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

[Doppio Giudici]

I just realized that if I backed my money with kilowatt hours, and it managed to slow down inflation....The rest of the world would keep trucking along with higher inflation then me.

Over the period of like 100 years, this would mean my currency would rise in value compared to others on my homeplanet.

Is there like a economic assistance thread? I think I accidentally made the cost of labor so much more costly compared to other nations, that no one would buy my exports. This is clearly why China keeps devaluing it's currency.

[Kyrusia]

Is there like a economic assistance thread?

The Better Business Bureau functions as a GE&T help thread, to include involving general economics questions. Discussion of energy-backed currency isn't really out of place here, though (obviously). If you want specific assistance involving inflation, though, they'd also be willing to help.

You also may want to drop The Macabees, another one of our Senior Mentors, a telegram if you want general economics assistance.

[Kassaran]

You aren't in the Milky Way right?

No, I'm not involved in any current NS FT RP's.

snip

Wow. Your system is very detailed, I like it. What are the lighthouses you mentioned? I like the idea of the 40k Astronomican and have been considered developing hyperspace/warp beacons as integral parts of my form of hyperspace travel.

Thanks. Lighthouses are effectively beacons that emit extremely high energy particles at near lightspeed, projecting warp fields around them that can actually enable a ship to 'see' it's surroundings. If you had to picture Warp Travel in Nobis Pacem, it would be equivalent to closing your eyes and crossing a room. Sounds easy until you realize that you actually are in a quite crowded room. Warp bubbles shield ships from impacts with any and all reality-tied particles, enabling the ship to slip past what would be otherwise dangerous obstacles. The problem comes when dropping out of Warp, as inertial dampeners often overheat if you decelerate at a rapid pace for most warp-capable ships, the alternative to having massive radiators or heat sinks, is simply using a 'runway', or a designated 'clear' span of space. They constantly shift to accommodate most disturbances, and are regularly patrolled for maintenance and to protect decelerating ships. Lighthouses show ships where safe deceleration routes are and broadcast guidance information. The only problem is that all information is one-way, into Zero-space. While ships also using other forms of FTL can home in on these lighthouses, mind you, the lighthouses generally only are needed by ships that use Warp-style FTL.

[Doppio Giudici]

If most of the elements that exist in the universe are from exploding stars, where exactly would the planets be that orbit systems that had many stars in the past?

In other words, where would stars first form and where would planets or orbiting masses with heavy elements be?

Is the construction of the last few stars more important, then the location of the current one?

[Kyrusia]

[snip]

I have a guide engineered more toward star creation than accretion discs, circumstellar discs, protoplanetary discs, and solar nebulae outright, but it may still be useful. These articles should help you, particularly with your second question.

From my understanding, stars would not form at all once the inner disc has been blown away from a star that has reached ignition mass, depending on that mass and any other bodies in the system of appreciable mass (leading to things like binaries and multi-star systems); stars in a given system will all generally form (approximately) in the same "period of time" to one another because of this. Barring some major, cosmological event (a wandering star getting captured by the parent star[s] of a system, collision of a system into a solar nebula, etc.), once the protoplanetary disc has evolved away to form a circumstellar disc of some kind, you're pretty much stuck with what you got. There may be some exceptions - such as disturbance in a protoplanetary disc being sufficient to form a super Jovian of significant mass to undergo periodic, partial ignition or outright ignition relatively late in a system's developmental cycle - but I can't recall any others immediately off the top of my head.

You may find this section pertinent:

Inner disc dissipation occurs at the inner part of the disc (< 0.05 – 0.1 AU). Since it is closest to the star, this region is also the hottest, thus material present there typically emits radiation in the near-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Study of the radiation emitted by the very hot dust present in that part of the disc indicates that there is an empirical connection between accretion from a disc onto the star and ejections in an outflow.

Mid-disc dissipation, occurs at the mid-disc region (1-5 AU) and is characterized for the presence of much more cooler material than in the inner part of the disc. Consequently, radiation emitted from this region has greater wavelength, indeed in the mid-infrared region, which makes it very difficult to detect and to predict the timescale of this region's dissipation. Studies made to determine the dissipation timescale in this region provide a wide range of values, predicting timescales from less than 10 up to 100 Myr.

