Better Statblocks For Your Storefront [Suggestion]

[Allanea]

One problem that I have seen growing on this site for the past few years, is that people make storefronts that provide very little, if any, useful information about the fictional 'products' that are being sold. Worse, individuals don't seem to even know what kind of information is useful or needed. Often an individual will post an image of a tank or ship, provide one or two numbers and a price tag, and that's it. Even if I wanted to make a post interacting with such a storefront, It's difficult for me to do so because very basic information about the items that are the subject of the thread is not being provided.

So one thing which I propose is that we make Best Practices – something that is not mandatory by any means, but which is useful for players and which will help them provide each other with the information needed. I suggest that we make a recommended format for statblocks, which would be basic and would provide the minimum information that is necessary for a player to decide if they want to have a given technology in their nation. These statblocks would also be useful as a sort of guide to thei magination if you are trying to describe what a given item does in your story.

If I provide a post that says: 'I am selling a cargo plane, it is very fast and flies for 3000 miles each way', well that's very nice, but unfortunately I've clearly omitted some key information: what kind of cargo can my cargo plane transport?

Here's a typical statblock that I use to sell armored vehicles on my storefront:

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[b]Primary Manufacturer:[/b]
[b]Mass:[/b]
[b]Crew:[/b]
[b]Dimensions:[/b]
[i]Length:[/i] 7
[i]Width:[/i]
[i]Height:[/i]
[b]Dismounts:[/b]
[b]Engine:[/b]
[b]Max speed:[/b]
[b]Range:[/b]
[b]Armament:[/b]
 [b]Defense:[/b]
[b]Special equipment:[/b]
[b]Price:[/b]
[b]DPR:[/b]

Now, this is not perfect, and I am sure some will propose removing some items, or adding others. But this answers basic questions which anyone will have about any military vehicle, whether it is a tank or an APC. Players need to be aware of at least some stuff about vehicles and weapons they buy:

Size: How big is it? This is not only useful in terms of describing the vehicle in roleplay posts, but it has some practical implications – can in travel by plane or can it only be shipped by rail or even boat?
Crew: How many people are required to drive the vehicle, use its weapons, etc.
Dismounts: In the military jargon, 'dismounts' is slang for 'passengers', in other words, can it carry any soldiers other than its direct crew? Tanks typically only carry the people who are actually their crew, APCs primarily serve to carry dismounts.
Range: How far can the vehicle travel without being refueled?
Defenses: Does the vehicle carry any special equipment to protect it from enemy weapons, such as add-on armor, active protections systems, etc.
Price/DPR: This is an important item. The former is typically implied to be the price which it will cost you to have a single vehicle or weapon of the type being described. In the real world, of course, armored vehicles and fighter jets don't have a true 'sticker price' because the services involved aren't standardized, and every government negotiating a weapons contract with a company like Raytheon negotiates slightly differently.
DPR, in Nationstates, is what it will cost you to receive from the supplier the technological documents and know-how to produce the weapon domestically, for the use of your own nation only. In the real-world, transfgerring such a complex of technologies is very difficult (it's not enough to just send someone a bunch of blueprints). For this reason, I always assume that when a nation purchases DPR from Allanean companies it receives a whole bunch of associated information, support, and advice, as necessary. This is also part of why I charge a lot of money for DPR (my standard practice is to charge x1000 of the per-unit price, b ut for items where the individual unit price is so low that the price of x1000 of them would not justify DPR, I go beyond that).

One thing to consider when making this section of the stat block is that arms sales to governments are rare occurrences. If you sell a nation 40 fighter jets, it's likely they won't be regularly buying more fighter jets until those fighter jets can no longer be used.

When you are selling civilian products (such as automobiles, computers, and hunting guns, all of which are regularly sold on NS), I recommend that rather than having your buyers post individual purchases ('My nation would like to buy 1000 washing machines'), it's best to have a form that allows them to list annual sales ("these washing machines are not very popular in Bigtopia, only 1,000 per year are sold").

With this brief explanation in mind, I would like to propose some sample statblocks that you can use on your storefront to provide basic information. These stat blocks do NOT provide all information that could be provided, and it's best to go beyond the start block.

However I think it's a good practice to have statblocks like those in a prominent location in your post:

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[b]Weight:[/b]
[b]Length:[/b] (If the weapon has a part that folds, like a folding stock, list both folded and unfolded weight.
[b]Ammunition capacity: [/b] If multiple types of magazines are available for the weapon, list the most common ones.
[b]Calibers: [/b] List not just the barrel's diameter (different types of weapons sometimes share the same diameter), but the actual type of cartridge used, i.e. 9mm Parabellum.
[b]Price/DPR[/b]

Code: Select all

[b]Primary Manufacturer:[/b]
[b]Mass:[/b]
[b]Crew:[/b]
[b]Dimensions:[/b]
[i]Length:[/i] 7
[i]Width:[/i]
[i]Height:[/i]
[b]Dismounts:[/b]
[b]Engine:[/b]
[b]Max speed:[/b]
[b]Range:[/b]
[b]Armament:[/b]
 [b]Defense:[/b]
[b]Special equipment:[/b]
[b]Price:[/b]
[b]DPR:[/b]

This is entirely the contribution of Arthropol.

