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

[Sunset]

The advantage of a First Contact, at least for a very new nation, is that it can be an info dump. Take all those posts, copy and paste into a factbook, and modify. Two birds, one stone. It can also be a good way to establish the core characters you want to use moving forward.

[Hurlik]

The advantage of a First Contact, at least for a very new nation, is that it can be an info dump. Take all those posts, copy and paste into a factbook, and modify. Two birds, one stone. It can also be a good way to establish the core characters you want to use moving forward.

I never thought about it that way before. I also want to use this opportunity as a way to shake the rust off my writing skills.

[The Martian Hegemony]

Questionnaire for Intergalactic, Galactic, Interstellar, Interplanetary or Planetary nations (kind of long):

Code: Select all

[box][i]Questionnaire[/i] 
How big is your nation?:
What are your nation's (individual) stats for the Civilization Index?:
How fast do your FTL ships go (if you have any)?:
Your thoughts on Time Travel:
Hard FT or Soft FT?:
What is your method of FTL/Interstellar Travel (window dressing or not)?:
What is your population?:
Your opinion on AI:
Favorite energy source (window dressing or not):
And, finally, who would win in a fight- The Borg, The Empire, or The Imperium of Man? (optional):[/box]

Mine:

Questionnaire
How big is your nation?: 513 million systems
What are your nation's (individual) stats for the Civilization Index?: Tier 1, Type V-VI, Interstellar-Galactic Power
How fast do your FTL ships go (if you have any)?: ~10 million times the speed of light
Your thoughts on Time Travel: It's great provided you unhinge yourself from this timeline (prevents paradoxes).
Hard FT or Soft FT?: Mix, mostly Hard FT
What is your method of FTL/Interstellar Travel (window dressing or not)?: Tachyon Infusion and Controlled Dark Energy, occasionally antimatter or Alcubierre Drive
What is your population?: ~5 sextillion
Your opinion on AI: Good provided it doesn't kill you.
Favorite energy source (window dressing or not): Fusion, Tachyon speed energy, Antimatter, Dark Matter-Energy stress
And, finally, who would win in a fight- The Borg, The Empire, or The Imperium of Man? (optional): The Borg hands down.

[The Gataja]

Are you...offering that as advice or seeking advice on it?

[Excidium Planetis]

FTL weapons aren't that bad.. Unless your lensmen scale.. I've seen several older nations use them and mentors use them. In the form of missiles. If your using a planet as a Q ball to knock the number 3 world to bits or using two planets to crush another ... That's beyond reasonable. At that point give up war all together.

I would give up instantly in a war where the enemy uses FTL missiles as the standard. Since my nation is far more Hard FT than Soft FT, we lack any kind of FTL scanners or something similar, so an attack by FTL missiles would literally destroy us completely before we saw the attack coming. And unlike lasers (which we also can't see coming), we can't even dodge FTL missiles by accident, because they are most likely way too fast.

Essentially, FTL weapons are the ultimate first strike weapon. In a pre-emptive attack, an enemy with FTL weapons would completely annihilate us before we knew we were at war.

Now, our nation is currently developing two types of FTL weapons. The first is basically an autopiloted starship with most of the ship parts stripped and replaced with a single 100 Megaton nuclear device. This weapon costs us around 2 billion dollars (converted from Excidian credits) for the warp drive alone, and as with all of our standard warp drives, needs 20 minutes to "warm up". Not an effective weapon, really, more of a specialty that would be used to destroy certain targets whose point defense prevents conventional missiles from reaching them.

The second is a "warp bomb" I discussed earlier in this thread. It would have the capability to destroy planets, making it an incredibly deadly weapon. However, it will cost over 4.1 trillion dollars, and needs a travel time of 1 year before hitting the target, so I imagine we would only use them for pre-emptive strikes against far superior nations. I plan to posses only 2 of them.

Of course, I would talk with anyone I roleplay with before utilizing such weapons.

---

Now, a question about Railguns:
What would be a reasonable projectile velocity for a railguns? My nation has two varieties, both spinal mounts, one 300 meters long and the other 1200 meters. They currently fire 100 kilogram rounds, but I'm not sure on that. My nation possesses electromagnets stronger than Modern Tech ones, because we needed the particle accelerators used in our antiproton cannons to be smaller than Fermilab's Tevatron.

[Telros]

I personally don't recommend FTL weapons, as that gets into the arms race of FTl and anti-FTL that raises a lot of difficult questions and has no real good answer. However, that being said, you seem to have the right idea for keeping them in reserve and using them with player permission, which is good. If they're for shock/cinematic value and not common use, I could definitely see that as a good story-telling device. The stripped down ship is a solid enough concept in of itself, but the warp bomb having one year before hitting target may be rather in effective for nations that can detect it coming, so a smaller less instant destruction weapon that doesn't have such a longer travel time may be more up your alley, unless its pure plot device and context.

As for rail gun velocity, you don't really need a set number amount. If you want to get into the numbers, by all means, but you can say it fires it at high velocities and is a heavy 100 kg round, and we have an idea of what it is and for those dealing with it, about how much damage it would do to us. Numbers are optional, but can be fun to use if you like to math things out.

