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

[Achesia]

Neither does ignoring other posts or the point being argued in favor of complaining about hostility because someone dislikes something you like.

That has absolutly nothing to do with Hoob's point. Nor has any post been ignored. Infact I have constantly encouraged that if someone does not like ORBATs that it is just grand and more power to them.

[SquareDisc City]

Thanks for the insights. Giving it a little more thought, I feel it's not a number that's especially relevant after all. Rarely would my nation be deploying its entire space force, and any conflict that does demand that kind of deployment would also demand ramping up production and rendering peacetime numbers obsolete. What I think is more relevant is how many people are or have served in the Space Force, and thus how likely you are to meet a former space pilot, engineer, or whatever in everyday life. For that, to me I think a reasonable figure is about 1 in a thousand, and I can come at some idea of overall force size from that. And I'm aware that much of the human and material resources should be in support, with 'front line' combat spacecraft and their crews in the minority. The typical Space Force member is probably some kind of technician or engineer, with hot-shot pilots and senior commanders a rarity.

For that matter, I'm a puppet. Can I use my main's instead? Great! 25,000 capital ships it is.

I take it you consider that, at least, would be too many.

[Thoricia]

The Thousand Per Billion rule was nothing but a means of control by a tyrant who wanted it make sure he would always be the most powerful nation around because he was one of the oldest players. It served no purpose other than for him to effortlessly and immediately defeat any other nation that challenged him be it ICly or OOCly.

It is dead and gone now, along with him.

By the gods why are you so hostile? lol

How was it hostile?

Conversely why are you being so disruptive and combative towards players that are regular contributors to this thread?

[Achesia]

By the gods why are you so hostile? lol

How was it hostile?

Conversely why are you being so disruptive and combative towards players that are regular contributors to this thread?

I do believe Hobb has just been on the least popular side of this debate. That does not make him combative or disruptive. Its his opinion.

[The United Dominion]

Both of you seem to be on edge today. lol

I said my piece about using the system.

I'm not on edge at all; I just think if you're going to post, maybe you should respond to legitimate comments. Because this is a discussion thread. If you can't defend your argument, why even bother?

Neither does ignoring other posts or the point being argued in favor of complaining about hostility because someone dislikes something you like.

That has absolutly nothing to do with Hoob's point. Nor has any post been ignored. Infact I have constantly encouraged that if someone does not like ORBATs that it is just grand and more power to them.

Hobb's was literally just complaining about hostility instead of responding to a legitimate post.

It smacks of stirring up trouble just to be disruptive.

For that matter, I'm a puppet. Can I use my main's instead? Great! 25,000 capital ships it is.

I take it you consider that, at least, would be too many.

I do, especially when you take the "capital" part to heart. And then when you use the corollary, which was "less = stronger" I can have nigh-invincible superships by having 1/25th of my allowed capitals in exchange for making them stronger. And 1000 capitals is still a lot of capitals.

[Achesia]

Both of you seem to be on edge today. lol

I said my piece about using the system.

I'm not on edge at all; I just think if you're going to post, maybe you should respond to legitimate comments. Because this is a discussion thread. If you can't defend your argument, why even bother?

That has absolutly nothing to do with Hoob's point. Nor has any post been ignored. Infact I have constantly encouraged that if someone does not like ORBATs that it is just grand and more power to them.

Hobb's was literally just complaining about hostility instead of responding to a legitimate post.

It smacks of stirring up trouble just to be disruptive.

I take it you consider that, at least, would be too many.

I do, especially when you take the "capital" part to heart. And then when you use the corollary, which was "less = stronger" I can have nigh-invincible superships by having 1/25th of my allowed capitals in exchange for making them stronger. And 1000 capitals is still a lot of capitals.

In his defense Voc could have wrote that and several other posts in a more tactful manner, so Hobb's concerns are legitiment.

[Hobbeebia]

Santh,

I love you my intention is not to be disruptive I assure you. In regards to his original question about the 1000 per 1 Billion I only stated its a usable system. I use the very same system abit in a far more constrained form, but still the same premise.

Its a valid system if one chooses to use it and as long as its applied correctly.

