Future Tech Advice and Assistance Thread [O.O.C.]

[Federal Republic of Free States]

How does one defend against an exterminatus?

There are a variety of ways a species can defend against itself being exterminated. And I encourage you to play around with ideas, you may as well figure out something none of us have previously. A few of these I have used myself in past RP ideas.

The first and the most obvious, is to flee. Part of my backstory canon involves just that. Where I fled my 'home' galaxy to escape a loosing struggle against a sorta Halo Flood/40k Tyrannid combo. A single ship which was the culmination of my civilizations remaining resources made it to the MWG to start a new.

The second way is deception. In another RP I faced a not only numerically superior force, but a technological superior force as well. They had appeared in one of my fringe colonial systems and after a misunderstanding proceeded to lay waste to the system. Faced with another dilemma, I came up with another solution. Instead of running away with my tail between my legs again, but also realizing a stand up head to head confrontation was not going to end in my favor. I decided to deceive the invading forces. I made it seem like one of my other frontier worlds was my 'capital/home system' by re routing extra traffic, inflating signal frequencies, and my editing star maps and trade lanes. When they eventually destroyed that system, they believed their work to be done and promptly faded back into the depths of the Gamma Quadrant, leaving me to survive once again.

Of course you can always struggle militarily against the invading exterminating threat. Just remember you have to make the cost of continuing their extermination greater than their capacity to continue. Only then will they eventually break contact and give up.

I hope some of this helps!

[Bakra]

1. What's the best kind of augmentations would be best for my soldiers? They're meant to be fast, aggressive, yet highly trained and obedient. Would I use chemicals to physically enhance them, and then use behavioral conditioning and memory augmenting technology, or would I have them in advanced suits of armor that connect to their brain and have them controlled that way?
   
2. When designing weapons for my troops, is it best to have them purely armed with melee weapons and armour made of sophisticated materials that can withstand kinetic weaponry, energy and plasma to an extent, or should I have them armed as a mixture of melee weapons for foot soldiers and conventional rifles for archers, per say? Should I have them armed entirely with conventional weaponry and have personal drones emit person shielding for them?
   
3. How should I be portraying the lower class? If the divide is so big, should I be having them in slums outside of major cities, or would they be forming communities of their own?

1. I'm glad you asked this one, because there are a number of ways you can answer this that shape your nation's outlook and personality. For example, why not use all types of augmentation? Are some technologies, such as mechanical limbs, taboo in your society? Has your nation been severely lacking in genetic engineering because of a technology gap in your history? Can your industry not sustain use of power armor? I know I say it a lot, but I truly believe it: how your nation reacts to technology is just as important (if not more important) than the technology it possess. I digress.

From what I see there are four over-arching ways you can do this.

• Power Armor/Exoskeletons: Many people consider this a piece of equipment, but as it is augmenting a soldier's skills I feel as if it should be included. It's pretty self explanatory, just armor that has some power to either assist the soldier in it's combat skills or help it survive; can be anything from a Star Wars clone trooper to a Space Marine, just as long as it is killable you should be ok.
  
• Mechanical Augmentation: Think Deus Ex; anyway metal and machine can enter your body to assist you falls under this category. It's a transhumanist's wet dream because you are melding the biological with the technological, which has far reaching effects not only on your military but in your society as well. Having synthetic muscle surgically inserted into your soldiers or giving them new eyes to see farther and in different spectrums definitely fall under this category. Next to power armor, this seems to be one of the most popular options on NS.
  
• Biological Augmentation: I rarely see this one, but I find it very interesting. Biological augmentation is a loose term, but it's essentially "adding" to the original body rather than replacing it, and (at least in my canon) there is no mechanical parts involved: it's all artificial stem cells and vat-grown organs. This may sound limiting, but I build my entire storefront and nation around this concept, and quite frankly it is one of the best creative decisions for my nation, though it's not for everyone. This is best when genetic engineering/mechanical augmentation is taboo in your nation.
  