Code: Select all

[b]Aircraft Type:[/b]
[b]Flight Crew:[/b]
[b]Cabin Crew:[/b]
[b]Typical Configuration[:/b]
[b]Exit Limit:[/b]
[b]Length:[/b]
[b]Wingspan:[/b]
[b]Fuselage Height:[/b]
[b]Fuselage Width:[/b]
[b]Cabin Width:[/b] W
[b]MEW:[/b]
[b]MTOW:[/b]
[b]MLW:[/b]
[b]MZFW:[/b]
[b]Fuel Capacity:[/b
[b]Engines (2x):[/b]
[b]Range (MTOW):[/b]
[b]Service Ceiling:[/b]
[b]Cruise Speed:[/b]
[b]Takeoff (MTOW):[/b]
[b]Landing (MLW):[/b]
[b]Thrust Per Engine:[/b]


Aircraft Type: Widebody or narrowbody? Short or long haul? Jet or turboprop?
Flight Crew: Amount people that fly the plane in the cockpit
Cabin Crew: Amount of flight attendants
Typical Configuration[:/b] Typical amount of seats in the plane
[b]Exit Limit: Amount of people that can safely evacuate the plane in an emergency
Length: Total length of the plane
Wingspan: Total length from wingtip to wingtip
Fuselage Height: Height of the fusage only
Fuselage Width: Width of the fuselage only
Cabin Width: Width of the cabin (probably even more important than fuselage width)
MEW: See this link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufac ... pty_weight
MTOW: Maximum weight the aircraft is allowed to takeoff
MLW: Maximum weight the aircraft is allowed to land
MZFW: This explains it better than me: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-fu ... uel_weight
Fuel Capacity:[/b How much jet fuel the aircraft can carry
[b]Engines (2x): Amount and type of engine on the aircraft (replace the 2 with amount of engines)
Range (MTOW): How far the aircraft can fly when taking off at the MTOW (see above)
Service Ceiling: Highest altitude the aircraft can fly due to structural limits (usually 40000-43100 ft for modern airliners)
Cruise Speed: How fast the aircraft flies while cruising (usually Mach 0.8 to 0.85 on modern airliners)
Takeoff (MTOW): How long of a runway the aircraft needs to takeoff at the MTOW (see above)
Landing (MLW): How long of a runway the aircraft needs to land at the MLW (see above)
Thrust Per Engine: How much thrust each engine produces, usually in kilonewtons or pound force.

This statblock is invented by The Ctan, and it is the inspiration for this entire post:

Code: Select all


[b]Manufacturer:[/b]
    [b]Type:[/b]
    [b]Technology Base:[/b]
    [b]Production Run:[/b]
    [b]Operational Area:[/b]
    [b]Powerplant:[/b]
    [b]Maximum acceleration, linear in open space:[/b]
    [b]Crew complement:[/b]
    [b]Weapons Array:[/b]
    [b]Defensive Technology:[/b]
    [b]Support Craft:[/b]
    [b]Troop/Population Transport capacity:[/b]
    [b]Container Capacity:[/b].
[b]Supply Characteristics:[/b]
[i]Fuel:[/i]
[i]Life Support:[/i]
[i]Food & Water: [/i].
    [b]Dimensions:[/b]
[i]Wingspan:[/i]
    [i]Length:[/i]
    [i]Height: [/i]
    [b]Price in NSD/USD:[/b] 

Obviously these are not exhaustive, and it would improve this post vastly if members of the community could suggest statblock layouts for other common items such as ships, submarines, missiles and aircraft. Ideally I'd like to have a range of sample statblocks for players to use.


[b]Examples of informative storefronts:
Lyran Arms
TST Personal Starships Storefront

[Allanea]

Post Scriptum:

The general assumption on this forum is that statblocks posted by players are IC true, i.e. if a vehicle is listed as traveling at 60 miles per hour, then the vehicles that are shipped in-universe will actually move at that speed. If any information is IC untrue, then you should OOC inform the other player of this in some way.

Some of the products being sold by Allanean Defense Exports or my other storefronts are flawed in some way. However in all instances their flaws can be spotted by the intelligent player upon reading the descriptions. Some of the items Allanean Defense Exports sells are probably not items your nation should be using in its combat forces (for example, the claymore swords are definitely not!). However the descriptions of the items' functions in the posts are intended to be true in-character, and none of the advertisement ADE or the companies make is 'false' in a legal way. This still leaves me a lot of room for interesting IC shenanigans. I believe however that trying to OOC deceive other players is bad practice.