[SquareDisc City]

I do, especially when you take the "capital" part to heart.

Doesn't help that that word (capital ship) doesn't mean what I thought it meant, oops. I had in mind a wider grouping that includes most combat vessels larger than 'fighters'. Though even then the definition of borderline cases gets tricky, as to whether there's anything larger than fighters but not included in the 'major craft' count.

[The United Dominion]

I do, especially when you take the "capital" part to heart.

Doesn't help that that word (capital ship) doesn't mean what I thought it meant, oops. I had in mind a wider grouping that includes most combat vessels larger than 'fighters'. Though even then the definition of borderline cases gets tricky, as to whether there's anything larger than fighters but not included in the 'major craft' count.

It's not a very clear rule, which is one of its failings.

At the end of the day, though, what really matters most is your nation's character. Would they even have thousands of capitals? Would they have thousands of ubertanking capitals? The ratio is purely meta; using it to define something that should be defined by the actual nation - its policies, requirements, and possibilities - is a form of metagaming by definition. Build your nation, and then decide how your fleet works. The national setting is far more important than some military figures that will rarely be truly relevant.

[The Fedral Union]

One nations capital ship is anothers escort.. FT wouldn't realistically have a standardized definition's beyond capabilities , and even that differs between nations. In furtherance I could find it acceptable that over a long period of a time a nation could maintain a significantly large force of ships. Because consider this, those ships need an industrial base and population to maintain (if automation isn't a huge factor). Is your nation expansionist? Do your people have the social will to maintain such a force? Does your nation require it ? How does tradition play in to the views on your military?.


To touch on ORBAT's...

ORBAT's aren't here or there, it depends on the intent the post has. Because someone has to have intimate knowledge of how each of their ships and forces would work with one another in any given tactical and strategic situation. So to thumb one nose at those folks who know how to use ORBAT's should really double take on what is required to make one work.

[Neornith]

Since some people don't understand the ORBAT discussion has been beaten to death perhaps a new topic is in order.

One thing that's popped into my mind lately and it's something I haven't really given a lot of thought because it would mostly be factbook fluff.

FT missile guidance, what new methods or advancement of current methods do you see your nation as using?

[Hobbeebia]

I think depends on what missile I'm using. If I need to pepper something semi-intelligent guidance would be fine for getting to the target. If I'm launching a missile that need to be precise in its strike point then a V.I. guidance system with navigational capabilities built into the missile is the best option for us.

[SquareDisc City]

I've been playing Children of a Dead Earth lately and it makes the case for infrared homing, on the grounds that the only good countermeasure is flares which need to be quite massive to be effective. But then that is a near-future setting where spaceships are rather mass limited; with more advanced engines the penalty of extra mass for flares becomes less important. So for the UPT I think it would be a multiple-sensors system. Infrared of course, visible light imaging (and near IR and near UV), command guidance of course, possibly sensors to pick up the target's radio or FTL-comms emissions. And inertial navigation as a fallback, which should be pretty precise at reaching a point in space although there'll be error from inevitable imperfections in the missile's engines; the bigger issue is whether the target is still around when the missile gets there. The info from all the sensors would then be handled by a reasonably capable computer but one far short of a general "AI". (The UPT cannot make AIs small enough to fit on missiles or fighters, which is my excuse for keeping the fighters as dual drone/piloted capable.)

I think I'll rule out sensing either the target's gravity or any neutrino emissions it might make, at least for things the UPT uses. They just seem like a bit of a stretch because both are very weak signals, I can imagine a major warship being able to mount big enough neutrino sensors but not a small missile. That said in principle they'd work.

As far as countermeasures go, I've always just assumed jamming transmitters. Send a powerful radio signal, shine a bright laser, etc at the enemy missiles. That does have a few drawbacks though. It's not much good to send a jamming signal from the ship the missile is targeting because it can just home in on that signal, and jamming a salvo of missiles will require either a boatload of jamming transmitters or some clever multi-beam antenna system. Typically though the UPT would look for a 'hard kill' on enemy missiles anyway. Intercepting enemy missiles is one of the main tasks of fighters, which is a tactic I also find quite effective in Children of a Dead Earth, and if that doesn't work then there's always the point defense on the capital ships.