• Genetic Engineering: Why not start from the beginning, a modify people at birth to become vastly superior than nature intended? Just make either popular or mandatory for genetic engineering to happen and modify the reproductive organs to emulate this, and with some oversight you have your beefed up soldiers and people with much longer lifespans. I'm not a big fan of this because it's hard to go into specific augmentations, but someone more scientifically inclined and with a different mind than me could probably make this into an entertaining idea.

2. That's up to you. I am in favor of a combination of melee weapons and ranged for troops, since swords are a large part of Bakran culture. However, seeing as you're trying to create more of a "medieval" feel, I suggest that regular foot soldiers be equipped with both leaning to specialization in melee, but the "archers" so-to-speak carry rail rifles or similar large, destructive, non-explosive weaponry. Additionally you could have your different social classes divided on how ornate and advanced their power armor is, with knights having large 40k type armor and the grunts more like SW clones. Just an idea.

3. It should vary from world to world, so I would say both. I mean, why not? On a desert planet with little concentration of resources it makes sense for the poor and farmers to make their own livings in the wastes, fighting nature and each other for survival and to bring it back to the cities to sell. On a more populated terran planet, slums would make much more sense since resources can be more concentrated in areas rather than rarer on a destitute planet.

Hope that helps.

[Olimpiada]

Alright, I'm new to FT RP. I never did it on my old account, but I'm looking to start. Does NS have any overall tech rules for FT RP that I should be aware of, or can I just do whatever within the confines of not godmodding?

[RawHein]

Alright, I'm new to FT RP. I never did it on my old account, but I'm looking to start. Does NS have any overall tech rules for FT RP that I should be aware of, or can I just do whatever within the confines of not godmodding?

Generally, roleplay to your experience. It's not a competition here, it's about writing good stories. That said, unless carefully used, overpowered weapons like a bomb covering an entire system and ships measured in Astronomical Units (yes, these were real) aren't the best idea.

We have plenty of RP regions that can help:

Sagittarius Arm
Milky Way Galaxy
Limitless Universe
The Local Cluster

[The V O I D]

Alright, I'm new to FT RP. I never did it on my old account, but I'm looking to start. Does NS have any overall tech rules for FT RP that I should be aware of, or can I just do whatever within the confines of not godmodding?

Generally, roleplay to your experience. It's not a competition here, it's about writing good stories. That said, unless carefully used, overpowered weapons like a bomb covering an entire system and ships measured in Astronomical Units (yes, these were real) aren't the best idea.

Of course, it also depends largely on the part of the FT Community you RP with. There are those who identify as FFT [Far-future Tech], and they tend to have more flimsy and fluid rules [I should know, being FFT myself]. Generally speaking, the FFT community is where sci-fi becomes more fantasy-esque. The FFT community also tend to find some things acceptable that FT Prime community members would not.

[RawHein]

Generally, roleplay to your experience. It's not a competition here, it's about writing good stories. That said, unless carefully used, overpowered weapons like a bomb covering an entire system and ships measured in Astronomical Units (yes, these were real) aren't the best idea.

Of course, it also depends largely on the part of the FT Community you RP with. There are those who identify as FFT [Far-future Tech], and they tend to have more flimsy and fluid rules [I should know, being FFT myself]. Generally speaking, the FFT community is where sci-fi becomes more fantasy-esque. The FFT community also tend to find some things acceptable that FT Prime community members would not.

As well. To make a good story, you have to scale your strength to match your opponent, so as not to be overpowering - sending only a portion of your navy to a small perceived threat is an idea, as is stranding some of them so the home nation can't help.

[Olimpiada]

Alright, I'm new to FT RP. I never did it on my old account, but I'm looking to start. Does NS have any overall tech rules for FT RP that I should be aware of, or can I just do whatever within the confines of not godmodding?

Generally, roleplay to your experience. It's not a competition here, it's about writing good stories. That said, unless carefully used, overpowered weapons like a bomb covering an entire system and ships measured in Astronomical Units (yes, these were real) aren't the best idea.

We have plenty of RP regions that can help:

Sagittarius Arm
Milky Way Galaxy
Limitless Universe
The Local Cluster

So basically, don't build a death star or something and I should be fine. Gotcha.

