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

[Excidium Planetis]

Um, another question real quick. For those of you that put pictures of Spaceships/Stations in your Factbooks an whatever else... Where do you find said pictures, or do you make them yourselves?

DeviantArt is great for finding neat Sci-fi pics. If not that, searching Google images is great too. I usually try searching more specific keywords ("Warp ship" instead of "space ship", for example) to find either better fitting images or images not as likely to be used by other people. Borrowing images from a videogame or movie works too, but be warned that you'll likely see those images used by other RPers for their own ships.

One more thing about that: using those images without permission is somewhat of a grey area... some people like to ask first before using, or only use images that are public use. Some people use the images but credit the original artist (I have done this when I borrowed a considerable amount of IP from an artist). Other people just don't care and use the images.

Anyways, I don't have any examples of FT nations using their NS stats as their IC stats.

Me.

A reason would be that those stats change every time you respond to your issues

Stats don't usually change your nation that drastically, but at any rate I explain it as "we have a direct democracy and very frequent elections, national policy can turn on a dime".

your population keeps on growing by 5-8 million people per update,

That's a problem for me. I don't actually have any explanation for that (according to my calculations, I'd need a population of 153.5 billion to have that kind of population growth per day be reasonable).

I did it. There. Now, can we talk about something more important?

This seems more like you've given up rather than realized what the problem is.
But I'll stop talking.

[Allanea]

Anyways, I don't have any examples of FT nations using their NS stats as their IC stats.

I do, to an extent.

[Singaporean Transhumans]

I think, let's be honest here, if you want to use NS stats and not be an asshole, use NS stats on only yourself and respect the factuality of others' factbooks. Translate your stats into a form that can be compared to what the factbook writes, and you're good.

but population growth man

Oh, yeah, that, how do I say it...let's just say you don't overly wank with your population and keep a RP-wise reasonably sized military you're probably good. People like New Aeyariss use their NS population but controls their military size, yes he's not FT but just giving an example.

[The Uthani Imperium]

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Looking at the issue of why many people generally don't use Nation States gameside stats (or often times any sort of stats at all), kinda brings you back to the core of how the Future Tech community has chosen to structure and conduct itself over the years. To use myself as an example, and to be blunt, I don't give a damn what your factbook or gameside stats say about your population, military numbers, economic strength, or etc. Why? Because at the end of the day we're a community that is principally story driven, and very rarely if ever does your average Roleplay require an injection or statement of hard nation stats. That's not to say there's anything wrong with keeping track of these things, although generally when working on the Future Tech scale vagueness and "showing not telling" is your friend (ie. "The nation of X has a high population density, chronic overcrowding and shortage of living space is an issue on the forefront of people's minds." Instead of, "The nation of X has 13 Billion people.") Hard numbers tend not to matter so much, but rather your population is, again in my opinion, best reflected in the manner in which you portray your state. If you avoid a hard number but consistently portray your nation as overcrowded and etc. in RP, you can avoid the pitfalls of using population stats while still portraying the correct atmosphere and flavor for your nation that you wish to present.

So to sum all that up, nothing wrong with hard numbers, but generally they don't matter and it's better to have a grip on how you want your nation to feel and look rather than how many pretend digital people your pretend digital census has calculated.

Again though that's just my opinion, and I hope it helps to clear up some of the confusion of why and how people avoid hard numbers in FT.

[Tierra Prime]

After reading what you guys said about galaxies, I decided to refound my region as a star cluster. The location and size will remain vague so I can alter things to fit whatever RP I'm in.

[Genomita]

After some deliberation I've decided to include psychics in my nation's background. I know this is a big step away from harder sci fi and into science fantasy, but I'll try to keep their presence low-key and not game-breaking in any way. One of my goals regarding psychics in my nation is to clearly define what they can and cannot do, what causes their abilities and how they can be countered. I've also decided that these people would be treated with a measure of both caution and respect among other Genomitans, and that all of them would be required to have implants designed to supress their abilities or restrict their movement in case of emergency, and they would always be accompanied by someone trained to deal with psychic abilities and with the remote control to the psychics implants. This is because psychic powers are exceedingly rare and not well-understood in the Star Community, and psychics accept these conditions knowing that doing so could save a lot of lives if something goes wrong.