[Vocenae]

In his defense Voc could have wrote that and several other posts in a more tactful manner, so Hobb's concerns are legitiment.

It honestly wouldn't matter even if I was Mr. Rogers, simply because I'm the one out here trying to get the right information to the players that need it and thus having it counter the collected opinions of people new to the community which instantly makes me the 'bad guy'. Not to mention all the self-victimization that has been going on to make their 'advice' look more legitimate despite being proven incorrect by many different people. But let's move on to why Thousand Per Billion is bad, now that I'm no longer at work with three minutes left on my break and thus have more time and don't have to resort to a Cliffnotes TLDR.

A long time ago, in a galaxy much more different than this one, there was a player by the name of Bryn Shander. And he was a horrible, horrible person who attempted to rule FT with the Thousand Per Billion 'rule' and was successful until the community eventually became large enough that he and his little team of cohorts could no longer successfully intimidate people into acknowledging him (and by extension the rest of HERMES) as the most powerful nation in FT. He and his HERMES crew would roll around 'knocking heads together' to anyone who didn't acknowledge his greatness (and by extension their own) OOCly and ICly. Basically all these players were horribly abusive to anyone that didn't meet their approval and were actively killing the FT community because of it. Literal oppression, if you did not fall in line with them, you were more or less run out of the community and never allowed back in. Ever. And anyone that tried to speak in your defense would get the same treatment.

And Bryn, since he liked his powertrips, ICly and OOCly if you didn't allow him to put one of his stargates in your system (of which you were essentially forced to give him a not insignificant portion of space to him), then you were blacklisted from FT and they would make sure everyone knew it and would use lies and deceit to make sure that no one ever played with that player again. Even if you did allow him to put in a stargate and give him sovereign territory within your own national borders, you could never remove it or turn it off without suffering extreme OOC and IC consequences. If you even tried, he'd flood your system with warships and kill you with superior numbers of 'superior' starships based on the claim of "protecting sovereign Jannarii territory and property". He also could just remove you from the old community map whenever he wanted if you happened to piss him off.

And under the Thousand Per Billion 'rule', simply put, if you were founded after a certain date (more or less at that start of Nationstates itself), then you were fucked. You simply couldn't do anything ICly to counter him. And OOCly, because he was top dog, he could run you and anyone like you out of the community because he'd threaten them ICly and OOCly.

Needless to say, the Thousand Per Billion was a tool of control used by a incredibly horrible person whose primary goal was to 'win' at FT and be the most powerful player in it, with no one else being allowed any say in, well, anything. Not like how it is today, where players are free to do whatever the hell they want and no one can stop them (but at the same time, no one has to acknowledge the player pulling whatever craziness they might be pulling).

When his main nation was finally deleted because of multiple run-ins with Moderation and his tendency to call other players assholes (and at the end when he attempted to make an 'FT Union" in an attempt to hold onto his rapidly slipping powerbase, calling them Scabs, etc), his appeal was refused and he decided to run off declaring that without him FT would die and that "The game was over, everyone could go home". His team of cohorts then declared a massive 'strike' (sticking with the FT Union idea they were still trying to force on everyone) and refused to post until Bryn's nation was restored, thinking that they were so important to the community that everything would stop without Bryn and themselves. They luckily failed, nearly all of them faded away, leaving the community as it exists today in it's place.

So that is the history of Thousand Per Billion and why it is a very bad thing that should be avoided. It's one thing if you want to use your Gameside population simply for Consistency reasons (I use my gameside population as a very rough, never ICly stated base for worldbuilding purposes), but any rule that dictates "No matter what your nation is like, no matter how you've built it, you can only have this many ships" is foolish and dangerous. For more information on this topic and how utterly horrible the 'good old days' used to be, just go check out the old Argument Thread. And you'll also see the many, many, many players who have spoken out against TPB in the past and the many, many players who are glad that it died.

So yeah, you'll have to forgive me for not spelling out the whole story in three minutes with a cellphone and can only do a Cliffnotes TLDR for it. After six years of telling it you learn to condense.