Outer disc dissipation occurs in regions between 50 – 100 AU, where temperatures are much lower and emitted radiation wavelength increases to the millimeter region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Mean dust masses for this region has been reported to be ~ 10−5 Solar masses.[21] Studies [22] of older debris discs (107 - 109 yr) suggest dust masses as low as 10−8 Solar masses, implying that diffusion in outer discs occurs on a very long timescale.

Reading-up on the "Nebular" and "Grand Track" hypotheses are also good place to begin researching. Primordial nucleosynthesis for the lighter elements (also the recombination epoch), and how those play a role in later, heavier element production after the early stages of the universe, is also pertinent (and how earlier epochs of stellar evolution and novae made way for planetary formation in our star system, for example).

As for "where planets would be" during star formation, from my understanding: unless they've wandered in from a region of space in a later period of its evolution, they simply wouldn't be there yet to begin with. While I don't think it's impossible for planets to form in nebulae absent star formation - you can do some searches on "rogue planets forming in globulettes" - that seems to be on something of the "cutting edge" of research. There's a Phys.org article about them.

[Doppio Giudici]

So is there any way to know where the planets with uranium or other heavy minerals are? Closer to the core of the galaxy? Around red stars? Seemingly random due to a large number of different data points?

Reading what you posted now.

[Kyrusia]

So is there any way to know where the planets with uranium or other heavy minerals are? Closer to the core of the galaxy? Around red stars? Seemingly random due to a large number of different data points?

Reading what you posted now.

Not with predictable certainty - at least not that I am aware of, no. That sounds like simply a point to handwave an assumption into existence, given we know radioactive heavy elements occur naturally in general for rocky terrestrials.

[Doppio Giudici]

Did anyone ever find a solution to the crazy large bores in 40K autorifles and the large calibers in HALO?

Like, recoil gloves? Steroids? Exo-skeletons? How exactly are people firing such high recoil weapons and not hurting themselves?

Or did people just ignore it or not know it was something they could make up an excuse for?

[Sunset]

Did anyone ever find a solution to the crazy large bores in 40K autorifles and the large calibers in HALO?

Like, recoil gloves? Steroids? Exo-skeletons? How exactly are people firing such high recoil weapons and not hurting themselves?

Or did people just ignore it or not know it was something they could make up an excuse for?

Bore doesn't always equal recoil - propellant does. Now, if a target is being literally blown backwards or blown away by a projectile weapon, that's probably just bad writing or bad game physics. Projectile weapons do their deed by causing large amounts of tissue damage - not by picking the person up and throwing them a hundred feet. They also penetrate armor by concentrating their force on a very small point compared to the amount of force. Now, getting hit by a tank round or RPG... Different scenario.

However, as far as I am aware, both 40k and Halo do use some manner of powered/light powered armor (not bog-standard Imperial Guard though). However, recoil absorption is really recoil redirection. So they may be mechanically redirecting that recoil into the ground or simply absorbing it by having a lot of mass (Space Marines). Still, I would remember that bore is not equal to recoil - what's behind the bullet is more important.

[Doppio Giudici]

Did anyone ever find a solution to the crazy large bores in 40K autorifles and the large calibers in HALO?

Like, recoil gloves? Steroids? Exo-skeletons? How exactly are people firing such high recoil weapons and not hurting themselves?

Or did people just ignore it or not know it was something they could make up an excuse for?

Bore doesn't always equal recoil - propellant does. Now, if a target is being literally blown backwards or blown away by a projectile weapon, that's probably just bad writing or bad game physics. Projectile weapons do their deed by causing large amounts of tissue damage - not by picking the person up and throwing them a hundred feet. They also penetrate armor by concentrating their force on a very small point compared to the amount of force. Now, getting hit by a tank round or RPG... Different scenario.

However, as far as I am aware, both 40k and Halo do use some manner of powered/light powered armor (not bog-standard Imperial Guard though). However, recoil absorption is really recoil redirection. So they may be mechanically redirecting that recoil into the ground or simply absorbing it by having a lot of mass (Space Marines). Still, I would remember that bore is not equal to recoil - what's behind the bullet is more important.