On the other hand, they would still be treated like any other member of the Star Community. They would still be allowed to work, have children and earn access to different augmentations through their contributions to the Star Community, just with some added precautions due to the nature of their abilities. Both Genomitan psychics and their guardian would be required to live up to high standards of discipline, and psychics would have access to a place where they can practice their abilities without risk of harming innocents.

With that said, I'm still not sure how to define the exact nature of their abilities or the origins of these powers.

On a completely unrelated note, I have some difficulty coming up with good naming conventions for my units, both ground and space. I'm trying to think of something that emphasizes both their protective and augmented nature, such as sentinel, champion etc. but nothing too cheesy. I also definetly need a better term than "Exobeast" to describe the symbiotic organisms-with-some-conventional-tech serving as my nation's equivalent of combat vehicles.

[The Ben Boys]

With that said, I'm still not sure how to define the exact nature of their abilities or the origins of these powers.

Treat it like fantasy magic, as it's essentially the same as space magic. Read Brandon Sanderson's laws of magic for help.

On a completely unrelated note, I have some difficulty coming up with good naming conventions for my units, both ground and space. I'm trying to think of something that emphasizes both their protective and augmented nature, such as sentinel, champion etc. but nothing too cheesy.

The Greeks and Romans are some good stuff, but clichéd. Sassanid ranks are also some good stuff for inspiration.

I also definetly need a better term than "Exobeast" to describe the symbiotic organisms-with-some-conventional-tech serving as my nation's equivalent of combat vehicles.

I kind of like that term, but it's your choice.

[OMGeverynameistaken]

Often, in real life, nations will have a 'theme' for naming their equipment. In the US, for example, tanks are named after successful generals (Patton, Walker, Abrams, etc.,) the British start all their tanks with the letter 'C' because they're nominally continuations of the 'cruiser' line of tanks from WWII. In the case of warships, the Russian Empire named its battleships after rulers, nobles, generals, or famous battles, its cruisers after admirals, mythical figures, or gems, gave its destroyers adjectives (valiant, imperious, etc.,) and its destroyers after seabirds.

Presumably there's a military committee somewhere in your nation coming up with the names, and military establishments generally value 'intimidation' over 'not being cliche.' So I'd say it's actually quite realistic for things to have cliche names. I mean, China's current line of fighter jets are all the '歼' series, which basically translates as 'to annihilate'.

[Genomita]

With that said, I'm still not sure how to define the exact nature of their abilities or the origins of these powers.

Treat it like fantasy magic, as it's essentially the same as space magic. Read Brandon Sanderson's laws of magic for help.

On a completely unrelated note, I have some difficulty coming up with good naming conventions for my units, both ground and space. I'm trying to think of something that emphasizes both their protective and augmented nature, such as sentinel, champion etc. but nothing too cheesy.

The Greeks and Romans are some good stuff, but clichéd. Sassanid ranks are also some good stuff for inspiration.

I also definetly need a better term than "Exobeast" to describe the symbiotic organisms-with-some-conventional-tech serving as my nation's equivalent of combat vehicles.

Great finds ^^ Both the laws of magic and the sassanid ranks look extremely helpful. On top of that the sassanid ranks have inspired me to look up persian names for my characters. Since I usually suck at coming up with good names this will b a big help in future RPs.
I kind of like that term, but it's your choice.

[Excidium Planetis]

On a completely unrelated note, I have some difficulty coming up with good naming conventions for my units, both ground and space. I'm trying to think of something that emphasizes both their protective and augmented nature, such as sentinel, champion etc. but nothing too cheesy. I also definetly need a better term than "Exobeast" to describe the symbiotic organisms-with-some-conventional-tech serving as my nation's equivalent of combat vehicles.