Now, moving on to the current topic, which is missiles...

Frankly it's a unimportant detail that isn't really relevant to RP itself, but if it were ever to come up, where I need to show the exact details,then I'd probably go with a similar VI system. A program designed specifically for tracking, locking, launching and adjusting missiles on targets. Same goes with countermeasures, though less in terms of flares and more in simple armor tanking and using Point Defense lasers to melt the missiles before they hit. I wouldn't go full blown ship AI with it though, since I feel that treads a bit too close to Halo for my tastes.

[SquareDisc City]

Sounds to me like "thousand per billion" was a symptom more than a cause. Back on Facebook Nations there was no such rule but it was generally accepted that you should "stick to game stats", and that didn't seem to stop newcomers getting involved in RPs and even making a significant geopolitical impact. Indeed had we had an established spaceships:population ratio rule it might have stopped some of the problems FBN did have. Though NSFT's current approach stressing not being a dick and so on should stop problems anyway.

Anyway I think it's been well covered now.

On the more interesting topic, yeah, seeking to tank the missile hit is an option. In particular being able to "turtle" temporarily protecting vulnerable parts such as weapons and engines, probably by movable armour, would be very useful. (Sci-fi shields help there too). Not having that option in CoaDE is very noticeable, my missile salvos rarely deal the decisive blow themselves but typically knock out enemy engines or weapons making for an easier fight when I close with my warships.

[Hittanryan]

For the record, this is what spawned the ORBAT discussion:

No, he wasn't wrong. It's a matter of scale. If you have a thread with players who control a few star systems at most, and then you come in with two galaxies and trillions of people, you basically have enough resources to ignore anything they do. Even if they play their nations well and consistently outthink you strategically, you have the sheer numbers to overwhelm them. That's not fun for anybody. It's like a game of Civilization after you've already achieved a domination victory.

Scale is also, in my opinion, important to telling an interesting story. If everyone is at about the same scale of civilization, with comparable (note: not identical) numbers and comparable technology, then you can have interesting interactions between nations. These nations can conduct meaningful diplomacy, trade that is mutually beneficial, and wars that aren't completely one-sided. If you want to RP having two galaxies, you should look for other RPs on that same scale with other nations controlling 2 galaxies.

When there's a big imbalance in scales, in my experience, things get silly. The smaller nation will try to negotiate but since they can't pose a realistic threat the meganation can just go "LOL DON'T CARE, I ANNEX YOU NOW WITH A BILLION TROOPS." If the smaller nation somehow manages to win the opening battle, the larger nation will usually rage and send a force ten times the size of the original one. This is usually about the point where arguments break out and the thread dies. Now in MT, you can counteract some of this by pointing out limitations of modern technology, logistics, range, even the passage of time. However, this is FT, where technology is left up to the author and handwaves are generally more accepted.

ORBATs can generally prevent things like that from happening, so use ORBATs.

My initial suggestion was simply that nations of a certain size should probably play with nations of similar sizes. I don't mean they need to be of identical size, just comparable. Maybe you're playing Space Denmark with 50 million people; there can be a Space China with 10 billion people and it can still be interesting. Plus there could be other players, maybe a Space USA with 3 billion people who is opposed to Space China, or maybe Space Denmark can be part of the Space EU or some other alliance whose population adds up to somewhere around 10 billion.

When some nations are more than a couple of orders of magnitude larger than other nations, that's when imbalance becomes a problem. It sounds like "Thousand-per-Billion" was a terrible idea not just because it relates IC power to gameplay stats, but because it created a completely lopsided community. The deciding factor in IC conflicts was less about tactics and strategy and more about who had been playing the game the longest. A newly-founded but well-crafted nation could get shafted by a 13 year old kid named xX<Baron Grenadoplex>Xx who founded his nation when he was 11 and wrote one-liner posts for two years.

Now with all of that said, I defended ORBATs as a means of keeping the peace, of preventing OOC arguments from halting a thread already in progress, and of identifying problems before they wreck a perfectly good RP. It's supposed to be about communication, not dick-waving. And anyone who goes back and edits their ORBAT to numberwank is an asshole who deserves the Ignore Cannon ICly.