Pretty sure something that is like 10-12mm isn't going to be loaded any colder then 39mm of todays propellent in a casing, if it's meant to be fired out of a rifle.

The Halo marines are firing 32 rounds of .308 at full auto out of a gun that isn't much more then 9 pounds, and it's not even an issue. Granted, I know it's a video game and critical research failure is a thing, but ... Kinda was hoping we could make up some crazy solution.

[Doppio Giudici]

If binary systems are more common then single star systems, what is the ratio between the two types?

Does life only do well around single star systems?

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

If binary systems are more common then single star systems, what is the ratio between the two types?

Does life only do well around single star systems?

I've heard it said that single stars are actually more common and that the "more binaries than singles" thing was an earlier mistake. More recent measurements suggest roughly one binary for every two singles or so (Lada 2006, Eggleton & Tokovinin 2008), but this might vary with stellar mass and location in the galaxy, among other factors.

A very close binary should be alright for life, because the gravitational environment in the system will be similar to how it is around a single star; two Ks instead of one G, for example, might do just fine if the planet is in a circumbinary sort of orbit. (Note that you do still need to factor the individual stars into habitability; two flaring Ms might be just as bad as one despite being brighter.) Intermediate (few AUs) distance binaries cause problems, of course, by disrupting protoplanetary disc formation and, unless they're really bright and therefore short-lived, causing planets in one's habitable zone to wind up too close to the other. The other option is a really far companion like Proxima Centauri (in general, something small a few hundred or thousand AUs off) that might not be gravitationally significant enough to disrupt protoplanetary discs or planetary orbits.

Or you can handwave away any of these factors; it's not something that the average sci-fi reader will really care that much about.

[SquareDisc City]

To add, rules of thumb as it were. If the planet orbits one star ("S-type"), then the other star should be at least ten times as far away. If the planet orbits both stars (circumbinary or "P-type"), it should be at least four times as far from the centre-of-mass compared to the distance between the two stars. If the stars are very different in mass then a planet at the L4 or L5 Lagrange point of the two stars is also theoretically possible.

(Those are just rough figures, closer distances may be stable if the orbits and masses are right.)

There are known circumbinary exoplanets in their parent stars' habitable zones, such as the Kepler-47 system.

[Vocenae]

We also have a very well written post by Kyrusia, regarding star systems and star types linked in the opening post of this thread, in the 'Relevant Threads and Posts' section of the OP.

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[Great Aletia]

How many of you use super-heavy tanks and other super-heavy vehicles? I don't, but I'm wondering if I should. The vehicles that Aletia's armed forces use are very much based in reality. The heaviest tank is 94 tonnes, but it's a specalised assault tank issued only to armoured units that is designed to dominate other tanks and create breakthroughs for mechanised units. The standard tank of the Aletian armed forces weighs 62 tonnes, and is the closest thing to an MBT that is available. There's also a "light" tank (Weight limits are as follows: 0 - 50 tn = light, 51 - 70 tn = medium, 71 + tn = heavy) that weighs 46 tonnes, but it's only issued to reserve units and marine units (The latter can't use anything over 50 tonnes because of drop pod limitations).

[Kassaran]

Drop pods? As in Halo-style ODST Drop Pods?

[Sunset]

How many of you use super-heavy tanks and other super-heavy vehicles? I don't, but I'm wondering if I should. The vehicles that Aletia's armed forces use are very much based in reality. The heaviest tank is 94 tonnes, but it's a specalised assault tank issued only to armoured units that is designed to dominate other tanks and create breakthroughs for mechanised units. The standard tank of the Aletian armed forces weighs 62 tonnes, and is the closest thing to an MBT that is available. There's also a "light" tank (Weight limits are as follows: 0 - 50 tn = light, 51 - 70 tn = medium, 71 + tn = heavy) that weighs 46 tonnes, but it's only issued to reserve units and marine units (The latter can't use anything over 50 tonnes because of drop pod limitations).

