation]

Population doesn't really have as much of an effect in FT, unless you're one of those "LOL I RULEZ A GALAKSIIII" nations.

Besides, those of us with larger RP'd populations often have a casual disregard for sentient life (at least, the lower orders of sentient life, like peasants,) which causes things to balance out in the end.

Relevant:
http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/4851 ... isrich.jpg

Literally LOL'd. Brilliant OMG.

[Ularn]

Many on FT/NS verse have decided to inflate their populations while some (such as myself) have chosen not too. The result? A skewered bias to those that inflated their base NS populations...

People that have inflated their populations have done so in regards to their civilian, rp'd population so that it is more fitting for interstellar empires and nations. Most, that I am aware of, still maintain their military based off their NS-page population count. Or at least I do. I still hold on to the 5% military limit.

This. If I'm RPing a federation of about a dozen habitable worlds then it hardly makes sense for my population to be smaller than Earth's. I haven't actually made up numbers for my armed forces yet but had been planning to base them off of my RPed population because little else made sense ICly. Didn't realise that was frowned upon though so might go back and rethink it. In reality I rarely use large groups of troops at a time anyway so I guess it's kind of unimportant.

[Sertian]

People that have inflated their populations have done so in regards to their civilian, rp'd population so that it is more fitting for interstellar empires and nations. Most, that I am aware of, still maintain their military based off their NS-page population count. Or at least I do. I still hold on to the 5% military limit.

This. If I'm RPing a federation of about a dozen habitable worlds then it hardly makes sense for my population to be smaller than Earth's. I haven't actually made up numbers for my armed forces yet but had been planning to base them off of my RPed population because little else made sense ICly. Didn't realise that was frowned upon though so might go back and rethink it. In reality I rarely use large groups of troops at a time anyway so I guess it's kind of unimportant.

Actually, it does, it just depends on how old your Federation and those planets are (and if what type of planets. Desert worlds and what not aren't likely to be as populous as garden worlds). After all, it took several million years for humanity's population to reach its current total, although most of that expansion I believe happened in the past thousand years or centuries; and even then, most of that population comes from third world countries, first world countries (which I imagine if you're an FT power most if not all of your worlds are, or could at least be classified as such) have very little population growth, and some even have negative.

So, even if your colony worlds were a hundred years old, they'd be lucky to have a population in the high millions, yet alone billions unless they bred like rabbits. What's likely to happen is a huge boom in population growth for the first generation or so, until the original colonists start reaching old age and things even out from there, slowly growing upwards. Unless, of course like I said above, they breed like rabbits! (Or in some nation's cases, are rabbits). Or if you don't care if people are vat grown, cloned, or what not to help increase the population growth.

[Ularn]

This. If I'm RPing a federation of about a dozen habitable worlds then it hardly makes sense for my population to be smaller than Earth's. I haven't actually made up numbers for my armed forces yet but had been planning to base them off of my RPed population because little else made sense ICly. Didn't realise that was frowned upon though so might go back and rethink it. In reality I rarely use large groups of troops at a time anyway so I guess it's kind of unimportant.

Actually, it does, it just depends on how old your Federation and those planets are (and if what type of planets. Desert worlds and what not aren't likely to be as populous as garden worlds). After all, it took several million years for humanity's population to reach its current total, although most of that expansion I believe happened in the past thousand years or centuries; and even then, most of that population comes from third world countries, first world countries (which I imagine if you're an FT power most if not all of your worlds are, or could at least be classified as such) have very little population growth, and some even have negative.

So, even if your colony worlds were a hundred years old, they'd be lucky to have a population in the high millions, yet alone billions unless they bred like rabbits. What's likely to happen is a huge boom in population growth for the first generation or so, until the original colonists start reaching old age and things even out from there, slowly growing upwards. Unless, of course like I said above, they breed like rabbits! (Or in some nation's cases, are rabbits). Or if you don't care if people are vat grown, cloned, or what not to help increase the population growth.