[SquareDisc City]

Considering "mainstream" NSFT, there's plenty of guidance in the OP. Very little 'tech' is totally off-limits, it's more a case of try not to go crazy in scale. That said, IIRC there's a general view that time travel is best kept out of NSFT; at best it opens up a huge can of worms in terms of how you write a story together using it.

[The V O I D]

Generally, roleplay to your experience. It's not a competition here, it's about writing good stories. That said, unless carefully used, overpowered weapons like a bomb covering an entire system and ships measured in Astronomical Units (yes, these were real) aren't the best idea.

We have plenty of RP regions that can help:

Sagittarius Arm
Milky Way Galaxy
Limitless Universe
The Local Cluster

So basically, don't build a death star or something and I should be fine. Gotcha.

Superweapons are fun/fine, but they should only really be used (in FT Prime Roleplays) as a last resort or if all players agree to its usage. In FFT RPs, though, sometimes things can quickly become a superweapon flinging contest to see who can kill the most xenos planets star systems.

[Santheres]

Generally, roleplay to your experience. It's not a competition here, it's about writing good stories. That said, unless carefully used, overpowered weapons like a bomb covering an entire system and ships measured in Astronomical Units (yes, these were real) aren't the best idea.

We have plenty of RP regions that can help:

Sagittarius Arm
Milky Way Galaxy
Limitless Universe
The Local Cluster

So basically, don't build a death star or something and I should be fine. Gotcha.

As a plot point, even the Death Star can be okay. The key is always cooperation with your fellow players - if people don't want to play or even acknowledge the existence of a Death Star, that's their choice. You can still play with them, just respect their wishes and talk it out if you really think it would be a worthwhile addition to the story.

[RawHein]

Considering "mainstream" NSFT, there's plenty of guidance in the OP. Very little 'tech' is totally off-limits, it's more a case of try not to go crazy in scale. That said, IIRC there's a general view that time travel is best kept out of NSFT; at best it opens up a huge can of worms in terms of how you write a story together using it.

...I generally disagree with you. Handled correctly, with a basic plot planned out that marks out its use ahead of time (like an RP taking place in the past, where its only use is at the start/end), I don't see anything wrong with TT.

Olimpiada, generally yes, but you can go superweapon if you can justify your nation building it (being an evil empire is popular), provided it's used sparingly.

[Lubyak]

Considering "mainstream" NSFT, there's plenty of guidance in the OP. Very little 'tech' is totally off-limits, it's more a case of try not to go crazy in scale. That said, IIRC there's a general view that time travel is best kept out of NSFT; at best it opens up a huge can of worms in terms of how you write a story together using it.

...I generally disagree with you. Handled correctly, with a basic plot planned out that marks out its use ahead of time (like an RP taking place in the past, where its only use is at the start/end), I don't see anything wrong with TT.

Olimpiada, generally yes, but you can go superweapon if you can justify your nation building it (being an evil empire is popular), provided it's used sparingly.

As with many things, it's the kind of thing that serves best as a plot point. If you start claiming that you use time travel to ensure you win, or your ships use some kind of time displacement technology so they're invincible, that might set off some alarm bells. However, an RP with time travel as a plot point should be more than fine.

And really that rule goes for everything. If you find yourself wondering 'is this god-modding' talk to your fellow players. Ask them about it and what role the thing could play in your story. In my opinion, our goal here is to tell great stories, and massive superweapons, 10 km doom-ships, and all kinds of other things can be key parts of great stories. The issue is when someone stops using these things to facilitate the story, and rather uses it to retard the story. As I said above, it's one thing to use time travel as a major plot point. It's another to use it as an 'I win' button.

[Olimpiada]

...I generally disagree with you. Handled correctly, with a basic plot planned out that marks out its use ahead of time (like an RP taking place in the past, where its only use is at the start/end), I don't see anything wrong with TT.

Olimpiada, generally yes, but you can go superweapon if you can justify your nation building it (being an evil empire is popular), provided it's used sparingly.

As with many things, it's the kind of thing that serves best as a plot point. If you start claiming that you use time travel to ensure you win, or your ships use some kind of time displacement technology so they're invincible, that might set off some alarm bells. However, an RP with time travel as a plot point should be more than fine.