[Achesia]

In his defense Voc could have wrote that and several other posts in a more tactful manner, so Hobb's concerns are legitiment.

It honestly wouldn't matter even if I was Mr. Rogers, simply because I'm the one out here trying to get the right information to the players that need it and thus having it counter the collected opinions of people new to the community which instantly makes me the 'bad guy'. Not to mention all the self-victimization that has been going on to make their 'advice' look more legitimate despite being proven incorrect by many different people. But let's move on to why Thousand Per Billion is bad, now that I'm no longer at work with three minutes left on my break and thus have more time and don't have to resort to a Cliffnotes TLDR.

A long time ago, in a galaxy much more different than this one, there was a player by the name of Bryn Shander. And he was a horrible, horrible person who attempted to rule FT with the Thousand Per Billion 'rule' and was successful until the community eventually became large enough that he and his little team of cohorts could no longer successfully intimidate people into acknowledging him (and by extension the rest of HERMES) as the most powerful nation in FT. He and his HERMES crew would roll around 'knocking heads together' to anyone who didn't acknowledge his greatness (and by extension their own) OOCly and ICly. Basically all these players were horribly abusive to anyone that didn't meet their approval and were actively killing the FT community because of it. Literal oppression, if you did not fall in line with them, you were more or less run out of the community and never allowed back in. Ever. And anyone that tried to speak in your defense would get the same treatment.

And Bryn, since he liked his powertrips, ICly and OOCly if you didn't allow him to put one of his stargates in your system (of which you were essentially forced to give him a not insignificant portion of space to him), then you were blacklisted from FT and they would make sure everyone knew it and would use lies and deceit to make sure that no one ever played with that player again. Even if you did allow him to put in a stargate and give him sovereign territory within your own national borders, you could never remove it or turn it off without suffering extreme OOC and IC consequences. If you even tried, he'd flood your system with warships and kill you with superior numbers of 'superior' starships based on the claim of "protecting sovereign Jannarii territory and property". He also could just remove you from the old community map whenever he wanted if you happened to piss him off.

And under the Thousand Per Billion 'rule', simply put, if you were founded after a certain date (more or less at that start of Nationstates itself), then you were fucked. You simply couldn't do anything ICly to counter him. And OOCly, because he was top dog, he could run you and anyone like you out of the community because he'd threaten them ICly and OOCly.

Needless to say, the Thousand Per Billion was a tool of control used by a incredibly horrible person whose primary goal was to 'win' at FT and be the most powerful player in it, with no one else being allowed any say in, well, anything. Not like how it is today, where players are free to do whatever the hell they want and no one can stop them (but at the same time, no one has to acknowledge the player pulling whatever craziness they might be pulling).

When his main nation was finally deleted because of multiple run-ins with Moderation and his tendency to call other players assholes (and at the end when he attempted to make an 'FT Union" in an attempt to hold onto his rapidly slipping powerbase, calling them Scabs, etc), his appeal was refused and he decided to run off declaring that without him FT would die and that "The game was over, everyone could go home". His team of cohorts then declared a massive 'strike' (sticking with the FT Union idea they were still trying to force on everyone) and refused to post until Bryn's nation was restored, thinking that they were so important to the community that everything would stop without Bryn and themselves. They luckily failed, nearly all of them faded away, leaving the community as it exists today in it's place.

So that is the history of Thousand Per Billion and why it is a very bad thing that should be avoided. It's one thing if you want to use your Gameside population simply for Consistency reasons (I use my gameside population as a very rough, never ICly stated base for worldbuilding purposes), but any rule that dictates "No matter what your nation is like, no matter how you've built it, you can only have this many ships" is foolish and dangerous. For more information on this topic and how utterly horrible the 'good old days' used to be, just go check out the old Argument Thread. And you'll also see the many, many, many players who have spoken out against TPB in the past and the many, many players who are glad that it died.

So yeah, you'll have to forgive me for not spelling out the whole story in three minutes with a cellphone and can only do a Cliffnotes TLDR for it. After six years of telling it you learn to condense.

Now, moving on to the current topic, which is missiles...