All Excidian Carriers are named after animal groups... an adjective paired with an animal group name, to be exact. Examples include: Ravenous Pack, Majestic Pride, Piercing Descent (yes, Descent is a group of Woodpeckers), etc.

Excidian cruisers follow a somewhat similar pattern: adjectives paired with medieval occupations. Royal Astronomer, Honor Guard, Grim Executioner, etc. Destroyers are all about possessives: Light's Shadow, Cat's Meow, Death's Harbinger, etc.

As for the ship classifications themselves, it should be obvious: All my ship classes are medieval weapons: Scimitar, Pike, Halberd, etc.

[The Ben Boys]

On a completely unrelated note, I have some difficulty coming up with good naming conventions for my units, both ground and space. I'm trying to think of something that emphasizes both their protective and augmented nature, such as sentinel, champion etc. but nothing too cheesy. I also definetly need a better term than "Exobeast" to describe the symbiotic organisms-with-some-conventional-tech serving as my nation's equivalent of combat vehicles.

All Excidian Carriers are named after animal groups... an adjective paired with an animal group name, to be exact. Examples include: Ravenous Pack, Majestic Pride, Piercing Descent (yes, Descent is a group of Woodpeckers), etc.

Excidian cruisers follow a somewhat similar pattern: adjectives paired with medieval occupations. Royal Astronomer, Honor Guard, Grim Executioner, etc. Destroyers are all about possessives: Light's Shadow, Cat's Meow, Death's Harbinger, etc.

As for the ship classifications themselves, it should be obvious: All my ship classes are medieval weapons: Scimitar, Pike, Halberd, etc.

For my ships I have a "it sounds cool" attitude. "What the heck does Maskon mean?" is usually followed by cultural BS like "A legendary creature in Ilencian folk" or the Sobanu Fields-class referring to a battle in my nation's early interstellar history. Adds to the experience and immersion of one's culture, IMHO.

[The V O I D]

Quick question: does at least one person here use Quantum Supercomputers, combined with FTL technology to make a computer so powerful it is literally FTL speed in terms of processing and power and such? If not, I do. If so, can someone give me advise on how I should integrate them properly with an RP? I am actually considering doing an II RP involving one of my Quantums (what I call these types of computers as a shorthand) somehow fall into the hands of an AI, and then shenanigans happen wherein people can get involved if they want.

[SquareDisc City]

Quantum computing is probably widespread, at least in the wider context of how many people will give any real info about their nation's computers. I'm not sure what you mean by "literally FTL speed".

In the real world it's been worked out that if you link a computer to a time machine you can make it do just about any calculation near-instantly. It's also worked out that FTL travel and time travel amount to the same thing. However time travel is very difficult to RP well, and when the topic came up before it went over like a lead balloon with many people, so it's probably best avoided as anything more than a one-off plot device.

[Tahar Joblis]

Often, in real life, nations will have a 'theme' for naming their equipment. In the US, for example, tanks are named after successful generals (Patton, Walker, Abrams, etc.,) the British start all their tanks with the letter 'C' because they're nominally continuations of the 'cruiser' line of tanks from WWII. In the case of warships, the Russian Empire named its battleships after rulers, nobles, generals, or famous battles, its cruisers after admirals, mythical figures, or gems, gave its destroyers adjectives (valiant, imperious, etc.,) and its destroyers after seabirds.

Presumably there's a military committee somewhere in your nation coming up with the names, and military establishments generally value 'intimidation' over 'not being cliche.' So I'd say it's actually quite realistic for things to have cliche names. I mean, China's current line of fighter jets are all the '歼' series, which basically translates as 'to annihilate'.

The US naming scheme for ships was relatively neat in the WWI-WWII era after it was systematized.