[The Fedral Union]

I do have FTL missiles, but. They wont hit something at FTL; they have to jump out at a certain distance. They do have MIRV like warheads but they're still not flawless; thus balanced out in a way. Then I have my Strategic Attack drones, automated platforms with frigate level fie power, much smaller than a full sized frigate but they have to draw power from their carrier craft. Basically my answer to the fighters in space thing. There are so many complex checks and balances I've had to come up with to keep things inline with how I like writing but without game braking this wouldn't be the thread to explain it in.


(Less to say someone can carpet a world of mine if they get through the defenses, but just be aware that happens just be willing to accept some consequences (not bravado just deterrence theory); but I do agree asking is a key part of things thus why communication is important.

[Neornith]

I personally don't recommend FTL weapons, as that gets into the arms race of FTl and anti-FTL that raises a lot of difficult questions and has no real good answer. However, that being said, you seem to have the right idea for keeping them in reserve and using them with player permission, which is good. If they're for shock/cinematic value and not common use, I could definitely see that as a good story-telling device. The stripped down ship is a solid enough concept in of itself, but the warp bomb having one year before hitting target may be rather in effective for nations that can detect it coming, so a smaller less instant destruction weapon that doesn't have such a longer travel time may be more up your alley, unless its pure plot device and context.

I too would personally recommend against FTL weapons being commonplace in a nation's arsenal as well unless a minute amount is used as some sort of plot device. Like every other overpowered technology the stigma from it is that players try using it to "win" what is supposed to be a collaborative story writing effort. As with all things in NSFT, players are free to do as the wish, just as others are free to ignore them.

[Lubyak]

Questionnaire for Intergalactic, Galactic, Interstellar, Interplanetary or Planetary nations (kind of long):

Code: Select all

[box][i]Questionnaire[/i] 
How big is your nation?:
What are your nation's (individual) stats for the Civilization Index?:
How fast do your FTL ships go (if you have any)?:
Your thoughts on Time Travel:
Hard FT or Soft FT?:
What is your method of FTL/Interstellar Travel (window dressing or not)?:
What is your population?:
Your opinion on AI:
Favorite energy source (window dressing or not):
And, finally, who would win in a fight- The Borg, The Empire, or The Imperium of Man? (optional):[/box]

Mine:

Questionnaire
How big is your nation?: 513 million systems
What are your nation's (individual) stats for the Civilization Index?: Tier 1, Type V-VI, Interstellar-Galactic Power
How fast do your FTL ships go (if you have any)?: ~10 million times the speed of light
Your thoughts on Time Travel: It's great provided you unhinge yourself from this timeline (prevents paradoxes).
Hard FT or Soft FT?: Mix, mostly Hard FT
What is your method of FTL/Interstellar Travel (window dressing or not)?: Tachyon Infusion and Controlled Dark Energy, occasionally antimatter or Alcubierre Drive
What is your population?: ~5 sextillion
Your opinion on AI: Good provided it doesn't kill you.
Favorite energy source (window dressing or not): Fusion, Tachyon speed energy, Antimatter, Dark Matter-Energy stress
And, finally, who would win in a fight- The Borg, The Empire, or The Imperium of Man? (optional): The Borg hands down.

Well, reading through this, I feel like I need to point you at the classic question of 'How big should I be?' I'd recommend you take a look at this post, which is the answer we generally recommend for this. Just as an FYI, in general FT prime nations have systems measured either as a handful or in the low dozens. Going straight to '513 million' is a bit insane. At that level, there is no way you can develop any but a handful of those planets. Most players would see that claim as nothing more than a number wank to try and 'win' an RP.

I'd also advise very strongly against giving yourself an actual numerical measurement to your FTL. Your ships should travel at speed of plot, and fixing a hard number to that limits that ability. FTL travel is a handwave we give ourselves to facilitate RP, and by giving a hard number--especially a very high number--it once again creates the feeling that you're trying to 'win' an RP. The same can be applied to population.

In essence, hard numbers aren't exactly needed in FT. 90% of tech and everything is window dressing designed to help drive and shape the story. One should not sacrifice tech in the name of story, but rather make sure the tech works as the story demands. There should be consistency, yes, but the story is always going to be the more important part.

[The Uthani Imperium]

-Snip-

Before we go any further, I strongly recommend you take a look at this post, which gives a lot of context on size in relation to Future Tech and the community's general ideas and feelings about it. In your own circumstances, claiming 513 million systems is problematic. While there are no codified rules that you must follow to participate in Future Technology on NS, claiming such a massive size generally means a couple of things: 1) Players will not recognize your existence in their personal canon. Why? Because quite simply that sort of size exceeds anything that most players in the community find acceptable. Because of this, you'll generally find that it's harder to find people to RP with. 2) Your nation becomes a mass of numbers, as opposed to a "living, breathing entity." What do I mean by that exactly? Effectively, because your nation is so big you'll never truly be able to provide detail and give life to your creation. A lot of details and tidbits get lost when you go too big, and in the end, in my personal opinion of course, you end up losing far more than you ever gained if you started small and filled up your space with an interesting and organic (in the sense that it changes over time/as a result of RP) nation.

Generally when players first join the Future Technology, we suggest they start out with 1-3 systems. Your home-world, an older colony that is relatively well developed, and a new colony that is still being developed and taking shape. Why? Because one of the core principals of FT-Prime is trust. If you can show us that you can responsibly handle three systems, cooperate, communicate and develop your nation while RPing with other members, we know that you can handle something bigger. At the end of the day, a nation your size is probably going to have a hard time finding anyone to RP with in the general community. While you are free to do as you will in regards to your own nation, I strongly suggest you reconsider.