[Yohannes]

I hereby pledge my support for this initiative/thread; signed [Yohannes] [Edit]

Provided that this will not be turned into an elitist, exclusive clique (as said by Machina Haruspex [ here ] ), which by the way I know it will not be so long as Allanea is in charge of this initiative (if anyone thinks the player behind Allanea is not an open minded person, feel free to browse his posting history [ here ]. He is about the only roleplayer (of his standing) who would regularly post in strangers' threads whilst obeying (fully) the opening posters' wish

The problem said by Allanea in the opening post is real. Some have been caused by alternate accounts intentionally pretending to play dumb, whilst often also caused by new players not having examples to look to. No arms manufacturing storefronts are perfect (my own contains many typos), but I feel that... new players should look up to informative, well thought out storefronts such as those made by Common Territories (Wolf Armaments), Phartan (Halcyon Arms), Anemos Major (ASAEA), etc. Every single one of these storefronts contain one thing in common: every design there has at least a minimum of technical details/stats block/specifications, or and a minimum of write up/design summary.

There should not be expectation for people to write splerg or endless technical mambo jambo and nonsense. But, at the same time, there should be an expectation for people to at least write two paragraphs telling us about their design, and at least a minimum of technical details/statsblock/specifications about their designs.

Pictures should ideally come after that, not the other way around. The purpose of designing is to write about your beautiful fictional nation's fictional designs. Not spam pictures (no matter how pretty). This I believe strongly.

I will do whatever I can to support this initiative out of character wise (e.g. promoting in a passive way) and in character wise (e.g. linking from my storefront and product threads/posts), provided, again, this will not be turned into an exclusive clique or group of designers kind of thing

Looking forward to see this thread being expanded!

Edit2: Added Machina Haruspex's post from the Global Economics and Trade Help Desk and Q&A

Edit4: I would like to plead for established designers, both here in Global Economics and Trade sub forum, and those from the NationStates Military Realism community (and also, those from the old NationStates Draftroom community, if you guys are still around), to help us support this initiative. I encourage everyone to set aside their differences (e.g. I hate Allanea, I don't want to support this, I don't trust him, etc., I hate Yohannes, I don't trust him, etc.) and contribute to this initiative. If successful, it will benefit everyone eventually, with the exception of those who enjoy having fun playing from their alternate accounts to spam this sub forum (though I will never win against you spammers, I will try my best to promote healthy designing environment in this sub forum)

[The Federation of Kendor]

Interesting. And it should be adapted for all kinds of storefronts too

[Allanea]

There should not be expectation for people to write splerg or endless technical mambo jambo and nonsense. But, at the same time, there should be an expectation for people to at least write two paragraphs telling us about their design, and at least a minimum of technical details/statsblock/specifications about their designs.

I didn't want to make this a thread about every single idea I have to improve things.

I don't feel it should be about how 'well, I have been doing NS for quite a while, here's how people should do things'.

You're correct that there shouldn't be the expectation of people to provide vast writeups. Indeed, vast writeups do the reverse[/i] of what is useful. They end up providing [b]less information about the fictional design, because what players end up doing is not reading a writeup at all, and just looking if it 'looks' big and detailed.

When I say 'players', here, I of course do not mean some other players who are bad or something, I mean myself.

At one point, I purchased a very fancy and larger airplane for transporting Allanea's troops and stuff. The plane was very big, very fancy, and the writeup mentioned in the opening that it was going to transport paratroopers. I assumed, therefore, that paratroopers could jump out of Large Fancy Plane. It turned out – yes! – that the player who 'designed' this plane had copy-pasted large parts from Wikipedia without reading them, and ended up promoting a fictional aircraft that did not have a ramp at all – and instead unloaded by flipping its front open, like an Antonov 224 (on which it was based).

This had lead me to look into some other writeups, and discover to my horror that there were people – good, intelligent people – who were effectively assembling their writeups by copy-pasting large elements of public domain articles, or, worse, other people's material, with no understanding at all of what they wrote.

So while I do not have any problem with people posting very large writeups, we should not confuse 'oh I posted a huge writeup' with 'I provided a lot of information'.

In my view, writeups for designs should be proportional to how unusual, outlandish, or perhaps advanced the design is. My posts often tend to be short, because many of my designs are fairly unoriginal and my posts are intended to cover the things that make the design special. However if I am writing about something which is unusual, or perhaps very advanced for the setting it operates in (or, conversely, very bad – some of my designs are NOT very high-quality in-character), I feel obliged to write more.

[Allanea]

Again, I don't insist that my 'statblocks' are 'better' statblocks. I really don't want to create an appearance of creating a 'clique' or something like that. Yohannes is correct that this is a bad idea. I don't want to run after people and force them to do a specific thing, rather, I want to create a thing for people to use, and hopefully they'll either use it, or create one of their own that'll provide similar levels of information.

My motivation frankly is that I really enjoy GE&T. It's frankly my second-favorite forum on NS after International Incidents. I enjoy making 'products' to 'sell' here, and I enjoy going about people's storefronts and 'buying' their things. So I'm happy to help people to make better 'products' and storefronts for me to shop at.