And really that rule goes for everything. If you find yourself wondering 'is this god-modding' talk to your fellow players. Ask them about it and what role the thing could play in your story. In my opinion, our goal here is to tell great stories, and massive superweapons, 10 km doom-ships, and all kinds of other things can be key parts of great stories. The issue is when someone stops using these things to facilitate the story, and rather uses it to retard the story. As I said above, it's one thing to use time travel as a major plot point. It's another to use it as an 'I win' button.

Alright, I'll keep that all in mind. That said, I'd never planned on using time travel in any way. Grandfather paradox and all.

[Sunset]

Fun little book on that topic:

So You Created a Wormhole: The Time Traveler's Guide to Time Travel

I won't spoil it for you, but it's funny, reasonably technical, full of pop culture references, and small enough for light reading but not too thin as to be useless.

Past that, I generally agree with Lubyak. Build the story, the characters, etc. If you can then substitute 'bubonic plague' for 'pathogenic viral bombardment' or even 'Death Star' then you have a story that will work despite whatever window dressing is added. But if you can't do a simple technology substitution you might be wandering too far down the path of rock/paper/scissors instead of story-telling.

[Neornith]

1. In regards to augmentation it depends on the culture of you society I've always thought, now since you have an upper class that has little concern for the lower class I would suggest cyborg augmentations (i.e. replacing body parts with robot parts) since it strips away their humanity and it would add another layer of sadism too your overlords, chemicals and conditioning together would be viable even if you handwaved it.

2. Rule of cool for FT, if you want melee pick melee weapons, understand though you'll need too work very hard in collaboration with your RP partners though because melee weapons in FT is asking for a large amount of suspension of belief, if I could suggest have weapons with bayonets or something of the like that dual purposes as a ranged weapon and a melee weapon, or something along those lines, if you go the cyborg route you could give them a gun and put extendable blades in the forearms.

3. Two words "Hive cities" basically large structures with millions of people squished together where the upper class is on the top living comfortably and down below is where the slums are and where the underworld actually controls things. For reference check out Chi-Town in Palladium's Rifts settings, I think you'll be intrigued by the possibilities.

1. I was planning on going in the Halo SPARTAN program route, where they're physically augmented during puberty and they grow up to be the superhuman peak of human conditioning. I'm not too sure about the cyborg augmentations; if your going to replace body parts, why not just get robots?

2. Okay, that I understands. I think I'll go with conventional weaponry and experiment with hardlight swords, or maybe something similar to a lightsaber as a secondary weapon. What about the shielding? If I'm ditching the melee weapons as their main weapons, should I leave the shielding as well?

3. I'll definitely check out Rifts. I'll also check out some arcology stuff aswell.

Whether you want robots or cyborgs is entirely up to you and how you want to portray your nation my take was you were reconditioning dissidents which is why I suggested cyborgs by stripping away their humanity and the upper class forcing it's will onto the lower class, in the end it's up to you though

And secondly there's no reason why you couldn't still have shielding if you want so long as you don't treat it like an inexhaustible and impenetrable force field I don't really see any reason why you couldn't

[Neornith]

Alright, I'm new to FT RP. I never did it on my old account, but I'm looking to start. Does NS have any overall tech rules for FT RP that I should be aware of, or can I just do whatever within the confines of not godmodding?

Read the original post to this thread, it full of anything and everything a new player needs to get started

I can't stress this enough and so many new players just gloss it over, yes it's a lot of reading but my god it saves you from headaches, I know it did for me

[RawHein]

Alright, I'm new to FT RP. I never did it on my old account, but I'm looking to start. Does NS have any overall tech rules for FT RP that I should be aware of, or can I just do whatever within the confines of not godmodding?

Read the original post to this thread, it full of anything and everything a new player needs to get started

I can't stress this enough and so many new players just gloss it over, yes it's a lot of reading but my god it saves you from headaches, I know it did for me

With respect, saying "You have to read this massive post to start RPing" isn't conductive to getting new players into FT. Guides have their place, but shouldn't be used as a crutch to potentially scare away newbies rather than letting them pick it up on their own or ask questions (a valuable trait in and of itself) - that's why we're here on this thread.