On the other hand, look at how quickly a population can explode. In 1800 the global population was only 1 billion. Today it's 7 billion and by 2050 it's due to hit 10 or 11 billion. In two-hundred and fifty years the number of people on the planet will have multiplied by ten. (Wikipedia)

My federation's about four-hundred years old and three of the member races have been spacefaring for about that long. The colonies may be young and small by comparison to the homeworlds, but if, like me, you have three or four homeworlds then you can already see where the majority of the 78.4 billion population has come from. Also, my youngest colonies will have been around for about three or four-hundred years and would have been seeing steady immigration from the overcrowded homeworlds contributing to their growth in addition to the birth rate.

[Arthropoda Ingens]

People that have inflated their populations have done so in regards to their civilian, rp'd population so that it is more fitting for interstellar empires and nations. Most, that I am aware of, still maintain their military based off their NS-page population count. Or at least I do. I still hold on to the 5% military limit.

This. If I'm RPing a federation of about a dozen habitable worlds then it hardly makes sense for my population to be smaller than Earth's. I haven't actually made up numbers for my armed forces yet but had been planning to base them off of my RPed population because little else made sense ICly. Didn't realise that was frowned upon though so might go back and rethink it. In reality I rarely use large groups of troops at a time anyway so I guess it's kind of unimportant.

To offer my usual, contrarian opinion - you absolutely should base your military - and everything else - on your RP'd population.

'I have ten quadrillion people. Also, a fleet of, uh, a thousand or so medium-sized spaceboats' is just a giant, inexplicable disconnect. It's almost physically painful in its inconsistency.

Given that you're playing a nation of, what? Somewhere in the doubledigit billion people range - Which is to say, within the range of extant NS' nations stats -, it's hardly game-breaking to do so. If you claimed an entire galaxy, sure, it'd be... But claiming an entire galaxy tends to get people laughed at regardless of their military claims, anyway.

Rest assured, I at least wouldn't consider you running with a doubledigit-bn population and the corresponding military a reason to shun you.

Doubledigit trillions, I likely - though not inevitably - would. But that'd happen regardless of military claims. Most of the time, 'LOL I HUEG' nations signify rather boring nations and players. I'll pass.

Sertian's got a point, re: Population, though. Note that once a reasonable level of individual wealth was achieved, population growth rates started to tend towards zero - modern population growth is primarily in regions and subpopulations where such widely-distributed wealth has not been achieved. While there's other factors influencing population growth rates, wealth and the distribution are pretty much the major one. For a first-world planet expanding into space, I wouldn't exactly expect its colonies to grow particularly fast. Colonial populations in the millions and total populations in the high single- to low doubledigit billions are actually quite realistic (Assuming human-standard here. For species with significant weight- and nutrition differences when compared to humans, this can change substantially. Quarter-ton carnivore species ain't gonna achieve the same population density as humans).

Now, with three homeworlds, the numbers increase appropriately, and there's always the possibility - not even a particularly unlikely one - that only a relatively small proportion of the homeworld can be described as first world, which'd offer more significant population growth possibilities. Though the problem with the latter is that the poor darkies can't afford passage to the colonies, so the real difference is comparatively negligible - the problem stays on the homeworld, where it's dealt with in some fashion. Massive slums and violent policing measures, I imagine.

[The Drone Empire]

Hello..

<_<
>_>

Er.. yes, so, I'd like to know - could one make a million ships that are top notch quality? I always thought the <Quantity---Quality> thing was set in stone as a rule for when making your fleet but someone I've met thinks otherwise.

You could do it...

...if you were both an antiquity nation and the single greatest roleplayer to have ever walked the planet. Anything less any you'll probably be accused of godmoding.

EDIT: A good rule of thumb people used to go by, but has fallen out of favour recently as far as I know, was that you could have one ship for every million of your population. It's not a fixed rule, but it gives you a decent guideline for a rough number of ships to have.

Thanks, I RP with a population in the Septillions, but only have 15,000 military vessels [Albeit they are very large and well built], and then that means I'm dealing with a massive godmodder - in a war.