[Yohannes]

-shortened

Yes. I agree. I myself learnt about that the hard way in 2014 (thank you Rich and Corporation).

As a sidenote, the (playing dumb intentional) spammer kangaroo clown has started to post in this sub forum again. He and heartless spammers like him should be locked up in jail tbh

Spammers who intentionally play dumb don't belong in the Ge&t sub forum. I wonder what do they get from doing that? Lulz? It has been done thousand of times. Coolness factor? They are a nobody and don't contribute to anything. I wonder if deep down they are just sad little people

[Machina Haruspex]

Hmm, I can tell if being quoted is a good thing or a bad thing, but I like the statblock so shown. In any case, since I learned from others, so to I suppose will the new breed, especially with this present.

[The City State Rhydin]

Its a good looking stat creator Allanea. Easily modified for really any product probably as well.

[Allanea]

Its a good looking stat creator Allanea. Easily modified for really any product probably as well.

I made some corrections as well, as people have pointed out code errors.

[Corindia]

This is sensible, I've pretty much adopted the same format (quick stats in a box) for all of my new vehicular factbooks and it has served me well

[Australian rePublic]

So I'm guessinh yhis only applies to arms manufactuersrs?

[Allanea]

So I'm guessinh yhis only applies to arms manufactuersrs?

In what sense do you mean? I've only posted sample statblocks for military things, but ideally I'd like to have people to propose more of them, for things like cargo ships, cars, etc.

[Yohannes]

Australian Republic is a known troll. Allanea, he was Kalasparata, also known for his other older account, Kalasparata-Shimarata (or something like that). He was a really big troll years ago. He trolled the whole NSG sub forum by denigrating gay people telling people that they should be... yeah. He was also a troll who parodied anti abortion people. He was also a troll who spammed the II sub forum multiple times to get more experienced roleplayers banned by flamebaiting them. He was indirectly responsible for the eventual deat of Franberry or Rosbanigrad (forgot which one, though tbh they were spamming too).

His old accounts were banned by Sedgistan (or the other moderators). Even now, he repeatedly spammed Maltropia's storefront. This guy, while he spam this sub forum with subpar posts, regularly create good quality posts in the Got Issues sub forum and also is a contributor there. So as you can see, Australian Republic is a manipulative person who likes to create havoc at the expense of others players. I would recommend for us to just ignore him. Ignore trolls and they will be bored. Let him waste his time lol

[Reploid Productions]

Australian Republic is a known troll. Allanea, he was Kalasparata, also known for his other older account, Kalasparata-Shimarata (or something like that). He was a really big troll years ago. He trolled the whole NSG sub forum by denigrating gay people telling people that they should be... yeah. He was also a troll who parodied anti abortion people. He was also a troll who spammed the II sub forum multiple times to get more experienced roleplayers banned by flamebaiting them. He was indirectly responsible for the eventual deat of Franberry or Rosbanigrad (forgot which one, though tbh they were spamming too).

His old accounts were banned by Sedgistan (or the other moderators). Even now, he repeatedly spammed Maltropia's storefront. This guy, while he spam this sub forum with subpar posts, regularly create good quality posts in the Got Issues sub forum and also is a contributor there. So as you can see, Australian Republic is a manipulative person who likes to create havoc at the expense of others players. I would recommend for us to just ignore him. Ignore trolls and they will be bored. Let him waste his time lol

Let's see.... an entire post that consists of literally nothing besides a prolonged attack on a player you have a known grudge against, offering nothing of substance or merit to the topic of discussion. What's the word for that? Oh right, flaming and/or flamebaiting, with a dash of spam/threadjacking since this has absolutely nothing to do with the topic.

*** Yohannes, WARNED for flaming/baiting. ***

We get it. You don't like the way the community is these days, you don't like some of the people in the community these days. Newsflash: Nationstates, and Nationstates RP has always had quality RPers and crappy RPers, and those people come and go as time marches on, replaced by new faces who might do things differently than you would prefer. This is not some new or recent development. Although the "bad faith" guidelines don't apply here from an enforcement standpoint, that is about the only way to describe your recent pattern of behavior toward other players, the Mentors, and/or site staff. If all you want to contribute is incessantly antagonistic complaining about how things were so much better in Ye Olde Dayes, perhaps you should reconsider what it is you're doing here.

Remember the Golden Rule of NS RP:
You don't have to RP with anybody you don't want to. Don't like how X, Y, and Z play? Simple. Don't play with them. Find a group to play with that appeals to your particular RPing preferences; don't go incessantly haranguing those who happen to not play in accordance with your particular preferences.


~Evil Forum Empress Rep Prod the Ninja Mod
~She who wields the Banhammer; master of the mighty moderation no-dachi Kiritateru Teikoku

[Yohannes]

Reploid Productions, did you just actually defended a known troll who have been banned in the past for inciting hatred in NSG. on top of trolling the whole International Incidents sub forum by pretending to play dumb?