Battleships were named after states.
Cruisers were named after smaller places, generally cities (sometimes cities made famous by a battle - Gettysburg as a place is certainly otherwise not important enough to warrant attention)
Destroyers were named after people (mostly admirals).

Carriers were a bit of a grab-bag, because during this era, people weren't quite sure how carriers fell in this scheme. The US also made two battlecruisers in this era... not quite battleships ... which were named after two major US territories that were not quite yet states (Alaska and Hawaii).

This also meant that battleships named after a state could in some ways be considered tied to that state. The USS North Carolina is currently a museum ship parked off the NC coast. The USS New Jersey is likewise a museum ship parked off the New Jersey coast. The USS Alabama is now a museum ship parked off the Alabama coast.

Now it seems like carriers are getting named after people. Submarines have a lot of state and city names.

Another thing - if your nation changes naming conventions on new things, there may still be old things named using the old naming scheme.

I think, let's be honest here, if you want to use NS stats and not be an asshole, use NS stats on only yourself and respect the factuality of others' factbooks. Translate your stats into a form that can be compared to what the factbook writes, and you're good.

but population growth man

Oh, yeah, that, how do I say it...let's just say you don't overly wank with your population and keep a RP-wise reasonably sized military you're probably good. People like New Aeyariss use their NS population but controls their military size, yes he's not FT but just giving an example.

I view actually using NS stats as one of the motivations for going into FT. It's pretty ridiculous to try to fit my NS population on a shared globe, but as a starfaring polity in far-FT, those population figures make a lot more sense. I use my NS nation descriptor and stats to inform how I play my nation fairly strongly. The pressure of how ridiculous the population figures were is part of what pushed me into developing a FT "phase" of my nation, TBQH. (Happened a very long time ago.)

(The shared population levels of people RPing together also, IIRC, motivated some of the drive for people to split off and play on different worlds or multiple worlds, which in some cases intrinsically brought in FT, though a lot of that also had to do with other factors.)

[The V O I D]

Quantum computing is probably widespread, at least in the wider context of how many people will give any real info about their nation's computers. I'm not sure what you mean by "literally FTL speed".

In the real world it's been worked out that if you link a computer to a time machine you can make it do just about any calculation near-instantly. It's also worked out that FTL travel and time travel amount to the same thing. However time travel is very difficult to RP well, and when the topic came up before it went over like a lead balloon with many people, so it's probably best avoided as anything more than a one-off plot device.

What I meant is I remove speed as an issue, almost, in terms of computing/processing. Think of it like this: you make a calculator that knows your answers before you even touch it. It just knows the answer, always. I'm not sure if that helps you understand what I was trying to say about my Quantum computers but hopefully it does.

[The United Dominion]

Quantum computing is probably widespread, at least in the wider context of how many people will give any real info about their nation's computers. I'm not sure what you mean by "literally FTL speed".

In the real world it's been worked out that if you link a computer to a time machine you can make it do just about any calculation near-instantly. It's also worked out that FTL travel and time travel amount to the same thing. However time travel is very difficult to RP well, and when the topic came up before it went over like a lead balloon with many people, so it's probably best avoided as anything more than a one-off plot device.

What I meant is I remove speed as an issue, almost, in terms of computing/processing. Think of it like this: you make a calculator that knows your answers before you even touch it. It just knows the answer, always. I'm not sure if that helps you understand what I was trying to say about my Quantum computers but hopefully it does.

It made sense to me, but it is also silly. How could you ever trust that the calculator is displaying the right information when it could be displaying the answer to the person who is going to ask it right after you? For that matter, if you already have the answer, you don't ever need to input any expressions (unless you do need to right after you see the answer, in which case why even bother? Most pointless piece of tech ever), which means that it can't ever figure out the answer because no expression was ever fed to it in its future-history.