In regards to Faster-Than-Light Travel, it is in my personal opinion, less about giving something a name and more about giving it a "feel." What do I mean by that exactly? At the most basic level, describing what it does visually, as opposed to mechanically. While there is no harm at all in describing how your FTL-mechanic works (generally in a factbook), and indeed it can be quite a fun thing to do, your average RP description will more than likely describe the visual that it creates as opposed to explaining all the technical details of how it works. In regards to the speed of FTL, most of the time assigning something a hard numerical value isn't necessary, and a lot of things of that nature are handwaved in FT. Why? Because, and once again this is just my personal opinion, things move at a speed directly relative to their plot importance. If your ship needs to be late to a situation for the sake of the plot, it is, if it needs to arrive on time, it does, and etc.

Hope that was helpful.

[Kyrusia]

[snip]

Strictly speaking, "galactic" - much less intergalactic - is a scale far beyond what is generally considered good operating status for much of the Future Tech community. As is, for that matter, "513 million systems."

I would strongly recommend you read "Size in Relation to Future Tech" (Edit: As others have suggested and ninja'd me to. ) and give serious consideration about the scale you are operating at. In general, for newer players we tend to advise people to claim between 1-3 star systems - a guideline originating, predominantly, from the guide linked above. This is suggested for numerous reasons, mainly being that Future Tech is a community based upon player merit. To, unfortunately, quote myself from here once again:

"To elaborate, Future Tech is a community based upon merit. In simple this means that, in the eyes of the community, if you can handle something small, they are more willing to trust you with bigger things. This is why we often advise people to start small, the "Three System Guideline". If the community sees that a player can handle a volume of space like that (which is, literally, astronomical), the community is more likely to grant players more "wiggle room" as they roleplay and execute their concepts in the community. There is another player - a well known one - whom utilizes O'Neil Cylinders extensively on a puppet/alternate account of his; this player has been an active participant and a collaborative, creative, consistent, and compromising roleplayer in the community to such a degree that in the eyes of much of the community, he has a lot of wiggle room. So much wiggle room, in fact, his main account was able to obliterate several star systems (not planets, not stars - the whole system) and have it recognized as valid.

This was because the community had come to trust that player; the community saw what that player did and understood it was not to "win" or "be powerful", but was necessary for the plot. This is, unfortunately, very different from a player saying, "I can be trusted with [thing]/I can be trusted to do [action]." The Future Tech community requires demonstration by a player that they can, and very rarely ever takes a player - especially a new player - on simply their word. This, to be honest, is a consequence of many players trying to abuse things of exceptional "power" or exceptional scale to try and "win" or "be the best" or "be the most powerful" over the decade or so FT has been around; over time much of the community - as individuals - have decided to simply not try and run the risk again. Actions, after all, do speak louder than words in this instance; hence, we advise people to start small. Start small and show the community you can handle the wiggle room, and you will be given wiggle room; more merit, more wiggle room."

In addition I would strongly advise you to take a moment of your time to read the "Future Technology: A Beginner's Tutorial" in addition to "The Train Set"; both go about, in different ways, illustrating the nature of merit and community consensus in Future Technology and why, in addition to C4, such are utilized as a bulwark against power-gaming, meta-gaming, god-modding, and general "iWin" behaviors. Each, more or less, illustrate that in Future Tech, there are certain standards and conventions that have developed over a period longer than a decade, each coming to be accepted as a tool to help newer players integrate, as well as preventing wide-spread abuse in regarding concepts. This, in effect, culminates in that the NSFT community is a community where merit is bestowed based upon the demonstration that one can handle the basics first; to elaborate further:

"What this boils down to is, ultimately, you are considered equal from the start to every other member of the Future Technology community; that means that you, and everyone else, have the same set of expectations from that community. You are expected, just like everyone else, to abide by the same set of fundamental standards [...] as everyone else is, and expected to abide by the often-unspoken, unconscious community consensus over certain things which are or are not considered absurd or beyond feasible until you have demonstrated, to the community, that you - as a player - are willing to collaborate and compromise with others, write fiction which is enjoyable to others, and - most importantly - understand that there is a difference between expecting players to respect your civilizations simply because you made them, and the community coming to respect that civilization (and you, as the player) by seeing it (and yourself) in action - and in how you, the player, behave and handle the fictional power granted to you through the respect of the community and the demonstrable evidence of such.

[...]

This means that you - or any other player - can have a multi-dimensional empire which spans the known cosmos, multiple realities, and have it be ruled-over by time-traveling nobility; this means you can play a single planet with ten people on it and a faster-than-light capable starship. This means, more or less, you can do just about anything and no one can stop you - so long as it conforms to the rules and regulations of the forums and this website. This is often what is told to new roleplayers who find themselves in their first major war where another player has decided to declare their (the original player's) entire military has been destroyed and that their nation is seized, and to hand over the password to the account. Roleplay-oriented moderators often tell players, "No one can make you do that; no one can say your country is destroyed. No one can make you do anything you don't want to do with your characters, countries, and concepts." Again, this is patently true; however, what is often not discussed is how this street goes two different directions, and that it must for either statement to be true.