Don't you get it. It's not about the "old day is better" (I don't believe in that myself, there are good and bad things both now and back then). This guy is A known spammer and borderline rulebreaker and actually you defended him? Do attempting to troll this thread?

Also, I accept my previous warning. it was justified. But please tell me why are you defending rulebreakers now? I am totally at a loss here

edit: okay, thank you for the explanation Reploid Production. I have learnt something new today (including the bad faith guideline; I have never checked that one out). You are right, this is not the place for this and I didn't follow proper forum guidelines

[Reploid Productions]

It is not a case of "defending rulebreakers." The user in question has not earned a permanent ban from the site. A user having a prior warning history does not justify your endlessly dragging up that user's past history to smear and harass them because you happen to have a beef with how they play.

The only place their warn history is relevant and the only place you should be shouting "Troll!" from the rooftops is via reports in the Moderation forum, or for gameside violations, the Getting Help page. Not following them around the forum and constantly harassing them with "Guys! Guys! This guy has a warning history! Guys! Remember that time they got deleted! Remember that? You should remember that! Don't play with this guy because he has a warning history!" If you don't like them, don't engage with them. If they engage in behavior you feel might be rulebreaking, report it to the mods and leave it to us to review.

Now, this is not the place to continue your harassment and further derail the topic. It stops. Now.


~Evil Forum Empress Rep Prod the Ninja Mod
~She who wields the Banhammer; master of the mighty moderation no-dachi Kiritateru Teikoku

[The State of Monavia]

[Original statblock proposal.]

Product stats are one of the most helpful things people can post in their storefronts when a potential buyer needs to make a decision. They provide a concrete basis for comparing options and calculating user needs. Sometimes RPers need to know a product’s specifications in order to make writing choices when planning their characters’ actions (e.g. a hitman planning to kill a target quietly will want to know if a handgun being advertised in another RPer’s storefront can fire subsonic ammunition). All in all, I can think of multiple ways that statblocks can make life more convenient for GET RPers and I agree with your subsequent points about keeping information accurate.

[Commentary about write-ups and related information.]

I have a number of thoughts about RPers who copy-and-paste their information from elsewhere. It’s perfectly acceptable for RPers to use information about RL products as a standard they can compare their fictional products to during their design process. It’s also fine if they want to use RL products as sources of inspiration for basic product concepts and capabilities. What is not good for the GET RP scene is for RPers to lift chunks of text from a wiki or some other publication and throw them together to create a write-up, especially if they do not understand what they are writing or have no plans to credit anybody for the work they are using). This is not to say that there cannot be legitimate IC reasons why one RPer’s products resemble another’s (e.g. corporate espionage, though people wanting to follow such a path should at least RP it). In any case, plagiarism is an example of bad form and does not help the community.

Write-ups are an interesting matter. I do not believe that most of the people who visit storefronts go in with the intention of reading a 10,000-word technical overview from start to finish. I certainly don’t. While the information can be very helpful from an IC perspective, its real value lies in the fact that it shows the product’s designer put a lot of effort into developing it and took its design seriously. One of my reasons I never marketed the few IC technologies that I have bothered to write about (see my Defenses of the Monavian Empire factbook series for examples) is the simple fact that I could not be bothered to produce lengthy write-ups given my limited knowledge. In all fairness, I could probably market my tech if I could get over my general laziness about setting up and managing storefronts as my product concepts are fundamentally sound, if underdeveloped. Like you, I also have a habit of conceptually basing certain items off of RL tech.

[Allanea]

I have a number of thoughts about RPers who copy-and-paste their information from elsewhere. It’s perfectly acceptable for RPers to use information about RL products as a standard they can compare their fictional products to during their design process. It’s also fine if they want to use RL products as sources of inspiration for basic product concepts and capabilities. What is not good for the GET RP scene is for RPers to lift chunks of text from a wiki or some other publication and throw them together to create a write-up, especially if they do not understand what they are writing or have no plans to credit anybody for the work they are using). This is not to say that there cannot be legitimate IC reasons why one RPer’s products resemble another’s (e.g. corporate espionage, though people wanting to follow such a path should at least RP it). In any case, plagiarism is an example of bad form and does not help the community.

There are quite a few incidents where people in Nationstates have products that are in-character inspired by other nation's products IC, or outright pirated, in-character, from them. Several Allanean products are forms of intellectual piracy of a sort in-character. For example, the Numerramar ship is, OOC and IC, inspired by the Menelmacari design of the Vingilot which is OOC and IC the product of much research by The Ctan, and [nation]Menelmacar][/nation], two people whom I hold in very high regard.

Observe however things I did:

1. I did not just copy-paste any writing or artwork by either of these players without their permission. All writing regarding the Numerramar is my own, and all artwork is commissioned me anew, only sharing a few basic properties with the original Vingilot series of spacecraft.

