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:
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:
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