Now, this is not to say that - in any way - is it valid to god-mod or meta-game (much less demand of a player to surrender their password). It does mean, however, that while you, as a player, can do what you wish, when you wish, that everyone else also has the exact same right to do that. This means, as it relates to Future Technology, that while you might think its fine to have your stellar civilization control multiple galaxies, and while anyone will tell you that is fine, you - as a player - are often not also told that, as a consequence of the collaborative and community-based nature of roleplaying here, people have the power to simply ignore you if they so choose if they decide that a civilization controlling multiple galaxies is silly, absurd, or simply not enjoyable.

In Future Technology, much of the roleplay on the forums - assuming it is not taking place in a closed roleplaying group - all occurs in, roughly, the same astronomical region: the Galaxy (or the "Milky Way Galaxy") and its immediate vicinity, to include several globular clusters, dwarf galaxies, etc. Virtually all of the major action you see on the forums, further, takes place in places within this astronomical domain. Yes, Future Technology is - by-in-large - relatively "smaller" than some think, insofar as it is not a community with drama and stories that "span multiple dimensions, parallel universes, or galaxies" regularly. That's simply not how most people play. Most people, as noted, play within the Galaxy and its immediate vicinity - which is where most players are found. As you can imagine, this means, by claiming multiple galaxies, dimensions, or what have you, you might be working on a scale that most of the community simply doesn't work at - and, more often than not, due to prior experiences with people using such claims to try and "win at Future Tech", simply don't respect." (Source)

I hope you find this, in addition to the advice provided by others, helpful.

[Protestant England and Germany]

Imperial Guard Style Army using Gear and Weapons from Tomorrow's War?

[Neornith]

Imperial Guard Style Army using Gear and Weapons from Tomorrow's War?

I suggest doing something that's truly yours, players that do this gain a much higher satisfaction in creating their own stuff and tend not to burn out as quickly. That's not too say you can't draw inspiration from existing sources, in fact it's nigh impossible to make something truly unique with all the existing stuff out there.

Now as to your idea I would say yes, I don't see why not, but I do recommended you create it instead of "Imperial Guard with these guns"

If you need any help just ask

[Zepplin Manufacturers]

Well the Astra mil ..IMPERIAL GUARD are so diverse in strategy and usage that really that's a hard first section to quantify, if were talking classic Cadian shock with all its highly trained well equipped combined arms? There is nothing particularly wrong with this save the cost in lives and equipment given the guards typical casualty numbers and the dire draconian discipline, the lack of self repair well the usual 40k complaints ..but the biggest downside? IG in all its incarnations is a force made of extremist fanatical theocratic loons so there are limits for role play opportunities with worship the holy carrot or die types.

As for tomorrows war you mean the one published by Osprey that's a "hard" sci fi setting? If it is then there is nothing overly wrong with it. I mean from a game perspective I don't particularly see it grabbing the imagination in an immensely crowded field. You would be just as well using the weapons from the colonial marines and wayland yutani or half (the none nuts half) the gear from infinity or any other slightly more rational sci fi wargame with people seeing little overall impact.

[Atomic Utopia]

So, I was thinking of how to make my NS nation, the United Socialist Systems of Atomic Utopia, and I think I have come up with a simple idea. I would like the people here to comment on it and how realistic the effects of my idea are.

The idea:

Humans, somehow, are far, far more radiation resistant using the same/similar mechanism to Deinococcus radiodurans, and are thus capable of surviving doses of around 1 KGy an hour. (LD50 for humans IRL, 5 Gy)

So, what does this mean for my civilization? Well ignoring the fact that there is no evolutionary reason for this (failed colony anyone?), my civilization will see little to no effects until the invention of the X-Ray. When the X-Ray is invented it will be discovered that all the wonderful things that X-Rays do can be done, you can see people's bones, you can measure the thickness of different materials, and with huge radiation resistance, you would never see the negative effects. This presumably would result in the proliferation of X-Ray devices in daily life, however it would also be noted that every thing else is not that resistant thus their use would be somewhat curtailed in the areas involving other animals. The next incongruity would be in the development of nuclear energy. Assuming it occurs much like it did IRL, with the nuclear bomb being developed first, nuclear weapons development would occur unusually fast, however while developing the negative effects of radiation exposure would be detected in the (presumably) unshielded plutonium production reactor facilities. This would result in the rapid development of shielding. Fuel rod handling would also be different, after a tiny bit of cooling fuel rods would be transported by hand or in unshielded containers, something that would be deadly IRL.

After nuclear weapons development it could be expected that nuclear reactors and energy becomes incredibly common, dominating all other forms of energy generation in a short period of time. This is because nuclear accidents would have little to no effect on people, thus public fears would not form. This also would lead to the more rapid development of nuclear weapons and their extensive use in all forms of warfare. Enhanced radiation weapons would be undeveloped due to the radiation resistance of the general population, salted bombs would not be developed for the same reason. Nuclear explosives would also be used extensively for peaceful uses due to the lack of problems associated with high dosages, unlike IRL. This results in something like Project Orion being developed quite rapidly in the history of the planet. The current oil crisis never forms due to the use of nuclear energy, instead a uranium crisis happens, however that is somewhat adverted by the development of fast neutron breeders and thorium thermal breeders.