He has 1,000,000 vessels, acclaimed to be built top of the line, and are all larger than 14km.

[Ularn]

A population un the septillions also seems a little...excessive. but at least your militry size doesn't sound totally unreasonable. Millions of top of the line 14km ship does sound like a severe case of technowankery though.

[Sskiss]

'I have ten quadrillion people. Also, a fleet of, uh, a thousand or so medium-sized spaceboats' is just a giant, inexplicable disconnect. It's almost physically painful in its inconsistency.

I concur. Its quite simply, a staggering dichotomy, because it still doesn't take into account that larger populations (with all things given equal) will still out preform smaller populations on virtually every level. So if you scale back your military just to avoid being called a godmodder why are you doing do? What is the basis for doing so? Back in the day (things were really nasty then), when I was just starting out, we weren't some mighty empire that just popped into existence. We build up, bided our time, and did smart things - like join a powerful alliance (at the time, the ESUS fit the bill nicely). From that point, we grew progressively stronger and more capable. Eventually, we joined wars (for our own benefit of course), conducted raids (ditto) and similar plunder, engaged in trade, diplomatic meetings, the works! I had fun because I had a place in the greater galaxy.

Given that you're playing a nation of, what? Somewhere in the doubledigit billion people range - Which is to say, within the range of extant NS' nations stats -, it's hardly game-breaking to do so. If you claimed an entire galaxy, sure, it'd be... But claiming an entire galaxy tends to get people laughed at regardless of their military claims, anyway.

In my case, more like a sneer...

Rest assured, I at least wouldn't consider you running with a doubledigit-bn population and the corresponding military a reason to shun you.

Double digit billions is reasonable if you possess a good back story, some I know do have just that. Just staring out and claiming you have a population of 70 billion isn't.

Doubledigit trillions, I likely - though not inevitably - would. But that'd happen regardless of military claims. Most of the time, 'LOL I HUEG' nations signify rather boring nations and players. I'll pass.

Yes, it gets increasingly more ridiculous when you hit these levels and up.

Sertian's got a point, re: Population, though. Note that once a reasonable level of individual wealth was achieved, population growth rates started to tend towards zero - modern population growth is primarily in regions and subpopulations where such widely-distributed wealth has not been achieved. While there's other factors influencing population growth rates, wealth and the distribution are pretty much the major one. For a first-world planet expanding into space, I wouldn't exactly expect its colonies to grow particularly fast. Colonial populations in the millions and total populations in the high single- to low doubledigit billions are actually quite realistic (Assuming human-standard here. For species with significant weight- and nutrition differences when compared to humans, this can change substantially. Quarter-ton carnivore species ain't gonna achieve the same population density as humans).

[/quote]

Regarding the last sentence, you must of thought of us.... I'm touched But seriously, both you and Sertian did bring up good points.

In conclusion, if you are currently small nation (NS pop wise), join an alliance, band together for mutual protection like I did way back when. Build up slow, it gives a sense of continuity and thus, a history. Besides, fighting wars isn't the only way to RP with larger nations or empires. There's diplomacy, secret alliances and pacts, psi-op's, espionage, trade deals and trade wars, etc... A well thought out back story is always good. For example, my people once had free run of roughly a third of the galaxy. Then, for some reason, we lost it. Why? Ah, that's the mystery, isn't it? But now, we are going around like mad looking for life bearing worlds that our ancestors terraformed eons (millions, tens of millions of years) ago and other 'things'...

Even more interesting is when back stories merge at some point. This is fairly rare on nationstates, or at least, I haven't seen much of it.

[Ularn]

Rest assured, I at least wouldn't consider you running with a doubledigit-bn population and the corresponding military a reason to shun you.

Double digit billions is reasonable if you possess a good back story. Just staring out and claiming you have a population of 70 billion isn't.

As one of those who sort of did just show up with a 70 billion population, how would you feel about the backstory I gave for it? It's in the history section of my factbook - shouldn't take more than five minutes to read.