[Vocenae]

Pointing them to a large resource base is not the wrong course of action. Most of the basic information you need to get started in Future Tech is located there, along with the more in depth guides written by members of the community based on their own experience within the community.

Yes, we can, should and will provide help to new players, but they can answer many of their questions themselves by looking at what is posted in the OP and guides.

Especially if they need a answer and there's no one around to answer it in a timely fashion and cannot access IRC (where they can get a real-time answer to their question and get to know members of the community).

[RawHein]

Pointing them to a knowledge base that they can use as reference material is one thing. Using a five thousand word (ten pages when I copied it to Word) post to read as their "introduction", in place of giving advice yourself, is quite another. Especially when these are posters who aren't sure if they want to be a part of this community, and will certainly be put off by being told there was required reading prior to participating.

[The Fedral Union]

(As I believe my Ban from the thread is up 3 months from February.. Thus it ended in in the moth of may. There fore I'd like to chime in?)

Rawhein does have a point, what I think he is getting at, is the fact that guides alone without instruction or perhaps elucidation of what ever is in those guides tends to make the learning curve somewhat steep.

Its good to have guides sure, and for them to be offered as one way of going about things, but sometimes people might need a simplified explanation. Or they might need elucidation on such materials.

Indeed some might misinterpret some of the posts made by folks trying to help via recommending the guide as a sign of it being, an absolute and necessary prerequisite for asking questions.


Perhaps someone might need help with specific things, a massive guide would be way too much information to take in just to answer one or two acutely targeted questions.

This is not to say guides don’t have a place, they indeed can be helpful.


As for interacting with the FT community, there are many ways to do so oocly. IRC is one medium, but there are others as well. There isn't inherently a single centralized place where one can get advice. The Strength FT has is the verity of groups one can learn from and take advice from.

-my two cents-

[Neornith]

Read the original post to this thread, it full of anything and everything a new player needs to get started

I can't stress this enough and so many new players just gloss it over, yes it's a lot of reading but my god it saves you from headaches, I know it did for me

With respect, saying "You have to read this massive post to start RPing" isn't conductive to getting new players into FT. Guides have their place, but shouldn't be used as a crutch to potentially scare away newbies rather than letting them pick it up on their own or ask questions (a valuable trait in and of itself) - that's why we're here on this thread.

Really don't so how it's a crutch honestly, the original post is a valuable resource with an accumulation of knowledge of some of the best players too write for NSFT, and while I realize it is long this is site where people read so...

(As I believe my Ban from the thread is up 3 months from February.. Thus it ended in in the moth of may. There fore I'd like to chime in?)

Rawhein does have a point, what I think he is getting at, is the fact that guides alone without instruction or perhaps elucidation of what ever is in those guides tends to make the learning curve somewhat steep.

Its good to have guides sure, and for them to be offered as one way of going about things, but sometimes people might need a simplified explanation. Or they might need elucidation on such materials.

Indeed some might misinterpret some of the posts made by folks trying to help via recommending the guide as a sign of it being, an absolute and necessary prerequisite for asking questions.


Perhaps someone might need help with specific things, a massive guide would be way too much information to take in just to answer one or two acutely targeted questions.

This is not to say guides don’t have a place, they indeed can be helpful.


As for interacting with the FT community, there are many ways to do so oocly. IRC is one medium, but there are others as well. There isn't inherently a single centralized place where one can get advice. The Strength FT has is the verity of groups one can learn from and take advice from.

-my two cents-

Perhaps you should try reading the guides?

[Kyrusia]

Aye, first post is long. 'Course, a lot of that is the lexicon of common terms (Always looking for new ones, by the way! ). If y'all do need help navigating, though, I have embedded anchors for every section (check the "Link Here" links) and top-bar navigation links for the two major sections that aren't at the top.

...Maybe I should add more top-bar navigation links or a floating ToC...? Regardless, hope that helps.

Edit: Added a ToC (probably should have done that a while ago, really). I may spruce it up with "fanciness" later, but probably keep it simple since it's inline. Regardless, it's now easier to directly link to a portion of the OP that might assist in providing info to players. Should probably go back and make the anchors for the common terms evident, since most of those have anchors as well.