Now on to the other possibility odd thing. Research regarding genetics might progress far faster. Why you may ask? Well the answer is simple. The population would have noticed the fact that they are far more radiation resistant than... just about everything else, bacteria included, and thus would want answers as to why. DNA would have already been discovered by the time that nuclear weapons came around, thus the things to explore the genome with and most importantly, the motivation, would exist already. This would result in research into DNA and genetic modification taking off around 10 years after nuclear weapons development, far earlier than on earth.

Space transportation would also be different. With people not afraid of the other n word (nuclear) NTR's and Orion Drives would be used extensively, to the point where most of the solar system would be visited within 60 years of nuclear reactors being developed. By this time MAD would also not work so well, so war would be just as common as before the development of nuclear weapons, as people would not fear nuclear energy and weapons as much, and various countries would have already expanded off planet. The supply of uranium would be constant and society would (more or less) stabilize, with no resource shocks occurring for the next few hundred years. The general population would also have higher approval rates for scientific research spending due to a lack of fear of new technology. Nuclear weapons, while a concern, would have never paralyzed the world like they did IRL.

Now we are (in time after the first nuclear weapon being developed) around where we are today. GMO crops are widespread, space travel is common, and nuclear energy permeates people's lives, computers are around where they are today. Now let's see what the future might hold for this fictional civilization.

The lack of fear of technology is both good and bad. The atmospheric strontium 90 content would quickly (within 300 years post nuclear weapons development) reach unacceptable levels for other life due to war and EPPP use, thus causing a mass extinction event mirroring the one currently occurring, resulting in a degree of mass starvation, famine, and war. However, the people off planet would be capable of surviving with some work despite this. This would result in some stunting of the growth civilization, and eliminate some of the colonies that rely on imports form the homeworld. This would (possibly) result in the unification of the colonies into one nation, that nation would later take control of the homeworld in around 100 or so years. By then strontium 90 levels should have decayed to normal levels, and the growth of plants and other non human life would resume. Genetics would have continued to develop, and most people would experience more extensive modification to suit their environment.

During this time (200 years post nuclear weapons development) the first colony ship is sent to an nearby system. The colony ship would not know of the devastation of the homeworld until it has already reached the nearby system. It would form it's own separate country.

So, is this logical so far?

I am thinking of extending this this to the eventual development of FTL etc. as the history of my nation, but before I do that I have another question that will be asked after I format it.

[The Gataja]

An interesting idea and definitely curious where you take it. My issue would be something you in fact mention, other life's reaction. Life does not react well to the radiation in comparison to your humans. So wide spread nuclear bomb use would destroy the water, the animals, and the land they need to survive very quickly. So they may not be /as/ scared of nukes but their effects and their sheer area of destruction is still horrifying, not to mention the EMP effect in atmosphere. One can kill a surprising amount of people by shutting down all manner of electronic devices in an area. Shielding exists for electronics, but it would be expensive and difficult for a time, making it a real threat. Also if they are as unafraid of it as it sounds, a lot of environmental disasters would occur from spills or companies dumping it without thinking and this would be lasting damage that may never be fully fixed for some time, depending on their technology later on.

So everything else sounds good to me, but I think either they would learn early on the dangers of their mentality due to their resistance/immunity and be more careful, or they realize too late and they do a lot more damage in a shorter period of time, making things very difficult for civilization and requiring a lot of struggle and pain before they finally get off world. Especially if there are a lot of accidents and disasters with radiation not being shielded, since even if they are resistant, they are spreading it wherever they go when it clings to them, and if they are /that/ cavalier with nukes.

[The Fedral Union]

I personally don't recommend FTL weapons, as that gets into the arms race of FTl and anti-FTL that raises a lot of difficult questions and has no real good answer. However, that being said, you seem to have the right idea for keeping them in reserve and using them with player permission, which is good. If they're for shock/cinematic value and not common use, I could definitely see that as a good story-telling device. The stripped down ship is a solid enough concept in of itself, but the warp bomb having one year before hitting target may be rather in effective for nations that can detect it coming, so a smaller less instant destruction weapon that doesn't have such a longer travel time may be more up your alley, unless its pure plot device and context.

I too would personally recommend against FTL weapons being commonplace in a nation's arsenal as well unless a minute amount is used as some sort of plot device. Like every other overpowered technology the stigma from it is that players try using it to "win" what is supposed to be a collaborative story writing effort. As with all things in NSFT, players are free to do as the wish, just as others are free to ignore them.

My tech base is on the high end scale for NSFT... But I go through great lengths to balance it out; if I don't realize something is overpowered right away.. I do later on and think of ways to debuff it lightly. High tech can be a blessing and a curse; if written right it can make for a good setting; if its the central thing in a thread; then well somethings wrong. Its there to augment the setting, not all players with wild tech are in it to "win it"

[Atomic Utopia]

An interesting idea and definitely curious where you take it. My issue would be something you in fact mention, other life's reaction. Life does not react well to the radiation in comparison to your humans. So wide spread nuclear bomb use would destroy the water, the animals, and the land they need to survive very quickly. So they may not be /as/ scared of nukes but their effects and their sheer area of destruction is still horrifying, not to mention the EMP effect in atmosphere. One can kill a surprising amount of people by shutting down all manner of electronic devices in an area. Shielding exists for electronics, but it would be expensive and difficult for a time, making it a real threat. Also if they are as unafraid of it as it sounds, a lot of environmental disasters would occur from spills or companies dumping it without thinking and this would be lasting damage that may never be fully fixed for some time, depending on their technology later on.