Frankly it's a unimportant detail that isn't really relevant to RP itself, but if it were ever to come up, where I need to show the exact details,then I'd probably go with a similar VI system. A program designed specifically for tracking, locking, launching and adjusting missiles on targets. Same goes with countermeasures, though less in terms of flares and more in simple armor tanking and using Point Defense lasers to melt the missiles before they hit. I wouldn't go full blown ship AI with it though, since I feel that treads a bit too close to Halo for my tastes.

I get the cellphone thing, and I see where your coming from. I'm only speaking to how you inital came across. From how I read it, it sounded like you were excluding us from any sort of community, just because we wanted to use something others didnt. It was never my intention to say everyone must have an ORBAT, but rather that it is a helpful tool to some.

[Kyrusia]

Missile guidance is interesting.

Think about the environment we're dealing with here. As much as, for storytelling/aesthetic reasons, many like to equate space to the sea/air, it really isn't. Personally, I tend to get specifically wishy-washy with the details (I don't find it enjoyable to write about as a part of a narrative, but I do find it enjoyable to think about, if that makes sense.). Kind of how I am with stellar physics, if anyone has been around for the so-called "Kyru Lecture Mode™."

Detection of radiation, in its various forms, would likely make the most sense. After all, specifically working inside of the "harder end" of the spectrum here for the sake of discussion, unless a crew wants to turn their pretty little ship into an Easy Bake Oven, they're going to be dumping radiation. That's quite hard to hide when the "ambient temperature" (using that term loosely here) of the vacuum is around 14°K (or as low as ~2°K in/around Bok globules).

On the softer end, we have things like gravity well detection - which the "harder sci-fi" part of my brain hates as much as my "softer sci-fi" part is intrigued. Strictly speaking, the masses involved would likely be too small to make it of any use, but the imagery of the process is intriguing, since it would amount to a missile's guidance being designed to detect even minute fluctuations in the landscape of spacetime. It would almost certainly have to be finely tuned to detect the fairly irrelevant curvature around such a relatively small mass as a spacecraft, certainly, which could lead to difficulties in high-mass formations (such as in proximity to a large celestial body) just as much as it could be in... "nothingness." It'd lead one to believe that, logically, such a guidance system would work on a fuse of some kind designed specifically to only "arm" after exiting the approximate Hill sphere (it feels odd using this term here) of the launching craft, or else they run the risk of the missile's guidance just turning back on them and falling back "down the well."

Hmm... I know what I'm going to be thinking on for the next few hours.

[Neornith]

Frankly it's a unimportant detail that isn't really relevant to RP itself, but if it were ever to come up, where I need to show the exact details,then I'd probably go with a similar VI system. A program designed specifically for tracking, locking, launching and adjusting missiles on targets. Same goes with countermeasures, though less in terms of flares and more in simple armor tanking and using Point Defense lasers to melt the missiles before they hit. I wouldn't go full blown ship AI with it though, since I feel that treads a bit too close to Halo for my tastes.

Well like I said it would mostly be factbook fluff if anything, I know exactly how many times I've written about missile guidance in an RP post, and it's exactly zero.

I was mostly curious as to whether or not others had given it any thought and if so what were their ideas

[SquareDisc City]

As far as RP impact goes, picking up on what I said about a missile being able to home in on attempts to jam it, well that gives some fun possibilities. Simple example, the commander who uses their jamming transmitters to draw the incoming missiles away from another more valuable ship, even though it's risking their own life.

[Trasildor]

For anyone who feels like critiquing: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=318672&p=30335623&sid=e96e478c500081ce3bcebcec8068b282#p30335623

[Senkaku]

Since some people don't understand the ORBAT discussion has been beaten to death perhaps a new topic is in order.

One thing that's popped into my mind lately and it's something I haven't really given a lot of thought because it would mostly be factbook fluff.

FT missile guidance, what new methods or advancement of current methods do you see your nation as using?