There are a lot of people who use super-heavy - or heavier - tanks. I've seen a lot of BOLOs, multitudes of land-ships, grav-tanks... You name it, someone has made something bigger. If I were to posit, much of that is because most people interpret the futuristic battlefield as being one of magnified yields. When a regular soldier might carry an ATGM with a kiloton (directed) yield, tanks will then need to grow larger and better protected to be worth putting on the field. Add in the possibility that those tanks might find themselves under ortillery fire from megaton+ weapons and again - the need to grow larger. As far as how big they should be?

Numbers are a toxin that ruins good writing. Write to your national aesthetic; Our standard grav-tank is as big as a middle-class house, which is just about the right size for fighting in both open country and in built-up cities. Except Huerdaen cities because smol.

[Olimpiada]

Numbers are a toxin that ruins good writing.

Unless one wants their writing to be more accurate, since feats that fly in the face of reality often take a reader out of their comfort zone, and have the potential to really ruin the experience. So while I would agree that constantly throwing them around in posts would often be unnecessary, it's often worthwhile to consider them for one's worldbuilding outside of posts.

[Kassaran]

And so the two sides of the age old argument come to rise again. Numerical accuracy where it can be placed over the ability of words to paint the proper image. I think numbers can be used well to paint the picture needed within a sufficiently limited story. It's the number one element of the stories I'm writing in the Nobis Pacem anthology, as miscalculations of the most minute type, can often result in huge errors. Space is massive, yes, but when you realize how small humans are in it, the great extents to which numbers can be said easily pass into sheer imagery. It all comes down to the author's style i suppose.

[Doppio Giudici]

How would a middle class house fit in the space of five lanes and two sidewalks?

[Vocenae]

How many of you use super-heavy tanks and other super-heavy vehicles? I don't, but I'm wondering if I should. The vehicles that Aletia's armed forces use are very much based in reality. The heaviest tank is 94 tonnes, but it's a specalised assault tank issued only to armoured units that is designed to dominate other tanks and create breakthroughs for mechanised units. The standard tank of the Aletian armed forces weighs 62 tonnes, and is the closest thing to an MBT that is available. There's also a "light" tank (Weight limits are as follows: 0 - 50 tn = light, 51 - 70 tn = medium, 71 + tn = heavy) that weighs 46 tonnes, but it's only issued to reserve units and marine units (The latter can't use anything over 50 tonnes because of drop pod limitations).

There are a lot of people who use super-heavy - or heavier - tanks. I've seen a lot of BOLOs, multitudes of land-ships, grav-tanks... You name it, someone has made something bigger. If I were to posit, much of that is because most people interpret the futuristic battlefield as being one of magnified yields. When a regular soldier might carry an ATGM with a kiloton (directed) yield, tanks will then need to grow larger and better protected to be worth putting on the field. Add in the possibility that those tanks might find themselves under ortillery fire from megaton+ weapons and again - the need to grow larger. As far as how big they should be?

Numbers are a toxin that ruins good writing. Write to your national aesthetic; Our standard grav-tank is as big as a middle-class house, which is just about the right size for fighting in both open country and in built-up cities.

TANK

But yes, more or less Sunset said, especially about applying numbers. When you get into the area where people are less experienced in writing for FT (or they're in it to 'win' because they view RP through a competitive lens both ICly and OOCly, which is the worst way of going about FT), people continue to build larger and larger tanks until eventually you've made the equivalent of a starship with treads. Or a city that eats other cities. The truth to designing a good tank for Future Tech is to really just look at the tanks of today and then just toss a sci-fi coating onto it. Add twin-barrels if you want, etc and so forth in the end though it's still an armored heavy weapons emplacement to roll onto enemies, so add weapons that you feel are reasonable, along with keeping it a reasonable size, not too big or too small. Having variation in your armed forces isn't a bad thing, unless you're playing something up for the sake of your national aesthetic.

Maybe it's got a sleeker chassis and armor plating. Maybe it's a hovertank, or a crab-walking spider tank. Maybe it's primary weapon is a Directed Energy Weapon, or maybe it's a good old fashioned kinetic shell/slug thrower. Maybe it's twin-barreled, maybe it even launches fire projectiles (looking at you, China from Command & Conquer: Generals) or even acts as a drone carrier for infantry support. There's a lot of stuff you can add without needing to use or specify numbers (most people are just going to gloss over numbers anyway, if not ignore them entirely when reading/participating in an RP) and still make a cool and functional tank.