So everything else sounds good to me, but I think either they would learn early on the dangers of their mentality due to their resistance/immunity and be more careful, or they realize too late and they do a lot more damage in a shorter period of time, making things very difficult for civilization and requiring a lot of struggle and pain before they finally get off world. Especially if there are a lot of accidents and disasters with radiation not being shielded, since even if they are resistant, they are spreading it wherever they go when it clings to them, and if they are /that/ cavalier with nukes.

Well I intend to take it to just before my nation's first contact with another nation, and that could end up as several things dependant on comments like yours and what I think of.

Now to your points.

Yes, nuclear bombs can be quite effective, especially the EMP effect. However, it should be noted that in the era of atmospheric nuclear testing EMPs did not affect electronics that much. Why? Well the answer is simple, electronics were not that advanced then. Now it would shut down your phone, computer, etc, but back in the era of vacuum tubes electronics were not that effected by EMPs. Now that could result in a number of things for my fictional civilization. Computers could progress as normal, but everything is put in faraday cages and slightly rad-hardened. Computer progress is retarded due to the tendency of transistor experiments to be fried by EMP and radiation, thus making computers impossible for a few tens of years. This will not have much of an effect in the long run on computers themselves, but might create other oddities, such as

Now to the next point. You are kind of overestimating the dangers of radiation to the wildlife. The main reason we are so nervous about radiation exposure IRL is those damn hippies the potential cancer risk increases that go along with it. Most animals do not live long enough to see radiation induced cancer, however humans do, thus our tolerance to radiation is quite low. Animals on the other hand could easily survive 20-30 times background without dying en masse and still maintain a decent population. So the effects of being careless with radioactive material would not be felt until the shit hits the fan. When that occurs is interesting because it depends upon a large number of factors, how many megatons of nuclear explosives are detonated per year, what is the fusion yield % of those, how much of the radioactive material form them goes into the atmosphere, how much is localized, how many nuclear reactors have accidents, etc. At the very least people should be somewhat careful when they see the effects on crops, but how careful they would be in war is very hard to pin down and while the entire premise of my idea is rampant speculation that would be an whole new level of rampant speculation.

[Lubyak]

I too would personally recommend against FTL weapons being commonplace in a nation's arsenal as well unless a minute amount is used as some sort of plot device. Like every other overpowered technology the stigma from it is that players try using it to "win" what is supposed to be a collaborative story writing effort. As with all things in NSFT, players are free to do as the wish, just as others are free to ignore them.

My tech base is on the high end scale for NSFT... But I go through great lengths to balance it out; if I don't realize something is overpowered right away.. I do later on and think of ways to debuff it lightly. High tech can be a blessing and a curse; if written right it can make for a good setting; if its the central thing in a thread; then well somethings wrong. Its there to augment the setting, not all players with wild tech are in it to "win it"

Given that the mantra is 'everyone's tech works as well as it needs to given the needs of the plot', I'm not sure it's really proper to speak of someone's tech base being 'higher' or 'lower' than anyone else. I mean, perhaps having a culture wherein one's citizens view themselves as the height of development, but that's it. Really, there shouldn't be a need to nerf your stuff, as everything's effectiveness should be discussed, and any 'superweapons' should be used as plot points, nothing more.

[Atomic Utopia]

My tech base is on the high end scale for NSFT... But I go through great lengths to balance it out; if I don't realize something is overpowered right away.. I do later on and think of ways to debuff it lightly. High tech can be a blessing and a curse; if written right it can make for a good setting; if its the central thing in a thread; then well somethings wrong. Its there to augment the setting, not all players with wild tech are in it to "win it"

How do you define "balanced" and "OP" in collaborative storytelling? Winning is not the goal in RP, nor is loosing, so how do you define it as OP or UP? This is not just casting die and hoping for victory by using the right "tech" cards, moreover is it writing a story for everyone to enjoy. You can always say your FTL gun missed, the captain fell asleep at the console, or any other number of things to prevent it from nuking your enemies. So the only way I see someone being OP as possible is if that someone were to make a "Mary Suetopia" and RP it as being perfect, which makes for very boring storytelling as it is and is an example of bad RP.

Now mind, this is just my take on things, and I am not that experienced in RP, but it seems hard to define something as "OP" or "UP" and much easier to define things as "good examples of RP" and "things I wish I did not see".

[The Fedral Union]

My tech base is on the high end scale for NSFT... But I go through great lengths to balance it out; if I don't realize something is overpowered right away.. I do later on and think of ways to debuff it lightly. High tech can be a blessing and a curse; if written right it can make for a good setting; if its the central thing in a thread; then well somethings wrong. Its there to augment the setting, not all players with wild tech are in it to "win it"

Given that the mantra is 'everyone's tech works as well as it needs to given the needs of the plot', I'm not sure it's really proper to speak of someone's tech base being 'higher' or 'lower' than anyone else. I mean, perhaps having a culture wherein one's citizens view themselves as the height of development, but that's it. Really, there shouldn't be a need to nerf your stuff, as everything's effectiveness should be discussed, and any 'superweapons' should be used as plot points, nothing more.