2. I spoke to Menelmacar about this in detail. The Numerramar as its stands is in-character deeply unoriginal, and it's clear that Allanean Arms designers have been looking at Vingilots, they've been travling aboard Vingilots, and they've then designed a spaceship that does more or less many of the things that Vingilot does but don't end up with them sued by Yavanna Fleet Yards, or detained by Menelmacari export control agents for unlawfully handling an export-controlled Menelmacari technology. So while the people at Yavanna Fleet Yards will be annoyed by this practice in-character, there is little they can do IC. The Menelmacari have taught the Allaneans the ways of Big Business, and the Allaneans now practice that.

3. Beyond just selling the ship on my storefront in the usual 'we confirm your order, money wired, expect starship in X days', [which I have no problem with] I have had two somewhat detailed roleplays on my storefront thread with players who thought the Numerramar was good, and became involved with the thread.

So in-character plagiarism is appropriate if handled well.

Other people who handle in-character plagiarism well include Questers. Questers once roleplayed a nation armed wit ha large quantity of copies of Nakil tanks. The Nakil is one of the best tank designs in Nationstates both in terms of how much work went into the design (more than goes into some people's real world MA theses, I believe), and in terms of how well it's done in general. However, Questers' Nakil's were in-character bad copies of the original tank, manufactured with cheap labor and omitting some of its hi-tech features, and were, in-universe, commanded ineptly by brave yet somewhat miseducated officers and sometimes crewed by semi-literate troops from its dependencies, ending in a series of military tragedies.

On the OOC level, Questers acted on the permission of Macabees throughout, accepted commentary from other players, and worked within his nation's IC limitations.

So in summary: OOC plagiarism is bad for obvious and less-obvious reasons (not only is it not respectful to the other player, it basically includes the fact that you will think less about the designs you use), IC plagiarism can be very good. (Which I guess we already knew)?

[Yohannes]

To turn this thread around (Reploid Productions was right, what I did was not cool no matter the posting intention of the other player), I will discuss something which has been touched briefly in The State of Monavia and Allanea's posts. Yes, there are good and intelligent players (as Allanea said) who have copy pasted from open websites. I was one of them with my old Panthera Tigris design; (Edit: though I am not saying that I am "good and intelligent" )

The site I pretty much copied (well, not copy pasted, more like copied heavily; Rich and Corporations did run it through Plagium and couldn't find matches so there you go!) back in 2012-2013 was Google Patents. This was how my design was so accurate, even for a NationStates Modern Technology; because I did not take fancy (cool sounding things) from random user made websites

I took them from actual patents back in 2012-2013, which turns out to be used for the K2 Black Panther tank today (what's the coincidence, lol). So yeah, that was the reason why some part of the electronics and stuff for my design was so accurate (and I was lucky that I chose the right patents; one that I didn't choose was for instance something to do with autoloader that, looking back now, was just totally bonker)

I was not the only one who did this. For the LY912 Dragonhawk, Lyras did copy paste stuff from Wikipedia (Vault 10 from NationStates Draftroom can vouch for this, as he was the one who told Lyras he detected copy paste materials in the NSDraftroom thread for the design)

I am sure that I myself and Lyras were not the only ones who have done this; in fact, looking around I can still see a couple of players who are doing it. This is the reason why a peer review designing group is a good thing; because it allows these kind of things to be fixed; that is, there is nothing wrong with copy pasting stuff (if you want to, you are free to do it), but it is not a good thing for designing environment (if everyone ends up copy pasting things from real life websites... what's the point of designing at all?)

Again, though, as Allanea said, this doesn't mean that the designers in question are bad people (except me, I was bad haha...). Just because Lyras copy pasted from Wikipedia once (or twice, or whatever...) doesn't mean that he was/is a bad designer. Everyone makes mistakes.

At the end of the day this is just my personal opinion (someone tell me if they disagree with me), but I feel that it's not a matter of quality or whatever. It's a matter of putting effort into something. It's also not a matter of writing out technobabble (like what I did or other people did), because then as Allanea said that's just wrong too (if it's too long and people couldn't be bothered to read the whole thing because it's too long, then what's the point?)

I guess it's a matter of putting work into what we have written. Just like in the International Incidents sub forum, if someone, say, copy paste materials from real life websites (for their RP posts), or say, reply with one liner sentences... it's very hard for us (players) to immerse ourselves in their world (and write with them). Though, yes, anyone can do that (because RP is freeform; anyone can do whatever they want), I feel that it won't nurture a good sub forum environment

This is the reason why many people who design things don't bother to post in this sub forum anymore; because they know that their designs will not be appreciated (no matter how much work they have put into them), and people will instead go for the designs with only one liner sentences and fancy looking pictures (with no designing process involved at all in creating the product). [Edit: and this is a very real thing; because without examples from established designers (with designs who have been peer reviewed by other designers to improve/fix error) to look up to, there will not be a kind of nurturing place for the community to stand in]

There's one player (let's call him player A; by the way, this is actually a real Ge&T designer) who have recently released two products. I am not going to say they are perfect, but it's clear he put a lot of effort into writing them (or just thinking about them). He put thought into the pictures (though they are far from perfect, i.e. he based them off parts from an existing website, though I can be wrong; but at least he put effort into them) and he wrote paragraphs about his designs (it is clear that he put a lot of effort into his recently released designs).