[Axis Nova]

I havn't really checked out FT in a very long time. Do FT intro still commonly get shit up by random people dropping in gigantic fleets to grief the newbie/steal focus for themselves/etc?

[Tierra Prime]

I havn't really checked out FT in a very long time. Do FT intro still commonly get shit up by random people dropping in gigantic fleets to grief the newbie/steal focus for themselves/etc?

It's liable to happen if you leave a thread open.

[Lubyak]

I havn't really checked out FT in a very long time. Do FT intro still commonly get shit up by random people dropping in gigantic fleets to grief the newbie/steal focus for themselves/etc?

Not really anymore. We've done our best to try and re-focus the community on ideas of inter player co-operation and compromise, along with an emphasis on story telling rather than competitive RP. We still get the occasional person who jumps in and claims to rule whole galaxy groups with a fleet of ten thousand ships, each a hundred miles long, but now they're much more likely to be laughed out and told to scale it way down. FT's changed a lot I've been told, and for the better I'd say.

[Stormwrath]

I havn't really checked out FT in a very long time. Do FT intro still commonly get shit up by random people dropping in gigantic fleets to grief the newbie/steal focus for themselves/etc?

Not really anymore. We've done our best to try and re-focus the community on ideas of inter player co-operation and compromise, along with an emphasis on story telling rather than competitive RP. We still get the occasional person who jumps in and claims to rule whole galaxy groups with a fleet of ten thousand ships, each a hundred miles long, but now they're much more likely to be laughed out and told to scale it way down. FT's changed a lot I've been told, and for the better I'd say.

I'd say that there are still some of them, but they tend to be in separate FT groups instead of being in FT-Prime for the reason you put up there.

[SquareDisc City]

Remember, you can always set out some ground rules if you don't want your thread being derailed. And you can always ask someone to leave.

[Krosana]

Just a question, what are the species of your nations like? I'm thinking of changing mine.

[Ferret Civilization]

Just a question, what are the species of your nations like? I'm thinking of changing mine.

Well, I'm not as creative as the others here that will probably show/say some great stuff about their people(s). But I just stuck with anthropomorphic Ferrets. Making them as close to actual ferrets as possible with intelligence and a few anatomical differences while keeping some of their major problems they get health wise.

[Excidium Planetis]

What I meant is I remove speed as an issue, almost, in terms of computing/processing. Think of it like this: you make a calculator that knows your answers before you even touch it. It just knows the answer, always. I'm not sure if that helps you understand what I was trying to say about my Quantum computers but hopefully it does.

It made sense to me, but it is also silly. How could you ever trust that the calculator is displaying the right information when it could be displaying the answer to the person who is going to ask it right after you? For that matter, if you already have the answer, you don't ever need to input any expressions (unless you do need to right after you see the answer, in which case why even bother? Most pointless piece of tech ever), which means that it can't ever figure out the answer because no expression was ever fed to it in its future-history.

Hmmm... This opens up some neat RP ideas.

Now, my nation currently operates under the Novikov self consistency principle to prevent timeline alterations, but a time model I am quite fond of is the branching timeline: every time a decision is made, a new "worldline" is created for each possible outcome. In this case, with an FTL computer that displayed the answer you would have a timeline in which a person input the equation, and one in which the person received the answer beforehand and then didn't need to do so. The answer then could be said to have come from an alternate timeline.

And now I have an urge to make an RP where an FTL calculator gives out answers that change the fate of the world... Or not, given that the computer might only give the answer and not the equation it answers, leaving everyone in the timeline with useless information.

EDIT: Wait, isn't this almost like the premise of the movie Tomorrowland, where the computer gives a future view of the world, but it turns out that the actions caused by seeing that dim view of the future make it true, and going against the predicted answer actually changes the prediction?

[Tierra Prime]

Just a question, what are the species of your nations like? I'm thinking of changing mine.

Technically normal humans, but the widespread use of gene therapy, cybernetics, and nanobots sort of blurs that line.