I remember when people pushed realism, constantly; well you know whats realistic? Technological advancement. This is an MMO... By and large. To balance things out for story is valid; if you put the effort in to your tech base, to your culture, to your nation; and never claim to be god. There is no issue saying "We're high tech insofar as..." Because being high tech dos not make you indestructible; hard to beat? Sure.. or Easy... who knows your the people that advocate life is cheap and carpet nuke worlds.

Well guess what.. You don't want a full retaliatory second strike that could cripple you? Don't commit genocide against the wrong nations. .. Examples like that annoy me.

[Tinfect]

How do you define "balanced" and "OP" in collaborative storytelling? Winning is not the goal in RP, nor is loosing, so how do you define it as OP or UP? This is not just casting die and hoping for victory by using the right "tech" cards, moreover is it writing a story for everyone to enjoy. You can always say your FTL gun missed, the captain fell asleep at the console, or any other number of things to prevent it from nuking your enemies. So the only way I see someone being OP as possible is if that someone were to make a "Mary Suetopia" and RP it as being perfect, which makes for very boring storytelling as it is and is an example of bad RP.

Now mind, this is just my take on things, and I am not that experienced in RP, but it seems hard to define something as "OP" or "UP" and much easier to define things as "good examples of RP" and "things I wish I did not see".

I know I'm not exactly part of this conversation, but I'd like to toss in my two cents here.
Take the example of my Planetcracker, we'll use the Enclave iI as a reference here because the Enclave I has some crippling weaknesses that stop it from being deployed in Combat beyond the odd Bomb and Run sort of deal. In any case, that's something that, if handled badly, could very easily be OP as all hell, but I don't quite think mine is, and I'll explain why in a moment.
From my Factbook, you'll find that the Enclave II, besides the massive, planetcracking Railgun, has fairly light armaments, compared to just about anything else around its size, even if it does have a lot of them. This is to try and keep them as less of a Front-Line Battleship, and more of a Superweapon that needs to be protected somewhat, in addition to its rather limited armaments, its shields are hardly comparable to an Inferno Dreadnought's, which has been demonstrated in the PTFS Civil War Which I only mention because you were there, when the Cold Light of Dawn's shields managed to eat a hit from the Shadow of Enlightenment, but the Chekhov's Gun could not manage a similar feat. Hell, after that, we only managed to use it as a tool to threaten Acheronis, and they still managed to finish it off, resulting in a Misfire that crippled the Allied Offensive. The point I am trying to get at here, is that while it is a superweapon, that we can use to blow up planets, and Ships alike, it can, by no means, operate against any number of Ships alone, unless they are exceptionally fragile.

Just take a look at the thing's size, 2 Kilometers on the longest Axis, 1.8 on everything else, logically, the Imperium could slap Heavy Anti-Ship Beams all over that thing, for the record, the only reason the Rassvet Dreadnought does not is because the design is 100 Years old, and it cost an incredible amount of money to even refit, much less redesign. but I haven't mostly because I want to keep it within a semblance of Balance. I suppose that comes from the fact that I play far too many RTS Games, but I like to try and avoid clear, impassable advantages over most Nations. As it is, if you deployed a handful of Ships against a lone Enclave II, it would likely not be able to win, unless I am seriously underestimating the Fragility of your ships.

[Rhoderberg]

For what it's worth, if you have trillions of people, you can afford the loss of a planet or two.

To make an comparison, there's no need to escalate straight to MAD just because you lost a division to tactical nuclear weaponry.

[Kyrusia]

My tech base is on the high end scale for NSFT... But I go through great lengths to balance it out; if I don't realize something is overpowered right away.. I do later on and think of ways to debuff it lightly. High tech can be a blessing and a curse; if written right it can make for a good setting; if its the central thing in a thread; then well somethings wrong. Its there to augment the setting, not all players with wild tech are in it to "win it"

How do you define "balanced" and "OP" in collaborative storytelling? Winning is not the goal in RP, nor is loosing, so how do you define it as OP or UP? This is not just casting die and hoping for victory by using the right "tech" cards, moreover is it writing a story for everyone to enjoy. You can always say your FTL gun missed, the captain fell asleep at the console, or any other number of things to prevent it from nuking your enemies. So the only way I see someone being OP as possible is if that someone were to make a "Mary Suetopia" and RP it as being perfect, which makes for very boring storytelling as it is and is an example of bad RP.

Now mind, this is just my take on things, and I am not that experienced in RP, but it seems hard to define something as "OP" or "UP" and much easier to define things as "good examples of RP" and "things I wish I did not see".

Collaboration, compromise, creativity, and consistency answers the question of "what is/is not over-powered" fairly succinctly: there are two, broad sources. One, there is what, with over a decade worth of experience, the general NSFT community considers to be, at its basis, "over-powered," with the demonstration of its use as not such being judged based upon its merits of execution, namely whether in the use of x-concept a player is collaborating with others, compromising for the sake of mutual enjoyment, is creative with the concept's deployment, and is consistent with its use; in short, something is "over-powered" when a user uses it to power-game, and it is perceived as such by a broad portion of the community.