He released his designs (which he put a lot of effort into), and he also advertised them clearly in his storefront (and bumped his storefront too). Yet... no one bought from him. Okay, that's fine. But then I checked at the view count of his recently released product threads and the view count was very... small (meaning people didn't bother to even read his threads) relative to the amount of effort he put into writing/designing them

There was a cool dude, let's call him player B (I recently befriend him by posting in his embassy programme). He posted in the storefront of someone who copy pasted pictures from an existing simulation game with one two three stats (and not even a single sentence of write up), let's call the owner of this storefront player C. Okay, so he clearly liked the fancy looking (copy pasted) pictures and no write up thing (from player C's storefront) more because he believe they are simple to read (because it's only a good looking picture with no stats and write up, therefore he can read it quickly and can order quickly; no time wasted). Okay, that's fine

But then in his telegram (to me), player B basically told me: "I dislike copy pasted embassy programmes (with no thought put into them) out there. I wanted to try out something different and that was why I designed my embassy programme the way I did"

I was shocked when I learnt this, because it was a bit hypocritical of player B to discriminate against (and make fun of) players with (copy pasted) one two three liners (and big picture) embassy programme, while at the same time saying (to me) how well written his embassy programme is; yet at the same time player B bought from the one two three liners storefront (with big copy pasted pictures) of player C because he believe they are easier to read and post in than (he disliked) the storefront of player A, who put a lot of writing effort (and thought) into his recently released two designs

So yeah. I don't know whether this will count as "bad faith" posting (I hope it will not, wow I've Just learnt there is such a thing in the rules; never realise that), but this is I guess kinda connected to what Allanea and The State of Monavia have said. Sorry if this post is not very well thought out; I am not a very eloquent speaker/writer

[Allanea]

The problem with 'copying' writing from Wikipedia is not, in my mind, that you are 'not doing your own work', or not being an 'original designer'. [Let's be absolutely clear: very few people on NS are actually qualified engineers, although some are very qualified engineers IRL].

The problem with copying this writing is not that you are 'stealing' others' work (after all, Wikipedia is Creative Commons). The problem is, in my mind, the same as with copying off school work.

When a student copies off schoolwork, the problem is not that he violates the copyright of some other student, or a website. The reason that schools discourage copying is that if you copy the schoolwork, you're unlikely to think of the stuff you copied and gain any knowledge of the material. In a like manner, let's take the worst-case scenario:

If I copy-paste 20,000 words from some armament brochures or from Wikipedia without reading the material, the basic result of this will be that I myself will have less understanding of the fictional design I am now using in my RPs and offering for others to use.

I believe that if you are worldbuilding fictional technology to use in a setting, you need to be aware of the implications of this technology:

What does it do? What are its advantages and limitations? As an example, Allanea has sold a rang of products that are essentially cheap, reliable motorcycles capable of achieving great road speeds on a straight line, but not necessarily very safe to ride at these speeds in so doing.

Obviously these considerations are important in a 'competitive' war RP setting (which is a setting I personally enjoy greatly), but I think they're important always.

What does this imply for my society that this technology is being widely available? For Allanea, it meant that Allaneans are far less risk-averse than some other cultures (perhaps arguably less responsible), and purchasing such a machine was seen as a reasonable thing to do with your life. Conversely, Allanean companies were implied to be possibly less responsible and ethical in terms of the fact that they see it as appropriate to market this technology to an age group of young people who were liable to ride it unsafely and get hurt.

I think that if you have not done the research and do not have a clear understanding of what you've posted, you are in the end – to borrow a cliché from school teachers again – only cheating yourself. When I rail against this practice it's not because I am offended that someone has not credited some writer, but because I feel that players have posted designs they have no real comprehension of.

[Arthropol]

So I'm guessinh yhis only applies to arms manufactuersrs?

In what sense do you mean? I've only posted sample statblocks for military things, but ideally I'd like to have people to propose more of them, for things like cargo ships, cars, etc.

I agree with the purpose of this thread and the statblocks proposed by Allanea. In response to the quoted post, I would like to propose a statblock for commercial passenger airliners (which is the one I use when I design airliners). If it’s too complicated or technical, I think some of the specs could be left out.