But a incredibly IMPORTANT aspect of building ANYTHING for your military is to give it balance. Build your military like you were playing an RTS game. In RP you want to challenge your fellow writer to come up with a creative solution on how to counter your tank (and you should always talk with your partner before-hand as part of C4, which is vital to any successful RP especially combat focused). You have to give them a way to beat your tank, and the means to do it so it's not just a contrived "oh well he pulled an RPG out of his ass and bounced a rocket off the ground and up under the treads".

Mine (linked above) is a modular hovertank, I can remove the main cannon assembly and convert it from a MBT to a Anti-Air or a missile artillery system or other configurations in relative short order just by swapping out turrets. And OOCly it allows me to not have to build a different body for each tank class. ICly I can just roll a tank into someplace with a couple of cranes and swap out guns to adapt to a combat scenario, but without those specialized facilities if I'm launching into a battle unprepared I'm stuck with what I have because it's a universal tank chassis. I might have ones in a different variant somewhere else, or on incoming reinforcements, but without a means to do so with current forces, I could be stuck with tanks that are woefully unprepared to fight, say, aerial gunships. I can react to different engagements quickly and effectively, and my tanks can hit hard, but without the ability to swap out turrets I could easily be boxed into a difficult combat situation if I'm caught unprepared. And with it being a hovertank (largely because trying to model treads was ugh hard and frustrating), it has vulnerable components somewhat open to enemy fire, moreso than traditional treads would be.

That's balance. Give yourself cons as well as pros. There is no perfect system, everything has a strength and a weakness. Guns, power armor, tanks, fighter craft, starships. Hell really it applies to the entirety of your nation's setting because again, nothing is perfect. Don't try to aim for perfect, aim for what feels believable and sustains the suspension of disbelief. That's how you build a good military and nation.

[Doppio Giudici]

If I wanted to setup a podunk little trading location / special economic zone, what would be the first few things to focus on putting down? Is it best to put it in a series of space stations or would a moon or planet be a good addition?

I'm located in the center of Beta, and fairly close to a few infra-galactic wormholes and a few that lead to other quadrants of the Milky Way. Considering how many people and Star Nations live in "The Sector", it's crawling with things for sale and desired import nitches.

Any advice for setting it up?

[Sunset]

And so the two sides of the age old argument come to rise again. Numerical accuracy where it can be placed over the ability of words to paint the proper image. I think numbers can be used well to paint the picture needed within a sufficiently limited story. It's the number one element of the stories I'm writing in the Nobis Pacem anthology, as miscalculations of the most minute type, can often result in huge errors. Space is massive, yes, but when you realize how small humans are in it, the great extents to which numbers can be said easily pass into sheer imagery. It all comes down to the author's style i suppose.

Which sounds like an interesting story for your book, but book being something of the point. See below...

Numbers are a toxin that ruins good writing.

Unless one wants their writing to be more accurate, since feats that fly in the face of reality often take a reader out of their comfort zone, and have the potential to really ruin the experience. So while I would agree that constantly throwing them around in posts would often be unnecessary, it's often worthwhile to consider them for one's worldbuilding outside of posts.

In my opinion, numbers in the environment of NationStates Roleplaying are like sex; Best done in private. That isn't to say they shouldn't be done, but in among the hundreds if not thousands of different players there are hundreds if not thousands of difference senses of scale, perspective, and knowledge. Keeping one's numbers private or out-of-character and focusing on descriptive, character-and-adjective driving storytelling will help pull a larger number of readers and potential players into the story where using hard numbers may very well 'force' a player out of a story where they could be making a useful contribution.

Let us also not forget that many of the foundational elements of the discussed setting - Future Tech - require by their very nature a suspension of disbelief. That isn't to say that we should simply throw up our hands and declare everything to be 'magic', but for the purposes of telling the story it is more useful to work out with the other player(s) which ship is faster rather than merely add more zeroes to whatever number the previous player used. Again, I maintain that using numbers in place of description can be quickly toxic; Encouraging competitive confrontation rather than cooperative writing.