I think probably lower-level AIs or expert systems would be put in each missile to oversee some of its maneuvering and targeting, while some would be handled by the ship it was launched from via some Advanced Technology Faster-Than-Light Comms thingo (since the missile's mass and volume would be mainly devoted to fuel and payload). In turn, the ship launching would probably be in constant contact with some sort of sensor vessel or mother ship, since it would probably be just a big weapons carrier deployed from a tender.

For anyone who feels like critiquing: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=318672&p=30335623&sid=e96e478c500081ce3bcebcec8068b282#p30335623

Looks quite nice to me. Keep it up! We can always use another participant in the Compendium arms race.

[Trasildor]

The continuous discussion about what new players might do, especially the whole pulling ships out of infinity thing, and thwe desire to counter these new nations with strict rules is just silly. It doesn't matter if you have the largest rule book in the game, there is only one fact that needs to be noted: this is a game. A text based roleplaying game where the only reason any one player can do anything is because players x, y, and z all acknowledge him. If you don't like a player or his posts in ft threads, ignore him. If he acts like somone who wants to win an RP, don't RP with them. If they don't seem like it and you RP with them and they try to win by pulling stuff out of hyperspace, then correct their behavior in the OOC.

In MT, we require stuff like that all the time. My main nation is Taziristan, which resides in the Western Isles. There, we require budgets, numbers of soldiers, tanks, planes, and ships. We need logistics, combat, and reserves. Yet, people still pull crap out of their butt and try to win a Roleplay. All you can do is try to correct their behavior OOCly and no amount of required number posting is gonna help you.

As for basing size off of NS stats, that's just a giant middle finger to new players. My puppet would have to exist for MONTHS before I even got a thousand of these undefined standard ships. I could never take part in a war RP, I could never even hope to compete with anyone older than 6 months after I was founded. How about, instead of limiting RP opportunities based on time on NS, we keep doing what it seems like you guys have been doing well for a long long time: let new people do what they want and acknowledge only those that look like they care.

Another thing I'd like to add is that the older people proposing these rules are completely ignoring the opinions of the new people. If you want to impose rules on us, how about treating us as roleplayers with opinions instead of a problem that needs solving.

[The United Dominion]

Since some people don't understand the ORBAT discussion has been beaten to death perhaps a new topic is in order.

One thing that's popped into my mind lately and it's something I haven't really given a lot of thought because it would mostly be factbook fluff.

FT missile guidance, what new methods or advancement of current methods do you see your nation as using?

I think probably lower-level AIs or expert systems would be put in each missile to oversee some of its maneuvering and targeting, while some would be handled by the ship it was launched from via some Advanced Technology Faster-Than-Light Comms thingo (since the missile's mass and volume would be mainly devoted to fuel and payload). In turn, the ship launching would probably be in constant contact with some sort of sensor vessel or mother ship, since it would probably be just a big weapons carrier deployed from a tender.

I don't think missiles require AI... like, at all. I know it sounds cool but AI simulates sapient intelligence and is good at that. It would be less ideal for a single task, which a missile has. A properly coded guidance system will be far more efficient at being a guidance system than an AI.

And that's to say little of doing the equivalent of birthing a child and then attaching a bomb vest to it and saying "look, go over there" with your finger on the detonator - that's pretty f'd up.

At the very least, I'm going to RP as though that's happening.

You monster.

[Hobbeebia]

I think probably lower-level AIs or expert systems would be put in each missile to oversee some of its maneuvering and targeting, while some would be handled by the ship it was launched from via some Advanced Technology Faster-Than-Light Comms thingo (since the missile's mass and volume would be mainly devoted to fuel and payload). In turn, the ship launching would probably be in constant contact with some sort of sensor vessel or mother ship, since it would probably be just a big weapons carrier deployed from a tender.

I don't think missiles require AI... like, at all. I know it sounds cool but AI simulates sapient intelligence and is good at that. It would be less ideal for a single task, which a missile has. A properly coded guidance system will be far more efficient at being a guidance system than an AI.

And that's to say little of doing the equivalent of birthing a child and then attaching a bomb vest to it and saying "look, go over there" with your finger on the detonator - that's pretty f'd up.

At the very least, I'm going to RP as though that's happening.

You monster.

We dont A.I. guidance for that very reason. This is why I believe V.I. would be best.