Here it is (with descriptions for each specification)

Code: Select all

Specifications
Aircraft Type- Widebody or narrowbody? Short or long haul? Jet or turboprop?
Flight Crew- Amount people that fly the plane in the cockpit
Cabin Crew- Amount of flight attendants
Typical Configuration- Typical amount of seats in the plane
Exit Limit- Amount of people that can safely evacuate the plane in an emergency
Length- Total length of the plane
Wingspan- Total length from wingtip to wingtip
Fuselage Height- Height of the fusage only
Fuselage Width- Width of the fuselage only
Cabin Width- Width of the cabin (probably even more important than fuselage width)
MEW- See this link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturer%27s_empty_weight
MTOW- Maximum weight the aircraft is allowed to takeoff
MLW- Maximum weight the aircraft is allowed to land
MZFW- This explains it better than me: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-fuel_weight#Maximum_zero_fuel_weight
Fuel Capacity- How much jet fuel the aircraft can carry
Engines (2x)- Amount and type of engine on the aircraft (replace the 2 with amount of engines)
Range (MTOW)- How far the aircraft can fly when taking off at the MTOW (see above)
Service Ceiling- Highest altitude the aircraft can fly due to structural limits (usually 40000-43100 ft for modern airliners)
Cruise Speed- How fast the aircraft flies while cruising (usually Mach 0.8 to 0.85 on modern airliners)
Takeoff (MTOW)- How long of a runway the aircraft needs to takeoff at the MTOW (see above)
Landing (MLW)- How long of a runway the aircraft needs to land at the MLW (see above)
Thrust Per Engine- How much thrust each engine produces, usually in kilonewtons or pound force

Feel free to use this statblock or not if you want. As I said before, it could be simplified for people who have less aviation knowledge. Good luck with this suggestion, everyone!

[Yohannes]

---

Edit: Thanks for the statsblock Arthropol!

To Allanea: Yup, no disagreement there. I agree with you and Monavia

I saw Crookfur viewing Ge&T before (not sure if he saw this thread), but I am looking forward to hear from him, since he is one of those people who have been here (new forum, 2009) for ages and has seen it changed since Jolt. I feel that by looking at the past and seeing things changing, and discussing about it, we can learn a lot and hopefully use this knowledge to move forward and adapt to changing forum (game) environment

Also, just to be clear I am not trying to shoot down anyone here. I have two alternate accounts (not that I going to say the names... hah!), and I have created one two three liners copy pasted Google pictures from the internet designs for their storefronts (my alternate accounts). So it would be pot calling the kettle black for me to denounce others doing it when in fact I am doing it from my two alternate accounts too

It's more about understanding where this sub forum is at the moment, how it arrives here, and see how we (and no lie, I) can go from here moving forward

[Allanea]

In what sense do you mean? I've only posted sample statblocks for military things, but ideally I'd like to have people to propose more of them, for things like cargo ships, cars, etc.

I agree with the purpose of this thread and the statblocks proposed by Allanea. In response to the quoted post, I would like to propose a statblock for commercial passenger airliners (which is the one I use when I design airliners). If it’s too complicated or technical, I think some of the specs could be left out.

Here it is (with descriptions for each specification)

Code: Select all

Specifications
Aircraft Type- Widebody or narrowbody? Short or long haul? Jet or turboprop?
Flight Crew- Amount people that fly the plane in the cockpit
Cabin Crew- Amount of flight attendants
Typical Configuration- Typical amount of seats in the plane
Exit Limit- Amount of people that can safely evacuate the plane in an emergency
Length- Total length of the plane
Wingspan- Total length from wingtip to wingtip
Fuselage Height- Height of the fusage only
Fuselage Width- Width of the fuselage only
Cabin Width- Width of the cabin (probably even more important than fuselage width)
MEW- See this link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturer%27s_empty_weight
MTOW- Maximum weight the aircraft is allowed to takeoff
MLW- Maximum weight the aircraft is allowed to land
MZFW- This explains it better than me: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-fuel_weight#Maximum_zero_fuel_weight
Fuel Capacity- How much jet fuel the aircraft can carry
Engines (2x)- Amount and type of engine on the aircraft (replace the 2 with amount of engines)
Range (MTOW)- How far the aircraft can fly when taking off at the MTOW (see above)
Service Ceiling- Highest altitude the aircraft can fly due to structural limits (usually 40000-43100 ft for modern airliners)
Cruise Speed- How fast the aircraft flies while cruising (usually Mach 0.8 to 0.85 on modern airliners)
Takeoff (MTOW)- How long of a runway the aircraft needs to takeoff at the MTOW (see above)
Landing (MLW)- How long of a runway the aircraft needs to land at the MLW (see above)
Thrust Per Engine- How much thrust each engine produces, usually in kilonewtons or pound force

Feel free to use this statblock or not if you want. As I said before, it could be simplified for people who have less aviation knowledge. Good luck with this suggestion, everyone!

Thank you Arthropol! We've gotten derailed a bit here.

I've already edited your proposed statblock into the OP. The only changes I made were for formatting reasons and ease of use.

[The City State Rhydin]

Your armored vehicle stat-block I may try testing out on my vehicle storefront as I sort of need a condensed version of what I have. I like what I've got but it can be a bit much at times.