Edit No. 2: Anchors for each term should now be visible in parenthesis in the term's title in a format similar to "#Example." The way to use these is simple: take the URL of the main page of the thread (viewtopic.php?f=5&t=270578) and append "#Example" to the end. For example "...viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2705782#SSS" will take you to "Sentience, Sapience, Sophonce/Sophont."

[Bakra]

-snip-

As usual superb work Kyrusia, thank you.

-snip-

You bring up an interest point: how do new FTers see our advice? I can see how many newcomers could see our advice leaning towards rule making, as this thread tends to lean more towards world building than roleplaying, making many newbies believe that what they see are concrete "limits" for FT when in reality we don't want them making the same mistakes that have been made in the past, especially by yours truly.

Yes, many rules are meant to be broken, and in some ways that adds to the awe and romance. One of my favorite RP partners is the 44th Indp Legion; this guy regularly role-plays with fifty mile long cruisers dwarfed by Pluto sized battleships, but I've been in half a dozen RPs with him and he hasn't led me to believe that is a bad creative decision. In fact, it's given his nation a unique flavor to it that I just can't find anywhere else, making it a joy to RP with him. His nation is ruled by the former human underclass of highly advanced aliens, and these humans have no idea how the vast technology at their disposal works, or even the automated industries that make it. His ships may be able to destroy my most powerful ships with ease, but in one RP they were at the mercy of a well-coordinated boarding party, such was the gap in that particular defense.

And sometimes we come off as saying "don't have big empires and massive Death Star like ships", and with good reason. We've seen the FT community grumble at new unguided players both struggling and boasting at the size of their ships, ICly and OOCly. But after eight years on NS, I got to say, no matter how small your ships are or how tiny your empire is, it's kind of 2D if it doesn't have a Death Star-sized weakness that you can eyeball a torpedo into or fly a squadron of combat ships in. The thing is, the smaller you are the larger the your weakness is (or so is the perception), which is why we often stick to and debate the "ship/empire size" points.

Which is totally fine, as all we are trying to do is guide people in the right direction so that everyone can have more fun. We aren't dictating rules to the game, that's this: we are simply providing strategy tips. And seeing the growth in the FT community, not so much in numbers but in quality that is quite frankly mind-boggling to someone who has been on NS for more than half of it's existence, I think the Mentors and the (much) more active veterans are doing a pretty god job.

May have been a bit of a tangent, but when you brought it up I sort of rolled with it

[Senkaku]

(As I believe my Ban from the thread is up 3 months from February.. Thus it ended in in the moth of may. There fore I'd like to chime in?)

Rawhein does have a point, what I think he is getting at, is the fact that guides alone without instruction or perhaps elucidation of what ever is in those guides tends to make the learning curve somewhat steep.

Its good to have guides sure, and for them to be offered as one way of going about things, but sometimes people might need a simplified explanation. Or they might need elucidation on such materials.

In which case, NS has convenient features for them to ask questions either via RMB or telegram, and the miracles of the Internet have delivered us IRC as well- and of course, this very thread exists so players can seek advice and assistance.

Indeed some might misinterpret some of the posts made by folks trying to help via recommending the guide as a sign of it being, an absolute and necessary prerequisite for asking questions.

Well, they're worth reading since they answer many common questions, but you will note throughout that the guides are fairly explicit on the fact that no one is forcing anyone to do anything.

Perhaps someone might need help with specific things, a massive guide would be way too much information to take in just to answer one or two acutely targeted questions.

Again, for specific technical questions or advice ("can you read this and tell me what you think", "how do mass drivers work", "do you think it'd be interesting if I used x ritual in a religious ceremony", "are there any threads accepting new participants", etc etc), we have telegrams, RMBs, and a number of IRC networks, as well as this glorious thread.

This is not to say guides don’t have a place, they indeed can be helpful.

Which is why we have them! Not everyone has to use them, and some choose not to, but they're useful resources for both new and experienced players.