The second method of determination is what I call the "First Line of Concern." Namely, if the people whom a player is conversing with, roleplaying with, etc., regularly says, "Hey, you might want to tone this down a bit," it is either an instance of the first presenting itself, or it is an instance where the players you are conversing/roleplaying with are directly concerned you may be acting beyond what is typically considered acceptable within the bounds of either a) their personal conventions, b) the community's conventions, or c) both. Even so, the answer to this issue is the same: collaborate with said players and come to a compromise over the concept's deployment.

There are, as it says in the original post of this thread, "no 'hard' rules. There is not a thread somewhere that will define what 'is' and what 'is not' acceptable[.]" It depends, as others have indicated, on the trust a given group of players (and, extending maximally outward, the community as a whole) places in a given player not to "power-game" (or, putting it another way, "utilize over-powered concepts").

In the case of this thread, one can readily determine which is which simply by reading the advice given; it is easy to gauge a general consensus on an idea based upon the responses to such and the advice given in regards to its usage and/or execution. This is because, largely, there are certain things which the NSFT has come to accept after trial and error of a given concept in deployment through roleplay; this is one of the reasons why "hive mind states," "artificial intelligence states," "empires spanning multiple galaxies," etc. are often met with considerable concern. It is because, in the history of Future Tech, the execution of such concepts has often been overwhelmingly negative, often used as a means to "win" a conflict or, directly, "beat other players," regardless of story. This is not, however, always the only reasoning; in many cases, there are simply conventions in FT which have arisen organically without external perturbation. The ultimate end of every "space fighter" discussion is an example of such, so are certain issues involving vessel length/volume (with the generally accepted range being between a few meters and three-or-so kilometers, for future reference), the nature of charged particle beams and neutral particle beams in atmosphere and in a vacuum (respectively), etc.

Of course, there is nothing saying a player is forced to abide by these conventions; conversely, there is nothing saying other players are forced to accept the claims of a given player for a concept, either. In the end, FT - like the rest of NationStates roleplaying - is based on voluntary consent to craft a fictitious reality; most, if not all, of the conventions one finds in this thread arise from a lengthy history of this relationship, giving rise to certain "do's" and "do not's" of advice and assistance. To answer your question directly: things which most players wish to see are those which adhere to the conventions found throughout the FT community and, thus, the concepts utilized therein tend to be accepted by the broadest portion of the community possible. (Which is, effectively, the point of this thread: to provide those seeking advice and assistance, help in regards to meeting the conventions by which the broadest portion of the community adheres to and, as such, trying to increase to the maximum level said player's ability to readily and easily find roleplay partners.)

Hope that helps and elucidates this general tangent.

Edit: As for issues of "realism," insofar as a given concept (such as a weapon) demonstrating (or not demonstrating) what, according to the laws of physics in reality, it should/should not do? This is largely irrelevant, unless such becomes a concern directly with the people another roleplayer is roleplaying with and they make them such. It is commonly said in FT, "Shut up with the science; show me the effects." This is, largely, true; technology is largely window dressing, meaning what the plot (and a player's roleplay partners demand as necessary for such together) calls for trumps, broadly speaking, what reality says should happen. If a laser should be x-color and a player wants it to be y-color, that is fine. As I like to advise people: "Feasibility trumps realism, but adds balance; even so, in the end, plot trumps feasibility."

[The Ben Boys]

How do you define "balanced" and "OP" in collaborative storytelling? Winning is not the goal in RP, nor is loosing, so how do you define it as OP or UP? This is not just casting die and hoping for victory by using the right "tech" cards, moreover is it writing a story for everyone to enjoy. You can always say your FTL gun missed, the captain fell asleep at the console, or any other number of things to prevent it from nuking your enemies. So the only way I see someone being OP as possible is if that someone were to make a "Mary Suetopia" and RP it as being perfect, which makes for very boring storytelling as it is and is an example of bad RP.

Now mind, this is just my take on things, and I am not that experienced in RP, but it seems hard to define something as "OP" or "UP" and much easier to define things as "good examples of RP" and "things I wish I did not see".

Well the 44th Indp Legion RPs with ships that are about 5-900 kilometers across, but 44 takes the unique approach of fighting other NPCs that are just as OP as 44 is, using RPs that in the setting of this massive war between super-advanced nations. As I recall 44's people were just handed the technology and don't understand it, adding a new dynamic. Plus the one time I actually fought 44 the sign up thread said "I'm here to lose the battle"; my ragtag bunch of frigates and a cruiser were nearly destroyed, but in an act of tactical genius and heroism managed to bring 44's massive multi-kilometer ship to a draw. All 44 wanted was big battles and to have fun, and 44 enticed people by stroking their egos and saying "hey, I don't mind losing". So that's one way to do things.

But to tackle the "Mary Suetopia" idea that is prevalent in some nations; I know it's all well and good to say "we've eliminated the poor" but usually people don't provide the downsides to their policies, i.e. lack of rights or everyone's equally poor. It's somewhat annoying in nations with such detail and RPing ability yet they can't be realistic when it comes to economics. It's a minor thing since it doesn't really impact RPers, but it doesn't fit the romanticized view a lot of players have of their nations. I used to be like that earlier on in NSFT, but I flip-flopped between Dickensonizing it to make it romantic or having my people value money less culturally therefore it wasn't as much of an issue (currently I'm on the latter). Anyways, it's more of a passing annoyance than an RP issue, so as long as they are good sports in the RP everything is fine.