[Olimpiada]

And so the two sides of the age old argument come to rise again. Numerical accuracy where it can be placed over the ability of words to paint the proper image. I think numbers can be used well to paint the picture needed within a sufficiently limited story. It's the number one element of the stories I'm writing in the Nobis Pacem anthology, as miscalculations of the most minute type, can often result in huge errors. Space is massive, yes, but when you realize how small humans are in it, the great extents to which numbers can be said easily pass into sheer imagery. It all comes down to the author's style i suppose.

Which sounds like an interesting story for your book, but book being something of the point. See below...

Unless one wants their writing to be more accurate, since feats that fly in the face of reality often take a reader out of their comfort zone, and have the potential to really ruin the experience. So while I would agree that constantly throwing them around in posts would often be unnecessary, it's often worthwhile to consider them for one's worldbuilding outside of posts.

In my opinion, numbers in the environment of NationStates Roleplaying are like sex; Best done in private. That isn't to say they shouldn't be done, but in among the hundreds if not thousands of different players there are hundreds if not thousands of difference senses of scale, perspective, and knowledge. Keeping one's numbers private or out-of-character and focusing on descriptive, character-and-adjective driving storytelling will help pull a larger number of readers and potential players into the story where using hard numbers may very well 'force' a player out of a story where they could be making a useful contribution.

Let us also not forget that many of the foundational elements of the discussed setting - Future Tech - require by their very nature a suspension of disbelief. That isn't to say that we should simply throw up our hands and declare everything to be 'magic', but for the purposes of telling the story it is more useful to work out with the other player(s) which ship is faster rather than merely add more zeroes to whatever number the previous player used. Again, I maintain that using numbers in place of description can be quickly toxic; Encouraging competitive confrontation rather than cooperative writing.

See, you compare the numbers thing to sex to try and backtrack over your earlier notion that they're toxic. Should we then live as cloistered monks in your metaphorical universe? I in no way countermanded your notion about privacy or background context, I merely stated that they may be useful. No need to break out the tried and true responses to people asking if their two kilometer battleship or whatever is good enough.

[Kyrusia]

If I wanted to setup a podunk little trading location / special economic zone, what would be the first few things to focus on putting down? Is it best to put it in a series of space stations or would a moon or planet be a good addition?

Personally? I'd say it'd depend on what you, well, favor more. To put this another way: what your star-state feels is more efficient. Liu Xiu, for example, is a well-known setting thread with an entire system as a SEZ. Other players use stations (the Betan Waystations come to mind). Other folks have then bored out asteroids. What I would recommend is while you need to put thought into the economic policies of your nature, I'd reckon it best to work in broad strokes for such - if and until the economic policies and how your country manages its commercial relations become a plot point in and of themselves. At least in the beginning. That will help you gauge whether something like a network of stations or one big one (or on a moon, planet, etc.) work best. This will also involve determining your current economic "strengths" and "weakness," thus determining where there might be demand for a given good or service over another.

If you're devising that you live near wormholes, it could really go either way; perhaps a cooperative or joint effort with allies that control those wormholes, or perhaps a single port-of-call as a hub.

I would also recommend giving thought to what kind of trade is going on here. Is it just a general sort of thing? Or is it on a commercial level, between large non-state actors and state-subsidized corporations? Do you allow "free traders" (aka: anyone with some wares to sell)? Is it strictly commodities trading? What sort of services, if any, does the network/station/SEZ provide - financing, escrow, remittance, etc? If so, what role does your financial services industry play in the trade locale? Is the locale privately owned and operated, a national effort, or some public-private partnership? All sorts of things to play around with and fine-tune over time.

Further, I'd recommend dedicating a considerable period of time into the history of this SEZ. What went into it? What prompted it? What sort of problems did it face, and does it still face them, or new issues? Who are the big players there - both foreign and domestic, as applicable? Are pirates, smuggling, and crime in general a problem? Etc.

Edit: Helps if you close the quote, Kyru.