[Kyrusia]

[snip]

Ye. To quote the OP (See what I did there? ):

In the Future Tech community, there are no real "hard" rules. There is not a thread somewhere that will define what "is" and what "is not" acceptable [...]

These standards, in effect, mean "Don't be a dick." It is, really, quite that simple. If you, as a player, are willing to collaborate with others, compromise, attempt to be creative, and are consistent, you will find roleplaying partners and ventures very readily and very easily. Players that are not willing to abide by these very, very basic standards of behavior, however, might not.

I don't think, really, there are ever truly hard-and-fast rules in any RP community on NS (short of the obvious and thread OP rules, of course), more "guidelines" or "guidelines built on experience." Experiences vary, thus guidelines vary. Of course, there will be guidelines which have broader appeal and acceptance than others; some are rather eclectic or nuanced (or downright quite specific; looking at you "Nothing In, Nothing Out" spess!stealth), while others are just general. Some have become something akin to gospel, given to new players the moment they seek out the community - either here, via TG, via some IRC channel, via some region, etc. Of course, it ultimately boils down to whether a player wants to roleplay with another and in what manner. That is just the nature of voluntary consent.

As for scale, experience, and just starting out, I think Sunset summed up a rather nice way of looking at it a while back (would recommend a read for anyone who hasn't, by the way):

Both as a community and on an individual level we all have our model train setup. Mine is expansive; I've worked on it for over a decade and it is very detailed and I've put a lot of love, money, and attention into it. There's a dozen different trains running on their different tracks and each has the right engine and the cars that match the real-world equivalent detail-for-detail. There's a little city. Correction, a big city. I've got a couple trains that run through on elevated tracks, I've got a Martian War Machine attacking the city and vaporizing a little screaming Tom Cruise, I've got flying saucers chasing screaming cheerleaders around... Pick a detail, it is there.

You have nothing.

But the various setups look fantastic and you want to become involved in the community. Fantastic! We love to welcome new hobbyists into our community. That leaves you with two choices; Build your own set or buy one. Now the second might seem easier; Everything is there, it's all ready for you to plug it in and start playing. It even has a little Tom Cruise. But it doesn't have love.

That is why the first is better and it is better for a couple reasons. By building your own train set slowly over time, you are demonstrating to the community that you love what you are doing. What we are doing. Buying a train set will get you a fancy train set but it will not get you respect. It will not get you the approval of the community. Building your own, even if it is the smallest set with only a single train, will show us that you love what you're doing. That you want to be involved and that you are ready to commit. Those are what we want to see; We don't care how many billions of trains you have, or how many floating wisps of vapor that used to be Tom Cruise you have, we care that you put the time and love and attention into your train set that we put into it.

We want you to become part of our community.

As you've said, I do think not wanting to see new players make the same mistakes we have made is a big part of that. (I could probably tell some stores here, but I'm rambling as it is. I'm prone to doing that. ) I do think that there is a trap that can easily be fallen into if someone isn't paying attention, however; namely: there can be a world of difference in pointing out the mistakes of the past (or otherwise hurdles members of the community have experienced with a given concept), and not noting, just as well, that certain things that may be difficult can be done. I like to use FTLi as an example of this: it was once heavily frowned-upon; as I've seen it now, it's become more accepted (depending on who someone roleplays with, at least), at least as a plot tool. It's all a matter of execution. I think players executing it in a manner which isn't considered unacceptable by players is mostly to thank for that.

That is not to say that there aren't certain concepts which, sometimes overwhelmingly, will find a player being told, "That's probably a bad idea; I would suggest x instead." I think these are, in my personal experience at least, more often to be certain things which have been considered to be heinously abused in the past - abused to such a degree that the general opinion on such a thing by many players can be very negative. I think, too, upon a bit of reflection, that many of these tend to be tangentially related to a set of attitudes or behaviors that many FTers feel approach too closely to "wanting to OOCly win for the sake of winning"; in my personal experience, many FTers (and many roleplayers, for that matter) consider that sort of attitude toxic and, frankly, want very little to do with players who seem to exhibit it. Of course, though, opinions on what has been "heinously abused" do, in fact, vary.

My rambling thoughts on this.